Microsoft offers patches to WebKit to aid touch compatibility

Google, Mozilla, and Opera are on-board. Apple? Not so much.

In a move that has raised eyebrows, Microsoft has submitted a patch to the WebKit project to extend the open source rendering engine with a prototype implementation of the Pointer Events specification that the company is also working on together with Google, Mozilla, and Opera. WebKit is the rendering engine used in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome browsers, making Microsoft's work a contribution to products that are in direct competition to its own.
The patch came from Microsoft Open Technologies, a subsidiary company that Microsoft created in April to serve as a home for all of Microsoft's work and relationships with open source projects and development of open standards.
Pointer Events is a draft specification that provides a unified event model for multi-touch, pen, and mouse input. It's the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) second attempt at a standard for handling touch input. The first specification, Touch Events, has been essentially abandoned. Touch Events were modeled on the proprietary touch API that Apple added to Safari for the iPhone. However, the specification was written without Apple's involvement, and the Cupertino company refuses to commit to disclosure and royalty-free licensing of any patented technology that might cover the Touch Events spec.
This blocked further development of Touch Events, and led to Microsoft proposing the new Pointer Events spec. Microsoft, unlike Apple, is participating in W3C's standardization process and has made the intellectual property commitments that W3C demands. Representatives from Google, Firefox developer Mozilla, and Opera, along with Nokia, Zynga, jQuery, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, are all working with Microsoft to refine and improve Pointer Events. As with Touch Events, Apple is deciding not to get involved.
The contribution comes not long after Redmond encouraged Web developers to remember Internet Explorer and not assume that WebKit is the only rendering engine that's used on the mobile, touch-oriented Web. At the moment, touch-driven Web content is leaving Internet Explorer 10 (and hence Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8) behind, because it is being written for WebKit and Touch Events, and WebKit and Touch Events alone.
Google developers expressed interest in adding Pointer Events support to WebKit in November citing both compatibility with Internet Explorer, and the IP problems with Touch Events as reasons to do so. However, the response from one of Apple's WebKit developers was negative; the developer claimed that the Pointer Events spec had (unspecified) problems and that there was no point in supporting Pointer Events until real Web content used it. Another Google developer invited the Apple to join pointer events working group to help improve the specification and address those unspecified problems, but thus far Apple appears to be unwilling to participate.
With Google's WebKit developers open to the use of Pointer Events, it's likely that WebKit will, at some point, gain support for the spec. Microsoft's contribution could well help speed this process along Firefox and Opera are likely to implement the spec too, given their involvement with the standard. Should this happen, the ball will be squarely in Apple's court: it can either support actively-developed, royalty-free, interoperable Web standards, or it can stick with Touch Events and ignore the work being done.

Could smart gun technology make us safer?

It might, but funding for the technology has all but dried up

 In the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, smart gun technology prevents a bad guy from using Bond's own Walther PPK to shoot him. Far fetched? Not at all.

And, in the wake of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. last week, interest in gun safety is rising anew after developments in smart gun technology stalled out for a lack of interest and investors.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced a gun violence task force to come up with solutions to the problem of gun violence and is pressuring Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. He also wants stricter background checks and a limit on high-capacity gun magazines.
One area the president hasn't mentioned, but that is likely to come up, involves smart gun technology. Under development for more than a dozen years, it could use a person's unique grip, fingerprints or an RFID chip to limit weapon use only to someone authorized to fire the gun.
In fact, a half dozen campus police at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) already carry smart guns that prevent unauthorized use by disabling the trigger mechanism.
Smart gun technology proponents are quick to point out their systems would not necessarily have prevented the murder of the 20 children and six Sandy Hook Elementary staff by Adam Lanza on Dec. 14. "It is important to understand that these criminal acts have been perpetrated by authorized users with legally purchased firearms, and nothing in our technology would have stopped these killings," said Donald H. Sebastian, NJIT's senior vice president for research and development.
Sabastian pointed to news reports that Lanza's mother was a gun enthusiast who owned several weapons and took her son shooting with her, which would mean he would have likely had access and have been allowed to use the weapons. Had he not been authorized to use the guns, smart technology might at least deterred him.
Biometric authentication algorithm technology is about securing weapons in the home or workplace against unauthorized use.

 

Grip recognition

NJIT is a leading, and early, developer of smart gun technology. For more than a dozen years, it has been testing a Dynamic Grip Recognition Technology that Sebastian claims is 99% effective in preventing unauthorized use of a gun.
Dynamic Grip Recognition uses 32 sensors in the gun's grip, which, like voice recognition technology, can be trained to recognize a particular person's grip pattern profile and discriminate between authorized and unauthorized users.
The effort began with discussions on how to protect law enforcement officials who may have their guns taken in a struggle with a suspect.
"That led to the introduction of RFID technology and that goes back to the early 1990s," Sabastian said. "That's a different set of constraints than the gun sitting in the sock drawer, locked and loaded in case something goes bump in the night -- protecting your kids from having access to that.
"That's what led to the selection of biometrics and use of grip recognition technology," he said. "It works while you're pulling the trigger. It's not like you put a thumb print on the bottom to turn it on, and for some period of time it's active and ready to go for some period of time whether you have custody or not."
Development has been slow, however, because funding has lagged, with little interest so far from venture capitalists. In fact, current prototypes are based on 10-year-old microprocessors because of a lack of funds, Sebastian said.
 
"We have found no interest on the part of gun manufacturers in commercializing any aspect of user-authenticating weapons," Sebastian said.

 

Sensors in an older generation of the current handgun once looked like this. Newer generations of the handgun will have sleeker, smaller sensors and microchips at least half the size of the ones in this photograph (Image: New Jersey Institute of Technology)

For Dynamic Grip Recognition to work, the gun's processor is first placed in learning mode. Then, the user must shoot about 50 rounds to train the weapon to recognize a specific grip. (Multiple users can be saved in the system's memory.)
The Dynamic Grip Recognition software algorithms can also be tuned to be more or less sensitive. For example, a gun could be tuned to only accept an adult's hand profile or one similar to the owner's, while preventing children from being able to use it, Sebastian said.
"If it's a kid, it will probably never be recognized as an authorized user because the physical geometry will never be a match," he said.
One problem with the current prototypes, which use a Beretta 92F 9mm semi-automatic pistol, is that besides the microprocessor, the battery and I/O interface technology used for programing the gun is a decade old and is too cumbersome for mass-market production. For example, the current battery is a 9-volt and the cable is based on either a USB cable or 25-pin RS232 connector that's years behind current technology. If upgraded, guns could be programmed using smart-phone LTE 5G wireless technology, Sebastian said.

 

A researcher on the smart gun team tests the gun's trigger switch. Beneath his hand sits a digital signal processor box. (Image: New Jersey Institute of Technology)

While NJIT may be using Beretta pistols to test its technology, the Beretta company has not supported the school's efforts, according to Sebastian.
"We're out of money," he said. "We're able to keep things going for another semester or so, but we're looking at private investment and we'll see if the mood is changing. "...That may bring more investors out of the cold."
NJIT's grip recognition is only one smart gun technology among many available. Others include fingerprint recognition though infrared fingerprint readers and the use of RFID radio chips.
While several technologies can be used to recognize fingerprints, such as infrared, optical scanning and pressure sensors that can determine the grooves of a person's fingerprints, Sebastian argues they're too kludgy to use, and not always reliable.
"At best, we found that they were 75% reliable, and that's under laboratory conditions," he said. "And there are all kinds of ways they can be confused and not work: Dry fingers on capacitor systems cause problems; leaving behind the residue of your finger print can cause problems; cold hands; gloves, no gloves. There are a lot of reasons just as a technology that it is flawed.


"Then you get into where do you put it on the gun, so that your finger falls in a natural way. It's very difficult...to find one place that fits for all."

 

RFID technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology has developed RFID smart gun technology for a company called TriggerSmart, an Irish firm that has been granted patents for its weapons' safety devices in the U.S. and 47 other countries. The technology, developed at the school's County Westmeath, Ireland campus, has yet to be integrated by any gun manufacturers.
"They've done a lot of work in the U.S. with trying to get gun manufacturers [interested], but to be honest there's quite a bit of resistance from the gun industry in the U.S. to the technology," said Joe Dowling, general manager at Georgia Tech Ireland.
"They see it as another level of control that they don't want to implement," he continued. "TriggerSmart has been saying, 'Hey, it's not that we don't want you to have a gun, it's just another optional safety feature you may want.' "
Computerworld attempted to contact gun makers Smith & Wesson and Mossberg & Sons, both of which have had smart gun development efforts in the past. Smith & Wesson officials did not return requests for comment. Mossberg declined to comment on the issue.
In 1999, Mossberg subsidiary Advanced Ordnance and electronics design contractor KinTech Manufacturing developed a smart technology using RFID chips that was marketed by iGun technology Corp.. Officials at iGun Technology could not be reached for comment.
TriggerSmart's technology also works with RFID chips through an RFID tag carried by or implanted in the hand of an authorized gun user. The tag sends a high frequency radio signal to a small motor that unlocks the gun's safety mechanism. Unless the RFID tag is within one centimeter of the gun's handle, the weapon's safety will remain in the locked position and it cannot be unlocked until the radio signal is received. A small rechargeable battery that can hold up to a week's worth of power, enables the internal motor.
The distance at which the signal works can be tuned to be several centimeters away from the gun or as close as two millimeters.

The technology used in TriggerSmart's prototype costs about $50, but if it were mass produced that cost would drop significantly, Dowling said. While the technology can be retrofitted to guns, the process requires a pistol grip change as well as the motor install, making it better suited to integration during the manufacturing process.
While the technology was originally developed for police use, it could easily be adapted for civilian or military use.
"We've been talking with the New York Police Department about it," Dowling said. "Up to 40% of instances where an officer is shot, they're shot with their own gun. This technology would obviously solve that problem."

 

Biometrics access control

Not all biometrics technology is focused on integration with weapons. For example, LEID Products LLC has created Biometric Access Control System (BACS) that can be used on gun lockers and storage containers to restrict access to guns and to track when and by whom weapons are used.
LEID Products has also created electronic lockers and rifle racks to secure the weapons. Authorized users whose names and biometric information has been recorded, go to a kiosk and log in by using either hand geometry or fingerprint scans. Users can also be limited to specific weapons, even if they're allowed into a locker with a gun rack.
"For example, if a law enforcement officer hadn't been certified to use a Taser, then he wouldn't be allowed to log in for access," said Georgia Whalen, director of marketing for LEID Products.
Gun-locker access can be controlled locally or remotely by one or more administrators using a PC. "So if an event like what happened at that elementary school occurred, the administrator can touch a computer button at home and release all the equipment to all the officers," Whalen said.


Currently, several government agencies throughout the country have installed or are considering LEID's BACS lockers, including the National Institutes of Health, which developed the technology to develope its armory in 2009. The U.S. National Park Service is also considering installing lockers in different locations at national monuments for emergency use by its police force, Whalen said.
But such systems would likely be too expensive for home use. Just the kiosk and software for BACS retail for about $18,000. One gun rack is about $8,000, Whalen said.

 

Political and social climate

Biometrics technology proponents readily admit that their systems can be thwarted, and no single technology or piece of legislation will completely solve the gun safety problem. There are also logistical issues. For example, what if an officer forgets his RFID tag and can't operate his weapon?
"Even if you have smart guns, people can find ways if they are competent enough to get around the technologies," Georgia Tech's Dowling said. "The question as to whether it prevents these mass shootings or not is still open. But it's one more barrier and, in my mind, it's about statistics and probability. If it reduces the probability by a certain percentage, then it's worth it."
Yet, Dowling admits the political and even social climate around gun safety has vacillated over the past two decades. During President Clinton's administration in the 1990s, there was intense interest in the development of the technology, he said. Once Clinton left office, support for the technology evaporated.
One problem, proponents say, is perspective. Gun enthusiasts and organizations such as the National Rifle Association may view smart gun technology as gun control instead of gun safety.
Since President Obama took office in 2009, however, there have been several mass shootings. U.S. army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded 42 others at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009; Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in Tuscon, Ariz. in January 2011, killing six people -- including a nine-year-old girl -- and wounding Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
This year alone, there have been three mass shootings, including James Holmes' rampage in an Colorado movie theater screening of The Dark Knight Rises; Wade Michael Page's shooting of six people in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin; and Lanza's massacre of 27 in Newtown, Conn. last week
With all those shootings, gun safety proponents said attention may be turning back toward technology as a solution.
For example, NJIT has seen some renewed interest from venture capitalists, Sebastian said, though none from the gun manufacturing industry. "There are a lot of things that conspire against that," he said.
"I want to keep emphasizing that this is about gun safety and not about gun control," he said. "When you change the climate of discussion from gun control, you have people who might be more willing to talk about novel approaches to improving and increasing the safety without it becoming poisoned as a stealthy approach to gun control, and therefore, throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 goes on sale, may arrive in January

Lenovo's ThinkPad Tablet2 has been an elusive beast. We heard about pricing in October with promises that it would arrive the same month, but it was held back at the last moment with few progress updates since. Patience, it turns out, is a virtue: the Windows 8 tablet has returned, ready for sale. The promised $649 starting price offers a 64GB WiFi version; spending $30 more adds a pen input and digitizer screen for frequent note-takers, while a $729 version loads Windows 8 Pro for the corporate crowd. No one's likely to put it on their last-minute gift shopping list, though. Lenovo estimates a delivery date of January 7th, which won't be much consolation to recipients short of an IOU.

How Facebook Might Further Annoy Users Next Year

Having already ticked off many users in late 2012 with photo-licensing changes, sharing limitations, and an end to policy voting, Facebook plans to insert video ads into users’ News Feeds in 2013, according to a report.
Facebook plans to unveil 15-second video ads by April within both mobile and desktop news feeds, several Advertising Executives tell Ad Age. The ads will start playing automatically, according to two of the executives, and Facebook has reportedly not decided whether to mute audio from the ads. Ad Age reports that the commercials will even expand beyond the middle web page section that normally contains the news feed, taking over the left and right rails of the page as well.
Facebook declined to comment. Video ads are a dicey topic for the social network. On the one hand, they are a great way for Facebook to goose revenue, at least as far as Wall Street analysts are concerned. But video ads — in particular those that play automatically — are basically guaranteed to annoy users. And user patience with Facebook is already wearing thin. The social network generated huge controversy in this month when it revised the Instagram terms of service to allow advertisers free use of people’s names and photos. Shortly before that, Facebook upset some users by limiting how its photos could be shared on the rival site Twitter. And before that Facebook pissed some people off by ending a system that let people vote on changes to how the site was run. That’s all since late November.

For years now, Facebook has been able to keep growing despite a whole slew of controversies and annoying changes. For all the hubbub in the press and among the digerati, ordinary people have by and large stuck by the big blue juggernaut. The question now is how much more they can take.

How Social Media, Mobile Are Playing a Bigger Part in Healthcare

Google search has become part of our medical check-up these days. If you browse WebMD, Google or various online forums for answers before a doctor visit, you're not alone.
It's tempting to see if we can find an answer to our health questions in an instant when a world of information is at our fingertips, rather than leaving work or home. Flawed and inaccurate as some of that information may be, there are also many useful sites and forums with advice from actual doctors. 

A study compiled by Demi & Cooper Advertising and DC Interactive Group shows that more than 90% of people ages 18-24 said they would trust health information they found on social media channels. One in two adults use their smartphone to look-up health information. Patients are also taking to the Interwebs to talk about the care they received: 44% of people said they would share positive or negative experiences of a hospital or medical facility, and 42% said they wouldn't hesitate to post comments about a doctor, nurse or healthcare provider on social media.
More than a quarter of hospitals have a social media presence. And 60% of doctors say social media improves the quality of care.
There's no doubt hospitals and doctors benefit from social media -- at least when patients leave them good reviews and talk about their positive experiences.
But since doctors are required to keep healthcare information private, in accordance with HIPAA laws, it's essential that they are aware of boundaries while using social media, says Ryan Greysen, assistant clinical professor in the department of medicine at University of California, San Francisco.
Greysen tells Mashable doctors should be careful with what information they give to patients on social networks. The security of such sites is important to consider since medical advice and information should be completely private.
"The great thing with social media is it can be shared, but that's the downside [for health information]," he says. "Healthcare is very new in this area."
Greysen says he suspects it will only be a couple years until more secure technologies for doctor and patient sharing will be available.

Doctors commenting on public forums offering medical advice can present liability issues, too. However, "secured patient portals are a great way to leverage mobile technology to promote healthy behavior." Healthcare providers often offer these through their websites.
Sometimes consulting a forum for a already diagnosed condition can be reliable, especially if a doctor is involved in monitoring it. But there are no studies that show patients with access to medical forums have better care than those who don't, says Greysen.
Plus, the web may not always be the best place to go for a diagnosis.
"A lot of medical conditions require much more detail and dialogue between the patient and physician," he said. "In many cases it [a website] doesn't substitute for an in-person visit."
"We haven't turned the corner to where we can say social media have changed people's outcomes, but there are some really interesting projects out there that are changing that," he says. "I think we're within a couple years of having secure sites and capturing more details about patient circumstance."
Check out the infographic below and tell us, does your healthcare provider offer useful online tools to connect with your doctor?

Instagram backtracks after user privacy revolt

Faced with a loud and angry backlash from some of its most active users, photo-sharing app Instagram backtracked Tuesday on new language that appeared to give the company ownership of their images.

"The language we proposed ... raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systromwrote in a Blogpost. "We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we're going to remove the language that raised the question."

An update Monday to Instgram's terms of services had stated that data collected through the app can be shared with Facebook. That's not a surprising move, considering Facebook paid an estimated $1 billion for the photo-sharing service earlier this year.

But the language that upsets some app more than 100 million users said that "a business or other entity may pay" Instagram for the use of user images and may do so "without any compensation to you."

That didn't sit well with some -- including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's wedding photographer.

 "Pro or not if a company wants to use your photos for advertising they need to TELL you and PAY you," Nha Kalina wrote today on Twitter.

Kalina stopped short of vowing to quit Instagram, saying he hopes that language will be deleted. The proposed changes are set to go into effect January 16.

Others weren't being so patient.

A popular Twitter feed associated with the hacker collective Anonymous was urging its more than 780,000 followers to dump the app Tuesday morning.

"Only way to opt out of @instagram selling your photos is deleting your account," wrote the person who runs the account. "Sounds good to us. #BoycottInstagram".

The feed posted image after image of screen shots from followers who had done just that. It claimed it was receiving thousands of such images -- too many to count.

Systrom wrote that the intent of the new terms was "to communicate that we'd like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram."

"Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation," he wrote. "This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear."

The new terms appeared to significantly broaden what Instagram can do with users' content. Currently they say, "Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content."

Systrom's post came after a morning when social media and tech blogs lit up with complaints. #BoycottInstagram and #Instagram were top trending topics on Twitter for much of the day.

Wil Wheaton, who parlayed a child-actor stint on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" into becoming one of the Web's earliest star bloggers, wrote that he doesn't use Instagram. But he questions whether other "celebrities to some degree" could be exploited if they do.

"If someone Instagrams a photo of Seth Green walking through an Urban Outfitters, does that mean Urban Outfitters can take that image and use it to create an implied endorsement by Seth?" Wheaton wrote. "What if the picture is taken by a complete stranger? Who gets final say in how the image is used? The subject, the photographer, or Instagram?"

Even CNN's own Anderson Cooper was expressing some concern on the site.

"#Instagram will now be able to use anyone's photos in ads? Without consent?" he wrote on Twitter. "Come on! Is there another photo app people recommend?"

Cooper wasn't the only one considering his options.

"I have my fingers crossed that they, Instagram, will listen to the voice of the community and reverse the new terms of service, but I'm not holding my breath," wrote photojournalist Richard Koci Hernandez, who has more than 163,000 Instagram followers. He shared his thoughts on Instagram, where he was posting blank black squares instead of his usual artful black-and-white images.

"I don't feel like debating the terms of service or being too nostalgic about the old days of Instagram, I feel that it's much better just to take our work and more importantly friendship and conversation to another place that respects our rights and ownership as creators," Hernandez added. "Let's move the party to a new location."

Bloggers also were spotlighting tools like Hipstamatic and Camera Awesome, as well as Twitter's own new photo services that includes Instagram-like filters.

A year and half old Blogpost from photo-sharing site Flickr was also making the rounds. In it, Yahoo, which owns Flickr, uses language, perhaps aimed at Facebook, that says "(w)e feel very strongly that sharing online shouldn't mean giving up rights to your photos."

Systrom said Instagram agrees.

"Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos," he wrote. "Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period."

It is, of course, too early to know how many people were fleeing Instagram on Tuesday. But anecdotal evidence suggested a movement was afoot.

Instaport, a tool that lets users export and and download their Instagram images, was reporting overtaxed servers Tuesday morning.

"Our servers are very busy right now, so it may show you some errors," the company wrote to a user on its Twitter feed. "Please try again later or tomorrow."

Google's cloud-based music-matching service has arrived... and it's free

Price isn't the only difference—Google has higher quality files and no "sin tax."

 Google has announced its own music-matching locker service, but unlike Amazon's cloud player and iTunes match, this new service is free. Google play in this new in carnation, first debuted in Europe a month ago and now it has finally come stateside.

Google music beta (as it was then-called) first debuted in 2011—the new service will scan your computer's music collection, then check that against Google's servers and serve you with a stream of those songs. Previously, the service required you to upload each song through its client application.
“Our new music matching feature gets your songs into your online music library on Google Play much faster,” the company wrote Tuesday on its Google+ page. “We’ll scan your collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud—all for free. And we’ll stream your music back to you at up to 320 kbps.”
Importantly, folks who were hip to Google Music Beta/Google Play back in the day don't have to go through this rigamarole twice.
"If you’re a longtime Google Play Music user, you don’t need to re-upload your files to have them matched," the company now says. "In the next few months, we'll automatically match what we can of your existing library."
This is where the Wall Street Journal identifies a second big difference. Rather than employ Apple’s or Amazon’s strategy—having users pay a “sin tax” for music that may not be 100 percent legally acquired—Google is simply writing “big up-front checks” to the major music labels.
And if this sort of thing matters to you, Apple’s iTunes Match and Amazon’s Cloud Player only offer 256kbps downloads, rather than Google’s 320kbps.
Ars will have a full review of Google Play in the coming wee