Posted By Ian Jukes
Categories
Day: October 6, 2014
Posted By Ian Jukes
Even with all of the digital options, Post-it Notes are still a handy way to jot things down for future reference. To help you keep those small pieces of paper organized and with you at all times, 3M released the Post-it Plus app for iOS. Capable of capturing up to 50 of the squares at once with the camera on an Apple device, the software allows to you sort by category and share with your fellow collaborators for further brainstorming. There’s also the option to export to PowerPoint, Excel, Dropbox and other places should the need arise. More size compatibility is on the way, but for now, the app recognizes all square Post-it Notes. Of course, Evernote has been doing something similar for the Moleskin faithful, and now folks who prefer the individual stick-on option can quickly digitize their work.
It is easy to see how this could evolve into a classroom of the future. We like high tech, but on a deeper level we crave real time, interpersonal connectivity. More importantly we want to be able to blend on-site and telepresence attendance. For a long time we have managed this with limited tools, from Google Hangouts to Twitter. But tools like BeamPro steps it up a notch.
Posted By Jason Ohler
This picture of my family was taken last week. You may notice that one of my sons looks like a talking head on a video monitor. Three weeks ago, he moved to Hong Kong. This is the story of how he attended a very important family gathering (from 8,047 miles away) using his iPhone as a 3G hotspot, his MacBook Air and a remarkable device called the BeamPro from Suitable Technologies.
I became aware of the BeamPro at a trade show a year or so back. To me it seemed like a complete parlor trick. Truly, what is the point of a remote-controlled webcam? Moving it has to be clunky at best and the experience is cute, but ultimately meaningless… or so I thought.
Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention
Fast-forward about a year and I find myself with a resolute, but despondent wife planning a super important annual family gathering with her middle child half a world away. My wife is not a technologist, but she came up with the right idea. “Let’s get an eye-level iPad stand on wheels and have Brent FaceTime into the party.” She said this with a smile that was illuminated by the satisfaction of a Eureka moment. While it was a good idea, I knew there was a better one. We reached out to the team at Suitable Tech and requested a demo unit; it arrived the day before the party in three boxes.
Some Assembly Required
Even for a tech-savvy expert, “some assembly required” says, “no chance this works on the first shot.” Wrong! Attach three cables, pop the video monitor on the base, plug the charging station into the wall and you’re good to go. Start to finish: 10 minutes – and seven of those were opening and unpacking the three boxes. The app downloaded in about a minute, set-up was very fast and about a minute later, I was controlling the BeamPro from my MacBook Pro. I sat in the kitchen and used the BeamPro to chase the cat around the living room. Super fun!!!
Best Laid Plans
The evening of the event (morning for my son), we got the bad news. The cable company had not yet installed broadband in his new apartment. All he had was an iPhone 5 to use as a hotspot. This is worse than it sounds because in Hong Kong, even with a 4G SIM card, an iPhone 5 is only a 3G device. 3G? Even Facetime is questionable over 3G; surely the BeamPro would not fare better. Wrong!!!
Not only did the BeamPro work over 3G, it worked flawlessly. Parlor trick? No, paradigm shift… here’s why:
According to Scott Hassan, CEO and founder, Suitable Technologies, the BeamPro “… enables anyone, anywhere to be present, participate and interact.” My son Brent agreed. He said that using the BeamPro gave him the ability to physically act and intervene on his own behalf. He was especially struck by his ability to look other guests in the eye, hear them perfectly and carry on a quality conversation with the “sensation of full agency.” From my point of view, BeamPro is a behavior changing technology.
Origins and Overview
Beam (the company) stemmed from its founders’ frustrations with remote work. Even though lots of technology (email, chat, etc.) helped people keep in touch, the company says, “… our remote team members felt isolated, things got lost in translation, and calling multiple meetings for daily work was disruptive.” That’s when the company set out to create an “effortless remote presence.”
That said, we have several great options for video chatting online. FaceTime, Google Hangouts, Skype, Snapchat… the list is not endless, but it is very long. If your computer has a webcam or your mobile device has a front-facing camera, you probably have several good video chat client options at your fingertips. With so many inexpensive options, why would anyone think sticking a 17? video monitor on top of a $20,000 remote-controllable robot was a good idea?
There are several reasons to like the BeamPro. The sense of agency is certainly a big one, but there are many others. As you can imagine, the BeamPro was the talk of our evening. Some people thought we had gone “Star Trek.” Others instantly adapted. Brent (a millennial with years of video game experience under his fingers) became an expert user within minutes. My wife was happy. I was happy. My son really experienced the evening; our guests all spent time with him and got some breathtaking views of the Hong Kong skyline as a bonus. Well done, BeamPro!
Hardware and Software
The unit has two wide-angle cameras: one pointed straight out and the other aimed at the floor. When you “drive” the BeamPro, the two views on the monitor become one and you quickly and effortlessly learn to navigate your remote physical surroundings. The sonic experience is truly amazing. A 6-microphone array with noise canceling capabilities makes you feel like you are in the room. You can screen share on the 17” 4:3 LCD screen or just display the image from your webcam. It is very useful for teaching or demonstrating anything.
The battery life is great, 8 hours (active), 24 hours (standby) and the BeamPro will auto-park in its charger when you hold down the “p” key. It can “walk” as fast as most people and there are all kinds of ways to change your viewing angles, speed of travel and optimize your experience.
$20,000? You Must Be Joking?
While $20,000 is a huge amount of money for a webcam on steroids, it is not a lot of money for a BeamPro. The device is industrial grade and is built for commercial use.
However, this winter, the Beam+ Suitable Technologies will debut. This new unit will retail for under $2,000 and it will be awesome in its own right. The Beam+ will feature a 10? LCD display, two HDR cameras, a 4-microphone array, two hours of call time and be perfect for having your son join you for a family gathering all the way from Hong Kong.
Isn’t $2,000 a little steep for a robotic webcam? Possibly, but let’s put it in perspective. A coach ticket to Hong Kong is approximately $1,700 round trip. That does not include transportation to and from the airport or hotel. So, for this use case, it’s an easy sale.
We’re going to have both the BeamPro and the Beam+ rolling around our upcoming 7th Annual Media Technology Summit on October 23 at the Sheraton Times Square. Want to get an up close personal view? Come join us. BTW, if you’ve read this far, email me for a discount code – you deserve it!
When it comes to our kids the mantra is “safety first.” But what happens if safety means spying on your children’s online activities? Potentially, this is what ComputerCOP allows parents to do. A number of questions come immediately to mind. In light of recent NSA revelations, could the government do this to us? That is could our government (the parents in this scenario) make the case that spying on its citizens (us, the children) was for their own good? But the thornier question really is this: If you could be privy to everything your children do online, would you really want to know? I’m sure there are some parents whose children have been endangered by online activity who would support this wholeheartedly. Would the rest of us want this power too… just in case?
Posted By Jason Ohler
A county sheriff from Limestone, Alabama is sticking by his department’s endorsement of ComputerCOP, a shady piece of software given to parents to monitor their kids online. Other law enforcement agencies, it appears, have followed that example.
Earlier this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an investigation into software called ComputerCOP which approximately 245 agencies in more than 35 states, plus the US Marshals, have been distributing to parents to use to monitor their children. The software is essentially spyware, and many versions come with a keylogger, which in some cases transmits unencrypted keystrokes to a server.
In addition to ComputerCOP’s security issues, the EFF discovered misleading marketing materials that wrongly claimed endorsements from the US Department of the Treasury and the ACLU. “Law enforcement agencies have purchased a poor product, slapped their trusted emblems on it, and passed it on to everyday people. It’s time for those law enforcement agencies to take away ComputerCOP’s badge,” Dave Maass of the EFF wrote in an article that was republished on Ars on Wednesday.
Still, many of the sheriff’s and police departments endorsing this software continue to stick by it. In many cases, the agencies have sunk thousands of dollars into purchasing the software.
In an article published by a local news outlet, County Sheriff Mike Blakely of Limestone, Alabama called the EFF an “ultra-liberal organization that is not in any way credible on this. They’re more interested in protecting predators and pedophiles than in protecting our children.”
He added, “There are some parents out in Columbine Colorado, if they had this kind of software, things would have turned out differently.”
Blakely also told the news outlet, “We have had the key logger checked out with our IT people. They have run it on our computer system… There is no malware.”
In a phone conversation with Ars on Friday, Sheriff Blakely referred us to the department’s IT guys, whom he promised would return our call on Monday. Sheriff Blakely continued, “This is a disk that we give people but it is completely free… and parents are welcome to it if they want it.”
With respect to the EFF he said, “I’m not against their criticism but I just think they’re probably more interested in protecting predators and pedophiles than in protecting our children.”
“As sheriff, I went down [to schools] and met with kids and I taught them about bicycle safety and not to talk to strangers,” Blakely said, adding that handing out ComputerCOP was just another branch of the department’s efforts to keep kids from being solicited online.
“If you and I were married and had a 14-year-old daughter, then yeah I could check on who you’re talking to online and you could check who I’m talking to,” he said. “But if [ComputerCOP is] used properly, it’s something we whole-heartedly endorse. Now if you’re of the persuasion of the people of the EFF who would rather not do anything, then that’s something that I can’t help.”
He also noted that the police wouldn’t see the results of ComputerCOP’s surveillance after a parent installed it on a computer. “This is not us checking on their kids, this is parents checking on their kids, [and it includes] stuff to read about how to deal with bullying,” and other things parents might not know how to address.
When Ars suggested that the keylogger portion of ComputerCOP could hypothetically allow hackers to see parents’ passwords that they type into the same computer their children use, the sheriff once again referred Ars to the IT department.
Ars also contacted four law enforcement agencies around the country who have made ComputerCOP available in 2014, including the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office in California, the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, the Dunwoody Police Department in Georgia, and the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin. (The list of departments that have supplied ComputerCOP to parents is long, but these four have made the software available most recently.) None of the departments Ars contacted were available for comment.
After the EFF report was published, the District Attorney for the County of San Diego—which spent $25,000 in asset forfeiture funds on 5,000 copies of ComputerCOP in 2012—issued an alert to users of ComputerCOP, citing “potential security issues,” and telling parents to turn ComputerCOP’s keylogging features off. According to TechDirt, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis has stuck by her support of the software.
You must be logged in to post a comment.