The list of pay-TV providers that don't have an app that turns your iPad into another TV screen has grown one shorter today, as Cox Communications announced its Cox TV Connect app. Like other apps from Cablevision, Time Warner, and DirecTV it's restricted to use within the home (and for jailbreakers, judging by error code 144 you may be restricted once again) while connected to Cox internet service. The description promises "over 35 " channels available, a glance at the listing on Cox's support site reveals a distinct lack of Viacom offerings (Spike is shown in the screenshots, but isn't on the list), which isn't surprising given the video giant's legal wrangling over other similar apps. We're not seeing any support for any kind of second screen interaction with what's on TV or remote control features, although the existing Mobile Connect apps have some of that covered. It does however support viewing on up to 5 tablets at once, so if your family is squeezed for screens this may be just the ticket, check after the break for a press release or hit the iTunes link below to download the free app.
[Thanks, Stephen] Continue reading Cox TV Connect app brings more live cable TV streaming to iPads Cox TV Connect app brings more live cable TV streaming to iPads originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | iTunes, Cox | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/05/cox-tv-connect-app-brings-more-live-cable-...
National Public Radio has just brought on Gary Knell and its new CEO and it turns out that the former Sesame Workshop President and CEO believes the future of NPR lies in social media.
Mashable spoke with Knell on Friday, his second day on the job, to hear his plans and aspirations for the federal funded radio powerhouse.
Knell spent a little more than 12 years at Sesame Workshop (the non-profit behind Sesame Street) evolving it from a television show to a multimedia and social success. That is, more or less, the plan at NPR, which acts like an umbrella organization to dozens of radio stations across the country.
The trick, Knell said, is to be like Wayne Gretzky (pictured), one of the most revered hockey players of all time. “I’ve been looking to Wayne Gretzky as my compass for digital and social media in the sense that Wayne Gretzky’s secret about why he was a great hockey player is he would say, ‘I go to where the puck is going.’” Knell says. “So that’s sort of the idea, right? I think you need to be connected to the audience and if we’re going to be growing in the future, demographically, we need to go where the people are going and not be part of the pack…. we have to go there or its kind of extinction down the road.”
Knell believes the people are going online, which is precisely where he’s directing NPR. He’s vowed to make social media a more core part of how NPR is distributed and how it reaches its fans.
Radio has earned a reputation for appealing to an older generation of listeners less preoccupied with social networks, newsfeeds or tweets. NPR is certainly not dropping its core programming, but Knell recognizes that social media is the realm of a younger demographic crucial to NPR’s longevity: “I think [social networks] are important not just in the sense of being cool but for connecting with a younger demographic audience which is the future of NPR,” he says.
Part of that shift has meant reverse-engineering many of the talented, albeit older, journalists in the NPR newsroom to start thinking about social media as a core tenant of NPR’s day-to-day. Knell imagines there’s been some pushback with that transition but ultimately the change is happening for a good reason. Knell has yet to fully move into his office but he’s already hanging a poster quoting General Eric Shinseky, retired Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army which reads, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
Change is necessary to ensure NPR’s future, especially since it’s come under fire for its federal funding and a high-profile firing. Social isn’t just a way to gain new, younger listeners but as a way to address controversy and set the record straight. Knell has already held a Twitter townhall where he answered questions from NPR fans and critics alike.
Though Knell is keeping his cards close to his vest, he did say that many NPR affiliates are already looking for ways to revamp their digital strategies. Mobile is catching up as well: KCRW has put out an iPad app, NPR news has an app and NPR Music is planning a new music app for release sometime in February, though NPR wouldn’t comment on features or extra details.
Online is a good way to reach silos of niche listeners. Series like the Tiny Desk Concerts — which features top artists playing impromptu, claustrophobic concerts around an NPR desk — have been a huge hit on YouTube and Knell is certainly not ruling our similar such series in the future.
More than anything, social is a way to reach NPR listeners and create a sort of public square of thought. “We want to have a big tent of thought and content and people being able to have those conversations [via NPR],” Knell says.
Anyone concerned that a former CEO of Sesame Workshop won’t be able to handle the grueling pace and public scrutiny ladled onto NPR should instead look to the similarities between Sesame and NPR. Content aside, both are massive non-profit organizations, legacy brands with a history of excellence and a dire need to embrace social media. “I was able to pivot [Sesame Workshop], with a lot of help from my colleagues, into a totally relevant media organization that is growing and is reaching more people now than it was 10 or 15 years ago,” Knell says. “And a lot of it is through digital and social media that didn’t exist before.”
Knell was able to shift Sesame and, somehow, increase its popularity. NPR may not have Elmo but its certainly ready for the same fate.
Image courtesy of Flickr, kk+
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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/05/npr-new-ceo-gary-knell/?utm_source=feedburner&...
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Rumors continue to heat up that Apple will enter the television market next year, stepping up its Apple TV "hobby" into a greater revenue-generating vocation. The company would clearly like to repeat the kind of rousing success it has seen in smartphones. There, it entered a market at least as crowded and competitive as that for televisions whereas most of its Windows rivals have barely been able to eke out a few models with nominal share..
Indeed, the challenge is not as much about competition as commoditization. At first glance, this would be a curious time for Apple to enter the TV space. The HD and flat-panel transitions on which premium manufacturer brands and retailers once feasted has long passed. "Flat-panel TV" and "HDTV" are now just "TV." And prices for smaller sets are settling into a range familiar to those who remember what they cost back in the heyday of CRTs.
What's different, though, is that the state of the smart TV market looks strikingly like the smartphone market did before Apple's entrance. The market essentially has "feature TVs" that present a few popular canned services (YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, etc.) and "smart TVs" that are a fractured mixture of homegrown offerings (from companies such as Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Toshiba) and an experience-challenged licensed OS (Android from Sony and Vizio).
The company has clung to the idea of TV as a passive experience.
Continue reading Switched On: Keeping the 'app' out of Apple's TV Switched On: Keeping the 'app' out of Apple's TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/04/switched-on-keeping-the-app-out-of-apples-tv/
 A Chinese company throwing French around in its product names. Right. Oddities aside, it looks as if the LePhone will soon have LeCompany -- Lenovo will be pushing out its first smart TV in the first quarter of 2012. The simply-titled LeTV will be an internet-connected display, but outside of that, hardly anything else is being made public. There are no launch regions specified, nor a screen size. We're presuming it'll attempt to tie into the greater "Lenovo Cloud," which will purportedly be similar to services already offered by the likes of Apple and Google, though users will be granted access to 200GB at first. Can't imagine too many folks opting for a Lenovo desktop, laptop, smartphone and television, but hey -- ecosystems are indeed all the rage these days. Lenovo trudging into the smart TV arena, plans LeTV launch in Q1 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | The Wall Street Journal | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/29/lenovo-trudging-into-the-smart-tv-arena-pl...
Mac: Everyone has decent Wi-Fi signal when they're sitting in the same room as their wireless router, but what about across the apartment, or in the basement? If you think you should have signal but don't, free site survey app Netspot is a utility that gives you the tools to draw out your floorplan, walk about your home or office with your laptop, and survey network strength, available networks, and channels in use along the way. More »
  
from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5864464/netspot-for-mac-makes-diagnosing-wi+fi-signal-p...
bs0d3 writes "Almost every year, the estimated number of U.S. households owning TV sets goes up. Until now. This year, for the second time since 1970, TV ownership has gone down; by about 1%. TV ownership among the key adult 18-49 demo also declined even steeper, down 2.7 percent and percentage of homes without a TV is at the highest level since 1975. The reasons behind this appear to be online media content and the recession."

Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
from Slashdot http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/12/01/237221/tv-ownership-declines-for-seco...
Picture sufficiently related: bones.
I've broken my left (good) arm twice doing things (unspeakable ones!) I shouldn't have, and now I've got a plate and a bunch of screws and shit in there that set off the metal detector at the airport and get me pulled aside for a groping (which I don't mind). But now doctors are 3-D printing bone-healing "scaffolding" to help mend broken bones. But NOT hearts. God, go cry to your diary like a normal person.
"It can make bone scaffold using the material that you want very similar to human bone and it can fix the defect that the physician wants," Susmita Bose, a professor of mechanical and materials engineering at the university, explains in the video above.
In lab tests, after just a week in a medium with immature human bone cells, the scaffold supported a network of new bone cells.
Susmita and colleagues aim to insert these scaffolds into human bodies to repair broken bones. As the bone-like material dissolves, real bone tissue in the body will grow over it.
Awesome, but do you think we'll ever get to the point where we can print and replace ENTIRE BONES? And, if so, what about boners? "What about them?" How do they work? One minute you're soft, the next you're watching Jurassic Park and your pants are all tight -- it's weird!
3-D printers may soon fix broken bones [msnbc]
Thanks to todd the swallow, Luke and Amelia, who agree doctors should be printing their prescriptions instead of scribbling them. No shit they should -- one time the pharmacy gave me menopause hormones instead of antibiotics!
from Geekologie - Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome http://www.geekologie.com/2011/12/broken-no-more-3-d-printing-bone-repair.php

TED's free iPad app has offered up quality videos and audio of the conference's famous guest speakers for a while, but the company recently updated the app to be universal. Now even while out and about on your iPhone, you can access some of the knowledge and wisdom being shared within the TED app.
There's a new feature called TEDradio, too, which offers one-touch access to a continuous stream of TED talks. Just like the iPad version, you can either watch videos online or download them to watch offline (if, for example, you're headed for a long plane trip or something like that). There's even a feature called "Inspire Me" where you can set certain criteria for a talk (like the amount of time you've got or various subjects you want to hear about), then hit go to listen in.
TED makes a solid app, and having it available for free on both iPhone and iPad with this update is just icing on the cake.
[via Razorian Fly] TED app goes universal, on iPhone now for free originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/30/ted-app-goes-universal-on-iphone-now-for-free/
MrKevvy writes
"An Ottawa physicist is using laser light to create truly random numbers much faster than other methods do, with obvious potential benefits to cryptography: 'Sussman's Ottawa lab uses a pulse of laser light that lasts a few trillionths of a second. His team shines it at a diamond. The light goes in and comes out again, but along the way, it changes. ... It is changed because it has interacted with quantum vacuum fluctuations, the microscopic flickering of the amount of energy in a point in space. ... What happens to the light is unknown — and unknowable. Sussman's lab can measure the pulses of laser light that emerge from this mysterious transformation, and the measurements are random in a way that nothing in our ordinary surroundings is. Those measurements are his random numbers.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
from Slashdot http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/11/29/216258/physicist-uses-laser-light-as-fa...
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