SPRING Tech Crewsaders

SPRING/2013

The SFS Tech Magazine

Edition 4.0

Redesign

TC

For More INFO Visit ET

Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/1

Magazine Team: Editor-in-Chiefs: Dhira Web Khewsubtrakool & Seongwoo Choi

Senior Writers:

SeniorPage Designers:

Micahel Kang

Joshua Gong

James Yuh

Lillian Sheng

Chris Kim

Jimmy James Yuh

Patrick TomHon

Albert Kim

Alex Byun

Writers and Field Researchers: Yong Choi

Hugh Surdeau

Wonhee Cho

James Whong

Kathleen Lee

William TomHon

Yoonjie Park

Members of Tech Crewsaders Albert Kim

James Yuh

Michael Kang

Seongwoo Choi

Alex Byun

Jay Lee

Michael Mussel

Seungwoo Paik

Chris Garcia

Joon-Ha Im (Adrien)

Morgan Yi

William TomHon

Chris Kim

Joshua Gong

Nathan Cheung

Won Hee Cho

Christian de Bruin

Justin Chung

Patrick Hahn

Yong Choi

Dhira Web Khewsubtrakool

Justin Kae

Patrick TomHon

Yoon Hyuk Chang (Anno)

Hugh Surdeau

Kathleen Lee

Sabrina Sung

Yoonjie Park

James Whong

Lillian Sheng

Sang Hoon (Josh Cho)

PILOTS

TECH CREWSADERS SPRING 2013

In this Spring Issue, Jimmy Yuh, and I have had the privilege of being given the opportunity to work as co-pilot editor for the Spring Edition of the ET Magazine. The pilot program is an opportunity for ambitious members to pursue and experience the responsibility of becoming the editor in chief. Before writing my introduction I would like to thank Web Khewsubtrakool for trusting us with such a valuable job to both of us, to try and explore first-hand the significance of becoming the editor in chief.

It is our main goal between ourselves that we deliver a magazine with quality unparalleled to its prior editions. During our time as pilot editor in chiefs, we realized it was imperative to be able to manage our time efficiently, 2/Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION

be able to remain calm in heated situations, and be able to work as a team using our own initiatives to guide our team members. In addition, we hoped to achieve the ultimate goal of producing an edition surpassing its predecessors and thus time was not the limit.

“Time is not an issue” was the advice which Web presented us, “it is more important to learn and understand from our mistakes than be late.”

Accompanied by Web, a task which seemed impossible to begin with slowly began to unravel before us, and we strived to produce a product which was lavish in design, but more importantly, rich in content. With much appreciated encouragements from Web, 2 months later, we are finally proud to deliver the ET Magazine: Spring Edition.

Chris Kim Pilot Editor-in-chief for SPRING ED.

MONTHLY REPORT

TECH CREWSADERS SPRING 2013

The current evolution of education is challenging schools from all over the globe to integrate technology in new ways as they try to, what the S.A.M.R model calls, redefine learning.

Schools, networks, and pedagogy are literally being redesigned and refined on a daily basis, but the process of natural selection, when it comes to tech tools, leaves many educators and administrators perpetually frustrated as they again search for the perfect formula/combination of tools that will fully support and transform their institutions. When will it end?

The simple answer is, possibly never.

Educators need not only to redefine the way they teach and the tools they teach with, but more importantly, they need to refine how they see themselves as educators. The “Master Teacher” label of the past no longer exists, or at the very least, has also been redefined. Educators have to reconcile themselves to being perpetual novices. You cannot stop the speed of the evolution of tech, therefore, educators have to be the agents of natural selection while refining their practice. This positively models to students that they are willing to take a risk, fail, and try again.

This is the behavior that is essential to being an effective 21st century educator.

with no idea of where we were going.

We all arrived with preconceived notions of what the club might look like, and have had to surrender some concepts that we thought were absolute. Somehow though, as a group, month in month out, we refine our presence, processes, and purpose as we attempt to redefine student tech innovation and support at Seoul Foreign School. Where we are looks nothing like where we were, and where we are, looks nothing like we are going. It is an exciting place to be, driven by the curiosity and passions of our team.

The Tech Crewsaders are a model of this shift. We started as a small group

Brian Hamm, B.Ed, M.Ed Educational Technology Integrationist

EDITOR’S NOTE

TECH CREWSADERS SPRING 2013

First dear reader, I am glad to be back with the Magazine again, it has truly felt like a very long time.

However, there are some very good reasons behind such a decision to the publicaton for this long.

Right after the release of the January Issue I had achieved news from my parents that I may have a chance of moving out of Korea by the end of this year. Even if I do or do not move there will be at some point in the future where I will no longer be able to serve for ET and for SFS. So maintaining the strength of ET has shifted to become my primary priority.

In the month of February I was heavily concerned for mainly the longevity of the Magazine. Thus I introduced the Pilot program to my fellow editors to try to pursue. The main goal of the Pilot program is for me to help and guide 2 of my editors as they try to take the roles of Editor-in-chiefs.

This means that both of them will undertake all the tasks that I usually do including both layouts, design and

administration. At first, Jimmy and Chris, were extremely excited and enthusiastic to become a leader of a school publication. What they did not know was how demanding the responsibility was. I knew from the beginning that the Pilot program will not end in a month but instead longer.

Nevertheless I believe that learning without rush and with the ability to reflect upon one’s own work as we go along the Pilot program was without a doubt a very rewarding experience for the two and for myself as a friend and a mentor.

As the Pilot program pushed on during March I was greatly involved in promoting the Tech Crewsaders internationally at the FLAT conference for nearly a week. The conference is comprised of around 80 students from more than 10 schools in Asia who came together with the aim of helping each other with technology.

In my belief for club members to be fully committed to their team they need to feel that they are valued for their work. As such, I made it one of

my primary goals to promote our work at the Japan FLAT conference.

There, every student and teacher that the team were able to connect with were absolutely stunned and amazed by our work and had never seen anything done in our field at this caliber before in the past.

In the end, it could not be 100% possible for me to give you the full log of what I had personally worked on for our school and the Tech Crewsaders during the Magazine’s absence. But I am forever in everyone’s debt for continuing to support our team and what we had done and what we will do.

Dhira Web Khewsubtrakool Editor–in-Chief of the Tech Crewsader Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/3

MAINTAINING YOUR TEMPERATURE By: Yong Choi

Y

ou are browsing through your Facebook profile when all of a sudden, without warning your laptop completely powers down.

You haven’t restarted your laptop in days (possibly weeks, and may God help you if it is in months) and there is no visible sign which may have caused your laptop to shut down. That is, until you hover your hand over your laptop and realize that your laptop is scorching hot. Laptop overheating is a problem that many people face and one can have dire consequences on your beloved laptop.

Why do laptops get hot?

The simple answer is that laptops are computers, and computers generate heat. The main difference between a laptop and computer is that laptops are a portable version of a computer and luckily for us, laptops generate less heat than computers due to their relative small size. Computers get hot as they generate heat by using electricity. To prevent this heat from damaging the mainframe, nearly all computers and laptops come with a built in fan. However sometimes, a simple fan is not enough to cool the system down.

Clogged laptop vents: If your laptop hasn’t been cleaned recently, chances are there is an excess of accumulated dust that is clogging up your laptop’s air vents. This drastically reduces the amount of heat that can exit from the laptop itself and thus, leads to the eventual overheating which can severely damage your laptop.

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Improper laptop placement: It is crucial that you realize the importance of proper laptop placement. A general guideline is to place a laptop in an empty, cool space (around room temperature, anything hotter may cause build-up of heat), on a flat surface. Placing anything to obstruct the air vents on a laptop will cause the laptop to heat up, therefore it is advised to locate the air vents on your laptop and remove all obstacles.

Malfunction of fans: As stated earlier, most laptops come with an inbuilt fan. However, as with all mechanical products, a fan is prone to malfunction for whatever the cause, and a malfunctioning fan will cause your laptop to overheat. It is similar to a car’s engine, if the cooling fans were to stop working, the engine will heat up. The same holds true towards laptops.

Over performing laptops: A computer is powered by the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and the more processing power the CPU needs, the more heat it will generate

Problems of overheating Overheating in a laptop can cause serious damage other than the initial discomfort which the user may experience. It can also cause damages to your internal hardware, leading to shortened lifespan, irreparable damage and potential data loss of data. Overall performance is also decreased. Common phenomenons experienced on an overheating laptop are unplanned shutdowns of the computer speed of browsing and lag.

On Windows laptops, it may even cause the dreaded ‘blue screen of death’. Although uncommon nowadays, overheat can cause some components of your laptop to melt due to exposure of extreme heat.

The toasting skin syndrome is a brownish discoloration of the skin caused by prolonged exposure to laptop heat. The syndrome was named after a 12 year old boy was found with brownish skin near his left thigh. A running laptop can approach temperature upwards of 40 degrees Celsius, more than enough to burn human skin if exposed for extended periods of time. To avoid burns, never place a laptop directly on your skin (i.e. your lap).

A simple solution?

There really is no ‘definite solution’ to keep your laptop cool. Best case scenario, simply relocating your laptop may be sufficient to maintain a clear air vent. In other cases you may need to visit your local hardware store and renew your ragged fans. The most important aspect of maintaining a healthy temperature in laptops is simply to preserve a healthy airflow in and out of the air vent. An efficient way to cool your laptop is by buying a portable laptop fan. By putting your laptop on top of these, the portable fans are able to cool your laptop much more effectively than the internal fan in your laptop.

The Windows Blue Screen of Death is a sign of a computer overheating

To prevent your CPU from heating up, first open your task manager

by Ctrl + Alt + Delete. From there, you can look at the bottom right screen to see your CPU Usage.

0 – 10% is the safe zone, and any number higher than 50 is usually when your computer heats up. To prevent your CPU Usage from going up, you can close programs that you are not using. To see what programs are specifically making your CPU Usage high, go to the Processes tab. Under this tab, there will be a header named CPU. Double click the header CPU and the programs that use your CPU will show up.

Mac Kernel Panic is a common sign of a system crash due to hardware

As the majority of overheating in laptops is caused by dust and other unwanted particles clogging the fan and the air vent, one easy-todo solution at home would be to simply clean these vents. Most Windows laptops allow for their users to dislocate the bottom protection plate (unscrew them with a screwdriver) which reveals the powerhouse of your laptop.

How do the insides look? If there is an abundance of gray matter, it may be wise to purchase a can of compressed air. For its price the can does wonders, cleaning vents by ‘shooting’ the insides with compressed air, removing the dust from the vents in a relatively short time. Just remember to not spray too close to your motherboard, and instead just focus mostly on removing the dust from the clogged fans. Once complete, reassemble your laptop and voila! Enjoy your laptop in pristine condition once again.

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The Past, Present, And Future of Photos By: Jimmy Yuh

O

n February 10th, 2013, Adobe Photoshop turned 20. For the past 20 years, Photoshop has been part of every web designer and photographer’s life. For every version and major feature listed, it’s hard not to think, “How did Photoshop not have that tool.” And for every part of Photoshop we love, Adobe is constantly designing new features. So in celebrating Photoshop’s illustrious 20 year history, let’s examine the past, present, and future of Adobe’s most celebrated tool.

Photoshop is a city. A city that is centuries old and layered with the past. Photoshop serves the people and the people serve Photoshop; people develop and change it to suit their needs and purposes. And Photoshop has constantly done that, becoming something totally new and unexpected every release.

It’s more than just a professional image editing application; it’s the only professional image editing application. It’s the city, that to do your job, you have to live in. Yet with every new update, problems

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shop The splashart screen of Phtoshop CS6 (2012)

still persist and you ask yourself: why can’t it be better?

Why can’t it be faster and slimmer?

Adobe Principal Scientist Russell Williams (the chief architect of Photoshop) put it aptly in answering these questions. “People always say ‘Take out the stuff I don’t use, and put all the stuff I do use right on top in the user interface.’ And the problem with that? Everybody has a different idea on what should be on top.” People are constantly discovering ways to use Photoshop that Adobe never even envisioned. “People take an artist toolbox and use the tools in totally bizarre ways,” he says. Adobe can’t tell people how to use Photoshop; in many ways it’s its own living, breathing organism that is constantly changing. And that’s what’s so hard about establishing just what Photoshop is: it has to be something for everybody.Photoshop was never supposed to be this complicated.

Thomas Knoll first developed Photoshop in 1987. It ran on an 8 Mhz Mac, with a 2 MB requirement of RAM, and it was shipped in a single floppy disk. Yet it was a marvel of modern technology even back then. Its first trick was to display print-resolution images on a standard Mac. Previously, a high-resolution image required expensive computers loaded with RAM. Yet what Knoll did was completely revolutionary: he figured out how to change these images – by treating them as mathematical

constructs. This fundamental thinking developed the tool, the wand-selection tool, and even plug-in filters.

Photoshop CS6 now could open a 10-15MB image (the size of a then-modern hard drive) and go to work. Filters would take 10 minutes to run, saving was a hassle, and a single undo made every decision precious but Knoll had successfully set the foundation for what Photoshop could and would become.

Nevertheless, Photoshop is still tied down to it’s past, despite its constant improvement and advances. What started as a simple photo editing tool quickly turned into a graphical design powerhouse and what started as a side project for Thomas Knoll turned into the image editing tool for graphic designers. And deep within the catacombs of Photoshop lies a little framework known as “MacApp”. It’s what remains from the very first version of Photoshop, a fragment of its foundation.

MacApp originally allowed Photoshop to communicate with the operating system, which was then Mac OS 6.0.3.

MacApp was eventually abandoned by Apple but is still a part of Adobe’s framework.

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Unfortunately, MacApp is still a force to contend with and an unwanted legacy of Photoshop 1.0. As recent as the Mac Cocoa conversion, millions of the original program’s code had to be changed, simply because of MacApp. This is another part of Russell’s job: accommodating those quirky bits of code left over from previous versions while developing Photoshop for the future.

At this point, you must ask yourself, “Why doesn’t Adobe just rework Photoshop?” Besides lines of codes from decades past, Photoshop consistently falls one feature short of collapse. Because despite GPU acceleration, new versions of Photoshop have constantly pushed the boundaries and capabilities of modern computers and operating systems, so they always seem a bit slower than their younger, more refined apps. So why wouldn’t a rework of Photoshop make it feel more 2013 than 1990?

It won’t.

In an interview with THE VERGE, Knoll said that “If you wanted to do everything Photoshop does, you’d have to do it in the same way Photoshop does.” A rewrite would likely take a decade, and, thanks to the error-prone nature of building complex software, it might never be completed. Just look at Apple’s recent rewrites. Final Cut X, an all-new look on the revered Final Cut Pro, outraged many video-editing professionals – to the point where they are now jumping ship to rival software. It’s never really about what a new app can do. It’s about how it does it. Just look at the recent iTunes revamp,or the recent Facebook changes. These new designs are undoubtedly nice, and perhaps even better than the previous versions. Yet it’s different and different is a

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 user interface in the year of its release (2007). As you can see, before Photoshop UI is dominated by white color space “clunky” in nature.

The most current Adobe Photoshop user interface in CS6 (2012), on the other hand, is much sleeker and cleaner. As a result most professionals can work without being distracted by the old user interface.

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mortal sin for professionals whose livelihood depends on using a product the same way today as 10 years ago.

For example, Adobe’s move to include more features of “it just works” where a simple click of a button can perform a once complex task that required professional work. This, as a result, begins to beg the question of the future need of “professionals” if the software are able to replace them.

Logo icons of Photoshop Since CS3 in 2007. Starting with CS3 in the top left , CS4 in the top right and CS5 and CS6 in the bottom row.

The “Tech Transfer” team. These are the guys in charge of pulling features from the lab into the final product.

If you’re looking for someone to thank for Content Aware Fill, these are your guys. Ditto, if you’re complaining about Photoshop bloat. And everything flows through the lead manager, Jeff Chien.

He understands the complaints of slowness. “We could make Photoshop incredibly fast…but in the future we want to do things smarter,” he explained. “Making the Clone Tool faster and running at the fraction of the memory, when you have plenty, isn’t going to do anybody good.” And that’s what so great about Photoshop. It can never seem to say “no” to a feature: which is why it’s so powerful.

Jeff wants Photoshop to be user-awareartificial AI. That’s the holy grail of Photoshop. Rather than seeing “objects” as “blob of color one” or “blob of color two”, Photoshop would see “objects” the way users see it, like “tree” or “chair”. Then the user could do as he or she please with the object; with Photoshop filling in the details of what might have been behind that object.

Depending on your perspective, this might seem fantastic or terrifying.

So what lies the future for Photoshop? Only time will tell. Yet from new changes from cloud storage to user awareness, Photoshop is certainly moving towards the future. More importantly, it’s not for anybody. It’s for everybody.

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IPad the Remote control By: Patrick TomHon The iPad is an amazing device on its own just as your computer is. They’re complicated pieces of technology with various intricate parts that complement each other perfectly. However, various apps for the iPad that allow you to utilize your device in harmony with your PC or Mac (possibly Linux, but who knows) allow this interaction to be enhanced even further.

One specific suite of these apps is by Splashtop Inc.

Splashtop has created various apps for educational and personal use allow you to use your iPad for various functions on your computer. The Splashtop Remote Desktop is one app from this suite. It’s an app that allows you to access your computer anytime and anywhere, as long as it is not turned off. You can connect to your PC or Mac and send e-mails, work on documents, or even play games. Often on iPads we are limited by the lack of support for Java and Flash, but the Splashtop Remote Desktop Connection eliminates this disadvantage by allowing you to access those sites via your computer.

Another member of the Splashtop App Suite is something called XDisplay. It allows your device to act as a second screen for your computer, allowing you to either duplicate or extend your screen. You can then easily use the touch screen to complete your work by simply dragging windows onto your iPad. This works perfectly with your laptop if you’re out at school or at a café, as you can easily take out your iPad and set it up to your laptop to create an extended screen. You can also use the duplicate screen feature to create a second device that allows viewing of your actions on your computer even when they’re not next to you. Splashtop

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Setting Up Splashtop in 3 Steps

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1. Download Splashtop 2 on your iPad, and create and account on it.

2. Go to splashtop.com and download & install the Splashtop Streamer on all your computers.

3. Log-in to the Splashtop streamer with your account and your computer would appear on your ipad to connect.

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also offers an app that transforms your computer into a mobile whiteboard; your device displays what’s on your laptop and you can draw all over it or highlight certain items. To use the whole Splashtop Suite you only need to download the Splashtop Streamer onto your computer and create an account with Splashtop. This then enables you to easily use all of the Splashtop apps and use the Remote Desktop Streamer anytime and anywhere with an internet connection.

Splashtop isn’t the only app system that allows you to connect to your computer remotely. An app called LogMeIn allows you to do many of the same things as the Splashtop Remote Desktop Streamer, but also has many additional features. You can get the basic version for free on the LogMeIn website and the App Store. The Pro and Ignition versions of LogMeIn carry many additional features, though. All of these LogMeIn programs are also not only for use for connecting to your computer from your iPad, but also allows you to connect to other computers from the program. LogMeIn Ignition is the step up program from the free basic level. Ignition is only for use with Windows PC’s so it actually isn’t for access from i-devices. LogMeIn Pro is the full version of the basic LogMeIn software. It allows you to have remote control and mobile access just like the basic version, but also includes such features as HD quality, remote sharing, remote printing, file transfer, and desktop sharing. One of the most significant of these is the file transfer function which allows you to transfer files between the devices

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you are using. For example, you could easily transfer files between multiple LogMeIn PCs and your tablet or just between PCs. LogMeIn allows you to be a step above the cloud; not only can you share files, but you put your entire device on the cloud, making it available for you to access with Internet anytime, anywhere.

There are advantages to both the LogMeIn system and the Splashtop system. The LogMeIn system boasts its advanced and easy-to-use file-sharing technology, while the Splashtop system is easy to use and setup and is exclusively for iPad-to-computer connection. If you’re looking for an easy way to access your computer remotely or use remote connection for educational uses the Splashtop system presents many more advantages.

However, if you are looking to use remote desktop connection for personal uses, LogMeIn offers a better system as you can have computer to iPad connection as well as computer to computer. These two systems are not the only ones available. Many other apps are available for mobile computer cooperation including ones that act as mice or keyboards for your computer so you can avoid purchasing additional wireless products. More apps come out constantly and the possibilities are endless for computer and mobile device collaboration.

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ZOHO SITES bY: jAMES wHONG

Z

OHO sites is a complete simple online application that can be used by everyone. Even if you don’t know anything about HTML or any other web coding languages, you can still make your planned perfect website into reality. ZOHO sites has one of the easiest to use user interface to web designs there is. The design philosophy of ZOHO sites is having everything done by drag-and-drop. Whether it would be videos, images, map widgets, or anything you want to embed on a website, even up to your own self-created flash content or animations. Every website

that is built using ZOHO sites is automatically and professionally optimized by experts to look great on both large computer screens and any mobile or tablet devices.

In addition, not only does it publish in great beauty to all devices automatically, you still have the ability to fine tune every detail of your site, whether it’s the layout for normal computers or the mobile version.

Online Forms Zoho Sites has an online forms and surveys system that could be anything from contact details to event-registration: literally anything. Like building the Zoho Site itself, the form user interface is also a drag and drop concept.

Zoho puts every created forms/surveys into a database and analyzes which survey/forms are used most. After they gather this data, they create a handful of the most commonly used surveys/forms to be used for the application users. And of course, every design can be customized to the user’s liking.

Built in Blogs A blog is one of the best ways to voice your opinions and ideas, initiate interactions, and engage a like-minded audience. From a business perspective, it is also a very powerful medium to draw more visitors to your website. Zoho Sites has a blog-platform built into it that you can customize just like your web page layout. Also, it has social media sharing, comment box and moderation of comments. On your own website, if you had any questions or threads you would like your viewers to participate in, Zoho Sites has everything you need. In the end, blogs have the potential to make your website into a more interactive and dynamic community.

Social widgets

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Blog template

Drag

Drag & Drop UI

& Drop UI

Customization The bane of any online application tends to be the concept of the template: there always seems to be a lack of “flavor” when using applications ranging from wikis to blogs. It appears obvious that there is some sort of template that is reused constantly.

Yet what makes Zoho Sites so exceptional is the personalization. It gives one a variety of options to design a website, especially two things: logos and banners. Simply upload the logo design, change the optimum size, and select where to put it. Banners allow one to promote certain ideas on the website for maximum coverage.

Google Integration Zoho sites is a complete solution that also works with all your Google applications. As Zoho Sites also comes with Single Sign-On, you only need to sign into your Google Apps account, and you’ll have access to ZOHO Sites right on the universal navigation bar. In addition, your contacts and lists of registered Google Apps users will be available to administer and create together on your websites, which works in the same way as Google Sites.

Integration

Design Zoho Sites is a very simple system and it wants to stay that way, by being user friendly and by helping you along the way as much as possible. This is why the creators of Zoho have developed the Theme-Gallery. The Theme-Gallery is categorized into business verticals, and each has a bunch of themes. Pick the category that best defines your business, select a theme you like and get started. It makes everything so simple. Let’s just say you owned a flower shop. Then you would just go into the Theme-Gallery, search up the category of your business, click a theme that best suits your flower shop and in just a few steps you would have a wonderful theme to kick start your website.

In some ways, Zoho works just like any layout program such as MS Publisher or Adobe Indesign when it comes to page layout customizability. Zoho Sites supports multi-columned websites with the ability to mix and match images, text, videos, and other types of content on each of the columns. On the other hand, if you are proficient in HTML or CSS, you should try the built in HTML editor. Even if you got started by installing one of the ready-made themes, you can customize them anyways you like down to the very last code.

Social Media Widgets Social media is so prevalent that a website without one as a consumer foundation would be crippled. Using Zoho, you can utilize social media platforms to your liking to increase your customer base. After all, it’s about making your website preferable to search engines like Google, so that when a potential buyer searches for the service you offer, Google will suggest your site first. The more optimized your site is, the more likely your site would is to appear on a Google search.

For instance, using the Facebook widget on your website is like having your entire Facebook fan page attached to your website. This not only makes it easy for your visitors to be updated, but also it makes it easy for them to spread the news about you to their network, and to interact with you without having to leave your website. Twitter is also another social media widget that ZOHO allows you to utilize. The twitter widget on your site lets you display your recent tweets, favorite tweets and comments of other people talking about you on twitter. In addition, you can include a tweet button on your web pages so that visitors can recommend you to their followers right from your website.

Another aspect to consider when building an audience, is to take in consideration the importance of your content to a web search engine like Google. One way that Google analyzes your website is by the number of accumulated +1 it has from Google+ users around the world . Thus by including the Google+ infrastructure into your website, you are gaining a better reputation forTech it in search engines.

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HOW GOOGLE REDESIGNED

ITSELF

The biggest changes that Google used to have in its designs were changing the shades of blue of the links, which they did 41 times. After Larry Page became CEO in 2011, instead of continuing to make minuscule changes that no one would notice, Google started to design apps that looked attractive.

Instead of aiming for 10% improvement. Google aims for a 10x improvement.

By Yoonjie Park and Chris Kim

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As of now Google is approaching more platforms than any other tech company on earth. From the traditional desktop to mobile iOS and Android as well as their home-brewed Chromebooks

Traditionally, Google used to focus on A/B testing and tiny changes such as the shade of blue for links and did not have its designers focus on the creation and execution of an overall vision. Douglas Bowman, Google’s first virtual designer left in 2009 because of the “design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data.”

These days, Google has changed from making tiny changes in design to instead devising apps that are drastically different. Most of these apps, in fact, are on iOS, a platform that does not even belong to Google.

Unlike its former efforts and even Apple’s increasingly unenterprising offerings, these apps, such as Google+, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps are consistent and appealing. Not only have the aesthetics of these apps changed, but many new apps have

been introduced, such as Google Now. Reporters have gone to Google to find out who exactly is responsible for the new direction in design, and were surprised to learn that no such person existed. Instead, this revolution was due to a vision laid out by a small team of Google designers, where the teams in charge of each product were looking for ways to become more consistent and forwardlooking in their design language. Their process was comprised of one major component talking to each other.

When Larry Page first joined Google, he said, “Hey everyone, we’re going to redesign all of our products.”

Despite the fact that there had previously been numerous attempts to unify the design language across multiple Google products, none of them had been very successful. Jon Wiley, the lead designer of Google Search, said, “Historically at Google there were pockets of designers that said ‘let’s bring all of Google together into one beautiful, amazing design’ but because of the way Google is set up – for speed – it was hard for any one team to push that Google-wide.”

Even though there were designers at Google, they were not moving in the same direction and none of them had enough power to take control. Despite the fact that they had “always wanted to create beautiful applications, [their] priorities were different.”

In Wiley’s opinion, a Google-wide design initiative “required the vision of a CEO who could rally the entire

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company to make it happen.” This was how Google’s new design direction, codename Kennedy, came to exist.

The name itself was a reference to Larry Page’s now-famous “moon shot “strategy” for thinking up new products.

However, after Page took office, Google’s senior designers gathered in order to decide how they would apply a few design principles evenly and tastefully so that dozens of Google products would be used by over a billion people. They also received “outside help” from Google Creative Lab, a collection of top-tier designers in Google’s New York officers who are known for creating unique and emotionally compelling marketing projects. Because Page was willing to tap Creative Lab to work with the rest of the designers on creating the new vision, the creation of Project Kennedy, the project for a cohesive vision for Google, was possible.

In the end, the vision would put the most emphasis on refinement, white space, cleanliness, elasticity, usefulness, and most of all, simplicity.

Their focus previously had been on making the products as fast as possible, which resulted in these projects growing in their own ways.

But after the implementation of Project Kennedy, they began to focus on making these products more beautiful and more consistent as a suite of products. The creation of a design vision – Project Kennedy – was the first step, but the second step was for the product designers to distill and implement it.

Every designer at Google said the same thing: “There’s not one person who’s the grand leader of design at Google. We don’t have a single mastermind designer.” Despite the lack of a leading figure in design, there is still a coherent process for

laying out a design vision across all of Google’s numerous teams and platforms. Andrey Doronichev, Senior Product Manager for YouTube Mobile, said that Google’s design process was “all about teams working together and sharing information, and making sure they end up in a sweet spot where their design language is very similar, fits well into each platform, but at the same time keeps being Google.”

Google’s new design process didn’t naturally arrive out of regular collaboration around the office; they enlisted the help of a small group of designers in New York called Google UXA, a relatively secretive group.

Although its web footprint is limited to just a few job listings, its presence at Google cannot be overstated.

Google UXA, born out of the Kennedy Project, is set on “designing and developing a true UI framework that transforms Google’s apps into a beautiful, mature, accessible, and consistent platform for its users” and works on keeping that vision consistent across all of Google’s products.

Because UXA is small and has an even smaller public face, it was unique and therefore helped the core design team work better with the rest of

Gmail UI design before 2011

Gmail UI in 2013

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Google. Basically, what UXA did was take the structure that was put together for the rapid, three-month Kennedy project and turn it into a Google institution. Like other Google institutions, the way its work turned into an actual product was a curious mix of informality and relentless work ethic. Wiley, describing the design meetings, said “We get together, we have lunch, and we talk endlessly.”

Darren Delaye, the lead designer on Google Maps for Mobile, said that the designers for the various iOS apps have a “casual get-together, but on a very regular basis, to talk about feedback we have for each other and things they’ve tried.” These design meetings not only dictated the final look for apps, but also seemed to act more as guides. Wiley said, “Designers take the design language from crossproduct initiatives like Kennedy and weave that together with the user needs for their particular product.”

By the end of June 2011, merely three months after Page became CEO, Google released new versions of Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, and Calendar. During the next year and a half, Google launched Google Now, a fresh mobile take on Kennedy ideals, and also a line of new iOS apps

such as Google+, YouTube Capture, Chrome, and Maps that was similar to the previous versions, but more design-oriented.

In addition to the overall change in the looks of the various apps, another example of Google’s avant garde design process can be seen in the development of Google Now on Android. Google Now, an extremely ambitious product was initially, as Android’s director of product management Huga Barra stated, “a twenty percent project.” It soon, however, became much bigger.

Matias Duarte, the senior director said, “Google Now is a great example in so many ways to talk about design and the rise of design culture and the way that design works at Google.”

What the Google Now team needed was to take many different Google features and combine them into an interface that could “feel like it’s a natural extension of Android without losing any of the Googleness.”

In order to accomplish this feat, the Android team followed the same process that the web team followed with Project Kennedy: they collaborated across the entire company. Google Now focuses on the

use of “a lot of white space, not a lot of artificial, surface-like divisions.”

The creators were “really counting on bold typography, white space, and big images to give emphasis, give character, and give hierarchy to the cards that they gave.” It was a brand new look for Google, and was a look that would soon grow throughout its mobile products. The cards in Google Now also show up in Google search, when it displays “Knowledge Graph” results on the web. These cards represent the information Google gives you directly instead of through a list of blue links. They are the digital equivalent to the traditional architectural concept of marrying form and function so that the way a thing looks is inseparable from what the thing is.

Google Now’s cards, as well as the original vision laid out in Kennedy, were what set the tone for nearly all the redesigns that occurred in 2012. Modern framers for content used clean lines, a vibrant array of colors, and highly legible fonts such as Helvetic Neue (iOS) and Roboto (Android) to upgrade their design.

The resulting effect from such changes is an interface such as the new Gmail web interface that “doesn’t show you things you don’t need” and instead chooses to focus on simplicity.

Google’s process is quintessential Google and happened in a quintessentially Google way. Larry Page mandated that there be a new design focus, but instead of micromanaging at every step, he let his employees do the rest. Instead of tripping in the rush, Google instead moves forward in triumph.

Native Google Docs application

Original Google Docs available only online for tablets Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/17

i

i

By Joshua Gong Being the second largest social media platform, Google+ is the latest medium can label other users not as “friends” but into “circles” for social networking, where people can upload and exchange information in where they can place them the digital space. It’s the future of social networking systems, with it’s new into different groups with customized labels. Thereon, and unique sharing functions online.

Among its many features, one aspect of Google+ that makes it so unique is in “how” you are able to share and access your contents online. You may have had experiences where you may have wanted to share information to only a select group of people- Sometimes I might want only my school friends to see my status updates. That is why Google+ has come up with a realistic solution using “Circles.”

Unlike the conventional approach where people could only upload information to their profile for all “friends” to see, “Circles” allows users to create and select certain groups of people they would like to share their material with. It’s more like real life, because users are able to choose exactly the people you want to share with. Users

they can share specific content with only that group, whilst keeping information from others. For example, I would have separate circles for my family, my school friends, best buddies, and teachers so that I will be able to share specific content with only the people I need and want to. It really depends on what I want to do with my information.

Cirlces allow you to organize your information to

share with only the people you want to with. It also allows you to cut out unnecessary information you don’t want to hear from other people’s posts. It also to refine and customize content viewing options as well. Moreover, when you “add” a person to your “circle” that person does not know which “circle” group you have placed them in, allowing for more private exchange of information. It’s just like in real life where you can decide your level of privacy!

In “Circles”, you are able to share your information and contents freely. The “Photos” feature allows you to upload stunningly high resolution photos for your specific “Circles” groups to enjoy and admire. You can add on to your existing albums, or even create a totally different albums page! You can even lock the photos so they cannot be re-shared by anyone else. You have total control of how you want to manage your contents. This is the future of social media!

The Google+ Platform is consistent on all devices whether Android or iOS. Even Hangouts can be held on a mobile device unlike facebook video conferences.

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Google Circles are great for organizing your news updates and friends

Google Hangouts How about having a high resolution video conferences with “Google Hangout” while driving? Google hangout allows for smooth video conferences with as many people as 9 people. Friends can drop into the “Google Hangout” as they wish and share content through other Google applications, such as Google Drive. You can share your screens. You can call an infinite number of times for free!

It also offers some of the most diverse video conferencing features. Live hangouts on Youtube or “Hangout on Air” is available, which allows people to stream live events or host live shows via Youtube and for free! Celebrities like Conan O’Brien, Sarah Hill, and Nascar Race driver Roush Fenway use “Hangout on Air” to host shows on Youtube for all to enjoy. And now you can not only “view” their content, but you can also talk face to face with these celebrities!

By the way, you don’t have to be a celebrity to host a Google “Hangout on Air.” This feature is open to anyone with a Google+ account! Since everything is connected through your Google account, you can stream your live hangout on Youtube for the entire world to see! By checking the “Enable Hangouts on Air,” you can broadcast your live hangout— from your Google+ Stream & Youtube Channel, or your website- to the entire world! You have access to monitor the number of

viewers you have and can even look inside the hangout to see how many people are watching live! Once you are off air, your recorded hangout will automatically uploaded onto your YouTube channel and original Google+ post!

This way, it is more convenient to share and discuss your broadcast afterwards! Imagine the potential of this new video conferencing system, which if I haven’t emphasized enough is absolutely free! Take advantage of it!

Communities is another fascinating feature

in Google+, like the “Circles” feature that makes the user experience more interactive and personal in the digital world. Through communities, you can come together with people who have the same interests and background as you do and share information freely on that page.

“Communities” allow you to share content or information to people who share the same passion as you do that you wouldn’t speak to elsewhere. You are able to incorporate all the neat features of Google+, such as “Google Hangout” and “Photos” of say, food, cooking ingredients, and have a Google Hangout of how to create that specific food, which can be anything from pasta to home made cake! The possibilities are endless!

The most crucial aspect of social networking systems is accessibility. The extra benefit of using Google+ is that you can access all these wonderful features not only on your PC or Mac, but also on your Smartphone! Imagine a high resolution “Google Hangout” right on your phone!

Uploading high resolution photos and videos has never been easier. It’s all been integrated into your devices as one Google World.

With Google Hangouts you can have a video conference with up to 10 people. Hangouts offers many features such as simultaneous screen share, simultaneous GoogleDoc collaboration, and many more !

Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/19

[1]

Google Pixel The first ever Google-designed computer has had some interesting responses from the press. The new Pixel goes against the foundation of the original Chromebook concept— Cheap. Many of the original Chromebooks were around $200-$500, usually with low quality displays and overall build quality.

With every Chromebook comes the free Chrome OS, a modified version of Linux that highly promotes the use of web apps. In other words, when you open the computer you are just getting the Chrome browser. Eric Schmidt, the “father of Google Apps and the Chromebooks”, has stated that a web-browser has no need for fancy, high-quality hardware.

The words “cutting edge” and “Chromebooks” have never been found in the same sentence-until now with the Google Chromebook Pixel.

Overview The Chromebook Pixel stands out from the rest of the Chromebooks.

Throughout many of Google’s announcements and keynotes, Eric Schmidt has used the word “disposable” many times. However, the Pixel doesn’t match that description.

As stated before, the Chromebook Pixel is what many consumers think of as “a change in pace”. For example, another different and surprising change in the Pixel is that it has almost twice the storage space of any other Chromebook with 32 GB of SSD space. The LTE version of the Pixel has four times the amount of storage space as any other Chromebook

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By Justin Kae and Chris Kim with 64 GB of Solid State Drive (SSD) space. Many people questioned this movement on Google’s part as the Pixel comes with 1 TB of free Google Drive space in the cloud for two years (longer than the estimated life span), which demotes the use of saving documents and other files locally to the computer, but Google responded that a laptop of the Pixel’s capability needed to have some space for other files that Google Drive is incompatible with. Another big change is the display. The popular “Retina Display” from Apple has met its match, the Pixel’s display is not only cheaper, but also has a touch screen, and comes with slightly more pixels. Despite the fact that the display comes in the “old-fashioned” 3:2 ratio and the fact that it only comes in 13-inch models unlike the Macbook Pro that comes in 13 & 15-inch models, it has received good reviews from many sites and magazines. Previous processors for

Chromebooks have been the weak and outdated Intel Atom and Intel Celeron model processors but the Pixel’s is a brand-new dual-core Sandy Bridge Intel Core i5 processor. The Pixel has one of the quietest fans on the market. Sleek and silent, these fans are not only energy efficient, but effective.

USB 3.0 is becoming a very popular connectivity interface and almost all recent computers has it as it is faster and better than a 2.0 port. However, Google decided not to use USB 3.0, but 2.0 instead. The internal hardware of the Google Chromebook Pixel is slightly under-par but it is still a great device.

Internals

Display

The internal hardware of the Pixel is fairly poor for a computer. The internal hardware of the computer consists of the battery, the ports that connect the inside to the outside, and the RAM. Many computer developers have invested much of the past five years in getting longer battery

Ahhh, the display. This is what Google has boasted about in all of its recent keynotes and announcements. It’s one of the main reasons for the Pixel’s high price. It has a 2560 x 1700 display, one of the highest definition displays available on a computer. The display has a pixel density of 240 pixels per

life and getting it to fit in the everdecreasing size of their devices. The Pixel’s battery life is a mere five hours.

This would have been impressive if it had come out six years ago when the average battery life was around 2 hours, but today’s good 13-inch laptops are usually around 4-6 hours.

However, it is clear for the Pixel’s price, the battery life should be much higher. Even many of Apple’s Laptops have over eight hours of battery. Another important point to consider is the amount of connectivity ports that laptops have. The usual is normally seven: Ethernet, HDMI/Mini Display port, USB (2.0/3.0)Port x2, SD Card port, Audio Jack. The Pixel has all of these with the exception of an HDMI and sadly the modern lapptops lacks the new USB 3.0 standard.

inch. Thats almost twice as many pixels as a full HDTV. This means that it has around the same pixel density as a Macbook Pro with Retina Display®.

For those of you who don’t know what Retina Display® is, its a display with pixels so tiny, that the naked eye can’t see each individual pixel. As Apple is the only other company to achieve this feat, it is quite impressive that Google has implemented this into their own computer and made it touch screen. Touch screen complicates things as it involves having multiple layers of glass. Making it multi-touch gives it many more layers that are ultra-thin and expensive. To top it all off, they made it using Gorilla® Glass, an ultra shock-resistant form of glass that is improved and altered at an atomic level. This makes the feat of

reaching pixel density in the same way as Apple, small and easy.

Software

The Pixel’s Operating System is the Chrome OS. Google’s altered Linux OS is mainly focused on Web applications. As a result, Chrome OS is almost useless without an internet connection and many criticize this disadvantage. Google’s solution to this has been to sell a LTE version of the Pixel which allows for high-speed internet connection anywhere. Literally anywhere, even on an airplane. This lets you access Google’s promised 1TB of free Google Drive storage all the time. But, the plans have proven to be extremely expensive and the unlimited data

plan is $10 a day! An advantage of the simplicity of Chrome OS is that it is much more efficient than other operating systems and is much faster.

The bootup time for most Chrome OS devices is around 8 seconds. Average bootup time is around 30 seconds for a brand-new computer running Windows 7. Google started out as an internet search tool. As a result, many of its products are internet based.

For example, Gmail, Youtube, Google Hangout, Google search & images, and Google Drive’s cloud storage.

Conclusional Thoughts in the Tech Crewsaders Post Section (31)>>>

Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/21

CUTTING EDGE TECHnology Augmented Reality By: Patrick Tomhon

T

echnology progress is constant and continually speeding up. In the mid18th century knowledge of electricity was first developed and explored, but it wasn’t until a hundred years later that electricity’s applications began to be utilized commercially. Sixty years after the invention of the first light bulb the world saw the first electronic digital computer that filled entire rooms and could only store single bytes of data. Forty years after that people were able to commercially purchase computers for use in their homes. Today we own smart phones that fit in our pocket that have more computing power than a device from twenty years prior. There’s been much progress in terms of technology in the 21st century with the advent of smart phones and tablets and the history of technology begs the question, what’s the next big tech?

Companies invest heaps of money in developing not just a new technology, but a technology that can be commercially available.

In the late 1990s the ideas of augmented reality were first explored. Augmented reality is defined as being “an artificial environment created through the combination of realworld and computergenerated data.” From the beginning, the dream of AR has been to create a device such as goggles or glasses through which the user can see data

over the real world, an idea first introduced in early 1900s. Augmented reality was a concept that has taken the idea of the overlay of information and transferred it into preexisting technology through software. Today this technology’s primary use is for directional overlays on smart phones and software. However, while these are all technically AR by definition, the ultimate goal remaining is to design a technology that not only gives you a combination of past real-world data and computer data combined, but at the same time allows you to see the world while receiving information as was conceived by Baum.

Only in the past 5 years has the world really seen large-scale developments in personal AR technology, however it has been mostly for the military.

Vuzix is a large company that has been developing portable video viewing devices for a while and has progressed into the field of personal AR technology. Much of the growth

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of this technology stems from military research and contracts to develop next-generation HMDs (HeadMounted-Displays) for soldiers to use in combat. Vuzix has primarily developed high-level professional augmented reality glasses for the military; however, these have been made commercially available starting in 2011 with the Vuzix STAR 1200.

Today the STAR 1200 is in its third generation as STAR 1200XL. These are some of the most advanced and commercially available AR eye wear available today. However, with such a professional company comes a hefty price out of range of most of our pockets: $5000.

So the race began to refine augmented reality glasses like the STAR 1200XL, to make them cheaper and more accessible to consumers. However, even before the release of the STAR 1200 the surge of development for commercially accessible AR eye wear was afoot in the industry. By August 2011 Google had designed a

Google Glasses Model

"The next three or four years will see a surge oin the commercial availability of the technology" prototype for their Google Glass, and since then other front runners. Google Glass is now in its final stages of beta testing, and it will be commercially available about $1,500 in 2014. On the other hand at the same time Vuzix is still refining its military-grade professional AR technology into a more practical device, the Smart Glasses M100. These do less than Google Glass, mainly just serving as an interface for your smart phone.

However, they may get a jump on the rest of the market with release expected this summer

Apple is absent from this race) the technology is forced into the eye of the consumer and has become increasingly more prevalent.

“An entirely new direction for the entirety of world technology”

As the products start rolling out in the next couple years, the competition is beginning to heat up further.

As Charles Arthur of the British newspaper The Guardian points out, the “AR wars” are just beginning.

Google may have a jump on the market with the progress they already have with Google Glass, but Microsoft is not far behind, taking an initial approach centered on gaming with rumors and news about Fortaleza Glasses flying around the tech world.

These glasses would work with the

This new addition to the technology industry may also be an entirely new direction for the entirety of world technology. Ubiquitous computing is the idea that computing will no longer be tied to the desk or to a large computing device. We have already seen this in the growing popularity of tablets and smart phones and the talk of the “death of the desktop”.

However, ubiquitous computing takes this to a whole new level suggesting systems where we are constantly connected to technology. Wearable AR may be the final step into ubiquitous computing if we are constantly connected to data that is fed through us through overlays.

Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 and for less than $500.

Google Glass is not the only new product exploring the AR field, with another company called Innovega taking steps into the industry. Innovega is taking a much different approach to the wearable tech than most other AR eye wear products by developing a digital contact lens. This product seems far off as there is still no specific product information, but the exciting development of this digital contact lens signals a new development in the wearable AR industry. Just as the past three years have seen a jump in the development of wearable AR technology, the next three or four years will most likely see not only a further surge in the development of the tech, but also a surge in the commercial availability and accessibility of the technology. With big companies like Google and Microsoft investing in the development of AR (surprisingly

next Xbox 720 and Kinect, allowing AR technology to bleed over into the gaming market. As AR is such a new, untested technology, we could even see a company such as Vuzix or even a small AR start-up rising to meet the giants in Silicon Valley. There are no doubts that AR technology will capture the public’s interest though, as AR revenues are expected to exceed billions in just a few years. The idea of seeing data on the real world has long been a fantasy for many the young boys or techies since Baum’s stories and the later science-fiction craze of the late 20th century.

The future for wearable tech and augmented reality seems endless and there are a multitude of possibilities that we could see in the coming decades. The human race is constantly inventing new technologies and finding ways to utilize because of our deep desire for new ideas. One thing is certain when it comes to wearable AR in the technology industry; this is only just the beginning.

Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/23

Tech Teachers of Spring

BY ALBERT KIM, WONHEE CHO, and KATHLEEN LEE

Mr. Corben This issue’s Tech Teachers are Mr. Corben, Mrs. Gillett, Ms. James, and Ms. Ewald. For those of you who do not know Mr. Corben, he is a teacher in the British School who is currently working on a project called SaveTheRhinos.

He incorporates various aspects of tech tools, such as Twitter and YouTube, to spread the word of the organization. Furthermore, Mr. Corben also encourages his classes to design posters and slogans to raise awareness for the rhinos.

SaveTheRhinos is an organization that aims to accomplish several factors in an attempt to evade further dangers for the rhinos. Activities that the organization does include: •

Increasing the number of rhinos in genetically viable populations in the wild

•

Enhancing the integrity of ecosystems

•

Ensuring that local communities benefit from conservation activities

Other than the SaveTheRhinos campaign that Mr. Corben introduced, he also utilizes his tech knowledge in the classroom . He does this by allowing his students to explore.

Above all else, he appreciates the D.I.Y. approach the most. He realizes the strengths and weaknesses of his students, which is why he lets them choose how to do their schoolwork.

The launching of the Genius Hour is a prime example illustrating the versatility of Mr. Corben’s classes. He got this concept off of one of Google’s ideas, which allows its employees to dedicate 20% of their work time on what they want to do. Mr. Corben wished for his students to be “selfdirected”, and to be able to work on things that they are truly passionate about.

Through his constant promoting of technology-related appliances and innovative approaches to global campaigns, Mr. Corben is constantly improving and updating the way his classroom.

Recently, Mr. Corben scheduled a Key Stage assembly (similar to the High School CT gatherings), where his class presented the prospects of the organization to the entire British School community. During the assembly, the class performed a self-directed skit and also exhibited numerous videos concerning the activities that SaveTheRhinos has done.

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Mrs. Gillet

Mrs. Gillett has also been selected as Tech Teacher for her brilliant integration of technology in her Physical Education classes. She downloaded the iPad application, “Coach’s Eye”, and augmented her lessons to make them more efficient for her students.

Coach’s Eye, the iPad app, is an innovative application for all athletes from amateurs to professionals to use. It includes many features, such as side-by-side comparisons of athletes’ video footage, a quick access camera for capturing spontaneous action, a video editor to point out flaws in form, and an advanced video sharing that allows for the user to share footage on social networking sites. Coach’s Eye can be used for a variety of sports, which include but aren’t limited to crossfit, football, fitness, golf, baseball, physical education, soccer, and track and field. Each sport contains a dedicated subsection, and each subsection contains a plethora of videos, which talk about every minute detail of the technique being performed.

leaderboard full of good examples for each sport. This leaderboard features footage of athletes performing perfect examples of each technique.

While the full scope and features were not needed for Mrs. Gillet’s physical education class, she still utilized it very effectively to help her students reach their highest potential.

Mrs. Gillett used this application by downloading the app, installing it onto several iPads, and having her students split up into groups of three.

Each of the groups would record one’s technique and save the footage for analysis. One member would do the recording, one would pass the ball, and the one digging the volleyball would be recorded. This efficient system was very useful in teaching her students to learn proper form, as Mrs. Gillett could slow down the video and draw on it using pen tools and line tools to point out flaws in their form.

Mrs. Gillett’s integration of technology in her Physical Education classes was something new, something fresh, which is why she is one of the Tech Teachers of the Month for April.

On top of all of these features, Coach’s Eye also includes a number of bonuses. First off, it has a hand-picked

Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/25

Ms. James As a religion teacher, Ms. James is always trying to get the conversation going. She uses various technology tools not only to connect within her classroom but also with the outside world. Her use of blogger, constantly seen in her MRE classes, is a unique way to promote collaborative

J.

interaction. It is not only visually attractive but also is an interesting way to turn in homework.

Students taking religion courses will understand, we are only allowed our laptops when Ms. James is lecturing with her smart board.

As soon as the lecture is done, we are obliged to put it away to begin a discussion. As a teacher who cherishes relationships, she sees technology as a distraction that interferes with connections.

“If I really wanted a to make a connection with you, I would put all that away.”

environment.

She began using technology more frequently about three years ago when she was impelled by the “unstoppable” nature of technology. The students’ progressing familiarity with technology compelled her to adjust to our environment. She believes it is a necessary skill because we are living in a growing technology

Ms. James utilizes technology in her classroom not only for visual representation but also as an innovative method of teaching. She attempts to enhance its use by learning to use new programs, such as Skype, not as a challenge, but as a tool to gain broader insights and perspectives around the world and expand social relationships. Her active use of technology and passion for teaching justifies her qualification for “Tech Teacher of the Month.”

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“Things do change,” she says, as she talks about the use of computers. “The computer is what pen and pencil was to me”. Observed from her teaching experience, Ms.James is convinced that students need computers just like she needed pencils. She seemed a little down while talking about the effect of computers in her teaching career.

She says technology benefits us in many ways but it mostly interferes with true learning. “Learning doesn’t happen in our computer, it happens in our hearts.” She loves interacting with students as she teaches and seeing their live emotions as they listen to her speak. However, as computers developed, technology became a barrier: student’s eyes fixed on the screen instead of on her. “It’s a progression of human existence, its like calculators and typewriters.”

M. Ms. Ewald A passionate english teacher, Ms.Ewald integrates Haiku and various other programs into her lesson plans and utilizes the online convenience. For example, she embeds Google Documents and Presentation in Haiku for online courses. She also makes students type up their homework into Google Presentations so that everyone can view each other’s work and comment on it for help and encouragement. Other tools she uses are Voicethread, Goanimate, Storify, and Preslide. The list is endless! Instead of the same old writing on paper, Ms. Ewald’s enthusiastic use of technology encourages her students toward active learning and enhances their creativity in writing.

Ms. Ewald always looks for new ways to teach students and recently she has been inclined toward using Storify and Glogster for student projects. Storify allows the writing to be brought to life with the use of social media. Furthermore, Glogster enables students to illustrate settings in a novel. With such graphics, students are able to

produce creative outlines for character, plot, and setting in their novels. They can reflect on their own work and can determine what they truly understand about their writing through visual objects. “It is different than just writing on paper. The biggest difference is made when students realize their words are important because of the online audience at large.

Ms. Ewald has been advocating the use of technology for a long time. Also,the constant development of technology allows her to find more ways in which technology could be integrated into any student’s life. However, before she utilizes the tools in her lesson or assignment, she analyses what students specifically need to know about technology. This is the reason why she considers the 1 to 1 an effectual program. 1 to 1 Laptop Integrated Program allows her to set up and design lessons that are personalized to each student. “The students don’t have to compete against other students at different levels, rather they can improve their own to higher ones.”

Ms. Ewald’s constant efforts to utilize new programs in the classroom and genuine interest in technology is the reason why she is one of the Tech Teachers of the Month.

Tech Crewsader SPRING EDITION/27

The Tech

Crewsaders Post Google Losing Some Weight ReNewsfeed

By Yoonjie Park By: William TomHon Three weeks ago Google announced that they would be terminating their Google Reader services. Google needed to “focus on fewer projects” and Google Reader had a significantly lower user count so it was an easy target for the axe. It also had never been updated since its integration with Google+, in 2011. It will be taken down on July 1, 2013. As one of the most popular RSS service around, the axe of Google Reader could hint an end to the future of RSS itself, which has seen loosing popularity since the rise of social sharing services.

At the same conference,Google announced that it would be stopping Google Voice for Blackberry and Smartphones as well. This will affect many users. Stopping Google Reader, however, will be felt the hardest. It

was the largest RSS reader before Google announced its termination.

RSS or Real Simple Syndication is a service that compiles new information and articles posted in anything from a news site to a channel. Despite its great uses Google Reader was greatly diminished by new newsfeed centered services such as Twitter and Google+. On Twitter, all information is posted on the site itself, RSS takes information from other websites and brings it to you.

On the other hand because of Google Reader’s shut down other other RSS clients such as “Feedly” are becoming more popular after, 3 million have already switched to Feedly.

Google Keep By: WonHee Cho

G

oogle’s latest innovation is Keep, a note-taking, listmaking app available on any computer or Android device, but not iOS (yet). It has a very simple yet user-friendly user interface that allows users to change the color of notes to organize them in a way that suits them. Google Keep also allows users to take notes using their voice, in which their words are transcribed to text. Keep is undoubtedly another useful idea by Google.Will it be as useful as the app developers hope it would be? Or will it eventually die out as Google Reader?

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I

n the past few weeks, for a few people, Facebook’s NewsFeed has changed completely. This redesigned new feed sorts content by type to display whatever specific feed the user wants to focus on. Some of these options include photos, music, and games. In addition, it optimizes the user interface with a design that has been “mobile-inspired.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the popular social networking site, said that the goal of the NewsFeed is to provide a “personalized newspaper” and said that it was redesigned to put more focus on photos and other methods of visual content sharing.

He also wanted to emphasize the difference between personal stories and “updates from publications.”

Facebook is not only bringing this changed NewsFeed to the desktop, but also to its mobile apps in order to supply a uniform experience across multiple different platforms. Similar to the change from “walls” to “timelines” that occurred a while back, this redesigned NewsFeed also serves to highlight photos and visual content.

Because almost half of posts on the NewsFeed are such visual media, the Facebook team has made photos and albums larger, and they are also working to make third-party content from places such as Pinterest more attractive to users.

BlackBerry's Comeback By: Lillian Sheng With the recent release of the BlackBerry Z10, there have been circling arguments about the quality of the product and the future of the company that made it—Research in Motion. The new BlackBerry Z10 will not look radical to any consumer – it’s not some daring departure, a flash of color and playfulness like the latest crop of Windows Phone devices from Nokia and HTC. It is a safe, refined look and very similar to BlackBerry’s previous efforts in smartphone design.

The Z10’s general form mimics the iPhone in more than a couple of ways: the curved corners of the edges, the screens separated by a surface space on either end of the front panel, and a solid band of plastic that cases the phone. Differences includes its size (the phone has a 4.2-inch display), and the lack of a home button on the front of the device.

The BlackBerry Z10 has its Micro HDMI and Micro USB ports on the left side of the devices.The phone is powered by a dual-core CPU set to 1.5GHz. The device has a fat 2GB of RAM alongside 16GB of internal storage (that can be expanded up to 48GB with the use of a 32GB microSD card). And of course, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, an accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, and ambient light sensor are all here too.

The Z10 has two cameras, a rearfacing 8-megapixel shooter capable of 1080p video, and a front-facing 2-megapixel camera that can do 720p video capture. Both are reasonably clear and useful. The backside camera produces washed out looking shots, and focusing is a major issue. The camera also suffers from the pink blotch in the center of the image, which can make shots with lots of pale or white tones look off-color.

Performance on the Z10 is snappy and responsive. Springing around from one app to another, jumping into and out of messages, and managing content on the device functions very well.

However, battery life is another story altogether. The company has historically made much of the BlackBerry batteries long lasting, but those talents have not been on display on the new phone. During numerous testing periods, the device could not make it through an entire workday without requiring a battery swap or a recharge.

The problem with the Z10 is that it doesn’t do anything better than any of its competitors. There are arguments that could be made about how it handles messages or the difficulties of its camera, but no one can argue that there’s a “killer app” in there.

The Z10 is a fine device, well made, well priced, and backed by a company with an excellent track record in security. But it’s not the only device of its kind, and it’s roaming against a massive wave of established players with really, really good products.

If you love RIM and the BlackBerry brand and really want to keep supporting them, buying a Z10 wouldn’t be a mistake. But certainly, there are better phones on the market, and there is no compelling reason for buying this device. So why the Z10? Until BlackBerry provides a legitimate answer, there really is no rush in buying the Z10.

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Rise of the TITAN By: Hugh Surdeau

Crysis III By: Chris Kim

Nvidia, a dominant force in the graphical processing unit (GPU) business for years, unveiled their new GTX Titan GPU on February 19. Used in various supercomputers, the GPU is currently available for $999, and will be cheaper when purchased in a pre-made computer. 2,688 CUDA cores, 6GB of RAM and 7.1 billion transistors contribute to make one of the most potent GPUs in the world.

During the unveiling, the prowess of the GPU was demonstrated by playing the upcoming Crysis 3 on maximum graphics on three monitors. Undoubtedly, this new processor will be capable of handling practically any graphical task thrown at it, but for the same price the GTX 690 is also available. While both these GPUs are incredibly powerful, experts predict that the GTX 690 will be optimal for single monitors, while multiple monitor users will want to use a Titan (as demonstrated during the launch).

When Crysis I (a sci-fi first-person shooter) game was released in 2007, Crytek, the company behind Crysis, received much critical and audience acclaim for their superior graphical design and their milestone in gaming. Five years later, we were presented with Crysis III with the sole goal to, “make the best-looking game ever created.” Simply put, Crytek succeeded. Crysis III is what next-gen gaming looks like: spectacular at every turn, ultra-realistic graphics, and over-the-top gameplay. If you are looking to experience the best in game graphics, try Crisis III. You won’t regret it. However you will need one hell of a computer to max out all of the graphics options in the game.

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PlayStation 4 Thoughts on Google Pixel By: Albert Kim By: Justin Kae And Chris Kim Sony has been quite a disappointment.

In February Sony hosted an event to supposedly “unveil” their new console,however what was shown was neither a new console nor anything revolutionary. All that the press was allowed to see was the new DualShock 4 Controller, and a few game that were played on stage by developers. A tweet from Larry Hryb (a worker on the XBOX team) summed it up: “Announce a console without actually showing a console? That’s one approach”. In fact, the pricing of the console and a specific release date haven’t been released either. Even Gaikai, the cloud technology that will come with the PS4, has not been detailed.

To summarize, the PS4 is still shrouded in mystery. Sony rushed themselves, and it seems as though there are still many things that they must work through before the actual product is ready.

>>>Continued from Google Pixel Article (21) The Chromebook Pixel is one of the greatest laptops I’ve seen yet. The way that each of the features supports each other is incredibly ingenious. The crystal clear display is bound to set the new standard for future laptops.

However, I still favor the MacBook Pro. When it comes to user-friendly GUI and applications, the MacBook Pro is handy. While I was writing this article, I was constantly on the move. I worked on it on the bus, my home, at school. I needed to have an offline supported application on which I could edit my images, article, and layout. I needed an easy way to flip between applications.

The Chromebook Pixel is a better laptop in many ways, but I need to be able to use certain aspects and functions of my computer whenever I want. 1500 dollars is a lot of money, even for a computer. If you want a Chromebook, get the 200 dollar Samsung Chromebook. If you want a computer that has the same features as the Chromebook Pixel with a few exceptions, get the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. I think the Chromebook Pixel is an extraordinary

device but that doesn’t mean I think you should buy it.

The Chromebook Pixel is a laptop that has attempted to create a new age of laptops: the Online Age. It is truly remarkable the way Google has created this magnificent device, but the world is not ready for a device such as the Chromebook Pixel. Despite its ultra-slim design, its amazing display, and its fast Operating System, it relies too heavily on Internet connection. It’s an remarkable feat, but it came with a fatal flaw. Until we have free Wi-Fi almost everywhere on the planet, this laptop will not be portable one. That is my final conclusion on the Google Chromebook Pixel.

All in all, I absolutely adore this new piece of technology. The Chromebook Pixel is unrivalled in almost all aspects: ultra-slim design, display, and overall fit and finish all rival any laptop existent on the market- all for a fraction of the price. And yes, the battery-life could have been extended slightly, but it hardly matters and definitely is not a deal breaker. The Chromebook Pixel is a great browser for on the go.

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Nvidia Project Shield By: Lillian sheng Nvidia, at the yearly Consumer Electronics show at Las vegas, had revealed a new handheld gaming system called Project Shield. Project Shield is powered by the Tegra 4 processor and can play consolequality games while still providing a mobile experience. The processor is capable of pushing 4K-resolution video over HDMI to external displays.

It consists of advanced sound processing that Nvidia says rivals Beats Audio-equipped laptops, and a 33Wh battery that provides five to ten hours of playtime or 24 hours of HD video playback. It features a 5-inch, 720p Retinal multi-touch display with 294ppi pixel density, and has a slot for micro-SD card expansion. The Shield runs Android — pure Android without a skin, as Nvidia insists — and includes Google’s apps for Gmail and the Android Google Play Store.

In addition to supporting all of the games available to Android devices and the games in the Tegra Zone, the Shield also has the ability to stream games from a home Windows PC equipped with a current generation desktop discrete graphics card to the handheld device over Wi-Fi, letting users access their library of PC games, including games in the Steam library, anywhere in their home. It accesses the games on the home PC and run them virtually on the Shield. In the future, Nvidia says that it will add support to stream content from the Shield to a television wirelessly, so

you can watch video and play games on your TV display without being tethered by wires. Of course, with support for the standard Android platform, the Shield also has access to the hundreds of thousands of apps that are available in the Google Play Store.

Hardware-wise, the Shield has a clamshell design with a gaming controller attached below the device’s

display. The controller has dual control sticks, a D-pad, and multiple action buttons — it should look familiar to anyone who has held an Xbox 360 controller.

Unfortunately, Nvidia did not announce a price for Project Shield, but it says that it will be coming to the US and Canada in the second quarter of 2013. Either way, it seems that things just got a bit more interesting for both the mobile gaming space and the Android gaming world.

However, critics say that the coming revolution of Nvidia’s Project Shield will most likely fail. It is believed that

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the current Sony- and Nintendodominated console gaming market has been shrinking at an increasing rate over the past few years, leaving even those incumbent leaders struggling to achieve traction with their latest generation of devices (the 3DS series and the PS Vita, respectively).

Attempts from outsiders have fared even worse, and Nvidia must surely be aware that the route ahead of it is laden with the corpses of failed portable consoles.

Nokia’s N-Gage and Panasonic’s Jungle are two of the highestprofile flops — and Project Shield bears an inauspicious resemblance to the clamshell Jungle, so much so that it could be called Nvidia’s version of that scrapped device.

In a mobile gaming market that is being taken over by devices whose primary purpose is not gaming, Nvidia is swimming upstream by introducing a portable that is all about gaming. This is where Jen-Hsun (the developer of the device) and Nvidia’s disconnect from current trends is most apparent. Through its Tegra line of mobile chips, this company has experienced first-hand the transformation of the mobile market, yet it fails to understand that gaming is nowadays treated as a high-value spec sheet item rather than the killer feature of a device. Who’s selling pure gaming devices these days, anyway?

Even the venerable Xbox 360 and PS3 have gradually transformed into home entertainment hubs rather than simple interactive experience pushers.

Project Shield is, to use a clichéd but accurate analogy, skating to where the puck used to be.

Of course, Nvidia would have us believe Project Shield is a whole lot more than a mere handheld console.

January 6th’s premiere demo, plagued by connectivity issues as they were, focused on three core strengths: a stock Android experience replete with the full library of games, music, and movies available to the platform; the ability to stream Windows PC gaming session to the console itself; and, finally, the power to output all that good stuff to your large-screen HDTV. Let’s look at each of Shield’s pillars of strength: Streaming gaming sessions from your home PC to an Android device was actually one of Nvidia’s headline announcements from last year’s CES. The demo, enabled by Splashtop THD, generated a lot of buzz around Nvidia’s booth, but the subsequent year hasn’t seen it translate into popularity among the mainstream of Android users.

Going the extra length of obtaining a

gamepad and setting up the seemingly straightforward connection between their PC and tablet seems to have been that extra inch too far for most mobile gamers.

Streaming video from a mobile device to a TV is also far from a brand new feature. That takes us back to CES 2011 when Jen-Hsun, Nvidia’s CEO, was on stage playing Angry Birds on an LG HDTV. Finally, running stock Android is a desirable feature when squared up against the growing cadre of 5-inch Android devices with rarely helpful interface skins, but it’s nothing special in the tablet space where most slates run the default Google software.

To Nvidia, Project Shield represents a neat confluence of the multiple strands of diversification the company has been pursuing over recent times. for example the GeForce Grid which will, in the future, make remote Windows PC gaming possible, Tegra Zone as a game store destination, and peripheral like DirectTouch. Rather like Microsoft, with the Surface, Jen-

Hsun Huang’s company, Nvidia, has decided to stop providing the core elements of a good mobile device and sought to build one itself.

The problem Nvidia faces is that, for the rest of us, Shield is bold, blusterous, and just crazy enough to attract our attention — but not something sufficiently unique or groundbreaking to make us feel we need to have it in our lives. It’s a compendium of Nvidia’s best ideas, sure, but there’s no evidence of them having worked out in the past, and the whole market seems to be moving away from openly gaming-centric devices.

Project Shield is undoubtedly the product of a lot of hard work over the past five years, for which Nvidia’s engineers and designers deserve credit. Unfortunately, much of the appeal of a dedicated handheld console has worn off over the last lustrum, leaving Nvidia fighting for a title that nobody may truly want anymore.

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Colophon Screen shots of copyrighted computer software, and the copyright for its contents is most likely held by the author(s) or the company that created the software. It is believed that the use is for identification of, and critical commentary on, the software in question qualifies as fair use under copyright law.

Sources for Images “Redesigning Google” (p14) Illustrations for this section is used in curtesy of the Google Product design team and the UXA design group.

Sources for Images “Google Chromebook” (p20)

Tech Crewsaders Publications Editors in Chiefs Dhira Web Khewsubtrakool & Seongwoo Choi Senior Writers Micahel Kang, Lillian Sheng, Jimmy James Yuh, Joshua Gong, Chris Kim, Patrick TomHon Senior Page Designers Albert Kim, Jimmy Yuh, Alex Byun Writers & Columnists

[1]“Google Chromebook Pixel.” Google Chromebook Pixel.

N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

Yong Choi, James Whong, Hugh Surdeau, Kathleen Lee, Yoonjie Park, Wonhee Cho, William TomHon, Justin Kae

[2] Google Chromebook Pixel. 2012. Photograph. Wired. com. By Alex Washburn. Conde Nast Digital, 27 Feb. 2013.

Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

Members of the Tech Crewsaders

Sources for Images “Google Glass” (p22) [1] Google Glass Evolutionary Design. N.d. Photograph.

What It Does. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[2] Vuzix Smart Glasses M100. N.d. Photograph. Android Community. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

Sources for “Tech Crewsader Post” (p28) [1] Google Keep. Dir. Google Mobile. YouTube. Google, 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[2] The New BlackBerry Z10. N.d. Photograph. BlackBerry Z10 Smartphone. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[3] “Google Chromebook Pixel.” Google Chromebook Pixel.

N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[4] Google Chromebook Pixel. 2012. Photograph. Wired. com. By Alex Washburn. Conde Nast Digital, 27 Feb. 2013.

Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[5] NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX Titan. N.d. Photograph.

AnandTech. By Ryan Smith. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[6] Everything You Need to Know about the Playstation 4. N.d. Photograph. GQ. By Oliver Franklin. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[7] Playstation 4 Event. N.d. Photograph. SlashGear. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[8] Nvidia’s Tegra 4 Really Cooks. N.d. Photograph.

Gizmodo. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

[9] The Tegra 4 Is Here. N.d. Photograph. Gizmodo. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

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Albert Kim, Alex Byun, Chris Garcia, Chris Kim, Christian de Bruin, Dhira Web Khewsubtrakool, Hugh Surdeau, James Whong, James Yuh, Jay Lee, Joshua Gong, Justin Chung, Justin Kae, Kathleen Lee, Lillian Sheng, Michael Kang, Michael Mussel, Nathan Cheung, Patrick Hahn, Patrick TomHon, Sabrina Sung, Sang Hoon (Josh Cho), Seongwoo Choi, Seungwoo Paik, William TomHon, Won Hee Cho, Yong Choi, Yoon Hyuk Chang (Anno), Yoonjie Park Visit us online in many different places on both Google+ and Facebook For our online Magazine visit bit.ly/etmonthly for back issues and current issues. Our website also has an archive of all articles and features tech news not made into the magazine. Visit techcrewsaders.seoulforeign.com Seoul Foreign School, 55-1 Yonhi Dong, SeodaemunGu, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 120-823, +82-2-330-3100

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cover artwork is courtesy of Google Inc.