You got your first look at it Wednesday during the iPad & Mac Event in San Francisco, but Apple has now posted to YouTube a video it calls "Making the all-new Mac Pro."
The 2:03 video shows the creation of the Mac Pro from the initial molding of the aluminum outer body to its final assembly. Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of Operations, talks about how design and manufacturing are "inextricably linked" at Apple and how the company had to create new processes to make the all-new machine, which goes on sale next month.
The creation of the Mac Pro chassis is a fine exercise in machine porn, with plenty of thrusting, lubrication and polishing to thrill paraphiliacs. The first minute of the video is largely free of humans besides Mr. Williams - it's all robotics and automation.
The video includes plenty of footage of American workers doing final assembly on the device, underscoring the point by closing with the Mac Pro's logo being laser-etched on its base, with "Assembled in the USA" capping it off.
Contact: Bernard McCoy bmccoy2@unl.edu 402-472-3047 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
More than 90 percent admit they play with their digital devices in class
The typical college student plays with his or her digital device an average of 11 times a day while in class, according to a new study by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln associate professor.
More than 80 percent admit that their use of smart phones, tablets and laptops can interfere with their learning. More than a fourth say their grades suffer as a result.
Barney McCoy, an associate professor of broadcasting, embarked upon his study after launching his teaching career seven years ago and noticing the instructional challenges presented by students' digital devices.
From the front of his classroom on multimedia, he often saw the smart phones creeping out.
The view from the back of a classroom while a colleague taught Mass Media Principles was equally telling.
"They've got their laptops open, but they're not always taking notes," McCoy said. "Some might have two screens open -- Facebook and their notes."
Rather than rely on anecdotal evidence, McCoy decided to try to quantify how often college students tune out their instructors in favor of tweets and texts. During fall 2012, he surveyed 777 students at six universities in five states about their classroom use of digital devices for non-instructional purposes. He also asked the students how often they are distracted by others using digital devices and for their perspective on how digital devices should be policed.
"I don't think students necessarily think it's problematic," McCoy said. "They think it's part of their lives."
The students, from UNL and the University of Nebraska at Omaha in Nebraska, Morningside College in Iowa, the University of North Carolina, the University of Kansas and the University of Mississippi, were recruited for the computer survey by classroom instructors via email and personal contact. Respondents were not asked to reveal their name or institution, though colleges were identified through Internet Protocol addresses associated with the survey responses.
Here's how often respondents said they used their digital devices for non-classroom purposes during a typical day (percentages equal more than 100 percent because of rounding):
1 to 3 times per day: 35 percent
4 to 10 times per day: 27 percent
11 to 30 times per day: 16 percent
More than 30 times per day: 15 percent
Never: less than 8 percent.
Nearly 86 percent said they were texting, 68 percent reported they were checking email, 66 percent said they using social networks, 38 percent said they were surfing the Web and 8 percent said they were playing a game.
McCoy said he was surprised by one response: 79 percent of the students said they used their digital device to check the time.
"That's a generational thing to me -- a lot of young people don't wear watches," he said.
The top advantages of using digital devices for non-class purposes, according to students, are staying connected (70 percent), fighting boredom (55 percent) and doing related classwork (49 percent). The most commonly cited disadvantages were that they don't pay attention (90 percent), miss instruction (80 percent), or get called out by their instructor (32 percent). More than a fourth said they lose grade points because of their digital habits.
However, students downplayed the distraction caused by digital devices. Fewer than 5 percent considered it a "big" or "very big" distraction when classmates used digital devices and fewer than 5 percent considered their own use of a digital device to be a "big" or "very big" distraction. However, more than half the students said they were "a little" distracted when other students pulled out their devices and nearly 46 percent said they were "a little" distracted by their own use of digital devices.
Less than 17 percent said the use of digital devices was not a distraction.
Students do not want to leave their smartphones at home, however. More than 91 percent said they opposed a classroom ban on digital devices. Their preferred policy (72 percent) for dealing with digital distraction is for the instructor to speak to the offender. They also preferred a first-offense warning, followed by penalties (65 percent) for those caught using devices for non-classroom purposes.
McCoy said digital distraction is a challenge with which instructors will continue to wrestle. A 2012 study showed that two-thirds of students age 18-29 own a smartphone, which gives them mobile access to the Internet as well as texting and email capabilities. A 2013 study by Experian Marketing Services showed that 18- to 24-year-olds send and receive an average of 3,853 text messages per month.
"It's become automatic behavior on the part of so many people -- they do it without even thinking about it," McCoy said.
He said he asks students to be aware that using their devices can distract others and to step outside the room if it's a true emergency and they need to be connected. He said he limits the length of his lectures and gives students periodic breaks so they can update Facebook or send a tweet. He said he also tries to get them to use their phones as part of their classroom activities -- asking them to look up information, for example.
"I can guarantee you even when I do those things, it's still not going to keep students from having a text conversation," he said. "They'll multi-task while they're doing it."
###
McCoy's study was published online last week in the Journal of Media Education and is available at http://go.unl.edu/fbov.
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Study: Students text, a lot, during class
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
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Contact: Bernard McCoy bmccoy2@unl.edu 402-472-3047 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
More than 90 percent admit they play with their digital devices in class
The typical college student plays with his or her digital device an average of 11 times a day while in class, according to a new study by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln associate professor.
More than 80 percent admit that their use of smart phones, tablets and laptops can interfere with their learning. More than a fourth say their grades suffer as a result.
Barney McCoy, an associate professor of broadcasting, embarked upon his study after launching his teaching career seven years ago and noticing the instructional challenges presented by students' digital devices.
From the front of his classroom on multimedia, he often saw the smart phones creeping out.
The view from the back of a classroom while a colleague taught Mass Media Principles was equally telling.
"They've got their laptops open, but they're not always taking notes," McCoy said. "Some might have two screens open -- Facebook and their notes."
Rather than rely on anecdotal evidence, McCoy decided to try to quantify how often college students tune out their instructors in favor of tweets and texts. During fall 2012, he surveyed 777 students at six universities in five states about their classroom use of digital devices for non-instructional purposes. He also asked the students how often they are distracted by others using digital devices and for their perspective on how digital devices should be policed.
"I don't think students necessarily think it's problematic," McCoy said. "They think it's part of their lives."
The students, from UNL and the University of Nebraska at Omaha in Nebraska, Morningside College in Iowa, the University of North Carolina, the University of Kansas and the University of Mississippi, were recruited for the computer survey by classroom instructors via email and personal contact. Respondents were not asked to reveal their name or institution, though colleges were identified through Internet Protocol addresses associated with the survey responses.
Here's how often respondents said they used their digital devices for non-classroom purposes during a typical day (percentages equal more than 100 percent because of rounding):
1 to 3 times per day: 35 percent
4 to 10 times per day: 27 percent
11 to 30 times per day: 16 percent
More than 30 times per day: 15 percent
Never: less than 8 percent.
Nearly 86 percent said they were texting, 68 percent reported they were checking email, 66 percent said they using social networks, 38 percent said they were surfing the Web and 8 percent said they were playing a game.
McCoy said he was surprised by one response: 79 percent of the students said they used their digital device to check the time.
"That's a generational thing to me -- a lot of young people don't wear watches," he said.
The top advantages of using digital devices for non-class purposes, according to students, are staying connected (70 percent), fighting boredom (55 percent) and doing related classwork (49 percent). The most commonly cited disadvantages were that they don't pay attention (90 percent), miss instruction (80 percent), or get called out by their instructor (32 percent). More than a fourth said they lose grade points because of their digital habits.
However, students downplayed the distraction caused by digital devices. Fewer than 5 percent considered it a "big" or "very big" distraction when classmates used digital devices and fewer than 5 percent considered their own use of a digital device to be a "big" or "very big" distraction. However, more than half the students said they were "a little" distracted when other students pulled out their devices and nearly 46 percent said they were "a little" distracted by their own use of digital devices.
Less than 17 percent said the use of digital devices was not a distraction.
Students do not want to leave their smartphones at home, however. More than 91 percent said they opposed a classroom ban on digital devices. Their preferred policy (72 percent) for dealing with digital distraction is for the instructor to speak to the offender. They also preferred a first-offense warning, followed by penalties (65 percent) for those caught using devices for non-classroom purposes.
McCoy said digital distraction is a challenge with which instructors will continue to wrestle. A 2012 study showed that two-thirds of students age 18-29 own a smartphone, which gives them mobile access to the Internet as well as texting and email capabilities. A 2013 study by Experian Marketing Services showed that 18- to 24-year-olds send and receive an average of 3,853 text messages per month.
"It's become automatic behavior on the part of so many people -- they do it without even thinking about it," McCoy said.
He said he asks students to be aware that using their devices can distract others and to step outside the room if it's a true emergency and they need to be connected. He said he limits the length of his lectures and gives students periodic breaks so they can update Facebook or send a tweet. He said he also tries to get them to use their phones as part of their classroom activities -- asking them to look up information, for example.
"I can guarantee you even when I do those things, it's still not going to keep students from having a text conversation," he said. "They'll multi-task while they're doing it."
###
McCoy's study was published online last week in the Journal of Media Education and is available at http://go.unl.edu/fbov.
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa's government said the economy would grow less than hoped this year due to strikes and power shortages but promised to keep state finances in check, also cutting its budget deficit forecast.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan urged ratings agencies that have downgraded Pretoria's credit over the past year to take note of its fiscal prudence.
"We are running a sustainable fiscal ship," he told reporters before his interim budget speech to parliament in which he sought to allay fears of increased populist spending ahead of elections next year.
"Hopefully the ratings agencies will do their homework and recognise that in a very turbulent environment, and one in which we've got huge historical legacies to overcome, we actually are keeping a fairly good 19-year record of good fiscal management."
The Treasury slashed 2013 growth expectations to 2.1 percent of GDP from 2.7 percent forecast in February, suggesting prospects of a near-term cut in the country's stubbornly high unemployment rate are slim.
Widespread labour strikes and power supply constraints have this year hit the continent's largest economy, which languished in recession in 2009.
But it also lowered the budget deficit forecast for the year to March 2014 to 4.2 percent of GDP from the 4.6 percent seen in February due to lower spending and technical effects from changes to how it calculates the fiscal balance.
Spending for the period was predicted at 1.14 trillion rand against revenue of 999 billion rand, resulting in a much lower deficit than the 4.9 percent that economists polled by Reuters had expected.
Spending is set to rise to 1.24 trillion rand in 2014/15 and 1.44 trillion by 2016/17.
The Treasury said it would strike a balance between keeping the deficit in check while supporting growth along the lines of the National Development Plan, pouring money into health, education, infrastructure, and social assistance to the poor.
MISSING THE BIG IDEA
"The level of expenditure remains well contained, while the fiscal stance avoids a premature consolidation that could jeopardise higher economic growth, which is required to create jobs," it said.
The rand gained against the dollar to 9.7700 from 9.8135 before Gordhan started his speech to parliament, while bonds recovered from session lows on news of the lower deficit forecast.
Analysts also reacted positively to the deficit headlines, but weak growth and a high wage bill remain a concern for ratings agencies, and the budget was devoid of big ideas to move the economy up a gear.
"While some effort is made to commit to an overall spending ceiling, and some re-prioritisation of expenditure is planned, these are piecemeal efforts," said Standard Chartered economist Razia Khan.
"Anyone hoping for a bolder effort to arrest medium-term deterioration will be disappointed."
Weak growth in Europe, a major trading partner, has dampened demand for South African exports and made it difficult for the private sector to create much-needed jobs.
"Labour disputes, electricity shortages and other supply-side disruptions have weighed down business and consumer confidence, and lowered demand for goods and services," the Treasury said.
Economic recovery over the next three years could increase employment by 1.7 percent a year, but this is too little to make a major dent in joblessness that affects a quarter of the labour force.
Both the private and public sectors have been under pressure from frequent labour unrest, which has resulted in above-inflation wage settlements of 7.9 percent in the first half of this year from 7.6 percent in 2012.
The Treasury anticipates inflation to remain below its 6 percent upper-limit target in the next three years, but weakness in the rand, which has fallen nearly 16 percent to the dollar this year, posed a risk to that forecast.
The current account deficit, long a source of vulnerability for the currency during spates of global risk aversion, was projected to remain above 6 percent of GDP over the medium term as savings lag investments.
By John P. Mello Jr. MacNewsWorld Part of the ECT News Network 10/23/13 9:40 AM PT
The "wow" that Apple went for with its Tuesday product refresh had less to do with the products than with its pricing strategy: It's now offering some key software, including its new OS X Mavericks, for free. Apple fans are feeling the ground moving under their feet, but "giving away Mavericks is just part of how Apple builds the ecosystem around its products," said NPD Analyst Stephen Baker.
Apple threw down the gauntlet to the PC industry and aimed some veiled barbs at rival Microsoft at a Tuesday launch event to refresh its software and hardware lines.
Apple announced new editions of its iWork and iLife suites, which will come free with any new iPad, iPhone or Mac. Further, all of its customers can upgrade to OS X Mavericks, the latest version of its operating system, for free.
"Today we're going to revolutionize pricing," Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi told the audience at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center.
"The days of spending hundreds of dollars to get the most out of your computer are gone," he continued. "Today we announce a new era for the Mac, because today we're announcing that Mavericks is free."
Apple's software approach is bucking trends in the software industry to get users to pay even more for programs by charging for them on an annual subscription basis.
"We are turning the industry on its ear," Apple CEO Tim Cook told the crowd.
Decimate Competition
Cook also questioned the tactics of Apple's PC competitors.
"They chased after netbooks," he said. "Now they're trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. Who knows what they will do next?"
Apple's announcements are bad news for its rivals, maintained Trip Chowdhry, managing director for equity research at Global Equities Research.
"This is a groundbreaking event when it comes to new-generation computing," he told MacNewsWorld. "Apple is probably going to decimate the competition, both on the software side and the hardware side."
Apple changed the industry Tuesday, Chowdhry continued. It is showing it's not content with heretofore acceptable practices.
"This is going to define the industry for the next 10 years," he predicted. "The typical industry upgrade cycle of seven years has been shattered."
Apple has always enjoyed good rates of adoption when introducing new versions of its mobile operating system, iOS. In its first 30 days of release, for example, iOS 7 was adopted by 68 percent of users. On other platforms, it can take more than a year to get that kind of adoption rate.
Merry Holidays Predicted
While Apple's decision to give away its new Mac operating system to its user base may make industry waves, its impact on consumers in general may be less than a ripple.
"Giving away Mavericks is just part of how Apple builds the ecosystem around its products," NPD Analyst Stephen Baker told MacNewsWorld.
"Apple doesn't look at any individual product or operating system, but how everything ties together for its long-term value to Apple -- not its value tomorrow by giving Apple 20 or 30 bucks," he continued.
"It may be obvious to a lot of people that Microsoft needs to move to a place where the cost of the operating system needs to come down substantially as a part of the price of devices, but it's foolish to expect that to happen all at once," added Baker.
Although it may take months to see the long-term effects of Apple's Tuesday announcement, some impacts will be evident sooner -- especially during the upcoming holiday season.
"They have a very, very strong portfolio for the holiday season," Gartner Research Vice President for Mobility Van L. Baker told MacNewsWorld.
Apple's new tablet pricing scheme should be attractive to holiday shoppers: US$299 for the first-generation iPad mini; $399 for the new mini with retina display; and $499 for the fifth-generation iPad Air.
"That $300 price point for an iPad is a psychological threshold for a lot of folks, and it's going to cause a lot of people to step up and buy that product," Gartner's Baker said.
Popularity Guaranteed
With the introduction of Apple's 64-bit A7 processor into its tablets, the company now has some real muscle across its entire product line.
"All Apple's products -- big or small, on the desktop or in your pocket -- have 64-bit processing, which is phenomenal," Chowdhry said.
Moving the A7 chip into more devices should aid Apple on another level as well.
"It should help Apple's manufacturing efficiencies, allowing it to use multiple designs that incorporate common components, such as the A7 processor," Jeff Orr, senior practice director for mobile devices at ABI Research, told MacNewsWorld.
The return on those manufacturing efficiencies won't be realized immediately, however.
"iPad profit margins and the average selling price has continued to decline around $20 a quarter per unit, and I expect that to continue for the next one to two quarters, as production shifts from the current iPad to the new iPad Air and mini," Orr observed.
Nevertheless, the new generation of iPads could be among Apple's more successful offerings.
"With Apple today announcing that 170 million iPads have been sold (as of earlier this month) since the introduction of the iPad, we believe this will prove to be a major upgrade cycle," Brian J. White of Cantor Fitzgerald wrote in a research note Tuesday.
The addition of 64-bit computing into the iPad line will be a dealmaker for many iPad owners, added Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies.
"It's the most powerful tablet on the market, bar none," he told MacNewsWorld.
"Most people who have earlier versions of the iPad are going to be big buyers of this product," he predicted. "The performance level is so superior to what exists today that it will gain serious traction with consumers."
A top White House national security aide who was secretly going on Twitter to insult other Obama administration officials and politicians from both major parties, and to question the policies he had been helping develop, is apologizing.
Jofi Joseph is also out of a job.
The Daily Beast broke the news Tuesday night that Joseph was @natsecwonk, a "mystery Tweeter who has been tormenting the foreign policy community with insulting comments and revealing internal Obama administration information for over two years." It reported that:
"During his time tweeting under the @natsecwonk name, Joseph openly criticized the policies of his White House bosses and often insulted their intellect and appearance. At different times, he insulted or criticized several top White House and State Department officials, including former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Secretary of State John Kerry, and many many others."
Politico followed with word that "Joseph, 40, was fired from his job on the NSC nuclear non-proliferation team a week ago after a months-long probe into a barrage of tweets that included caustic criticisms of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and top NSC officials, especially Ben Rhodes – whom he accused of dodging questions about Benghazi."
In an email, Joseph told Politico that:
"What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted."
Politico adds that "officials also told Joseph they suspected he was responsible for a second anonymous Twitter account '@DChobbyist' which included racier tweets about sexual encounters, escort services — and the inner workings of the State Department. ... Joseph didn't respond to a request for comment on the second account."
The @natsecwonk account disappeared from Twitter last week, but many of its tweets have been saved here. According to The Washington Post, @natsecwonk's tweets " never included classified or highly sensitive information, making a true leak investigation difficult to mount, but they often contained insider details."
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