Apple Attempts To Revolutionize Yet Another Industry: Education

TRANSCRIPT:

RAY HOLLISTER: This changes everything, again, or does it?

On Thursday, January 19th, Apple held a special press conference at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City where  Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, laid out Apple’s two-part vision for revolutionizing education. For the first part, Schiller explained the problems with textbooks.

PHIL SCHILLER: If you’re a child who has to move from class to class with 3 or 4 or 5 of these, it’s a bit cumbersome. They’re not interactive. They’re not searchable. An author can’t update the content once they’ve been handed out to the students. They’re just not the ideal, modern teaching tool.

RAY HOLLISTER: So, Schiller announced that to solve these problems Apple was…

PHIL SCHILLER: reinventing the textbook.

RAY HOLLISTER: Apple is reinventing the textbook with the introduction of two new apps: iBooks 2 and iBooks Author.

iBooks 2 brings a slew of new features to Apple’s iBooks app, including the ability to embed audio, video, and 3D models right into the book, making their otherwise fairly static electronic books highly interactive. These new textbooks are searchable, and they can have embedded glossaries that students can access just by tapping on a word. Also, Apple has added the ability to make highlights in the textbooks with just a swipe of the finger and the ability to add notes in the book just by tapping the screen. Additionally, one of the most impressive features is that using those highlights and notes, iBooks automatically creates study cards that the student can use to prepare for quizzes and tests.

iBooks Author is a new application that publishers, professors, teachers, and writers can use to create iBooks that can be submitted for free or for sale in Apple’s iBookstore. With iBooks Author anyone can create their own textbooks, cookbooks, history books, novels, non fiction,  or picture books. The software allows the user to drag and drop from Microsoft Word or Apple Pages documents, and it automatically formats the content into chapters and sections. Also, the author can easily add interactive photo galleries, videos, Keynote presentations and 3D objects using the “Multi-Touch widgets” that the software provides. Surprisingly, Apple has made this software available to everyone for free, however, it only works on Mac laptop and desktop computers.

For the second part of Apple’s vision for revolutionizing education Schiller passed the torch to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

EDDY CUE: So, I want to tell you about the second thing we’re doing for education today, and that is we’re gonna help teachers reinvent the curriculum, and to do that I’d like to talk about iTunes U.

RAY HOLLISTER: iTunes U used to just be a section of the iTunes store where video and audio podcasts of college lectures could be downloaded. Now, Apple has turned iTunes U into a stand alone own app where students can get everything they need for a class all in one place. When student “enroll” in a class on the iTunes U app on their iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch they will find the syllabus and all the lectures, presentations, assignments, books and quizzes at their fingertips. Professors and teachers can make changes to the class as needed, and push notifications will go out to all the students on their iOS devices.

The elephant in the room that critics say Schiller did not realistically address in his presentation was the issue of cost. Printed high school textbooks currently tend to cost between $50 – $100, and to save money, most schools only replace them every 3 to 5 years. The high school textbooks that Apple introduced at the event were priced at $14.99. However, in order to use these textbooks effectively each student would have to have their own iPad. Starting at almost $500 a piece, issuing an iPad to each student would add a significant cost to public school district budgets that are already stretched thin from limited tax revenues.

However, at least one school here in Jacksonville is making the switch. University Christian, a private school, is going to require students to own an iPad 2 starting next school year. Students already spend about $700 a year for textbooks. So, now they’ll have a $500 iPad, plus iBooks at about $15 a piece, and the student’s overall cost ends up being about the same as before or less.

And, there’s hope on the horizon for cash strapped public school districts to join this education revolution as well. Each year, when Apple announces the latest version of devices, it almost always reduces the price of the prior year’s model at the same time. Based on Apple’s previous track record, the iPad 3 is expected to be announced in February, and at that time, it may also reduce the price of the iPad 2 to $399. This will put the “iCurriculum” at a price point that is closer to what many school districts are currently paying for textbooks which just might let Apple change everything, again.

 I’m Ray Hollister

HzO WaterBlock Revealed at CES 2012

TRANSCRIPT:

RAY HOLLISTER: In the movies, cell phones never seem to get wet unless it helps to move the plot along, like when Anne Hathaway’s character, Andy Sachs, in “The Devil Wears Prada” tosses her ringing cell phone in the fountain after she decides that she doesn’t want to be like her work obsessed boss, Miranda Priestly, or like when Tim Allen’s character in “Wild Hogs” throws John Travolta’s cell phone into the fountain.

Scene from “Wild Hogs”
WOODY (John Travolta): You don’t need a GPS to discover America! You need a bike, and you need the road. OK? Freedom! And if we have an emergency, I got a cell phone.
DOUG (Tim Allen): No, you don’t! (Tosses Woody’s cell phone into the fountain)
WOODY: What! Hey! Why’d you do that? I’ve got all my data in there!
DOUG: Well! How does that feel, Woody?
WOODY: (Pauses) It feels good! Wooo! (Sings) It’s my prerogative! No cell phones!
DOUG: Wait a minute. No wait. Come on!
BOBBY (Martin Lawrence): Doug, Doug, Doug. He’s right. Wooo! Yeah! Yeah, Wild Hogs Baby! Wild Hogs!

Unfortunately, in real life, some cell phones end up in the water even when we don’t want them to. For example, when your dog walks up to see what you are doing with your cell phone next to the pool,

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Whatcha doing mate? Hey, whatcha doin’?

SOUND OF MAN AND CAMERA FALLING INTO THE POOL

RAY HOLLISTER: or when you’re showing off how good the video camera works on your new iPhone…next to the pool.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: OK, so I’m taking video with my new iPhone 3G camera. OK, this is great! This, this is perfect, lovely. And uh, yeah, this is…

SOUND OF MAN SLIPPING AND FALLING INTO THE POOL

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Oh crap. (indiscernible background voices) Wait, it’s still works!

RAY HOLLISTER: That guy was lucky, but unfortunately whether it’s at the pool, the ocean, the tub, the dogs water bowl, or even the toilet, mobile phones have a way of slipping out of our hands and ending up soaked, and that usually means that they are completely destroyed.

But, what if it didn’t have to be that way? Now, there are several products on the market that will waterproof your phone, from expensive military grade cases to something as simple as a Ziploc® baggie, and there are several how to videos on the internet showing you how to fix your phone if it does gets soaked, from tricks involving blow dryers, freezers, and even rice to get the water out of your phone and possibly save it.

But, what if you could just dunk your phone in water all you wanted to and it would never break? You’d never have to worry about sweat getting on it when you went running, a spilled drink at a cocktail party, or a toddler’s juice box getting sprayed all over your phone.

This dream might soon become a reality. This year at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show a company called Zagg, introduced a new technology they’re calling HzO WaterBlock. They demonstrated the technology by dunking an iPod touch, a Samsung Galaxy S and several other devices in a glass of water and in a fish tank! The Samsung Galaxy S performed as if nothing was wrong, and the iPod touch continued playing music the entire time it was in the water. They even dunked the external speaker they had attached to it in the fish tank, and it too continued working.

They apply the HzO Waterblock by placing the device in a vacuum and then filling that vacuum with a vapor. This vapor then fills every crack and crevice inside your device applying a nano-scale film barrier that once dried protects the electronics from water and humidity. Of course, the chemical that the vapor is comprised of is proprietary and the entire process is patented. So, they won’t tell us much about it, but they say that the chemical is non-toxic, organic material.

So, what I wanted to know is when can I get my iPhone 4S Waterblocked? Well, HzO doesn’t make phones, and there not trying to get in the business of aftermarket alterations. They are going to be doing a special limited release of WaterBlocked iPod touches, iPod Nanos, and iPod Shuffles with HzO inside. However, ZAGG is primarily interested in licsensing the technology to device manufacturers. So, hopefully, companies like Apple and Samsung will adopt this technology, and we’ll see it in the next generation of devices, perhaps at CES 2013.

In the meanwhile, you’ll just have to being careful when you’re using your cell phone…next to the pool…or other water.

I’m Ray Hollister

Dropped My Phone In The Toilet

HP Open-Sources webOS

TRANSCRIPT:

RAY HOLLISTER: Recently HP announced that they are open-sourcing the operating system that runs their phones and tablets called webOS.
In a nutshell, open-sourcing means that Hewlett-Packard will be sharing the source code of webOS, the human readable code that the operating system is programmed with. Now this is quite different compared to companies like Apple who jealously guards the code that their iOS operating system runs on.

This puts HP’s webOS at a crossroad. This could revitalize the operating system to where you could see webOS devices everywhere, or they could just be putting it out to pasture.

To give you some background story, webOS itself was wildly praised by many critics and users when it was announced by Palm at the Consumers Electronic Show in January of 2009, but the phones and tablets that it ran on were all disappointing sellers.

JEFF BAKALAR: The phone is great, they just have absolutely no quality control.

RAY HOLLISTER: That was Jeff Bakalar, Associate Editor and Co-Host of CNET’s “The 404” on the episode just after he had received his 9th Palm Pre. All of his previous eight Palm Pre’s had to be taken back to Sprint because they were defective. Sales of Palm’s phones were so dismal that the company was rumored to be on the edge of bankruptcy when HP announced that they were purchasing Palm for 1.2 billion dollars in late April of 2010.

After HP purchased Palm, they excited fans by holding an event on February 9th of 2011 announcing two new phones and a tablet device with what can only be compared with the excitement of an Apple keynote event.

(“Daft Punk Is Playing at My House” by LCD Soundsystem begins playing. A crowd applauding and cheering can be heard.)

TODD BRADLEY: Well good morning! Welcome to San Francisco.

RAY HOLLISTER: However, that excitement wore off quickly as HP did not announce prices or when the devices were expected to launch. The HP Veer, a diminutive phone with a face only slightly larger than a credit card finally came out over three months later, and the HP Touchpad was finally released on July 1st. Both sold so poorly that only 48 days after the Touchpad was released HP canceled all webOS devices. In the same announcement they stated that they would ?explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.?

Four months later, HP’s newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman finally announced that they would be open-sourcing webOS.

So, unless you’re already familiar with how open-source software works, you are probably asking, “OK, what does that mean?” Well, it means that HP is letting everyone take a look under the hood, and take out the parts they want, or they can take the entire system and install it on their own devices. This is the same way that Android, which is primarily made by Google, works. In fact, webOS could potentially become a serious competitor to Android, which has taken over the market share from Apple’s iPhone.

The question is, will webOS be successful as an open source platform? The main factor that has separated the successes from the failures has been the level of manufacturer support. If only modders, hackers and tinkerers put webOS on their phones and tablets, and hardware manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, Samsung and Sony do not adopt it, then webOS may not find success in the open-source after life.

DEREK KESSLER: If that is to be the future of webOS, that’s a death sentence.

RAY HOLLISTER: That was Derek Kessler, Editor-in-Chief of webOSNation.com, a news site dedicated to webOS news and discussion. Derek has been following the news around Palm and subsequently webOS and HP since 2000, and despite his concern that HP still has not announced any partners in manufacturing, he still remains optimistic.

DEREK KESSLER: I’m very hopeful that HP and other companies latch on to this open-source webOS and actually do something with it, and they do something amazing, and make hardware and software that is actually worth putting out, and worth buying, and good for the users, and good for the companies that make it.

From 89.9 WJCT, I’m Ray Hollister