The Windows 8 lineup is more streamlined than Microsoft's Windows 7 offerings, given the four editions--Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise, and Windows 8 RT. The latter is Microsoft's official name for Windows On ARM, which will run on tablet chips manufactured by Qualcomm, Motorola, and Nvidia.

By comparison, Windows 7 was available in six editions, including Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise. "We have worked to make it easier for customers to know what edition will work best for them when they purchase a new Windows PC or upgrade their existing PC," said LeBlanc.

"For many consumers, Windows 8 will be the right choice," LeBlanc wrote. Among other things, Windows 8 will include "an updated Windows Explorer, Task Manager, better multi-monitor support, and the ability to switch languages on the fly," LeBlanc said.

[ Get expert guidance on Microsoft Windows 8. InformationWeek's Windows 8 Super Guide rounds up the key news, analysis, and reviews that you need. ]

By contrast, "Windows 8 Pro is designed to help tech enthusiasts and business/technical professionals obtain a broader set of Windows 8 technologies. It includes all the features in Windows 8 plus features for encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity," said LeBlanc, adding that Windows Media Center will be available as "an economical 'media pack' add-on to Windows 8 Pro."

Windows 8 Enterprise, meanwhile, "includes all the features of Windows 8 Pro plus features for IT organizations that enable PC management and deployment, advanced security, virtualization, new mobility scenarios, and much more," LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc noted that Windows 8 RT will only be available as a preinstalled OS on tablets and other mobile devices. "Windows RT will include touch-optimized desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote," LeBlanc said.

That suggests that Windows 8 ARM tablets may not be available until after the crucial holiday shopping season. A Dutch developer recently posted an internal Microsoft document that appears to show that the new version of Office, Office 15, won't be available until early 2013.

Microsoft has confirmed the document's authenticity, but cautioned that the dates it shows are subject to change.

In terms of upgrades, users of Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium will be eligible to upgrade to Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro. Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate users will only be eligible to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's most radical redesign of its operating system since the introduction of Windows 95. It gives users the option to replace the familiar Explorer desktop with a new Metro interface that 's centered around touch-activated Live Tiles. Microsoft has not revealed pricing details or a ship date for Windows 8, but many observers believe it will be available later this year.

Put an end to insider theft and accidental data disclosure with network and host controls--and don't forget to keep employees on their toes. Also in the new, all-digital Stop Data Leaks issue of Dark Reading: Why security must be everyone's concern, and lessons learned from the Global Payments breach. (Free registration required.)

If your iPhone suddenly stops taking a charge, but everything else keeps working, there may be a fix. I know someone with firsthand experience of just such an issue, and can offer advice that may solve your iPhone's charging problem.

Because I want to ensure that I don't unintentionally void his warranty in print, I'm going to protect the anonymity of the individual at the center of this story, and call him Flex Riedman.

Earlier this week, Flex went out with a buddy of his for dinner at a local restaurant. During the course of the meal, a nearly-empty beer bottle was tipped-a tragedy unto itself-but things immediately got worse: Flex's iPhone was on the table, and it soaked up some light lager.

But Flex's 4S seemed none the worst for wear. He toweled it off with a the portion of his napkin not covered in honey mustard, and continued enjoying his night out with his friend.

On his car ride home, Flex plugged the iPhone into his car's dock connector cable and listened to music on the short trip home. At this point, the spilled beer's contact with his iPhone was less than a faint memory, it was a nothing two-second incident out of a couple hours with good company and well-seasoned steak fries.

Time marched on; bedtime arrived. After checking on his kids using the iPhone as a flashlight, Flex plugged the phone into his bedside charger. The phone didn't start charging.

Flex did what any of us would do: He unplugged the cable and plugged it back in again. Nada.

A speaker dock sits on Flex's nightstand. He unplugged the iPhone and seated in the dock. Music started playing immediately. But still, the phone showed no indication that was plugged in. Not a warning that it couldn't charge, just-nothing.

It was at this point that The Beer Incident came forward in Flex's mind. "Oh drat," Flex thought because this is a family publication. He looked inside his iPhone's dock connector port to see if it showed the telltale red indicator of liquid damage. Mercifully, it didn't.

But Flex saw no other detritus inside the dock connector port that could explain away the issue; no lint or other debris seemed be gumming up the works. He turned off the iPhone 4S and plugged it back in. An iPhone that's charging successfully should power back on in this situation, but Flex's didn't.

He reached into his nightstand and grabbed his old trusty iPhone 4 and plugged it into the speaker dock to charge, figuring that if he needed a phone the next day, he should charge up the one that would allow him to do so. "I'm going to have to go to the Apple Store tomorrow morning," Flex said to his wife as he turned off the light.

Sleep didn't come, though. Flex was too agitated about his iPhone 4S's dire circumstances. Despite his knowledge that the unchargeable iPhone had just 22 percent of its battery life remaining, he powered it on once again. Still no dice.

As a last-ditch attempt at fixing it himself?even, dare I say, a foolhardy attempt, given that he'd already tried turning the phone off and on again-Flex tried a genuine restart: He held down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons until the iPhone powered off and the Apple logo reappeared. And seconds later, he heard that familiar, unmistakable metallic electrical quack, that one that signals an iOS device is charging. And he rejoiced.

And then he went to sleep.

The next day, the iPhone 4S was fully charged, and Flex has seen no charging problems since.

So what can we learn from Flex's experience? Turns out, he's not alone: Googling reveals others have solved their iOS devices' inability to charge with a similar restart maneuver. Whether the beer or the fates were truly to blame is unclear, and certainly merely restarting an iPhone won't cure severe liquid damage. But if your iPhone stops taking a charge, remember Flex and his small tale of personal victory, and hold down those two buttons until the phone restarts.

Flex Riedman is not a Macworld staff writer, but Lex Friedman certainly is, which is how you know they're different people.

A moment from the Arcade Fire performance at Coachella last year, as streamed by YouTube. This year, YouTube will once again stream three channels of live music from the giant festival.

(Credit: Screenshot by CNET)

Get ready to rock.

Starting this afternoon, YouTube will be live-streaming the huge Coachella music festival, and that means you can tune in to watch three days of some of the best names in the music world.

Like last year, YouTube is providing three channels, meaning that at any given time, you can choose from artists playing on three different stages. Altogether, that means you'll be able to see more than 60 acts do their thing, including The Black Keys, Mazzy Star, Madness, Jimmy Cliff, Squeeze, Gotye, and many others.

Last year, I wrote that YouTube's Coachella live coverage--what with its consistent HD-quality stream, low-lag, and unobtrusive advertising--was going to change the world of music. That was because it represented a paradigm shift in how music can be presented live on the Internet, how fans can interact with it, how bands can benefit, and how advertisers can score big kudos. In other words, it was a win-win-win-win. Here's hoping that this year's implementation goes off just as smoothly.

If you look through the list of bands that will be live-streamed, the biggest names of all, Radiohead (Saturday night's headliner) and Dr. Dre & Snoop Dog (Sunday's headliner) are missing. But while I can't promise that you'll be able to see them without an actual Coachella ticket, my advice is to fret not. That's because the live-streaming schedule has one TBA for both Saturday and Sunday nights. And last year, at least one of those TBAs ended up being Kanye West, the Sunday night headliner.

So, get ready for three days of great, nonstop music. If you're at Coachella, the rest of us are a little envious, we'll admit. But then again, we don't need sunscreen, huge amounts of water, or the patience to wait in crazy bathroom lines.

During the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009, which spread across more than 200 countries and killed more than 18,000 people, it became clear that flu diagnosis was often taking too long and resulting in frequent false negatives.

Roughly the size of a standard microscope slide, the chip currently costs $10 and produces results in a few hours.

(Credit: Boston University)

Today, researchers from Boston University, Harvard, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are reporting in the journal PLoS ONE that they have built a microfluidic chip that rivals in accuracy the gold-standard diagnostic test known as RT-PCR but is faster, cheaper, and disposable.

For their four-year study, which involved 146 patients with flu-like symptoms and was funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers essentially miniaturized the RT-PCR test into a chip the size of a standard microscope slide and analyzed two types of nasal specimens as accurately as the lab-scale method.

"We wanted to show that our technique was feasible on real-world samples," Catherine Klapperich, an associate professor who led the study, said in a news release. "Making each chip single-use decreases the possibility of cross-contamination between specimens, and the chip's small size makes it a good candidate for true point-of-care testing."

The chip is made of a top column that extracts RNA from signature proteins associated with the influenza A virus, a middle chamber that then converts the RNA into DNA, and a climate-controlled lower channel that replicates the DNA enough times to be detected by an external reader.

The team found that their chip not only rivals RT-PCR, they say it also outperformed other common flu diagnostic tests, including viral culture (which typically takes days to a week for results), rapid immunoassays (imagine a pregnancy test that is only 40 percent accurate), and DFA (direct fluorescent antigen testing, which is lab-intensive).

"The new test represents a major improvement over viral culture in terms of turn-around time, over rapid immunoassay tests in terms of ... the ability to detect the virus from minimal sample material, and over DFA and RT-PCR in terms of ease of use and portability," Klapperich said.

The team is currently working to further improve its chip so that it costs just $5 and can produce results in an hour.

Many people with the flu don't actually seek out medical care, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the small number who do are tested and often at greater risk of serious complications and even death. A faster, more affordable test with fewer false negatives could help stem outbreaks and ultimately save lives.

(click image for larger view)

Slideshow: Top 20 Government Cloud Service Providers

The government is keeping tight-lipped about exactly what happened to cause the cancellation. Mary Davie, assistant commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service's Office of Information Technology Services, said in a statement only that the Oracle contract "was not in the best interest of the government." A GSA spokeswoman declined to give additional details.

GSA's IT Schedule 70 is the federal government's single largest acquisition vehicle, and focuses exclusively on IT products and services. It's essentially a shopping list that gives federal agencies direct access to acquire products and services from more than 5,000 vendors. Agencies spent $15.7 billion on Schedule 70 in fiscal 2011 alone.

[ Read about Oracle's courtroom battle with Google: Oracle Vs. Google: Tour The Evidence . ]

Due to the cancellation, agencies won't be able to exercise options on existing task orders or place new orders after May 17, and blanket purchase agreements for Oracle services made under Schedule 70 will be terminated. That's a big hit for Oracle, because the government used Schedule 70 as the vehicle for $388 million in fiscal 2011 spending on Oracle products and services.

The services covered under the contract include operations and maintenance, system development, system analysis, design, integration, data conversion, network management, consulting, and assorted miscellaneous IT services--basically, everything that an agency might need.

Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.

This isn't Oracle's first rumble with GSA. In October, the company agreed to pay more than $199.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act that charged the vendor with overcharging feds for software and services. Specifically, the suit had claimed that Oracle was giving some agencies much deeper discounts than it was giving others or making publicly available.

That settlement was GSA's largest-ever False Claims Act settlement, but Oracle in agreeing to the settlement continued to deny any wrongdoing. "The company has always had strong controls in place to insure that the government agencies who purchased from the GSA schedule received fair pricing," an Oracle spokeswoman told InformationWeek at the time. Oracle shareholders have since sued the company for mishandling its settlement of the claim.

In October 2006, Oracle had agreed to pay the government $98.5 million to settle a case in which PeopleSoft--an Oracle acquisition--was alleged to have provided false pricing information to the GSA.

IT's challenge in dealing with social networks comes on two fronts: How to interact with would-be customers on big social networks like Facebook, and how to provide employees on internal networks with collaboration that's as powerful as their Facebook experiences. This virtual event, Social Business: Marshaling Expertise, Engaging Customers, Building Brands, will help IT leaders sort through their strategic choices. It happens April 26.

Booq's Python Sling camera bag. Image source: www.booqbags.comFor photo-heads on the go, a good bag is essential. Photographers need easy access to all their gear, padded compartments to keep lenses and camera bodies safe, and-perhaps most important-the weight of all that gear distributed comfortably. Booq meets all of these standards and then some with its $230 Python Sling camera bag.

The pill-shaped Python Sling has one large compartment that's easily accessed by swinging the bag around from your back to your front. This zipper-opened pocket gives you access to nearly the entire cavernous bag. In this cavernous compartment alone, you can configure the movable dividers to fit at least four lenses, a camera body, and a speedlight. This compartment's flap has two zippered pockets-one on the inside that's ideal for lens-cleaning towels and cables, and one on the outside that has four tiny, elastic pouches for memory cards.

The Python Sling's top compartment, which is easily accessible only when the bag is off your shoulder, can fit another DSLR, a large set of headphones, or maybe a snack. An 11-inch or 13-inch MacBook Air, or an iPad, can slide into the bag's padded laptop compartment, which sits against your back; the opening for this compartment is near the main section's zipper access, making it reachable without having to remove the bag from your shoulder. If that's not enough stuff for you, you can attach tripods or other accessories to the outside of the bag using two adjustable clips.

The Python Sling's single strap is made of seatbelt-like nylon and is thickly padded and adjustable. It has a pocket on the front for an iPhone or remote, and in true seatbelt fashion, you can unbuckle the strap for easy bag removal. Once the bag is off your back, it will stand on its own on a flat surface using its rubber-padded bottom.

Everything about this bag screams protection. The bag material is ballistic nylon treated with a water-repellent coating to keep your gear safe. The compartments within the Python sling are also tougher than the average lens dividers-very rigid with rubber-padded borders to provide additional protection (though one could also argue that the design also just looks cool). And if the water-repellant nylon isn't enough moisture protection, the Sling includes a bright-red, removable rain poncho that fits snuggly around the pack.

The messenger-sling design of the Python is deceptively comfortable, and weighing in at just four pounds when empty, the Python Sling is surprisingly light given all the padding and structure it contains. Still, after loading it up with two cameras, four lenses, and a Macbook Air, things can get pretty heavy. If all of that weight resting on your right shoulder becomes too much to handle, the bag has an optional hip support that extends from a pocket in the bottom of the pack and clips to the shoulder strap. The back of the bag and every place where the strap rests on your body are covered in a half-inch-thick, lightweight foam, so even when it's full of gear the Sling is comfortable. The convenience and easier access of a sling design will make the Python appealing to even backpack-loving symmetry enthusiasts. My only real beef with the design is that, like all slings, it can be worn only on one shoulder-in this case, the right. So if your right side gets fatigued, you're out of luck.

According to Liquidmetal's website, "Liquidmetal alloys combine over twice the strength of titanium with the processing efficiency of plastics. Our scientists have developed the technology where our metal alloys behave similar to plastics." It's an alloy made of zirconium, titanium, nickel, copper, and other materials put through a patented strengthening/bonding process. The company says it has numerous customers and applications include military, medical, sports/performance, and industrial coating. Sounds like some cool stuff.

ETnews believes that Apple will use this material in the shell or casing for the next iPhone. Now, the iPhone 4S (which was supposed to be the iPhone 5) was rumored to have a metallic shell more than a year ago. As we all know, that didn't pan out. I can't say that I place much stock in ETnews' report, but Liquidmetal is legit, and Apple has a license to use the material. Is it possible Apple will ditch the fortified glass of the iPhone 4/4S and use Liquidmetal in its next iPhone? Sure. Moving on.

[ Take a look at Apple's latest gadget. See New iPad Teardown: Inside Apple's Tablet. ]

Everyone's favorite tech rumor site, DigiTimes, says that the cost to make in-cell multi-touch technology has dropped enough to convince Apple it's time to switch from current touch tech to the newer stuff.

What's in-cell multi-touch technology? In-cell multi-touch is built directly into the TFT LCD panel, and is not a separate layer above the LCD panel. This allows devices to be thinner and lighter, and the display itself to be brighter. DigiTimes said that Apple is buying such touch panels from Sharp and Toshiba.

Put these two reports together, and the iPhone 5 is starting to sound downright sexy. So when will we see it? Well, it just so happens that there have been some new reports on the timing of the iPhone 5 this week, too! Aren't we lucky?

The same ETnews report that brought us the liquidmetal information suggests that Apple will announce the iPhone 5 at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. That's earlier that most others have predicted. Though Apple has used WWDC to announce iPhones in the past, it didn't in 2011, and waited until October to introduce the iPhone 4S.

October is when Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes the iPhone 5 will appear. In a note sent to clients Thursday, Munster noted that October is the most probable month for the iPhone 5 to debut due to supply constraints facing chip-maker Qualcomm. Qualcomm is said to be supplying the LTE 4G radio technology in the iPhone 5. Qualcomm earlier this week warned that it is seeing incredibly high demand for its chipsets, and supply will not be able to keep up with demand for a number of months.

Secure Sockets Layer isn't perfect, but there are ways to optimize it. The new Web Encryption That Works supplement from Dark Reading shows four places to start. (Free registration required.)

Lytro's light-field technology is groundbreaking, exciting, and unique. The first Lytro light-field camera is frustratingly limited.

What makes Lytro technology groundbreaking, exciting, and unique is fairly common knowledge by now: With this camera, you can snap a photo and select a focus point after the fact. To choose a focus point, you simply tap parts of the image on the camera's screen, or click different parts of the image after offloading the proprietary .lpf files onto a computer (Lytro's image-management software works only with Macs right now).

To an extent, choosing a focus point isn't even the main draw; the real attraction lies in selecting several focus points sequentially, exploring the entirety of an image, and giving the user something that they can actively infuse with their own creative decisions.

The Lytro device is the only consumer camera that allows you to do so, and that alone is amazing. But that's "all" it does.

For all of that photo-refocusing action, Lytro's first-generation product is more of a Zaireeka moment in the history of photography than a eureka moment. Let me explain.

In the late 1990s, The Flaming Lips released a four-CD concept album called Zaireeka. It wasn't your standard four-disc album; the idea behind Zaireeka was that you'd play all four discs at the same time on four separate CD players, and you'd never hear the same arrangement of the same song twice.

It was a concept album meant to bring an added dimension to listening to music; as you physically changed locations around the room, different elements of each song came to the forefront. Essentially, you could "move around" within a piece of music, and the dynamics of what you were hearing would change accordingly.

Of course, that sort of album isn't very practical. To listen to it properly, you'd need to have four CD players, eight speakers, and enough dexterity (or people) to start each player at the same time. After all that, if you liked the specifics of what you were hearing at the moment, you had no easy way to replicate it by yourself later. And you couldn't listen to the album in its intended form via headphones.

Zaireeka's reviews were all over the map, ranging from zero to a perfect 10. Depending on the review you read, it was a pretentious gimmick, a logistical nightmare, a respectable experiment, or a shining beacon of creativity that pushed the entire music industry forward.

You can find direct correlations between Lytro's technology and that album. Lytro is basically Zaireeka for your eyes. Light-field photography brings a new dimension to a traditional art form, allowing viewers to "move around" inside a still image by selecting their own focus points. The early reviews have been generally favorable--the ability to focus and refocus an image after the fact is undeniably cool--but many of them stop short of saying that you should buy the first-generation camera.

Here's where the Lytro-Zaireeka analogy falls apart: First of all, Lytro is as dead-simple to appreciate as Zaireeka was challenging. In fact, the camera is probably too simple in its current form. Second, it performs its in-camera magic without requiring much operator effort--again, arguably to a fault. Finally, and perhaps most important, Lytro has tremendous mass appeal. I'm betting that you never heard (or heard of) Zaireeka, but going by the number of comments we've received about Lytro, mainstream-media coverage of the first-generation camera, and the honors it received before it started shipping this week, this thing is primed for success.

I'll be the first to admit that criticizing an incredibly innovative first-generation device for the things it doesn't do may seem like bashing a time machine for having the wrong-color interior, but let me assure you: I'm a Monday-morning quarterback with my heart in the right place. We're talking about a product that has the potential to revolutionize digital photography forever, and a few key changes to the device's usability could make that happen. Lytro's light-field camera is standing on the precipice of truly great things, but it's not ready to make that leap in its current form.

I have to note as well that the suggestions you're about to read are based on some very brief hands-on time with the Lytro last year; PCWorld wasn't one of the select few publications that got their hands on a prerelease Lytro unit in the past week. Judging from my hands-on experience and the full reviews I've read, I can say that the camera's aesthetics, usability, and core features haven't changed much since last October.

These six things (plus a couple of bonus features) would make the next version of Lytro's camera a must-buy device.

1. A Much Lower Price (or More Features for the Current Price)

The first-generation Lytro camera costs $500 for a 16GB model and $400 for an 8GB model.

To put things in perspective, the Canon EOS Rebel T3 and Nikon D3000 entry-level DSLRs each cost around $500 as a kit, the Apple iPad 2 starts at $500, and you could buy both a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a 16GB iPhone 4S (with two-year contracts, of course) for the same $500 price. As amazing as the Lytro's core technology is, all of those products are a lot more versatile in their niches of the technology world.

For the current camera's feature set and its target audience of übercasual shooters, the Lytro's price needs to be much more affordable. That said, $400, $500, or even $700 would be a fair price for a Lytro camera with all of the following features.

2. Additional Focus Capabilities

As it stands, Lytro's camera is all about shallow depth of field, thanks to a constant-aperture F2.0 lens. The camera records an image, and when you select a focus point, it artistically blurs out everything in front of or beyond that focal plane.

This wasn't taken with a Lytro, but it could have beenIn other words, you don't have the option of viewing an image where everything is in focus, unless everything in your shot is the same distance from the lens. Even the most basic cameras allow you to keep everything in focus by setting focus to infinity, shooting in landscape mode, or stopping down the aperture. The Lytro product doesn't have any of those options.

Beyond that, additional focus features could widen the gap between Lytro's capabilities and those of every other camera on the market. For instance, how about the ability to select multiple focus points at the same time while viewing an image, simultaneously being able to bring objects in the extreme foreground and background in focus, with everything else blurred out? (The image here is a quick-and-dirty mock-up of the effect I'm talking about.)

3. Usable JPEG Images

In its current form, Lytro's photographic output is built purely for digital interactions. After selecting a focus point in the .lpf file and saving that image as a standard .jpg, you get a 1080-by-1080-pixel image.

That's a square, 1.17-megapixel image--and we live in an age of 41-megapixel cell phone cameras. The Lytro camera doesn't need that kind of megapixel overkill to make its .jpg output more usable as a "flat" image, but something that's at least on a par with the iPhone 4's serviceable 5-megapixel photos would make it a much more versatile, everyday device.

4. A Bigger, Higher-Quality Screen

Lytro's 1.46-inch screenLytro's camera has a 1.46-inch-diagonal touchscreen display. That's small for any type of device. It's absurdly small for a device that forces you to use the touchscreen as a way to navigate and refocus image previews.

It's also not very sharp. The result is a screen that's essentially unusable for anything other than basic shot composition--and that's a shame, because letting your family, kids, and friends view and refocus images on the camera while you're hanging out with them would probably be a lot of fun.

Apparently, the first-gen Lytro camera has a dormant Wi-Fi chip inside, and if the display stays the same size in successive generations, I'm hoping that the chip can help form a peer-to-peer connection to mobile devices for an instant way to share and interact with photos. But at the very least, the Lytro camera needs a bigger, better display.

Of course, a bigger screen would require a dramatic overhaul of the device's tube-like physical design, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. For instance, it would allow a lot more space for...

5. Good Physical Controls

There's a lot to be said for simplicity, and the Lytro's control scheme is certainly simple: The camera sports a shutter button, a touch slider that operates its 8X-optical-zoom lens, and a power button. That's it.

However, the controls are all integrated within the camera's rubberized grip, and the tangible feedback when you're using the controls leaves a lot to be desired. The zoom slider is especially odd; it's a ribbed rubber touch strip on the top of the camera, and operating it is an exercise in approximation.

I get it: Lytro's physical design is a visual representation of the fact that it does things differently than a normal camera. It doesn't necessarily have to mimic the look and feel of a traditional camera, but standard mechanical buttons and levers for the shutter and the zoom controls would be a valuable addition to the next-generation device.

6. Exposure Controls (or at Least Some Effects Modes)

Again, I get it: The reason why Lytro's in-camera options are so simple is because it's designed with very casual users in mind. You just point the thing at an object and press the shutter, and the camera instantly does the rest.

But given Lytro's proprietary file format for "living pictures," and the low-resolution .jpg files it produces, it's not a camera that lends itself to retouching images or adding effects during the post-production process--and that makes it even more important for the photographer to have a bit more control over the shutter, the aperture, and in-camera creative effects.

If you think of Lytro's technology as an image-viewing platform, you can come up with so many creative things that shooters could do with the combination of interactive images and traditional manual controls. I'd love to experiment with a combination of slow shutter and the ability to refocus an image; you could experiment with different focus points on the "trails of light" effects you get when shooting car headlights at night, or bring ghosted images of fast-moving people in and out of focus. Or imagine taking a slow-shutter shot while zooming out on your subject, and then being able to adjust the focus point within that "warp speed" effect.

In my mind, this is where the true potential for Lytro's light-field technology lies: at the intersection of traditional photography skills and interactive refocusing tricks.

Bonus: A 'Living Video' Mode

A few cameras let you use a touchscreen to dynamically refocus as you're recording video--Panasonic's Lumix GH2 is the best one we've used, and even Apple's iPhone 4S does it--but you have only one shot to pull off that rack focus, and if the camera's autofocus system searches in and out as you're doing so, it can completely ruin your shot.

Imagine being able to refocus between foreground and background subjects after the fact, where you could experiment with different focus depths in a video without affecting the source footage. Granted, given that Lytro's still-image files are around 15MB, the file sizes associated with similarly refocusable video are bound to be huge, but it would probably be worth it.

Double Bonus: A Ricoh GXR Module

Lytro's light-field photography is dependent on a specially designed sensor and some hard-core image processing, two components that are usually hard-wired into every camera body, from DSLRs to point-and-shoots to phones. However, the Ricoh GXR system uses interchangeable modules that host a lens, a sensor, and an image processor, meaning that you can swap out the camera's guts along with the optics.

The Ricoh GXR system doesn't have a huge market share right now, but a Lytro-built module that plugs into it and offers a light-field sensor, a custom image processor, and the required lens could help both companies out. At the very least, it could give photographers an opportunity to experiment with light-field photography using a traditional camera interface, with lower risk of being locked in to a camera body that captures images only via the light field.

Casino Company Gambles On Gamification National casino chain Boyd Gaming uses Gigya's gamification platform to keep players hooked on its loyalty program.

National casino chain Boyd Gaming uses Gigya's gamification platform to keep players hooked on its loyalty program.

Casino developer and operator Boyd Gaming Corp. is betting on social gamification to boost its loyalty program and keep players coming back for more.

Boyd has just launched a new version of its B Connected Online loyalty website featuring social gamification components provided by Gigya. Social software developers use the term gamification to refer to game-like elements included in a Web experience that encourage users to compete in systems of ranking and social recognition. The most active users often are recognized with badges that appear next to their profile pictures or placement on a leaderboard.

On Boyd's site, people earn points for booking a room online or sharing a link to an upcoming event at one of its properties. Those points, in turn, win them entries into drawings for giveaways ranging from spa treatments to free slot play.

"What we've done is add a social element into B Connected Online that will reward them for their online, as well as their social activity," said Brian Best, VP of e-commerce at Boyd Gaming. "Booking a room online saves us a substantial amount of money versus them calling into the call center, and B Connected Social will reward them for doing that."

6 Social Sites Sitting On The Cutting Edge

(click image for larger view and for slideshow)

Given the company's expertise in running games that people want to play again and again, "it was a very natural fit to layer social gamification on top of our loyalty program," Best said.

Boyd is a publicly traded owner and operator of 17 gaming entertainment properties located in Nevada, New Jersey, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, and Louisiana. Although other gaming companies might also be including elements of gamification in their websites, "nobody has done that on a national scale like we have," said David Strow, director of corporate communications for Boyd. The company believes it will pay off because there "is a lot of overlap in our core demographic" with the people who play online games such as Farmville, he said.

In addition to awarding points for desirable behaviors, the social gamification program also recognizes status as an important motivator, Strow said, in much the same way that the company's player's card recognizes advancement from ruby card holders to sapphire and, ultimately, emerald. "It's the same concept, really, in the use of this product to give people a way to stand out on the website," he said.

The use of points as entries in drawings for giveaways, rather than as a more straightforward currency for redemption, also makes sense in terms of the psychology of gamification, where variable or unpredictable rewards are often the most powerful motivators.

[ Got personality? See How WWE Wrestling, USA Networks Characters Go Social. ]

Best said the loyalty website already had won multiple awards. In October, B Connected Online won an American Gaming Association award for best website, and its mobile app was named the best mobile marketing tool. However, until now it was more of a straight transactional website for booking stays and looking up reward point totals.

Gigya offers a software-as-a-service suite of social software capabilities including gamification, social sharing, and single sign-on that its customers can embed in their own websites. Other prominent deployments include the social website Pepsi built around the X-Factor TV show and the Comcast SportsNet site for fans of local sports teams.

Best said Boyd didn't take advantage of the single sign-on Gigya offers for authentication through Facebook, Twitter, and other services. For regulatory reasons, it was better to keep tight control over authentication to the website, he said. However, the Gigya gamification and social sharing modules have been implemented broadly--not just on the B Connected site but on those of other hotel casino properties where actions such as social sharing also will be tracked.

The latest update to the website also adds realtime notifications through email, text messaging, and the B Connected mobile app. "We'll be letting you know as soon as a new slot product hits the floor, or, if you like country music, as soon as an act is booked at the Orleans or one of our properties," Best said.

Follow David F. Carr on Twitter @davidfcarr. The BrainYard is @thebyard and facebook.com/thebyard

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Twitter today announced what could lead to a reduction of hostilities in the patent wars threatening to engulf Silicon Valley: a pledge to do no evil.

The pledge, which could become a kind of Hippocratic Oath for tech companies with patents, gives Twitter employees more control over their inventions -- and, most importantly, promises that the patents will only be used for defensive purposes, not to block other companies from innovating.

"One of the great things about Twitter is working with so many talented folks who dream up and build incredible products day in and day out. Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of these inventions," Adam Messinger, vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post. "However, we also think a lot about how those patents may be used in the future; we sometimes worry that they may be used to impede the innovation of others. For that reason, we are publishing a draft of the Innovator's Patent Agreement, which we informally call the 'IPA.'"

Under the IPA, inventors will maintain control over their patents, and Twitter agrees not to use the patents to file offensive lawsuits designed to block technology development at other firms without permission of the inventor.

"This is a significant departure from the current state of affairs in the industry. Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee's work," the post says. "The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others who can also use them however they want. With the IPA, employees can be assured that their patents will be used only as a shield rather than as a weapon."

Twitter is talking with other companies about adopting the IPA, which is published on GitHub, and is asking Twitter users for feedback.

The move is in response to what has become a battle of patents of late. Technology companies are building up massive war chests of intellectual property to better defend their businesses. Earlier this month, for instance, Microsoft spent $1 billion on 800 patents from Web pioneer AOL, a move that trailed Facebook's acquisition of some 750 patents from IBM, which covered "software and networking" technologies. Both of those companies are currently embroiled in lawsuits that center on patents, where the end goal can be keeping a product from being sold, or simply threatening that in the hopes of reaching a profitable settlement.

Such acquisitions come at a price though. For instance, Nortel's patent portfolio, which contained some 6,000 patents related to communication technologies, was bought by a consortium of companies that included Apple, EMC, Microsoft, and Research In Motion, among others in a $4.5 billion deal. It was big enough to warrant an investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, which later noted that those companies committed to license those patents to others, as well as keep from using them against others in disputes.

Meanwhile, a courtroom in San Francisco is hearing opening testimony this week in a case to decide whether Google's Android operating system violates Oracle-owned patents to the Java programming language. And Facebook and Yahoo are embroiled in a patent litigation involving a range of technologies including online ads and customizing views for social users.

The move was praised by some as a reasonable way to stop big software companies from using patents to interfere with technology development at other firms to thwart competition. Software code is already protected from theft by copyright, but patents are being used to block other companies from adding the same features to their products, say patent critics. A former Yahoo employee argues for abolition of software patents and wrote about how Yahoo "weaponized" his technology in a recent Wired article.

"Instead of companies competing with each other on the best product they are suing each other to prevent rivals from competing with products," said David Sacks, chief executive at Yammer. "Patents give the patent holder a monopoly on that type of functionality. You shouldn't be able to steal code, but we don't want to outlaw feature wars...Every patent is like a micro law that says no one else can innovate in this area."

"It's no secret that software patents can cause great harm for inventors, companies, and innovation," said Julie Samuels, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Twitter's IPA gives those companies and inventors a powerful tool to take a system that's broken and make it work for them, which in turn will benefit us all."

But one patent expert criticized Twitter's IPA plans, saying it could leave the company wide open to wholesale intellectual property theft.

"On the face of it, it appears that this agreement, if adopted wholesale, will make their IP nearly impossible to transact, crippling a potentially important underlying value driver of the company," said Erin-Michael Gill, managing director and chief intellectual property officer for MDB Capital. "At the minimum, this agreement gives a small team of developers outsized leverage in potentially leaving Twitter for companies like Facebook, Microsoft and Google to work on exactly the same projects and functionality."

Twitter's announcement comes during the company's quarterly Hack Week, in which employees work on projects that are outside their regular day-to-day work.

Updated 1:07 p.m. PT with reaction from patent experts and 11:57 a.m. with background on patent purchases and lawsuits.

CNET's Declan McCullagh and Josh Lowensohn contributed to this report.