Man shoots at iPad to test durability

A man carried out a durability test on the new iPad by shooting at it, a media report said.

The video of the Apple gadget being destroyed has become an online hit, The Sun reported.

It shows Richard Ryan using different guns, including an assault rifle, on a range to shoot at the new iPad.

"It didn't do as much as I'd hoped to it," said Ryan after the first test.

He then switched over to a higher powered gun that blew up a large hole through the centre of the Apple gadget.

It's not just an iPad that Ryan has tested. He has shot at an iPhone, Xbox 360, iPad 2 and other gadgets.

Another test that Ryan carries out is called 'will it blend' in which the latest gadgets are placed in a blender to see if they survive.

The test was not taken kindly by one online user who lamented: "Why would you ruin a good ipad. I've wanted one for ever and couldn't afford one."

Another, however, described it as 'awesome'.

-IANS

Laser 'unprinter' vapourizes photocopied ink from paper

Note: This is not the actual laser unprinter.

London Researchers have developed a new laser powered device to “unphotocopy” toner ink from paper. The process, developed by engineers at the University of Cambridge, involves using short laser pulses to erase words and images by heating the printed material to the point that they vaporise, the BBC reported.

The researchers have insisted that it works with commonly used papers and toner inks and is more eco-friendly than recycling. “When you fire the laser, it hits the thin toner layer and heats it up until the point that you vaporise it,” the team’s lead author, David Leal-Ayala said. “Toner is mostly composed of carbon and a plastic polymer. It’s the polymer in the toner that is vaporised.”

The engineers acknowledge that they are not the first ones to have thought about this idea. But they asserted that others who have attempted to solve the problem have found that they damaged and/or discoloured the paper in the process, or needed specially formulated toner.

After several tests Leal-Ayala and his colleagues discovered that the best setting was green laser pulses, lasting just four billionths of a second in duration, which removed all but a hint of the print.

The engineers now plan to develop a prototype device suitable for an office.

-ANI

Watch out Facebook, Twitter. Here comes Pinterest

Texas: Christina Gomez has carefully displayed her dream cribs, rockers and mobiles on Pinterest, the increasingly popular online bulletin board. Never mind that she doesn't have a baby.

"Ah, Pinterest - where I dress my unborn children and decorate my imaginary mansion," the San Antonio political consultant said - on Twitter - when asked about the website.

Gomez is addicted. And she's not alone. The social site where users can "pin" images and follow others' collections has surged in recent months to become the 16th most-visited site in the United States, according to the Web information company Alexa. That's a higher rank than CNN.com.

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, who grew up in Iowa collecting bugs and stamps, said on Tuesday that his goal is to help people discover things that they didn't know they wanted. He said there are plenty of people trying to tell you what you want via billboards, catalogs or Internet ads.

"But no one has really made a lot of progress toward building a place you want to go every day to discover things that feel like they were hand-picked just for you, and that's what I can hope we can do," Silbermann told a packed ballroom at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Austin.

The self-deprecating Silbermann, who has rarely spoken publicly about the site he co-founded in fall 2009, described having "catastrophically small numbers" at first. Nine months in, there were fewer than 10,000 people on it, he said. He sought feedback from early users, giving some his cell phone number. And he didn't quit.

Silbermann, who spoke repeatedly of wanting his site to be beautiful and display beautiful collections, said one goal of his was to create a service that offered timelessness in an era when people were obsessed with real-time sites like Twitter.

"If something is your favorite book, it's no less your favorite book 72 hours from now or a year from now or five years from now or 10 years from now," he said. "It still says something about who you were then and who you want other people to know you as."

Learning from pinning

For Gomez, who lives in a 900-square-foot home in Texas and is about to move to smaller digs in Washington, D.C., Pinterest allows her to collect things - like USB drives shaped like teddy bears - without taking up precious physical space.

Like other users, she has organized her pictures into boards with titles like "Sewing Projects," "Gift Ideas" and "For the new house. She has used it to post pictures of clothes she already owns and to learn to cook with a crock pot.

The growth of Pinterest has been fueled primarily by women, including those planning their weddings, said Robert Quigley, who teaches new media and multimedia at the University of Texas. The draw is the site's simplicity, he said.

"The rise of Pinterest has been absolutely incredible - it just came out of nowhere," Quigley said. "It's so visual, it's easy to use and simple - yet complex enough to allow you to organize the way you want."

Pinterest isn't only for women.

Guillaume Driscoll, 30, a design student at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, said he and his girlfriend both use the site. Before he joined a few months ago, he was interested in clothes, but "not on a level of some of my lady friends." He's seen that change as he's pinned more clothes, like colorful socks and a grey cashmere sport coat from J. Crew.

"Now, I'm starting to think about it more. What is my style? What does my style say about me?" said Driscoll, who was visiting Austin for SXSW.

Silbermann said it makes sense for people to use Pinterest to explore topics that lifestyle magazines focus on - design, home decorating, cooking and fitness - but he's also seeing new uses like political satire (say, Mitt Romney's fake yacht collection). Museums are using Pinterest to post art collections. Some users are posting travel guides to cities.

"Every day, literally, we see at least one board where we just couldn't have imagined how people would use it and to me, that's really exciting," Silbermann said.

-Reuters

Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords

SEATTLE — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.

"It's akin to requiring someone's house keys," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it "an egregious privacy violation."

Questions have been raised about the legality of the practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks.

Since the rise of social networking, it has become common for managers to review publically available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and other sites to learn more about job candidates. But many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people or certain networks.

Companies that don't ask for passwords have taken other steps — such as asking applicants to friend human resource managers or to log in to a company computer during an interview. Once employed, some workers have been required to sign nondisparagement agreements that ban them from talking negatively about an employer on social media.

Asking for a candidate's password is more prevalent among public agencies, especially those seeking to fill law enforcement positions such as police officers or 911 dispatchers.

Back in 2010, Robert Collins was returning to his job as a security guard at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services after taking a leave following his mother's death. During a reinstatement interview, he was asked for his login and password, purportedly so the agency could check for any gang affiliations. He was stunned by the request but complied.

"I needed my job to feed my family. I had to," he recalled,

After the ACLU complained about the practice, the agency amended its policy, asking instead for job applicants to log in during interviews.

"To me, that's still invasive. I can appreciate the desire to learn more about the applicant, but it's still a violation of people's personal privacy," said Collins, whose case inspired Maryland's legislation.

Until last year, the city of Bozeman, Mont., had a long-standing policy of asking job applicants for passwords to their email addresses, social-networking websites and other online accounts.

And since 2006, the McLean County, Ill., sheriff's office has been one of several Illinois sheriff's departments that ask applicants to sign into social media sites to be screened.

Chief Deputy Rusty Thomas defended the practice, saying applicants have a right to refuse. But no one has ever done so. Thomas said that "speaks well of the people we have apply."

When asked what sort of material would jeopardize job prospects, Thomas said "it depends on the situation" but could include "inappropriate pictures or relationships with people who are underage, illegal behavior."

In Spotsylvania County, Va., the sheriff's department asks applicants to friend background investigators for jobs at the 911 dispatch center and for law enforcement positions.

"In the past, we've talked to friends and neighbors, but a lot of times we found that applicants interact more through social media sites than they do with real friends," said Capt. Mike Harvey. "Their virtual friends will know more about them than a person living 30 yards away from them."

Harvey said investigators look for any "derogatory" behavior that could damage the agency's reputation.

E. Chandlee Bryan, a career coach and co-author of the book "The Twitter Job Search Guide," said job seekers should always be aware of what's on their social media sites and assume someone is going to look at it.

Bryan said she is troubled by companies asking for logins, but she feels it's not violation if an employer asks to see a Facebook profile through a friend request. And she's not troubled by non-disparagement agreements.

"I think that when you work for a company, they are essentially supporting you in exchange for your work. I think if you're dissatisfied, you should go to them and not on a social media site," she said.

More companies are also using third-party applications to scour Facebook profiles, Bryan said. One app called BeKnown can sometimes access personal profiles, short of wall messages, if a job seeker allows it.

Sears is one of the companies using apps. An applicant has the option of logging into the Sears job site through Facebook by allowing a third-party application to draw information from the profile, such as friend lists.

Sears Holdings Inc. spokeswoman Kim Freely said using a Facebook profile to apply allows Sears to be updated on the applicant's work history.

The company assumes "that people keep their social profiles updated to the minute, which allows us to consider them for other jobs in the future or for ones that they may not realize are available currently," she said.

Giving out Facebook login information violates the social network's terms of service. But those terms have no real legal weight, and experts say the legality of asking for such information remains murky.

The Department of Justice regards it as a federal crime to enter a social networking site in violation of the terms of service, but during recent congressional testimony, the agency said such violations would not be prosecuted.

But Lori Andrews, law professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law specializing in Internet privacy, is concerned about the pressure placed on applicants, even if they voluntarily provide access to social sites.

"Volunteering is coercion if you need a job," Andrews said.

Neither Facebook nor Twitter responded to repeated requests for comment.

In New York, Bassett considered himself lucky that he was able to turn down the consulting gig at a lobbying firm.

"I think asking for account login credentials is regressive," he said. "If you need to put food on the table for your three kids, you can't afford to stand up for your belief."

-AP

Encyclopaedia Britannica ends print, goes digital

New York: In yet another sign of the growing dominance of the digital publishing market, the oldest English-language encyclopedia still in print is moving solely into the digital age.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, which has been in continuous print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1768, said on Wednesday it will end publication of its printed editions and continue with digital versions available online.

The flagship, 32-volume printed edition, available every two years, was sold for $1400. An online subscription costs around $70 per year and the company recently launched a set of apps ranging between $1.99 and $4.99 per month.

The company said it will keep selling print editions until the current stock of around 4000 sets ran out.

It is the latest move Encyclopaedia Britannica has made to expand its Internet reference services and move farther into educational products. It first flirted with digital publishing in the 1970s, published a version for computers in 1981 for LexisNexis subscribers and first posted to the Internet in 1994.

"The print edition became more difficult to maintain and wasn't the best physical element to deliver the quality of our database and the quality of our editorial," Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., told Reuters.

Yet even as publishing industry has created more digital products, it has struggled with financial losses, and Cauz admitted to a "long road to profitability" for many publishers.

"Britannica was one of the first company's to really feel the full impact of technology, maybe twenty years ago, and we have been adapting to it, though it is very difficult at times," he said.

While Encyclopaedia Britannica has continued to operate, he expected "many trade publishers will not survive -- and any content development company will have to be thinking about how they are going to fill the gap."

As to whether print editions of books will be viable products in the future, Cauz predicted, "print may not completely vanish from the market, but I think it is going to be increasingly less important. Many publications will never have a print analog and will only be printed on digital formats."

With its scholarly, reliable reputation, Encyclopaedia Britannica had not been affected by the popularity of free online website Wikipedia, he said.

-IBN LIVE

Tag Heuer launches the luxury handset Racer at $3700

New Delhi: Tag Heuer, a Swiss luxury watchmaker known for its sports watches and chronographs, has doffed the silk off its new smartphone - the Tag Heuer Racer.

The Racer, an Android-based smartphone, is said to be inspired by GT and Formula 1 racing cars, and has been engineered without compromise. "TAG Heuer RACER achieves an unparalleled torsion and strength to weight ratio. The result is a fusion of luxury and performance inspired by TAG Heuer heritage in GT cars and Formula 1," said the company in its press release.

It is claimed to have a high speed processor, and a new customisable 3D user interface to fit the individual needs of each owner.

The company has not revealed much information about the phone's tech specs. However, those who are willing to pay a hefty amount for a phone won't be too bothered about its specs.

The new TAG Heuer Racer collection is priced at 2800€ (US $3,700), and will be available in TAG Heuer boutiques, luxury mobile boutiques and selected watch and jewellery retailers in July.

-IBN LIVE

For Impatient Web Users, an Eye Blink Is Just Too Long to Wait

Arvind Jain, a Google engineer, pointed out the loading speed of individual elements of a website on a test application used to check efficiency, at Google offices in Mountain View, Calif. 

Wait a second. 

No, that’s too long.

Remember when you were willing to wait a few seconds for a computer to respond to a click on a Web site or a tap on a keyboard? These days, even 400 milliseconds — literally the blink of an eye — is too long, as Google engineers have discovered. That barely perceptible delay causes people to search less.

“Subconsciously, you don’t like to wait,” said Arvind Jain, a Google engineer who is the company’s resident speed maestro. “Every millisecond matters.”

Google and other tech companies are on a new quest for speed, challenging the likes of Mr. Jain to make fast go faster. The reason is that data-hungry smartphones and tablets are creating frustrating digital traffic jams, as people download maps, video clips of sports highlights, news updates or recommendations for nearby restaurants. The competition to be the quickest is fierce.

People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second).

“Two hundred fifty milliseconds, either slower or faster, is close to the magic number now for competitive advantage on the Web,” said Harry Shum, a computer scientist and speed specialist at Microsoft.

The performance of Web sites varies, and so do user expectations. A person will be more patient waiting for a video clip to load than for a search result. And Web sites constantly face trade-offs between visual richness and snappy response times. As entertainment and news sites, like The New York Times Web site, offer more video clips and interactive graphics, that can slow things down.

But speed matters in every context, research shows. Four out of five online users will click away if a video stalls while loading.

On a mobile phone, a Web page takes a leisurely nine seconds to load, according to Google, which tracks a huge range of sites from the homes of large companies to the legions of one-person bloggers. Download times on personal computers average about six seconds worldwide, and about 3.5 seconds on average in the United States. The major search engines, Google and Microsoft’s Bing, are the speed demons of the Web, analysts say, typically delivering results in less than a second.

The hunger for speed on smartphones is a new business opportunity for companies like Akamai Technologies, which specializes in helping Web sites deliver services quicker. Later this month, Akamai plans to introduce mobile accelerator software to help speed up the loading of a Web site or app.

The government too recognizes the importance of speed in mobile computing. In February, Congress opened the door to an increase in network capacity for mobile devices, proposing legislation that permits the auction of public airwaves now used for television broadcasts to wireless Internet suppliers.

Overcoming speed bumps is part of the history of the Internet. In the 1990s, as the World Wide Web became popular, and crowded, it was called the World Wide Wait. Invention and investment answered the call.

Laying a lot of fiber optic cable for high-speed transmission was the first solution. But beyond bandwidth, the Web got faster because of innovations in software algorithms for routing traffic, and in distributing computer servers around the world, nearer to users, as a way to increase speed.

Akamai, which grew out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science, built its sizable business doing just that. Most major Web sites use Akamai’s technology today.

The company sees the mobile Internet as the next big challenge. “Users’ expectations are getting shorter and shorter, and the mobile infrastructure is not built for that kind of speed,” said Tom Leighton, co-founder and chief scientist at Akamai, who is also an M.I.T. professor. “And that’s an opportunity for us.”

The need for speed itself seems to be accelerating. In the early 1960s, the two professors at Dartmouth College who invented the BASIC programming language, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, set up a network in which many students could tap into a single, large computer from keyboard terminals. 

“We found,” they observed, “that any response time that averages more than 10 seconds destroys the illusion of having one’s own computer.”

In 2009, a study by Forrester Research found that online shoppers expected pages to load in two seconds or fewer — and at three seconds, a large share abandon the site. Only three years earlier a similar Forrester study found the average expectations for page load times were four seconds or fewer.

The two-second rule is still often cited as a standard for Web commerce sites. Yet experts in human-computer interaction say that rule is outdated. “The old two-second guideline has long been surpassed on the racetrack of Web expectations,” said Eric Horvitz, a scientist at Microsoft’s research labs.

Google, which harvests more Internet ad revenue than any other company, stands to benefit more than most if the Internet speeds up. Mr. Jain, who worked at Microsoft and Akamai before joining Google in 2003, is an evangelist for speed both inside and outside the company. He leads a “Make the Web Faster” program, begun in 2009. He also holds senior positions in industry standards groups.

Speed, Mr. Jain said, is a critical element in all of Google’s products. There is even a companywide speed budget; new offerings and product tweaks must not slow down Google services. But there have been lapses.

In 2007, for example, after the company added popular new offerings like Gmail, things slowed down enough that Google’s leaders issued a “Code Yellow” and handed out plastic stopwatches to its engineers to emphasize that speed matters.

Still, not everyone is in line with today’s race to be faster. Mr. Kurtz, the Dartmouth computer scientist who is the co-inventor of BASIC, is now 84, and marvels at how things have changed.

Computers and networks these days, Mr. Kurtz said, “are fast enough for me.”

-NyTimes