If you expanded this exercise as a manager in a supermarket, could you imagine how many products you would need to control in your stock? Or as a doctor in a hospital, could you figure out what medicine each of your patients was taking just looking at their faces? Or else as a cash machine, how could you know if the client was getting money through a stolen bank card?

So, we may conclude we have these same problems. Each one of these scenarios creates problems related to time, information security, data reliability and other issues.

Trying to solve these problems, the world of technology presents the RFID. This technology is based on radio frequency waves, which have been used for more than a hundred years as a telecommunication solution, and now comes to identify people, products and places through tiny components of less than fifty millimeters.

As soon as you notice, you have already used RFID tags to make your routine easier. If you work in a large building where there are hundreds of people transiting per day, you must have a personal card to identify yourself electronically at the lobby. With this card they are able to find your personal identification with your address, picture, the company’s name that you work for and your last visits.

Another application of RFID technology is that it may speed many regular attitudes such as buying products. Imagine you get into a supermarket or a drugstore, select products and go out without long lines, or even waiting for the change. The whole bill would be debited from your bank account or your credit card. It would be possible if every product had a RFID tag keeping the unique identification and price, then each product would do self registration at the cashier and then you would just needed to permit the debit through self-service terminals.

Unfortunately this isn’t the present reality because the technology still expensive and there are some problems related to technology aspects such as battery life time and some privacy concerns such as access to personal information without prior permission.

The main concern about privacy is the possibility that everyone might consult personal information about anyone, or even worse, steal the personal identification. It was proven by researchers that duplicating identifications was possible through catching the RFID waves propagated by tags and then decoding these waves and recording them onto other tags. Another concern is, everyone would be able to consult any product that someone is using in that moment being able to know the product price, where it was bought and worse, the unique identification product that may provide means to steal customer information.

This technology continuous being researched and maybe there will be solutions for all these problems soon. Some figures show an increase of RFID use by 2010 and meanwhile many investments has been made by universities and research centers.

Stay aware about it!

reviewed by Nicole Benson (English Teacher)
info@esperanzaeducation.ca
http://www.esperanzaeducation.ca/

Sources
•    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification
•    http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID
•    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_frequency

Usually if we are talking about sharing information, it can be done using different technologies such as cell phones, smart phones, landlines, e-mail, instant messenger, blogs, eBooks, hand written letters, smoke signals, etc. Although it sounds weird, yes this is technology!

Converging different networks, we will be able to communicate in spite of our device or networking access. It represents the present discussion about 4G Networking. This technology can be used to provide large bandwidth data access and voice/video transmission through the same infrastructure. So, using a regular device we will send text messages, make video calls, check our bank account, listen to songs, read books, watch TV, everything without the necessity of contracting different companies for Internet access and phone communication.

This new reality is not so far, as we can see in some countries, nowadays we can have large bandwidth Internet through our cell phone using 3G networking, or make phone calls using our computer through Internet cable. But the new proposal is to have all these features in only one device, without cable, in higher speeds, with great coverage and low costs.

The technology has been tested and accepted for many countries such as Brazil and Canada. In Brazil there is a discussion between the telecommunication carriers, cell phone carriers and Pay TV companies trying to decide who will be able to commercialize the technology and also to define some technological aspects of operation. This discussion has been lead by the national telecom agency (ANATEL), the federal organization responsible to regulate the sector. The main question that has to be defined is: will we use LTE or WiMAX technology?

In Canada this question was answered by mixing these two technologies. The telecommunication company Rogers has a plan to commercialize this technology by 2010 providing high speed Internet access and voice/video calls through LTE technology. By now the Craig Wireless British Columbia Inc. launched the first 4G Network in Canada providing services such as broadband Internet access, television programming delivery, business connectivity solutions, hosting, security and telecommunications solutions, everything through WiMAX technology.

So, we can see the Internet is going to be more accessible and universal in standardizing technologies and concepts. It represents easier interaction between people. The same happens with the telephony sector, where we can identify similarities in trying to define universal standards. Maybe one day we won’t have divergences between them, but we will view these worlds as interconnected to reach the same objective of connecting people.

reviewed by Nicole Benson (English Teacher)
info@esperanzaeducation.ca
http://www.esperanzaeducation.ca/

Sources
•    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
•    http://gigaom.com/2008/03/05/a-little-4g-sibling-rivalry/
•    http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/lte-vs-wimax-the-battle-is-in-the-market-not-the-lab/?cs=22841
•    http://www.telecomcircle.com/2009/09/what-is-the-difference-between-wimax-and-lte/
•    http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/01/09/technology/technology_30092821.php
•    http://www.wirelessinternet.org/4G-network.php
•    http://www.stockhouse.com/News/CanadianReleasesDetail.aspx?n=7449949

Using them we are already able to make video calls, conference calls, access the Internet via large bandwidth, share electronic documents and much more, but the most amazing is having all these possibilities wherever you want and whenever you need, everything through a small mobile device.

But as we know, we are never satisfied with our Internet access speed, our Internet availability or costs to keep the Internet access. So, focusing on solving these problems, a group of researchers proposed a revolution called 4G networking. The main commercial appeal used by this technology is total Internet access with high speed and low costs.

The core of 4G technology is similar to 3G technology even though we are going to reach speeds near to 1 Gigabits per second (when users are at fixed points) and 100 Megabits per second (when users are physically moving), when nowadays we can just reach 2 Megabits per second (when users are at fixed points) and 348 kilobits per second (when users are physically moving) using 3G networking, so it represents more than five times the current Internet speed making a great leap in network data access speeds.

When we talk about costs, the main strategy is in spreading the world! Today the 3G technology is quite restricted to a little group of users, because it requires high expenses to keep the infrastructure despite providing limited amount of simultaneous access. Using 4G technology, the telecommunication companies will be able to increase Internet access to many users at the same time using the same infrastructure. It will be possible by the use of the new Internet address (IPV6 technology) and antennas of high density (MIMO and MU-MIMO technologies). So, as more customers use this technology, much lower prices will be possible to reach providing Internet access in optimized networks.

Through this telecommunication infrastructure we will be able to access the Web with many different mobile devices, from cell phones to laptops including intelligent devices such as televisions (IPTV), home utilities (intelligent refrigerators, microwaves, and media centers), health monitors, IPod, eReaders, etc.

Now, we can just wait for the future. Maybe one day you will talk to your devices as you do with your pet! You should be aware and get used interacting with them!

reviewed by Nicole Benson (English Teacher)
info@esperanzaeducation.ca
http://www.esperanzaeducation.ca/

Sources

•    http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-4g-network.htm
•    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G
•    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
•    http://www.mobileinfo.com/3g/4gvision&technologies.htm
•    http://www.allbusiness.com/media-telecommunications/12823369-1.html
•    http://www.bechtel.com/communications/assets/files/TechnicalJournals/December2002/Article2.pdf

Before we begin talking about this new theme, we must define some interesting concepts about Web, Web 1.0 and 2.0.
At least once you have already accessed what we call “the web”, I’m sure about it! How do I know? For a simple reason, if you are reading this article, you must be using the Internet through any web-browser. Yes, it is the Web!
The web is defined as many groups of documents that can be accessed by the worldwide computer network also known as the Internet. These groups of documents are hyper linked and grouped by hierarchy providing navigation between them. Because of this nowadays we can access our personal web-sites, Internet Banking, search information on the Internet and many other amazing things.

Based on this, the first Internet concept was created. Using this concept, someone could navigate different web-sites at the same time through choosing the next page to visit or else accessing another URL (internet address) to forward them to a different web-site. This era was known as Web1.0.

Today we are enjoying the Web2.0 fever but what else different do we have? Now we can navigate the same way as on the Web1.0. We keep choosing our next page and accessing our Internet Banking. Yes, but there is a great difference between them! It can be noticed in the way that we interact with our web-sites, friends and generally with content.

When I told that the difference is how we interact with the Internet I tried to show you the real difference between static and collaborative web-sites. These days you can simple access a web-site otherwise you can collaborate with it. One example of that is the famous YouTube.com that while you watch many movies, you can upload one and share it with your friends or even better you can share it with the whole Internet.

Another example is the web community also known as social networking which gives the possibility of sharing profiles, experiences, pictures, movies, searching for friends and more. Today the most popular web-site that follows these features is Facebook.com.

Wow … it is amazing, isn’t it? Now you must be really confused because if the current Web2.0 provides so many resources, how does the Web3.0 work?

Although the present Internet provides so many marvels such as transferring millions of gigabytes per day, 24 hours-per-day access and providing fast search mechanisms, it is not even close of the perfect Internet. Currently, we are used to accessing the Internet in this way.

Now try opening your mind. Forget everything you know about the best practices about searching on the Internet. It is Web3.0!

The Web3.0 will provide sorted information or even better. It will provide organized documents and it includes media files, written files and every kind of knowledge organized creating the greatest worldwide database. It will converge assorted technologies to make the search mechanisms agile and then you will be able to look for information in an intelligent way. Combining fast Internet access, mobile access and the semantic network the Internet will use artificial intelligence analyzing your request based on sentence context, voice and video recognition inside of media files, matching external contexts with your research. It is still far from the perfect Internet, maybe it is just the beginning.

reviewed by Nicole Benson (English Teacher)
info@esperanzaeducation.ca
http://www.esperanzaeducation.ca/

Sources

•    http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0
•    http://www.wikirus.com.br/Web_3.0,_2.0,_1.0%3F_O_que_isso_significa%3F
•    http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web

Probably you have already heard about the new wave of eBooks, it is the newest technological word that is flowing in the air. Currently, more and more of these new gadgets are gaining their own place on the list of technological-maniacs and fanatics for reading.

Because of this new reading style I want to show you the reasons for consuming eBooks can be a good custom and the great impacts on the world caused by this fantastic and simple product.

Environmental Aspects

Today the book marketing is considered the most pollutant chain in the world. It has been helping to worsen our carbon footprint and creating an incessant search for paper in other words the hunt for wood.

Much research has been done to prove all the bad impacts caused by selling books, the last one was made by CleanTech Group, which is a company focused on making the growth of “cleantech” markets worldwide, showing that in 2008 the U.S book and newspaper industries harvested an unbelievable 125 million trees. They also conclude if someone buys three eBooks per month over four years instead of buying hardcover books it reduces nearly 906 kilograms of CO2 (carbon dioxide) dumped in the environment.

Everything shows good environmental impacts caused by this new market, yet there is lack of consumers and consumption that creates low sales resulting in high prices. For this reason currently we can not see effectual results in purchasing eBooks, some media analysts says that if publishers keep launching hardcover books at the same time as eBooks, there will not be reasons for consumer to change their behavior. This new market needs more incentives to highlight over the current market.

Reducing costs and prices

Aligning reducing production costs with a high amount of sales the publishers will be able to reduce the prices. Today the prices between the regular book and the eBooks are almost the same creating great discussions about this topic. Readers and enthusiast says if the publishers can reduce their costs of production and delivering then it should change the final prices.

Some publishers say they must keep the same pricing model because they still have high costs with all the process, paying the authors in advance, the editing, and designers for the illustrations, the copyediting and other production steps.

One of those blogs has done a survey asking the readers to decide the fair price for eBooks and more than 60% of the answers were $9.99, the same price as an album on iTunes. It shows that readers look to eBooks as CD albums. It has two sides. First, maybe eBooks will be more famous than hardcover books, making the sales grow. But it can have a bad effect on the eBooks market increasing the amount of illegal copies. So if the publishers want to make readers see eBooks as CD albums, they should be aware about all copyright problems that have already been discussed about CDs.

Technological Usability and Readability

One question has been taking audience in the middle of this discussion, why should we switch our all-in-one devices for a simple eReader device? It is a really good question because nowadays everything is following convergence trends. So if I can read using my gadget, how does the eReader improve my interaction with my book? Let’s try to answer these questions.

Today we can see all devices becoming smaller, taking the iPod and iPhone as examples if we compare these high-tech devices with devices from 10 years ago, we will see a great difference on displays, keypads, usability, size and others improvements. But the real problem is related to display sizes.

Many investigations have been conducted about reading on electronic displays and the worst problems found were related to display frequency rates, definitions and size. The eReader besides being designed to solve this problems, it has other positive aspects such easy interaction through keypad, handheld and similarity with hardcover book shape.

reviewed by Nicole Benson (English Teacher)
info@esperanzaeducation.ca
http://www.esperanzaeducation.ca/

Sources

•    http://blackchristiannews.com/news/2009/09/are-e-readers-greener-than-books.html
•    http://www.atelier-us.com/e-business-and-it/article/e-readers-more-eco-friendly-than-paper-books
•    http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/ereaders-better-than-paper.html
•    http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=5727
•    http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/why-e-books-cost-money-to-publish/
•    http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/how-much-would-you-pay-for-an-ebook/
•    http://toc.oreilly.com/2008/09/open-question-all-in-one-devic.html
•    http://www.planetebook.com/downloads/schcolnik.pdf

Today there are strong companies participating in this market, the most important of them are Sony, Amazon, iRex, Tianjin Jinke Electronics and Booken. The business on this market points to significant results over (growing slowly, progression) the next years with an estimated market value of $9.6 billion by 2018. It represents more competitiveness between the giants than has currently been done and the entrance possibility of new producers on this market building new products, technologies and content and further reducing prices to the final customer.
The market share between the companies is split 30% to Sony, 45% to Kindle (Amazon) and 25% to the others, so I focused research on comparing the aspects of the most popular products.

Amazon Kindle
The Kindle has been produced by Amazon since November 19th 2007, when the first model was launched. They sold all the first devices in just 5 hours and 30 minutes and it remained out of stock for 5 months, which is an unbelievable fact.
There are three different models called Kindle, Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. The newest model (DX) has 4GB internal flash memory, one processor of 532MHz and a big size screen of 9.7 inch. It also has connectivity with Amazon Whispernet through EVDO/CDMA. The device supports different files type including Text Files (TXT), Amazon’s proprietary (AZW) and Mobipocket books (MOB, PRC) but unfortunately it doesn’t support PDF files.

Sony Reader
Sony Reader is the eBook Reader Sony that has six different models. The newest model option is the PRS-2121 that has a large display (7 inch) touch screen, 16-levels of gray and 3G wireless access (through AT&T) enabling free access to the Sony eBookstore. Further, you can use it on two different views style as Landscape or Portrait-mode.
Although it has a small internal memory space with 512MB, and only 380MB actually available, there is the possibility of expansion through a memory card.
The supported files are BBeB Book (LRF), TXT, RFT, ePub and PDF. Unfortunately the PDF view can be comfortably used only if the file was created in/with small size (8.5 x 11 inch).

reviewed by Nicole Benson (English Teacher)
info@esperanzaeducation.ca
http://www.esperanzaeducation.ca/

Sources
1.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#eReader_.28formerly_Palm_Digital_Media.2FPeanut_Press.29
2.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
3.    http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/08/the_ereaders_wars_amazon_vs_sony_vs_apple.php
4.    http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_ereader_and_ebook_market_ready_for_growth.php
5.    http://www.betanews.com/article/With-ereaders-becoming-a-real-market-battle-lines-are-drawn-over-DRM/1251304471
6.    http://besttabletreview.com/kindle-claims-45-percent-of-ereader-market-sony-claims-30-percent/
7.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader
8.    http://www.ehow.com/about_5372594_sony-book-reader-vs-kindle.html