9 Careers on the Way Out

Some careers have simply faded away over the past 10 years. In most cases, advances in technology eliminated the need for certain jobs. Americans are also more focused on conservation. Here are a few jobs that are being phased out; hopefully your career isn't on this list!

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1. Bank Tellers

While the need for banking services has increased, services traditionally performed by tellers (receiving and dispensing cash, depositing money, etc.) is now performed electronically. The use of ATMs and online banking continues to increase. Tellers are only needed for complex transactions.


2. File Clerks

Even the most paper intensive organizations have decreased their use of paper files. Imaging, electronic forms and careful attention to process efficiency reduced the need to maintain paper files. One of the biggest threats to the file clerk occupation is the push toward environmental sustainability (preserving trees by using less paper). The new "file clerk" is a Database Report Writer who knows how to run database queries.

3. Telephone Operators

Even the smallest company can now use sophisticated telephone systems that allow callers to select their own options for needed information. Callers simply listen to pre-recorded telephone directory names and select the person they want to talk to. Voicemail, email and even texting have become preferred forms of communication in addition to traditional telephone conversations.

4. Data Entry Clerks

There is no doubt the amount of data generated over the past decade has swelled. But it was all electronic to begin with, so there's no need to hire a person to copy it from other sources. The ability to integrate systems and make various systems exchange date automatically also reduced the need to for a person to translate or manipulate data.

5. Mail Clerks

Yes, there is still plenty of mail, only it's electronic, so the need for people to sort and distribute paper mail has decreased. Also, bar code readers sort mail and pre-printed postage eliminates the need for weighing and applying postage stickers. Today's mail clerks have new tools to allow more work to be done with fewer people. (Not all careers are ho-hum. These 10 have a very high percentage of happy employees.

6. Photo Processors

With the prevalence of digital photography, the need for photo processing has greatly diminished. Even people who still choose to print their photos use self-service kiosks. Photo processors who used to run machines in retail stores, as well as in processing centers, are becoming obsolete.

7. Travel Agents

The internet now makes it possible for the public to schedule their own trips. While there are still many travel agents, incentives once offered by airlines, hotels and car rental companies make the occupation less profitable. Today's travel agents often book long or complicated trips, while the weekend getaway or quick business travel is scheduled individually online.

8. Watch Salesperson

Who needs a watch when your cell phone tells you what time it is 24/7? Everything around you shows the time - most electronic devices have a clock. Even billboards show the current time. Watches and watch salespersons are becoming a thing of the past.

9. Video Store Clerk

Remember the video store? Clerks collected returned video tapes and checked them in. They used to stick the tapes in a re-winder then pluck them back in their cases. Even DVDs are being upstaged by online movie viewing and cable companies with user-selected movies. You can now even watch movies on your video game console. Traditional video stores are going away, and so is the need for workers.

The Bottom Line

The past decade ushered in job market changes that closed out old careers and started new ones. In many cases, the processes performed in old jobs were replaced technology, but in some cases, the processes simply went away. One thing is for sure, there will always be change. The unemployment rate may be high, but that doesn't mean you need to sit on the sidelines.

3 Financial Dangers of Social Media

3 Financial Dangers of Social Media
by Claes Bell
Thursday, January 28, 2010provided byBankrate

Anyone who doubts the power of social media to affect finances need look no further than the example of Kansas City Chiefs football player Larry Johnson.

The all-pro running back cost himself $213,000, and ultimately a job, by posting anti-gay slurs on the micro-blogging service Twitter -- in 140 characters or less, of course.

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Career trouble is just one way a badly managed social media presence can hit your pocketbook. Following are three areas where social media could damage your financial life, and how to avoid such pitfalls.

Employment

Andy Beal, CEO of the social media monitoring platform Trackur.com, says jobseekers should assume potential employers will do a Google search of candidates' names. Social media profiles typically appear near the top of the search page.

If you have questionable pictures or posts on a public profile, take them down or make the profile private to avoid trouble.

Also, steer clear of negative talk about a prospective employer on any social media platform, Beal says. Many companies monitor mentions of their brand throughout the Web, he says.

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He cites the case of a Twitter user who posted about a new job offer from Cisco, but expressed doubt about "the daily commute" and "hating the work." A Cisco employee noticed the tweet and demanded to know the name of the user's hiring manager.

Even employees who think their jobs are safe can sabotage themselves by being too honest online about their personal lives, or by posting feelings regarding a boss, client, co-worker or company for whom they work.

"We've seen a lot of cases of people publishing status updates that have gotten them in trouble," says Justin Smith, founder and editor in chief of Inside Facebook. "People have said things that have caused problems with their boss because of what they said about their work or because they've shared some other kind of private information about work online."

Caroline McCarthy, a staff writer at CNET News, says the best defense against such mistakes is to use plain old common sense. Remember, anything that appears on the Web is just a screenshot away from spreading quickly, despite the best efforts of social media users to keep it private.

Debt Collection

Social media has become a key tool for collection agencies trying to track down debtors, says Michelle Dunn, CEO of the American Credit and Collections Association and author of "Do's and Don'ts of Online Collections Techniques."

"If they don't have a good phone number or the mail's being returned, a lot of them use Facebook to find out if they have a different address or their employment information," Dunn says.

Many bill collectors who think they've found a debtor on a social media site will keep an eye on that individual's online presence, Dunn says.

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"They don't necessarily have to post anything to them; they just watch what that person is posting," she says.

Setting a social media profile to allow anyone -- not just friends -- to look at postings can make your profile a particularly rich source of information, she says.

"People post things about if they've gotten a new home or a new vehicle," Dunn says. "People just post such private things about their lives, and the whole world is watching."

Privacy laws should preclude a collections professional from contacting and humiliating you on your social media page, Dunn says. However, some debt collectors violate those legal and ethical boundaries and assume false identities as a means of getting information, she says.

Scams

Social media sites ask for, and often get, a large amount of personal information from users. Unfortunately, identity thieves may use that information to perpetuate scams, especially if you use personal information when creating security passwords, McCarthy says.

"If you have a public Facebook profile that gives your birth date and your parents' names and that kind of thing, they can provide the answers to security questions that your bank might have on its Web site," she says.

Even if your profile is private, identity thieves may find other ways to get your information, Beal says.

"We see spammers, we see hackers, we see people trying to sell products using fictitious profiles," he says. "There was a study done a few years ago where one group created a specific fictitious profile and the number of people that accepted their friend request ... was pretty high."

For this reason, be careful about adding social networking "friends" you don't know in real life, says Beal.

"Social networking is not a popularity contest," says Beal. "I don't add anyone to Facebook or LinkedIn unless I know them."

And remember, just because a social media site asks for information doesn't mean you have to give it, Beal says.

Finally, McCarthy recommends never sending money to someone who asks for it over a social media service. Smith says that there have been reports of scammers hijacking accounts and posing as friends.

Samsung takes top spot from HP

Samsung Electronics has overtaken Hewlett-Packard as the world's biggest technology company by sales, a sign of how strongly some South Korean companies have bounced back from the economic downturn.

Samsung on Friday reported 2009 sales of $117.8 billion which exceeded HP's sales of $114.6 billion for the year to October 31. It is expected to surpass its U.S. rival again this year -- its 2010 sales are forecast at $127 billion, compared with $120 billion from HP.

The company, which also announced a return to operational profit in the fourth quarter, was once dismissed as a copy-cat manufacturer and poor cousin to its Japanese rivals.

But Samsung surprised many when its market capitalization overtook Sony's in 2002. This year analysts forecast that Samsung's net profit will surpass that of the leading 15 Japanese technology companies combined in the fiscal year to March 2011, according to Bloomberg data.

Samsung is the world's leading maker of memory chips and liquid crystal displays. It is second only to Nokia in mobile handsets. Some 48 per cent of the company's equity is held by foreign investors.

The presence in Korea of the world's biggest technology company is a boon to Lee Myung-bak, the country's president, who is using Seoul's presidency of the G20 leading economies this year to elevate South Korea's international standing.

But Samsung's revenues are not matched by a similar growth in profits. "Compare it with Apple. There is still a gap in profit margins of their phone businesses," said Jae Lee, of Daiwa Securities.

Samsung's size is also a headache for management, as many competitors are also clients. Management battles to balance the interests of its chipmakers against the mobile phone unit, with the company supplying the chips for Apple's iPhone, while marketing its own devices at the same time.

Samsung's chipmakers are unlikely to give any preferential treatment to its own phonemakers over Nokia or Apple.

Samsung's transformation has been rapid and even late into the 1990s Samsung found it hard to penetrate the U.S. market with consumer electronics, getting short shrift from U.S. retailers such as Circuit City.

The company's then chairman, Lee Kun-hee, launched a drive for innovation and quality in 1993, famously exhorting his workers to "change everything except their wives and kids".

Lee this month warned that the company cannot rest on its laurels, despite its huge sales.

Samsung has consistently struggled to be creative and is still looking to lead the industry by developing its own "killer products" rather than playing catch up with competitors.

Lee resigned the chairmanship in 2008 amid a scandal, but has said he could consider returning, after receiving a presidential pardon last year.

Samsung is not the only South Korean company to climb the sales rankings during the downturn. Hyundai-Kia, long the world's sixth-biggest carmaker, has emerged as number four, having proved adept at reading the U.S. market.

Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world

Think of the origins of that staple of modern life, the cup of coffee, and Italy often springs to mind.

But in fact, Yemen is where the ubiquitous brew has its true origins.

Along with the first university, and even the toothbrush, it is among surprising Muslim inventions that have shaped the world we live in today.

The origins of these fundamental ideas and objects -- the basis of everything from the bicycle to musical scales -- are the focus of "1001 Inventions," a book celebrating "the forgotten" history of 1,000 years of Muslim heritage.

"There's a hole in our knowledge, we leap frog from the Renaissance to the Greeks," professor Salim al-Hassani, Chairman of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, and editor of the book told CNN.

"1001 Inventions" is now an exhibition at London's Science Museum. Hassani hopes the exhibition will highlight the contributions of non-Western cultures -- like the Muslim empire that once covered Spain and Portugal, Southern Italy and stretched as far as parts of China -- to present day civilization.
Hospitals as we know them today, with wards and teaching centers, come from 9th century Egypt
--professor Salim al-Hassani
RELATED TOPICS

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Here Hassani shares his top 10 outstanding Muslim inventions:

1. Surgery

Around the year 1,000, the celebrated doctor Al Zahrawi published a 1,500 page illustrated encyclopedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years. Among his many inventions, Zahrawi discovered the use of dissolving cat gut to stitch wounds -- beforehand a second surgery had to be performed to remove sutures. He also reportedly performed the first caesarean operation and created the first pair of forceps.

2. Coffee

Now the Western world's drink du jour, coffee was first brewed in Yemen around the 9th century. In its earliest days, coffee helped Sufis stay up during late nights of devotion. Later brought to Cairo by a group of students, the coffee buzz soon caught on around the empire. By the 13th century it reached Turkey, but not until the 16th century did the beans start boiling in Europe, brought to Italy by a Venetian trader.

3. Flying machine

"Abbas ibn Firnas was the first person to make a real attempt to construct a flying machine and fly," said Hassani. In the 9th century he designed a winged apparatus, roughly resembling a bird costume. In his most famous trial near Cordoba in Spain, Firnas flew upward for a few moments, before falling to the ground and partially breaking his back. His designs would undoubtedly have been an inspiration for famed Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci's hundreds of years later, said Hassani.

4. University

In 859 a young princess named Fatima al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez, Morocco. Her sister Miriam founded an adjacent mosque and together the complex became the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University. Still operating almost 1,200 years later, Hassani says he hopes the center will remind people that learning is at the core of the Islamic tradition and that the story of the al-Firhi sisters will inspire young Muslim women around the world today.

5. Algebra

The word algebra comes from the title of a Persian mathematician's famous 9th century treatise "Kitab al-Jabr Wa l-Mugabala" which translates roughly as "The Book of Reasoning and Balancing." Built on the roots of Greek and Hindu systems, the new algebraic order was a unifying system for rational numbers, irrational numbers and geometrical magnitudes. The same mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, was also the first to introduce the concept of raising a number to a power.

6. Optics

"Many of the most important advances in the study of optics come from the Muslim world," says Hassani. Around the year 1000 Ibn al-Haitham proved that humans see objects by light reflecting off of them and entering the eye, dismissing Euclid and Ptolemy's theories that light was emitted from the eye itself. This great Muslim physicist also discovered the camera obscura phenomenon, which explains how the eye sees images upright due to the connection between the optic nerve and the brain.

7. Music

Muslim musicians have had a profound impact on Europe, dating back to Charlemagne tried to compete with the music of Baghdad and Cordoba, according to Hassani. Among many instruments that arrived in Europe through the Middle East are the lute and the rahab, an ancestor of the violin. Modern musical scales are also said to derive from the Arabic alphabet.

8. Toothbrush

According to Hassani, the Prophet Mohammed popularized the use of the first toothbrush in around 600. Using a twig from the Meswak tree, he cleaned his teeth and freshened his breath. Substances similar to Meswak are used in modern toothpaste.

9. The crank

Many of the basics of modern automatics were first put to use in the Muslim world, including the revolutionary crank-connecting rod system. By converting rotary motion to linear motion, the crank enables the lifting of heavy objects with relative ease. This technology, discovered by Al-Jazari in the 12th century, exploded across the globe, leading to everything from the bicycle to the internal combustion engine.

10. Hospitals

"Hospitals as we know them today, with wards and teaching centers, come from 9th century Egypt," explained Hassani. The first such medical center was the Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital, founded in 872 in Cairo. Tulun hospital provided free care for anyone who needed it -- a policy based on the Muslim tradition of caring for all who are sick. From Cairo, such hospitals spread around the Muslim world.

For more information on muslim inventions go to: muslimheritage.com. For more information about the exhibition at London's Science Museum go to: science museum.org.uk

Don't drink, drive, kill someone, drink, post on Facebook

As we continue our collective foray into the brave new world of social networking, we keep learning the same lesson over and over again: don't post photos of yourself doing stupid things. This is doubly true if said stupid thing is illegal, as yet another intellectually challenged Facebook user has discovered.

17-year-old Ashley Sullivan had been driving with her boyfriend in Tonawanda, a town in New York State near Niagara Falls, when she crashed into a brick pillar at 56 mph in a golf course. Her boyfriend did not survive the accident, and in November of 2009, Sullivan pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and driving while intoxicated.

That didn't stop Sullivan from posting a photo a month later to her Facebook page with the caption of "Drunk in Florida." It just so happens that she had just gone to Florida on a trip, and the judge in her case took notice. Judge Matthew J. Murphy III denied Sullivan youthful offender status, noting that she hasn't "earned it," and sentenced her to six months in jail with five years probation. "I'm troubled by your conduct since the crash, and that's the reason for the jail sentence," Judge Murphy III told her, according to the Buffalo News (via SAI).

This is just one of (what's now becoming) a pattern of stories about people making poor Facebook decisions, especially when it comes to posting pictures. Employers don't like to see you partying at the club, insurance companies don't like to see you dancing at your birthday party when you're missing work due to depression, and judges most certainly don't like to see you posting pics of you drinking after you killed someone in a drunk driving accident.

Windows 7 leads the way to record quarter for Microsoft

At the close of trading Thursday, Microsoft announced the results for its second quarter of fiscal year 2010, which ended December 31, 2009. Revenue of $19.02 billion, a 14 percent increase from the same period of the prior year, set a new a record for the company. The three other financial measures—operating income ($8.51 billion), net income ($6.66 billion), and earnings per share ($0.74)—all were up year-over-year, 43 percent, 60 percent, and 57 percent, respectively.

So what is Microsoft's explanation for the positive growth across the board? Its latest client operating system. "Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company," said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. Furthermore, the recession hit the holiday quarter pretty badly in 2008, and while Redmond could not avoid it, its reaction in the form of various cuts is now paying off. "Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth."

Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses through the second quarter (which would explain the huge growth we're seeing in market share numbers). This not only made it a record quarter for Windows units in general, but it makes Windows 7 the fastest selling operating system in history.

When discussing the results from two quarters ago, Microsoft said it would defer some $275 million of revenue from prepaid upgrades to Windows 7. Microsoft actually ended up deferring $1.71 billion in revenue, which is about $0.14 of diluted earnings per share, relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program and presales of Windows 7 to OEMs and retailers before general availability. Taking that number into consideration, the revenue would actually total $17.31 billion, or about $0.60 per share.

Microsoft will be discussing second quarter results and the company's business outlook on a conference call and webcast, which we are liveblogging.

Microsoft patches "Google hack" flaw in Internet Explorer

Microsoft patches "Google hack" flaw in Internet Explorer
By Emil Protalinski | Last updated January 20, 2010 3:45 PM
Microsoft patches "Google hack" flaw in Internet Explorer

Microsoft has issued an Advanced Notification for the out-of-band security bulletin it is releasing tomorrow for Internet Explorer at approximately 10 am PST. The patch will fix vulnerabilities in IE6, IE7, and IE8 on supported editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2—vulnerabilities notably exploited in the recent series of Chinese-based attacks against Google and 30 other tech companies.

Microsoft has previously insisted that the publicly posted exploit code only affects IE6 and as such recommended its users to upgrade. While the software giant says the attacks it sees in the wild are still only successful against IE6, Redmond has rated the flaw "Critical" for all versions of the browser.

"This is a standard cumulative update, accelerated from our regularly scheduled February release, for Internet Explorer with an aggregate severity rating of Critical," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and a small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities. Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicized."

The fact that the update is being released out-of-band (meaning that Microsoft is not going to wait until its next Patch Tuesday on February 9) shows how serious the company is taking this particular vulnerability. The company admitted that its own investigations into the highly organized hacking attack in late December against various companies (including Google) had concluded that a Remote Code Execution vulnerability in IE was used by the perpetrators. That vulnerability is triggered by an attacker using JavaScript to copy, release, and then later reference a specific Document Object Model element; attack code may be executed if it is successfully placed in a random location of freed memory.

We will update this post when Microsoft releases the patch for all supported versions of Windows. The company will also be hosting a webcast to address customer questions on the out-of-band bulletin tomorrow at 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada).

Microsoft files patent suit against TiVo

Microsoft has accused TiVo of illegally using video purchasing and delivery technology in its digital video recorders, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
TiVo law suit

Microsoft filed suit against the DVR maker on Tuesday for infringing on two Microsoft patents as a way of defending its partner, AT&T, which is currently involved in a legal dispute with TiVo over the same technology. TiVo sued AT&T and Verizon in August over the "time warping" function in both companies' digital video services. AT&T uses Microsoft's video platform for its U-Verse TV IPTV service.

It's because AT&T is Redmond's biggest customer for that video technology that it has opted to come to AT&T's defense.

But Microsoft said it's "open to resolving this situation through an intellectual property licensing agreement, and we have initiated discussions to engage TiVo in negotiations," according to a statement from the company Wednesday.

TiVo shrugged off the tech heavyweight's entrance into the legal fight in a statement Wednesday: "Microsoft's recent legal actions ... do not bear on whether the AT&T products and services that are the subject of TiVo's complaint infringe the patents asserted by TiVo. Rather these actions are part of a legal strategy to defend AT&T. We remain confident in our position that AT&T will be found to infringe on the TiVo patents asserted."

It's not clear how Microsoft's entrance will help or hurt AT&T, especially since TiVo has already played this game and won. The strategy it is currently pursuing against AT&T and Verizon over the time-warp function is the same that won it damages of $103 million from EchoStar/Dish Network last year.

Game-changing hardware coming in 2010

While it's not likely that any new gaming consoles will be released in 2010, there's plenty of new hardware that will change the way we play.

2010 is the year that everyone catches up to Wii: Both Microsoft and Sony will introduce their own unique takes on motion controllers. Meanwhile, Nintendo will attempt to move things in a different direction with the Wii Vitality Sensor. But perhaps the biggest game-changer could come from Apple. And in a post-iPhone world, that doesn't sound so far-fetched.

Here are Wired.com's picks of the gaming gadgets that will come to define the next 12 months.

Project Natal

This revolutionary interface for Xbox 360 ditches joysticks for an array of cameras and microphones that track your movements, recognize your face and respond to your voice. Microsoft says it'll be available this holiday season.

Wired.com got some hands-on (off?) time with Project Natal at E3 2009, and we can attest that it genuinely works. Natal really does track minute movements of your body, allowing you to swing your arms to whack things onscreen or grip an imaginary steering wheel to drive a virtual car.

Even just fiddling around with simple prototype proof-of-concept software generated the sort of excitement and wonder that Wii Sports did the first time I played it.

Wii Vitality Sensor

Nintendo is known for innovative accessories, but the Vitality Sensor is old tech: A similar device was released in Japan for the Nintendo 64 well over a decade ago.

Since the notion of a videogame controller that reads your pulse from your fingertip isn't new, Nintendo must come up with interesting pieces of software if it's going to sell this thing to the Wii Fit crowd. The company says the pulse-monitoring feature could be used for a game that helps you relax, but hasn't actually shown any such thing yet.

Nintendo's president recently named the Vitality Sensor one of the company's big products for 2010, saying that software would be announced in July. Our hearts aren't racing just yet.

Sony Motion Controller

To make a long story short, Sony's new device is like a Wiimote that can be tracked by an EyeToy camera. The PlayStation 3 will know where the controller is moving, but it will also be able to (for example) project your image onto the TV screen, then replace the controller in your hand with a virtual sword.

The combination of motion sensing and position tracking should make Sony's controller much more accurate than Nintendo's. But we haven't seen much more than tech demos yet, even though Sony says the motion controller will launch in the spring. "Ape Escape" and "Resident Evil" titles that use the controller are in the works.

Apple Tablet

The iPhone was a game-changer for mobile gaming. Since the phone debuted in 2007, the App Store has been deluged with games, more than a few of which are awesome. Apple's rumored tablet, a multimedia touchscreen device meant to compete with (read: crush) similar but lesser-featured gadgets like Nook and Kindle, can only mean interesting things for games.

Rumors suggest that Apple's machine will be less a computer and more an overgrown iPhone. So you probably won't be playing World of Warcraft on the thing more likely, you'll be playing stuff like Defense Grid on a big, roomy screen.

One potential downside is that developers might not have the money, resources or motivation to release upgrades of their iPhone games to suit the tablet's larger screen. What if the game boom on the iPhone was a one-time deal?

Nintendo DSi XL

While it's certainly possible that either Nintendo or Sony could release a new handheld gaming platform this Christmas, we know for sure that another version of the DSi is on the way first. Already available in Japan, the DSi XL is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2010 in the United States and Europe.

You mean we all have to buy a fourth Nintendo DS? Yes, even though the only difference is that the DSi XL has giant screens. Portability takes a backseat to visibility in this new model the 4.2-inch screens make your games pop with big, bold images, but make the unit itself much larger.

You might not think you want this, but when you experience how much easier it is to play with bigger screens, you'll probably be hooked.

What is a tablet, anyway?

For all the buzz about "tablet computers" in recent weeks, one fundamental question about this supposedly break-through computer category remains unanswered:

What exactly is a tablet?

Computer industry representatives here at the massive and hype-heavy Consumer Electronics Show can't seem to agree.

Some say a computer just needs a touch-sensitive screen to be a tablet. Others say a person should be able to write on it with a pen. Still others say it's screen size that's important -- tablets must fit somewhere between phones and laptops. For Philip McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer at Hewlett-Packard, it's partly the keyboard -- a tablet should have one of those.

Break off the keyboard, leaving only a touch-screen device, he said, and the gadget falls into another buzz-worthy category: the slate.

Others say the terms slate and tablet are synonymous.

So what's a confused consumer to do? And how can anyone judge the many products here that claim to be from tabletland when there's no consensus on what one is?

Simple. Just get over the name, said Steve Baker, vice-president of industry analysis at the NDP Group, a market research firm.

Computer makers are introducing a shotgun spray of newish -- or at least newly named -- products in hopes that one will be a big recession-era hit with consumers, he said. None of these new devices, which he said are characterized only by their medium size, fix any obvious problem consumers have with their current computers, he said.

Companies are releasing these new products without knowing exactly why consumers would want to use them, he said.

"That's the problem, but the exciting part of it is that we really don't know what the right product is for people -- what they want to do with this."

Hot products

The tablet buzz at CES is somewhat overshadowed by a tablet that Apple is rumored to announce later this month. Still, the array of tablet-esque devices here is getting tons of attention from show attendees.

The two most talked-about tablets at CES are Lenovo's IdeaPad U1, which the company refers to not as a tablet but as a "hybrid-notebook;" and a yet-to-be named and largely unseen "slate" tablet from HP.

Lenovo's device looks like a smallish laptop on first glance. But the screen on the gadget pops off of a plastic shell and can be carried around separately from its keyboard. That's the tablet part of the hybrid.
Asus was among several companies offering touch-screen tablet computers at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Asus was among several companies offering touch-screen tablet computers at the Consumer Electronics Show.

When separated from its keyboard home, the slender touch-screen tablet -- which looks like a stretched-out iPhone -- is well suited for watching movies, browsing photos and reading books, said Michael Littler, who markets the device. The touch-sensitive screen, made possible by Microsoft's Windows 7, lets users spin photos and scroll through text with their fingers, which might seem more intuitive than a pushing a computer mouse. Watch CES attendees get acquainted with the dual laptop-tablet

That product will debut in six months and will cost less than $1,000, Littler said.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer briefly trotted out HP's unnamed "slate" device during his opening keynote address at the show, stirring up lots of interest. The device was thin and flat, without a keyboard, and with a touch-sensitive screen. HP decided not to show off the unnamed product at CES, however.

McKinney, the company's CTO, said the HP slate has been in development for five years and will be sold to consumers sometime in 2010. He would not discuss the product's price or provide further specifics.

Tablet origins

Part of the tablet confusion comes from the fact that the term is not new.

In the 90s, Microsoft and others introduced tablet PCs with swivel-around screens and keyboards. Consumers couldn't touch the screens with their fingers to control the tablets, but many had stylus pens that let people write on the screen.

While popular in niche markets, those older-generation tablets never took off like expected, said Lance Ulanoff, editor in chief of PC Magazine.

"I think major companies are still a little hesitant to go all-in," he said.

Why now?

The current resurgence of the tablet term -- and the mid-sized, touch-screen gadgets that go with it -- appears to have several precipitating factors.

First, said Ulanoff, is the popularity of the iPhone. Apple's smartphone showed people how helpful touch-screen technology can be.

"I think people got the idea that -- 'Well, what if [the iPhone] was bigger?" he said.

Next is the recession. Consumer electronics sales were down considerably in 2009. That gives computer companies an incentive to try some potentially wacky ideas in an effort to differentiate themselves from competitors, said Baker, the industry analyst.
This touch-screen "clamshell" style device from viliv falls loosely within the tablet computer category.
This touch-screen "clamshell" style device from viliv falls loosely within the tablet computer category.

Technological advances are also pushing the idea. Windows 7, which Microsoft released last year, incorporates touch-screen technology, and many people consider to be a cornerstone of the tablet experience.

Also throw in a truckload of hype about Apple's rumored tablet. Tech blogs have been drooling over the supposed announcement for months.

And, while tablet makers here say they've been working on the technology for years, several admitted the Apple tablet buzz doesn't hurt their efforts.

People expect everything Apple makes to be sexy and popular. And that could rub off on an entire category of devices.

What's in a name?

The flurry of newly named computer products, however, could have negative consequences for the tablet computer industry, said Ken Lee, vice-president of sales and marketing at viliv, another tablet maker exhibiting at CES.

The industry is on the verge of confusing consumers so much that they won't know what products they do or don't want, he said.
I think people got the idea that -- 'Well, what if [the iPhone] was bigger?"
--Lance Ulanoff, editor in chief of PC Magazine.
RELATED TOPICS

* Consumer Electronics
* Apple Inc.
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* Hewlett-Packard Company

Still, he added, it's exciting to work in a time of experimentation. Viliv is focusing on a number of mid-size computing devices -- from its $500 N5 "clamshell" device, which looks like a sunglasses case when it's closed and is small enough to fit in a coat pocket; to a $550 S10 tablet with a swivel touch-screen and a keyboard; and, finally, a soon-to-be-unveiled "media slate," which has an 10-inch touch-screen and no keyboard.

The names are important from a marketing perspective, he said. Viliv didn't call its "media slate" a tablet because that name sounds expensive, he said. The company didn't want to call it a plain old slate either, he said, because that sounded heavy, like slate rock, when the media slate is actually rather light. Slate also sounds industrial, he said, and he wants this media-consumption device to be fun.

"We tried to give it a little bit more of a casual, lighter feeling," he said.

Other companies have introduced mid-sized, pseudo-tablet products under a host of names -- smartbooks, mini-notes, touch-screen netbooks, dual-book e-readers that also surf the Web.

At its CES product office this week, Littler, from Lenovo, was commenting on this development when a woman abruptly joined the conversation.

"I just call it a computer," she said.

Print media hail iPad's potential

Now that they've gotten a peek at it, publishers of books, newspapers and magazines are hoping Apple's forthcoming iPad tablet device will breathe new life into their struggling industry.

A handful of publishers already have struck content deals with Apple for the handheld wireless device, which displays text, photos and graphics in high-res color. Apple will launch an online bookstore to sell titles for the iPad, much like iTunes sells music for iPods and other Apple devices.

"I think it's a game-changer for us ...­ because of the ability to consume content and consume so much of it all in one place," Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital, told CNN. She thinks the iPad could join Amazon's popular Kindle e-reader in boosting demand for digital media.

"It's become clear over the life of the iPhone that people love consuming information like this on their phone -- the people who buy Kindles buy more books than before they had a Kindle" Chubb added. "Machines like this make you want to consume more media, which is good for us."

Chubb and others are hoping that the Apple's iBookstore and other pay-based models for the iPad will do for the print-media industry what iTunes did for the music industry.

"We think there's a lot of opportunity there," said Adam Rothberg, vice president of corporate communications at publishing house Simon and Schuster. "It creates a much more robust marketplace. The e-book market has clearly been growing at a really rapid clip in the last year. I think this will certainly tick it up a notch. It expands the universe of potential customers for us in a big way."

Rothberg noted the enormous reach Apple already has with consumers in the iTunes store. Through Apple's online store, Simon and Schuster may be able to reach consumers who have not already bought a Kindle, a Sony Reader or one of the other e-readers on the market.

These online retail opportunities echo a debate that heated up in the late 1990s with the dawn of micropayments.

"Nobody would have believed we would pay to download music the way we do now," Chubb said.

The idea that people might be willing to spend a dollar or so for little bits of digital content­ ­is exactly the model iTunes is based on -- and it's part of why the iPad was being hyped as revolutionary before it even launched.

"I think [Steve Jobs] will be remembered as the digital Gutenberg," said Bruno Ruffilli, a writer at La Stampa newspaper in Italy. "It could be a way out of this [publishing] crisis."

Newspapers and magazine publishers have suffered financially in recent years as readers have migrated to the Web and the growth of online advertising has failed to make up for the loss of print ad revenue.

Others were less enthusiastic. Jack Shafer, a columnist at Slate, wrote in December that regardless of its technical capabilities, Apple's tablet may falter like past attempts to revive print media. He cited fizzled attempts to introduce magazines on CD-ROM discs.

In his column, Shafer quotes Pablo Boczkowski, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, to illustrate why the iPad isn't necessarily the golden answer to old media's problems.

Ultimately, Shafer says, it's about what the consumer wants ­-- and the iPad answers a problem consumers don't have.

"Most people need a simple surfboard, rather than the complex -- and costly -- diving gear," Boczkowski told Shafer.

One tech writer at Apple's iPad unveiling Wednesday worried that because the iPad also functions like a computer, reading on the device may be difficult.

"I'm not sure how I feel about being on the iPad and reading, because then I'm too connected," said Jacqui Cheng, a senior writer at the tech site Ars Technica, who believes her thoughts might be disrupted by the constant pings of e-mail.

Still, publishers are experimenting with versions of their magazines for e-readers and for smartphones. And, like Conde Nast -- which publishes such magazines as Vogue, Wired and The New Yorker, see infinite possibilities for success with the iPad.

Chubb noted the launch of GQ's iPhone app was widely successful in showing Conde Nast that consumers have a desire to read magazines on electronic devices. And The New Yorker is the most popular magazine download on the Kindle, she said.

But the iPad has a key advantage over the Kindle, she said: The potential to bring in revenue from ads displayed on its magazine-style layouts. Said Chubb, "There¹s no advertising opportunities within the Kindle."

Newspapers also got a hint of what the iPad might do for them during Wednesday's demo of a New York Times application for the iPad. The app seemed to merge old and new media by mirroring the Times' page layouts while allowing for interactive content within a story.

"We are pleased to be part of the launch of this exciting new product and we look forward to further discussions with Apple," said Janet Robinson, president of The New York Times Company and Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations, in a joint statement. "It's too soon to discuss details of an application, but we are, as always, looking at innovative new platforms."

But with no content pricing announced Wednesday, and no models regarding subscriptions for magazine and newspapers, many observers are still left to wonder how it will all work.

Chubb said Conde Nast plans to try out several business models to see what works best. For example, the company must decide when selling ads whether to bundle advertising for the iPad with ads for print publications. Conde Nast also must figure out how to market the iPad's digital versions of its magazines, she said.

If everything works out, Chubb hopes that consumers sitting in an airport will be able to touch a few buttons and download a virtual stack of Conde Nast magazines for their flight.

"I'm thinking about people wondering, 'How long is my flight -- should I download an extra magazine?' "Chubb said. "That's a dynamic I'm excited about."

Print media hail iPad's potential

Now that they've gotten a peek at it, publishers of books, newspapers and magazines are hoping Apple's forthcoming iPad tablet device will breathe new life into their struggling industry.

A handful of publishers already have struck content deals with Apple for the handheld wireless device, which displays text, photos and graphics in high-res color. Apple will launch an online bookstore to sell titles for the iPad, much like iTunes sells music for iPods and other Apple devices.

"I think it's a game-changer for us ...­ because of the ability to consume content and consume so much of it all in one place," Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital, told CNN. She thinks the iPad could join Amazon's popular Kindle e-reader in boosting demand for digital media.

"It's become clear over the life of the iPhone that people love consuming information like this on their phone -- the people who buy Kindles buy more books than before they had a Kindle" Chubb added. "Machines like this make you want to consume more media, which is good for us."

Chubb and others are hoping that the Apple's iBookstore and other pay-based models for the iPad will do for the print-media industry what iTunes did for the music industry.

"We think there's a lot of opportunity there," said Adam Rothberg, vice president of corporate communications at publishing house Simon and Schuster. "It creates a much more robust marketplace. The e-book market has clearly been growing at a really rapid clip in the last year. I think this will certainly tick it up a notch. It expands the universe of potential customers for us in a big way."

Rothberg noted the enormous reach Apple already has with consumers in the iTunes store. Through Apple's online store, Simon and Schuster may be able to reach consumers who have not already bought a Kindle, a Sony Reader or one of the other e-readers on the market.

These online retail opportunities echo a debate that heated up in the late 1990s with the dawn of micropayments.

"Nobody would have believed we would pay to download music the way we do now," Chubb said.

The idea that people might be willing to spend a dollar or so for little bits of digital content­ ­is exactly the model iTunes is based on -- and it's part of why the iPad was being hyped as revolutionary before it even launched.

"I think [Steve Jobs] will be remembered as the digital Gutenberg," said Bruno Ruffilli, a writer at La Stampa newspaper in Italy. "It could be a way out of this [publishing] crisis."

Newspapers and magazine publishers have suffered financially in recent years as readers have migrated to the Web and the growth of online advertising has failed to make up for the loss of print ad revenue.

Others were less enthusiastic. Jack Shafer, a columnist at Slate, wrote in December that regardless of its technical capabilities, Apple's tablet may falter like past attempts to revive print media. He cited fizzled attempts to introduce magazines on CD-ROM discs.

In his column, Shafer quotes Pablo Boczkowski, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, to illustrate why the iPad isn't necessarily the golden answer to old media's problems.

Ultimately, Shafer says, it's about what the consumer wants ­-- and the iPad answers a problem consumers don't have.

"Most people need a simple surfboard, rather than the complex -- and costly -- diving gear," Boczkowski told Shafer.

One tech writer at Apple's iPad unveiling Wednesday worried that because the iPad also functions like a computer, reading on the device may be difficult.

"I'm not sure how I feel about being on the iPad and reading, because then I'm too connected," said Jacqui Cheng, a senior writer at the tech site Ars Technica, who believes her thoughts might be disrupted by the constant pings of e-mail.

Still, publishers are experimenting with versions of their magazines for e-readers and for smartphones. And, like Conde Nast -- which publishes such magazines as Vogue, Wired and The New Yorker, see infinite possibilities for success with the iPad.

Chubb noted the launch of GQ's iPhone app was widely successful in showing Conde Nast that consumers have a desire to read magazines on electronic devices. And The New Yorker is the most popular magazine download on the Kindle, she said.

But the iPad has a key advantage over the Kindle, she said: The potential to bring in revenue from ads displayed on its magazine-style layouts. Said Chubb, "There¹s no advertising opportunities within the Kindle."

Newspapers also got a hint of what the iPad might do for them during Wednesday's demo of a New York Times application for the iPad. The app seemed to merge old and new media by mirroring the Times' page layouts while allowing for interactive content within a story.

"We are pleased to be part of the launch of this exciting new product and we look forward to further discussions with Apple," said Janet Robinson, president of The New York Times Company and Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations, in a joint statement. "It's too soon to discuss details of an application, but we are, as always, looking at innovative new platforms."

But with no content pricing announced Wednesday, and no models regarding subscriptions for magazine and newspapers, many observers are still left to wonder how it will all work.

Chubb said Conde Nast plans to try out several business models to see what works best. For example, the company must decide when selling ads whether to bundle advertising for the iPad with ads for print publications. Conde Nast also must figure out how to market the iPad's digital versions of its magazines, she said.

If everything works out, Chubb hopes that consumers sitting in an airport will be able to touch a few buttons and download a virtual stack of Conde Nast magazines for their flight.

"I'm thinking about people wondering, 'How long is my flight -- should I download an extra magazine?' "Chubb said. "That's a dynamic I'm excited about."

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