Archive for the ‘Reviewed’ Category
Friday, June 5th, 2009
By PETER SVENSSON
AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Move over, iPhone. You’ve had two years on top of the smart phone world. Now there’s a touch-screen phone with better software: the Palm Pre.
In a remarkable achievement, Palm Inc., a company that was something of a has-been, has come up with a phone operating system that is more powerful, elegant and user-friendly. The Pre, which goes on sale Saturday for $200 (after a mail-in rebate) at Sprint stores, makes it easier to do more things on the go.
With webOS, Palm’s new operating system, you can keep multiple applications open at once. They’re organized like a row of cards that stretches off the screen, and you flick the screen to switch between them.
For instance, if you need to quickly check your calendar while writing an e-mail, you can bring up the calendar application, then flick back to e-mail, then keep switching between them as you try to work out your schedule.
On Apple Inc.’s iPhone, you can run only one application at time. To switch between calendar and e-mail, you have to go back to the main menu every time.
Also unlike the iPhone, webOS will notify you of events that need your attention, no matter which application you’re in. Notification icons for e-mails, calls and over events appear at the bottom of the screen. If you tap on the e-mail notice, for instance, the message pops up.
So webOS makes the iPhone look clunky, which is stunning in itself. It also thoroughly shows up Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile. That operating system has had multitasking for years, but few users have appreciated that. Rather, Windows Mobile has been blamed for making phones clumsy and slow. Now, webOS comes along and does multitasking right.
Also very cool is that webOS aggregates contacts and calendar items from multiple sources, like Google, corporate Exchange servers, and even Facebook. You know how lots of phones have space for a photo for each contact? The Pre automatically pulls your friends’ Facebook photos into your contacts list.
As far as the hardware goes, the Pre is well put together, but not exceptional. It’s slightly smaller and chubbier than an iPhone, with softly rounded corners that make it look like a black bar of soap.
The screen diagonal is 3.1 inches, noticeably smaller than the iPhone’s 3.5 inches. Less screen space means it’s harder to hit the right area with your finger, but the Pre makes up for this a bit by making the surface just below the screen touch-sensitive. For instance, to go back one level in a program, you swipe from right to left in this area.
A keyboard slides out from underneath the screen. It isn’t the best I’ve seen on a phone, but it does the job, and you’ll find it much easier to use than the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard.
When I first got the Pre, I was dismayed by its battery life. I got less than 24 hours of light use out of it, and it would lose nearly a third of its charge if left inactive overnight. It turns out there’s a bug that drains the battery if your Google instant-messaging account is connected to your AOL Instant Messenger account. Palm says it will fix that. When I logged Google out of AIM, I got much longer life.
I extended battery life even further by setting the Pre to receive my personal e-mail instantly rather than checking every 15 minutes. That’s counterintuitive _ usually getting the e-mail automatically “pushed” to a device consumes more power.
I ended up with nearly two days of battery life, which I think is acceptable for a hardworking smart phone. But it would be great if Palm made it easier to manage power consumption.
That said, charging the Pre is almost half the fun, if you splurge on a $70 “Touchstone.” You place the Pre on this small charging station, and it uses magic to radiate power through the phone’s back. (The scientifically minded can replace “magic” with “electromagnetic induction.”) It’s a lot cooler than connecting a cable or a sliding the device into a dock, but it’s only marginally easier to use than a cable, so consider this a luxury purchase.
The Pre’s camera captures 3-megapixel images. That’s not an amazing resolution, but I prefer the Pre’s camera over the 8-megapixel one in the Sony Ericsson C905, and every other phone camera I’ve tried.
Why? Because other phone cameras have a big failing: It takes too long for them to take a picture after you’ve pressed the shutter button. They’re impossible to use for action shots, or for capturing fleeting expressions. The Pre’s camera has very little shutter lag. It’s not as good as a single-lens reflex camera, or SLR, but it’s better than a lot of digital point-and-shoots.
The Pre also has the now-standard array of smart phone features: Wi-Fi, Global Positioning System and an online store for applications. The Web browser is very fast, given a fast data connection. You can zoom in and out on Web pages by pinching and spreading with two fingers, just as on the iPhone. The Pre has 8 gigabytes of built-in storage, same as the cheaper iPhone model.
Uniquely for a non-Apple device, the Pre pretends it’s an iPod when you connect it to a Macintosh or Windows PC with iTunes, so you can easily transfer your music library and photos to it. It won’t play movies or TV shows bought from the iTunes Store, nor will it play songs that were purchased with usage restrictions.
So should you get a Pre? Despite the fantastic software, this isn’t a slam dunk decision.
We don’t know how software developers will take to the Pre. There are a lot of different smart phone systems clamoring for their attention, and webOS may not be able to replicate the success of the iPhone App Store when it comes to providing a wide range of useful applications. There are only about 20 apps available at launch. (With the help of one of these applications, the Pre can run tens of thousands of programs written for the older Palm operating system, but these are mostly dated.)
We also don’t know what else Palm has up its sleeve. Sprint Nextel Corp. doesn’t have the same lock on the Pre as AT&T Inc. does on the iPhone, so we may see the Pre with other carriers early next year.
Palm has also said it plans to put webOS on a range of devices. We don’t know when the next model will arrive, or what it will look like. Verizon Wireless’ chief executive has said it will carry another Palm model “within six months.”
Lastly, Apple is expected to fire back by announcing an upgraded iPhone model, perhaps as soon as Monday. It won’t be able to do everything the Pre can do, but it might have other novel features.
Whether you get a Pre or not, its brilliant software will leave its mark on the phones you buy in the future, just like the iPhone did after its debut.
Posted in IT, Reviewed, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Monday, May 11th, 2009
By RON HARRIS
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP)- When you’re surfing the Web, editing photos, listening to MP3s and tweeting, it’s easy to run out of real estate on your computer display. If only you had a little extra screen _ like a digital kid brother _ that could show an auxiliary program like a Twitter application.
Now you do. All hail the mini monitor.
These diminutive displays are quite helpful with everyday computing tasks but take up less desk space than a full-sized monitor you might use as a second screen. And you don’t need a special slot in your PC to connect the miniature displays. A basic USB connection handles it.
I tried a $130 model from Nanovision Co. called the Mimo UM-710. The unit’s display is 6 inches by 3 1/2 inches – 7 inches diagonally – and sits on a small, adjustable stand. It can be oriented to a vertical or horizontal position, depending on what best suits what you’re using it for.
Unlike an iPhone and some other devices, the Mimo does not automatically detect whether you’ve put it into a horizontal or vertical setting. You need to adjust that yourself in the on-screen preferences for the device, but it takes only a couple of clicks.
Once it’s in place, you can just drag items onto the mini-monitor from your main computer display. So if you set the little display as an extension of the right side of your desktop, then you can just pull a program window to the right edge of your big screen and it will appear on the Mimo. (Using it as an extension on the left, top or bottom of the main screen is also possible.)
To get started I installed the little monitor’s drivers from the included CD, then plugged the Mimo into a USB port on my desktop computer running Windows XP Home. The unit also works with Windows Vista and Mac OS X.
A small Mimo icon soon appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of my desktop, in the taskbar, to let me know the unit was ready for use.
It was fun to launch various applications to see which ones would benefit from the Mimo’s extra patch of LCD.
First up was Adobe Photoshop, something I use daily. I’m constantly revealing and hiding palettes that let you work with images, and I hate when these tools encroach on the picture I’m editing. Mimo was a great place to stash these items, though I found it best to keep the Mimo close to the main display so my eye didn’t have to travel long distances from the palettes to the image.
Another Adobe product that worked well with the Mimo display was Premiere, my favorite video editing software. It wasn’t practical to put either of the two video preview panels on the Mimo, as it would take them away from the timeline where the details of the editing take shape. But the Mimo was a good place for the audio mixer and effects controls, which see less activity.
The Mimo display also worked well as a holder for Windows Media Player. I could play an album and see my music library on the Mimo screen without encroaching on my Internet activity.
Perhaps the best use of the mini monitor was serving as a holder for Twitter applications such as Tweetdeck and Twhirl, which organize Twitter dialogues. I’m usually multitasking while tweeting, so the Mimo monitor provided the perfect compliment.
Other nifty uses for the Mimo are to have it serve as the poker table for the FullTilt.com game app or to display Yahoo Widgets such as an RSS reader or clock and calendar.
Here are some things that are not practical for the mini-monitor annex: your e-mail client, a Web browser, a word processor. There’s just not enough room to make good use of it.
http://www.mimomonitors.com/
This year D-Link Corp. is introducing
a rival called the SideStage, with similar specs, though no price
has been set.
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Reviewed | Comments Off
Monday, April 27th, 2009
By RON HARRIS
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) – You’re on Twitter because everyone is on Twitter – chattering endlessly about life, love and snack preferences, 140 characters at a time. But are you on Twitter as efficiently as you could be?
If you’re using only your profile page at Twitter.com, the answer is no. You’ll want to download some free applications to manage your Twitter presence more efficiently, perhaps by categorizing your followers into subgroups, embedding photos and video or conducting smarter Twitter searches.
I put some of the best Twitter-fueled apps to the test. Some sputtered, but others are a tweeter’s dream.
The best Twitter app I tested, hands down, was TweetDeck.
It arranges into columns your feed of tweets _ the messages you and your friends post on Twitter. By default, your friends’ tweets are displayed in the left column, with “replies” and “direct messages” (tweets directed in response to just one person) on the right.
This is better than the normal method of scrolling through 200 tweets in one stream just to see what your buddy told you he ate for lunch an hour ago. His reply to you about something will be easier to find in the dedicated “replies” column.
TweetDeck’s best feature is the ability to create groups of the people you’re following on Twitter. You can organize them however you like – “business contacts,” “bowling buddies,” etc. _ and then their tweets are displayed in their own columns.
TweetDeck makes things even more convenient by offering buttons that connect to other Twitter-enhancing apps, such as TwitPic, which embeds photos into your tweets; 12 Seconds, which adds video clips to tweets; and TinyURL, for shortening Web addresses that you put in tweets.
Another topflight app is Twhirl. It takes up less desktop space than TweetDeck. That’s because instead of side-by-side columns for replies and direct messages, it shows you those lists in different windows, which are accessible by clicking on tabs for them.
Twhirl also can color-code your interactions: Replies are displayed in green while direct messages show up in yellow. If you’ve got the app minimized from view, a small pop-up appears on the bottom of your desktop when a new tweet arrives.
Twhirl is a fine service for those who don’t need all the bells and whistles of TweetDeck.
If you really want to travel light with your desktop Twitter activity, try TwitterFox, a cool add-on for the Firefox Web browser. It’s one of the best ways to Twitter while multitasking.
TwitterFox appears as a small blue “t” in the bottom right-hand corner of the Firefox browser. If there’s a number next to that “t,” you’ve got that many new tweets to read. It also can call up different tabs for replies and direct messages.
You can set TwitterFox to get the latest tweets at intervals of three, five, 10, 15 or 30 minutes and tell you with a simple pop-up at the bottom of your screen when they’ve arrived. TwitterFox supports multiple Twitter accounts, so you can easily toggle between your professional and extracurricular Twitter profiles.
Another nice Firefox add-on is Twitbin. It’s similar to TwitterFox, but occupies a little more real estate on the browser when it opens up as a full-length vertical sidebar.
I tested each of these Twitter apps on a Windows PC (though some are Mac compatible). For smart phones, you might try TinyTwitter and PockeTwit.
TinyTwitter is the more basic of the two. It enables quick replies, direct messages, photo embedding and retweets (a simple forwarding of someone else’s brilliant tweet).
PockeTwit displays larger Twitter avatars, boasts a more readable color scheme and has more intuitive menu navigation. You can even plot the physical locations of your friends on a Google map.
There’s been a lot of chatter about Twitter, whether it’s worthwhile, and whether it will last. I think Twitter _ or a minimalist feed of user content just like it _ will be with us for a while.
At its core, it’s a smart chat room that gives you the ability to listen to only those voices of your choosing. And if you deploy one of these streamlined apps, Twitter could soon be one of the most enjoyable and productive things you’ll do online.
___
On the Net:
Some Twitter apps:
http://www.tweetdeck.com
http://www.twhirl.org
http://www.twitterfox.net
http://www.twitbin.com
http://www.tinytwitter.com
http://code.google.com/p/pocketwit
Posted in Columns, Reviewed, Tech Culture, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Monday, January 12th, 2009
By Allan Maurer
SILICON VALLEY, CA –If there is a growth business in this economy, it is e-commerce, says Patrick Kerins, a general partner with venture firm New Enterprise Associates, which invested in Advertising.com, now part of AOL, and RTP-based ChannelAdvisor. “Christmas was up for ChannelAdvisor, as it was generally for e-commerce, as opposed to offline retail. Overall, it’s still a growth business,” Kerins says.
Kerins is one of many venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and business executives you can hear at the 3rd annual Southeast Venture Conference sponsored by TechJournal South, this year March 11-12th, 2009 at the Intercontinental Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia. (For more information see: www.seventure.org).
Kerins says that e-commerce continued to thrive in 2008, “Although not as much as one might have guessed from January 2008. Amazon was strong, eBay weak, but overall, it’s a growth business,” he says. He cautions that “If we have quarter after quarter of this difficult environment, we may see stresses and strains on smaller e-tailers.”
Kerins says NEA stayed pretty active in 2008, doing about 30 new deals. “It’s not unusual for us to do two or three deals a month,” he says. “We only did a few in the fourth quarter because of the extreme volatility in economy.
“Many of have been spending time with our portfolio companies, making sure to look at their performance and budgets, looking to see if they need any expense control so we could get our arms around that quickly and if they needed to raise capital, to get on that quickly. So there was a significant slowdown due to those activities.”
Dealflow in India and China slowed all year, he notes. “In the first part of the year, valuations looked way too high for us,” he says. “Then, with the crumbling of the equity markets there, we found it difficult to reach agreement on how companies were going to be valued.”
“We were relatively more active last year in healthcare and alternative energy than in IT, the three legs of our stool. In 2008 we did from 10 percent to 15 percent in alternative energy, and evenly split deals between healthcare and medical devices. In many recent years we did more IT investing than in healthcare, but biopharma has long lead times and is not so directly related to a quarter-to-quarter perspective, which is much more long term.”
He points out that “Some of the best performing stocks in the country last year were large biopharma stocks.
Up until the third quarter last year, Kerins says, “We would have said our 250 active companies were performing fairly well with many positive metrics. But they suffered from the same lack of liquidity as the rest of the industry.”
Companies should forget about IPOs this year, he notes. “The right level of expectation for IPOs this year is near zero,” he says. “That doesn’t mean a few exceptional companies may not find their way out. But the U.S. and Asian stock markets have a lot of issues to sort out before they find the optimism that usually fuels that space.”
Although there has been talk in the venture industry of some limited partners having trouble meeting their commitments to venture funds, Kerins says “We’ve seen no evidence of that,” despite “a lot of chatter.”
“We have no industrial companies in our LP base and most major VC firms don’t either,” he says. “Direct investments in VC firms from banks and investment firms in general are also exceedingly low. It could happen that LPs in major funds of funds or endowments try to maintain some balance,” he adds.
“Most of these LPs have not received any material cash distributions from the venture community for quite some time. We continue to send cash back yearly, although not as much as we would like and some VCs are not sending back any.”
He says some LPs may want out, but they’re more likely to sell their position at a discount to others more flush with cash than to default.
“Our expectations for the remainder of 2009 remain realistic,” he says. “Maintaining cashflow and profits for our portfolio companies is critical. The world at large is not looking for companies to grow significantly and massively through this downturn.
“Those who survive will thrive.”
NEA does foresee putting more money into its portfolio companies this year, Kerins says. “WE have done top to bottom portfolio profiling to make sure they have adequate reserves. We’ve estimated down the amount of investments from outsiders and increased how much we may supply.”
He does expect to see the venture business “slow substantially” this year. “We do expect the volume of VC deals to decrease in 2009, by how much is anyone’s guess.” In some cases, companies will have to swallow down rounds, he adds.
NEA, he says, continues to make bets in healthcare, which it expects to pay off in five to seven years, and continues to see technology as a service as a very good space, “especially those with recurring revenue models and technology that offers clients the ability to save money.”
It will also continue to invest in alternative energy, he says. “We feel we’re well suited for it. It is capital intensive and smaller firms have trouble getting in early, so it’s a good area for us when we can get good technology. It requires patience, though.”
Kerins says he hopes to see early indications that President-elect Obama’s plan is succeeding and that banks are lending again.
“There is a Wall Street adage,” he says, “that the markets are based on capital, confidence and credit. Right now there’s not a lot of confidence and zero credit. If this new administration can help with the “c” that stands for confidence, it could really help with credit.”
In any event, he says, “We continue to be active in Southeast investing. In addition to ChannelAdvisor, we think highly of Suniva in Atlanta. We would love to find more deals to do down there.”
Online: www.nea.com/
Posted in Events, Georgia, Internet/New Media, IT, Money, North Carolina, Reviewed, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
By DEBORAH YAO
(AP) – It’s Day One of a weeklong experiment to see if I could live without satellite TV.
That means I have to wait a day before I can watch the season ender of “Heroes” to learn whether Hiro Nakamura, trapped in time 16 years ago, can escape to the present and destroy a formula that, in the wrong hands, would plunge the world into chaos. The show will start to be available online a day after its Monday evening broadcast on NBC.
Bummer.
For one whole week, I tried to see if I can survive watching only television shows online and movies through Netflix.
No live broadcast TV. No real-time cable news. No pay-per-view.
Success could mean the end of bills for cable or satellite television.
The savings could be substantial. Netflix costs $5 to $17 a month and Internet access with decent speeds costs around $30 a month from the phone companies. By contrast, cable and satellite bills could easily exceed $100 once you add on the set-top box rental for multiple rooms, digital-video recording and movie channels.
I’ve flirted with the idea of getting rid of my subscription before, but I’ve always hesitated about taking the plunge. I grew up watching free over-the-air television, but for more than a decade now I’ve been paying for TV – starting with the expanded basic cable TV package, to digital cable and now to satellite.
I concluded that I could definitely survive pulling the plug on satellite TV – but whether I’d want to is another matter.
Monday night is my big TV night: “Gossip Girl” at 8 p.m., “Heroes” at 9 p.m. and “My Own Worst Enemy” at 10 p.m. I also watch “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” but since it conflicts with “Gossip Girl,” I usually catch it online.
Without live TV, I suddenly had three free hours on Monday. My early feeling of elation, however, quickly gave way to indecision. As I sat on the couch thinking through my options, I noticed that without the blare of a TV, the ticking of my wall clock sounded so annoyingly loud. I decided to clean house.
Tuesday night rolls around and I’m eager to catch up. I go to Fancast.com, which is operated by Comcast Corp. Fancast has a nifty feature that lets you resume watching a show where you left off, which I haven’t seen at the more popular Hulu.com. Both Fancast and Hulu, a collaboration between NBC and Fox, strike deals with networks and studios to carry their content.
Sure enough, I found the season ender of “Heroes” that I missed on Monday. Video was a bit jerky at times but otherwise played well. As the story line reeled me in, I quickly forgot that my laptop was no match for my 32-inch flat-screen, high-definition TV with stereo surround sound.
Fancast and Hulu are one-stop Web sites for shows, even old ones like “The A-Team.” I can also go to the networks’ separate Web sites to watch, but they’re usually harder to navigate. Only if I want schedules and other details do I go to, say, CWTV.com.
You can watch ESPN games live at ESPN360.com, but only with certain Internet service providers. Last Saturday afternoon, I tuned in to an NCAA men’s basketball game pitching Temple against Kansas.
Professional sports typically charge a fee to watch live online, such as $99.95 for a broadband season pass at NBA.com. But I can’t imagine rabid sports fans settling for a PC-size screen instead of big screen in HD – unless they are traveling or sneaking in a game at work.
CNN has what it calls “live” TV, but it’s not the same as what’s on cable. Many cable networks have full episodes on their Web sites but the selections can be rather thin. They include Comedy Central, HGTV, Disney, TBS, Lifetime, Discovery Channel and USA Network. Still, it’s not a guarantee that the episodes or shows you want to watch will be available online, and they may not always be easy to find.
As for movies, I tried to replicate pay-per-view with Netflix Inc.’s “Watch Instantly” option. Under the selection for “new” movies was 1990′s “Pretty Woman” with Julia Roberts. I guess “new” is relative. “Pretty Woman” is certainly newer than 1985′s “Back to the Future,” another selection in the “new” category. Good thing I still have the DVD-by-mail option for truly new releases.
I decided to hook the computer up to my TV with a VGA cable so I can watch my shows on a big screen. It didn’t translate well; the computer-size picture was blown up but without any adjustments to make the visual sharper. It was serviceable but not what I’m used to.
I also had quality issues with movies Netflix makes available for instant watching through a deal with Starz Entertainment LLC. Those movies came out blurry, such that the movie credits looked somewhat smudged.
That’s too bad.
The more decent titles, such as the critically acclaimed “No Country for Old Men,” are distributed through Starz.
Sure, I could buy the Roku set-top box, an Xbox 360, the LG BD300 Network or the Samsung BD-P2500/BD-P2550 Blu-ray players for $99 to $399 to more reliably watch Netflix movies online. But who needs another box next to your TV?
At the end of the week, I concluded that indeed I could live without paying for TV as long as I have good broadcast reception.
But the question is this: Would I want to?
I look at my cell phone, which takes photos and videos, stores music and sports a browser.
Although I really only need a phone that can make phone calls, I like having the other features. I can’t imagine buying a phone today whose sole function is to make calls.
Likewise, I can’t imagine going back to watching live TV over an antenna.
I would miss the sheer variety of shows available over satellite TV, and I’d want the ability to watch CNN or Fox News live at any time – online news usually isn’t live, and you have to hop from site to site.
I still balk at paying more than $100 for television, but with operators offering bundled TV-phone-Internet packages, it’s easier now to lower your bill.
The only question in the future isn’t whether I continue to pay for TV, but who gets the money. An alternative to the current cable, satellite and phone companies could emerge, letting customers watch better TV in multiple formats – even in HD.
But I bet it’s not going to be free.
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Monday, December 29th, 2008
By Allan Maurer
MIAMI — Can’t put a name to that face when you’re networking? Find yourself multi-tasking then forgetting where you put your keys? Leave someone off your holiday shopping list?
Miami-based Brain Center America has launched high-tech solutions to sharpen your brain and your memory and multi-tasking skills.
Earlier this year, BCA launched its NeuroActive Ultimate Brain Fitness Program in the United States. The brain-fitness software exercises the entire brain. Scientific studies show that using the software can increase cognitive function by 20 percent, boost brain processing speed, and sharpen memory. BCA followed that product with a separate program focused specifically on sharpening multi-tasking and memory skills.
“NeuroActive has enjoyed great success since it was launched in 2007 in Canada, and we expect this unique, innovative brain gym and training program will become very popular among Americans who recognize the need for brain fitness to ensure total mind-body health,” says Stephane Bergeron, MD, the physician/entrepreneur who founded BCA and collaborated with a team of international brain specialists to engineer the software system.
Only software of its kind
“NeuroActive is the only software of its kind that stimulates a complete set of vital brain functions and uses advanced artificial intelligence to continuously adapt the difficulty level to the users’ performance and generate maximum gains in minimal time. Plus, it’s fun, and anybody can use it,” Bergeron says.
Bergeron recalls telling medical students 15 years ago that we’re born with a certain number of neurons at birth and that by about 25, the brain loses the ability to reshape itself. “Since 2000, multiple studies have proved that wrong,” Bergeron tells TechJournal South.
“We know now that your brain is like plastic and can be shaped or molded,” he says. “If you submit your brain to proper training, even at 50 or 75, you can use the brain’s ability to reshape itself. If your memory is not as good as it was, you can do something about it, regain and improve it. And it’s fast.”
He’s talking about neuroplasticity, the recently discovered ability of the brain to change and map new neural pathways, stimulate new cell growth, and deliver better oxygen and blood flow to the brain.
Exercises resemble video games
The Neuro-Active programs require a 20 minute workout about three times a week to be effective. “You will see your brain capacity boosted by 20 percent in six to eight weeks,” Bergeron says.
The exercises, which resemble video games and are fun, if challenging and sometimes humbling to do, “Not only boost your brain function, they change the way your brain is wired,” Bergeron says.
“They help develop new brain cells. It changes the way that blood and oxygen are delivered. Ask your brain to function better and it will allow itself better blood delivery to sustain higher activity.”
These are not just your typical marketing claims. The company tested the product at 17 different medical clinics for months and paid for clinical tests that showed the tool has the ability to boost brain speed and function 20-30 percent if used regularly.
Two different programs offered
The Ultimate Brain Fitness program trains the brain overall. The company’s second product focuses on memory and multi-tasking specifically.
Called the Memory & Multi-Tasking Booster, “It was requested by our customers,” says Bergeron.
“It helps both short and long term memory and trains the brain to multitask. In today’s world, we’re often asked to do two or three things at once, but the brain is not good at multi-tasking. Without training, your brain will tend to alternate from one task to the other, sending error rates through the roof—and taking longer.”
It takes a bit longer to train the brain in multi-tasking, but doing so can achieve 15 percent to 25 percent gains with acceptable error rates, the company claims.
Impacts your life
Bergeron admits that remembering faces was a real challenge for him. “I was almost face-blind,” he says. “This really changed my life. It can really impact your life.”
The programs provide customized brain training that sharpens 16 brain functions, including memory, processing speed, concentration and ability to recall faces, names and information
We tested both Neuro-Active programs extensively. The exercises ask the user to do things such as recall the names and faces and occupations of a dozen people flashed on the screen. In one exercise, you identify a particular item on a moving conveyer belt, right clicking your mouse. Then the exercise is repeated and you left click your mouse to identify the right item.
This is similar to exercises neuro-scientists suggest will help spark the growth of new neurons, such as brushing your teeth with your opposite hand or closing your eyes while you navigate a familiar space or shower.
AI tracks your performance
The program has built in artificial intelligence that makes the exercise harder or easier depending upon your performance, but continuously challenging you. Some of our earlier results were humbling and while there is some similarity in the exercises, they are never overly repetitious.
At the end, you’ll see a graph of your achievement and your improvement as you went along as well as an explanation of which part of the brain the exercise works and the specific skills it tests.
Doing the exercises feels like playing a video game. We would frequently do two or more in a session, working for half an hour to 40 minutes three times a week. We saw improvements after the first two weeks, with fewer typos showing up on spell check and later editing runs and an easier time matching faces and names at networking events.
“Your doctor will tell you to challenge your brain to keep it fit,” says Bergeron. “People are doing crosswords, Sudoku, and such, which are good, but not sufficient. They only exercise one part of your brain, and people tend to do the ones they’re good at. Your brain is a lot more complex than that. You need to overhaul it. What we provide is a simple solution to train all aspects of the brain and keep it fit.”
Until January 9, the company is selling both of its software products together for $99. They regularly sell for $95 each.
Online demos and information about the software is available at:
www.braincenteramerica.com
Posted in Florida, IT, Reviewed | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
By GREG BLUESTEIN
ATLANTA (AP) – What if the humble old landline phone could be as interactive as the flashy iPhone?
A home phone that puts the latest information at your fingertips feels like an old sci-fi staple, but now AT&T Inc. has a $299 touch-screen gadget, called HomeManager, that brings the idea to fruition. It may be coming too late in the game to matter.
As if it were a cell phone, the HomeManager is a touch-screen device that taps into the Internet to monitor e-mail, dig up the latest news and sports scores and access other Web favorites. Yet HomeManager does all that while connected to a home phone line.
The result is a crisp device that’s surprisingly easy to use and fairly handy. Indeed, it’s like an iPhone for your landline. The problem, though, is that AT&T is introducing the gadget at a time when even basic cell phones allow users to access similar information on the go.
AT&T is offering HomeManager in nine markets from San Diego to Atlanta. Users must have a broadband Internet connection and home phone service _ from AT&T or another company _ or a Voice over Internet service with a telephone adapter.
It’s actually three separate devices that, altogether, took me about 15 minutes to hook up. The base unit, which looks like a tiny black modem, plugs into a home phone line and a spare Ethernet port in your broadband modem.
Then it sends wireless signals to a colorful 7-inch touch-screen “frame” made by Samsung Electronics Co. I set mine up across the house in the kitchen. The third part is a sleek cordless phone that can tap into the system’s address book and call log.
The call quality is relatively crisp, and if you upload photos, the frame doubles as a nifty digital album. Like many of the latest cell phones, it allows you to plug in contacts, load a calendar and access “visual” voice mail, a service that lets you listen to messages in any order.
But the device is really meant to be an Internet portal, and engineers did a fine job designing handy touch-screen menus that allow easy access to Yellow Pages directories, news stories, sports scores and up-to-date weather. Each page took only a few seconds to open, about on par with my PC, and it was simple to navigate.
Among the handiest features was an online catalog of recipes, organized by meal, which practically begs you to put the device in the kitchen. The weather screen saver also kept us informed of the forecast and displayed big red alerts during hazardous conditions.
The Internet is also the device’s biggest failing. Users are confined to the menu options built into the device, and there’s no way to access a Web browser or other pages not already linked to the software. AT&T calls the system perfect for “Internet snacking” but I’d rather have the option for a full meal.
There are also more fundamental problems that have nothing to do with HomeManager’s design.
I’d bet HomeManager would have been a hit a few years ago in many tech-friendly households, but many cell phones are now offering the same capabilities. And since the people who would buy HomeManager already have an Internet connection, they can use their computers to access the same information.
After a week of using HomeManager, I was still pulling out my cell phone and heading to my desktop rather than bolting for the device.
While there’s little doubt HomeManager is a strong effort at dragging landline phones into the Internet Age, the idea will need to be bolstered with better features before a generation of cell phone users returns to the landline fold.
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On the Net:
http://www.wireless.att.com/homemanager
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