Really?: Eating Local Honey Cures Allergies

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Among allergy sufferers, there is a widespread belief that locally produced honey can alleviate symptoms — the idea being that the honey acts like a vaccine. Bees that jump from one flower to the next end up covered in pollen spores, which are then transferred to their honey. Eating that honey — just a spoonful a day — can build up immunity through gradual exposure to the local allergens that can make life so miserable for allergy sufferers.

Or at least that’s the thinking behind it. But when University of Connecticut Health Center researchers did a test, they found that the honey had no such effect.

In the study, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in 2002, the scientists followed dozens of allergy sufferers through the springtime allergy season. The subjects were randomly split into three groups. One consumed a tablespoonful daily of locally collected, unpasteurized and unfiltered honey; another ate commercial honey; and a third was given a corn syrup placebo with synthetic honey flavoring.

After tracking the subjects’ symptoms for months, the scientists found that neither of the honey groups saw improvements over the placebo group.

Dr. Stanley Fineman, president-elect of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, said he has seen a growing number of patients ask about local honey. “Seasonal allergies are usually triggered by windborne pollens, not by pollens spread by insects,” he said. So it’s unlikely that honey “collected from plants that do not cause allergy symptoms would provide any therapeutic benefit.”

THE BOTTOM LINE

There’s no evidence that local honey relieves allergy symptoms.

ANAHAD O’CONNOR

scitimes@nytimes.com

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National Briefing | MID-ATLANTIC: Delaware: Medical Marijuana Nears Legalization

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Time constraints and modern conveniences are at odds with the luxury of being a food purist, writes Virginia Heffernan.

A Room for Debate forum on how much voters care about a politician’s marital and family life.

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Setback for New Stem Cell Treatment

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The research involved so-called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which can be made from skin cells and which appear to have the characteristics of embryonic stem cells. That means they can theoretically be turned into nerve, heart, liver or other types of cells and transplanted to repair damaged organs.

The initial creation of human iPS cells in 2007 electrified scientists because the cells seemed to have two big advantages over embryonic stem cells. They were not controversial, because their creation did not entail the destruction of human embryos. And since the stem cells could be made from a particular patient’s skin cells, they could be used to make tissues that presumably would not be rejected by that patient’s immune system.

But that latter assumption was never really tested, until now. When Yang Xu, a biologist at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues did so, they found that iPS cells made from mouse skin cells were nonetheless rejected by genetically identical mice.

Other scientists said the results, published online on Friday in the journal Nature, were surprising.

“The path to the clinic has just gotten a lot murkier,” said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology, a company trying to develop medical treatments using both embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells.

He said it was not clear that the results in mice would hold true for humans, though some other scientists said they assumed they would.

The new report is just the latest to take some of the shine off iPS cells. In recent months other researchers have reported that the cells are prone to various types of genetic abnormalities.

“As with any new technology, there is always this initial phase of infatuation, and then the reality sets in,” said Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplantation program at Children’s Hospital Boston. “I think it goes to the heart of the issue of how ignorant we really are in understanding these cells.”

Dr. Daley said the finding about the immune reactions “happened to be a particularly startling result that I wasn’t anticipating.”

Still, he added, years of work lie ahead before iPS cells would be ready to use in treating people, so it is too early to be discouraged. Many scientists say iPS cells for now will be used to create cells — like brain cells from someone with Alzheimer’s disease — that can be used to study diseases in the laboratory.

Dr. Xu, whose research was paid for by the National Institutes of Health and by California’s stem cell program, created both embryonic stem cells and iPS cells from an inbred strain of mice and implanted those stem cells into other mice of the same strain.

The mice did not have an immune response to the implanted embryonic stem cells. But their immune systems attacked the implanted iPS cells.

Further experiments suggested that the reaction was caused by the abnormal activation of certain genes in the iPS cells, resulting in the production of proteins that seemed foreign to the immune systems of the mice.

The degree of immune response depended on how the iPS cells were made. The strongest response was to cells made by incorporating genes for certain growth factors into the DNA of the skin cells. Cells made that way are not likely to be used for medical treatments anyway because at least one of the inserted genes can cause cancer.

Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute, said that in practice, iPS cells themselves would not be implanted into people. Rather, the stem cells would first be turned into specific types of cells, like brain cells or heart cells. He said it was unclear whether such differentiated cells would elicit the same immune response as the stem cells did in the mice.

Jeanne F. Loring, director of the center for regenerative medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, said the new findings would not preclude use of the iPS cells for therapy because immune-suppressing drugs could always be used.

But the potential problem with iPS cells might make some scientists take another look at making patient-specific tissues by creating an embryo from a patient’s cell through so-called therapeutic cloning. That approach, which is not known to have been accomplished using human cells, is controversial because the same technique might also be used to create a baby.

“This reopens the whole need for S.C.N.T, which will be controversial,” said Dr. Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, referring to somatic cell nuclear transfer, the scientific term for cloning. “We had thought we had put that aside with this technology.”

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Children of Hoarders on Leaving the Cluttered Nest

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Stacy Sodolak for The New York TimesHolly Sabiston said that her home in Austin, Tex., fluctuates between neat and “über neat.”

JESSIE SHOLL’S West Village apartment is a rent-stabilized fifth-floor walk-up, three small rooms and a sleeping loft where she and her husband, both writers, have lived for seven years. Perfect-storm conditions for clutter. But Ms. Sholl, a petite, pale-skinned woman of 42, keeps things tidy with routine “purges.” Even of objects she likes.

“I should get rid of this,” she said on a recent afternoon, pointing to a chicken sitting on top of a bookshelf, handmade by an artist out of recycled shower curtains. “It serves no purpose.”

Two minutes earlier she had been admiring its colorful plumes.

She laughed. “It’s a little pathological, I admit.”

If Ms. Sholl is overly zealous in her approach to housekeeping, one can understand why after reading her recently published memoir, “Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding.” The parent Ms. Sholl describes is a woman whose cluttered living room inexplicably contains five sewing machines and at least eight pairs of moldy cowboy boots. She is someone who buys too much and doesn’t throw anything away, even as the stuff piles up and impedes normal life — the textbook definition of a hoarder.

In dealing with her mother’s home in Minneapolis, Ms. Sholl has spent much of her life alternating between feeling shame about its squalid condition and attempting to rid it of the books, scraps of paper, empty food cartons and thrift-store tchotchkes littering every available surface.

When she learned that her mother had cancer, in 2006, Ms. Sholl flew out for one last-ditch cleanup attempt, an effort that inspired “Dirty Secret.” “The stove was piled feet-high with dirty pans,” Ms. Sholl said. “It gnawed at me that she was living that way.”

Many children of hoarders know the feeling. Even as scientists study the cognitive activity that accompanies the disorder and television shows like TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive” and A&E’s “Hoarders” have made it a mainstream issue, scant attention has been paid to how hoarding affects families of the afflicted, especially their children. Most are left to their own devices to make sense of growing up in homes where friends and relatives are unable to visit, with parents who seem to value inanimate objects more than the animate ones navigating the goat paths through the clutter.

Randy O. Frost, a psychology professor at Smith College, has been studying hoarders for two decades and is an author of “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things.” Children of hoarders, he noted, often display a tortured ambivalence toward their parents, perhaps because unlike spouses or friends of hoarders, they had little choice but to live amid the junk.

“They grew up in this difficult environment and naturally came to resent it,” Dr. Frost said. “But at the same time, these are your parents and you have to not only respect and love but take care of them. What happens when they get old?”

NOT surprisingly, there are a number of online support groups and blogs devoted to children of hoarders, including Hoarder’s Son and Behind the Door. The most popular, Children of Hoarders,?? maintains an online forum where members trade strategies for helping parents, discuss issues like “doorbell dread” (more on that later) and share stories. One account, posted by a woman named Tracy Schroeder, details in emotionally raw terms her mother’s death and the subsequent cleanup of the family home in Clovis, N.M., which was filled with magazines, craft supplies and dog feces.

“The COH Web site was my saving grace,” Ms. Schroeder, 42, said. “Nobody understands the weirdness of growing up this way unless they go through it.”

In high school, Ms. Schroeder said, she was a cheerleader and president of her class, but she lived in constant fear that “someone would see our house.” After her parents divorced, she strategically arranged visits with friends when she was spending weekends with her father. The college she attended was 20 minutes from her mother’s house, but she rarely visited, she said, because “I wouldn’t want to stay there, and that would cause fights.”

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Vital Signs: Safety: Report Questions Studies on Stun Guns

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Scientific studies have produced mixed results, but a new report suggests that the conclusions of those studies are linked to their financing sources.

Cardiologists at the University of California, San Francisco, reviewed 50 published studies on Taser guns, including 23 financed by the manufacturer, Taser International, or written by someone affiliated with it, and 27 conducted by independent researchers.

Twenty-two of the 23 studies linked to the manufacturer concluded stun guns were either not harmful or not likely to be harmful. Seventy percent concluded they were not harmful at all.

In contrast, just over half of the independent studies found that Tasers were either not harmful or unlikely to be harmful. Twenty-six percent concluded they were not harmful at all.

“When you look at the research, you find out a lot of the articles that are touted by police departments are funded by the company, and it may be the research is being influenced and tainted,” said Dr. Byron Lee, an associate professor at the university and senior author of the study, which was presented this month to the Heart Rhythm Society.

Steve Tuttle, a Taser executive, said the device “is considered the most-tested less-lethal use of force technology today.”

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Recipes for Health: Whole Wheat Spaghetti With Green Garlic and Chicory

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1 head chicory (also sold as escarole and curly endive lettuce)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons minced green garlic

1 dried red pepper, broken in half, or 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Salt to taste

3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

3/4 pound whole-wheat spaghetti

A generous amount of freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, as needed

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice water. Meanwhile, remove the tough outer leaves of the chicory, and clean the remaining leaves of sand. When the water comes to a boil, salt generously and add the chicory. Blanch one minute, then transfer to the ice water with a skimmer or slotted spoon (do not drain the water from the pot). Drain the chicory, squeeze out water and chop. Set aside.

2. Combine the olive oil, garlic and chili pepper in a large, heavy skillet. Heat over medium heat until the garlic begins to sizzle. Allow the garlic to sizzle for about a minute, but do not let it color. Remove the skillet from the heat and set aside. If using a whole chili pepper, remove it and discard.

3. Bring the water back to a boil, and add the spaghetti. Cook al dente following the timing directions on the package. While the pasta is cooking, return the frying pan to medium heat. When the garlic begins to sizzle again, add the chicory. Toss together, season to taste with salt and pepper, and keep warm.

4. When the spaghetti is cooked al dente, remove 1/2 cup of the pasta water and add it to the pan with the chicory. Stir together well. Drain the pasta, and toss with the chicory and garlic. Serve, topping each serving with a spoonful of Parmesan.

Yield: Serves four.

Advance preparation: You can make this through Step 2 several hours before cooking the spaghetti.

Nutritional information per serving: 444 calories; 3 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 10 grams monounsaturated fat; 4 milligrams cholesterol; 66 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams dietary fiber; 87 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 15 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of "The Very Best of Recipes for Health."

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Cases Without Borders: Without His Mother’s Milk, a Haitian Boy Is Lost

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I got up and walked over to the hospital entrance. Because the emergency room had only two beds, and the hospital itself had limited resources, patients were sent through triage at the gate, and only those who could be treated were brought in. The others were turned away to seek care elsewhere.

Arriving at the gate, I could already smell the sharp odor of diarrhea. A young woman was holding a baby wrapped in a stained and tattered blanket. From the interpreter, I learned this was a 5-month-old boy with watery yellow diarrhea, vomiting and a decrease in oral intake during the previous four days.

Opening the blanket and looking at him, I was amazed that he was still alive. His chest looked like a chicken breast picked clean of meat. His mucus membranes were pasty dry, his eyes and fontanel were sunken and his skin hung off his arms and legs as if it were three sizes too large. At 5 months he weighed less than four and a half pounds.

The gastroenteritis, it turned out, was only what had tipped him over. On further questioning we learned that his mother had stopped nursing shortly after he was born because her “milk was bad,” and had been bottle-feeding him with watered-down 7Up soda.

Because he was so dehydrated, his veins had collapsed and the nurses in the emergency room weren’t able to place an intravenous line to give him fluids. It was clear that I’d have to insert a thick needle directly into his shinbone to deliver sterile saline solution with a syringe, an ounce at a time.

Never having done this before (though I had practiced on a raw chicken leg), I was nervous about the procedure. The only needle available was longer than his leg was thick, and I was afraid I would push it through and pin him to the mattress.

He hardly whimpered as the needle entered the tibial cavity with a crunch. We gave him the fluids and admitted him to the pediatric ward, but had no way of measuring his electrolytes. He continued to have severe diarrhea and died several hours after being admitted. While gastroenteritis can be fatal in otherwise healthy infants, his extreme malnutrition had made him more vulnerable, and we were unable to save him.

The Haitian belief in “bad milk” — “lèt gate,” in Creole — is well described by Paul Farmer in his book “Partner to the Poor” (University of California, 2010). It is one of the main reasons for the premature stopping of breast-feeding in Haiti, often with deadly consequences for the infant deprived of safe and dependable nourishment.

That same week, one of the nurses in our group was able to prevent something similar from happening to another infant for whom we were caring. Born a few hours before we arrived, and several weeks before his due date, he, too, weighed less than four and a half pounds.

He was placed in an incubator and given antibiotics, and he seemed to be doing well except for one thing: His mother refused to nurse him, or even to express milk to feed him by bottle. Denise, the nurse who cared for him the week we were there, could not understand why the mother refused so adamantly to feed her son.

She pressed the mother every time she saw her, explaining the advantages of breast milk over formula, until finally the mother explained that a previous child of hers had died in infancy, and that a houngan (voodoo priest) had told her that her milk was no good and that she must never nurse any subsequent babies or else they, too, would suffer a similar fate.

Each day Denise pleaded with her to try to nurse. On the third day, the maternal grandmother came to visit and had a long conversation with Denise, asking whether her daughter’s milk was somehow tainted. Denise assured her it was not.

The next day the mother agreed to try nursing her son. He had difficulty latching on, and she expressed a small amount into a bottle, which he eagerly gulped down.

The following morning she returned, nervous about how he had fared. Once she saw that he was fine, she unbuttoned her blouse and again tried to nurse, this time with better success. Over the next few days she continued to nurse him until she no longer needed to express into a bottle, and looked much more relaxed and in better spirits than she had since he was born.

The difference between breast milk and calorically depleted drinks, or formula prepared from water potentially contaminated with organisms that cause diseases like cholera, can be a matter of life or death. And so encouraging this young mother to give her son the sustenance he needed was a potentially lifesaving intervention, achieved through patience, education and the building of trust.

While it may not sound like much, the sad truth is that in Haiti all of these are hard to come by and remain very much in need.

Dr. Dennis Rosen is a pediatric pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.

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Critics Fear G.O.P.’s Proposed Medicaid Changes Could Cut Coverage for the Aged

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While the largest number of Medicaid recipients are low-income children and adults, who tend to be far less politically potent voices in battles over entitlement programs than older voters, the changes to Medicaid proposed by Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the House budget chairman, could actually have a more direct impact on older Americans than the Medicare part of his plan.

The House plan would turn Medicaid, which provides health coverage for the poor through a combination of federal and state money, into a block grant program for states. The federal government would give lump sums to states, which in turn would be given more flexibility and independence over use of the money, though the plan does not spell out what the federal requirements would be.

Beginning in 2013, these grants would increase annually at the rate of inflation, with adjustments for population growth, a rate far below that of inflation for health care costs. As a result, states, which have said that they cannot afford to keep up with the program’s costs, are likely to scale back coverage. Such a reduction, critics fear, could have a disproportionate effect on Medicaid spending for nursing home care for the elderly or disabled.

By contrast, under the Medicare proposal approved by the House, no one currently 55 or older would see a change in benefits, which the House proposed to turn into a voucher-type program.

“This is a huge deal for the nation’s seniors, and it’s been largely unrecognized,” said Jocelyn Guyer, the co-executive director of the Center for Children and Families at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. “Obviously Medicaid is a program designed for low- and modest-income people. But when it comes to nursing homes, a lot of seniors start off middle class and pay for their care with private funds but end up using the Medicaid program.”

According to the Congressional Budget Office, in the 2010 fiscal year, 77 percent of people enrolled in Medicaid were children and families, while 23 percent were elderly or disabled. But 64 percent of Medicaid spending was for older Americans and people with disabilities, while 36 percent went to children and families.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzes health care issues, 7 of 10 nursing home residents are on Medicaid, in large part because even middle-class patients often run through their savings while in a nursing home and turn to the entitlement program.

The foundation recently estimated that a Medicaid block grant similar to the one proposed by Mr. Ryan could save $750 billion over 10 years. House Republicans also want to eliminate the expansion in Medicaid eligibility scheduled to take place in 2014 under the new health care law, which could result in savings of $610 billion.

According to a report released Tuesday by the foundation with the Urban Institute, by 2012, under the Ryan plan, Medicaid enrollment nationally could be 44 million people fewer than what it is projected to be under current law, which includes new additions to the program under the health care overhaul.

It is still possible that there will be some changes to the Medicare program this year, but Medicaid is quite likely a more politically viable area of change. Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said Tuesday, “Medicaid is a very important part of our plan.”

While the House passed the Ryan 2012 budget that includes changes to Medicare and Medicaid, it is dead on arrival in the Senate.

Another budget proposal offered Tuesday by Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, increases Medicare spending, while using block grants for Medicaid in an effort to reduce Medicaid spending by 2019 to a level only $14 billion above what it was in the 2008 fiscal year.

It is likely that Democrats will strongly oppose block grants, arguing that such a plan would shift too many Medicaid costs to states that are already slashing their budgets. At a news conference last week, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia sharply criticized several of the ideas for reshaping Medicaid, calling broad-based cuts “almost beyond my moral understanding.”

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Gingrich Calls G.O.P.’s Medicare Plan Too Radical

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Mr. Gingrich, the former speaker of the House who led a conservative resurgence in the 1990s, said the Republican Medicare plan was “too big a jump” for Americans and compared it to the health care overhaul championed by President Obama.

“I’m against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change,” Mr. Gingrich said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”

“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”

The Republican plan calls for the most extensive overhaul of the Medicare program since it was created. It would end direct payment for medical care and would instead subsidize health coverage for older Americans.

While House Republicans have portrayed the plan as a way to address the nation’s long-term financial problems, Democrats and their allies have sought to seize on public concerns over it, arguing that the changes would hurt the elderly, an influential voting group.

After facing waves of protests in public meetings after introducing the Medicare proposal in early April, House Republicans have begun signaling that they are prepared to shelve it, at least for now.

In leveling criticism at the Republican Medicare proposal, Mr. Gingrich appeared to be acknowledging the political difficulties and risk of abruptly changing a highly popular entitlement program.

“I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare solution for seniors,” Mr. Gingrich said, suggesting that any Medicare overhaul would have to include a system in which beneficiaries voluntarily opt out of the program.

Also on Sunday, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the author of the Medicare proposal, defended the plan during an appearance on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

“We have got to reform this program for the next generation if we’re going to save it for the next generation, and that’s what we’re proposing to do,” Mr. Ryan said.

Mr. Ryan also addressed his own future in the interview, saying he was considering running for the seat now held by Senator Herb Kohl, a four-term Democrat from Wisconsin who announced on Friday that he would not seek re-election next year.

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Recipes for Health: A Lighter, Lovelier Garlic

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This was green garlic, freshly harvested. By now it should be available at most farmers’ markets. At some stands, the bulbs look a lot like spring onions, or even leeks, because they haven’t set cloves yet. Once the cloves appear, the garlic looks more familiar; still, the green stems will be attached, and you must remove several layers of moist skin to get to the cloves.

The season doesn’t last long, so I buy green garlic every week and use it in all manner of dishes. Because it’s milder than mature garlic, you can use a lot without overpowering a dish.

Many researchers believe garlic, green or mature, may help lower cholesterol, triglyceride levels and blood pressure. Some of its constituents, including allicin, vitamin C, vitamin B6, manganese and selenium, may provide cardiovascular benefits.

Some people are so enthusiastic about these therapeutic properties that they take garlic supplements. It’s hardly necessary; it’s easy to get all you want in everyday dishes.

Green Garlic, Potato and Leek Soup

A very pale green springtime cousin of vichyssoise, this purée is comforting when served hot, refreshing when cold.

3/4 pound green garlic (weight includes stalks)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 pound leeks, white and light green parts only, rinsed thoroughly and sliced

1 small celery rib, sliced (about 1/4 cup)

Salt to taste

1 pound Yukon gold or russet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 1/2 quarts water, vegetable stock or chicken stock

A bouquet garni made with a bay leaf and 2 sprigs each thyme and parsley

Freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, chervil or tarragon

1. Trim off the tough green ends of the garlic bulbs. If the garlic has formed cloves, separate them and remove the thick shells from the tender cloves. If it has not formed cloves, just remove the outside layers. Chop coarsely. You should have about 1 cup chopped green garlic.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over medium heat. Add the leeks, green garlic, celery and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook gently for five to 10 minutes until the vegetables have softened but not colored. Add the potatoes, water, bouquet garni and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes.

3. Purée the soup using an immersion blender. Alternatively, purée in a standing blender working in 1 1/2-cup batches; pull a towel tightly over the top, rather than a tight-fitting lid, to prevent splashes. Put through a medium strainer, pressing the soup through with the back of a ladle or with a pestle. Reheat, taste and adjust salt. Add freshly ground pepper. Ladle into soup bowls, and sprinkle chopped fresh parsley, chervil or chopped fresh tarragon over each serving. Alternatively, chill and serve cold. You can thin out if you wish with milk or stock.

Yield: Serves six.

Advance preparation: You can make this a day ahead and reheat. You may want to thin the soup with a little milk or stock.

Nutritional information per serving: 135 calories; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 21 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 45 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 2 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of "The Very Best of Recipes for Health."

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Letters: Offering Lost Words (1 Letter)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
Time constraints and modern conveniences are at odds with the luxury of being a food purist, writes Virginia Heffernan.

A Room for Debate forum on how much voters care about a politician’s marital and family life.

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Books: All About the Invidious Irritants That Irk Individuals

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

You get every bit as annoyed as I do by car alarms that never stop, fingernails screeching down blackboards, and a fly buzzing around your head. The prolonged whining of a child, your own or somebody else’s, drives you crazy.

In other words, some annoyances are particular to the individual, some are universal to the species, and some, like the fly, appear to torture all mammals. If ever there was a subject for scientists to pursue for clues to why we are who we are, this is the one.

And yet, as Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman make clear in their immensely entertaining survey, there are still more questions than answers in both the study of what annoys people and the closely related discipline of what makes people annoying.

Mr. Palca and Ms. Lichtman — he is a science correspondent for National Public Radio and she an editor for the network’s “Science Friday” program — skitter all over the map in pursuit of their subject, and at first their progress seems peculiarly random, like one of those robotic vacuums. But in the end they do indeed cover every part of the terrain: from physics and psychology to aesthetics, genetics and even treatment for the miserably, terminally annoyed.

Formulating a good working definition of annoyance is a persistent challenge for researchers. One calls it the weakest form of anger, simply diluted rage. Others cite overtones of disgust (a persistently belching dinner guest), dislike (a concert of atonal music) and even panic (that visceral “get me out of here” reaction to the fingernail on the board).

Still, a few constants emerge. An annoyance is unpleasant. It follows a pattern, but unpredictably so. It will definitely end at some point, but you don’t know when. Finally, it is neither harmful nor dangerous in itself, but it often channels something that is.

In sum, it barges into your brain and takes over. If it is a sound, it occupies enough of your attention to interfere with other thoughts. If it is a situation, it keeps you from where you want to be (the recipe calls for two eggs and you have only one). And if it is a person who is late (again!), it manages to do both.

Because so many annoyances are auditory, sounds are particularly well studied. Sometimes the context creates the problem, like the “halfalogue” of an overheard cellphone conversation: Our brains can tune out a whole conversation but seem programmed to pay attention to half. Sometimes the annoyance is the sound itself. One research group found that midrange frequencies, somewhere between a boom and a shriek, annoyed people more than either extreme. Reaction to sound may be cultural, but then again it may not be: Even members of an isolated African tribe appeared bothered by dissonant music.

Sometimes sound is meant by nature to annoy, like a baby’s wail. One researcher suggested that the fingernail on the blackboard bothers us because our primitive midbrain hears in it a primate’s warning cry.

And sometimes the problem lies more in the ear than the sound. People with perfect pitch report they are routinely driven insane by nebulous halftones that don’t fit into their ordered brains.

Mr. Palca and Ms. Lichtman have a lot of fun with the other large repository of annoyances: our fellow humans. Is there a prototype for the innately annoying person, that car alarm on two legs? Needless to say, there are many.

There are the people who display “uncouth habits, inconsiderate acts and intrusive behaviors” — we are annoyed by those who violate our social norms. Then there are the infinite variations on the unfortunate personality. First on a list of traits that tend to annoy others, interestingly, is that of being constantly annoyed. Then come arrogant and picky.

What about your own personal irritant, the spouse who was so enchanting during courtship and is exactly the opposite now? Studies show that precisely those traits that once attracted often begin to repel. Once he was cool; now he is cold. Once she was adoring; now she smothers. Here the problem seems to be a matter of dose.

People who are annoyed to the point of irritable and beyond might head for a medical evaluation; some neurologic diseases start like this well before other symptoms surface. For these patients antidepressants often work miracles.

For other sufferers, alas, there are few quick fixes. And so when you begin to kick my chair, I could try to pretend that I am Japanese, for it seems that the Asian ideal of subjugation of the self to the group makes for less annoyance with one’s neighbor. I could try to change my expectation that when peacefully seated I will not be jiggled like a fishing line, for it seems that among laboratory monkeys thwarted expectations are a prime source of annoyance. Or I can just turn around and glare at you and tell you to cut it out. Then I will be happy. And you will be annoyed.

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18 and Under: Fixated by Screens, but Seemingly Nothing Else

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

“She’s worried about how he can’t sit still in school and do his work,” the mother said. “He’s always getting into trouble.”

But then she brightened. “But he can’t have attention deficit, I know that.”

Why? Her son could sit for hours concentrating on video games, it turned out, so she was certain there was nothing wrong with his attention span.

It’s an assertion I’ve heard many times when a child has attention problems. Sometimes parents make the same point about television: My child can sit and watch for hours — he can’t have A.D.H.D.

In fact, a child’s ability to stay focused on a screen, though not anywhere else, is actually characteristic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There are complex behavioral and neurological connections linking screens and attention, and many experts believe that these children do spend more time playing video games and watching television than their peers.

But is a child’s fascination with the screen a cause or an effect of attention problems — or both? It’s a complicated question that researchers are still struggling to tease out.

The kind of concentration that children bring to video games and television is not the kind they need to thrive in school or elsewhere in real life, according to Dr. Christopher Lucas, associate professor of child psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. “It’s not sustained attention in the absence of rewards,” he said. “It’s sustained attention with frequent intermittent rewards.”

The child may be playing for points accumulated, or levels achieved, but the brain’s reward may be the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Children with A.D.H.D. may find video games even more gratifying than other children do because their dopamine reward circuitry may be otherwise deficient.

Indeed, at least one study has found that when children with A.D.H.D. were treated with methylphenidate (Ritalin), which increases dopamine activity in the brain, they played video games less. The authors suggested that video games might serve as a kind of self-medication for these children.

So increased screen time may be a consequence of A.D.H.D., but some researchers fear it may be a cause, as well. Some studies have found that children who spend more time in front of the screen are more likely to develop attention problems later on.

In a 2010 study in the journal Pediatrics, viewing more television and playing more video games were associated with subsequent attention problems in both schoolchildren and college undergraduates.

The stimulation that video games provide “is really about the pacing, how fast the scene changes per minute,” said Dr. Dimitri Christakis , a pediatrician at the University of Washington School of Medicine who studies children and media. If a child’s brain gets habituated to that pace and to the extreme alertness needed to keep responding and winning, he said, the child ultimately may “find the realities of the world underwhelming, understimulating.”

But a 2007 study in the journal Media Psychology compared television watching in a group of children diagnosed with A.D.H.D. and a group without. The researchers concluded that most differences were accounted for by family factors and environment, including whether the children had televisions in their bedrooms. A.D.H.D. by itself didn’t seem to make the difference. The connections between A.D.H.D. and screens, the authors concluded, were complex.

Elizabeth Lorch, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky and one of the authors of that study, also studied children’s ability to comprehend televised stories. While children with A.D.H.D. were able to recall facts from the stories they watched just as well as other children, there was a difference in their ability to understand the narrative and to separate out what was important.

“Why did an event happen, why did a character do this — that’s where the comprehension and recall of children with A.D.H.D. tends to fall down,” she said.

Her co-author Richard Milich, also a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, suggested that besides the primary implications of this problem for academic performance, this finding may also shed light on social difficulties.

“This inability to see causal relations may affect this social problem we’ve known for 30 years,” he said. “These kids have dramatic social problems. They’re highly rejected by their peers.”

It may be a self-perpetuating loop, experts say: Children who have trouble with their social skills may be thrown back even more to the screen for electronic companionship.

Children whose brains need neurochemical rewards seek out an activity that provides it. Children with social problems spend more time alone, facing a screen. Children struggling in the classroom develop mastery in a virtual world. I talk to parents of children with A.D.H.D. about basic dos and don’ts: No screens in the child’s bedroom. Pay attention to the content of the games, especially to violence. Set limits on screen time, and look for other ways to manage family interactions.

If I can’t tell parents what they hope to hear, at least I can argue that these children’s fascination with the glowing screen may teach us something about their brains, the neurobiology, the rewards, and even the yearning and learning.

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Making Sense of a Toxic World

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

We all know by now — don’t we? — that many of the synthetic chemicals in our food, personal--care and cleaning products, toys and household goods are harming not just the environment but ourselves. Body-burden tests, for measuring exposure to chemicals, reveal flame retardants, plasticizers, pesticides and perfluorinated chemicals in the blood of almost every person studied. We see rising rates of some cancers, autoimmune disorders, reproductive illnesses, autism and learning disabilities. Meanwhile, our consumption of synthetic chemicals, a majority of which haven’t been tested for human health impacts, has skyrocketed. A growing number of books make the case that these phenomena are linked.

It’s a scary premise, considering the ubiquity of these chemicals in our lives. But it’s maddeningly difficult to prove conclusively that multisyllabic compounds are harming us. (The European Union doesn’t require such proof: guided by the precautionary principle, it has banned entire categories of chemicals from use in consumer goods.) In “What’s Gotten Into Us?: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World,” McKay Jenkins, a professor of English at the University of Delaware and the author of several previous books (including “Bloody Falls of the Coppermine,” about Catholic missionaries murdered in the Arctic), acknowledges that linking negative outcomes — like low birth weight and breast cancer — to specific chemicals is impossible. “In medicine, cause and effect are not always clear,” he writes. Part of the problem is that we lack a control group of purified humans upon which to experiment (even newborns are polluted with synthetic chemicals), if ethics in fact allowed such a thing. Another complication is that chemicals reach us through a variety of exposure routes, in varying combinations and in doses with different effects at different life stages.

The uncertainty, which manufacturers use to maintain the status quo, doesn’t bother Jenkins. Playing a genial if sometimes befuddled Everyman, he plunges ahead with a toxico-chemical survey of his surroundings. He declines to wallow in technical details, but he also fails to cite conflicting studies, and his breezy style sometimes borders on carelessness. He’s profligate with the word “toxic” (toxic to whom, and at what level?), and he’s vague about exposure routes. Sure, some Prius parts contain perchlorate, the primary ingredient of rocket fuel, but how many people eat their seat belts? If the exposure route is air, how and at what rate do seat belts degrade? He says baby shampoo contains formaldehyde, “which causes cancer and compromises the immune system,” but doesn’t explain at what level and through what exposure routes. (The E.P.A. recognizes formaldehyde as a human carcinogen under conditions of unusually high or prolonged inhalation exposure; I’m no formaldehyde apologist, but this glossing of detail left me feeling slightly distrustful of his reporting.) Jenkins also states that “premature births have jumped nearly 30 percent since 1981” and strongly implies a link with environmental chemicals. But a more significant factor may be the increasing use of fertility drugs, which lead to multiple births.

The more interesting parts here concern the chemical industry and the free rein it’s had to market scores of thousands of underscrutinized compounds. But it isn’t just chemicals that have gotten into us, Jenkins astutely notes: it’s also culture. “We are saturated with products, and marketing, and advertising,” he writes. “Our ignorance is not an accident.” Manufacturers fight labeling laws, and the federal government doesn’t adequately support independent research into the environmental and health impacts of even the most commonly used chemicals. Regulatory agencies are underfunded and understaffed, even as consumption of manufactured goods (and goods imported from countries with even less regulation than ours) continues to rise.

Elizabeth Royte’s latest book is “Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America’s Drinking Water.”

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Facebook, Foe of Anonymity, Is Forced to Explain a Secret

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

For years, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, has extolled the virtue of transparency, and he built Facebook accordingly. The social network requires people to use their real identity in large part because Mr. Zuckerberg says he believes that people behave better — and society will be better — if they cannot cloak their words or actions in anonymity.

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,” Mr. Zuckerberg has said.

Now, Facebook is being taken to task for trying to conceal its own identity as it sought to coax reporters and technology experts to write critical stories about the privacy implications of a search feature, Social Circle, from its rival, Google.

The plan backfired after The Daily Beast revealed late Wednesday that Facebook, whose own privacy practices have long been criticized, was behind the effort. It didn’t help that some of the technology experts who were encouraged to criticize Google dismissed the privacy concerns around Social Circle as misplaced.

“Doing this anonymously is an obvious contradiction of Facebook’s oft-stated values,” said David Kirkpatrick, the author of “The Facebook Effect,” a book about the company. “It feels hypocritical.”

While Facebook issued a sort of mea culpa on Thursday saying that it never intended or authorized a smear campaign against Google, criticism continued to reverberate in Silicon Valley and beyond. TechCrunch, the influential technology blog, demanded a better explanation and called Facebook’s tactics “slimy” and “cowardly.” Another well-read blog, Inside Facebook, called it “a spectacularly failed attempt at undermining the competition.”

Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Land, an industry blog, said, “It has the taint of a smear campaign despite what Facebook is saying.”

Facebook insiders, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said the company hired the well-known public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to suggest stories about Social Circle to reporters because it did not want the issue to turn into a Facebook versus Google story. Social Circle is an optional feature of Google search that uses publicly available information from social networks to personalize search results.

In a statement issued Thursday, Facebook said: “We wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles. We engaged Burson-Marsteller to focus attention on this issue, using publicly available information that could be independently verified by any media organization or analyst. The issues are serious and we should have presented them in a serious and transparent way.”

Companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere routinely approach reporters and analysts with stories about the so-called misdeeds of their competitors. But journalism and public relations experts criticized Facebook for doing so anonymously and insisting that Burson-Marsteller not reveal its identity.

“It’s just unacceptable,” said Tom Goldstein, a journalism professor and expert in ethics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Journalists should announce who they are and people who deal with journalists should announce who they are and where they are coming from.”

Rosanna M. Fiske, chief executive of the Public Relations Society of America, said it was wrong for Facebook to insist on anonymity and for Burson-Marsteller to agree to it. “In the essence of the public relations code of ethics 101, that’s a no-no,” she said.

The Daily Beast journalist who uncovered Facebook’s role, Dan Lyons, knows a bit about false identities. He masqueraded for years as Fake Steve Jobs, a satirical blogger who frequently savaged reporters, companies and public relations people.

Facebook’s secret campaign also underscores the long shadow that Google casts over the company. While Facebook has roundly beat its rival in social networking, its executives, many of whom hail from Google, have long feared that its rival will use its dominance over Internet search to slowly encroach into Facebook’s territory.

Social Circle appears to do just that. It allows Google users who search for a topic like “restaurant in Chicago” to see among the results items about that topic that were posted by their friends on services like Facebook, LinkedIn and Yelp. It works only for people who have chosen to link their Google accounts to their accounts on those services, and relies on information that those services make publicly available on the Internet.

“I don’t think this feature is particularly problematic,” said Christopher Soghoian, a graduate fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University who was one of the privacy experts contacted by Burson-Marsteller. “If Facebook didn’t want the data to be public, it could stop sharing it or it could use a technical mechanism to stop Google from accessing it.”

When Burson-Marsteller, which had offered to ghostwrite opinion articles and submit them to major newspapers in Mr. Soghoian’s name, declined to say who it was working for, Mr. Soghoian made public his e-mail exchange with the Burson-Marsteller representatives.

Paul Cordasco, a spokesman for Burson-Marsteller, said that the firm made a mistake. “The mistake clearly was not being transparent about the client,” he said in an interview Friday. He added that employees would receive additional training to make them “fully aware of our code of responsibility that emphasizes full transparency.”

Facebook is by no means the first to promote critical stories about a rival anonymously. The practice is common in political circles in Washington and beyond, and it has a long history in Silicon Valley.

In 1998, for instance, when Microsoft was under fire from antitrust regulators, it was embarrassed by revelations that it planned a campaign to plant favorable letters to the editor and opinion pieces in newspapers across the country that were to be presented as testimonials from ordinary people.

Two years later, a firm working for Oracle was reported to have paid janitors to go through the garbage cans of a Microsoft-backed industry group in hopes of finding information that would embarrass its rival.

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Skype-Style Calls Force Wireless Carriers to Adapt

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Wireless carriers now funnel voice and data traffic over two separate networks and charge customers accordingly. In the not-so-distant future, analysts and industry executives say, all mobile services, including text messages and voice and video calls, will travel over data networks.

Microsoft’s recent $8.5 billion deal to buy Skype, the Internet calling service, could accelerate this change — one that is forcing wireless carriers to adapt. Services like Skype can cut into the carriers’ revenues because they offer easy ways to make phone calls, videoconference and send messages free over the Internet, encroaching on the ways that phone companies have traditionally made money.

The telecommunications industry is already in a state of flux as more people disconnect their home telephone lines in favor of cellphones. Now the wireless carriers are looking for new ways to make money based on mobile broadband and applications, rather than voice minutes.

“Eventually, everything migrates to a data channel,” said Brian Higgins, an executive at Verizon Wireless who is developing products and services for the company’s high-speed 4G network. “We’re moving away from silos of communication to one where everything is combined together.”

Analysts tend to agree that Microsoft is not looking to steal business from the wireless carriers. Instead it hopes to revitalize itself by creating innovative software for smartphones and tablets, with Skype’s services built in. Microsoft will need companies like AT&T and Verizon Wireless to put their confidence and marketing budgets behind those devices to appeal to consumers.

But the Skype deal also signifies a larger interest in next-generation communications services. It is not just Skype that the wireless companies need to worry about. A bevy of mobile messaging applications, including WhatsApp, Kik, GroupMe and textPlus, allow people to send messages over data networks, sidestepping the cost of sending and receiving standard text messages.

Carriers already must deal with many new competitors in the communications game. Name companies like Apple, Facebook and Google are making services available that traditionally only carriers could offer. Google, like Skype, offers ways to make free phone and video calls over the Internet. Apple lets iPhone owners make video calls.

The ultimate risk for the carriers, analysts say, is becoming “dumb pipes,” providing only the data connection and not selling any more sophisticated communications services themselves.

“Much of the value in communication now sits above basic connectivity,” said Charles S. Golvin, a telecom analyst with Forrester Research. “Things like IM, video calling like FaceTime, and Web conferencing. These are delivered to consumers by companies like Google, Apple and Cisco — not the carriers.”

Chetan Sharma, an independent telecommunications analyst, points to one instance in which the growing popularity of using mobile applications to communicate has hurt a wireless company.

Last month, KPN, a wireless carrier in the Netherlands, cut its profit forecast and reported a 10 percent decline in quarterly revenue from text messaging, which the company attributed to applications that give people free access to voice and text services if they have a data plan.

“It’s an early indicator that it could happen elsewhere,” Mr. Sharma said.

In the United States, no signs indicate that the volume of text messages sent or voice minutes used is in decline, he said. But revenue from voice services has dropped steadily as carriers have move toward unlimited calling plans to stay competitive with one another, lowering the average revenue that can be generated per minute of talk time.

In the United States, Mr. Sharma said, voice revenue has declined 7 percent over the last four years, while data revenue has soared 132 percent. Over all, data revenue now makes up 35 percent of the total revenue for the wireless industry.

Carriers have responded to the shift toward digital communication differently. Some seek to leverage the new wave of services to differentiate themselves and gain an edge over competitors. Sprint, for example, recently united with Google to let its customers link their Sprint phone numbers to Google Voice, a service that rings all of a person’s phones and even Gmail when someone calls that person’s number.

Others, like Verizon Wireless, say there is plenty of money to be made from their mobile data networks. They say demand for data services will drive sales and adoption of smartphones, which are more lucrative to wireless carriers because they require expensive data plans.

“There will be an increased appetite for devices that can access higher bandwidth, which I find very encouraging,” Mr. Higgins of Verizon said.

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Field Notes: Divorce Lawyers’ New Friend: Social Networks

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Bar associations have been conducting workshops on how to navigate this often brazen new world.

“It has changed the way we do business,” said Gary L. Nickelson, a matrimonial lawyer in Fort Worth. “Before, we would hire private investigators, have opposing spouses followed, try to interview acquaintances and friends. We would strive forever to get evidence, and now people can’t wait to post on MySpace or Facebook who they are out drinking with. We just come along and scoop that up.”

Linda Lea M. Viken, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, who has her own firm in Rapid City, S.D., agreed.

“Facebook has become an open book of people’s lives,” she said. “They write things as though they were having a conversation with one friend, so they say the most outrageous and private things. You can’t get better evidence than what comes from their own mouths or their own computers.”

A survey released last year by the academy found that in the previous five years, 81 percent of its 1,600 members had used information plucked from social networks.

Social networks, of course, are not the only electronic sources of evidence. Videos on YouTube, text messages, dating services, voice mail, cellphones, even Global Positioning System receivers and E-ZPass records can be gold mines of potentially damaging information.

“We had one woman who said her husband was beating her, and we found the E-ZPass records showing her crossing the George Washington Bridge at the precise time she said she was being beaten,” said Alton L. Abramowitz, a New York lawyer.

The things people post can be worse than any accusation of an angry spouse. For example, Ms. Viken said, a father seeking custody “had listed on his Facebook page that he was single with no children looking for a fun time.”

And if divorcing spouses do not sabotage themselves, their friends, real or on Facebook, can do it for them — either intentionally because they are taking sides in the dispute, or accidentally.

“John may be dating Susan,” said Randall M. Kessler, an Atlanta lawyer who is the chairman-elect of the American Bar Association’s family law section. “If they go out with friends, she does not tell them he is married. Susan’s friend takes pictures and posts them on Facebook, where his wife sees them.”

Indeed, though many people restrict who can see their Facebook profiles and pages, lawyers said they can find useful information simply by looking at their friends’ pages.

Still, Steven Tavlin, a private investigator who runs the Holmes Detective Bureau in New York, is skeptical about just how much social media sites can yield.

“I haven’t found it to be that much of a help,” he said. “Anyone who is cheating is not going to have that stuff out in the open anyway. I guess stupid people might.”

Mr. Tavlin, who said that he seldom takes a matrimonial case “unless it’s interesting,” added, “being anonymous is easy in a million different ways and it doesn’t come back to you.”

While finding evidence of wrongdoing by one party is no longer as crucial as it was before no-fault divorce laws were adopted across the country — last year New York became the last state to do so — contests over child custody or assets often require proof of blame.

“No-fault does not mean that fault is irrelevant,” said Kenneth P. Altshuler, a lawyer in Portland, Me., and the president-elect of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “It is when you are lying about money, when you show bad behavior in front of children, when there is untreated substance abuse. Facebook has made it very easy to show lack of credibility and that is what can win a case. Once you catch them in one lie, nothing else they say is credible to the judge.”

Still, it is not a free-for-all. There are strictly defined legal limits on what information can be lifted and what is in the private domain and can be obtained only through legal procedures like subpoenas, depositions and discovery.

“It is important how I obtain information,” Ms. Viken said. “If my client gives it to me and it has been obtained improperly, then I can’t use it.”

Yet a great deal is available with a subpoena, she said, citing a situation in which a client contended that his wife was playing the online game “World of Warcraft” when she said she was home schooling their daughter.

Ms. Viken subpoenaed the records from the company that tracks players for the game; they showed that on some days the woman played for 10 hours.

“It turned out that her version of home schooling was to put her daughter on another computer program lasting an hour and the rest of the time the daughter watched television,” Ms. Viken said. “Needless to say, that was a valuable piece of information and the father got primary custody.”

Most often, lawyers say they use the evidence they have extracted online to exert the threat of potential embarrassment.

“Once people start to think about the silly or irresponsible things they have said, or photos they have posted online, they don’t want to risk being defined in court by their online conduct,” Mr. Kessler said. “That makes them more eager to settle and that is a very good thing.”

View the original article here

Watching Out and Taking Off

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

David Perry of Trend Micro Security stops by with the latest news from the world of malware and Danielle Belopotosky highlights mobile apps that can make travel less stressful.

Segments (time on counter)
News (30:21)
David Perry (23:17)
Tech Term (13:40)
Travel apps (11:00)
Tip of the Week (4:06)

Links

Microsoft to buy Skype for $8.5 billion
Apple, Google at mobile privacy hearing: We're not tracking you (TheHill.com)
Senator Franken’s opening remarks
Google to unveil service to let users stream their music
Mobile phones could be charged by the power of speech (The Telegraph)
Mobile booking apps are only just starting to deliver
Trend Micro malware blog
Wired’s Threat Level blog
Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog
Symantec Cybercrime Frontline blog
Sophos Naked Security blog
Intego Mac Security blog
TIP OF THE WEEK: Let Me Google That For You

The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

May 4, 2011

Kishore Rao of the Intel Corporation explains the pros and cons of using solid-state hard drives versus traditional mechanical hard drives and Matt Richtel of The Times discusses the government’s proposed guidelines to curb food companies’ online marketing to children.

Segments (time on counter)
News (34:15)
Matt Richtel (25:10)
Yeti Pro microphone (15:04)
Solid-state drives (10:37)
Tip of the Week (4:46)

Links

Sony finds more cases of hacking of its servers
Sony cuts off Sony Online Entertainment service after hack (Computerworld)
Sony explains PlayStation attack to Congress
Sony Computer Entertainment America letter to Congress (PDF)
Customer Service Notification from Sony Online Entertainment blog
Pandora reaches the 10 billion thumb mark (TechCrunch)
Seagate puts 1 terabyte disks in external hard drive
Webby award announcements (Associated Press)
New Apple iMacs
Mac users hit by first rogue antivirus app (PCWorld)
In online games, a path to young consumers
Children fail to recognize online ads, study says
Yeti Pro from Blue Microphones
The iRig microphone from IK Multimedia
Information on Intel solid-state drives
Technical briefs on the the Intel SSD 320
Intel? Solid-State Drive 320 Series data security features
Intel? Solid-State Drive 320 Series enhanced power-loss data protection
Adventures with Intel solid-state drives (YouTube)
Adventures in Japan with Intel solid-state drives (YouTube)
Intel on Facebook
TIP OF THE WEEK: Google Recipe View

The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

April 27, 2011

Claire Cain Miller of The Times discusses changes in mobile-shopping sites and Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu Project, discusses some of the new features in the latest version of Ubuntu Linux.

Segments (time on counter)
News (34:12)
Claire Cain Miller(25:53)
ThinkSound TS02 eco-friendly earbuds (17:22)
Mark Shuttleworth (12:54)
Tip of the Week (5:08)

Links

Chairman Franken announces hearing on mobile technology and privacy
Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moved (O'Reilly Radar)
Tracking file found in iPhones
Your Android phone is tracking you (PC World)
Your phone is tracking you. So what? (Pogue’s Posts)
Apple Q&A on location data
Sony PlayStation network still down after attack
Sony announces “Sony Tablet” with Android 3.0
Nintendo plans to update the Wii
Nook Color
Tales of reading in reintroducing a color device
Barnes & Noble expands Nook Color with more features
Retailers retool sites to ease mobile shopping
ThinkSound ts02 earbuds
Nox Audio Scout earbuds
Ultimate Ears 700 earbuds
Ubuntu Linux
TIP OF THE WEEK: iBooks FAQ

The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

April 20, 2011

A look at smartphone video-editing apps and Riva Richmond, a Times contributor, reveals how to correct or remove personal information from the Web.

Segments (time on counter)
News (33:56)
Riva Richmond (26:31)
Tech Term (17:36)
Video-editing apps (14:47)
Tip of the Week (4:41)

Links

BlackBerry PlayBook
A BlackBerry tablet, but where are the apps? (David Pogue review)
T-Mobile G-Slate
T-Mobile G-Slate review roundup (Liliputing)
Ticketmaster rolls out ‘dynamic’ ticket pricing (Seattle Times)
FTP turns 40 (Bit-Tech.net)
Original RFC 114
Add your local knowledge to the map with Google Map Maker for the United States (Google Lat Long Blog)
Google Map Maker Getting Started guide
How to fix (or kill) Web data about you
The tragic death of the Flip (Pogue’s Posts)
Wreckage at the intersection of corporate and consumer markets
Apple: Record and edit video on an iPhone 4
Video-editing on an iPod Touch (or other iOS device)
iMovie app for iOS
ReelDirector for iOS
iMovie vs. ReelDirector (y2kemo)
8mm Vintage Camera app for iOS
Silent Film Director app for iOS
8mm Vintage Camera app review (148apps.com)
Silent Film Director app (148apps.com)
Muvee offers HD video-editing tools for Android (AppScout)
Clesh video editor for Android (Android Market)
VidTrim for Android (AppBrain)
VideoCam Illusion for Android (AppBrain)
Retro Movie Player for Android (Android Zoom)
TIP OF THE WEEK: Get started with Microsoft Office 2010 / Office videos
Microsoft Office for Mac training and tutorials
Adobe TV
Windows 7 how-to videos (Microsoft)
Apple: ‘‘Find Out How’’ videos

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

April 13, 2011

Mickey Boodaei of the Web security firm Trusteer talks about his company’s Rapport software for making online banking safer, and Don Donofrio of the Times News Technology office discusses add-on camera lenses for smartphones.

Segments (time on counter)
News (35:46)
Trusteer Rapport software (25:39)
AKG wireless headphones (17:12)
Don Donofrio on smartphone camera lenses (14:00)
Tip of the Week (6:16)

Links

Amazon to sell the Kindle reader at a lower price, but with advertising added
Amazon.com will sell Kindle digital reader with advertisements for $114 (Bloomberg)
New York man says new evidence shows he owns large stake in Facebook
Microsoft sets mammoth Patch Tuesday, will fix 64 flaws (Computerworld)
Microsoft Security updates for April 2011
Google Music rumors grow with PushLife acquisition (About.com)
Cisco shuts down Flip, its camcorder unit
Free software to protect your bank account
A closer look at Rapport from Trusteer (krebsonsecurity.com)
Trusteer
‘‘I think that Rapport slows my computer down’’ (Trusteer Rapport support)
Wikipedia entry on Trusteer
AKG headphones
AKG K 840 KL headphones
AKG K 830 BT headphones
Fisheye, macro and wide-angle cameraphone lenses
iPhone telephoto lens
TIP OF THE WEEK: Advance tips for searching in Windows (Microsoft)
Windows Search (Microsoft)
Take advantage of Search filters in Windows Explorer (TechRepublic)
Mac 101: The Finder and the desktop (Apple)
Mac OS X Help: Searching your files’ attributes
Macworld: Advanced searches in the Finder

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

April 6, 2011

Tim Trainer of iRobot Corporation discusses the machines his company recently sent to Japan to help with the disaster-relief effort and Brian Stelter of The Times chats about the new streaming-TV iPad apps from certain cable companies.

Segments (time on counter)
News (30:59)
Tim Trainer of iRobot (22:34)
Tech Term (14:59)
Brian Stelter on iPad TV apps (11:34)
Tip of the Week (5:21)

Links

After breach, companies warn of e-mail fraud
Epsilon data breach: Expect a surge in spear phishing attack (PC World)
Epsilon data breach: What can you do to protect yourself? (PCMag.com)
Symantec report finds cyber threats skyrocket in volume and sophistication
Criminals target mobile devices and social networks (BBC News)
Pandora discloses privacy-related U.S. inquiry into phone apps
Hackers turn a Gmail April Fool’s joke into a reality
PopCap Games launches new small games label
iRobot: Government & industrial robots
Japan Earthquake: iRobot sending Packbots and Warriors to Fukushima Dai-1 nuclear plant (IEEE Spectrum)
Tug of war Between cable companies and channels comes to the iPad
Time Warner pulls channels from iPad app
TIP OF THE WEEK: Use the Spike to move text and graphics from nonadjacent locations (Microsoft.com)
How do I use the Spike in Microsoft Word? (Indiana University)

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

March 30, 2011

The Times reporter Miguel Helft explains the recent legal decision on Google’s digital book project and Kevin Poulsen discusses the dark side of the Internet and his new book “Kingpin:? How One Hacker Took Over the Billion Dollar Cyber Crime Underground.”

Segments (time on counter)
News (34:33)
Miguel Helft on Google Books (26:16)
Aluratek Bump Speakers (18:02)
Kevin Poulsen (13:35)
Tip of the Week (3:53)

Links

Internet Explorer 9 and multitasking coming to Windows Phone 7 (InformationWeek)
MSDN Channel 9: Joe Belfiore Talks Phone
Spin takes a different approach to an iPad magazine
Mozilla releases Firefox 4 for Android 2.0 and above (The Inquirer)
Amazon introduces a digital music locker
Intel announces 600-gigabyte solid-state hard drive
Judge rejects Google’s deal to digitize books
Aluratek Bump wireless speakers
Portable, but not puny, speakers
‘‘Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion Dollar Cyber Crime Underground’’ by Kevin Poulsen
Threat Level blog at Wired.com
TIP OF THE WEEK: IRS2Go app for Android and iOS
IRS e-file
Tax quotes from famous people

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

March 23, 2011

The Times reporter Tanzina Vega chats about viral video, Ron Frankel of Synacor discusses the TV Everywhere initiative and the Peel universal remote gets a look.

Segments (time on counter)
News (33:09)
Tanzina Vega on viral video ads (24:57)
Peel Universal Control (15:48)
Ron Frankel on TV Everywhere (11:01)
Tip of the Week (4:06)

Links

Microsoft is said to stop releasing new models of the Zune (Bloomberg)
RIM’s PlayBook tablet goes on sale April 19 (InformationWeek)
Mozilla launches Firefox 4 (Mozilla blog)
iPad 2 international launch causes people to line up in line all over again (Engadget)
With high demand, iPad 2 goes on sale in 25 countries
Amazon to open Android App Store as Apple sues
Sharp scrutiny for merger of AT&T and T-Mobile
For consumers, little to cheer in AT&T deal
Viral videos catch on that only hint at a sponsor’s purpose
Synacor creates division dedicated to TV Everywhere initiative
Peel Universal Control
Gear4 Unity Remote
PlayStation 3
brite-View CinemaTube
Roku
Thunderbirds
TIP OF THE WEEK: Internet radio in your media jukebox program

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

March 16, 2011

Dr. Avrim Fishkind and Dr. Robert Cuyler discuss the practice of telepsychiatry and Miroslav Djuric of iFixit.com shares details about the repair site’s teardowns of Apple’s iPad 2 and Smart Cover.

Segments (time on counter)
News (33:43)
Telepsychiatry (28:25)
Tech Term (17:13)
iFixit teardowns (14:10)
Tip of the Week (5:10)

Links

HTC Thunderbolt coming to Verizon March 17 (PCMag.com)
Time Warner Cable launches iPad app with live TV (Yahoo News)
The most modern browser there is: Internet Explorer 9 reviewed (Ars Technica)
Internet Explorer 9
Google Crisis Response resource page for Japan earthquake
Free calls to Japan for Time Warner digital phone customers
Amazon Red Cross donation page
Apple now accepts donations to the Red Cross Japan relief effort through iTunes (TUAW)
Japan earthquake and tsunami: how to help (Yahoo News)
JSA Health
Dr. Avrim Fishkind
LifeSize Express 220 Webcam
The doctor will see you now. Please log on.
In cybertherapy, avatars assist with healing
Texas Medical Board Telemedicine FAQ
iFixit iPad 2 teardown
iFixit Smart Cover teardown
TIP OF THE WEEK: Reduce the file size of a picture in Microsoft PowerPoint

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

March 9, 2011

Jenna Wortham of The Times technology desk chats about trends in phones and tablets from the recent Mobile World Congress and Tanzina Vega of the Times media desk discusses the Ads Worth Spreading contest at this year’s TED conference. Alan Yacavone of the Times News Technology office explains the new hardware and software features of the iPad 2.

Segments (time on counter)
News (37:56)
Tanzina Vega on TED ad contest (29:39)
Alan Yacavone on the iPad 2 (20:46)
Jenna Wortham on mobile device trends (12:52)
Tip of the Week (3:59)

Links

Warner Bros. tests renting film on Facebook for Web cash
‘‘The Dark Knight’’ Facebook page
After attacks, Google vows to fortify Android Market (CSO)
Adobe launches Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool (PC World)
The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown site
Internet Explorer 9
What’s new in Internet Explorer 9
A contest to find ads worth passing on
TED
TED: Ads Worth Spreading winners
Jenna Wortham’s Mobile World Congress coverage on Bits
Introducing the iPad 2
Apple Insider
9to5Mac
Cult of Mac
Mac Rumors
Engadget
Gizmodo
TIP OF THE WEEK: What can I do with speech recognition in Windows 7?
Windows 7: Set up speech recognition
Apple articles on using spoken commands in Mac OS X

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

March 2, 2011

Ben Sisario of The Times discusses the future of online radio and Kyle Wiens of iFixit.com reveals the hardware inside the new Motorola Xoom tablet and MacBook Pro laptop.

Segments (time on counter)
News (33:07)
Ben Sisario (25:48)
Edifier MP250 Sound to Go (18:11)
Kyle Wiens of iFixit.com (12:28)
Tip of the Week (3:37)

Links

Lenovo demonstrates eye-tracking laptop for stare-controlled computing (Popular Science)
Verizon to end unlimited iPhone data plan (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
AT&T ShopAlerts
Jobs takes the stage to introduce Apple’s new iPad
Investors are drawn anew to digital music
Ben Sisario on MediaDecoder
Edifier MP250 Sound to Go speaker
iFixit.com Motorola Xoom Teardown
iFixit.com MacBook Pro Teardown
iFixit.com Do-It-Yourself Repair
TIP OF THE WEEK: Diagnosing memory problems on your computer (Microsoft.com)
Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test (Apple.com)
MemTest
MacRumors Guides: Testing RAM
The X Lab: Running the Apple Hardware Test

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

February 23, 2011

Brian Stelter of The Times discusses the television industry’s efforts to grab even more attention with social media and David Steinberger of ComiXology explains how his company has adapted comic books for digital devices.

Segments (time on counter)
News (33:11)
Brian Stelter? (26:15)
Tech Term (15:41)
ComiXology (13:10)
Tip of the Week (5:55)

Links

Kids who skip school are tracked by GPS (Orange County Register)
Spotify raises investments at $1 billion valuation
Amazon Prime members get free movie streaming (PCMag.com)
I.R.S. begins processing tax forms affected by late tax changes (IRS Newsroom)
Home Internet may get even faster in South Korea
Motorola Xoom at Verizon Wireless
TV industry taps social media to keep viewers’ attention
Janifer.org
How to use barcode readers (NickBilton.com)
New York City to use QR codes on construction permits (NYC.gov)
Phasers.net
ComiXology
ComiXology Web reader
ComiXology Comics app for iOS
ComiXology Comics app for Android
TIP OF THE WEEK: The View Options box in iTunes

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

February 16, 2011

This week’s show features tips for backing up photos and other data on your smartphone, and a chat with the curator Tom Eccles and the artist Tony Oursler about the inaugural exhibit at the Adobe Museum of Digital Media.

Segments (time on counter)
News (23:41)
Adobe Museum of Digital Media? (27:42)
Smartphone backup (15:08)
Tip of the Week (3:43)

Links

Apple offers subscriptions for all iPad publications
Apple launches subscriptions on the App Store (Apple)
Last.fm Radio becomes a premium feature on mobile and home entertainment devices (Last.fm blog)
Verizon not yet breaking a sweat over iPhone traffic (gigaOM)
Ars Technica: IBM’s Watson almost sneaks wrong answer by Trebek
A fight to win the future: computers vs. humans
What is I.B.M’s Watson?
A: This computer could defeat you at ‘Jeopardy!’ Q: What is Watson? (PBS Newshour video)
Adobe Museum of Digital Media
Apple: Backing up iPhone and iPod Touch
iTunes: Backing up, updating, and restoring your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch software (Apple)
iPhone: Improve backup and restore times by reducing iPhone Camera Roll (Apple)
Iomega SuperHero Backup and Charger for iPhone
Backup Everything (Android Market)
Titanium Backup for Android
Astro File Manager for Android
Data Backup (Android Developers)
Handy Backup for Android
MyBackup Pro for Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry
Complete guide to backing up your Android phone (Tested.com)
How to back up the data on a BlackBerry smartphone (Research in Motion)
Windows Live / Windows Phone 7 (Microsoft)
Handy Backup for Windows Phone 7
TIP OF THE WEEK: Safari Reader
Readability for Mozilla Firefox
Readability Redux for Google Chrome
Readability: Installation video for Internet Explorer
Readability main site
iReader for Google Chrome

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

February 9, 2011

This week’s show features an interview with Jeff Potter, author of the book ‘‘Cooking for Geeks’’ and a roundup of kitchen-themed apps for smartphones.

Segments (time on counter)
News (27:38)
Jeff Potter, ‘‘Cooking for Geeks’’ (24:25)
Cooking Sites and Apps (14:03)
Tip of the Week (3:28)

Links

F.C.C. to propose expanding broadband service to underserved areas
Universal Service Fund
The work of art in the Age of Google
Google Art Project
Explore museums and great works of art in the Google Art Project (Google blog)
Early preview of free software update for Kindle (Kindlepost.com)
Sprint unveils the Kyocera Echo, a dual-screen smartphone
Smartphone shipments surpass PCs for first time. What’s next? (PCMag.com)
One on One: Jane McGonigal, game designer
‘‘Cooking for Geeks’’ by Jeff Potter
The Geek's Guide to Rebooting Your Kitchen (Lifehacker)
Epicurious.com
AllRecipes
BigOven
Whole Foods Market Recipes app for iPhone
Healthy Recipes app by SparkRecipes
Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook app for iPhone
Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook app for Android
Jamie Oliver 20-Minute Meals app for iOS
Mario Batali Cooks! app for Android and iOS
Ratio app for Android
Diet Watcher Cookbook app for Android
GroceryIQ app for Android and iOS
OurGroceries for Android and BlackBerry
Pepperplate
BlackBerry cooking apps
Get cooking with BlackBerry apps (CrackBerry.com)
TIP OF THE WEEK: Sending Deep Links in YouTube videos

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

February 2, 2011

Matt Richtel of The Times technology desk discusses the shutdown of Internet and cell service in Egypt, while David Perry of Trend Micro examines recent issues that have turned software into global weapons. Don Donofrio of the New Technology office offers advice on online photo sharing.

Segments (time on counter)
News (36:06)
Matt Richtel (29:46)
Smartphone Photo-Sharing (21:12)
David Perry (13:07)
Tip of the Week (4:09)

Links

Cisco Visual Networking Index forecast projects 26-fold growth in global mobile data traffic from 2010 to 2015
Intel identifies chipset design error, implementing solution
Microsoft says Yahoo is ‘phantom data’ phone bug source (BBC)
Microsoft releases Security Advisory 2501696 (Microsoft Security Response Center blog)
Microsoft Security Advisory 2501696
Microsoft Security Advisory: Vulnerability in MHTML could allow information disclosure
Latest IE vulnerability: Microsoft’s workaround doesn’t help those most in need (ZDNet blog)
World’s first 3D smartphone, LG Optimus 3D, to debut February 14 (Ars Technica)
LG jumps in front of rivals to claim world’s first 3D smartphone (Forbes)
Egypt cuts off most Internet and cell service
How users in Egypt are bypassing Twitter & Facebook blocks (Mashable)
Without Internet, Egyptians find new ways to get online (Computerworld)
Times Topics: WikiLeaks
Israeli test on worm called crucial in Iran nuclear delay
Trend Micro
Trend Micro malware blog
Trend Micro cloud security blog
‘‘The Stainless Steel Rat’’ series
At Flickr, fending off rumors and Facebook
Flickr
Flickit
‘‘The Adventures of Kermit’’ Flickr group
TwitPic
Photoshop.com
Instagr.am
Camera Genius
Photo-sharing services review (Top Ten Reviews)
Vanna White (WheelofFortune.com)
TIP OF THE WEEK: Pin Tabs in Google Chrome
New in Labs: the Unread Message icon

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter
Bits: Tech Talk on Facebook

January 26, 2011

Matt Richtel of the Times technology desk talks about new services that can shut down a cellphone in a moving car and Don Donofrio of the News Technology office discusses apps that can enhance your smartphone photography.

Segments (time on counter)
News (37:30)
Matt Richtel (31:00)
“Mikey 2” iPhone microphone (18:38)
Smartphone photo apps (14:52)
Tip of the Week (3:43)

Links

Computer memory heralds green PCs (BBC)
Computing with Novel Floating Gate Devices (abstract)
Microsoft explains Windows phone 7? ‘phantom data’ (BBC)
Verizon keeps unlimited data plan for iPhone (CNet)
Keep your opt-outs (Google Public Policy blog)
Facebook turns the ‘Like’ into its newest ad (Advertising Age)
Facebook Help Center: Sponsored Stories
So we grew 3400% last year... (Foursquare blog)
A short-circuit to distracted driving
“Mikey” by Blue Microphones
Bookworm from PopCap Games
Pro HDR
AutoStich Panorama
Adobe Photoshop Express for Android
Adobe Photoshop Express for iPhone
PhotoForge for iPhone
Hipstamatic for iPhone
The wonderful Hipstamatic camera
Finding the right tool to tell a war story (NYT Lens blog)
SwankoLab
FxCamera for Android (AppBrain)
8 best Android apps for photo editing (Mashable)
The best photography apps for your Android (Lifehacker)
Windows Phone 7 Photo Apps (Two:Thirty AM)
BlackBerry App World: Photography
Palm webOS Photo Effects app
Sam Grobart: Breaking up with your point-and-shoot (video)
TIP OF THE WEEK: Press Alt+Enter in Windows for a file’s Properties box
Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
Bits: Tech Talk on Twitter

January 19, 2011

Professor Sherry Turkle of M.I.T. discusses her new book “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other” and Claire Cain Miller of The Times chats about the current state of communications privacy laws.

Segments (time on counter)
News (31:55)
Sherry Turkle (27:22)
Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 (14:46)
Claire Cain Miller (11:54)
Tip of the Week (3:22)

Links

Platform Updates: New user object fields, Edge.remove Event and more (Facebook developer's blog)
Facebook suspends phone and address sharing feature (ReadWriteWeb)
Computer History Museum
Computer History Museum online exhibits
Bits Pics: The Computer History Museum
Two charged over iPad hacking on AT&T network
A deep bench of leadership at Apple
Jobs takes sick leave at Apple again, stirring questions
Microsoft OneNote Office app for iPhone
New task for phone: File taxes
TurboTax SnapTax
IRS Free File
“Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other” by Sherry Turkle
Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750
U.S. subpoenas Twitter over WikiLeaks supporters
1986 privacy law is outrun by the Web
Should e-mail and letters have equal legal protection?
Digital Due Process
TIP OF THE WEEK: Turn on the character counter for the iPhone Messages app

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

January 12, 2011

John Simpson, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, discusses the new features available on the redesigned online version of the OED and Dave Pascoe of LiveATC.net talks about his site, which streams live aviation audio. Jenna Wortham and Sam Grobart of the Times Technology desk also drop by for a wrap-up of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show.

Segments (time on counter)
News (31:04)
Jenna Wortham & Sam Grobart (25:59)
Oxford English Dictionary online (18:00)
LiveATC.net (9:09)
Tip of the Week (2:52)

Links

‘‘World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm’’ sells 4.7M in first month (PCMag.com)
Microsoft investigates ‘phantom’ Windows Phone 7 data (BBC)
British Library announces first app for the iPhone, iPad and Android smartphone
Mac App Store opens for business
Mac App Store
Live blogging the Verizon iPhone announcement
Verizon will offer the iPhone next month
AT&T and Verizon trade taunts over iPhone
Eye-catching products in a hall of gadgetry
Gadgetwise CES 2011 coverage
Oxford English Dictionary online
LiveATC.net
TIP OF THE WEEK: List of keyboard shortcuts for Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

January 5, 2011

Andrew Ross Sorkin, editor of the DealBook section of The Times, discusses the new relationship between Facebook and Goldman Sachs and Phil Simon, author of “The New Small” talks about how small businesses can get the most out of emerging technologies.

Segments (time on counter)
News (34:47)
Andrew Ross Sorkin (27:14)
Marantz NA7004 audio player (16:18)
Phil Simon (12:34)
Tip of the Week (3:56)

Links

Tablets, dual-core phones and 3-D cameras: 2011’s hottest gadget trends (Wired)
Intel Core 2011 chips offer more power (CIO Today)
Microsoft blog post on Windows Live Hotmail outage
Google Android Newsstand may lift developer revenue (InformationWeek)
iPad magazine sales numbers show steep decline over a few short months (Engadget)
CHART OF THE DAY: iPad Magazine Sales Tank (Business Insider)
DealBook: Why Facebook is such a crucial friend for Goldman
DealBook: Facebook deal offers freedom from scrutiny
DealBook: Share rules could prompt an offering by Facebook
DealBook: Goldman offering clients a chance to invest in Facebook
Marantz NA7004 network audio player
Squeezebox Duet
Squeezebox Classic
“The New Small,” by Phil Simon
TIP OF THE WEEK: Bing Maps apps
Bing Maps overhauls interface, exposes Map apps to all (Search Engine Land)

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

December 30, 2010

With 2011 looming, Team Tech Talk takes a look at some gadgets, apps and sites that can make keeping keeping those New Year's resolutions easier.

Segments (time on counter)
News (35:36)
Fitness gadgets and games (32:41)
Motivational and organizational apps and sites (22:29)
Charity, voluteering and environmental sites and apps (12:18)
Tip of the Week (1:42)

Links

Samsung confirms Galaxy Player, will showcase at CES 2011 (SamsungHub)
Apple sued over app privacy (Bloomberg Businessweek)
AT&T releases texting-while-driving documentary (Mashable)
AT&T expands WiFi hotzones in NYC, San Francisco (InformationWeek)
IBM reveals five innovations that will change our lives in the next five years
Mio FitStik
Mio Pacer
FitBit
Zumba Fitness for PlayStation 3
Sports Champions for PlayStation 3
Sony PlayStation 3
Wii Fit Plus
Nintendo Wii
Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect
QuitIt for iPhone
LIVESTRONG MyQuit Coach for iPhone
Quit Smoking apps for Android (AndroidZoom)
Evernote
HomeRoutines app for iPhone
TaskPaper for iOS and MacOS
Goals Done! for Android
GOALS ToDo for Android review
ToDo Matrix for BlackBerry and iPhone
Android Market productivity apps
Blackberry AppWorld productivity apps
iTunes U.
MIT OpenCourseWare
Lynda.com online software training courses
Charity Navigator
CharityWatch (sponsored by American Institute of Philanthropy)
Better Business Bureau
VolunteerMatch
Volunteering in America
GoodGuide
GoodGuide app for iPhone
The Green Guide
Yale Environment 360 (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies)
Blue Ocean Institute
FishPhone
FishPhone for iPhone
SeafoodWatch
SeafoodWatch for iPhone
Sea Stories
TIP OF THE WEEK: Launch iPad apps with Spotlight (WoowooMac)

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

December 22, 2010

Brian Stelter of The Times discusses the rash of recent security problems on popular Web sites and the author Mark Stephen Meadows chats about his new book, ‘‘We, Robot.”

Segments (time on counter)
News (24:05)
Brian Stelter (19:42)
Mark Stephen Meadows (13:08)
Tip of the Week (3:43)

Links

Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 sales off to a promising start
Newest ‘Call of Duty’ video game sales reach $1B (Forbes)
Foursquare blog: photos and comments are here!
Apple TV sales expected to reach 1 million this week (San José Mercury News)
Verizon Wireless Twitter feed
Verizon confirms will make 4G announcements at CES (TG Daily)
F.C.C. approves Net rules and braces for fight
F.C.C.’s Net neutrality vote hit from both sides
Hackers disrupt sites run by Gawker Media
Hackers give Web companies a test of free speech
FAQ: Compromised Commenting Accounts on Gawker Media
The Gawker hack and Web security: The Gnosis hackers respond (Geekosystem)
An Interview with Gnosis, the group behind the Gawker hacking (TheNextWeb)
Mark Stephen Meadows
“We, Robot” on Facebook
TIP OF THE WEEK: Change your default search engine (Search Engine Journal)

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

December 15, 2010

Damon Darlin, the Technology editor for The Times, chats about people’s relationships with their gadgets and Dawn Song, a MacArthur Foundation genius fellow, discusses her work in computer security.

Segments (time on counter)
News (28:12)
Damon Darlin (22:34)
Audio docks (16:01)
Dawn Song (9:41)
Tip of the Week (2:55)

Links

#Hindsight 2010: Top Trends on Twitter (Twitter Blog)
Twitter: The year in review
Twitter’s top trends of 2010
Smartphones: Information security risks, opportunities and recommendations for users
Microsoft to announce new slates aimed at the iPad
Gmail blog: How to create a vacation responder (and 50 other things you might want to teact your parents)
TeachParentsTech.org site
How to survive holiday family tech support (Datamation)
Tips for holiday tech support (TechRepublic)
How to fix your family’s PC problems (PCWorld)
Digital devices can become objects of affection
The famous Bacon Explosion recipe
Times Topics: Damon Darlin
Audyssey South of Market Edition audio dock
Beats? by Dr. Dre? BeatBox? iPod dock
Dawn Song, MacArthur genius fellow
Dawn Song biography
Dawn Song’s UC Berkeley home page
TIP OF THE WEEK: Find hidden themes and wallpapers in Windows 7 (Windows7Bits.com)

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

December 8, 2010

The Times reporter Tanzina Vega discusses the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal that would allow consumers to opt out of online tracking from Web adverstisers. Personal Technology editor Sam Grobart explains the concept of soundbars and Christopher Coppola shares his insights on modern movie-making and his “Digivanglist” reality show.

Segments (time on counter)
News (34:33)
Tanzina Vega (28:00)
Sam Grobart (16:55)
Christopher Coppola (11:44)
Tip of the Week (3:35)

Links

Consumer Reports cell-service ratings survey
Facebook blog: Introducing the new profile
Twitterers react to new Facebook profiles (HuffingtonPost.com)
Google launches cloud-based e-bookstore (Google blog)
Amazon unveils better Kindle Web app (CNet)
Google Chrome OS gets detailed (Engadget)
Google Chrome OS: What you need to know (GigaOM)
Google Chrome Store
Google Chrome Store frequently asked questions
Mozilla Labs: Building the Open Web App Ecosystem
On eve of Chrome store launch, Mozilla touts own Web app plans (Computerworld)
Appletell exclusive: Mac App Store to open December 13th?
Mac App Store: Coming Soon
Federal Trade Commission privacy report
F.T.C. backs plan to honor privacy of online users
In online privacy plan, the opt-out question looms
Boxes and bars for better TV sound
Christopher Coppola’s blog
ReelzChannel: Digivangelist
PAH Nation
TIP OF THE WEEK: Customizing the Windows Safari toobar
Customizing the Mac Safari toolbar
MozillaZine: Firefox toolbar customization
Microsoft: Customize the Internet Explorer toolbars
Opera tutorials: Detailed toolbar customization

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

December 1, 2010

Students at New York University share their thoughts on a recent New York Times article about digital distractions and Rik Fairlie, a Times contributor, talks about this season’s in digital cameras.

Segments (time on counter)
News (31:48)
Rik Fairlie (25:18)
Tech Term (16:40)
Digital distractions? (12:48)
Tip of the Week (3:06)

Links

Cyber Monday sales surge (CNN Money)
Microsoft sells 2.5M Kinect sensors for Xbox 360 (Bloomberg)
A Facebook founder begins a social network focused on charities
Introducing Google Earth 6 (Google blog)
Google Earth: 3D Trees
Google Earth
Europe opens antitrust inquiry into Google
Netflix partner says Comcast “toll” threatens online video delivery
Level 3 Communications issues statement concerning Comcast’s actions
Comcast blog post regarding Level 3
FCC Looks Into Level 3, Comcast Content Dispute (PC World)
Did net neutrality issues delay December FCC meeting? (PCMag.com)
FCC prepares for net neutrality vote (CNet)
TIP OF THE WEEK: Dual monitor setup is easy in Windows 7! (Microsoft Support)
Microsoft: Two monitors are better than one
Windows 7: Move windows between multiple monitors
Microsoft: 20 PC shortcuts you needs to know
Microsoft: Understanding multiple monitors
Windows logo key shortcuts (O’Reilly Answers)
NYTimes.com holiday gift guide
Growing up digital, wired for distraction

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

November 25, 2010

This week’s episode offers a round-up of health gadgets and fitness apps to meet the holiday season head on.

Segments (time on counter)
News (29:19)
Fitness gadgets and apps (24:37)
Calorie- and exercise-tracking apps (16:58)
Yoga apps (12:38)
Tip of the Week (2:40)

Links

A cheaper plan at Netflix offers films for online only
Acer unveils tablets to run Windows, Android (PC World)
Visual tour: 25 years of Windows (Computerworld)
Microsoft: A history of Windows
Windows 7 system requirements
“Next Generation 9-1-1” would accept emergency text messages (Ars Technica)
F.C.C. Chairman Genachowski announced steps to bring 9-1-1 into the 21st century (PDF)
Apple’s iOS 4.2 available for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
Updated version of iPad software arrives
Understanding AirPlay in iOS 4.2
MP3 player/pedometer reviews (Pedometers.org)
Nike+iPod
Nike+iPod FAQ
FitBit
Mio Pacer
Eight best Android apps for health and fitness (Mashable)
RunKeeper for Android
RunKeeper Free for iPhone
RunKeeper Pro for iPhone
Nike+GPS for iPhone
CycleMeter GPS for iPhone
GymGoal for iPhone
Lose It! for iPhone and iPad
Tap & Track for iPhone
LIVESTRONG Calorie Tracker
BlackBerry App Workd Health & Wellness apps
15 diet and fitness apps for BlackBerry (DietsinReview.com)
Absolute Fitness for Android (AnddroidandMe.com)
Windows Phone: Keep your personal trainer in your pocket
The best yoga apps: A comprehensive review (Appolicious.com)
Expand your practice with iPhone yoga apps (Daily Cup of Yoga)
Yoga applications for Android (AndroidZoom)
TIP OF THE WEEK: List of keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Word

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

November 17, 2010

Bill Milani, a lawyer and instructor at Cornell University’s school of labor and industrial relations, discusses issues with using social-networking sites at the office. Julie Bosman, who covers the publishing industry for The Times, talks about the rising popularity of e-readers as a gift item this holiday season.

Segments (time on counter)
News (36:46)
Social-networking on the job (32:15)
Audio-Technica AT-LP240-USB turntable (18:31)
Julie Bosman on e-book readers (12:38)
Tip of the Week (4:22)

Links

Facebook offers new messaging tool
The Facebook blog: See the messages that matter
Schmidt: Android phones will be credit cards
Mobile providers form new digital wallet venture (PC World)
Apple security updates
PGP knowledge base note on Mac OS X 10.6.5
Apple begins selling Beatles downloads
Worker rights extend to Facebook post
Keeping a closer eye on employees’ social networking
Audio Technica AT-LP240-USB direct-drive turntable
TEAC turntable recorder systems
ION audio USB turntables
Sony PS-LX300USB turntable
Audacity open-source audio editor
SoundForge Audio Studio software
“Over the Rainbow,” by Sarah Vaughn (iLike)
“Walking After Midnight,” by Patsy Cline (iLike)
The history of Project Gutenberg
Great holiday expectations for e-readers
New York Times Best Sellers Lists to track e-books
TIP OF THE WEEK: Ubuntu netbook edition download page
Ubuntu netbook edition

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

November 10, 2010

This week’s show features a look at how equalizer settings work for iTunes and other music-jukebox programs and Miguel Helft of The Times offers a preview of the new RockMelt Web browser.

Segments (time on counter)
News (39:38)
Miguel Helft (31:52)
MSI GX660R gaming laptop (25:02)
EQ and volume normalizing (17:10)
Tip of the Week (5:03)

Links

Free holiday Wi-Fi from Google
Beyond instant results: Instant previews (Google blog)
Google introduces visual previews of search results
Windows 7 phone blog roundup (Computerworld)
State of the Art: Kinect pushes users into a sweaty new dimension
A home system leaves hand controls in the dust
TimesCast: Microsoft’s Kinect arrives
Firefox add-on BlackSheep sniffs out Firesheep tool (eWeek)
Blacksheep plug-in from Zscaler
Stop Firesheep with FireShepherd
Color comes to E-Ink screens
Queen’s Facebook page becomes forum for monarchy debate (Guardian)
Web browsing takes a social turn
RockMelt site and video
Rockmelt blog
The MSI GX660R gaming laptop
ASUS notebooks
Alienware gaming laptops
iTunes: About Sound Check
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows: Audio does not play or plays incorrectly
iTunes Effects: Crossfade and Sound Enhancer (Mac Tips and Tricks)
Methodshop: Demystifying the iTunes EQ
iDFX Audio Enhancer
Audio plug-ins at Download.com
Winamp blog: How to use the equalizer
Winamp blog: Volume leveling in Winamp with Replay Gain
Windows 7 Mods: Enable the equalizer in Windows Media Player 12
Techerator: How to enable crossfading and auto volume leveling in Windows Media Player 12
TIP OF THE WEEK: How to quickly lock your computer and use other Windows Logo shortcut keys (Microsoft)
Lock the Mac OS X 10.6 screen with a keyboard shortcut (Mac OS X Hints)
ScreenLock 1.0 for Mac
MacDailyNews: Lock your Mac OS X screen from the menu bar by adding lock icon
Mac OS X Hints: Create a screen-clocking keyboard shortcut

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

November 3, 2010

Frank Ahearn, author of “How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish Without a Trace,” offers tips on online privacy and Claire Cain Miller of The Times discusses the latest legal developments with Google’s Street View feature.

Segments (time on counter)
News (32:58)
Frank Ahearn (25:15)
Logitech F540 headphones (15:29)
Tip of the Week (09:45)
Claire Cain Miller (7:17)

Links

Barnes & Noble puts color on its Nook
Apple releases iPhone, iPad iOS 4.2 Golden Master to developers (Apple Insider)
Partial Flash support Comes to iPhone via Skyfire mobile browser (Mashable)
Sprint 4G goes live in New York City, other new markets (TG Daily)
Facebook Says data broker bought User IDs (InformationWeek)
Facebook Developer’s blog: An update on Facebook UIDs
Google blog: Rewarding Web application security research
“How to Disappear” by Frank M. Ahearn and Eileen C. Horan
Logitech F540 wireless gaming headphones
Logitech blog?
A reassured F.T.C. ends Google Street View inquiry
TIP OF THE WEEK: Make Outlook close original message when you reply to it

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

October 27, 2010

This week’s show features Clifford Nass of Stanford University on what computers reveal about human behavior, Hashem Bajwa and Neil Heymann of the advertising agency Droga5 on an interactive twist for publicizing Jay-Z’s memoir and Alan Yacavone of the Times News Technology desk on the latest announcements from Apple.

Segments (time on counter)
News (41:56)
Clifford Nass (32:35)
Interactive ad campaign for “Decoded” by Jay-Z (22:01)
Back to the Mac (13:01)
Tip of the Week (3:58)

Links

Samsung Galaxy Tab coming to Best Buy for $499 (eWeek)
Galaxy Tab coming to Sprint Nov. 14th (PCMag.com)
Android Market and Windows Marketplace pass major milestones (InformationWeek)
AndroidDev Twitter feed
Office for Mac 2011
Office for Mac 2011: What’s new
Sony drops price of PSP go to $199 (Mashable)
Firesheep Firefox add-in hijacks Twitter, Facebook over Wi-Fi (PCMag.com)
Firesheep in wolves’ clothing: Extension lets you Hack into Twitter, Facebook accounts easily (TechCrunch)
Protect your login informatin from Firesheep? (TechCrunch)?
How to protect against Firesheep attacks (Computerworld)
Dr. Clifford Nass of Stanford University
The CHIMe lab
“The Man Who Lied to His Laptop” by Clifford Nass
The “How We Work” study?
Decode Jay-Z with Bing
Find Jay-Z’s memoir at a bookstore, or on a billboard
TIP OF THE WEEK: Time Warner cable Remote DVR Manager (Time Warner Cable “Untangled” blog)
Time Warner Cable Remote DVR Manager site
TiVo Mobile site
Verizon FiOS TV Central
Comcast: How to use myDVR Manager
Dish Network DVR manager app

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

October 20, 2010

Anthony Zuiker, creator of the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’’ and author of the new thriller “Dark Prophecy,” describes a new form of storytelling called the “digi-novel” and Jenna Wortham of the Times discusses how technology fits into the dating scene.

Segments (time on counter)
News (34:54)
Tip of the Week (21:36)
Anthony Zuiker (17:34)
Jenna Wortham (7:38)

Links

ITU estimates two billion people online by end 2010
Western Digital shipping world’s largest capacity SATA drives
WD Caviar Green
Western Digital: Large capacity drives
Wii and PS3 to be disc-free (Netflix blog)
Xbox Kinect game launch lineup revealed (CNN/Mashable)
Oct. 18, 1985: Nintendo Entertainment System launches (Wired)
Bits blog updates from Apple’s Mac-focused event
Facebook vows to fix a flaw in data privacy
Facebook privacy: Protecting personal information in the social network (eWeek)
Facebook app breach gets the attention of Congress (Ars Technica)
Facebook privacy guide
Level26 / “Dark Prophecy”
“Sqweegel” episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (opens iTunes Store)
Anthony Zuiker on IMDb
Can technology make or break a relationship?
TIP OF THE WEEK: Microsoft Fix-It Solution Center
Announcing Microsoft Automated Troubleshooting Services (Microsoft TechNet blog)

?The New York Times Personal Tech section
NYT Bits blog
NYT Gadgetwise blog
NYT Tech Talk on Twitter

October 13, 2010

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