For Ryan's First Solo Outing as Candidate, a Soapbox Appearance at the Iowa State Fair

DES MOINES — Representative Paul D. Ryan is going solo, and for his first outing alone as the Republican vice-presidential candidate he has chosen a particularly exposed high-wire appearance: a political soapbox at the Iowa State Fair.

Mr. Ryan, who parted ways with Mitt Romney in Milwaukee on Sunday evening after two days of joint campaigning, will appear Monday afternoon at a locale famous for unscripted give-and-takes with skeptical voters.

A year ago, Mr. Romney was challenged by the crowd at the Iowa State Fair and blurted out, “Corporations are people, my friend,” a line that came to haunt him.

The soapbox, on the Grand Concourse, is sponsored by The Des Moines Register. By tradition a candidate gets 20 minutes to speak and often takes questions from the crowd. Mr. Ryan, who excels at town-hall-style events in which his mastery of policy is on display, will have the opportunity to show his grace under pressure.

Last year, while still just one of many Republican contenders, Mr. Romney was aggressively challenged on his assertions about Medicare, Social Security and taxes. A heckler shouted a remark about corporations. “Corporations are people, my friend,” Mr. Romney replied. “Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.”

The lines achieved YouTube immortality and were repeated by critics to show Mr. Romney’s supposed indifference to the little guy.

It was also one of rare events at which Mr. Romney took questions from an audience not composed of supporters controlled by his campaign.

On Saturday, Gov. Terry E. Branstad of Iowa said he would escort Mr. Ryan around the fair. Most of the state’s Congressional candidates are scheduled to speak on the soapbox this week. Tom Vilsack, the United States agriculture secretary, is to speak on behalf of President Obama on Tuesday morning.

While Mr. Ryan is from a neighboring state, Wisconsin, he is one of the few leading Republican figures who has rarely visited Iowa. When asked last year why he was a stranger, he said he didn’t want to raise suspicions about his own political intentions.

Mr. Obama will also be in Iowa on Monday, beginning a three-day visit that will take him to many communities in the battle ground state – but so far, not to the State Fair soapbox.

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State of Android Operating System in June 2011

The Android platform is described and compared below:

Current Version:

Android 2.3.4 for mobile devices and Android 3.1for tablet devices.

Base Framework:

Linux based kernel with core services written in C, C++ and JAVA libraries. It runs on many processor architectures - ARM, MIPS, x86, Power.

Future Visibility:

Upcoming Android OS code named Ice Cream Sandwich will be converging phone and tablet versions of the OS with single UI across all form factors.

OS Efficiency:

Performance, efficiency and speed are strong points of all Android smart phones.

Device Management:

SDK provides device administration features at system level. Different policies can be enforced like settings password quality, max failed password attempts, password expiration, device lock, data wipe, storage encryption etc.

User Experience:

Android is very user friendly. Support for Multi-touch gestures and Accelerometer, Magnetometer available at par with iPhone, though iPhone is a shade better.

Optimized graphics:

Library based on OpenGL ES 1.0 specs.

Web Browser:

It is based on WebKit, supports HTML5, CSS3 Web fonts.

Storage:

It supports external storage. Flash memory varies from model to model. SQLLite and native data storage mechanisms are available for applications.

Communication:

SIP API's Allows to add SIP-based internet telephony features. Also supports NFC, a short-range wireless technology.

Hardware Support:

Has a video Camera, A-GPS, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth. Accelerometer, Gyroscopes, Magnetometer and Multi-touch display with varying display sizes. Some features are device dependent.

Multi Tasking:

Full multi-tasking applications can be written.

Media Support:

Audio - 3GP, MP3, MP4, MIDI, Wave, Ogg, FLAC(Android 3.1+).

Video - H.263, H.264 AVC and MPEG4 SP, VP8 (Android 2.3.3+).

Flash 10.1 is supported in v2.2 and above.

Development environment

Tools and Language:

Eclipse IDE, JAVA.

SDK:

Google offers Android SDK 2.3.4, 3.1 and NDK for developers to write applications. For graphics and rich user interface, OpenGL ES support is available from the SDK and some custom libraries.

SDK offers variety of emulators for developers to test, debug and run the applications during development. In build Unit testing tools.

Developer Support:

Operating System offers full control of it to the developer application via number of low level APIs and programming hooks. The programming effort is average compared to other platforms.

Prior knowledge of JAVA is must. Low level programming, however, demands specialized mobile development skills using NDK.

Application support

Android Market:

Over 2,00,000 applications available.

However compared to the app stores of other Mobile OS platforms, Android Market has a much higher % of free apps. 25% apps are free on the other app stores - apple, blackberry.

60% apps are free on the Android Market.

App Distribution:

Android apps are available over the air via Android Market controlled by Google. Private OTA distribution is possible.

Enterprise Support:

Android has limited device management capabilities. It also supports VPN connections.

Consumer Support:

Considerable amount of applications - 2,00000 - are available for users to download free or at nominal charge. Wide range of device options is available.

Devices available

Current:

Droid 2, Xperia, Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy etc. About 150+ devices worldwide.

Future: Multiple device options are to be available from number of manufacturers. This is one of Android's biggest accelerators and something Apple will find hard to compete against.

Pros and Cons

Android is an open Mobile OS platform, with lot of emerging features that are needed in today's smart phone. It also enables various touch tone capabilities liked by people on iPhone.

Used for more than 150 devices by various manufacturers.

It is truly a Multi-threaded, multi-processing OS. Developers can build lot of capabilities, which is not possible on the Apple iPhone platform.

The OS contains a lot of emulator UI skins that enables a developer to develop the application for one set of screen sizes and intensity, but easily make it available on other screen sizes, sharpness without any development. This is huge for both manufacturers and developers.

Many OEM's are building net-books / tablets / other mobile devices based on the Google Android platform. Not sure how this ties with the Google Chrome OS.

Android Market is the second most popular application store with more than 2,00,000 applications available for download. 60% of these are free. On other app stores - Apple, Blackberry, about 25% are free.

The Android 3.1 OS is a state of the art mobile OS with features available on standard desktop OS and higher performance. More details available on http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.1.html.

Enterprise Security and other device administration features will make organizations to include Google Android in the enterprise. This adoption of Android by enterprises will increase in near future.

The biggest disadvantage of the Android OS is how they will continue to support the various OS / devices going into the future. Also the vision for Android vs. that of Google Chrome in other devices other than mobile phones is not clear.

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