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After all the rumours of the iPhone 5, some, it seems, have been left upset by the release of the iPhone 4S.

But those who are disappointed really shouldn’t be. While the model looks remarkably similar to its predecessor, there are some significant changes.

image source: apple.com

According to Apple’s official website, the phone’s iOS 5 operating system has over 200 new features which make the iPhone “even more powerful, innovative and fun to use”. A few of the new features include an updated photo touch-up system and the 8MP camera which films 1080p HD video.

But the thing that will set tongues wagging (quite literally) the most is ‘Siri’ which allows users to ask the phone questions by voice and receive answers.

The iPhone 4S is available in black or white in 16GB, 32GB or 64GB models.

by Steve Sibbald

VOCABULARY

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Take cover! The titans of the Web are about to clash. Facebook is now facing its biggest threat to date, with Google going full steam ahead at them with their new weapon of mass destruction, Google+.

Google doesn’t have a good history when it comes to social networking with both Google Wave and Google Buzz failing to catch on. The company, however quickly learns on its past mistakes and just by looking at Google+ one can notice that the they must have invested a lot of time and money in making their latest venture a potential Facebook killer. With Goggle’s enormous advertising potential and hip attitude, many people I know have followed the new trend and set this graphic as their Facebook profile picture:

The media hype around the fight seems to be getting louder by the day and many fan projects deepen the animosity between the two Internet giants even more. For example, my favourite Like vs. Plus website.

In terms of fan migration, it is hard to say what exactly makes people abandon their Facebook accounts. What’s obvious is the snowball-like effect it will cause. Migrating users will drag their friends with them and businesses will peg along. Of course, businesses which have already moved will start attracting their competitors (one has to stay innovative, after all)  closing the vicious circle and increasing the momentum of the whole process.

At this point, there is one thing I can say for certain: for a social networking website, migration trend is a matter of life and death. Facebook is bound to do anything in their power to prevent their users from switching to Google+. The reason why the two can’t co-exist is simply that using two separate social networking websites with the same core functionalities would simply be impractical, form an everyday user’s perspective.

With the same basic principles behind „liking” and „+1ing”, „groups” and „circles”, and „posting on the wall” and „sharing in circles”, there’s little battleground space left for Facebook and Google+. This can only mean that all those small things and small prints will matter more than ever.

image source: benchmark.pl

One good example of this is both parties’ terms and conditions and privacy policies.

User data is the new Internet gold. People feed their private information into Facebook for free, generally unaware that their „likes” and „interests” from their profile pages are used by advertisers for targeting their campaigns.

According to wired.com, one of the Facebook’s clearest weaknesses are its 6000-word-long privacy practices, which have come under attack many times for being confusing, ever-mutating and self-serving. Facebook’s privacy controls remain difficult to navigate, despite efforts at simplification. For instance: Try to find the button to turn off having your “Likes” included in ads.

So what’s different about Google+’s privacy policy?

For one, it’s much shorter — just a sentence or two past 1,000 words. That, however, can be a little deceiving because Facebook’s policy covers all of its services, while Google+’s version has links to its other privacy policies, including ones for Google generally and the +1 button specifically (source: wired.com).

This, however, leaves a lot of room for misunderstandings and misinterpretation. Google has long emphasised that it won’t use their users’ search history to create targeted ads, but with such lax T&Cs, it’s hard to believe we have more than their word for that. After all, it’s your private data including your hobbies, interests and search history they are after. Just have a quick look at the 2009 breakdown of Facebook’s estimated revenue:

• $125 million from brand ads
• $150 million from Facebook’s ad deal with Microsoft
• $75 million from virtual goods
• $200 million from self-service ads.

(Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-down-facebooks-revenues-2009-7#ixzz1TgZ6TZdM)

BZ

VOCABULARY:

1. clash – [ENG] a violent confrontation – [PL] starcie
2. threat – [ENG] sb/sth likely to cause danger – [PL] zagrożenie
3. go full steam ahead – [ENG] to go forward with full power – [PL] iść całą naprzód
4. catch on – [ENG] – gain popularity – [PL] przyjąć się
5. animosity – [ENG] – strong hostility – [PL] konflikt, animozja
6. abandon – [ENG] leave, desert – [PL] opuścić
7. drag – [ENG] pull along – [PL] ciągnąć
8. vicious circle – [ENG] never-ending, self-intensifying process – [PL] błędne koło
9. battleground – [ENG] a piece of land where a war was/can be fought – [PL] pole bitwy
10. lax – [ENG] loose, not clear – [PL] luźne, niejasne

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Dear Readers,

I was asked by BEM team to submit a guest post and, to be honest with you, I had no idea what to write about. So I made myself a cup of coffee, sat in front of my computer, put on my ‚Ugly Betty’ glasses to look and feel more intelligent and then… I knew exactly what I wanted to share with you.

I have been working for a low-cost airline (one of the biggest no-frills carriers in Europe) for almost 4 years now and I have learned so many lessons from it I cannot ever recall all of them. Still, what is the most important experience coming from it and the one I will remember until the end of my days is to read and understand company’s Terms and Conditions (T&C).

Be honest with yourself: how many times have you skipped the T&C part when installing Winamp on your computer or buying anything from an online shop? I am no better, I used to do this almost every time without even a moment of hesitation. But it all ended for me when I took a new job and was forced to go through a pile of thousands complaints from passengers every day. At first I was surprised that they were all arguing about what was clearly stated in company’s T&C, like e.g. the requirement for their hand baggage to be no larger than 56 x 45 x 25 cm or the airline being non-refundable and applying charges for transferring the flight or making a name change (of course, there are some exceptions, which I will not mention today due to space limitations). However, in course of my work I realized they were all making attempts to be reimbursed for the additional charges or seeking compensation for personal damages simply because they were not familiar with company’s T&C. What was more surprising is that during the booking process they are asked to read, understand and agree with the T&C and confirm they did so by ticking a little box and pressing ‘continue’. Why would they not do this, taking into consideration they were signing a contract with a company and giving this company their money for a certain service?

We may have the impression that the T&C part of company’s website/software installing process has one hundred pages and was written in a foreign language. Actually, for most of us, it is a foreign language with all the legal terms and clauses. But, if you spend some of our precious time and go through the policy, you will not waste if not your money, then definitely time and nerves for unnecessary disputes and claims. You will not, like the passengers I mentioned earlier, call the premium rate line and argue with a poor Customer Service Representative about the charges you originally agreed to incur (but did not know about this because you did not go through the policy); you will not be surprised when your mobile phone operator informs you that the exorbitant amount visible on your phone bill is actually correct as the promotional rates you were originally offered were in force for the first six months of the agreement only.

Now, when you have the experience with various companies’ T&C, you can choose your future business partners, mobile operators, airlines, online shops, banks, etc with caution, but also certainty. You will know which airline offers the most generous weight allowance for hold luggage, which online shop allows you to return a faulty item at no cost and for a unlimited time or which bank will help arrange a mortgage and offer the lowest interest rate.

KD

VOCABULARY:

1. no-frills – [EN]  includes only basic features and is not of the highest possible quality – [PL] podstawowy serwis, bez dodatków

2. to learn a lesson – [EN] to gain experience or information that one can learn from and use – [PL] dostać nauczkę, zdobyć doświadczenie

3. Terms and Conditions – [EN] rules of contract, agreement; policy – [PL] regulamin, warunki umowy

4. to take a new job – [EN] to start working for a new company, on a different post – [PL] rozpocząć nową pracę

5. hand baggage / hold luggage – [EN] baggage one take’s onboard / luggage that is checked-in (e.g. suitcase) – [PL] bagaż podręczny / bagaż odprawiony (np. Walizka)

6. non-refundable – [EN] amount of money cannot be paid back – [PL] bezzwrotny (w przypadku opłaty za coś)

7. in course of – [EN] a period of time or process during which something happens– [PL] z biegiem czasu

8. to reimburse – [EN] to pay money back to someone when their money has been spent or lost–  [PL] zwracać pieniądze, pokrywać straty

9. damages – [EN] an award of money to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury – [PL] odszkodowanie

10. clause – [EN] a part of a written law or legal document covering a particular subject of the whole law or document  – [PL] klauzula

11. premium rate line – [EN] line for which prices charged are higher than normal– [PL] numer specjaly, za który naliczana opłata jest wyższa niż zazwyczaj (np. 0-700)

12. Customer Services – [EN] the part of a company or business that deals with questions, problems etc that customers have – [PL] Biuro Obsługi Klienta

13. to incur a cost– [EN] to pay money because of something you have done or want to do – [PL] pokryć koszta

14. exorbitant – [EN] =astronomical, much higher than it should be – [PL] wygórowana, wyśrubowana cena

15. to be in force – [EN] to exist– [PL] obowiązywać

16. agreement – [EN] contract – [PL] kontrakt, umowa

17. mortgage – [EN] a legal arrangement by which you borrow money from a bank or similar organization in order to buy a house, and pay back the money over a period of years – [PL] kredyt hipoteczny

18. interest – [EN] the extra money that you must pay back when you borrow money – [PL] odsetki

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Did you know that we invest 3 billion hours a week playing online video games?

Most people consider titles like World of Warcraft, Eve Online or Second Life the perfect time-wasters and associate them mainly with teenagers procrastinating in front of their LCD screens. And although spending endless hours on saving a virtual world from the hands of orcs, dark elves or other monsters may seem like it has little relevance to the real world, there are some benefits worth considering.

For a while now, we have been witnessing something unprecedented – the creation and development of multi-generational, trans-continental virtual networks of players who are completely immersed in their online world. Often to such an extent that the hobby becomes an addiction. On the flip side, we have also seen a rise of a new generation of anti-gamers who believe such pleasures to be the ultimate waste of time.

I believe that there are two big questions that need answering before we dig any deeper into the subject:

1. What is so appealing about those virtual worlds that keeps people engaged and immersed for years?

2. Can excessive online gaming actually be a positive thing (i.e. beneficial for those who play)?

Recently, I have stumbled upon this video. Let’s watch it to find out:

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

Personally, I believe Jane’s philosophy to be way too optimistic. Instant feedback and continuous rewards may make people think they can solve problems in a virtual world, because most online games are built around the idea that the problems they involve are actually beatable. In real life, however, one’s odds of success are much smaller. Games let us feel we can do everything because they are built just to do that. Instant motivation and reward systems are in place to make sure players stay immersed in the game environment. From there, it is just a matter of the game design to utilise the player’s creativity or to hinder it with repetitive yet rewarding ‚grinding‚.

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive and/or boring tasks not pertaining to the story line of the game. [form Wikipedia]

The fact of the matter is that most people do not go into gaming with the intent of solving real-life problems. The thinking here is exactly opposite. We tend to use computer entertainment to distance ourselves from everyday life. It is in the capable hands of such people as Jane McGonigal to finally start harnessing what’s already there – people spending literally billions of hours playing games out of enjoyment.

BZ

VOCABULARY:

1. procrastinate – [ENG] delay or postpone action; put off doing something – [PL] odwlekać, zwlekać, obijać się

2. relevance – [ENG] being closely related to the matter – [PL] związek ze sprawą

3. multi-generational – [ENG] involving many generations – [PL] wielopokoleniowy

4. immerse – [ENG] to involve deeply in the matter – [PL] zanurzyć, pogrążyć

5. extent – [ENG] area, degree, size – [PL] rozmiar, zakres, stopień

6. on the flip side – [ENG] on the other side – [PL] z drugiej strony

7. appealing – [ENG] interesting, engaging – [PL] przemiawiające do kogoś, zachęcające

8. beneficial – [ENG] having a good result – [PL] zyskowny

9. incentive – [ENG] a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something – [PL] zachęta

10. harness – [ENG] control and make use of – [PL] okiełznać, wykorzystać

11. odds – [ENG] chances – [PL] szanse

12. hinder – [ENG] create difficulties, make harder – [PL] gasić, utrudniać

13. literally – [ENG] exactly – [PL] – dosłownie

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