Facebook's Messenger Protocol Will Power the Internet of Things

One of the big problems with creating a connected house?where thermostats talk to light swtiches which talk to coffee-making robots?is that there?s a lot of communication protocols, and most of them are proprietary. But never fear, a new standard?s been agreed on: um, Faccebook Messenger.

More strictly, it?s the protocol that powers Facebook Messenger?s mobile comms, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, that's been chosen by a high-profile band of companies as the future of the Internet of Things. MQTT was originally designed for stuff like sending telemetry data to and from satellites, so the focus on low-bandwidth and low-power was an ideal match for Facebook. The lightweight nature of the protocol should also come in pretty handy when dozens of devices with low-power chipsets (like those light switches) want to communicate.

The group that?s chosen MQTT as the protocol is pretty weighty, too ? it?s called OASIS (The Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), and has members including Cisco, IBM and the Eclipse Foundation. They?ve got heritage, too ? they?re the group behind the sorta-popular OpenDocument format. [The Register]

---

Our newest offspring Gizmodo UK is gobbling up the news in a different timezone, so check them out if you need another Giz fix.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/facebooks-messenger-protocol-will-power-the-internt-of-486192099

selection sunday NIT Tournament clay matthews Ncaa Tournament 2013 2013 NCAA Bracket leprechaun ides of march

Facebook Earnings Graphs Shows Shift To Mobile May Be Depressing Domestic Ad Revenue Per User

It appears that as people switch from the desktop where Facebook shows multiple ads per page to mobile, Facebook is earning less ad revenue per user in its most important markets. While user growth helped total revenue increase, in the US and Canada Facebook earned $2.85 on ads per user (ads ARPU) in Q1, down from $3.30 in the holiday Q4 2012, but also down from $2.87 in Q3. Another important stat is that Facebook’s monthly active and daily active users in the US and Canada increased, despite erroneous recent claims from third-party data providers and critics that Facebook had lost users in US. That’s critical because the US and Canada are where Facebook earns the most money per user. One graph we wish Facebook would release is mobile user counts by geography. This could show whether developing markets coming online mobile-first are responsible for its huge surge to 751 million mobile monthly users from 680 million in Q4 2012. Check out the rest of these graphs for detailed stats on Facebook’s user growth, income, expenses, and more.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JKXXVMdsxsY/

billy joel bent new york jets etch a sketch romney sean payton saints bounty program toulouse france

New zooming technique for entering text into smartwatches

Apr. 30, 2013 ? Technology blogs have been abuzz that smartwatches may soon be on their way from companies such as Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft. But as capable as these ultra-small computers may be, how will users enter an address, a name, or a search term into them? One solution is an iterative zooming technique developed and tested by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

Called ZoomBoard, this text entry technique is based on the familiar QWERTY keyboard layout. Though the full keyboard is impossibly small on a watch-size display, simply tapping the screen once or twice will enlarge an individual key until it can be comfortably and accurately pressed.

Capital letters can be typed by momentarily holding a key. A swipe to the left deletes a character. A swipe to the right types a space. An upward swipe calls up a secondary keyboard of numbers and other symbols.

"You aren't going to write a novel, but it gets the job done," said Stephen Oney, a Ph.D. student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). "This opens up new possibilities for devices such as smartwatches, which generally lack any means of entering text, as many aren't powerful enough for voice recognition."

"Users can enter about 10 words per minute at high accuracy on a keyboard the size of a penny," said Chris Harrison, a Ph.D. candidate who will soon join the HCII faculty. "That's plenty fast enough to dial a phone number, or enter 'where is pizza?' or get 'directions home.'"

Oney and Harrison developed and evaluated ZoomBoard with fellow HCII students Amy Ogan and Jason Wiese. They will present their findings May 1 at CHI 2013, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Paris, where the research was awarded an honorable mention for Best Paper.

A video demonstration and other material is available at the project website, http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/Zoomboard.

"A lot of people are banking on voice for text entry on very small devices, and no doubt voice will play an increasingly central role," Harrison said. "But sometimes you need to enter something discretely and without a big fuss; for that, ZoomBoard is great."

Other approaches to text input on small devices have included new keyboard layouts and gesture-based characters. But the HCII team opted to use the conventional QWERTY keyboard because the configuration is instantly familiar to users.

Further development of ZoomBoard might include a language model, a standard feature on most soft keyboards that suggests possible words based on the first few letters typed; for ZoomBoard, this might also involve adjusting the centering point of the first zoom step over a predicted letter.

The researchers say ZoomBoard also could be useful on larger keyboards for people who have movement disorders that make typing difficult or for people who are using their keyboards while jogging.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/LRlQwXwef9w/130430131538.htm

huntsville al channel 2 news adrienne bailon yelp stock honda classic news channel 5 nashville weather

Column: Bangladesh and the cost of doing nothing - Bremmer

By Ian Bremmer

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In Bangladesh, the search for survivors has become an effort to recover the dead. After a garment factory building collapsed in the Dhaka suburb of Savar last week, residents and rescue workers spent days digging through the rubble hoping to save the lives of people caught in yet another Bangladeshi industrial accident. At least 390 people are thought to have died.

This type of accident is all too common in Bangladesh. In November, more than 100 people died in a garment factory fire when workers could not easily escape the building. In 2006, 84 people were killed in a blaze because fire exits were locked.

This is what happens when a $20 billion industry accounts for 3.2 million jobs and 80 percent of a country's exports. It needs the industry too much, especially when those jobs have helped push female participation in the workplace from 26.1 percent in 2002-03 to a still-insufficient 36 percent in 2010.

The globalized economy demands that Bangladesh provide cheap goods, and cheap goods are easier to manufacture when there aren't strict rules to follow ? or at least when they're not enforced.

It also helps when those rules are set by the same people who own the factory buildings. A sector that is too big to fail can repel government-induced regulation. Mohammed Sohel Rana, who owned the building that collapsed, was escorted to court yesterday in body armor and a helmet. But the factory wasn't his only project ? he was also a local leader of the ruling party's youth wing. This is partly why it's so hard for developing countries to bite the hand that feeds. It would require the powerful to bite themselves.

A groundswell of protest might change things, and we're seeing the beginnings of that. Bangladeshis have burned factories to the ground to make clear that the garment industry is not as invincible as it seems. Citizens want action, and with an election coming later this year, they'll have the government's attention.

Sensing this, Bangladeshi officials, after reportedly refusing rescue help from Britain, have promised to take action to prevent accidents like this from happening again. Rana built his factory on swampland and then kept the building open after long cracks were discovered in its pillars. In a country as reliant on one industry as Bangladesh, regulations are just the first step - success depends on consistent enforcement.

What does this mean for Western corporations? In a situation like this, a company's imperative is to get ahead of government, to make rather than simply accept new standards. But until government acts, don't expect much from the private sector.

Bangladesh isn't the kind of country that will shame a company into compliance by tarring its reputation ? it's too small, and media coverage of its labor practices pales in comparison to China's. Until pressure is added from outside Bangladesh, action inside the country won't force change in the private sector.

We've seen mass protest against labor practices in the past, most famously when sweatshops became a cause c?l?bre in the 1990s. It was mounting progress and pressure that changed work conditions then, thanks to non-governmental organizations, celebrities and major American brands transforming consumer behavior in the United States. But Bangladesh doesn't have its own Kathie Lee. Aside from disasters like this, the country rarely makes headlines in the West, despite a population bigger than that of Germany and France combined.

When there's money to be lost, it's harder to build momentum for change. This was a horrific disaster ? and a preventable one. Let's hope its human cost convinces Bangladesh's government and its private sector that it can no longer afford not to act.

(Ian Bremmer is a Reuters columnist but his opinions are his own.)

(This column is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer. Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group, the leading global political risk research and consulting firm. Bremmer created Wall Street's first global political risk index, and has authored several books, including the national bestseller, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?, which details the new global phenomenon of state capitalism and its geopolitical implications. He has a PhD in political science from Stanford University (1994), and was the youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution.)

(Ian Bremmer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/column-bangladesh-cost-doing-nothing-bremmer-205737284.html

gold rush windows 8 Emanuel Steward nyc.gov SAT Notre Dame Football Schedule detroit tigers

Kaley Cuoco: New Hairdo Caused By Forehead Gash!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/kaley-cuoco-new-hairdo-caused-by-forehead-gash/

st louis rams ryan tannehill pittsburgh steelers seattle seahawks space shuttle new york courtney upshaw catch me if you can

Boston suspect's defense team gets major boost

FILE - In this April 26, 2013 file photo, Judy Clarke, a defense lawyer whose high-profile clients include "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, and Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, speaks at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Clarke was appointed Monday, April 29, 2013 to the team representing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - In this April 26, 2013 file photo, Judy Clarke, a defense lawyer whose high-profile clients include "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, and Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, speaks at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Clarke was appointed Monday, April 29, 2013 to the team representing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

This Friday, April 19, 2013 photo shows the home of Katherine Russell's parents in North Kingstown, R.I. Russell, widow of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has been staying there. FBI agents visited the home Monday, April 29, 2013, and carried away several bags. (AP Photo/Joe Giblin)

Katherine Russell, right, wife of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the law office of DeLuca and Weizenbaum with Amato DeLuca, left, Monday, April 29, 2013, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)

FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev's legal defense is in the hands of Miriam Conrad, the chief federal public defender for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Conrad has asked a judge to appoint two additional lawyers with experience in death penalty cases. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)

BOSTON (AP) ? The defense team representing the Boston Marathon bombing suspect got a major boost Monday with the addition of Judy Clarke, a San Diego lawyer who has managed to get life sentences instead of the death penalty for several high-profile clients, including the Unabomber and the gunman in the rampage that injured former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Clarke's appointment was approved Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler.

Bowler denied, at least for now, a request from Miriam Conrad, the public defender of 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to appoint a second death penalty lawyer ? David Bruck, a professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law.

Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction during the April 15 marathon. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when two bombs exploded near the finish line.

The suspect's lawyers could renew their motion to appoint another death penalty expert if he is indicted, the judge said.

Clarke's clients have included the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski; Susan Smith, who drowned her two children; Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph; and most recently Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner. All received life sentences instead of the death penalty.

Clarke has rarely spoken publicly about her work and did not return a call seeking comment Monday. However, at a speech Friday at a legal conference in Los Angeles, she talked about how she had been "sucked into the black hole, the vortex" of death penalty cases 18 years ago when she represented Smith.

"I got a dose of understanding human behavior, and I learned what the death penalty does to us," she said. "I don't think it's a secret that I oppose the death penalty."

Bruck has directed Washington and Lee's death penalty defense clinic, the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, since 2004.

In other developments in the Boston case:

? FBI agents visited the Rhode Island home of the in-laws of the suspect's brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and carried away several bags. The brother was killed in a gun battle with police.

Katherine Russell, Tsarnaev's widow, has been staying at the North Kingstown home and did not speak to reporters as she left her attorneys' office in Providence later in the day. Attorney Amato DeLuca says she's doing everything she can to assist with the investigation.

? President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed terrorism coordination Monday in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. Obama expressed his "appreciation" for Russia's close cooperation after the attack.

The suspected bombers are Russian natives who immigrated to the Boston area. Russian authorities told U.S. officials before the bombings they had concerns about the family, but only revealed details of wiretapped conversations since the attack.

___

AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-29-Boston%20Marathon-Explosions/id-5bdebce447284d50903b4cf3796f612f

Miranda rights Police Scanner boston herald mit nfl schedule brittney griner ied

Cuba culture official demoted after NY Times op-ed

HAVANA (AP) ? A leading Cuban cultural official said Friday that he has been demoted nearly two weeks after he published an opinion piece in the New York Times that criticized "blatant racism" on the island.

In a phone interview with The Associated Press in Havana, Roberto Zurbano refused to speculate on whether his demotion from publishing director at the influential, government-run Casa de las Americas cultural institute to a lesser role as an analyst was directly linked to the newspaper article, which was harshly criticized by official media.

Zurbano told AP he was angry over his interactions with the Times and accused the paper of "manipulations" of his copy, "inaccuracies in translation" and "ethical violations."

Specifically he complained about the title of the March 23 op-ed: "For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn't Begun." Zurbano said his proposed title suggested rather that the revolution "has not finished."

He said there were other problems with the editing of his piece, but did not give specific instances. And he nonetheless insisted that there was nothing in the article that he wished to retract.

"I continue to think the same ideas. There is still much to discuss about racism," Zurbano said. "That is and will continue to be my battle within and outside of the Casa de las Americas, but always within the revolution."

The last part of that statement echoed Fidel Castro's long-ago admonition on what constitutes acceptable criticism: "Within the Revolution, everything; outside the Revolution, nothing."

Contacted by AP, the Times stood by its handling of the article.

"As is the case with all essays we run, we worked very hard to ensure that the wording in the piece was translated properly and accurately reflected the writer's point of view," spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said in a statement. "There were numerous versions of the piece sent back and forth and in the end, Mr. Zurbano, and our contact for him (who speaks fluent English), signed off on the final version.

"We knew that Mr. Zurbano was in a sensitive situation and we are saddened if he has indeed been fired or otherwise faced persecution because of this essay, but we stand by our translation and editing, which was entirely along normal channels," it concluded.

The Cuban government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the Times essay, Zurbano had harsh words for island authorities' record on race and said that since Afro-Cubans continue to occupy the lower strata of Cuban society, they are least likely to benefit from social and economic reforms being pushed by President Raul Castro.

That surely touched a nerve in the Communist-run government, for which eliminating racism has long been a central tenet. Suggestions of racial inequality are highly sensitive, even if officials up to the president himself have acknowledged that problems remain.

"Raul Castro has recognized the persistence of racism and has been successful in some areas (there are more black teachers and representatives in the National Assembly), but much remains to be done to address the structural inequality and racial prejudice that continue to exclude Afro-Cubans from the benefits of liberalization," Zurbano wrote in his article.

In February, the National Assembly, or parliament, elected an Afro-Cuban president for the first time ever in Esteban Lazo, and officials point to a significant increase in the number of women and Afro-Cubans in leadership positions.

Zurbano told AP that his essay had been attacked by many and touched off "a discussion" about racism in Cuba and the piece itself.

La Jiribilla, Cuba's leading online cultural publication, published a series of critical pieces including one in which historian Silvio Castro accused Zurbano of being misinformed about race relations before the 1959 Cuban Revolution and said his essay appeared "in the wrong publication and with the wrong language."

Others defended Zurbano.

Noted singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez for one, called for "an airing of ideas" without "ganging up" on the author.

___

Follow Peter Orsi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Follow Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-culture-official-demoted-ny-times-op-ed-023634614.html

severe weather wichita brian wilson storm chasers david blaine gotye divine mercy