Does Obama actually work in the Oval Office?

Does Obama actually work in the Oval Office? - After the White House released photos of the newly renovated Oval Office late last month, the Explainer noticed something a little bizarre: There was no computer on President Obama's desk, or any paperwork, either. Does Obama actually work in the Oval Office?

President Obama's newly decorated Oval Office

Not most of the time. The president conducts briefings and holds staff meetings in the Oval Office, but it's used primarily as a ceremonial space. Obama does much of his day-to-day work—such as editing speeches and reviewing papers—in the President's Study, located off the Oval Office, and in the Treaty Room, on the second floor of the White House. Many recent former presidents—including both Bushes, Carter, Ford, and Johnson—chiefly worked out of the study as well.


The last president to use the Oval Office regularly for desk work may have been John F. Kennedy, who would go there after hours to record the day's events for what would, presumably, have become his memoirs.


The desk in Obama's Treaty Room, unlike the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, is piled high with paperwork. The room also contains a computer, a printer, and a television. Despite these office amenities, it's unlikely that Obama uses a computer regularly in the White House.


As the Explainer noted last year, previous presidents, including Bush and Clinton, went without computers and e-mail in order to avoid the Presidential Records Acts of 1978, which requires commanders-in-chief to archive their correspondence and make it public. (The PRA does not include a section on e-mail, but the act's broad definition of a presidential record has been interpreted to include electronic communication.)


Bonus Explainer: Why is the Oval Office oval? It's supposed to recall the elliptical salon in George Washington's temporary presidential house. Washington thought the oval design encouraged guests to stand around him in a circle. He could then bow to greet each guest in order and from about the same distance. ( slate.com )

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New iPhone app helps identify why a baby is crying within ten seconds

New iPhone app helps identify why a baby is crying within ten seconds. Baffled parents desperate to know exactly why their baby is crying can now get the answer in ten seconds from their mobile phone.

A company in Barcelona has launched an iPhone application which they say will take just that amount of time to figure out what's up with baby.

Demand has been phenomenal since it was featured on American television this week, said a company spokeswoman.

Apparently a parent will be able to determine what is wrong with their child within ten seconds

The Cry Translator 'involves a revolutionary technology that quickly identifies an infant's cry, based on one of five emotional or physiological states: hunger, fatigue, annoyance, stress or boredom, ' say the creators Pedro Barrera and Luis Meca.

'These five cries are universal to all babies regardless of culture or language.'

Parents are told to simply place their iPhone about a foot from the crying baby and touch the 'Start' button.

The cries are analysed and identified within the 10-second window with a 96 per cent degree of accuracy . Once the cry has been identified, tips to calm the infant are provided.

The iPhone app claims to be able to tell the difference between five different types of baby cry

One parent on the company's website marveled at how accurately a soiled nappy was detected.

However, one thing the app does not mention is how it would recognise if a baby was ill.

It seems there are still some situations where a parent's instincts work better than technology.

The company, Biloop Technologic, originally developed the technology using a handheld device but it was decided to simply to concentrate on the iPhone application, said the spokeswoman.

Available in Britain, the US and Spain initially, it is priced at $9.99 until later this month.

A clinical trial at a hospital in Spain with the original device tested 104 children. When the suggestions to calm the child were followed, 96 per cent of the babies stopped crying. dailymail

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Psychic 'mind-reading' computer will show your thoughts on screen

Psychic 'mind-reading' computer will show your thoughts on screen. A mind-reading machine that can produce pictures of what a person is seeing or remembering has been developed by scientists.

The device studies patterns of brainwave activity and turns them into a moving image on a computer screen.

While the idea of a telepathy machine might sound like something from science fiction, the scientists say it could one day be used to solve crimes.

Leap forward: Halle Berry in X-Men. The telepathic abilities from the films are closer to reality after inventors created a mind-reading machine

In a pioneering experiment, an American team scanned the brain activity of two volunteers watching a video and used the results to recreate the images they were seeing.

Although the results were crude, the technique was able to reproduce the rough shape of a man in a white shirt and a city skyline.

Professor Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'At the moment when you see something and want to describe it you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.

'This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's memory of a crime.'

The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts.

Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, normally found in hospitals, the American team scanned the brains of two volunteers while they watched videos.

The results were fed into a computer which looked for links between colours, shapes and movements on the screen, and patterns of activity in the brain.

The computer software was then given the brain scans of the volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to recreate what they were seeing.

According to Dr Gallant, who has yet to publish the results of the experiment, the software was close to the mark.

In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face.

In another, the volunteers watched an image of a city skyline with a plane flying past.

The software was able to recreate the skyline - but not the aircraft. dailymail

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The Internet and mobile phones increase your social network

The Internet and mobile phones increase your social network. Technology DOESN'T isolate people: New study shows the Internet and mobile phones increase your social network

They have been blamed for isolating people and shrinking their circle of friends.

But a new study has found that the Internet and mobile phones do precisely the opposite and actually enhance people’s social worlds.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, titled ‘Social Isolation and New Technology’, found that people who embraced the modern technologies had larger and more diverse friendship networks.

Reaching out: A young woman looks at Facebook on her laptop. Research has refuted claims that modern technology leads to isolation

‘When we examine people's full personal network... Internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks,’ the researchers said in a statement.

‘Our key findings challenge previous research and commonplace fears about the harmful social impact of new technology.’

The survey was triggered by a 2006 study by U.S. sociologists which found that modern technology is advancing a worrying trend seen since 1985.

Americans are becoming more socially isolated, their social networks shrinking and the diversity of their contacts decreasing, the earlier study found.

But the recent telephone survey of 2,512 adults, conducted by Princeton Survey Research International in July and August this year, found that the extent of social isolation has hardly changed at all since 1985.

It found that six per cent of the adult population has no one with whom to discuss important matters but this figure is largely unchanged since 1985.

The survey did, however, find that people's ‘discussion networks’ have shrunk about a third in the past 25 years and become less diverse as they contain fewer non-family members.

But people who have mobile phones and take part in a variety of Internet activities generally have larger and more diverse core discussion networks.

On average, the size of people's discussion networks is a sizeable 12 per cent larger among mobile phone users than non-users, nine per cent larger for those who share photos online, and nine per cent bigger for those who use instant messaging.

The diversity of people's core networks also tends to be wider for IT-friendly individuals, the survey shows.

Social networks tend to be 25 per cent larger among mobile phone users than non-users, 15 per cent wider for basic Internet users, and even larger for frequent Internet users, instant messengers and those sharing photos online.

Internet users were as likely as anyone else to visit their neighbours and take part in local community activities, the results showed.

The researchers wrote: ‘Cell [mobile] phone users, those who use the Internet frequently at work and bloggers are more likely to belong to a local voluntary association, such as a youth group or a charitable organization.’

However, the team did find some evidence that use of social networking services, such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, has substituted for some neighborhood involvement.

The researchers said most users of the Internet and mobile phone have a positive relationship to neighborhood networks, voluntary associations, and use of public spaces.

They conclude that people’s lives are likely to be enhanced by new communication technologies and they should not fear that use of the Internet and mobile phones will send them ‘into a spiral of isolation’. dailymail

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The great computer software battle

Windows 7 versus Apple: The great computer software battle. Battling for your business: Should you go for Apple software for your computer or wait for Google?

There's no escaping it: Windows Vista was a disaster. Launched in 2007, Microsoft's follow-up to the massively successful Windows XP software, which powers the vast majority of the world's computers, met with lukewarm reviews and terrible customer satisfaction ratings.

It was simply too demanding of the computers it ran on – and the people who used it. Which is why Microsoft is going to great lengths to prove its new operating system, Windows 7, isn't just better than Vista – it's also simpler.

It takes up 40 per cent less disk space and has lower hardware requirements, so it runs faster on the new cut-price laptops known as netbooks. But it faces tough competition from two of the biggest names in technology: Apple and Google.

The Windows advantage

Microsoft Windows runs on over 90 per cent of all PCs and, despite losing a few percent in the last two years, it's reassuringly familiar for most computer users. What's more, the ubiquity of Windows means many applications – particularly business-critical ones – are written exclusively for Windows.

The Windows-only gaming market is massive, too.

But Windows' dominance comes at a cost: the vast majority of malicious viruses are created to target the system. Which is why Windows 7 builds on one of Vista's notable strengths – security.

Microsoft has produced its own anti-virus software, Security Essentials, which is available as a free download; the latest Internet Explorer browser will stop you giving personal data to spoof websites; and regular software updates will fix any problems as soon as they're discovered.

Just as important as security is simplicity. The new system borrows some of the best bits of the Apple Mac user interface – such as a taskbar at the bottom of the screen allowing you to launch software quickly. The taskbar will also allow you to view thumbnail images of the windows associated with each open application, which helps you navigate your way through email and web pages.

There are some cool features that are totally original to Windows, too – like the ability to drag two windows to either side of the screen and have them automatically resize so you can compare and contrast.

The built-in Media Center software makes it easy to enjoy music and video on a laptop that's hooked up to a TV, and you can even 'push' video from one computer to another – enabling parents to control what their children are watching in their bedrooms.

Return of the Mac

Two months before the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft's old rival Apple launched its own operating system update, called Snow Leopard. Rather than adding new features, most of the changes were under-the-bonnet performance improvements. But Apple has less to prove – sales of Macs have been steadily increasing, buoyed by the success of the iPod and iPhone.

Unlike Microsoft, Apple designs both hardware and software, which makes it easier to create stylish and stable systems. You'll pay more for a Mac, but the price includes brilliant software for managing your digital photos, editing home videos, recording music and even designing your own website.

While Apple's high prices mean its computers are unlikely to threaten the supremacy of Windows, the massive success of the iPhone – which offers web browsing, email and downloadable applications – suggests that the face of computing is changing. And in the world of mobile, Microsoft is struggling to keep up with the pace.

The threat of Google

Windows' biggest challenge will come when Google releases its own operating system, Chrome, next year. It's built on the same foundations as Linux – the free, open-source software that powers many netbooks.

But Google promises something altogether different: an operating system 'designed for people who live on the web'. Chrome will provide access to Google's free 'cloud computing' services – everything from email to photo galleries. Because the hard work is done by 'the cloud' – Google's vast server farms – computers running the Chrome operating system can be cheap and low-powered. dailymail

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