ELMUNDO.ES, 07/03/2008

MADRID.- Sony está en conversaciones con Microsoft para una posible inclusión del formato DVD de la compañía japonesa, Blu-ray, en la consola de Microsoft, la Xbox 360.

Según informa el diario 'Financial Times' , después de que Toshiba anunciara el abandono de su formato, HD-DVD, al que siguió Xbox 360, parece que la consola de Microsoft quiere hacerse con el formato DVD de Sony. Stan Glasgow, presidente de Sony Electronics de Estados Unidos confirmó este extremo al diario inglés.

Un reproductor Blu-ray en la Xbox 360 la haría más competitiva con la PlayStation 3, pero la otra cara de la moneda está en que esto, al mismo tiempo, significaría ingresos extra para Sony.

Además, por supuesto, esto haría que la consola de Microsoft subiera su precio, y estaría disponible probablemente para su edición Elite como periférico.

Pero hay más. Según confirmó Glasgow al diario, también se encuentran en conversaciones con Apple, que en la actualidad no ofrece ningún tipo de dispositivo Blu-ray, y que tiene un mercado muy fijado en Internet. En este sentido, Stan Glasgow señaló que no cree que el Blu-ray tradicional sea superado por contenidos de alta definición disponibles en Internet, 'por las limitaciones del ancho de banda'.

Asimismo, el presidente de Sony Electronics de Estados Unidos habló sobre los precios de PlayStation 3. Dijo que a finales de este año podría bajar a unos 299 dólares y que para finales de 2009 podría hacerlo hasta alrededor de 200 dólares.

Por otro lado, según informa CNET News, Samsung podría terminar definitivamente con su DVD combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD que presentó en el pasado CES de Las Vegas. Según indicó la propia compañía en un comunicado, "aunque el producto sigue siendo una solución práctica, está claro que las oportunidades son más pequeñas que antes. Así que, a raíz de los últimos acontecimientos, Samsung no sacará el reproductor BD-UP5500 Duo HD".

Foto: El reproductor Blu-ray, junto a otros productos de Sony. (Foto: AFP)

...Health 2.0 is the application of Web 2.0 technologies in the area of health, whilst Medicine 2.0 is the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the area of medicine. Some examples can be seen in the Medical 2.0 Directory. I have come to think of Health 2.0 websites as being those that provide services geared towards the consumer, and Medicine 2.0 those geared towards services for the medical professional...

Now that that is in place, on to our dish.

It seems like big web corporations such as Google, Microsoft and AOL are all on board the Health 2.0 caravan in pitching in their share of the possible solutions (or possible market share) in the seeming broad revamp, evolution, and even revolution of health care. This could begin an effective model in technologically advanced societies that have an electronic medical system of some sort in place or that are actively transitioning (or have transitioned) their medical records to e— such as the U.S. This could eventually spread across the globe.

Let us begin with Google. According to CNN,

Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that's likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.

The pilot project to be announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google's new service, which won't be open to the general public.

Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools.

Here is a screen shot cropped from the Liquidmatrix Security Digest.

The original beta page itself has apparently been taken down. Google has not officially announced this new venture. This project, code named "Weaver" according to Mashable, is evidently made possible with the participation of the non-profit hospital, Cleveland Clinic, which by the way publishes medical e-books that are available free to download in some e-book sites such as Wowio. From the same article in CNN.com,

Contacted Wednesday, a Google spokesman declined to elaborate on its plans. The Associated Press learned about the pilot project from the Cleveland Clinic, a not-for-profit medical center founded 87 years ago.

But the health venture also will provide more fodder for privacy watchdogs who believe Google already knows too much about the interests and habits of its users as its computers log their search requests and store their e-mail discussions.

Prodded by the criticism, Google last year introduced a new system that purges people's search records after 18 months. In a show of its privacy commitment, Google also successfully rebuffed the U.S. Justice Department's demand to examine millions of its users' search requests in a court battle two years ago.

The Mountain View, California-based company hasn't specified a timetable for unveiling the health service, which has been the source of much speculation for the past two years. Marissa Mayer, the Google executive overseeing the health project, has previously said the service would debut in 2008.

Either way, this is something to look forward to. Hopefully the security bases are, in fact, securely covered.

The other 2 big leaguers who are having their own new hits are Microsoft and AOL.

Here is Microsoft's Health Vault.

According to Mashable,

HealthVault is a web-based personal health record tracking data such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, surgical procedures, etc. Centralizing medical data for physician access alleviates problems in both personalized care and also insurance.

Microsoft does not expect a flood of users to immediately populate the site and is instead looking to existing healthcare institutions for help. Ideally patients will permit hospitals, doctors, and clinics to insert information into their HealthVault records. Early partners of HealthVault include the American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson, the Mayo Clinic, and seven hospitals throughout the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.

Last but not the least for today is AOL's Revolution Health and Health Talk.

Here is a report from CNet News.

AOL co-founder Steve Case announced Wednesday his online health and wellness company, Revolution Health Group, has acquired HealthTalk, pushing his company into the ranks of the second-largest health information site on the Net.

HealthTalk will operate as a site within the Revolution Health Network, which includes CarePages.com and RevolutionHealth.com. The Revolution Network is also affiliated with drugstore.com and SparkPeople.com.

More and more examples add to our pages as we continue to explore the important role of media in medicine. The more we know about what is out there and which way we are heading, the more we empower ourselves to participate in our very own process and quality of health care as patients. Thus, we might improve our choices and strengthen our voices about what really matters to us in maintaining our health. As doctors, including other medical professionals, who are abreast with technology can also broaden our reach in terms of understanding, communicating, and ensuring the quality of care we are giving. The important bottom line, as we have emphasized again and again, is the need for effective communication among us all.

Funding for Invasive Real ID Cons States in Exchange for Their Privacy

WASHINGTON, DC - February 6 - After releasing regulations last month that failed to fix the manifold privacy and civil liberties violations of the Real ID Act, the federal government has left state governments to shoulder most of the cost of the onerous, invasive national ID program. The President’s budget proposal requests only $110 million in federal grant money toward the states for Real ID implementation, and even that money, if actually appropriated by Congress, will be split among Real ID and other programs.

Real ID, which the American Civil Liberties Union believes should be reformed or repealed in the first place for its threats to civil liberties, has been attacked by governors and state legislators nationwide for forcing them to sacrifice their residents’ privacy and having their own state governments pay for the intrusion.

Even combined with about $80 million in federal dollars already in place to pay for Real ID implementation, the funding would fall far short of the projected cost – estimated by the Department of Homeland Security to fall between four and 23 billion dollars – for the constitutionally suspect driver’s license program. States are left to fend for themselves to comply with the unfair, unworkable demands of the Real ID Act. The National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan coalition of state legislators, expressed outrage at the paltry funding request, calling it the "most egregious example" of unfunded federal mandates.

"The financial costs are too high for taxpayers, and the privacy costs are too high for all Americans," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "DHS expected state officials to sacrifice their residents’ privacy if the federal government would foot the bill, but DHS is incapable of holding up even that much of their skewed bargain. Every governor should follow the lead of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and opt out of Real ID as soon as they can. Every governor, every state legislator and every taxpayer should be insulted by how little the Department of Homeland Security values their privacy. Congress should embrace the bipartisan efforts to reform Real ID or end the program altogether."

Read FULL STORY here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's an FAQ page on CNet with questions and answers on how the Real ID will affect you. There's a map of the country and if you click on your state you'll see where your state stands on the implemenation of this horrendous program.

Here's a sampling of some questions:

Q: When does the Real ID Act take effect?
On May 11, a little more than three months from now. But states like California that have agreed to comply and ones like Pennsylvania that have requested a deadline extension are not affected--driver's licenses from those states will continue to work for entering federal buildings and flying commercially.

Some states seem to have requested an extension as a tactical maneuver with little intention of ever complying. Washington and Idaho may fall into this category. A spokesman for Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter told us: "We've asked for an extension, but we still have serious concerns and reservations about it and its future here is to be determined."

Q: Who's going to have trouble flying or entering federal buildings starting May 11?
Residents of the five states--Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire--that have firmly rejected Real ID. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have not decided yet, meaning they could fall into this category too.

Q: So if I live in Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Oklahoma, or New Hampshire, and I want to fly out of any U.S. airport starting May 11, what happens?
The Bush administration has not answered that question. The Transportation Security Administration referred our questions to the Department of Homeland Security. A Homeland Security spokesman told us: "That's an operational, ongoing issue at this point in time. We'll need to be a bit closer in."

One likely situation is that starting May 11, security checkpoints at all U.S. airports will have a Real ID and a non-Real ID line. Non-Real ID would be in the slow line, which Homeland Security predicts will involve "delays" and "enhanced security screening." (One official with the Portland International Airport even joked about a mandatory "full body cavity search.")

Q: Will the federal government issue more regulations about when I have to show a Real ID license?
Probably. One Homeland Security official told Congress last year that Real ID could be used for "reducing unlawful employment, voter fraud, and underage drinking." Another recently suggested that Americans buying cold medicines like Sudafed with pseudoephedrine could be required to show Real ID.

Q: Does Homeland Security have the authority to do that kind of expansion, or can only Congress expand Real ID?
Homeland Security has the authority. The text of the law says that, starting May 11, "a federal agency may not accept, for any official purpose, a driver's license or identification card issued by a state to any person unless the state is meeting the requirements of this section." Official purpose is defined to include "any other purposes" that Homeland Security thinks is wise.

The potential list of "purposes" could be long. Real ID could in theory be required for traveling on Amtrak, collecting federal welfare benefits, signing up for Social Security, applying for student loans, interacting with the U.S. Postal Service, entering national parks, and so on.

Looks really lovely so far, doesn't it? Do you think our founding father's had THIS in mind when they were drawing up the Constitution and founding our Republic?

I don't know about you, but this whole thing gives me the heeby jeebies and does NOT make me feel safer at all.

Janice

What brought this up you might ask? Well, it was an article in the CNET News blog which discussed several of the major search engines and their never-ending race to be first! It seems that these: Google, Ask.com, Microsoft Live Search, and Yahoo have all made some major changes this year beginning with Google's update in May. Ask.com followed in June and this week Microsoft has upgraded its Live Search. Chances are that Yahoo will be next.

So what does this mean for us? Well, for one thing, it means that any of the major search engines will quickly give us a great number of relevant results. It also means that we can now get images, videos, and other search types from any of these search engines.

I saw an ad on tv the other day for Ask.com and, of course, had to check it out. I liked it, you should check it out for yourself...but will I switch from Google? No, probably not...but I will certainly suggest it as an alternative search engine.

Well, the very first thing you need to do is decide exactly what you want to do with all those photos. Do you primarily want a place that you can send your photos and have them printed? A place that has lots of doodads you can order with photos on them? Or maybe you just want to share your photos with friends, family or the whole world? The last couple of years have seen an explosion in the number of these photo-sharing and photo-printing sites, which means that print prices have dropped, and the range of services offered has expanded. So, whether you have just a few vacation shots or you're a “serious” photographer with a big image archive, there are plenty of sites that can make printing and sharing a pleasure.

We are going to talk about websites that are primarily photo-sharing services. Photo-sharing services should make it easy to upload and share your pictures with friends and family, or post them on the Internet for everyone to enjoy. The best online photo albums offer editing tools, lots of storage space, password protected access, and also the ability to buy and sell prints, photo gifts and other conveniences.

So when choosing a photo sharing site, you should look at these things:

• Features – The top–notch websites offer numerous practical features that help upload, post, share and print photographs, network with other photographers and browse photo galleries by keyword or date.
• Ease of Use of the Service – Like other Internet–based services, online photo albums should be user–friendly. Anyone should feel comfortable using the service and the tools it provides regardless of their knowledge of computers and the web.  
• Help/Support – First–class photo sharing websites provide adequate help and support in the form of tutorials and FAQs, and offer a number of ways, like email, web forms and a phone number to contact customer service.
• Price – Free is good! Most of these sites offer an awful lot of features for free, all of them offer even more for a membership fee.

Flickr

Let’s start with Flickr since that is the one we use here at the library and is one with which I am familiar. When you have a free Flickr account, you have

• 100 MB monthly upload limit (5MB per photo)
• 3 sets
• Photostream views limited to the 200 most recent images
• Post any of your photos in up to 10 group pools
• Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later).

Though it is possible to make and have some items printed out, this is not the place to go if printing and purchasing photo-related items is your prime purpose.

Of course, you get a lot more if you actually pay a membership fee. Let’s take a quick look at the library Flickr account.

Webshots

Webshots has been around for years and I have had a free account with them for quite a few of those years. I love Webshots because I can upload my photos to share with others, but can also easily download photos from other collections and use all of them in a screensaver. Some of the features with the free account are:

• customize your own homepage
• store and share 1000 photos + 100 more for each month of membership
• upload on the go from your cellphone
• receive a weekly email newsletter with all the daily photos of the week and leave messages in community photo albums.

This service also provides an uploading program that you can easily install on your computer that makes batch uploads convenient. While uploading photos, you can add captions and titles and perform some basic editing like cropping and rotating.

Webshots has a great collection of custom gifts like greeting cards, calendars, mugs and mouse pads. You can also order prints of your favorite photos, whether they’re your own, or from the gallery.

dotPhoto

Though I have not personally used DotPhoto, it has gotten great reviews. To begin, it has one of the most secure and user–friendly systems for storing and organizing your photos. Even the free account has unlimited storage space. You can use the free upload and photo management software dotPhoto provides or the online upload tools to add photographs. This system will also store videos and pictures from your camera phone. Then you can easily publish to MySpace, Xanga, Ebay, Live Journal or other websites.

This service offers a number of tools to edit and modify your photos. You can fix red eye, crop, rotate, brighten, zoom and more. There is even a tool to add a sound caption with each photo. You can use a number of photos and add sound to create a multimedia slide show. Through this service, you can also create your own webpage to display your photographs.

DotPhoto goes even further for those interested in selling their photos. DotPhoto provides everything you need and there is no start–up fee. You’ll have access to electronic payments and on–line sales reports. You set your price and dotPhoto will do the rest.

There is also an extensive catalog of photo-related items for purchase. All in all, this seems to be a great easy to use service with loads of free features.

Fotki

With the free account, Fotki has many useful features that are simple to use. There are a number of options to upload your photos and build your album. You can upload a group of pictures in a batch upload or individually upload a photo. You can also retrieve a picture from another website, use a file transfer protocol (FTP) client, email your picture or send it directly from a mobile device like a cell phone.

The site has an advanced properties screen where you can change specific settings dealing with copyright, photo view size, album icon, who posts or views comments and album description in full size. You also pick out a photo frame style, album layout, who can access originals, who can order prints of your photos, whether the camera model is shown, who can share your photos and more.

Fotki has great prices for prints, but does not offer the variety of items for sale that some of the other services have.

So there we have it, five of the most popular photo-sharing sites on the web! These are by no means all that are available, and you may well find another one from one of the websites below that you prefer!

When researching this topic, I found a number of reviews that I found helpful.

Photo Sharing Made Simple Family Circle Magazine website (2007)
Online Photo Albums Family Circle Magazine website (2007)
TopTenReviews.com Photo Sharing Websites (2007)
Online digital photo printing and sharing CNet.com (review 10/06/2005)
All Things Web 2.0 Image, Photo and Imaging

Did you know that you can get many of these things right here at the West Palm Beach Public Library? Our audiobooks on CD are very popular, but did you realize that we also have downloadable audiobooks that you can put on an MP3 player? Have you ever gone to our "Librarytogo" section of our website where we have gathered hundreds of websites that contain quality information? Have you ever looked at the databases we subscribe to?

If you haven't, then this is your opportunity, no, let's say challenge, to go and check these wonderful resources out for yourself! If you any questions along the way, email me!.

Janice, The Tech Librarian