Clever these smart phones

Put this one on your Xmas list

Apple developing touch tablet device
Apple CEO Steve Jobs ... will he be unveiling a tablet device in September?

Now for my next trick .... Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
July 28, 2009 - 6:45AM

Apple is reportedly planning to launch a new tablet-sized device before Christmas in what is a new product category that will fall between its iPhone/iPod Touch and the entry level MacBook laptop.

The company is also working with four record labels on a plan to increase digital sales of albums, according to a report in the Financial Times newspaper.

The project with the record companies - EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Vivendi's Universal Music Group - aims to offer interactive features with music downloads.

"It's all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music," one unnamed executive told the paper.

Dubbed project "Cocktail", the Financial Times said book publishers have also been in talks with the computer maker about offering their services on the new device, which could compete with Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

The AppleInsider blog, which broke the story on Friday, said the device will be feature a 10-inch screen and be "3G-enabled".

However the Financial Times report states that device will "probably [come] without phone capability".

The AppleInsider report puts the launch date as a first quarter 2010, citing "people well-respected by AppleInsider for their striking accuracy in Apple's internal affairs".

Confirmation of the twin projects could come as early as September when Apple traditionally launches its new line-up of iPods for the pre-Christmas shopping seasons.

iPods with cameras?

There has also been speculation that the new generaion iPods - the Nanos and Touches - will retain their current shape but will both come with built-in cameras, similar to those found on iPhones.

The Cult of Mac blog has reported that Chinese companies which make iPod accessories have been showing off new designs and protoypes with space on the back for the new features.

The iPhone 3GS, which was launched last month, comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera.

smh.com.au and agencies

Be thankful for a few good friends

Swamped with friends, Bill Gates quits Facebook
Bill Gates says he's quitting Facebook because he has too many "friends".

Bill Gates says he's quitting Facebook because he has too many "friends". Photo: AP
July 26, 2009

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says he was forced to abandon Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend.

Gates, the billionaire computer geek-turned-philanthropist who was honoured on Saturday by India for his charity work, told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with "10,000 people wanting to be my friends".

Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, said he had trouble figuring out whether he "knew this person, did I not know this person".

"It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up," Gates told the business forum.

Gates was in the Indian capital to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, awarded by the government for his work for the charitable organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation, built by his massive fortune, has committed nearly one billion US dollars to health and development projects in India, targeting especially AIDS and polio.

Gates also confided to the audience that he was "not that big at text messaging" and that "I'm not a 24-hour-a-day tech person".

"I read a lot and some of that reading is not on a computer," he said.

Gates, who sought to drive a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home, said the information technology revolution had been "hugely beneficial" but added: "All these tools of tech waste our time if we're not careful."

Wanted: women to eat chocolate for a year

July 24, 2009 - 7:04AM

Scientists in Britain are looking for women willing to eat chocolate every day for a year - all in the name of medical science.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia and a hospital in Norwich, eastern England are trying to find out whether chocolate can cut the risk of heart disease and need 40 women to step forward and help.

Most of the women will have to eat two bars of "super-strength chocolate specially formulated by Belgian chocolatiers" daily for one year and undergo several tests to measure how healthy their hearts are.

The others will have to eat regular chocolate as a placebo.

One possible catch, for chocolate fans spotting an opportunity: volunteers for the research should be menopausal but aged under 75 and have type two diabetes.

Study coordinator Peter Curtis said: "A successful outcome could be the first step in developing new ways to improve the lives of people at increased risk of heart disease."

How much zzzzzzz do you need?

3 hours' sleep is all he needs

Annabel Crabb

July 18, 2009

THE mystery of Kevin Rudd's impressive work rate has been solved — by his wife, Therese Rein, who reports that the Prime Minister can get by on as little as three hours' sleep a night.

In her first extended interview since the Federal Government's election, Ms Rein — herself a weekly intercity commuter, charity worker, fitness fanatic and global business owner — has described to the The Age how one of the most driven partnerships in politics has adapted to life at the Lodge.

"If he wants to come home and put his tracky daks on and sit in front of the fire and have a chat, that's up to him," she says good-humouredly of her husband.

"I have my own things that I'm doing. I am both continuing to lead the company with the fabulous team of people that I work with, and then I'm doing things like going down to Whittlesea Secondary College, or hosting a UNICEF lunch on women's health. I don't need him to distract me on the ins and outs."

Ms Rein's working schedule involves three days a week spent running her business from Brisbane, with four trips a year to Britain to oversee her company's operations there.

But it is Ms Rein's revelation about her husband's working day that will provoke comment; particularly the news that the Australian Prime Minister's sleep patterns are more Spartan even than those of Napoleon Bonaparte or Margaret Thatcher, both of whom needed only four hours of sleep a night.

Mrs Thatcher trained herself to sleep for only four hours a night, in order to cope with the demands of the British prime ministership.

But Ms Rein says that Mr Rudd has only ever needed short periods of repose — three hours at a minimum — and was like that when she met him at university. "He doesn't need a lot of sleep," she says.

"It's just different."

Re visit the moon walk

Over the moon: marking Armstrong's momentous walk

July 16, 2009

Buzz Aldrin, as photographed by Neil Armstrong.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon.

Forty years later, a variety of American museums, space centres and other institutions are marking the anniversary with events, exhibits, concerts and lectures.

Here are a few details on some of the bigger activities and venues.

NASA also has a link to anniversary events from its website at http://www.nasa.gov/ (look for "Apollo 40th Anniversary" on the lower left side of the home page).

Ames Research Centre, Moffett Federal Airfield, near Sunnyvale, California:

July 19, "Moonfest," noon-6pm, featuring scientific talks, rocket launches, kids' activities, music. Free and open to the public. Details at http://moonfest.arc.nasa.gov/.

Armstrong Air and Space Museum, Wapakoneta, Ohio:

July 16-18, "Summer Moon Festival" (Thursday, 4pm-11pm, Friday, 1pm-midnight, Saturday, 7 am-midnight), including rides, games and entertainment, a giant MoonPie and other activities. Details at http://www.summermoonfestival.com.

July 20, noon-5pm, museum open for 40th anniversary celebration, with $4 admission.

For information about visiting this museum in astronaut Neil Armstrong's hometown at other times, visit http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/nw01.

Johnson Space Centre, Houston:

July 18, 6 pm-9 pm, "Fly Me to the Moon" picnic, games, activities, stargazing and talks, at University of Houston-Clear Lake's Alumni Plaza and Liberty Park. Free, open to the public.

July 20, 4 pm-9 pm, 40th anniversary event at Discovery Green, the downtown Houston park, with NASA's "Driven To Explore" mobile exhibit, which includes a moon rock you can touch. Free, open to the public.

July 24, 6.30pm-10pm, 40th anniversary "Splashdown Celebration," at Space Centre Houston, which is the Johnson Space Centre's official visitors centre; family event with Apollo-era speakers, MoonPies, hot dogs and music, $US11 ($A14) (free for age four and under).

For details on other Johnson Space Centre events, including some that require tickets, visit www.nasa.gov/centres/johnson/events/apollo40.html.

For details on Space Centre Houston exhibits and the NASA Tram Tour, visit www.spacecenter.org/. Regular admission to the Space Centre is $US20 ($A25.50) (ages 4-11, $US16 ($A20.40)).

Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts, Washington:

July 18, 8pm, "Salute to Apollo: The Kennedy Legacy" concert with National Symphony Orchestra, Chaka Kahn, Denyse Graves and others, including Buzz Aldrin as a narrator. Free and open to the public for the first 1,400 guests. Details at http://www.kennedycentre.com.

Kennedy Space Centre, near Cocoa Beach, Florida:

July 16, 11am, Buzz Aldrin and other astronauts will share stories from underneath a Saturn V rocket at the Apollo/Saturn V Centre. To attend, you must arrive at the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex by 10am and purchase regular admission.

July 16, 12.15pm, opening of Apollo Treasures Gallery at the Apollo/Saturn V Centre, showcasing artifacts from the Apollo moon missions including space suits, a space suit repair kit, and a cuff check list on how to deploy a flag on the moon, along with personal items from astronauts such as Alan Shepard's Corvette.

July 16, 3pm-4.30pm, book-signing in Astronaut Encounter Theatre by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, author of Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home From the Moon.

July 20, 2pm, a huge chocolate-and-marshmallow MoonPie will be unveiled for public consumption.

Other activities at the Kennedy Space Centre, where Apollo 11 was launched on July 16, 1969, include the NASA Up Close tour of space program facilities and artifacts. Admission to the visitor complex is $US38 ($A48.50) plus tax for adults, $US28 ($A35.70) plus tax for ages three-11. More details at www.KennedySpaceCentre.com.

Museum of Flight, Seattle:July 11-12 and 18-19, 11.15 am and 1.15 pm, Apollo Program: Splashdown! for families.

July 18-25, 11am and 1pm (July 19, 11am and 2pm), Tip-to-Tail Tours: Apollo Artifacts, tour of Apollo artifacts including Apollo command module and lunar rover.

July 23-25, 10am-5pm, NASA Vision for Space Exploration Mobile Exhibit, offering a simulated space journey with interactive and hands-on activities; Museum Airpark Parking Lot.

To July 31: Exhibit of astronaut John Young's Apollo 10 spacesuit.

To September 12: Exhibit of Apollo 11 artwork by artist Paul Calle, who was hired by NASA to document the space program. Calle and his son will be at the museum for a lecture, August 29, 2pm

For details on these and other exhibits, visit www.museumofflight.org. The museum is open daily; admission $14 ($US7.50 ($A9.60) for ages five-17.

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington:

July 16, 10am, opening of exhibit Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World, paintings by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean. Open to January 13.

July 16, 10am -3pm, Countdown to the Moon family day, with educational activities led by the museum's space history curators and planetary scientists working on current NASA projects.

July 19, 11am-2 pm, book-signings with three astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, author of Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon; Alan Bean, author of Painting Apollo; and Michael Collins, author of the 40th anniversary edition of Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys.

The museum's collection includes the Apollo 11 Command Module in its Milestones of Flight gallery and Buzz Aldrin's space suit in the Apollo to the Moon gallery. Admission to the museum is free. For details on other events at the museum, visit www.nasm.si.edu/events/apollo11/apollo11events.cfm.

US Space and Rocket Centre and Davidson Centre for Space Exploration, Hunstville, Alabama:

July 20: First Footprint Celebration, 1-5 pm, with NASA-sponsored exhibit of space program artifacts. Event is open to the public with space centre admission ($US25 ($A32) or $US19 ($A24.25) for children, free for ages six and under).

Crowds are expected for the July 20 event. The Davidson Centre is open daily, with permanent exhibits including the Saturn V rocket and other space program artifacts. Details at www.spacecamp.com.

AP

Ever wondered how GPS works?

Beginners guide to GPS

Claire Mcentee

July 16, 2009 - 12:01AM

GPS stands for Global Positioning System and refers to a satellite-based navigational system developed by the United States Department of Defence and operated by the US Air Force.

Officially called NAVSTAR GPS, it was made it available for civilian use in the 1990s.

GPS technology has multiple applications but is perhaps best known for its use in car navigation units, such as those sold by TomTom and Navman.

The units use GPS to help drivers navigate unfamiliar roads or find certain locations and can also tell them how fast they're driving and warn of speed cameras ahead.

Most new smartphones have GPS receivers and with the right software can be used to navigate and even find the location of others - with their permission.

Google's Latitude software and Yahoo!'s FireEagle software use GPS to track people's cellphones and display their location on online maps such as Google Maps.

Users need to download the software to a GPS phone and must ask permission before they can view a friend's location.

Star Droid is another GPS software product developed by Google for mobile phones.

Users with GPS phones can point the phone's camera to the night-sky and read the names of the stars and planets captured through its viewfinder. The software uses GPS to identify the location of a person and compares it with maps of space.

How it works

Twenty-four satellites circle the Earth twice a day in precise orbits, transmitting signals that are picked up by GPS receivers - such as those in car navigation units.

The receivers use signals from different satellites to determine how far away the satellites are and then calculate where they are on earth. GPS receivers must lock on to the signal of at least two satellites to pinpoint someone's latitude and longitude, and four or more to determine someone's latitude, longitude and altitude.

Once a GPS unit knows where you are, it can then calculate other factors such as your speed and direction.

In GPS devices, location information is commonly used with mapping software to give directions.

Most GPS receivers are accurate but atmospheric conditions and things such as tall buildings and tunnels can cause inaccuracies or prevent the satellite signal reaching the receiver.

Russia, China and the European Union are launching satellites to create their own satellite navigation systems.

R u a news addict like Webwilly?

You might like to take a look @ crikey

About Crikey

Crikey is Australian for independent journalism.

There are two arms to Crikey: our website and the Crikey Daily Mail, a daily subscription email service.

The website: This is where we  present a selection of Crikey’s original content along with links to stories from all corners of the web. Crikey editors are across thousands of online sources, from the most earnest to the most eclectic. If it’s interesting and newsworthy, chances are it’ll be on crikey.com.au.

Crikey Daily Mail: Around lunchtime every weekday, the Crikey Daily Mail hits the inboxes of thousands of subscribers. This email edition of 25 or more original stories is crammed with news, analysis, insider gossip, reviews and prescient tips about politics, media, business, the law, culture and national and international affairs. All Crikey Daily Mail articles are also posted on this website, but most of them are locked - you’ll need to register for a free trial or sign up for a subscription if you want to read them.

The Crikey mission

Crikey’s aim is very simple: to bring its readers the inside word on what’s really going on in politics, government, media, business, the arts, sport and other aspects of public life in Australia. Crikey reveals how the powerful operate behind the scenes, and it tackles the stories insiders are talking about but other media can’t or won’t cover.

Crikey sees its role as part of the so-called fourth estate that acts as a vital check and balance on the activities of government, the political system and the judiciary. In addition, Crikey believes the performance and activities of business, the media, PR and other important sectors are worthy of public scrutiny.

Crikey is a showcase for information that might otherwise remain suppressed. It’s a place where people can go - anonymously or not - with information they believe is in the public interest. If Crikey publishes such information, its status is identified. Crikey aims for full transparency in what it publishes, but we recognise that unconfirmed reports can often be the starting point for the disclosure of important information. Where published material cannot be 100% confirmed, Crikey aims to ensure its readers know it is unconfirmed or uncorroborated.

Crikey aims to be fair and open in its journalism. It does not seek to be malicious, prurient or invade an individual’s privacy unless the information is relevant to an individual’s public or corporate duties.

In order to achieve its editorial aspirations, Crikey must also operate as a business. Its primary sources of revenue are subscriptions and advertising. Crikey aims to be open and honest in all its commercial activities, and reserves the right to reject any advertising it regards as unethical or in any other way unsuitable.

Most importantly, Crikey is independent and is not part of a media empire.

I do like lots of tech stuff but also love Melways

Is this the end of the road for sat nav?

TomTom's new navigation app for the iPhone.

Louisa Hearn

July 9, 2009

They might have dominated Christmas wish lists for half a decade, but portable satellite navigation devices (PNDs) for the mass market might be about to join the endangered species list.

Smartphones with sophisticated navigation functions are storming the shelves with bigger screens, longer battery life, turn-by-turn voice prompts and consumers are lapping them up.

While sales of PND units are on the wane, the smartphone market has remained on a growth trajectory in spite of the choppy economic climate.

"A key reason for this is that the majority of the Australian market are on two-year contracts and with mobile penetration well over 100 per cent we can't see people abandoning their mobiles," said Mark Novosel, mobile analyst at market researcher IDC.

While he says economic factors might determine which contract a customer chooses, navigation is being increasingly rolled into lower cost phone plans.

"It wasn't really until the Nokia 6110 Navigator came along that GPS in converged mobile devices really took off. The primary driver for the success of the 6110 Navigator was that the maps and voice navigation software were included with the device, with nothing more to pay," he said.

While personal navigation market leaders such as TomTom and Garmin are unlikely to turn their backs on their core PND business in the near future, neither are they ignoring the smartphone revolution.

TomTom recently announced an app for the iPhone that will turn the popular smartphone into a fully featured car navigation device complete with maps, windscreen cradle, and turn-by-turn voice commands when it launches later this year.

Garmin has gone further with plans to release a smartphone in some markets this year. The Garmin Nuvifone has suffered delays amid speculation that it is struggling to compete with the slew of new smartphones on the market, however Garmin remains confident its phone will stand out.

"I think there is a place for an all-in-one phone designed by a manufacturer of a personal navigation device. It will be marketed as the navigation smartphone," said Matthew DeMoss, national sales and marketing manager of Garmin Australasia.

Novosel says that, because professional GPS software from the likes of TomTom could now be downloaded onto smartphones, many devices were able to provide similar functionality to a dedicated PND.

This has resulted in a flurry of innovations designed to keep PNDs ahead of the field, including lane guidance systems, rush-hour traffic and road speed information, text-to-speech capabilities for street names and 3D landmarks.

Kirk Mitchell, director of business development at mapping specialist Navteq said that a few years ago screen size, Bluetooth and MP3 functionality were killer features that people were prepared to pay for.

"Research proves that people are now finding value in creating a safer navigation environment," he says.

To satisfy this demand, the company is in the process of rolling out innovations such as a phonetic device called Navteq Voice to ensure the correct pronunciation of road names, helping to keep eyes on the road, and a feature that assists safe navigation of motorway lanes.

Matthew DeMoss, national sales and marketing manager at Garmin Australasia says the typical navigation application on a mobile is generally inferior to PNDs in terms of ease-of-use, screen size, voice directions and map display as well as having notably fewer features.

"I think that there is always going to be a customer who wants that all-in-one device - but there is also that customer that wants the very best device for that purpose. A lot of devices that have an MP3 player and camera as well as GPS functionality are a jack-of-all trades and master of none."

Novosel said another disadvantage was that many GPS-enabled smartphones still did not come bundled with GPS software of any sort.

"The GPS capability in these devices often remains unused as consumers can be unaware of its existence. In other cases, such as most Nokia devices, Nokia maps are provided to users at no cost. However, in order to activate navigation, including voice prompts, users must pay additional subscription fees."

Emile Baak, managing director at Nokia Australia said the company had sold 10 million GPS integrated smartphones, boasting "a very healthy activation rate".

He cites the convenience of carrying a single device and the opportunity for more "context aware" services that match a user's location with entertainment and service listings as key benefits of smartphone navigation products. But he concedes the platform is, for the time being, limited by size.

"The challenge is that we always have to fit all this technology into a very small package that should not consume too much energy," he said.

Novosel said that, in spite of their limitations, smartphones could take the place of PNDs for those who only need the device occasionally and don't mind smaller screen and keys, leaving PNDs with a niche market for those who do a lot of driving, such as couriers, taxi drivers and truckies.

"For many people, the convenience of an all-in-one device that can easily slip into the pocket is unbeatable, rather than having to hide their PND in the car or carry it with them when leaving their vehicle," he said.

Source: smh.com.au

iPod modder makes a case for going retro

Josh Darrah's wooden iPod case. Photo: Josh Darrah

Asher Moses

July 7, 2009 - 11:59AM

After reigning for years as a symbol of contemporary design, with its minimalist white finish and chrome accents, the iPod is going retro.

For most the iconic music player's white earbuds are a fashion statement enough, but Brisbane graphics designer Josh Darrah has always thought modern stylings were crass compared to old fashioned wood.

So he took matters into his own hands, gutting the electronic innards of his iPod mini, iTrip FM radio accessory and iPod dock and putting them into his own chassis, handmade from Australian red cedar.

The reaction from friends has been so positive that he is now investigating how he could mass produce the wooden casings and sell them online as part of a do-it-yourself kit.

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Photo gallery: The iPod goes retro
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Darrah said he was even researching whether he could create a wooden iPhone, but would first try to master the craft with the regular, simpler iPod range.

"I'm working out how to streamline the process of making it using routers and a bit of program machinery to carve the wood, so I don't have to do them by hand," he said in a phone interview.

Darrah, 29, who works as a graphics designer for the University of Queensland, said the whole process took him about four weekends and cost about $16.

He simply carved out and hollowed front and back plates for the iPod and separately created a thin wooden click wheel, which replaced the original plastic version without issue.

Darrah also carved and shaped brass end plates, and opted for screws instead of glue to hold everything together.

"Some people have thought it's ironic and harking back to the old days but I guess I just like wood," said Darrah.

"It wasn't a big social comment on my part."

Source: smh.com.au

Love real estate try this new one from Google Maps

Google wants a bigger slice of the real-estate search business

An example of a property search in the US version of Google Maps.

Stephen Hutcheon

July 6, 2009 - 8:52PM

In a move that has raised eyebrows among established players in the classified real-estate business, Google Australia has unveiled a new tool on its mapping service that will directly link buyers and renters to available property.

The Google Maps feature, which launched today in Australia and New Zealand, will host free listings supplied by real-estate agents and publishers.

Although many existing publishers and real-estate agents offer map-based searching, the maps on Google's new service will reflect real-time changes in search criteria and location.

The technology behind this enhancement was developed by engineers at Google's Sydney office and is also being rolled out on the company's existing property search service in the United States.

Google's offering is open to all comers, potentially giving renters and buyers a much bigger choice.

But this development is likely to be viewed by existing publishers as a grab for their business at a time when margins are under pressure and paid listings are being affected by the prevailing economic climate.

The service is launching with listings provided by the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia and homehound.com.au, the free property listing service owned by Michael Hannan's Independent Print Media Group.

The two leading Australian online advertising portals are realestate.com.au, which is 60 per cent owned by News Corp, and domain.com.au, which is owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of this website.

John Brand, general manager, key categories, at Fairfax Media said domain.com.au would not at this stage be taking up the Google offer to contribute listings to the new service.

"We are quite confident that we provide a better service than Google is offering," he said in a telephone interview. "We are a specialist property portal and we think this will stand us in good stead going forward."

Google product manager Andrew Foster said the decision to launch the new service was driven in part by research showing that, increasingly, more people were using the internet to search for a home to buy or rent.

"And there's also been a 35 per cent growth in real-estate-related queries on Google in the year to Febraury 2009," he said.

Its all Greek to me

World’s Oldest Christian Bible Goes Digital

Jeff Bertolucci, PC World

Jul 7, 2009 7:28 am

Time is never kind to paper manuscripts, particular those written over 1600 years ago. Some 800 pages remain of the Codex Sinaiticus, a version of the Christian Bible written in the fourth century, and the original text is thought to be nearly twice as long. Historians believe the book may be world's oldest Christian Bible. Studying the original text has proven challenging, however, as sections of the work are scattered in four locations around the globe.

But thanks to today's online publication of the Codex Sinaiticus, scholars can examine the entire book from the comfort of their desks. Curious? You can explore the document yourself. Stephen Bates of The Guardian explains the significance of the online edition:

"...so sophisticated is modern technology that scholars will not only be able to read the document on their screens using a standard light setting, but also separately by a raking illumination that highlights the texture and features of the very parchment on which the 800 surviving pages of text were written."

It's fair to say the online edition of Codex Sinaiticus won't have mainstream appeal. But the project does illustrate the power of the Internet to advance educational pursuits. We'll likely see similar efforts in the future for other historical documents.

• See more like this:
• e-books

How to tie a hijab

An interesting read

The fuss over the burqa is out of kilter

• Irfan Yusuf
• July 6, 2009

IN ABOUT six months, a cross-party French parliamentary committee of 32 MPs will prepare a report examining whether the wearing of the burqa (an outfit, usually black, that covers a woman's full body, including her face) in public represents a threat to French secularism. They'll also determine whether to ban it being worn in France.

The committee was formed after French President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the French Parliament on June 22 and described the burqa as "a problem of liberty and women's dignity" and "not welcome in France".

Sarkozy further claimed that the burqa was not a religious symbol at all, but rather "a sign of subservience and debasement", which created "women prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity".

Of course, even if Sarkozy regarded the burqa as a religious symbol, he might still ban it. In the past, he hasn't been averse to banning the open display of religious symbols in French state schools.

Sarkozy was originally behind the push to proscribe the hijab (headscarf) from state schools, only to subsequently oppose specific legislation, introduced in 2004, which saw the wearing of all religious symbols in state schools prohibited.

Many French, and indeed many Australians, find the various shades of religious head covering adopted by Muslim women somewhat troublesome. Women draped in black represent one of the most potent stereotypes of Islam in the West, one reinforced by media images. When one Sydney Muslim man called for polygamy to be legalised, the Herald Sun website carried a photo of two burqa-clad women crossing the street. The website of its Sydney equivalent regularly carries photos of burqa-clad women in any story even mildly related to Muslims. On August 8, 2007, in a story on an investigation into a refugee housing project run by a main Muslim body, The Daily Telegraph showed the image of the top half of a fully veiled woman's face.

It's unclear exactly what proportion of Muslim women wear any sort of head covering when in public, though anecdotal evidence suggests only a minority do. Among those who cover, the vast majority seem to follow the religious consensus and restrict themselves to merely covering all or part of their hair. This can take the form of a more fixed hijab (as commonly worn in the Arab world and South-East Asia) or a loose shawl draped over the head (common in Iran and South Asia).

The vast majority of Muslims in France are from North Africa where the face veil is rarely worn. This naturally raises the question: with such a tiny minority wearing such a veil, why is Sarkozy using his precious time talking about this issue?

Sarkozy's remarks are reminiscent of former prime minister John Howard's frequent references to alleged non-integration of Muslim Australians. Yet in one radio interview Howard declared 99.9 per cent of Muslims were perfectly integrated. I wondered at the time whether his repeated emphasis on the 0.01 per cent non-integrated was little more than an attempt to create an environment where the 99.9 per cent were made to feel uncomfortable.

No women in my family cover their hair. However, my maternal grandfather, who lectured at the relatively liberal Aligarh Muslim University in India, insisted the women of his household practise a form of traditional aristocratic seclusion known as purdah. Though associated with Indian Islamic culture, purdah was also practised in many upper-class north Indian Hindu and Sikh households.

It was common in those days for wealthy women to go out shopping while seated in a special palanquin (called a dholi). This was basically a large, comfortable, box-like structure with plenty of cushions for aristocratic women to laze on while their male servants (or even male relatives) would carry them. The curtains around the box had a screen through which the women could peek and decide which shop they would visit.

Women's quarters in 1950s Aligarh homes were places where women enjoyed themselves, freed of any domestic duties, their husbands or fathers employing servants to perform all cooking and other chores. Men were expected to lavish gifts on their female relatives (and in-laws) using the household income, which women were usually responsible for managing (I'm sure to their own advantage). Men were also expected to do all the shopping for food and other household needs. Women only shopped to buy clothes, jewellery and other luxury items for themselves.

Of course, the situation for the aristocratic Indian woman in purdah was a far cry from impoverished women living in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Purdah did not stop my mother from completing high school and a bachelor's degree. The idea of banning women from education or work would be anathema to most Muslims, including the one in four of South Asian heritage.

France has the largest Muslim population of any country in Western Europe.

By focusing on a tiny minority of Muslim women, Sarkozy risks alienating the majority of French Muslims, including those who agree with his basic proposition that the burqa is offensive and degrading to women.

Irfan Yusuf is author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-Fascist, published byAllen & Unwin.

Can u remember when?

The Sony Walkman at 30

The first Sony Walkman, the WalkmanTPS-L2.

Daniel Rook

July 1, 2009 - 4:50PM

Thirty years ago Sony launched the Walkman, a gadget which revolutionised the way people around the world listened to music but has since been overtaken by an icon of the digital age - the iPod.

The July 1, 1979 rollout of the portable cassette player helped transform the Japanese company into a global electronics powerhouse.

Sony sold 30,000 Walkmans in the first two months after its launch, and 50 million within a decade.

Three decades on, however, Sony is struggling against rivals such as Apple, which has enjoyed immense success with its iPod music player.

Times have changed since Sony engineer Nobutoshi Kihara sketched out designs for the Walkman by hand.

"Back in my days, we had to draw product designs on paper," Kihara told AFP in an interview in 2006 after his retirement.

"I would close my eyes and imagine our products. I would imagine joggers with Walkmans to see how the hinges should move or how the products fit into the lives of the users."

Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka came up with the idea for the gadget on one of his overseas trips, during which he used to listen to music on existing tape recorders that were too heavy to be considered truly portable.

The initial reaction to the Walkman was poor. Many retailers thought that a cassette player without a recording mechanism had little chance of success.

That changed, and today total sales of the Walkman have reached 385 million around the world, including newer digital models that use flash memory.

Sony says it chose the name "Walkman" partly because of the popularity of Superman at the time and the fact it was based on an existing audio recorder called the "Pressman."

It initially planned to call the machine "Soundabout" in the United States and "Stowaway" in Britain, but changed its mind after hearing that children in Europe were already asking their parents for a "Walkman".

The name stuck, and in 1986 it was included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

For people who have grown up with iPods, Sony's original gadget can leave something to be desired. They include 13-year-old Scott Campbell who was asked by the BBC to swap his Apple gadget for a vintage Walkman for a week.

His friends, he said, "couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box."

It also took him three days "to figure out that there was another side to the tape."

"I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette," he added.

Sony has tried to repackage the Walkman in recent years with new versions, including one that looked like a jelly bean, with some success.

It sold seven million Walkmans in the year to March, up from 5.8 million the previous business year, a company spokeswoman said.

But it has failed to pose a serious challenge to Apple, which sold 100 million iPods in less than six years after its launch in 2001, making it the fastest selling music player in history. Sales have since topped 200 million.

Sony is hoping its new touch-screen X-series Walkman will revive sales of the gadget.

For many observers, the success of the iPod illustrates the way Sony has lost its golden touch in recent years, failing fully to exploit the opportunities of the Internet and the digital age.

As well as losing its lead in portable music players, Sony's PlayStation 3 has been trumped by Nintendo's Wii as the top-selling home video game console.

Sony announced in May its first annual loss in 14 years and warned it would stay in the red this year.

Chief executive Howard Stringer has vowed to meld the company's strength in electronics with its games and movies. He is also slashing 16,000 jobs and axing about 10 percent of Sony's manufacturing plants.