Xbox SmartGlass will accomplish ancestors active apartment added efficient

If an Englishman's home is his castle, the active allowance is his command centre. Over the years it's more been the abode ball companies accept capital to own. To be baron of the active allowance grants admission to the affection of a family, avaricious their absorption and affections.

I was afflicted with Microsoft's Xbox SmartGlass technology at E3. I've aback been cerebration through the added implications of abutting up the anytime accretion amount of screens in my active allowance and been analogously enthused.

If you absent the aboriginal announcement, Xbox SmartGlass is a chargeless appliance that promises to use your buzz and book accessories (of a lot of operating systems and brands) to ascendancy your TV and again augment aback context-sensitive advice about what you are watching to your lap/hands.

Observing my wife and accouchement watch the tennis calm this anniversary fabricated it acutely bright just how abundant plan it is to cull up this array of accompanying advice manually. There was one accurate moment if the kids were allurement how abounding courts there were at Wimbledon as the camera offered an aerial appearance of the grounds.

"Let's calculation them shall we?" my wife said, extensive for the iPad. However by the time she had Googled, clicked and navigated to a map of Wimbledon, the on-screen advantage had confused on and so had the kids.

"What's the account in the Murray match, Mum?" my babe asked. "Just a sec, I'll attending it up." Aback to the iPad, this time to the official Wimbledon website to acquisition an cyberbanking account board. Valiantly angry with the iOS blow keyboard on her lap she begin the appropriate hotlink and pulled up the score.

A few abnormal afore she could duke the book to the kids, the TV advantage had switched aback to the Murray bold and they no best bare the score.

"Who will he play next if he wins?" was the next appeal from my son, at which point I am handed the iPad to see if I can do any better. My acknowledgment was to grab a printed Wimbledon blueprint we'd had through the door. "There you go, you can attending it up on here," I said, casual it to the kids.

"Oh Dad, can't you acquisition a clickable one online?"

Apart from my children's bearded abhorrence to printed materials, those 5 account were both backbreaking and aggravating because we had to drive the technology by hand. However we eventually end up accomplishing this -- and SmartGlass seems as acceptable a band-aid as any -- we charge to accomplish this acquaintance easier and faster. All the advice is there on these abstracted devices, they just charge to allocution to anniversary added in an able way.

Whoever cracks this aboriginal will assuredly get addition bottom in active allowance doors beyond the country. If SmartGlass can bear its cross-platform, free, cloud-ready promises in a appropriate appearance it looks like a foreground runner. The catechism is how affable added belvedere holders like Apple will be if it comes to accepting the app accustomed for release.

Perhaps the alone Achilles heel actuality is the actuality you charge to own an Xbox to admission SmartGlass functionality. It makes me admiration whether we'll anon see an Xbox TV. If we do, you heard it actuality first.

Google Internet glasses on the way

Google glasses that bury the Internet on circadian lives should hit the bazaar aural two years - technology the tech behemothic hopes will anytime accomplish averseness with smartphones obsolete.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin offered the estimated timeline afterwards a activity amend that included sky defined bottomward in with a new adaptation of "Glass" wearable computers.

"I'm so animated that worked," Brin quipped afterwards sky defined cutting the glasses streamed reside video during their jump from an aeroplane to the roof of the San Francisco assemblage center. "I wasn't absolutely assured it to."

The sky defined handed off a amalgamation to cyclists, who performed stunts as they rode to the bend of the Moscone Centermost area they handed it off to a man who rappelled down the alfresco of the architecture to the third floor.

Another cyclist aerated the burden the final breadth of its cruise to a date area Brin and added Google admiral were blame off the California-based company's anniversary developers conference.

Brin opened the amalgamation to appearance an "Explorer" copy of the glasses that developers could buy for US$1,500 (S$1,883) to become the aboriginal humans alfresco the aggregation to appearance the advocate eyewear afore it gets to market.

Explorer copy glasses should address aboriginal next year, and a adaptation should be accessible for the customer bazaar aural a year afterwards that, Brin said.

"Google Glass Explorer copy will be asperous about the edges; you accept to be into getting on the bleeding edge," Brin said of the accomplishment to body a association of developers amorous about demography allotment in the project.

"This is absolutely new technology and we absolutely wish all of you to advice appearance it."

The eyewear appearance congenital camera, microphone and apostle technology and can synch to the Internet application wireless connections.

As with the sky divers, cyclists, and wall-walkers who took allotment in the keynote stunt, video through the eyes of wearers can be streamed reside on Google's amusing network.

Mini-screens in the glasses can affectation argument messages, email or added digitized advice from the Internet or adaptable gadgets.

"It was affectionate of a absurd abstraction that somehow became real," Brin said while discussing Glass afterwards the keynote presentation.

"The angle that you could jump out of an air address with it and still acquaint your acquaintance makes captivation a smartphone or laptop assume appealing abuse awkward," he continued. "It's about you getting beneath of a bondservant to your device; it has been absolutely liberating."

Brin said that he wears a ancestor brace of Google glasses abundant of the time as he and added associates of the aggregation he active at the company's X Lab clarify the technology.

Google has been speaking with eyeglass anatomy companies about account for a customer adaptation of the glasses, which he accepted would amount "significantly" beneath than the Explorer prototypes.

"I apprehend that in three or four years watching humans authority a adaptable buzz in their easily and attending down at it will alpha to be abnormal and that this will be normal," Google artefact administrator Steve Lee said, pointing to his Glass eyewear.

The Glass aggregation focused on common adaptable Internet tasks such as messaging and administration pictures and not on capabilities such as abacus facial or article recognition, according to Brin.

"We absolutely experimented with things like facial recognition; it is what a lot of humans anticipate about if you allocution about a wearable computer," Brin said. "But it is not the a lot of compelling," he continued. "We accept not been absolutely as aflame about it as science fiction movies ability be."

The Glass aggregation aswell ample that the accessories wouldn't be primary accoutrement for surfing the Internet or account agenda books.

"But, if you wish to see a argument bulletin or bolt a quick picture, these things are absolutely simple and hands-free," Brin said.

Glass aggregation arch Babak Parviz said that forth with communicating, the eyewear was crafted to acquisition advice so fast that you anticipation you already knew it.

"It allows you to airing city Paris and accept added humans acquaintance this with you live," Parviz said.

"But even admitting we accept this amusing camera assuming the apple through your eyes, the quick admission to advice is aswell a analytical thing."

Meet the makers at association workshops

Riley Harrison holds up his admired bow. "It's got red oak on the abdomen and hickory on the aback and the handle is layered of walnut and red oak," he said, almost aural over the bullwork -- saws agreeable wood, hammers bouncing off anvils, drills acute through metal sheets.

The bow Harrison holds is one he shaped with his own hands. The hours of plan it took, however, to bend, bland and coat the copse were not spent in his barn or basement, but at the Hack Factory, a association branch in Minneapolis' Seward neighborhood.

The Hack Factory is what's accepted as a "maker space." Operated by Twin Cities (TC) Maker, the Hack Factory is a community-shared workspace that offers a affluence of accoutrement and accouterment for associates like Harrison to yield their do-it-yourself urges to the extreme.

TC Maker is one of two such operations in the busline area. The Mill, in northeast Minneapolis, opened aboriginal this year.

The two organizations are allotment of a beyond maker movement, a ample appellation that refers to individuals from assorted artistic and abstruse interests who are affiliated by their clamorous admiration to actualize -- anything.

"There is this drive a part of makers to consistently be affectionate of creating something," said Brian Boyle, admiral of the Mill, "making something better, tweaking it for their use. Whether it's a bit of computer code. Whether it's a footstool."

The movement is growing nationwide. The aboriginal Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif., area humans from about the country besiege to apprentice techniques and advertise their work, had an appearance of 22,000 in 2006. By 2011, appearance had accomplished about 100,000, according to Accomplish Magazine, the annual advertisement that puts on the event.

People who accomplish things accept consistently been around, according to Michael Freiert, development coordinator for TC Maker. What's new is the conception of spaces area these agrarian minds are set free.

TC Maker started in January 2009 as a website about developing a maker amplitude aural the Twin Cites. As the site's acceptance grew, acceptance anon angry to reality. TC Maker eventually accumulated armament with the agreeing Hack Factory, which was searching to defended branch space. The two groups active a charter calm in December 2009, chief to alarm the association TC Maker and the amplitude the Hack Factory. Doors clearly opened in January 2010.

Membership has been growing steadily back then. TC Maker began with about 20 members, bound acceleration aural the aboriginal six months. The nonprofit alignment currently has about 120 members.

The Mill is Boyle's brainchild. It opened in February as a for-profit operation alms associates an admission for affairs their wares.

Despite accepting altered budgetary structures, both organizations allegation associates a account fee in barter for admission to all the accoutrement they are certified to cautiously operate.

It's agnate to a gym membership. "Except instead of egg-shaped machines, we accept table saws," Freiert said.

Both shops action classes on safe use of specific tools, such as a laser cutter chic or a 3-D printer class. And both accept a all-inclusive arrangement of accoutrement for woodworking, machining, welding, electronics, robotics, sewing, covering working, mosaics, sculpture, plastics basic and aggregate in between.

Andy Coffman, 26, came to the Hack Factory a brace of weeks ago afterwards acceptable chargeless armor-making lessons. He is now cerebration of acceptable a member.

"To accept a bureaucracy like this on your own would yield bags of dollars," Coffman said. "Let abandoned the amplitude bare to in fact do it. Here you get not alone a accomplished arrangement of altered accoutrement and machines, but aswell humans who apperceive all the altered techniques."

Boyle visualizes a approaching area this array of aggregate admission is the norm. "It's my acceptance that a abode like the Mill will be array of the basement of communities," he said. "It will be looked to agnate to a library, area it's a association ability that humans can access."

Peak Cemetery cleanup

Before we abide with some added history of the Peak family, be reminded the Peak Cemetery is getting bankrupt up by association volunteers led by Councilman Dave Mosby and Larry Gipson -- Scarboro resident, affiliate of Scarboro Adjacency Watch Group, accomplished affiliate of the Oak Ridge Bombers baseball aggregation and acceptable acquaintance of abundance -- forth with associates of the Aggregation Investment group.

Won't you appear and advice apple-pie up this cemetery? It is amid at the bend of Wilberforce Avenue and Fisk Avenue in the Scarboro neighborhood. Larry capital me to accord you his buzz amount so you could let him apperceive if you were planning to advice on Saturday, starting at 8 a.m.

The plan is to get the cleanup done afore it gets so hot up in the day. There is abounding adumbration in the cemetery.

If you accept any questions, alarm Larry. He will be animated to advice you accept what you can do to help. Even if you don't accept tools, just acrimonious up the sticks and added things will be a big help.

Larry has been a absolute advice to me in researching belief for Historically Speaking. He is the primary being who helped me acquaintance individuals who, forth with him, played on the Oak Ridge Bombers baseball team. He aswell agreed to be interviewed for a documentary we were authoritative about Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Biology Division. That activity was delayed because of the East Tennessee PBS miniseries "A Nuclear Family."

Now that we accept completed that project, the "Our Hidden Past" alternation will aces up the additional in the three-part alternation on the history of the ORNL Biology Division, amid at the Y-12 site. Liane Russell and Nat Revis aswell helped with the history, as able-bodied as others who formed there. Look for that alternation to be completed soon.

When I alleged Larry about the Peak Cemetery, he was quick to acquaint me about a new accumulation he was appreciative of, the Aggregation Investment group. He said they were agog about the Scarboro adjacency and fatigued the charge for teaming calm to advance our neighborhoods. This accumulation readily abutting in the accomplishment to apple-pie this celebrated cemetery.

Remember, it ability be the final comatose abode of two Revolutionary War soldiers and two Civil War soldiers. It would be absolutely acceptable if we could admit that with a actual marker. It would aswell be acceptable to actualize a plan for the advancing aliment of the site. Next, there should be added analysis on the area of the bondservant cemetery that ability be there.

Hooters-style restaurants experiencing a mini-boom

The waitresses at Twin Peaks abrasion deficient checkerboard acme that accentuate their chests. In case you didn't bolt the joke, the chain's logo is an angel of two pointy, snow-capped mountains. And the sports bar doesn't stop there: It promises "scenic views."

Twin Peaks buyer Randy DeWitt downplays all of that and insists that the address of the restaurant goes above the obvious. Hearty commons and a focus on authoritative barter feel special, he says, are what absolutely keeps them advancing back.

"We accept in agriculture the ego afore agriculture the stomach," he says. Or as the website of the abundance lodge-themed restaurant states, "Twin Peaks is about you, 'cause you're the man!"

Twin Peaks is allotment of a booming alcove in the abandoned restaurant industry accepted as "breastaurants," or sports confined that affection almost clad waitresses. These baby chains accomplish in the attitude of Hooters, which pioneered the abstraction in the 1980s but has struggled in contempo years to break fresh.

Instead of relying on animalism alone, the new crop of restaurants is growing by alms new capacity (think: rustic lodges and Celtic pubs) and assorted airheaded (think: pot buzz and shepherd's pie instead of just burgers and wings). In added words, they're acquisitive maybe humans absolutely are advancing in for the food.

The nation's top three "breastaurant" chains abaft Hooters anniversary had sales advance of 30 percent or added endure year, according to Technomic, a aliment industry analysis firm. They still represent beneath than 1 percent of the nation's top restaurants, but the cipher chains are benefitting as added mid-priced options like Applebee's and Bennigan's accept accomplished declines during the bread-and-butter downturn.

"The adolescent crowds wish to go to a newer place, not area mom and dad took them," says Darren Tristano, an analyst at Technomic.

Tovan Adams says he frequents Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery in Tempe, Ariz., area waitresses abrasion analogous checkerboard mini-skirts and bras that fit in with the restaurant's Celtic theme. He even brings his daughters, ages 6 and 9, with him for lunch.

"If you appear in the evening, you'll see a lot of kids here," says Adams, an electric architect who brand the menu's variety. "Everyone's still got their clothes on. If you go to the beach, it's a lot worse than getting here."

Lynette Marmolejo, a academy admissions worker, alone in at the Tilted Kilt for the aboriginal time recently. She brand that the restaurant is bedeviled by the "corporate crowd" rather than the "college crowd." And she says the half-dressed waitresses don't bother her.

"Prices and the food—if those are good, I don't affliction what anybody's wearing," Marmolejo says.

Tilted Kilt, which serves dishes such as shepherd's pie and "Irish nachos" (potato chips instead of blah tortillas), had anniversary sales of $124 actor endure year, absorption advance of 33 percent, according to Technomic. And by the end of this year, the aggregation expects to accept 95 locations, up from 57 at the end of endure year.

That advance is one acumen Tilted Kilt CEO Rod Lynch, bristles at the "breastaurant" moniker. He says the chat implies that the company's success is based absolutely on sex appeal. To the contrary, he says his customers—about three-quarters of whom are men and of the boilerplate age of 36—consistently say the acquaintance is about far more.

Tilted Kilt doesn't go so far to alarm itself a ancestors restaurant. But Lynch understands the risks of bridge a assertive line.

"We wish to be actual PG-13," he says. Its "class in all things" adage aswell agency servers can't accept tattoos, piercings or absolute hair.

Rose Dimov, a 22-year-old waitress at Tilted Kilt, says her job is no altered from any added waitressing gig; accomplish guests feel appropriate and ensure they accept a acceptable time. As an ambitious amphitheater dancer, she aswell says she's not ashamed by the absolute accouterments that comes with the job.

"Going to a restaurant should be an experience," Dimov says. "We're entertainers."

Although the name ability advance otherwise, the buyer of Mugs N Jugs in Clearwater, Fla., says his abode aswell is like any accustomed restaurant with entertainment. Sam Ahmad says his bold room, basin table and karaoke are why 40 percent of his barter are families.

University of California confronts mounting bills

The cost of pensions and retiree health benefits are soaring at the University of California, increasing pressure to raise tuition and cut academic programs at one of the nation’s leading public college systems.

The 10-campus system is confronting mounting bills for employee retirement benefits even as it grapples with unprecedented cuts in state funding that have led to sharp tuition hikes, staff reductions and angry student protests.

The UC system, including medical centers and national laboratories, is scrambling to shore up its pension fund as it prepares for a wave of retirements and tackles a roughly $10 billion unfunded liability.

The UC Retirement Plan’s huge deficit was created by investment losses during the global economic crisis — and the nearly two decades when campuses, employees and the state did not contribute any money toward pensions.

“The regents made a serious error and the Legislature made a serious error by not putting money aside for 19 years while accumulating this obligation,” said Robert Anderson, a UC Berkeley economist who chairs the system’s Academic Senate. “Now we have to pay for it.”

The UC system faces spiraling pension costs for 56,000 current retirees and another 116,000 employees nearing retirement.

As of May, there were 2,129 UC retirees drawing annual pensions of more than $100,000, 57 with pensions exceeding $200,000 and three with pensions greater than $300,000, according to data obtained by The Associated Press through a state Public Records Act request.

The number of UC retirees collecting six-figure pensions has increased by 30 percent over the past two years, according to Californians for Fiscal Responsibility, an advocacy group that has analyzed UC pension data.

Topping the list is Marcus Marvin, a retired professor of dentistry and public health at UCLA, who receives an annual pension of $337,000.

If UC President Mark Yudof, 67, serves for seven years, he would receive an annual pension of $350,000 — in addition to regular benefits he accrues through the UC Retirement Plan, according to university documents.

The university caps employee pensions at the IRS limit of $250,000, but that ceiling does not apply to the “supplemental retirement benefits” promised to Yudof.

In the coming year, the university is expected to contribute about $240 million to its retirement fund from a roughly $6 billion core operating budget. That amount is expected to more than double to about $500 million annually by 2015-16, according to UC officials.

The university also faces skyrocketing costs for its retiree health care benefits.

The unfunded liability for its retiree health program was $14.6 billion in July 2011. UC is expected to spend $270 million on retiree health care this year, and that amount is expected to rise significantly over the next several years, according to UC documents.

While UC seeks to pay its retirement bills, the system is wrestling with the loss of $750 million in state funding this past year. And it could lose another $250 million in the coming academic year if voters reject Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative in November.

United shows off new downtown operations center

On the 27th floor of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), about 20 miles southeast of O’Hare International Airport, 1,300 United Airlines workers handle 5,600 flights a day.

The network operations center combined the two former operations centers, in Elk Grove Village and Houston, and brought together employees — 35 to 40 percent from Continental.

On Monday, United gave a tour of the center, which became fully operational May 31.

Employees are identified not by name, but by job function, which is listed on placards at their desks. Detailed flight information is displayed in real time on 58 screens. Here, employees oversee flight planning, weather forecasting, crew scheduling, maintenance control and coordination with Air Traffic Control.

The airline occupies 12 floors of Willis Tower, and it has offices at its global headquarters at 77 W. Wacker.

A year ago, Continental Holdings Jeff Smisek and Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the company would move 1,300 employees to downtown, bringing the total to 4,000. The company employs about 14,500 people in the Chicago area.

Craig Podzielinski, who works as an air traffic controller at the center, said he loves the new location, “the people, the technology and the free coffee.”

The new center provides “a more stress-free environment” for workers who on a given day might be handling flight complications from a typhoon heading toward Japan, a thunderstorm in Houston and tornadoes in the Midwest, said Joseph Vickers, a managing director of the network operations center.

Peter McDonald, vice president and chief operations officer for United Continental Holdings, said the new floor has made communications more efficient among employees, who previously had to coordinate back and forth from Houston to Elk Grove.

“It’s all about safety and serving our customers better,” McDonald said.

Back in March, it was unclear whether customers were feeling better served.

United Continental Holdings became the world’s largest air carrier when United merged with Houston-based Continental. The merger has faced its share of complications, including computer glitches early on that resulted in flyer upgrade issues, problems with frequent flyer accounts and customers who had difficulty reaching reservations agents. Problems occurred after United combined two of its computer systems.

“The vast majority of the those issues have been resolved,” said spokeswoman Megan McCarthy.

While the company unveiled its new center, United pilots picketed outside Willis Tower. The company has been busy negotiating amended contracts for pilots for more than two years since the merger.

Kevin Simecek, spokesperson for the United chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association, said that while the company pulled out all the stops to create its new control facility, “they’ve not addressed the human issue” of pilots working without an amended contract or a joint collective bargaining agreement.

Earn spare cash with these 5 apps

Ever have to assemble IKEA furniture? It can be an incredibly frustrating time suck. But for someone with power tools who knows his way around fiberboard furnishings, putting together bookcases and beds can be a way to earn extra spending cash. San Francisco-based startup TaskRabbit is a marketplace for folks with little time and never-ending to-do lists and runners willing to help out for a price. The income earned ranges from task to task, but the average chore comes to about $45. Assignments run the gamut from grocery delivery to crafting a love letter to win back an ex-girlfriend. An iOS app lets users post, browse and manage tasks on the go.

Fun fact: Though the company has a rabbit as a mascot, it's actually a dog who helped sow the seeds of TaskRabbit. Founder and CEO Leah Busque was heading to dinner one evening when she realized there wasn't food for Kobe, her 100-pound yellow lab. Wouldn't it be great if she could pay someone to pick up a bag of Pedigree? No such service existed then; Busque decided to change that.

Face it, you have plenty of stuff doing nothing but gathering dust, so why not sell it? There'a an app for that, and it doesn't involve Craigslist or eBay. Yardsale connects neighbors looking to buy, sell or give away their belongings — all from their iPhones. The app lets people list and browse items, notifying both parties when there are responses. When sellers have offers, they have the option to accept them as is or haggle for better deals. Most transactions are done in cash or with the mobile payments reader Square.

Like traditional yard sales that served to bring together neighbors, the iOS app is also focused on connecting communities. Many buyers and sellers who use the app live within blocks away from each other, one of the company's co-founder tells me. The startup has a thriving community in the San Francisco Bay Area but is looking to expand to other cities soon.

Foursquare introduced the world to the idea of checking in. Back then, people only checked into venues, such as bars and restaurants. But now the concept has taken off to the point where folks are checking into TV shows, books and even groceries. Yes, groceries — which you can do with CheckPoints, an app for iOS and Android devices.

Why would you want to check into that bottle of Coca-Cola? It might sound silly, but by scanning the barcodes on various products with their phones, users can accumulate points that can be redeemed for gadgets, gift cards, airline miles and other goodies. In essence, the app serves like a rewards program that extends beyond just one store. There are many opportunities to earn additional points, including location check ins, user referrals, playing games and purchasing featured products. If you're heading to the store anyway, why not?

Similar to CheckPoints, EasyShift is an app that rewards shoppers when they're at the store. With it, iPhone users can double as mystery shoppers when running errands.

EasyShift doles out $3 to $8 for completed shifts. The app asks consumers to check promotional pricing, take photos of particular items, answer inventory questions and more. Once users claim dibs on a shift, they have three days to complete it.

Where does the money come from? EasyShift provides consumer brands with real-time retail intelligence, and companies, such as Nestle Dreyer's, pony up for these analytics. Next time you're at the store, fire up the app. It could pay for that carton of milk.

Unusual glimpse of Mexico corruption

There it was on video: Five heavily armed policemen barge into a hotel in western Mexico before dawn and march out with three handcuffed men in underwear.

But police weren't making an arrest. Prosecutors say they apparently were taking orders from criminals. Just hours after the three were seized, they were found asphyxiated and beaten to death.

Mexicans have become inured to lurid tales of police collaboration with narcotics gangs during 5 1/2 years of a drug war that has cost more than 47,500 lives. But seldom can they actually see it occur, and the video broadcast on national television was a shocker.

"One assumes that in some cities ... the municipal police work for the drug cartels," said Jorge Chabat an expert on security and drug trafficking at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching. "But what is different here is that there is a video. It's not the same thing to imagine that this going on, and to see it."

While the kidnapping and murder occurred in January, and the faces of several officers were clearly seen on the videos, the officers were not detained until June 6, when soldiers and state police raided a local police station. And they still have not been formally charged with any crime.

"It took time to obtain the video tapes, to do the investigation, and to get the arrest warrants," said Jalisco state prosecutor's spokesman Lino Gonzalez said Thursday. "We didn't have the information."

Police are investigating whether the gunmen who order the police throughout the tape belong to the New Generation cartel based in western Jalisco state where the kidnapping occurred. The gang is aligned with powerful fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The delayed arrests came less than three weeks before national elections in which security and corruption are major issues. The municipality, Lagos de Moreno, is run by Mayor Jose Brizuela, a politician for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, who is running for state office in the July 1 national elections. The PRI looks poised to regain the presidency in a race where all parties are trading accusations of corruption and collusion with organized crime.

Brizuela couldn't be reached for comment Monday. The rival National Action Party, which has touted previous cases of local PRI government officials accused of corruption, had no immediate comment, said Guillermo Quiroga, spokesman for the PAN state party in Jalisco state.

Local police corruption is rampant in local governments across political parties. Thousands of Mexico's 460,000 officers, including entire forces at times, have been fired, detained or placed under investigation for allegedly aiding drug gangs. President Felipe Calderon's plan to vet them has moved slowly, with only 8 percent passing background checks and tests as of the end of 2011.

Web performance optimization and why It matters

Given two competitive sites that are identical in practically every other way, the faster site will be more successful. Site speed is associated, in the mind of the end user, with a site’s reliability, credibility, security, and stability. Because faster web sites provide a better user experience, they typically result in higher conversion rates, average order values, and site stickiness. In fact, according to the web site performance measurement firm Gomez, the average online visitor expects pages to load in two seconds or less -- and after three short seconds, as many as 40 percent of visitors will abandon your site. So what can you do to accelerate your site performance?

Web Performance Optimization (WPO) is a relatively new discipline focused on improving the web user experience by making pages load faster. This is done through a variety of front-end optimization techniques that make it easier for web browsers, as well as networks that deliver traffic, to load and render web page content. These techniques include front-end optimization techniques such as minification, concatenation, subdomain sharding, and content compression (collectively referred to as Front End Optimization or “FEO”); cache optimization such as expires-time extension, and network optimization utilizing real-time network measurements to determine fastest paths from any end-user location, for example.

Perhaps the most common mistake that companies make when working to optimize site performance is to assume that there is a “one size fits all” solution. This is rarely is the case, since designing and delivering different performance optimizations to different browsers, operating systems, geographies, devices, and visitor types is very difficult to do manually. Unless, of course, you have an automated WPO solution that allows you to target and test different performance optimization techniques in real-time in an otherwise non-intrusive way. The non-intrusive part is important because it relieves your site developers and IT staff from having to spend a lot of time making code changes.

This kind of WPO solution allows site operators to test and target the delivery of performance optimization techniques to different site visitors based on their geography, device, browser, or relationship with your online business. What’s more, these solutions help you understand the impact of performance on the user experience — as well as marketing and financial goals — of the entire blend of optimizations that are being tested. In other words, measuring not only speed but also specific KPIs (key performance indicators) that are important to your online business, including bounce rate, conversion rate, average order value, abandonment, and compound metrics that look at multiple behaviors both within and across multiple visits.

Windows or MacOS on your tablet

Yesterday, I went to my desktop to launch a few processes on my server, pulled up a document in Word to edit, and then mailed it off—all while I was parked in my car waiting for my kid to get out of school. I managed to do it from a remote desktop session running on my iPhone, courtesy of the iOS version of Wyse's PocketCloud, a set of iOS and Android apps and cloud services that make PC and Mac desktops accessible over a 3G or WiFi connection.

Wyse, which recently was acquired by Dell, is best known for its thin-client systems. [Full disclosure: I once worked for a Wyse value-added reseller, back when Wyse made PCs and Unix terminals; I try not to hold that past against them.] Dell is positioning Wyse as its "cloud client" unit in its bid to get more end-to-end virtualization business. And it's likely that PocketCloud—and the enterprise version Wyse has been working on—had something to do with that.

PocketCloud is not perfect. There are many things about it that show just how much of a work in progress it is. But warts and all, it's the easiest way I've seen to give individuals or small businesses the kind of virtual desktop infrastructure that big enterprises have. PocketCloud is clearly a proof of concept for something much bigger.

Packaged as a mix-and-match set of free and paid mobile apps for Apple iOS and Android, free client software, and free and premium cloud services, you can get started with PocketCloud casually at no cost. The Pro version of the PocketCloud Remote Desktop app allows you to add additional computers to your account—making it an intriguing tool for anyone who does small office desktop support or needs access to multiple consoles.

PocketCloud Remote Desktop uses well-established protocols for its remote desktop sessions—the Virtual Networking Protocol for MacOS clients and Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol for Windows. PocketCloud auto-discovers the settings for connecting to its own clients, but you can also manually configure connections to RDP, VNC, and VMware View-based virtual desktop infrastructure—making it a potential solution for mid-size organizations and enterprises who want to do something a little bit more structured for the "bring your own device" crowd than having them connect back to a desktop.

I tested PocketCloud using an HP desktop and an Apple MacBook Air as my "servers," using the PocketCloud companion software to provide the connections. From the mobile side, I used an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4S, both over WiFi and 3G service. I had the limited-functionality, free version of the service up and running in less than five minutes, but ended up upgrading to the Pro version of PocketCloud Remote Desktop so that I could access multiple PCs. PocketCloud also offers a Web-based client, currently in beta.

There's also a $5-a-month premium cloud service that adds file browsing and transfer within the Pro client, and allows the free PocketCloud Explorer to access more than one PC; premium also allows larger file transfers, turns on video streaming over 3G and 4G from your PC, and enables a desktop search tool. There's also a Web front-end to the file service—a sort of personally hosted DropBox—that is currently in beta testing. And all these services tie to a single ID: your Google account.

A fun robotic toy that has to yet to hit its stride

At this year's E3, we were introduced to a clever new iPhone and Android peripheral called the Sphero. Developed by Orbotix, Sphero is a robotic ball that can be controlled by using apps on your iPhone, iPad or Android device, and can also be used as a new kind of controller.

We had a chance to spend an extended period of time with Sphero after the Electronic Entertainment Expo had come and gone, and while the device is mostly impressive, we're not sure it's a must-have for even the most hardcore of iPhone or Android enthusiasts. In terms of its technical specs, the baseball-sized Sphero comes equipped with color-changing LED lights, a gyroscope, accelerometer, polymer batteries that can be recharged inductively via the included charge cradle, and Bluetooth functionality throughout. All of this comes in a $130 package that's now available to purchase online or in select Brookstone locations.

Sphero is a deceptively heavy device, that comes with a subtle (but constant) audible tick even when it isn't moving, and any movement of the sphere causes the internal components to automatically rotate to an upright position. During our demo at E3, we were told that the Sphero is waterproof (it apparently floats), and that even a shotgun blast wasn't enough to ruin the internal workings (only the outer casing was damaged). Still, the plastic feels rather cheap, as though the slightest of pressure will crack the material (to be fair, it's survived everything we've thrown at it so far). Additionally, there's a tiny gap in between the two pieces of plastic that comprise the outer casing that allows for dirt or debris to become lodged within if you're not using Sphero on an absolutely clean surface.

While the Sphero itself is an incredibly intelligent device, it's nothing without apps, which is where a selection of introductory applications comes in, each introducing you to a different ability within this tiny robotic ball.

The Sphero application is a hub of information concerning the Sphero as an overall product, allowing you to access firmware updates, discover new apps that are compatible with the device as they are released, and even set up your Sphero for the first time out of the box. The uses for the basic Sphero app are incredibly limited, with other apps serving more specific purposes in terms of controlling your new toy.

The Sphero Drive app allows you to play with the Sphero as you would a remote controlled car. You'll orient the Sphero by placing two fingers on the screen and rotating them until the Sphero's lone blue dot faces your location, and can then use the included control options to "drive" the Sphero around any flat surface. There are boost buttons on either side of the actual control pad, allowing you to increase the speed of the Sphero for a few seconds (which can help it clear some small obstacles, like areas in your home where hardwood might meet carpet, as an example), and this setup works well for either right or left-handed users. It can be a bit difficult to control Sphero from a single location, as losing sight of the device makes it incredibly difficult to retrieve unless you physically walk over to the Sphero and pick it up. In this way, you'll need to be just as mobile as Sphero is, and of course, the larger the open area, the more fun you can ultimately have with this particular app.

Erlanger unsure of 911 merger plan

Though county officials hope soon to have a single emergency dispatch system for the whole county, it’s not clear when, or even if, Erlanger – which dispatches police, fire and EMS for half of Kenton County – will join.

As Kenton County prepares to take over Covington’s 911 emergency dispatch system this fall, Erlanger officials want more information on dozens of operational and technical issues. They aren’t convinced that joining a consolidated dispatch center would be an improvement over the service that city now provides for a dozen cities.

Steve Castor, director of the Erlanger Public Safety Communications Center, compared the city’s concerns to that of someone buying a car: “If I was buying a car, I would want to get the features of Car A and Car B and look at the prices and see how they compare before I make a decision,” he said.

Kenton County Judge-executive Steve Arlinghaus is frustrated with all of the questions, though, and feels that the county has provided plenty of answers.

Two months ago, Erlanger officials sent Kenton County’s judge-executive a letter with about 30 questions involving operational and technical issues related to a consolidated dispatch center.

Erlanger officials also have questioned Kenton County’s timetable for consolidating its dispatch operations with Covington’s, and Erlanger’s mayor is exploring a different funding option than the three that Kenton County is asking stakeholders to vote on in an online survey.

“If Erlanger chooses not to participate, we’re not going to force them,” Arlinghaus said. “Either you want to be part of a single system, or you don’t.”

Erlanger’s mayor said that Erlanger, which he characterized as “the big dog” because it dispatches for half of the county, simply wants a consolidated center to be “the best it can possibly be” for public safety.

“(Erlanger’s dispatch) center is a known commodity with ascertainable costs that’s providing what I consider to be cutting edge, state-of-the-art service,” Rouse said. “The county’s building a dispatch system from scratch with all of these unknowns.”

Erlanger operates one of three 911 emergency dispatch centers in Kenton County, with the others operated by Covington and Kenton County. Besides the unincorporated area, the county’s center serves Independence, Taylor Mill, Ryland Heights, Fairview and Kenton Vale.

Three studies in the past decade have recommended that all of Kenton County’s dispatch operations be consolidated to improve public safety, save money and provide a more efficient operation. In recent years, governments in Boone and Campbell counties consolidated their dispatch operations.

Steve Hensley, Kenton County’s director of Homeland Security/Emergency Management, said Kenton officials have talked with experts in Boone and Campbell counties about their operations and insight.

In early April, Covington City Commission voted to shut down that city’s emergency dispatch operation. The city officials targeted a date of Sept. 1 for getting out of the business.

Arlinghaus said he believes the county can take over Covington’s operations this fall. He has asked leaders of cities served by Erlanger’s dispatch center to let county officials know by mid-August if they want to join a countywide system, overseen by a board with representation from cities. The county needs to know who wants to be part of the entity so that a sustainable funding mechanism can be enacted to take effect next January.

AARP/Microsoft Launch Personal Health Record

AARP placed its bet on Tuesday, joining forces with Microsoft to launch AARP Health Record, an online service that offers members the chance to enter, store, and edit their personal health information. The organization hopes its members will use the service to share the information with caregivers, family members, doctors, and other healthcare providers.

Microsoft's HealthVault, a cloud-based platform that enables individuals to compile and store personal health information from multiple sources in a single location, powers the AARP Health Record. The AARP also allows members to create additional profiles for their spouse, children, aging parents, or anyone whose health they need to monitor or help manage.

AARP members using the HealthVault platform can select among hundreds of connected health and wellness applications to monitor chronic conditions and share data with their doctors, or track wellness or fitness goals, according to Nolan.

AARP members can also import prescription history from a HealthVault-connected pharmacy--like CVS Caremark or Walgreens--into their AARP Health Record, or enter prescriptions manually. Additionally, HealthVault is connected to two national laboratories: Labcorp and Quest. Patients can easily link their HealthVault records to these systems and automatically receive results that will be available in their AARP Health Record.

But despite its advanced features and user-friendly tools, the AARP Health Record faces an uphill battle in a marketplace that has seen lackluster adoption of PHRs.

"My first reaction is ho-hum. It's mildly interesting, but only just. It's not because HealthVault isn't a good product, because I think it is, but this approach is just not going to move the needle on the use of PHRs in any significant way," Nancy Fabozzi, an analyst at Frost and Sullivan, told InformationWeek Healthcare.

Fabozzi said her company's research shows that there are many barriers to getting consumers to use PHRs. She also said many of the measures that might get AARP members to adopt the technology are not outlined in AARP Health Records' press release.

"The process has to be absolutely simple and seamless, ideally with data being populated from the provider and/or payer in addition to the end user (or trusted affiliate) entering in information. ... I know that HealthVault has the capability to auto populate data, but I didn't see anything in the announcement that conveyed that feature as part of this AARP deal," Fabozzi explained.

She also said that while she understands why AARP wants to offer a PHR to their members, the organization's efforts won't be significant unless they do something new and innovative.

"Just offering access to the PHR as a free add-on to membership is not enough. Similar efforts have failed, quite frankly," Fabozzi said. "To really make a program like this take off, the sponsors--AARP or anyone else--need to incorporate more proactive approaches to reach out and drive engagement through some kind of rewards program, as well as hands-on, low-tech approaches that help seniors understand the value of the tool and how to use it to improve their lives."

Nolan noted that Microsoft is working with companies like ZweenaHealth and UNIVAL, who will assist in converting paper records into electronic information saved in HealthVault. He also observed that patients' ability to obtain their clinical information depends on how far along health providers are in adopting health information technology.

"It is certainly true that many providers have not yet fully implemented connectivity for their patients. This is rapidly changing, thanks to Meaningful Use and other basically unstoppable trends in the industry such as accountable care," Nolan said.

Slow adoption of technology among many older Americans will also impede adoption of the AAPR tool. For example, a recent study from Linkage, during which researchers interviewed 1,789 seniors between the ages of 65 and 100, revealed that only 33% have Internet access. Only 3% said they own a smart phone, 3% said they own a tablet, and 8% said they have a laptop.

However, the designers of AARP Health Record say they've taken this factor into consideration. "Boomer women, who may be more likely to be familiar with today's technology, are the backbone of the family caregiving network," Allyson Funk, a spokesperson for AARP, told InformationWeek Healthcare. "While a 78-year old patient may not be the user of AARP Health Record, his or her caregiver daughter may certainly see the convenience in and the benefits of using the tool to manage Mom or Dad's health information."

Design ideas stretch from floor to ceiling

Choosing tile for your home once meant picking from a handful of pastel ceramic squares. Would it be dusty pink or dusty blue? If you were feeling bold, maybe mint green or pale yellow?

Today, we're surrounded — some might say overwhelmed — by choices.

Porcelain tile is now made to look like everything from aged wood and rough fieldstones to sleek Italian marble. Tiles made of glass, cork, mirror and even leather are taking the place of traditional ceramics. In all shapes and sizes, they are being used not just in kitchens and baths, but also in entryways, mudrooms and more.

High style can be had for an increasingly reasonable cost, with mass-market retailers offering trendy glass tile for as little as a few dollars per square foot.

Amid all these possibilities, the biggest challenge is to choose something you will love for a decade or longer.

"There's so much decorative tile out there now," says Matthew Quinn, principal of Design Galleria Kitchen and Bath Studio in Atlanta. But "some of it," he says, "you can just tell in three or four years this is not something you're going to want to see every day."

Unlike paint and wallpaper, tile isn't something easily and affordably changed every few years.

Here, Quinn and interior designers Brian Patrick Flynn and Mallory Mathison share ideas on embracing tile's new possibilities while still creating a timeless effect.

All three designers are fans of using tile all the way up to the ceiling, rather than the old approach of doing partial tile walls with a snub-nosed edge.

"It makes the entire room more cohesive, and it can also give the illusion that a space is larger than it actually is," says Flynn. "One of the easiest ways to shrink a room visually is by chopping it up; many times, for me, tile used in just one area quickly chops up a space."

Flynn has done kitchen walls in floor-to-ceiling tile, and Mathison recommends tiling a single wall from top to bottom in an entryway for a striking effect.

"You think of tile more in utilitarian applications," she says, "but it can be a beautiful accent." A full wall of tortoiseshell mosaic tile, she says, feels "almost like your whole wall is covered in jewelry."

Clients sometimes assume full walls of tile will make a project expensive, says Quinn. But the cost depends on your choice of tile: "You can find a fabulous white crackled subway tile for less than $3 a square foot," he says. "For about $1,000, you can cover every wall of a bathroom, floor to ceiling, and it's extremely durable."

Flynn loves using tiles made of "unexpected materials, such as leather, cork and wood. Leather tiles can be used on walls and ceilings, but in lower-traffic areas. Cork is a dream because it helps soundproof a space, plus it offers a really warm, organic texture instead of the sleek ceramic surfaces we're used to seeing."

"Wooden tiles are rather pricey," Flynn says, but Quinn points out that manufacturers such as Porcelanosa now offer porcelain tiles that look strikingly like real wood. They are durable, resistant to moisture and need no maintenance.

Mirrored tiles are another option, and Mathison promises they don't have to evoke the 1970s. She uses large mirrored tiles mounted only with mastic, not grout, with no visible lines between them. Many glass and mirror stores will cut them in custom sizes for you, she says.

Nursing Programs See Real Life Results from Real Life Clinical Reasoning Scenarios

As the time nursing faculty have to supervise students in hands-on procedures continues to decline, many nursing students are not fully developing clinical reasoning skills. As a result, students and faculty believe that nursing students are not adequately prepared for their first job.

“Nursing programs and educators have limited resources and time to provide valuable, hands-on clinical experience to each student,” said Sheryl Sommer, director of nursing education and curriculum at ATI Nursing Education. “Online, interactive simulation brings the real-life nursing experience and clinical scenario training to the student regardless of location.”

To help nurse educators address the gap of providing students with meaningful clinical situations, ATI Nursing Education, the leading provider of online nurse education programs, created Real Life Clinical Reasoning Scenarios. Real Life allows students to build clinical decision making skills by being exposed to clinical situations without requiring time in a physical, clinic setting. Approximately 90 nursing programs are currently using Real Life, ranging from two-year PN programs to four-year RN programs. Real Life can add value to any nursing program, maximizing both class and clinical periods for students.

“Nursing students today are mobile citizens, using computers, apps and phones for data retrieval and analysis, allowing them to find the most current information. Real Life Clinical Reasoning Scenarios fit in beautifully with their need for just-in-time learning,” said Beth Phillips, MSN, RN, CNE, an assistant professor at the Duke University School of Nursing. “The scenarios present realistic patient situations with multiple choices for students to select. I can see the students’ line of thinking based on their decisions, responses, and reactions. Equally important, the students can see where they may have gotten off track, but only after they have worked through the entire case. Real Life prepares them to be critical thinkers and utilize clinical reasoning when they care for real patients.”

Real Life Clinical Reasoning Scenarios are developed by a team of nurse educators and practicing nurses. Students can access the electronic medical record of the patient as they progress through the scenario. Educators have the ability to turn on or off, a feature that highlights the optimal decision path. This allows students to work through a scenario with each “optimal choice” highlighted to facilitate remediation.

“Real Life allows our students the opportunity to see how their decisions have impact on patient care outcomes. Additionally, as the simulation progresses the program responds to their decisions leading to evaluation of their critical thinking processes when caring for patients,” said Lisa Young, Simulation Center Director, Ashland University. “Our team has also found it very easy to use for both faculty and students. It provides faculty greater flexibility and the student more independence to practice clinical reasoning skills.”

Real Life also offers reporting to assist nurse educators in curriculum planning. Reporting-per-student features reasoning scenario performance with date/time stamp, performance related to reasoning scenario outcomes, and decision log with optimal decisions highlighted. The group reports provide students’ composite scores, individual time use and scores, and group performance related to reasoning scenario outcomes. In addition to student growth, this reporting information can be an accreditation documentation resource.

“Contextual” Contact Notifications Must Be Unified

If you think about communication contacts with people, you must also consider their role as “recipients” of a contact, whether the contact is a real-time connection attempt, an asynchronous message from another person, or from an automated business process application. Until now, business communications has been heavily focused on the contact initiators, because that is where communication activity originates. This is true whether it be a person making a phone call, sending a message, etc., or, increasingly, an automated business application sending information or a message to an end user. In either case, we have been primarily trying to make contact initiation more efficient by dynamically providing contextual contact information and determining what mode of contact might be best for the recipient in order to minimize and simplify the efforts of the contact initiator. I discussed this perspective of what I called “Contextual Contacts” in a white paper I wrote for Microsoft when they were starting to get into UC at the desktop.

With legacy desktop phone systems, this involved guessing about the physical accessibility and location of the recipient, whether at an office extension, a home number, or another location. With increased use of cell phones, the next concern was recipient “availability” to insure a call attempt would be successful and not result in “voicemail jail.” That’s where IM and “presence” information have started to become useful as a prelude to a real-time voice or video conversation, where IM availability could start with chat but then escalate to a voice connection. But, as more forms of messaging information become exploited, including social networking, it is now becoming obvious that selective “notification” management must be more unified for recipients to optimize their accessibility and time. I guess this would fall under the label of UC-U, which benefits end user productivity.

I recently signed up to use a “spam blocker” feature on my email service, which filters out “known” spam and also screens out “suspected” email because they originate from contacts not currently in my address list. “Suspects” are notified that their message has not been delivered because they are “unknown,” and invites them to send a response message identifying themselves to the recipient. The “spam blocker’ notifies me whenever there are “suspect” messages (that I can review and also sends any responses from the message originators clarifying the purpose of the message. I then have options to accept the suspect message and add the address to my list.

Aside from the screening information that will be needed by recipients, the mode of real-time notification must also be an option that is dynamically controlled by the recipient and dependent on their environment and end point device they have available. This where mobile multimodal endpoint devices can provide the basis for flexible recipient control of contact notifications, whether it is a phone call, an IM request, or any form of asynchronous messaging.

With UC-enabled smartphones and tablets, I expect that the old “voicemail” may not be the only alternative to a failed direct voice connection. A good example of this type of flexibility is the increasing use of “voice messaging-to-text” for callers to leave a voice message that can then be optionally retrieved in text or voice by the recipient. However, just as one can “escalate” a contact from email to chat to a voice or video connection, a voice call attempt could also be shifted to chat or some other form of messaging by the recipient. With the increased use of “presence” information as a precursor to any  call attempt, the “caller’ might easily end up with a messaging action when the recipient is not available to talk.

Retirement ain’t what it used to be

TO ANYONE who owns a car, renewing an auto insurance policy is just another of life’s mundane little chores. But in 2012, it nicely illustrates one of the most pressing challenges facing Canada’s aging society.

At a certain age — one that the latest census figures show an increasing number of Canadians are reaching as the leading edge of the baby boom hits 65 — the insurance company is required to ask a pointed question: “Do you use your car for work, or are you retired?”

These days, the answer might not be so simple.

Perhaps you’ve moved on from your nine-to-five job, but run a consulting business out of your home. Or you drive to a location downtown twice a week to do part-time work for your previous employer, where they still value your decades of experience and expertise.

As far as the insurance company is concerned, it probably won’t matter: you can’t be retired and not retired at the same time. You have to be one or the other in order for them to determine the insurance rates on your vehicle.

We need to start to rethink — what if someone is half-retired? If I’m retired only half the time, and the other half of the time I’m not retired, then there ought to be a way to build that into my insurance premiums for my automobile.

Pension benefits provide another decidedly more important example.

Let’s say I work ‘half-time,’ working every morning, and I go home at 1 o’clock and every afternoon I’m off. In the mornings, I want to continue to accrue pension benefits — and am willing to pay taxes — and in the afternoon I want to be paid my pension. The same day, I both contribute and withdraw.

In the coming years, a lot of people are going to be “semi-retired,” like working three days a week for 60 per cent of their salary. We need to redefine pension systems and economic systems so we can better accommodate the needs of Canada’s aging society.

The number of seniors in Canada — nearly five million in 2011 — increased 14.1 per cent since 2006, the latest census data released Tuesday indicate. They accounted for 14.8 per cent of the Canadian population last year, up from 13.7 per cent five years earlier.

And of those who are part of Canada’s “working-age” population of 15 to 64, some 42.4 per cent are aged 45 or older, the vast majority of them baby boomers.

The traditional retirement age of 65, established in Germany in 1916, was the product of an era when life expectancy was significantly lower, so it wasn’t too threatening — not many people got there, and so it wasn’t such a big deal.

But life expectancy rose consistently throughout the 20th century, initially as society successfully managed to navigate challenges such as high rates of infant mortality and mothers dying during childbirth. Meanwhile, over the course of the last 30 or 40 years, improvements in health care and education have allowed older people to live longer as well.

Indeed, a report in May from the Canadian Institutes for Health Information found that far fewer Canadians are dying before the age of 75 than they were 30 years ago. In 1979, 373 out of every 100,000 Canadian deaths could have been averted or prevented through timely care or disease prevention, the report found. By 2008, the number had dropped to 185 per 100,000 people.

Canada has the third lowest rate of avoidable deaths among G7 countries, behind Japan and France, the report said.

It cited public policy changes such as drinking and driving and seat belt laws, advances in medical science in areas such as cardiovascular disease, and societal attitudes towards alcohol, tobacco, healthy eating and regular exercise as reasons why Canadians are living longer.

Life expectancy in the post-war period has gone up by about two years every decade — a plodding, gradual improvement which, like most demographic challenges, arrived slowly but inevitably, never announcing itself with any urgency. And because it’s generally much easier to go with old policies than introduce new policies — particularly politically, because they can be destabilizing — this has gradually crept up on us.

So we’re now at the stage where life expectancy is 81 and retirement age is still 65 — or in some countries, 67. The gap between life expectancy and the retirement age has just grown enormously — which is great, if you can afford it. We’ve got more and more years now of healthy retirement, and we’ve got to count that as a success in our society, not a problem.

As a result, with the first baby boomers now turning 65, we’ve got a whole 20 years of the boomer generation poised to make some major decisions in their mid-60s. What are they likely to do?

At the individual level, if you’re healthy, you keep working; if you’re not healthy, you want to retire. But if you’re healthy — and more and more people are healthy at 65 now, again a measure of success of our economic and health care system — you’re probably going to want to keep working, but not full time.

Many of them are becoming grandparents, or hope to become grandparents, and so spending a little more time with their grandkids is a high priority. Many have been through the stresses of management or responsibility in their offices, and they’re ready to get rid of some of that stress now. Some want to travel. So a lot of people are gradually heading to the stage where they’d like to keep working because they’re healthy, but not full time for personal reasons.

It’s an ideal way to create room in the workforce for younger Canadians as well. If someone goes on half-salary at 60 for half-time, the payroll savings could be used to cover the full salary of a 22- or 23-year-old. They’re far from interchangeable — the skill set of a 23-year-old is vastly different from that of a 60-year-old — but they complement each other nicely in terms of enthusiasm, technological awareness, experience and institutional knowledge.

We’re at the stage now where we should be thinking of people gradually easing into retirement. At the other end, it makes a lot more sense to gradually ease into the workforce, too. That’s what apprenticeships used to do — they allowed a person to be in school and simultaneously learn something about how their schoolwork can apply in the real world. And it doesn’t just have to be a manufacturing job — any white-collar profession can lend itself to apprenticeships as well.

At the other end of the work life, to have the opportunity to ease into retirement — so someone isn’t retired or not retired, they’re just semi-retired and in the process of retiring — makes a lot more sense.

But we must be realistic: an aging society does have some limitations, and we need those limitations to be recognized and adjusted for, and — if they involve a little less productivity — a little less compensation.

Case in point: somebody’s much more likely to have arthritis in their 60s than they are even in their 40s. And arthritis can have all sorts of implications about your productivity on the job, particularly if it involves any lifting. If you’re working in a nursing home and you have to lift someone for a bath, for instance: you may be very, very good at the caring aspects of working in a nursing home, but if you’ve got arthritis, it’s going to be very difficult to lift someone for a bath.