What is in this

month’s

Newsletter

Peril and Poten-

tial of the World

Wide Web

1

The Dark Side of

Google Glass

2

Latest Apple ITV

Rumour about an

iRing

2

Wireless Brain

Implant to Con-

trol PCs

2

Upwardly Mobile

Callers Drive

Fixed Line De-

cline

3

Seniors and Com-

puters….

3

Big Changes in

Office 2013 and

Office 365 Test

Customers Loyal-

ty

3

M O O C O O B O O L A

C O M P U T E R C L U B F O R S E N I O R S I N C . 4 4 G l a d e s v i l l e R d . H U N T E R S H I L L 2 1 1 0

T e l : 9 8 7 9 4 5 8 8 O n l y d u r i n g C l u b S e s s i o n s Email: moocoo @netspace.net.au Website: www.mo ocooseniorscomput ing.org All Enquiries to our Secretary Betty Benjamin Tel. 9817 2606

Club Sessions Monday to Thursday 10am to 12 noon 1pm to 3pm and Tuesday Evenings 7pm to 9pm

ISSN 1834 - 5492 April, 2013 Volume 16 Issue 2

(A member of the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association – ASCCA)

Experts sound off on the peril and potential of the evolving Web

By Molly McHugh — February 23, 2013

Depending on what type of Internet user you are, you either think the Web is an open, free-flowing, exchange of ideas and thoughts – or you’re constantly terrified we are rap-idly losing access to the only place where real freedom of expression is allowed to live. In reality, we’re probably stuck somewhere in between. For all intents and purposes, we users (at least those in the U.S.) have an immense amount of tools and applications at our disposal that are inarguably making communication and creativity easier. You only have to look as far as the DIY movement, consumerisation of the 3D printer, and the democratization of learning to code to know that the Internet and technology have made it remarkably simple for anyone to become a creator of nearly anything. These are undeniably good things that we have our current digital industry to thank for. At the same time, governments and corporations are being charged with trying to re-strict our access to these amazing tools provided by the Internet. More than ever be-fore, platforms are getting information requests upon information requests, and the control large Internet corporations have over what we see and don’t see online is worri-some. This intersection between everything the Internet has given us and everything that could potentially be taken away was a focus at New York Social Media Week, where a handful of industry experts spoke about the potential and perils of our World-wide Web.

The geography of the Internet Part of how governments want to control the Web is by treating it as a physical place – one with borders that give them the rights to dictate what happens inside their coun-tries. ”Governments want to divvy up the Internet and create points of control,” Kathe-rine Maher, Director of Strategy and Communications for Access, an international or-ganization dedicated to human rights and technology policy, said during her keynote at this week’s event. Like a legislature can govern its constituents within its borders, so too would they like to govern the Internet within their own borders.

Have you visited the Club’s new website? If not try it now! www.moocooseniorscomputing.org

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The Dark Side of Google Glass

As Google pushes the boundaries of innovation, it becomes harder to foresee whether it is doing so in ways that will conflict with its mot-to "Don't be evil." By Chandra Steele

Google's latest invention, the aug-mented-reality eyewear known simply as Glass, is not even on the market, yet along with excitement over this possible glimpse into the future, Glass is also causing contro-versy. It's become the focus of a Stop the Cyborgs campaign, spawned proposed legislation in West Virginia that bans its use while driving.

Dubbed Glass Explorers, 8,000 beta users outfitted with Google Glass are about to embark on an experi-ment documenting what Glass can and can't do; the reactions and re-sults generated will determine its future. Until now only a select few Google employees (including co-founder Sergey Brin) have sported Glass in public, mainly eliciting curi-osity. But outside the tech-friendly environs of Silicon Valley and New York, Glass Explorers are sure to get different receptions.

Steve Mann, a wearable tech pio-neer sometimes described as a cy-borg, was assaulted last July during a visit to a McDonald's in Paris when he wore his sartorially

similar augmented-reality device EyeTap. While no explicit reason for the attack was given, Mann in-ferred from words exchanged in

the scuffle that his assailant feared the EyeTap was a recording device. That sentiment has morphed into a movement with Stop the Cyborgs, a London-based organization's campaign to ban Google Glass and like devices. It formed in February when some friends were discussing an article that fatalistically accept-ed the demise of privacy. Latest Apple iTV rumor implies an iRing will act as remote control By Ted Kritsonis

Since the rumor mill first started falling over itself speculating as to what a TV born from Apple might look like, industry folk have won- dered how the company might maintain its legacy of turning eve-ry industry it touches on its ear when it is so very, very late to the TV game. What could Apple do for TV that hasn’t been done already?

Put a ring on it.

It’s a bit of a wacky idea, but Ap ple is planning to introduce a ring to act as a remote control for the company’s oft-rumored iTV televi

sion, according to an analyst fol-lowing the story.

The reputed “iRing” is apparently in the works, and would basically enable control of the iTV using mo-tion-controlled gestures while wearing it.

The idea flies in the face of ges- ture and motion-control technolo-gy from competitors who don’t re-quire wearing anything to make it work. The other issue is that the ring would have to be adjustable somehow. That would be comforta-

ble for the masses. Naturally, this

ring probably won’t cater to people like Beyonce, who had bigger ideas when out “put a ring on it”. Oh, and it’s unlikely that the Mandarin will be wearing one of these in the upcoming Iron Man 3 movie. He likes to wear 10 rings, but probably doesn’t need to control his TV with any of them.

Wireless brain implant could make controlling PCs with your mind a reality By Mariella Moon An increasing number of technolo-gies are being developed to help paralyzed people communicate better with the rest of the world. According to Geekosystem, Brown University is working on one such technology. The institution re-vealed today that it created a wire-less, rechargeable brain implant that could one day be used by peo-ple suffering with paralysis to con-trol electronic devices using their thoughts.

Brown University describes the de-vice, as a “miniature sardine can with a porthole.” It has a titanium shell that houses low-power cir-cuits, wireless radio, infrared trans-mitters, a lithium-ion battery. Signals transmitted by the brain are read by electrodes, and the sardine can-like implant transmits that data

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to an external receiver at 24 Mbps. On a full bat-tery, it can run for up to six hours, after which it has to be charged through the scalp for two hours via wireless induction.

Engineering professor and project head Arto Nur-miko says the device has “features that are some-what akin to a cell phone, except the conversation that is being sent out is the brain talking wirelessly.”

While Brown’s technology sounds incredibly prom-ising for the medical field, it will take some time be-fore it’s used on actual patients. The university has successfully tested the implants on three pigs and three rhesus macaque monkeys, but it has yet to be approved for human use in clinical trials.

Upwardly mobile callers drive fixed-line decline By Mitchell Bingeman From: The Australian Another nail has been hammered into the coffin of the once ubiquitous landline telephone. Research released today shows more than half of the popula-tion considers the mobile phone as their number one communications device. The research, con-ducted by the nation's telecommunications con-sumer body, found that only 29 per cent of the population chooses the once-pervasive landline tel-ephone as their communications device of prefer-ence, while 58 per cent of the nation is now most likely to be reached exclusively on their mobile phone.

SENIORS & COMPUTERS.......... As we Silver Surfers know, sometimes we have trou-ble with our computers.I had a problem yesterday, so I called Eric, the 11 year old next door, whose bedroom looks like Mission Control and asked him to come over. Eric clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. As he was walking away, I called after him, 'So, what was wrong?

He replied, 'It was an ID ten T error.' I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless in-quired, 'An, ID ten T error? What's that? In case I need to fix it again..' Eric grinned ...'Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before? 'No,' I replied. 'Write it down,' he said, 'and I think you'll figure it out.' So I wrote down: “ID10T” I used to like Eric, the little **** ****.

Big changes in Office 2013 and Office 365 test Microsoft customers' loyalty By Ed Bott for The Ed Bot Report If you’re surprised by the revelation that the retail editions of Office 2013 will cost more than their predecessors and come with more severe license restrictions, you haven’t been paying attention. The retail editions of Office 2013 contain funda-mental changes that go well beyond simple chang-es in the license agreement. They fundamentally al-ter the way we think of desktop software.

Can Office 365 convince you that renting software is a good deal?

Microsoft's radical new business plan is hidden in plain sight

Microsoft is in the process of a dramatic transition in its core business, one that I first noted last sum-mer. “Services are the cornerstone of Microsoft’s strategy,” I noted at the time.

Microsoft has thrown massive amounts of re-sources at the task of integrating cloud-based ser-vices into its flagship products. SkyDrive is a core part of Windows 8. Office 365 services are funda-mental to Office 2013. Azure is moving entire serv-er farms into the cloud. The subscription-based offerings of Office 365 are just a hint of what’s to come.

The biggest change of all?

You can no longer buy Office, Microsoft’s flagship product, on removable media. You can’t even download offline installer files for the three retail editions of Office: Home and Student, Home and Business, and Professional.

If you purchase a single-user copy of Office 2013 from an online reseller (including the Microsoft Store) you get a product key code. If you buy a boxed copy of Office 2013 from a retailer, you get a product key on a card.

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In either case, you have to go to office.com/setup.

That kicks off the online installer, which streams the setup files to your PC using a process called Click-to-Run. The Office programs you end up with—Word, Excel, Outlook, and so on—look and act just like conventional Windows desktop programs, but they’re ac-tually running in a virtualized en-vironment, allowing them to be updated automatically, without requiring that you use Windows Update. The underlying technolo-gy is the same enterprise-grade code that powers application vir-tualization (App-V) on corporate networks.

If you buy a new PC with a trial version of Office 2013 prein-stalled and enter a product key, you get a similar result.

But Microsoft really doesn’t want to sell you that perpetual license. As I pointed out when I did the math on Office subscriptions last September, “Sticking with ‘traditional’ software will cost you dearly.”

That’s more true than ever with Office 2013. Here’s a list of the stark difference between perpet-ual-license editions of the Office 2013 and the equivalent products sold through subscription:

You get much less software com-pared with the subscription edi-tions. Office Home and Student, at a cost of $140 for a single li-cense, gives you Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. With an Office 365 Home Premium subscription, you get those pro-grams and Outlook, Publisher, and Access.

You have to pay for future ver-sions. The subscription version al-ways entitles you to the most re-cent version. With a perpetual li-cense, you pay once but have to

pay all over again for new ver-sions. Multi-PC editions are no longer available. In some editions of pre-vious Office releases, Microsoft included the right to install the software on two or three PCs. With Office 2013, the retail edi-tions are for one PC, no excep-tions.

Your perpetual license is locked to one PC. The new license agree-ment contains identical language for all three retail editions: “Can I transfer the software to another computer or user? You may not transfer the software to another computer or user. You may trans-fer the software directly to a third party only as installed on the li-censed computer, with the Certifi-cate of Authenticity label and this agreement.” That’s a change from the license terms of previous Of-fice retail versions, which entitled you to reassign licenses between devices you own, as long as you do so no more than every 90 days.

Update: As my ZDNet UK col-league Mary Branscombe points out, some versions of Office 2010 include a comparable restriction. The license agreements for the retail editions of Office 2010 (Home & Student, Home & Busi-ness, and Professional) include three separate sets of terms. The Retail License Terms, which apply to boxed (aka "Full Package Prod-uct") software, include the ability to transfer licenses. The terms for OEM and Product Key Card cop-ies, however, include this lan-guage:

One Copy per Device. The soft-ware license is permanently as-signed to the device on which the software is initially activated. That device is the “licensed device.” That's similar to the way Win-dows licensing has historically

worked. OEM copies are sold at a substantial discount and are locked to the device they're sold with. The Product Key Card for Of-fice 2010 is a way of quickly acti-vating the trial version of Office 2010 that comes with many new PCs. Essentially, it's an OEM copy by another name. What's new in Office 2013 is the elimination of the Product Key Card terms and the removal in the Retail License Terms of the ability to reassign the license rights for retail copies.

That last restriction is the one that has Office users howling the most. And Microsoft’s answer is simple: If you want to move Of-fice licenses between PCs, buy one of the subscription editions, which makes the process practi-cally painless. From a web-based administration page, you can de-activate a license on one device and install a new copy of Office on another, without ever having to enter a product key. You also don’t have to worry about installing the original ver-sion and then applying a service pack and any subsequent up-dates. The Click-to-Run installer always includes the most up-to-date version.

Disclaimer of liability The Moocooboola Computer Club for Seniors Inc. and its official publication the Moocoo News do not invite reliance upon, nor accept responsibility for, the information it provides. The Moocoo-boola Computer Club for Seniors Inc. and its official publication the Moocoo News make every effort to provide a high quality newsletter. However, The Moocooboola Computer Club for Sen-iors Inc. and its official publication the Moocoo News do not give any guaran-tees, undertakings or warranties con-cerning the accuracy, completeness or up-to-date nature of the information provided. Users should confirm infor-mation from another source if it is of

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