Merry Christmas, Mom: Ustream links soldiers with home

Ustream cofounders Brad Hunstable and John Ham as West Point cadets in 1998(Credit: The U.S. Army)

To many Americans with family members serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the most wished-for holiday gift is simply a visit with their far-off loved ones.

Ustream.TV, a start-up that lets people stream live video to the Web, is planning to help military families connect through the Internet this holiday season.

The company has given Webcams to people who have family stationed in Iraq, so they can access the Ustream service and take part in a video chat.

Ustream, headquartered in Los Altos, Calif., has a strong military background. Co-founders John Ham and Brad Hunstable met each other while attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The former cadets reached the rank of captain before leaving the Army.

Frank Caufield, co-founder of heavyweight venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield " >

Ham and Hunstable last February(Credit: Ustream)

"Having served five years and being separated from my family for a year, I know what it's like to be away from home during the holidays," Ham told CNET News.com on Thursday. "Military families sacrifice so much so their loved ones can serve their country. We're doing what we can to make a difference."

Initially, Ustream intended to send Webcams to soldiers in Iraq as well as their families. But Army officials nixed the idea for security reasons, according to an Ustream spokeswoman.

Soldiers already equipped with a Webcam will be able to broadcast themselves to their families at the same time their families will be visible to them. Service members without cameras can still watch on their computer monitors and communicate with loved ones through instant message or telephone.

Hands-on the Zumobi widget platform

The long-awaited beta for the Zumobi mobile widgets platform (at least awaited by me) became available Friday to Windows Mobile 5 and 6 users and developers who register on the site.

Zumobi, like Yahoo! Go (which just moved out of beta) and Plusmo, is an experiment in mobile widgetry that cooks up an interactive recipe for getting wanted Web content fast.

Zumobi's twist is part interface, part monetizing. The app opens to a grid of sixteen tiles, each its own app readied for your click. Four tiles cluster around a central hub, what Zumobi likes to call it's "flower." To access an app, click--I mean zoom--into the nearest "flower" foursome and use whatever navigation your phone provides to draw up the app you want.

Each widget contains a Google search bar, a share action, and the ability for the tile developer to serve up a banner ad, Zumobi's revenue-sharing model. Users interact with AP News as an RSS feed, play BlackJack, and view random or tagged Flickr photos. Zumobi encourages feedback, and places that mechanism in a suitably tucked-away, but tragically mis-mapped, star button that pops out a 5-point rating scale--when you press the '8' key, though, not the asterisk. (Credit: Zumobi)

Though Zumobi loads with thirteen default apps, there's room for three more, which users add from a gallery of about 80 apps on Zumobi.com. The company plans to enable the phone's gallery function by mid-2008. Apps can be shuffled around or deleted, but also revived if users change their minds.

Zumobi seems to make much of its multinavigational sensitivity, but that's secondary to me, especially when some navigational responses, like to the T-Mobile Shadow's scroll wheel, experience hiccups. I expect mobile apps to seamlessly respond to touch phones, D-pads, keypads, and swiveling displays as handsets diversify. A much sharper usability point is why users are compelled to click twice to get to the single app they want, once to zoom into the quarter-screen and once again to open the full app.

There are other issues Zumobi has to iron out with mapping keys to symbols, tightening image rendering, and filling in functions on the Zero menu, which is part inbox, part tile gallery, and part sharing hub.

The app certainly has promise, particularly if third-party developers can do for it what they did for Facebook, but I admit a little disappointment. Everything about Zumobi is so polished--the conference presentations; the Web site; the crisp, glossy app interface--but seems overcomplicated where it should be the most effortless. I wouldn't say Zumobi lacks substance, but I right now the special effects and tie-ins trump the plot.

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Laser gunship brings back the ball turret

The Advanced Tactical Laser aircraft flies over Albuquerque, N.M.(Credit: Ed Turner, Boeing)

The first ray guns to be used in combat may well be aerial weapons, and not phaserlike side arms in the hands of foot soldiers.

Certainly Boeing is working in that direction. For several years it's been providing regular updates on the (notably slow) progress of its marquee directed-energy effort, the Airborne Laser, to be carried aloft by a heavily modified 747 that's intended to stop ballistic missiles during their launch phase. Now the defense contractor is touting the steps it's taking with a smaller counterpart designed to strike ground targets, the Advanced Tactical Laser.

As of this month, the high-energy chemical laser that is the actual weapons portion of the ATL is now installed in a C-130H airplane, a well-proven design taking on yet another new mission. The 12,000-plus-pound chemical laser system is taking up residence alongside a separate beam control system, installed at an earlier date, that functions as the tracking and targeting apparatus.

This would hardly be the first time that the C-130, primarily a cargo and troop transport aircraft, has functioned as a gunship. The well-armed AC-130 variant saw much action in Vietnam, and has also flown in subsequent conflicts.

An earlier incarnation of the ball turret, in restored B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft flying in 2002.(Credit: SSGT William Greer, USAF )

The business end of the ATL will be a rotating turret in the belly of the fuselage--reminiscent of the one-squished-man ball turret of the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator planes used in World War II, hauntingly depicted by poet Randall Jarrell in his "Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner." By contrast, the 747-borne Airborne Laser will fire through the nose of the aircraft.

Sometime in 2008, the ATL is expected to demonstrate its prowess in flight, directing the high-energy laser at what Boeing calls "mission-representative ground targets." In tests at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., earlier this year, a surrogate low-power laser hit targets on more than a dozen occasions, and laboratory testing of the high-energy laser wrapped up after more than 50 firings, according to Boeing.

Aerial tests of the bigger, ballistic-missile-minded Airborne Laser are scheduled for 2009.

Boeing doesn't just have its head in the clouds when it comes to directed-energy weapons. It's also working on a more down-to-Earth Humvee-mounted laser shooter.

Grand stands

I've previously covered several stands that place your laptop at a more-ergonomic height when used with an external keyboard. Today I look at yet another, as well as two stands for saving desk space when storing your notebook or using it with an external keyboard and display.

RAIN DESIGN MSTAND

As I've noted in the past, if you regularly use your laptop at a desk, you should use some sort of laptop stand or riser to lift your laptop's screen to the proper viewing height, and then use a separate keyboard and mouse, placed at a healthy height of their own, for input. Rain Design's $50 mStand is just such a stand, and a stylish one, at that. Made from a single, thick piece of aluminum with an anodized finish that closely matches the look of Apple's current MacBook Pros, the mStand is perhaps the most attractive stand I've seen. It's definitely the sturdiest--it doesn't "bounce" nearly as much as other stands, thanks to the rigid material, and the wide, 10- by 7.5-inch base gives it a stable feel even when supporting a large notebook. The tilted top surface raises the front of your laptop 3 inches off your desk, with the back edge of a 15-inch MacBook Pro raised 6.5 inches, putting the top edge of the display approximately 13.5 inches off the desk. That's not quite high enough to be optimal--APC's $80 Ergonomic Notebook Stand with USB hub is better in this respect--but it's much better for your health than leaving your laptop flat on your desk.



Like Griffin Technology's $40 Elevator, the mStand has a large area underneath your laptop for storing your keyboard and mouse when not in use. A 1.25-inch hole in the back of the mStand--rimmed with white plastic to match the similar opening on the stands for Apple's Cinema Displays--provides a limited degree of cable management; instead of having all the cables hanging off the sides of your MacBook or MacBook Pro and then winding back separately, you can snake them under the laptop and through the hole. Four rubber pads on the top surface and a thick, metal lip at the front of the stand--also padded--stop your laptop from sliding around.

However, you need to be careful when placing a notebook with a front-mounted optical drive on the mStand; positioning a 15-inch MacBook Pro even a quarter-inch off-center (to the left) blocks the optical-drive slot. In addition, on the sample we received, the metal lip at the front actually blocks the lid latch button on a MacBook Pro or PowerBook; you have to lift the front of the laptop up to press the button. (The Rain Design Web site claims that currently-shipping mStands have a small cut-out area that provides access to the latch button.)



POWER SUPPORT DOCKING STAND FOR MACBOOK

Although many laptop owners take advantage of their laptop's screen when working at a desk, others close the lid, hook up an external display, keyboard, and mouse, and effectively use the laptop as a CPU. The only problem is where to put the laptop. (A similar question--where to put it?--arises when you're not using your laptop at all.)

Power Support's $40 Docking Stand offers an interesting solution: instead of placing the laptop flat on your desk, the Docking Stand provides a stable, 4.5-inch-wide mounting stand, into which your laptop slides in order to rest vertically. (Despite its name, the Docking Stand works with both MacBooks and MacBook Pros.) The computer takes up a fraction of the desk space it would normally.

Made of aluminum with gray-plastic trim, the Docking Stand by default fits MacBook Pro models perfectly; smooth-plastic pads on the inside of the bracket allow the laptop to slide into the Stand without scratching the computer's surfaces. (Adhesive, fabric pad covers are included for added protection, if you prefer; the bottom of the bracket is already covered with this fabric.) However, you can easily adjust the Docking Stand, via three screws on the bottom, to fit notebooks up to approximately 1.5 inches thick; the caveat here is that the wider you make the stand, the less solid the base feels. Still, as long as you put your laptop in the Stand horizontally, it won't easily fall over.

If you opt to use your computer while it's "docked," the Docking Stand actually works better with MacBooks, which have all their ports on one side and the optical drive on the other--you can orient your MacBook so that your cables connect in the back, while the optical drive is in the front for easy access. When used with a MacBook Pro, keep in mind that you'll have at least one or two cables connected to each end, so there's a bit more cable clutter.

I've also found the Docking Stand to be a convenient way to store my laptop when I'm not using it; my MacBook Pro takes up much less desk space when sitting vertically. One complaint I have, for either use, is that the bottom of the Docking Stand has no protective pads and thus easily slides around a wood or metal desk. Power Support includes four adhesive, fabric pads to protect your desk, but the Stand still slides too easily. I would have appreciated rubber feet.



BALMUDA DESIGN FLOATER

If you like PowerSupport's Docking Stand, but want something sturdier and with more of a design focus, Balmuda's $305 Floater is just that--and quite a bit more expensive, as well.

The Floater does essentially the same thing as the Docking Stand, but is a much more substantial product. Made of 7 separate pieces of anodized aluminum alloy--each machined from a single block of metal--the Floater is held together by a series of stainless-steel hex bolts. The laptop "cradle" floats an inch or so off your desk (hence the product's name), supported by a thick arm connected to one end of the Floater's 4.75- by 10.6-inch base. The Floater weighs nearly two pounds on its own, and is noticeably more stable than Power Support's Stand.

The Floater's cradle is lined with numerous silicone bumpers that both keep your laptop securely in place and protect it from being scratched by the stand's metal. Polyurethane feet on the bottom of the base keep the Floater from moving and protect your desk. One detail that impressed me is that each silicone bumper and polyurethane foot is set into a recessed section of the metal, custom-machined for that particular bumper or foot.

The Floater is compatible with 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros, the 13-inch MacBook, and the 17-inch PowerBook G4. Because these laptops vary slightly in thickness, the Floater's cradle can be adjusted up to 2mm wider or narrower using the included hex wrench and three sets of spacers of different thicknesses. You just loosen the bolts securing the sides of the cradle; slide the spacers, in whichever combination provides the appropriate cradle width, into the spaces between the cradle's sides and bottom; and then tighten the bolts.



The Floater has a similar limitation as Power Support's Docking Stand: although the Floater looks much better with MacBook Pros, it works better with MacBooks, which have all their ports on one end. That said, the Floater provides cable "tunnels" on each end of its base, which allows you to run the cables from one end down and under the stand--the result is a less-cluttered look.

Is the Floater worth $305? It's attractive, very well-made, and, like the Docking Stand, useful. But you're definitely paying--a lot--for the unique design and the production process.

Cisco's CEO on Hollywood's Walk of Fame?

Los Angeles--Imagine my surprise to see John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems, immortalized with a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Right near Levar Burton no less.

What did they give it to him for? For his fine performance of the "Are you ready?" speech he used to give during the Internet heyday. Chambers gave this speech once every few days, it seemed, between 1996 and 2000. It was rousing, until the third time you heard it. (And it turned out the answer to the question was: "For the dot.com implosion? No.")

Ape must not kill ape, or buy second-rate networking (Credit: Michael Kanellos )

Was it for his unflappable Southern charm, even under difficult circumstances? He never gets riled in public. Was he a stunt double for Ron Howard on Andy Griffith show back in the 60s?

No. It turns out that the star belongs to special effects whiz John Chambers, who transformed Roddy McDowell into a walking chimp in the original "Planet of the Apes" series.

The router king will no doubt one day get a more fitting memorial. Still, I like the idea of him in a board room bellowing "Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape."

Merry Christmas Mom: Ustream links soldiers with home

Ustream cofounders Brad Hunstable and John Ham as West Point cadets in 1998(Credit: The U.S. Army)

To many Americans with family members serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the most wished-for holiday gift is simply a visit with their far-off loved ones.

Ustream.TV, a startup that lets users stream live video to the Web, is planning to help military families connect through the Internet this holiday season.

The company has supplied families -- who have loved ones stationed in Iraq -- with Web cameras so they can access the Ustream service and take part in a video chat.

Ustream, headquartered in Los Altos, Calif., has a strong military background. Cofounders John Ham and Brad Hunstable met each other while attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. The former cadets reached the rank of captain before leaving the army.

Frank Caufield, cofounder of heavyweight venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield " >

Ham and Hunstable last February(Credit: Ustream)

"Having served five years and being separated from my family for a year, I know what it's like to be away from home during the holidays," Ham told CNET News.com on Thursday. "Military families sacrifice so much so their loved ones can serve their country. We're doing what we can to make a difference."

Initially, Ustream intended to send Web cams to soldiers in Iraq as well as their families. But Army officials nixed the idea for security reasons, according to an Ustream spokeswoman.

Soldiers already equipped with a Web camera will be able to broadcast themselves to their families at the same time their families will be visible to them. Service members without cameras can still watch on their computer monitors and communicate with loved ones through instant message or telephone.

Another iPhone Exchange Server sync solution?

ActiveSync for iPhone? No word yet. iPXSync? It sounds great. Is ANYONE out there participating in this beta? As tedious days of accessing my work email via Outlook Web Access via my iPhone's Safari web browser took their toll, I went in search of other iPhone Exchange access solutions.

Surprisingly, I found one: The company is called Visto, and their web site's landing page describes their product in broad strokes: Visto Mobile will allow users to send and receive emails, appointments and tasks, as well as view attachments, from their cellphone for Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes users. Curiously, they aren't mentioning 'Exchange' or the word 'server', but instead stating that Visto Mobile provides "mobile access to Microsoft Outlook."

The Visto web site has a pre-registration form on its homepage which indicates a Q3 2007 free trial. The mention of the iPhone is no where to be found except on a page buried on the site. The page has an iPhone specific free trial sign-up form.

The original mention of Visto is an Everything iPhone forum post. Again, its unclear if this is a true sync solution. Fingers crossed for the real deal: ActiveSync for iPhone.