Microsoft Office for Android is pathetically bad, too

July 31, 2013

Once again, Microsoft has released a "foreign" client for its Office 365 cloud-and-desktop office productivity suite, this time for Android 4.x smartphones. The version for the iPhone was pathetic, and the Android version is no better. Microsoft is being fair in releasing the same poor app it offers on Windows Phone for the iPhone and now Android -- fair, but not right.

Office Mobile for Office 365 isn't any Office you'll want, and it falls far, far short of Google's native Quickoffice suite. Office Mobile does compare to Google's similarly cloud-based Google Drive, which is also a terrible app with similarly limited document editing and creation capabilities. In some cases, Drive is better -- formatting is easier for spreadsheets, and it lets you downoad documents locally. In some cases, Drive is worse -- it has no formula-creation aid in spreadsheets, just manual construction. You'll want neither app.

[ InfoWorld picks the right office apps for Android. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights via Twitter and with the Mobile Edge blog and Mobilize newsletter. ]

Office Mobile is a pleasant-looking app, and it integrates nicely into Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage service, which is essential as Mobile Office depends on SkyDrive and SharePoint to access your files. Although you can open a document attached to an email into Office Mobile, you can't open documents stored in the Android file system or in a cloud service like Dropbox. And you can't save files anywhere but to SkyDrive or SharePoint; even the poor Google Drive app can store files locally. This means you also need a live Internet connection to save your work. Mobile Office is simply too tied to the Office 365 cloud.

Office Mobile has a decent set of basic editing and formatting features. You can't do as much as you can in Quickoffice, but you can tackle touchup work and create basic new documents.

• What you don't get in Word is the ability to apply styles (just a handful of local formatting types), search and replace text (you can search), track changes (but you can add comments), set paragraph alignment, create numbered and bulleted lists, or insert graphics. Quickoffice and OfficeSuite Pro do all of these except create and apply styles.
• In Excel, you can edit cells and apply basic formatting, such as numeral style and color, but you can't apply alignment or merge cells (even Google Drive can merge cells). You can run a chart wizard on a selection to create a graphical chart, one of the nicer touches in Office Mobile. Unlke its iOS version, Office Mobile for Android doesn't support the very handy AutoSum feature when you drag-select several cells. As with the iOS version, you can't drag-select files when entering a Sum formula, as is common in Excel and in other mobile spreadsheet editors, such as Quickoffice and OfficeSuite Pro.
• In PowerPoint, you can't edit in place but instead have to open a separate text window, and you have zero controls over slides' layouts and graphic. You also can't create slideshows. In other words, you can only touch up text and edit speaker notes. OfficeSuite Pro has no such limits, and although Quickoffice has few graphics capabilties, its editing features also surpass Office Mobile's.

Formatting features in Office Mobile are basic.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/microsoft-office-android-pathetically-bad-too-223816?source=rss_infoworld_blogs

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Senate presses ahead with media shield law

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate is pressing ahead on legislation to protect reporters and the news media, toughening rules on subpoenaing phone records and requiring advanced notice of requests for information.

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet Thursday to begin considering legislation sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a key proponent of a federal media shield law who was unsuccessful four years ago. The panel is expected to begin work on the measure ? it has yet to draw sponsors or opponents ? but final action on the 21-page bill is likely after Congress' August recess.

The effort comes after the disclosure earlier this year that the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed almost two months of telephone records for 21 phone lines used by reporters and editors for The Associated Press and secretly used a warrant to obtain some emails of a Fox News journalist. The AP received no advanced warning.

A draft of Schumer's measure would incorporate many of the changes proposed by Attorney General Eric Holder in July. Criticism over the collection of the material without any notice to the news organizations prompted President Barack Obama to order Holder to review the department's policy.

Holder's revised guidelines called for the government to give advance notice to the news media about subpoena requests for reporters' phone records unless the attorney general determines such notice would pose a clear and substantial threat to the investigation. Search warrants for a reporter's email would only apply when the individual is the focus of a criminal investigation for conduct not connected to ordinary newsgathering.

The Schumer bill makes clear that before the government asks a news organization to divulge sources it first must go to a judge, who would supervise any subpoenas or court orders for information. Such orders would be limited, if possible, "in purpose, subject matter and period of time covered so as to avoid compelling disclosure of peripheral, nonessential or speculative information."

Holder's revised guidelines do not call for a judge to be involved before the government asks a news organization to divulge sources. However, the guidelines call for a new standing News Media Review Committee to advise the attorney general on such requests.

Reporters must be notified within 45 days of a request, a period that could be extended another 45 days but no more.

In the AP story that triggered one of the leak probes, the news organization reported that U.S. intelligence had learned that al-Qaida's Yemen branch hoped to launch a spectacular attack using a new, nearly undetectable bomb aboard a U.S.-bound airliner around the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death.

In the Fox News story, reporter James Rosen reported that U.S. intelligence officials had warned Obama and senior U.S. officials that North Korea would respond to a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning nuclear tests with another nuclear test.

In mid-July, Schumer and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were joined by five other senators in pushing for some type of legislation. Proponents of the effort were Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jon Tester, D-Mont., Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

One potential issue is the definition of a reporter in the aftermath of WikiLeaks, the website that exposed U.S. classified information leaked by Army Pfc. Bradley Manning.

The bill's definition covers four pages and defines the individual as a person "with the primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information concerning local, national or international events or other matters of public interest," collects the information by conducting interviews and directly observing events, and has the intent of gathering news.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-presses-ahead-media-shield-143406486.html

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Dragon Quest Marching On To PC With Dragon Quest: Monster Parade

By Spencer . July 30, 2013 . 11:40pm

Square Enix is making browser games for most of their franchises and since Dragon Quest X is coming PC why not turn Dragon Quest into one too?

?

Dragon Quest: Monster Parade is a ?real time adventure parade? and it will be free to play. Like most browser games, there will be items available for purchase. Service doesn?t start until the end of August, but if you want to be one of the first people to play it you can register here.

Video game stories from other sites on the web. These links leave Siliconera.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/siliconera/MkOc/~3/emqA3DsLSPM/

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Knight tops list of Ore. university board names

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) ? University of Oregon donor and Nike founder Phil Knight leads a list of nominations for the new board that will take over guidance of the school next year.

The Oregonian (http://bit.ly/1ebm4fj ) reports the governor's office released the names of suggested board members submitted by the university, as well as Portland State and Oregon State.

The Legislature has approved a bill to free the three schools from the State Board of Higher Education.

Gov. John Kitzhaber will choose 11 to 15 members for each board. He's not required to stick to the suggested lists.

The lists include numerous names from business, education and politics. Also on the University of Oregon list are Columbia Sportswear president Tim Boyle and Dave Frohnmayer, former attorney general and university president.

___

Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com

Source: http://www.ktvz.com/news/Knight-tops-list-of-Ore-university-board-names/-/413192/21262524/-/11fl272/-/index.html

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ZaZa Energy closes on Eagle Ford asset sale

Eric Kayne, HBJ

Todd Brooks, CEO, Zaza Energy Inc.

Houston?s ZaZa Energy Inc. (Nasdaq: ZAZA) has completed the sale of more than 10,000 acres in the Eagle Ford shale play in a $29 million deal.

A subsidiary of Houston-based Sanchez Energy Corp. (NYSA: SN), SN Marquis, bought the acreage in the Texas counties of Fayette, Gonzalez and Lavaca, along with ZaZa?s interest in the associated wells.

CEO Todd Brooks said the divestiture gives the company more working capital and greater financial flexibility to use toward its western Eagle Ford assets.

The deal marks a 33 percent drop in the price from a deal announced in March, when ZaZa said it would sell the assets to BEP Moulton LLC for $43.4 million.

The BEP Moulton deal fell through in June, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

ZaZa is positioning itself as a frontrunner in the Eaglebine shale formation, a play that?s smaller than its northeastern neighbor, the Eagle Ford shale.

Got Energy? Sign up for our Energy Inc. newsletter here. Stay up to date on Texas energy news with the Energy Inc. news ticker, bringing you by-the-minute coverage from the Texas Business Journals.

Deon Daugherty covers energy and law for the Houston Business Journal. Read the top Texas energy news in our free weekly newsletter, Energy Inc. Subscribe to the Energy Inc. newsletter. For her breaking stories, follow her on Twitter.

Source: http://feeds.bizjournals.com/~r/bizj_houston/~3/Oz_27BNCpgY/zaza-energy-closes-on-eagle-ford-asset.html

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Ex-NCAA athletes score court victory over EA video games

By Jonathan Stempel

Wed Jul 31, 2013 3:32pm EDT

(Reuters) - A divided U.S. federal appeals court rejected Electronic Arts Inc's (EA.O) effort to throw out a lawsuit by former collegiate athletes who accused the company of using their images in video games without permission.

By a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said EA's use of the athletes' likenesses in its NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball games did not deserve protection as free expression under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Samuel Keller, the former Arizona State University quarterback, and eight other plaintiffs had claimed that EA used their identities and likenesses without compensation.

The decision upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California and sets the stage for Keller to seek class-action status on behalf of other athletes.

"It says that athletes do have a right of ownership in their images, even after they leave college," said Robert Boland, a sports law professor at New York University's Tisch Center. "While it doesn't change the status of athletes now in college, it begins to shape their financial rights in their images."

EA plans to appeal.

Wilken also oversees a four-year-old antitrust lawsuit led by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon, among the plaintiffs in the Keller case, over whether athletes should share in profit from the National Collegiate Athletic Association's broader use of their names and likenesses.

Billions of dollars may be at stake in that case.

In a separate decision on Wednesday, using a different legal test, the same 9th Circuit panel unanimously upheld another judge's dismissal of National Football League Hall of Famer Jim Brown's trademark case against EA over the use of his likeness in its Madden NFL video game.

RECREATING A QUARTERBACK

Writing for the Keller majority, Circuit Judge Jay Bybee said EA's games lacked "significant transformative elements" to defeat the athletes' right-of-publicity claims, and that NCAA Football "literally recreates Keller in the very setting in which he has achieved renown."

The judge noted that in the 2005 edition, Arizona State's virtual starting quarterback shared Keller's height, weight, facial features, hair color and style, home state, playing style, school year, skin tone, throwing arm, uniform number and visor preference.

He said the case recalled No Doubt's successful 2011 court challenge against Activision Blizzard Inc's (ATVI.O) use of its likeness in its "Band Hero" video game, whose expressive elements were "manifestly subordinated" to a desire to "commercially exploit" the pop group's fame.

Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas dissented, saying the majority view threatens all realistic depictions of actual people, even if those depictions are incidental.

"This logic jeopardizes the creative use of historic figures in motion pictures, books, and sound recordings," he wrote. "Absent the use of actual footage, the motion picture 'Forrest Gump' might as well be just a box of chocolates."

In the Brown case, Bybee concluded that the likeness of the former Cleveland Browns running back was "artistically relevant" to Madden NFL, and that Brown did not show that EA explicitly misled consumers about his involvement in the game.

"As expressive works, the Madden NFL video games are entitled to the same First Amendment protection as great literature, plays, or books," Bybee wrote.

The 9th Circuit took more than a year to decide both cases. The Keller decision echoed a May 21 ruling by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia that revived a similar lawsuit against EA by former Rutgers University quarterback Ryan Hart. EA is based in Redwood City, California.

ANTITRUST CASE

"We're pleased with the outcome regarding Jim Brown's likeness, but equally disappointed with the ruling against First Amendment protection in the Keller case," EA spokesman John Reseburg said. "We believe the reasoning in Judge Thomas' dissent in that decision will ultimately prevail as we seek further court review."

Steve Berman, a lawyer for Keller, in an email said he is "pleased with the win" in his case and will pursue class certification. "No reasonable person can dispute they use the players' likeness (and) doing so violates the law," he said.

Ronald Katz, a lawyer for Brown, had no immediate comment on the decision against his client.

The O'Bannon antitrust lawsuit seeks to force the NCAA to give athletes a cut of its profits from broadcasts, memorabilia sales and other business activities featuring them.

Wilken in June heard oral arguments on whether to certify a class of thousands of athletes. She has yet to rule.

The NCAA did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment.

On July 17, the NCAA said it will not renew a contract that expires next June to license its name and logo for EA's college football game. EA stopped producing NCAA Basketball in 2010.

In afternoon trading, EA shares were up 0.3 percent at $26.16.

The cases are In re: NCAA Student-Athlete Name & Likeness Licensing Litigation, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 10-15387; and Brown v. Electronic Arts Inc in the same court, No. 09-56675.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Andrew Hay and Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://mf.feeds.reuters.com/c/871/f/435411/s/2f64e6f5/sc/30/l/0L0Sreuters0N0Carticle0C20A130C0A70C310Cus0Eelectronicarts0Elawsuit0EidUSBRE96U0AVA20A130A7310DfeedType0FRSS0GfeedName0FtechnologyNews/story01.htm

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College Football Preseason All Conference Teams: If Johnny Manziel Fails to Win All-SEC this Year, He Will Not Be Unusual

Last week, twenty media voters (out of 243) dared to leave Jadeveon Clowney off their SEC preseason all-conference team. That?s silly. Of course, it?s almost as silly as the concept of going through a formal selection process to officially name a ?preseason? team. Clowney was thus denied of winning unanimity in an award for . . . doing nothing. You can say being awesome, and for how great he was last year, but he got selected to the 2012 SEC all-conference team.

[Related:?South Carolina: The Chrome Helmet Should Be Noteworthy Next Year]

The preseason award is superfluous. Almost always, a returning player who was on last year?s list is voted to the team again, wisdom of the crowds and all. Those seniors or players that went pro are then replaced by starters who just missed the year before, or big name recruits moving into starting roles, on the preseason list.

How accurate are the preseason awards in predicting what will happen at season?s end? I compared the preseason and end of season all-conference teams for the last five years in the Atlantic Coast, Big XII, and SEC. From what I can tell, the Big Ten and Pac-12 don?t actually vote on a preseason first team award (though sites like ESPN and Phil Steele put out all-conference team predictions pre-season). If I?m missing where those two conferences have done those, after my exhaustive search, feel free to send them to me.

[Related:?College Football Targeting Ejections: A Nuisance, But a Necessary One]

Turning to the three major conferences in question, here are the percentages of first teamers in the preseason who appeared again on the end of season all-conference first team.

SEC: 49.1% (55 of 112)

ACC: 46.4% (51 of 110)

Big XII: 45.2% (52 of 115)

Overall, the voters in the three conferences managed to put 46.9% of the end of season first team players on their preseason list. The SEC comes out on top again?Roll Damn Southern Media.

Now, let?s look at the breakdown by position, to see what that shows us about these awards. Here they are, from most likely to appear on both lists, to least likely.

• Offensive Linemen: 62.3%
• Wide Receivers: 51.6%
• Linebackers: 50.0%
• Defensive Backs: 49.2%
• Defensive Linemen: 38.6%
• Running Backs: 32.3%
• Tight Ends: 26.7%
• Quarterbacks: 20.0%

You will notice that offensive linemen, a position for which we have no individual statistics, is at the top, while quarterback, the position where everything is measured (even if not always the responsibility of the quarterback) is at the very bottom. This reminds me of what Doug Drinen wrote over seven years ago about reputation vs. information?when it came to pro bowl selections. Some of that information can be misleading, but it still provides numbers for players to be judged. Some of that reputation can be valid?the best lineman may still remain the best lineman, and their selection is not being tainted by false attribution of team success or failure.

Only three out of the fifteen quarterbacks selected as preseason first team in the SEC, ACC and Big XII over the last five years have ended up as the first team selection as season?s end. Two of them were named Tim Tebow (Tahj Boyd of Clemson last year was the other). Johnny Manziel may very well end up not having as good a year this year. The popular narrative will be that his hard charging offseason has led him astray. In truth, that would be hard to determine, since most of the quarterbacks expected to be the best in their conference don?t end up putting up the best numbers by season?s end. As far as we know, none of the others got booted from Manning Passing Camp. The more likely explanation is that one of those guys that repeated as both preseason and postseason all-conference, Luke Joeckel, is gone.

[photo via USA Today Sports Images]

Source: http://www.thebiglead.com/index.php/2013/07/31/college-football-preseason-all-conference-teams-what-are-they-good-for/

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