“GADGETS have enhanced human interaction to a level thought impossible before, but at the same time they have also diminished it,” said a friend who loves gadgets.

This is a typical scenario today at most coffee outlets and cafes. You have a bunch of friends sitting around a table, yet each one of them is glued to his or her own tablet, netbook or smartphone.

Occasionally one or the other will look up and give the rest an update of what’s happening on a social networking site. Another will probably respond, “Yeah, I saw that too”; and they would all crowd round to look at the tablet or smartphone in question, before getting back to their own gadgets.

This is what the Eye’s friend means by diminished human interaction.

Before gadgets, people seated around a table would actually have a real conversation with each other. These days, we tend to interact more with our gadgets.

Even if we are at a gathering with friends, many of us would not be able to resist the urge to occasionally glance at our gadgets and start updating social networking sites.

This change in the dynamics of social interaction, thanks to gadgets and technology, has even affected humankind as young as two!

A friend’s daughter had her own portable DVD player at the age of two, so she could be kept occupied with videos of her favourite cartoons.

Now, aged five, she has her own iPad! Imagine that! And installed on her iPad are, again, videos of her favourite cartoons, and also educational applications that revolve around languages and mathematics.

The Eye once brought this little girl to another friend’s place. This other friend has a daughter around the same age. Instead of wanting to make a new friend, the little girl instead asked for her iPad.

During long distance road trips, most children will also ask for a mobile phone or any gadget that has a game on it to pass the time, because they say they have nothing to do.

Parents these days will, mostly, gladly hand over these gadgets to them, just so that the kids would behave and keep quiet.

It is pretty sad that some parents do not initiate other activities that would allow the child to learn and at the same time, interact with others. For example, they could encourage the child to look out the window and observe what is happening outside. Or sing songs. Or even try and spot (or count) vehicles of different brands and colour.

Then there are those who argue that these gadgets have actually enhanced human interaction.

Well, the Eye can agree to that to a certain extent. Think about it, 20 years ago, a phone call overseas to a loved one would have cost a bomb. We restricted communication to the occasional phone call and letter writing (which would take weeks to arrive).

Today, gadgets and technology have allowed us to connect with people all over the world for a minimum cost of RM38 a month (minimal broadband subscription) at any time we wish.

What’s more, we can actually see the person we are talking to in real time, thanks to gadgets that allow real time conferencing.

Again, 20 years ago, these gadgets would have cost an arm and a leg.  These days, a simple Internet enabled phone can cost a mere RM299.

So do gadgets cause diminishing human interaction? The answer is “Yes”.

But have gadgets enhanced human interaction? The answer is still “Yes”.

Being social creatures, we will naturally still require actual or real human interaction to get through life.

No, we cannot rely solely on communicating via gadgets, even though they have made it easier to connect with others.

As the wise say, too much of a good thing can be bad. It is the same with gadgets. We use them, need them, get hooked to them. But use them wisely, use them in moderation.

We do not want the next generation growing up with their noses buried in their Gorilla Glass gadgets, not knowing how to communicate with REAL people.

Oh wait, that is already happening.

Article source: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/05/13/have-we-sacrificed-human-interaction-for-gadgets/

To be fair, sometimes now is the best time to buy a particular device and sometimes you drop your phone into a public toilet and have to replace it right away. But when you buy that 3G phone a month before its hot new 4G replacement comes out, you might as well buy an “I’m with stupid” t-shirt for your friends to wear when you go out together.

Here are 10 products you’d be a fool to buy today.

The iPhone

If you have your heart set on purchasing a new iPhone, don’t do it yet. Every rumor points to the arrival of a much-improved product arriving by fall. We don’t know what exact specs the iPhone 5 will have. We don’t even know if it’ll be called the iPhone 5 (my money’s on “the Brand Spanking New iPhone”), but we can be pretty certain it will have 4G LTE, a faster processor, a better camera, and a larger and sharper screen. 

While four or five months may seem like a long time to wait, most iPhone owners are on two year phone contracts that usually won’t allow them to upgrade until after 20 months. Do you really want to spend 2013 being known as the loser who has to “take a grenade” with Siri’s older, slower moving sister while your friends cozy up to the new model?

More: What You Need to Know About the iPhone 5

Windows Tablets

Let’s face the facts. If you want to buy a Windows 7 tablet, you’re either a multitouch masochist or a sadistic CTO, looking to pinch-zoom in on employee suffering. Though Windows 7 runs all the applications you could ever want, its touch-unfriendly interface makes it really difficult to use with adult-sized fingers. Ever try tapping the X widget to close a window? You’ll need to stick your index finger in a pencil sharpener first, so you can make sure it’s thin enough.

Coming this fall, Windows 8 offers a very touch-friendly Metro UI and a host of touch-friendly apps on top of it. Even better, Windows 8 will run on ARM-based tablets, allowing for thinner, lighter and longer-lasting designs. A slew of new convertible notebooks that run Windows 8 will arrive in fall too. I can’t wait for the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga, which bends its hinge back 180 degrees to become a slate. Even Kanye West would sit in his seat long enough to wait for Windows 8.

More: 10 Ways Windows 8 Beats the iPad

Ultrabooks

The first generation of Ultrabooks — a new category of uberthin, fast-booting notebooks — arrived last fall with prominent entries from all the PC vendors. However, though notebooks like the ASUS Zenbook UX31 and Toshiba Portege Z835 have a lot going for them, a new generation of much-improved Ultrabooks will arrive this summer. These notebooks will sport Intel’s faster, more efficient 3rd generation Core Series processors (aka Ivy Bridge), and many will offer higher-resolution displays.

A couple of models stand out to us. The ASUS ZenBook Prime will offer a generous 1920 x 1080 screen that will let you watch HD movies at their native resolution, while viewing more of your favorite web pages and documents without scrolling. Meanwhile, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon could be the ultimate productivity notebook when it launches this summer. It will pack a gorgeous 14-inch, 1600 x 900 matte display into a .75-inch thick chassis that weighs just 3 pounds. Plus, you’ll get the industry’s best keyboard.

More: 10 Most-Anticipated Notebooks

Spirit Phones

Sprint likes to call itself “the Now Network,” but it really should be named “the Promise Network,” because right now all it is selling is the promise of 4G LTE at some point in the future. The carrier recently announced that it is dumping its mediocre 4G WiMAX network in favor of LTE on new handsets. That’s the right move long-term, but it leaves current Sprint customers in a bind.

The company is selling 4G LTE phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper 4G LTE, but they’ll only get a 3G signal until Sprint launches its new network. The carrier plans to roll out LTE this summer to just six cities — Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio — with no ETA for other cities apart from 123 million people covered by the end of the year.  Even if you live in one of the designated six markets, there’s no guarantee that Sprint’s implementation of LTE will be as fast as ATT and Verizon’s; we just don’t know.

Whether you are already a Sprint customer or are just thinking of becoming one, you should wait to see how quickly the company’s version of LTE is coming to your area and whether it actually lives up to the hype. You don’t want to buy that Evo 4G LTE today, only to be stuck with 2007-era 3G speeds while your friends on Verizon and ATT are cruising along at 4G.

More: 4G Reality Check — Beware of These Cons and Lies

MacBook Pros

If you have your heart set on an Apple MacBook Pro, tell your heart to go on without one for just a little longer. Everyone expects Apple to announce a new lineup of MacBook Pros in June and these new notebooks will reportedly weigh less, feature high-resolution “Retina” displays and provide USB 3.0 ports in addition to running Ivy Bridge CPUs. These notebooks will also be running Apple‘s new OS X Mountain Lion software, which brings more iPad-like functionality to Macs along with stronger security.

Unless a pack of rabid Windows fanboys breaks into your house and smashes your current MacBook Pro with a Metro-UI styled hammer, you can hold on for another few weeks. The Retina display, which should show more content on the screen at once, is reason enough to wait.

More: The Next MacBook Pro: 6 Things You Need to Know

Android Tablets

Apple enthusiasts don’t have anything to wait for when it comes to tablets. The “new” iPad just came out in March and has an incredible, high-res screen paired with a powerful processor. However, if you want to consider an Android tablet, now is not the time to buy.

Though we’ve seen some speedy quad-core tablets like the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, we’re still waiting for Android tablet makers to come out with screens that have higher than 1280 x 800 resolution. Both ASUS and Acer have announced 1920 x 1200 tablets, but neither one has hit the market yet. If you plunk down $500 on a tablet now, you’ll feel silly when the new HD models arrive within the next couple of months.

More: ASUS Transformer Prime TF700T Hands-On

Smart TVs

Apple can play coy all it wants, but many industry insiders believe that the Cupertino company plans to launch its own TV later this year. There’s no question that the Apple TV will have deep iTunes integration, a gorgeous screen (Apple is known for that) and some kind of Siri-based voice control. 

When it comes to launching new Smart TVs, Apple won’t be alone. LG recently showed off its G2 Smart TV, which uses the Google TV 2.0 interface, supports voice commands and comes with a gesture-controlled “Magic” remote. Lenovo just began shipping its  Android 4.0- powered K55  Smart TV in China and it may come here at some point as well. If you wait, the additional competition from these new products will force down prices on existing Smart TVs as well.

More: What Are Smart TVs?

Windows Phones

The Nokia Lumia 900 has a gorgeous design and the HTC Titan II has an awesome 16-MP camera. However, when it comes to specs, apps and basic multitasking, Windows Phones still lag behind their Android and iPhone counterparts. 

With Windows Phone 8 due out this fall, Microsoft could finally start to close the feature gap with Apple and Google. According to some reports, the new mobile operating system will support higher resolution screens, dual-core CPUs, NFC payments and apps that can control other apps, a necessity for true multitasking.

Microsoft has issued some conflicting statements about whether current Windows Phones would get an OS upgrade so I wouldn’t count on the Lumia you buy today running Windows 8 tomorrow. If you’re attracted to Windows Phone, delay your purchase until fall. Otherwise, you’ll be living with a single-core, low-res handset for two years.

More: 8 Awesome Features of Windows Phone 8

eReaders

There are several great eReader options on the market right now, from the tablet-like Amazon Kindle Fire to the E Ink-powered Nook Simple Touch. However, as strong as the eReader offerings are today, they’re about to get much better. Barnes Noble just released its Simple Touch with GlowLight and rumor has it that Amazon is set to release its own backlit E Ink-based Kindle this summer.

However, backlit E Ink is just the tip of this innovative ice berg. Expect Amazon to launch the second-generation Kindle Fire 2 this fall, complete with higher-res screen options and possibly larger form factors like 8.9 inches. Flush with investment money from Microsoft and not content to stand still, Barnes Noble is sure to release a new Nook Tablet sometime later this year as well. We’d expect the next Nook to also have a higher resolution than 1024 x 600. 

There’s also a persistent rumor that Amazon will release Kindles using color E Ink later this year. We just reviewed the color E Ink-powered Ectaco Jetbook Color so the technology is already out there. How bad would you feel if you bought an old-school grayscale Kindle today, only to see one with a backlight or a color screen come out within a few months?

More: eReader Guide

BlackBerrys

Research in Motion, the company that makes Blackberry phones, seems to be stuck in a time warp, offering phones that have the best specs of 2009, including single-core 800-MHz CPUs, tiny 2.4-inch screens and an  outmoded BlackBerry 7 OS. Fortunately, most people aren’t foolish enough to buy phones that you’d expect to find in the bargain bin at a garage sale rather than the shelf at a Verizon store. 

RIM seems to understand the problem too as it plans to release an entirely new line of phones running its new BlackBerry 10 OS later this year. The new touch-friendly BlackBerry London phone, complete with a bigger screen and faster processor than we’ve seen on a BlackBerry before, should arrive by fall. If you must have a BlackBerry, this is the one to wait for.

More: RIM Demos Upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS

This story was provided by Laptopmag.com, a sister site to LiveScience.

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Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-gadgets-d-fool-buy-now-185446098.html

The bag, still in FBI custody, is expected to join a bevy of other Chapman goodies going on display as part of an exhibition about spies and their gadgets – including Chapman’s – opening Friday in New York.

“If she had been here another six months, Anna Chapman could have become the most dangerous spy in American history,” said spy-book author and former CIA operative H. Keith Melton, who is curating the exhibition.

“She could access anyone,” he said.

Melton believes Chapman was well on her way to severely compromising US business interests until she foolishly handed off her Toshiba laptop – chock full of sensitive information – to an FBI informant posing as a Russian agent.

The laptop’s hand-off came during a meeting at a Manhattan Starbucks the day before she was taken into custody in June 2010, when she complained the computer did not work properly and the “Russian” agent – who told her his name was “Roman” — offered to have it fixed at the Russian consulate.

Melton owns or gained access to most of the hundreds of pieces of spy paraphernalia on display in the exhibit – including one titled “Anna Chapman’s Laptop.”

He described the Russian as so friendly, personable and beautiful that her mission of gaining access to wealthy or influential American businessmen was a snap.

After gaining their trust, the modern-day Mata Hari would hand off information about the men to her handlers, who would then decide if their businesses were worth targeting for espionage to help boost Russia’s efforts to become a global economic powerhouse.

Read more at the New York Post
 

Article source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/russian-spy-babes-gadgets-in-new-exhibition/story-e6freonf-1226360458470?from=public_rss

She really was a Bond girl.

Hot-bodied Russian spy babe Anna Chapman was outfitted with a $2,300 Chanel bag featuring a hidden, high-powered Wi-Fi device so she could secretly communicate with her Moscow-led overseers.

The bag, still in FBI custody, is expected to join a bevy of other Chapman goodies going on display as part of an exhibition about spies and their gizmos that opens today at Discovery Times Square.

“If she had been here another six months, Anna Chapman could have become the most dangerous spy in American history,” said spy-book author and former CIA operative H. Keith Melton, who is curating the exhibition.

Anna Chapman in New York.

“She could access anyone,” he said.

Melton believes Chapman was well on her way to severely compromising US business interests until she foolishly handed off her Toshiba laptop — chock full of sensitive information — to an FBI informant posing as a Russian agent.

The laptop exchange came during a meeting at the Starbucks at 10 Hanover Square in the Financial District the day before she was taken into custody in June 2010, when she complained that the computer didn’t work properly, and the “Russian” agent — who told her that his name was “Roman” — offered to have it fixed for her at the Russian Consulate.

AP

The FBI says that Chapman, wearing sunglasses, passed sensitive information to an undercover agent in a New York coffee shop.

Melton owns or gained access to most of the hundreds of pieces of spy paraphernalia on display in the exhibit — including one titled “Anna Chapman’s Laptop.”

He described the sexy Russian as so friendly, personable and beautiful that her mission of gaining access to wealthy or influential American businessmen was a snap.

After gaining their trust, the modern-day Mata Hari would hand off information about the men to her handlers, who would then decide if their businesses were worth targeting for espionage to help boost Russia’s efforts to become a global economic powerhouse.

When she met with the fake Russian “Roman,” Chapman had never even met face-to-face with any of her real Russian handlers.

don.kaplan@nypost.com

Article source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/we_ve_got_the_goods_on_spy_anna_nMis1keY3Zn5ut9DVBjOYM?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Local

This is pretty much no longer the realm of science fiction, according to researchers at the Canadian software company Autodesk. The team embedded, somewhat grimly, a button, LED, and touch sensor in a cadaver’s arm. Each element worked just fine when under the skin–Bluetooth connection and wireless charging even worked through the skin.

MIT’s Sherry Turkle weighed in on this, noting that “in general, the trend has been that people are more and more willing to incorporate bits of the machine world into themselves.” After all, to a certain extent, cyborgs are already among us–think of your uncle’s pacemaker. But there’s obviously a difference between elective, versus life-saving, implantation of technology. Where, if anywhere, do we draw the line?

Turkle’s most startling comment to New Scientist is that in some ways, people already behave as though they were cyborgs, as though their smart phones were essentially semi-externalized parts of themselves, like the daemons in The Golden Compass. “People literally cannot be without this device,” Turkle said. “They don’t feel the same when they are not connected. We live with our phones as if they are part of our body.”

Turkle’s ambivalence about technology is about as well thought out as anyone’s–her book Alone Together is a good place to start, if you’re troubled by our incipient cyborgism. Last year, she told me in an interview that while the iPhone was “a precious technology,” it needed to be “used in accordance with your social, professional, and personal values.” For me, my personal values probably prevent me from implanting the thing inside my forearm.

While certain benefits come with implanting a gadget–it makes it tougher to lose, obviously–there are naturally risks involved: the possibility of infection, for instance. But personally, my mind rejects the idea of an implanted smart phone more than I suspect my body would. Setting aside all the concerns about infection, lack of privacy, and the like, I simply want–I think most people simply want–the option to not be connected, now and again. I have said before that one of the most important applications of the last few years has been the Internet-disabling Freedom. That Freedom can’t be used on smart phones is oppressive enough. The notion of a life in which we literally can’t be free of our phones, because they’re embedded in us? I think at that point, we begin to lose sight of what it means to be human–not because subcutaneous technology would make us inherently robotic, but rather because it would spell an end to all restorative, contemplative, unconnected silence.

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Article source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27862/?ref=rss

The hope is that the new gear will make it easier for officers to patrol the crowds that head to the beach this summer.

A new piercing siren mounted to a police bike is just one of the new tools. The siren can cut through even the largest of crowds.

New red and blue lights have been mounted to the handlebars to make it easy for police to make their presence known.

In 2007, police saw just how quickly a situation can get out of hand. Labor Day crowds quickly turned out of control as party goers fueled by alcohol caused a small riot.

Fifteen people were arrested in Pacific Beach.

Alcohol is now banned at the beach so police do not have the additional worry of drinking on the sand, but they know trouble can start any time there is a crowd.