Personal localized emergency alerts coming to smart phones

As part of an update of the national emergency alert system, federal officials announced this week that many smart phone users in New York City and Washington, D.C., would soon be able to receive alerts by 90-character text message in the event of a national or regional emergency. The new system has the support of all the major mobile phone carriers.

Called the Personal Localized Alerting Network, or PLAN, the new system will be a free service that will start later this year (November) for people in New York City and Washington who have compatible phones and are customers of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile. It will be a prelude to nationwide service that will start as early as next April.

The alerts are another broadband intrusion into the turf of traditional broadcasters. They even mimic the familiar radio and TV broadcast alerts that for decades have advised Americans where to tune in for an emergency message. Now that television ownership has fallen for the first time in 20 years and an estimated 85 percent of Americans over 18 own a mobile phone, many in government are arguing that a national emergency alert system to text cell phones in case of an emergency is essential.

To receive the emergency alerts, users must have mobile phones with a special chip, which is currently included in Apple's iPhone and some higher-end smart phones. The service will also require a software upgrade. The messages, which will come with a special ring and vibration, will appear on the phone's main screen and will not get lost in mailboxes.

The emergency text messages will include alerts issued by the president, information about public safety threats and Amber Alerts for missing children. Text messages will be sent to customers of participating cellphone companies who are in an area affected by the emergency. Users can opt out of any of the alerts except the presidential messages. The messages will be prioritized, meaning they should get through even during times of congested voice calling.

Congress in 2006 ordered the FCC to develop requirements for wireless companies to comply with the new alert system, but provided no funding to state and local agencies to use the system.

"This new technology could become a lifeline for millions of Americans and is another tool that will strengthen our nation's resilience against all hazards," said W. Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, told the Washington Post that "the goal is to make sure that in times of real crisis, real emergency, life-saving information can get to people where they are quickly."

While the FCC still plans to continue distributing messages across the Emergency Alert System on radio and television, Genachowski told the newspaper that PLAN "is a major step in recognizing that more and more people are using their mobile devices to communicate, and that it's often the fastest way to get information to someone."

Authorized government officials will be able to send emergency text messages to participating wireless companies, which will then use their cell towers to forward the messages to subscribers in the affected area.

A New York City resident who is traveling in Chicago at the time of an emergency in New York would not receive a message; a Chicago resident who is a customer of the same phone company would see the text alert while in New York City, officials said.

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Google’s new and improved Developer Tools: Android SDK and Google TV

Of the complaints that are verbally issued to Google by developers through their computer screens are some of the issues being experienced with the Android Software Development kit. With the announcement that Google TV would support the Market and run Android 3.1, concerns were raised at Google I/O with the increasingly slow emulator, and a lack of clarity when it came to developing for Google TV. Fortunately, Google noticed this hesitation and offered up a few seminar classes on developing for Google TV as well as showing off many new visualization tools in the Android SDK.

Google TV

Although the next version of Google TV is to be based on Honeycomb, there’s very little that is similar when it comes to how you would interact with an app on a TV versus how you would interact with an app on the phone/tablet. Google’s seminar on this topic addressed ensuring that navigation functionality included what almost feels like a blast from our past now – the D Pad.

Since the remote control was invented to make it so we didn’t have to get up off the couch to change the channel, it doesn’t make much sense that we return to that model by making users go touch their screens. The next sentiment Google shared with the users is making sure it was understood that the more things you tell Android your app MUST have, the less likely it is to function on Google TV. If your Twitter app tells Android that there MUST be a camera present, then at this current point Google TV won’t show that app in the market as cameras are not currently supported.

Finally, Google helped developers understand what they considered the appropriate screen markers should be, in order to have the app display properly. Treating the screens as “screen size Large” and going above the 800×480 resolution is the best way to reach the most HDTV’s. This way, developers can start building their apps for those screen sizes now, since they are already part of the Android SDK.

New UI Visualization Tools

It seems like most other “modern” SDKs for mobile platforms have a sort of What You See Is What You Get editor for building user interfaces and testing them out before ever needing to compile the kernel. This has been something that, until now, Google has not really provided their developers with in the same capacity as competitors do.

With the preview that was shown at Google I/O, the app visualizer tools will make it extremely easy to take the elements you’ve already placed into your code and help you optimize its visual properties. In application, the app seemed to closely resemble an advanced version of Google App Inventor, and offered a handful of features built to make any developers like easier. For example, at any point in the visualizer if you would like to see Google’s reference material on the subject, you can go to developer.google.com in the section you’re looking for just by clicking the link. The final thing Google did here was recognize their own shortcomings with the Android emulator in the SDK, and did reassure us that in a short time, those improvements would be made available.

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Microsoft Antitrust Decree Ends, Google Eyed

WASHINGTON –  Microsoft was a giant fending off tiny rivals in 1998 when the U.S. Justice Department accused it of breaking antitrust law.

In the 13 years since, Apple has gone from having a sliver of the personal computer market to dominating the world of mobile media with its iPhone and iPad.

Back then, Google barely existed. It now rules the search advertising market.

Microsoft is still a technology titan with its Windows operating system and Office productivity software, but is no longer a feared monopoly or leading edge innovator.

And now that it is schooled in antitrust law, Microsoft wants Google Inc to be regulators' next focus.

Microsoft's legal battle, once a distraction to its top executives when they could have been at their most creative, ended on Thursday as court oversight of Microsoft expired with little or no fanfare.

The decision to allow the judgment to expire was made last month by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

BAD BOYS TO TAME BOYS

Microsoft was already competing with upstart rivals in the early 1990s when the Justice Department accused it of insisting that all personal computers shipped with its Windows operating system be loaded with its web browser Internet Explorer rather than Netscape's Navigator.

A federal judge originally ordered Microsoft to be broken up in June 2000, but an appellate court reversed the decision a year later. The Justice Department ultimately settled with Microsoft.

Under a consent decree it was required to end retaliation against computer makers who use non-Microsoft software and comply with other antitrust law. The consent decree was originally slated to run five years but was extended repeatedly.

Windows and its Outlook email system remain popular but its Bing search engine and other efforts to move into new markets failed to catch fire.

"It (the legal battle) had an inhibiting affect on it (Microsoft)," said Evan Stewart, an antitrust expert at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. "They're not competing effectively with Facebook. They're not competing effectively with (Apple). They're not competing effectively with Google."

But Andrew Gavil, a Microsoft watcher who teaches antitrust at Howard University School of Law, argues that Microsoft was spurred to try to illegally crush rivals precisely because it had slipped behind the innovation curve after underestimating the importance of the Internet.

"Its strategy for catching up was to use its leverage on desktop to hinder its rivals," said Gavil.

Further, Gavil and other antitrust experts argue that a weak consent decree did little to curtail Microsoft.

"The most obvious bad behavior was stopped. It didn't restore lost competition. It didn't do anything to revive the competitors that had been hobbled," he said.

Despite Microsoft's efforts to paint Google as the next logical target for regulators, Bert Foer, head of the American Antitrust Institute think tank, and others argue that no one company today stands out today like Microsoft stood out as an antitrust violator.

Microsoft has publicly called into question the fairness of Google's website ranking system and has urged website owners to complain to regulators. It has itself made a formal complaint to antitrust regulators in Europe, where Google is already under investigation by the European Commission. Sources say U.S. regulators are considering an investigation of Google.

"As far as who the successor will be, that will largely be determined by how they behave. I'm talking about Google and Apple and maybe Facebook in the high-tech area. You still have market power by IBM in its field and you still have Microsoft," he said.

Perhaps antitrust regulators made out better than anyone in the Microsoft suit.

"It was extremely welcome to see the Justice Department go after Microsoft and frame an ambitious case against it," said Jeff Schinder of law firm Constantine Cannon. "It resurrected its finest tradition of going after dominant firms that were squelching competition."

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/05/12/microsoft-antitrust-decree-ends-google-eyed/#ixzz1MA0x58MP

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BANGLADESH: Indigenous farmers face seed crisis

BANGKOK, 12 May 2011 (IRIN) - Farmers in parts of Bangladesh's southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) face a seed crisis that is undermining the food security of thousands, the World Food Programme (WFP) says. 

"The challenge that the villagers are now facing is the lack of available seeds due to non-cultivation for two years," Christa Rader, country director of WFP in Bangladesh, told IRIN from Dhaka. 

Seed prices in Sajek Union - about US$11 per kilo - have increased more than five times since 2006, while interest rates are up to 100 percent. 

These two factors are contributing to CHT's food insecurity - estimated at more than 30 percent - according to the UN food agency. 

"Over the last four years, the frequency of crises in Sajek has been intense" - starting with crop damage by the rodent attack during 2007-2008, restrictions on Jhum cultivation since 2009 and communal conflict in 2010, which continues in 2011, reports a WFP assessment conducted at the end of April. 

No Jhum for Jummas 
The seed crisis started when the region was infested by a rat population that bred four times faster than normal during the bamboo flowering season from 2007 to 2008. 

The rodents consumed all the grains and cash crops from the fields and in storage, forcing people to eat seeds they would normally save for cultivation. 

The following year, in 2009, the indigenous Jumma people, comprising 11 different ethnic groups, were forbidden from farming in forest areas of Sajek Union using their traditional shifting cultivation methods, also known as Jhum cultivation. 

The United People's Democratic Front (UPDF), a political party based in the CHT, enforced the ban to protect the land from over-cropping resulting from an influx of Bengali settlers over the past three decades. 

"What [the UPDF] did is to discourage Jhum cultivation in certain specified areas to protect the environment and animal habitats," Sachib Chakma, a member of the UPDF's central committee, explained. 

But Jhum farming is also central to the way of life of the one million indigenous people living in the CHT. 

"The very name of these people, Jumma, comes from their cultural tradition of shifting agriculture, locally known as Jhum. They were able to sustainably live for years using Jhum cultivation," Sophie Grig, senior campaigner at Survival International, a London-based indigenous rights NGO. 

According to Survival, it was not possible to keep the land fallow for the five to eight years as required for soil to regenerate in shifting cultivation, but was instead cropped every two to three years. Moreover, the most fertile land was taken by Bengali settlers, further affecting the Jummas' ability to farm. 

"The Bengali settlers took the most arable land away from the Jumma, internally displacing them further north into Sajek Union," Grig said. 

Nearly 600,000 Bengali settlers have arrived in the CHT since the 1980s leading to land theft and forced relocation of more than 90,000 Jumma families as of 2000, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

"The illegal taking over of indigenous peoples' land by Bengali settlers and the inclusion of their land in forest reserves [has led] to a decrease in the land available for doing shifting cultivation," said Christina Nilsson from the CHT Commission International Secretariat based in Copenhagen. 

Land tensions 
In a further shock to local livelihoods, recent clashes at the end of April over land led to nearly 100 Jumma houses being burned down. 

"All their movable assets, including rice and seeds, perished in the fire, leaving them without food," said Chakma. 

And with the price of seeds increasing, many farming families could well find themselves in greater debt if they borrow at today's interest rates, resulting in what WFP warns could become a "famine-like situation" unless livelihood options improve. 

"The situation is critical," Rader said. "People may have to sell all their livestock and other assets in order to eat." 

dm/nb/ds/mw 

Theme (s): Food Security, Human Rights,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

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Bangladesh rejects ‘death squad’ allegations

DHAKA: Bangladesh rejected Wednesday an international rights group’s claims that its Rapid Action Battalion police force was a “death squad” that had carried out 200 extrajudicial killings in the last two years.

“These allegations are unacceptable,” Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder told AFP Wednesday. In a report released Tuesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the government to disband the elite paramilitary force unless it was held accountable for the hundreds of so-called “crossfire” killings.

The force is engaging in “death squad-like activities,” HRW’s Asia director Brad Adams told AFP, adding that more than 200 people had been killed by the RAB since the current Awami League government came to power in January 2009.

According to Sikder, only 91 people have been killed by the RAB since 2009 and in each case an investigation by magistrates had cited legitimate self-defence. “Everyone has the right to defend himself,” he said, adding that RAB personnel were subject to Bangladeshi law. afp

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