Tech Briefing Oct. 2013

Families Who Tweet Together, Stay Together. 

Brigham Young University researchers Sarah Coyne and Laura Padilla-Walker found that teenagers who are connected to their parents on Facebook, Twitter and other social media feel closer to their parents in real life. And as the kids move to new social media platforms, parents may want to keep up with the new technology. But don’t overdo it!

Posting too many pictures on Facebook may not make people like you more, researchers from several British universities found. “This is because people, other than very close friends and relatives, don’t seem to relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves,” says lead author David Houghton of the Birmingham Business School.

Isn’t This a Sci-Fi Story?

IBM is mimicking the human brain for ways to better handle all that data out there. Scientists from IBM recently unveiled a software ecosystem designed for programming “neurosynaptic” chips that have an architecture inspired by the brain’s high function, low power usage and compact volume. And just how powerful is your brain? One of the world’s fastest supercomputers was able to mimic 1% of the brain’s activity for one second, but it took 40 minutes to do it, German and Japanese scientists say. Even more powerful computers may bring that up to 100% in the next decade, though.

Cool Apps

Every picture tells a story, and there are plenty of presentation apps, including PowerPoint, for your mobile devices to help you. The apps provide variations on the PowerPoint theme with an eye to the strengths and limits of mobile devices. For instance, you can focus on pictures and graphics, add audio, or simply edit the presentations you created at your desktop. And of course, there’s PowerPoint, too. 

Keynote is Apple’s answer to PowerPoint, just as its Pages and Numbers apps correspond with Word and Excel. The app reflects Apple’s commitment to usability and intuitive feel. $10 for iPhone and iPad.

Haiku Deck takes a slideshow approach to presentation, accentuating the visual and minimizing the text-heavy approach. The app makes it easy to start with a theme and add your own images as well as those from a library of free and premium stock pictures. Free. Apple.

OfficeMobile is Microsoft’s mobile app for subscribers to its Office 365 cloud service and lets you access and edit Office documents, including PowerPoint, from your mobile devices. Free. Apple, Android, Windows.  

Kingsoft Office, a top app in Google Play, takes the popular desktop version of its productivity software that includes text, spreadsheets and presentations and moves it to mobile. The software lets you edit and export Windows-compatible presentations. Free. Android. Apple version coming.

Softmaker Presentations Mobile lets you open, edit and save your PowerPoint presentations, including audio, animations, and slide transitions. $5. Android.