The device disrupts the wireless carriers’ business model and even threatens the popular Kindle, observers say

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Apple’s new iPad is a game-changer for publishing, education and other sectors, including Canada’s wireless carriers will likely see consumers snap up the devices because they are not locked to any network service.

It could take some time for the full implications of the new device — which Apple CEO Steve Jobs described as “so much more intimate than a laptop” and “so much more capable than a smartphone” — to be felt, but industry watchers say it could change the way we work and play, just as the iPod brought MP3 music to the masses and the iPhone catapulted smartphones into the mainstream.

While Canada’s major carriers were mum Wednesday when asked if they have plans to introduce the iPad on their networks, Richard Smith, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s school of communication, said Apple’s move to end the subsidy model that locks customers into long-term contracts with telecom companies could change the way Canadians buy wireless devices.

“Apple is disrupting their business model, which is to lock people into three-year plans,” said Smith. “There is no subsidy. Apple is just selling it as it is.

“It could be a year from now people will say, ‘So you have a contract with your phone, what’s that all about?'”

Wayne MacPhail, a journalism professor at Ryerson University and president of the marketing and communications company w8nc, said he expects to see his classroom full of iPads within a year or two.

“I think I’m going to look out to a classroom of students who all have these things,” he said. “[Apple has] done an outstanding job on the price.”

MacPhail is also among those who see the iPad as a Kindle killer. “The Kindle looks like a one-trick pony on its way to the glue factory right now.”

In San Francisco on Wednesday, Jobs also took a shot at netbooks: “The problem is netbooks aren’t better at anything. The experience of running an iPad versus a cheap netbook running Windows XP — there won’t be any comparison.”

Apple’s addition of the optional keyboard to go with the iPad is the final blow for netbooks.

“If you can throw a keyboard on there, you basically have a baby iMac, so there goes the need for a laptop,” said MacPhail.

Self-described “Apple fanboy” Warren Frey wasn’t overly impressed by the much-hyped iPad release. Even though he bought an iPhone in the U.S. before it arrived in Canada, he’s in no similar rush to get an iPad.

“I’m a little disappointed,” he said, adding that while the new iPad seems to be all about bringing content in, it is less about creating it.

“As a content producer myself, I do a lot of high-end video for the Web,” said Frey, whose company Freyburg Media is a video production boutique in Vancouver’s Yaletown.

The iPad isn’t up to the high-end video editing that Frey needs. And since he already has an iPhone, he doesn’t want to pay for another in-between device.

“I can do a lot of this stuff on the iPhone,” he said of the iPad functions. “It’s not ideal, but it’s also not another $600 out of my pocket.”

Alfred Hermida, a professor who leads the integrated journalism program at the University of B.C.’s graduate school of journalism, said while there may have been too much hype around the release of the iPad, its impact will be long-term.

“We have a tendency to underestimate the long-term impact of these kinds of devices,” he said. “What Apple does really well is combine form and function.”

It’s not only the device, but what people will be able to do with it that will deliver the long-term impact from the iPad. “It is less about the hardware, and much more about the user experience,” said Hermida.

Just as the iPhone has much less impact than the iPhone combined with Apple’s app store, it will be Apple’s e-bookstore, iTunes, its app store and other potential functions that will make the iPad transformative for behaviour. “I think this is where the game changer is,” said Hermida.

Content producers will have to adapt if they are to maximize the potential of the iPad, whether they are in the business of publishing newspapers — one area that is looking to Apple’s new innovation as a saviour from diminishing revenue and readership — or in the business of books.

For textbooks, Hermida said that means transforming them into dynamic multimedia products that can be updated and enriched with content that goes beyond basic text.

“It is not about replicating the print experience, but about creating new experiences,” he said.

Pete Quily, an adult ADHD coach and a longtime Apple fan and who once sold Apple computers, said aside from the name — which he predicts will elicit jokes for some time before people stop laughing — the new iPad “is pretty amazing.”

“Apple has really thought this out. They have worked with content providers, and anyone who is producing long-form content really wants to get a handle on this.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

CEO launches ‘best browsing experience’ ever

Glenn Johnson And Kim Covert
Province

Apple Inc. chief executive officer Steve Jobs holds the much-hyped and rumour-laden iPad during the launch of the company’s new tablet-computing device in San Francisco on Wednesday. Photograph by: Reuters, Canwest News Service

A video game is displayed on Apple’s iPad with a view of its keyboard mode. Photograph by: Kimberly White, Reuters, Canwest News Service

It looks like an oversized iPhone, and Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs is betting the world will be excited about the much-hyped and rumour-laden iPad tablet computer.

In introducing the new electronic gadget Wednesday, Jobs held up the touch-screen device, which is a little smaller than a magazine. “And we call it the iPad,” he told his San Francisco audience.

“It is the best browsing experience you’ve ever had,” Jobs said in front of a giant screen showing the new product.

The icons are like those on the iPhone, complete with a tray at the bottom, and the iPad runs on the iPhone’s operating system. Jobs spent some time showing off some of the iPad’s features, including email and web browsing. It will ship with iTunes installed.

It has a 25-centimetre display that can show full web pages and has an onscreen QWERTY keyboard that is almost full-sized.

“It’s half-an-inch [1.3 centimetres] thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds [680 grams],” Jobs said.

It’s powered by a 1GHz Apple A4 chip, has 16GB to 64GB of flash storage and claims 10 hours of battery life with over a month of standby power.

Taking advantage of the more than 140,000 applications already available for iPhones and iPod Touch devices, the iPad will be able to run any application in Apple’s App Store unmodified. To date, more than three billion apps have been downloaded for iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

The iPad is “our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” Jobs said. The iPad will start at $499 US for the 16GB version. A 32GB model will cost $599 and a 64 GB model $799.

Versions of the iPad with built in 3G connectivity will cost an extra $130, ranging in price from $629 to $829.

“Because they’ve shipped 75 million iPhones and iPod touches, there’s 75 million people who already know how to use the iPad.”

While every iPad will come with WiFi technology, only some will be able to access next generation or 3G cellphone networks.

Jobs said the company hopes to have Wi-Fi models available within 60 days, and 3G models in 90. An international carrier arrangement will be announced in the June or July time frame, raising the possibility that the iPad could arrive in Canada this summer.

Video-game maker Electronic Arts also debuted games designed for the iPad, while Major League Baseball showed off how it plans to use the iPad to enhance its own digital offerings.

Apple also unveiled a new online book store, iBooks, which will allow readers to download digital e-books to their iPad similar to the way users of Amazon.comInc.’s Kindle device can download books over next-generation cellphone networks.

A note on the Apple iPad features page acknowledges that so far the iBook store is only available in the U.S.

In a move designed to position the iPad as a device for business users, Apple also showcased a new version of its iWork productivity software designed for the new device.

Jobs said the iPad will sync with a computer over a USB connection just like an iPod or iPhone.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Robson Square interactive wall is B.C.’s celebration site for the 2010 Games

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Amrinder Sandhar checks out a new 34-metre “gateway,” billed as one of the world’s longest interactive walls, that is located beside the skating rink at Robson Square and leads to the B.C. Showcase. Animated presentations on the wall are randomly created by passersby, who trigger sensors that detect how many people are nearby and how fast they are walking. Photograph by: Ian Smith, PNG, Vancouver Sun

It’s a digital show-and-tell for British Columbia technology.

Monday saw the opening of one of the world’s largest interactive walls, and marks the finishing touch for the province’s signature celebration site for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Thousands of international business visitors are expected to make their way down a digital corridor where infrared sensors trigger a changing kaleidoscope of images on everything from B.C.’s interactive technology sector to green tech and more.

It’s a technology that could have many applications, from displays like the one at Robson Square to more personal ones — an umbrella that you could use to share thoughts and images as you walk down the street.

“When it comes to innovation, it’s always easier to show people than to tell them,” Iain Black, B.C.’s minister of small business, technology and economic development, said at the official opening of the digital gateway for the B.C. Showcase in Robson Square.

The interactive wall has 45 sensors that pick up on people passing by, creating cascading animations that are delivered randomly depending on the number of people walking by and their speed, so no two strolls down the hall may be the same.

“I particularly like the rain clouds morphing into a hydrogen bus,” said Black, adding that the image is timely given last week’s announcement that B.C. now has the world’s largest hydrogen bus fleet.

The Digital Gateway is the handiwork of Vancouver’s Switch Interactive, a small, independent studio that won the $600,000 contract to create the digital wall, which was funded by Ottawa through Western Economic Diversification.

Beside the skating rink at Robson Square, the 33.5-metre gateway has transformed what was a bleak and concrete corridor at the B.C. Showcase into an interactive space with 17 animated stories constantly changing as people walk by.

Black and other government and industry players are hoping the installation will trigger discussions that could lead to business opportunities for companies here.

“I think the most important thing that this wall does it is gives a very interactive and eye-catching view of the different industries that comprise British Columbia,” Black said in an interview. “This is meant to elicit questions on the part of people who are moving through here.’

The showcase is a venue offering B.C. businesses an opportunity to meet with potential business partners and investors and hosts will accompany visitors, explaining the digital wall.

Black said it is hoped that the experience will prompt conversations “that will lead to additional investment and opportunities for British Columbians.”

For Switch Interactive, the digital wall offers the company a chance to share its technology with the world.

“We looked at it as a new way for architecture,” said Catherine Winckler, partner and creative director of Switch. “We looked at it as a new opportunity to do things with walls that will relate to people.

“We can tailor the wall, it can be easily programmed within 24 hours to have a completely different ambience. We can change the mood, we can change the stories, we can do quite a bit with this wall.”

And it’s a technology that isn’t limited to wall installations. Winckler said it could be used in restaurants, so customers could choose the mood for their dinner dates.

Or it could even be applied to an umbrella, so you could share whatever images you choose to project to the world as you walk down a rainy street.

Black said the 2010 Olympics offer B.C. businesses opportunities to showcase their talents to the world.

“It is the ultimate in a business development, or if you will, a trade show opportunity, but instead of us going to a trade show they are coming to us.

“And it is the biggest one in the world.”

The B.C. Showcase totals 2,500 square feet and is built to LEED environmental standards.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Chris Buckley
Sun

China defended its curbs on the Internet and attacked U.S. criticisms of its policies on Monday – Photograph by: Reuters, Reuters

China widened its attack against U.S. criticisms of Internet censorship on Monday, raising the stakes in a dispute that has put Google in the middle of a political quarrel between the two global powers.

China has defended its curbs on the Internet nearly two weeks after the world’s biggest search engine provider, Google Inc., threatened to shut down its Chinese Google.cnsite after a severe hacking attack from within China.

The dispute could narrow room for Beijing and Washington to back down quietly and focus on other disputes such as trade, currency, human rights and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

“The more this case takes on high-level political import for the Chinese government, the more likely it is to stick to its guns,” said David Wolf, president of Wolf Group Asia, an advisory firm covering Chinese media and telecommunications.

“The Chinese government can’t be seen as backing down on such a fundamental issue,” said Wolf.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week urged China and other authoritarian nations to pull down Internet censorship, prompting scathing commentary in Chinese papers.

The White House backed Google, while China accuses Washington of using the Internet for its own aims.

“This year, we’re seeing problems over trade, the Dalai Lama, and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan coming to the surface,” said Jin Canrong, an international relations expert at Renmin University.

“The politicization and ideological turn of the Google case could make it more difficult to work together. The basic need for cooperation, economically and diplomatically, hasn’t changed, but each of these issues could disrupt cooperation from day to day.”

In coming months, U.S. President Barack Obama may meet the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader who Beijing considers a separatist. Washington has also unveiled arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing regards as a renegade province.

In Riyadh, the CEO of Cisco Systems Inc, John Chambers, told reporters he was optimistic that Google’s dispute in China would be resolved through “give and take”. Chinese Human Rights Defenders said its website and four other activist sites were hit by denial of service attacks on Jan 23-24. It called the Chinese government the most likely culprit.

China‘s State Council Information Office said the nation “bans using the Internet to subvert state power and wreck national unity, to incite ethnic hatred and division, to promote cults and to distribute content that is pornographic, salacious, violent or terrorist”.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun