The latest in a long line of studies that seem to stem from the utter boredom of university researchers comes this study from the Harvard School of Public Health that says users may experience shoulder and neck pain from prolonged tablet use.

In the spirit of fairness, the study used both an iPad 2 and a Motorola Xoom. This made sure that fanboys from either camp couldn’t call out the other as being a leading cause of neck and shoulder discomfort.

The four user configurations used in the study were holding the tablet in one’s hand while on the lap, the tablet in a case on the lap, the tablet in a case on a table and the tablet held upright on a table for the purpose of watching a film. The tablets were outfitted with various cases and stands that users are generally seen using in everyday situations.

The study found that users of tablet computers in all four configurations run a higher risk of “neck and shoulder discomfort” compared to normal desktop or laptop users. This stems mostly from poor posture users exhibit when using tablet computers since their posture and head/neck angles are much more strained.

The study concludes that the use of tablet computers is associated with much higher head and neck postures compared to “desktop computing scenarios.” The postures are affected by the type of case as well as the location of the device.

They say that this data is valuable to tablet and accessory manufacturers to make their products more ergonomically designed to “promote neutral postures” and “increase the comfort of users.”

The entire study can be viewed here for your reading pleasure.

Stick with me, this gets better.

The message reads like this:

Type the last three digits of your number in the comment box below as follows:

@*[123:0]

Then, REMOVE THE STAR and then press enter. You will see your phone’s “name”.

And, whaddaya know, it works. Well, it spits out a name. Mine, for instance was “Daniel Koh”. Let’s think this through a minute.

For starters, the asterisk thing is a complete bunk complication, making the whole thing seem somewhat magical. Type it in, then take it out? Pish. Leave that out entirely.

Also, in the three-digit character string that becomes your phone number’s last three digits, there are only 1000 number possibilities (000-999). So, no way this is about phone numbers.

And, that whole character string shows nothing at all on Google search. Until later today, that is.

So, what is this?

The best theory is this: The three digits in the character string are Facebook account numbers, likely from early account holders (the first 1000) at Harvard, where Facebook launched. The character string in question returns the name associated with that account number.

Let’s check out the name I got: “Daniel Koh”. There is a Daniel Koh on FB. He did attend Harvard. And, thanks to the new Timeline, I can easily see that he joined FB on February 8, 2004 – the month Facebook launched.

And, looking at his profile picture URL tells me his account number (as opposed to his account nickname in the URL). And, indeed, it ends in my phone number’s last three digits.

Bingo. Mystery solved.

So, that character string is not any magical SIM card or phone identifier. Your phone does not have a name.

But, I’ve got a bad feeling that 1000 former Harvard students are about to get popular.

Addition: Reader David Miller points out this string: @[4:0] which nets “Mark Zuckerberg” himself. We also tried numbers 1 through 3, which returned only zeroes. Which leads us to wonder: Did accounts numbered 1 and 2 belong to the Winklevoss Twins?

I’m not one to pour derision on any sort of scientific or technological advancement. In fact, one of the best parts of my day is when I come across something that makes me say “wow,” “awesome,” or simply “whoa.” You know, things like quantum levitation, jetpacks, and virtual reality displays.

But my long-running suspicion of robots has been pretty well-documented. Every little invention – every cool looking robotic breakthrough is just one step closer to the robot apocalypse. And if the robot apocalypse is what takes us all out, that means that there won’t be a chance to experience the zombie apocalypse – a thought that really grinds my gears.

But I digress. This impressive concept of soft robotics comes to us from George M. Whitesides’ Research Group at Harvard. Demonstrated is a skeleton-less robot operated by low pressures of air (<10 psi) which is pumped in and out of the elastomeric polymer materials that make up the limbs.

Here is the concept more thoroughly explained in the PNAS magazine:

A soft robot, composed exclusively of soft materials (elastomeric polymers), which is inspired by animals (e.g., squid, starfish, worms) that do not have hard internal skeletons. Soft lithography was used to fabricate a pneumatically actuated robot capable of sophisticated locomotion (e.g., fluid movement of limbs and multiple gaits). This robot is quadrupedal; it uses no sensors, only five actuators, and a simple pneumatic valving system that operates at low pressures (< 10 psi). A combination of crawling and undulation gaits allowed this robot to navigate a difficult obstacle. This demonstration illustrates an advantage of soft robotics: They are systems in which simple types of actuation produce complex motion.

Check out all of that “crawling” and “undulation” in the video below:

The top YouTube comments for the video is simply, “Someone pass me the crowbar.” Unfortunately, I doubt that would stop it – it’s just elastic materials and air.

Want to give yourself a challenge? Imagine this technology somehow paired with the technology represented in the first video here. Now, try to sleep.

It’s possible the surveillance will act as a deterrent.  Any Sudanese politicians or military leaders who might otherwise try to suppress or wipe out the opposition are probably a little less likely to do so if they know their actions will become global public knowledge.

Or, in the event violence does break out, Reuters reported earlier today, "The Satellite Sentinel Project, which begins on Wednesday, is meant to provide an ‘early warning system’ for human rights and security violations before the January 9 referendum on whether to divide Sudan into north and south."

Google’s contribution to the project is supposed to be an online platform through which the all of the information will be shared.  Meanwhile, Harvard will help research events, while the original satellite photos will come courtesy of the UN’s UNOSAT program.

Not On Our Watch, which counts Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt among its members, is helping with the cost of the whole undertaking.

According to Reuters, Clooney said in a statement, "We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we’re watching, the world is watching."

 The RIAA says it is abandoning new lawsuits against file sharers. but existing court actions are moving forward.  Thanks to a team of Harvard law students, one of these trials will be shared with the world in an unprecedent fashion. A Massachusetts District Court judge has granted the request of a Harvard Law legal team authorizing internet broadcast coverage of a case brought by the RIAA.

Professor Charles Nesson and his team of Harvard Law students had filed a motion to admit the Internet into the courtroom, which is traditionally prohibited. Nesson is defending Joel Tenenbaum, who has been sued by the RIAA with punishment of more than $1 million dollars for downloading 7 songs.

News of the effort as cited by Bloomberg could provide a massive amount of insight into diseases and ways to combat them:

By matching genetic data from each person with his or her health history, Church would build a database that would link DNA variations and disease for scientists and drugmakers, the first step in deciding on treatments that can block the mutations or adjust how they work within the body. 

“Harvard’s George Church plans to spend $1 billion to tie DNA information to each person’s health history, creating a database for finding new medicines,” the report said. “Google spokesman Andrew Pederson said it began supporting Church, who teaches at Harvard Medical School in Boston, with a donation late last year.”

We wonder if 23andMe.com will be involved in the testing. The company, run by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife, Susan Wojcicki, offers DNA tests to individuals for $999. Bloomberg said Church has been an advisor to 23andMe, so we think there will be a connection their during the project.

Yes, we know, Harvard research may be even less interesting to you than ancient Japanese manuscripts; it could be dry reading, as opposed to interesting symbols on dusty papers.  Still, the spread of such research for free – whereas it is usually only available through pricy subscription journals – is an important thing.

Building up to the big announcement, Peter Suber wrote, "Harvard will be the first university in the US to adopt an OA [open access] mandate.  The Harvard policy will also be one of the first anywhere to be adopted by faculty themselves rather than by administrators."

Harvard is, in case you didn’t know, on a pretty high pedestal, so publishers won’t really be able to say "no" to the move.  Also, the development is the sort of thing that other universities are liable to imitate.

On a final note, Harvard is, by the way, already a partner within the Google Books Library Project.

It’s shades of Mark Twain channeling Benjamin Disraeli, who may or may not have said there are three types of lies, one of them being statistics. But perhaps that 58 percent or 33 percent or whatever figure will increase over time, and that will be a good thing.

The Harvard Crimson said over 3,000 students used Google Book Search, part of the Harvard-Google Project, in September. The project scans books and makes them available through Harvard’s online catalog.

As more works are fed to the scanning machines, the number of readers should increase. Anyone who has ever tried to locate a book in a library to study, only to find it has been checked out, should see why book scanning is a good thing.

Harvard, and the various universities engaged in Google’s book scanning, are the test beds for this. Their populations probably represent a part of the population that does continue reading books after high school and college.

Google has been fought on a couple of fronts with regards to book scanning. Someone with greater knowledge of publishing will have to explain to me why a scanned out-of-print book exposed to the public represents a dire threat to the free world; email me, Authors Guild.

I’m cynical enough to have some issues with some of the things Google does, but book scanning isn’t on the list. More people use the Internet now than ever, so maybe part of the time they spend online will involve encountering books through searches and other avenues.

Or maybe they’ll just keep using the Net for porn. At least the erotica book genre will receive more exposure.

The new media are rewarding more participatory, more sincere, and less directive marketing styles than the old broadcast media rewarded.

The transformation is unfolding on a model of consumer collaboration, in which consumers use digital media that lie beyond the control of marketers to communicate among one another, responding to marketing’s intrusions by disseminating counterargument, information sharing, rebuttal, parody, reproach and, though more rarely, fandom

Key concepts in the report include:

• Successful interactive marketing may be less a matter of domination and control, and more a matter of fitting in.
• There is a human need to assert and present to the world a self-serving identity and to manage one’s personal reputation.
• The form of interactivity most attractive to marketing is one that facilitates people’s ability to construct their identity and contribute to the making of meaning.

.We are certainly seeing an increased interest in social  media strategies.  The first action to take is to listen to the conversations online.  And you have to keep monitoring these conversations all the time.

So an online reputation monitoring tool like the new Brandseye from the UK, which can not only monitor what is being said about you and your competitors but can also evaluate the remarks and calculate a brand ‘score,’ is vital to the success of any social media marketing or PR strategy.

If you are interested in what it can do, drop me an email. sallyf at expansionplus dot com

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