The story is told year after year, passed down from generation to generation, Santa is coming to town. And this year is special because NORAD will help your child keep track of Santa as he moves around the world. There is even a special iPhone application too.

According to Mike Caldwell

This started in 1955 when a newspaper ad told children they could call Santa at the North Pole — but the number was misprinted. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone rang through to the crew commander on duty at the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center. Thus began the tradition which NORAD has carried on ever since.

What are you waiting for? Go to NoradSanta.org and get started today.

PS. The site is great for adults too.

Now we just need to convince Lora to give us her opinions on the latest technologies hitting the streets.

Our family is gathering to celebrate Loren’s life. We would like those who knew him and were influenced by him to join us for a picnic this Saturday at 2PM at our sister’s home. We posted information and directions on Loren’s blog.

Thanks to Robert Craigo for the pointer.

Submissions in each category should describe experiences using Tablet PCs or other pen-based technology in K-12, higher education, or other teaching and learning environments.  Full paper submissions will be peer-reviewed, other submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee. Accepted submissions will appear in a Monograph to be published by Purdue University Press and authors will present their work at WIPTE 2010.  For detailed calls and additional information see www.wipte.org

Online conference registration will be available at www.wipte.org by June 1st, 2010. The early bird registration fee is $100. After September 30th, 2010 the registration fee is $150.  The registration includes a reception, a dinner, a copy of the conference proceedings, and the opportunity to win a variety of raffle prizes. Last year’s prizes included Tablet PCs and smart phones.

One of the pictures I have hanging on a wall is of a Windows CE slate made around 2003 mocked up with a screenshot of my brother’s circuit drawing program built in 2001 (on Windows 2000). This shows the state of the hardware back in 2002 / 2003.

Windows CE Device, slate design, 2003

Apple iPad, 2010

Study these two photos. Notice the size of the hands compared to the devices. They’re basically the same size. It looks like the Windows CE device from 2003 is lighter than the iPad because there isn’t as much torque on the hand. Of course, the battery may have been smaller & lasted only a few hours. But it shows what has been possible from device size & screen size for this last decade.

Also, there is a big difference between a capacitive touch from a resistive touch. For drawing, which one is better? It’s not trivial to draw on a capacitive only touchscreen. Much like you can say it wasn’t easy to navigate with a stylus and resistive screen. There are tradeoffs. The good news is that the industry looks like it’s moving toward merging the two directions to provide the best user experience.

Students are competiting to create a new education application that uses Touch & Tablet technology in accessibility scenarios to expand the possibilities about how a user (student or educator) interacts with the computer. Round 1 began in January and now ten teams advanced to Round 2, where those teams will finalize storyboards and build functional prototypes of their software applications. Of these ten teams, the top two will be invited to compete in the final round, which will be in Warsaw, Poland in July.

Congratulations to Round 1 participants for your unique approaches to improving accessibility issues in education. Now, it will be exciting to see how the top 10 progress! Good luck!

Teams advancing to Round 2:

1. Default Dream from Ukraine
2. eVolve from Poland
3. Griffin from Indonesia
4. IC – UNICAMP from Brazil
5. inTouch from United States
6. Layar Sentuh from Indonesia
7. MacroSight from Indonesia
8. Note-Taker Project from United States
9. OneView from United States
10. Ramians from India

Paper deadline: April 7, 2010
Papers acceptance notification: April 28, 2010
Papers camera-ready deadline: May 5, 2010

I live in in the mountains in Prescott, Arizona, but today I’m in Scottsdale visiting family. We’re taking the opportunity to play with the Apple iPad outside in the bright sunshine so we can answer these viewing questions. Here are photos & videos from this exploration.

We used two basic applications for this exercise: The Weather Channel TWC Max + and iBooks with free Winnie-the-Pooh. We started in shade then with the same applications open moved to bright sun and rotated so you can see the variation.

The video and photos were taken just after 9AM MST. We’ll check again at noon and 3pm to see if it’s different. Keep in mind that it’s likely that as the season changes to summer and angle of the sun changes that the viewing conditions will be slightly different too. (But will we want to read outdoors when it is 110 deg. F out? Not likely.)

Overall, reading the iPad outside is acceptable because of the application design. When you’re able to adjust application font size to make larger than average and can increase screen brightness all the way, then it’s readable.

Oh, one thing we didn’t do was take a photo of the iPad next to the Kindle. We’ll do that next.

Like some other devices, the iPad needs to be connected to a full computer (Windows or Mac) for initial setup, updates, and synchronization of certain data. Apple iTunes software application manages this process. Advanced users can access photos like you would use a flash drive and may sync contacts and more via Mobile Me service. We’re using iTunes 9.1 running on a Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC with Windows 7. This is a particularly mobile combination, as the Toshiba Tablet PC is used as a primary PC even during travel so frequent syncing of the iPad will be possible.

Unboxing

Apple documents package contents fairly well: iPad, USB cable, 10W USB power adapter, sticker, and FCC docs. Nevertheless, it’s always good to open a package and see that what is supposed to be in the box is actually in the box.

Apple iPad is protected by a plastic covering that should be removed before use.

10W Power Adapter attaches to USB cable (included).

Setup

Setup time will vary depending on what content you synchronize. To make this simple and get started quickly, we selected to sync the iPhone applications that were already in the iTunes account. The process took about 20 minutes.

New Apple iPad

Connect the iPad to the PC with the included USB cable. After opening iTunes, it will detect the iPad and walk you through the setup process. You will need to have your iTunes account information handy. Also, before you sync make sure your existing iTunes information is backed up and current.

“Let’s get started” introduces the iPad setup.