If an in-the-wild test is successful, Microsoft’s new tablet may be getting a leg up in the market. Electronic voting company Democracy Live tested the Surface tablet as a balloting device in Charlottesville, VA during Tuesday’s election. Here are the details of the test, from GeekWire:

Democracy Live uses Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud-based platform, and the Surface is running the company’s “LiveBallot” application through the browser.

The web app lets the voter use the Surface to access, mark, and print a ballot for tabulation by a separate machine.

For now it’s just one Surface in one precinct in Charlottesville, Va. However, Democracy Live CEO Bryan Finney says the company plans to work with Microsoft on a broader rollout of Surfaces following the upcoming release Surface for Windows 8 Pro, which will run legacy Windows applications on traditional Intel processors. (The current Surface for Windows RT runs on an ARM processor, so it doesn’t support legacy apps.)

The idea with the Virginia test is to get feedback in advance of that broader rollout. …

Advantages include Windows 8′s built-in screen-reading functionality, plus USB support to enable sip-and-puff input devices for people with disabilities.

Read the full article at GeekWire >>>

So next election, if you see Microsoft Surface in place of the old electronic voting booths, you’ll know the real-life test was a success!

As posted earlier to the Software Testing Blog by Mike Brown, it appears that certain voting machines are altering votes in-the-wild. A man posted a video of the politically-biased software bug just hours ago to YouTube. Here is a blurb from his description of the incident:

“I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.”

Check out the video:

Tablets are used primarily on-the-go and it’s no surprise that they take a beating in-the-wild. Currently, it seems the three tablets of choice boil down to the small and decently priced Nexus 7, the new iPad Mini which follows in the Nexus 7’s model in terms of size and cost, and the larger, more expensive iPad 3. So, how do these tablets stack up against each other in terms of durability?

Lauren Goode of AllThingD recently shared this video from SquareTrade of their very own “Drop Bot” giving the tablets a run for their money:

What is your tablet of choice? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

A big part of in-the-wild testing involves identfying fringe use cases – things that users might try that testers or developers would never even consider. In Zac Vawter’s case, that fringe use case involved scaling a skyscraper with his bionic leg – a fairly uncommon occurrence I would wager.

Anyway, here are the details of this amazing feat:

The metal on Zac Vawter’s bionic leg gleamed as he climbed 103 floors of Chicago’s iconic Willis Tower, becoming the first person ever to complete the task wearing a mind-controlled prosthetic limb.

Vawter, who lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident, put the smart limb on public display for the first time during an annual stair-climbing charity event called “SkyRise Chicago” hosted by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where he is receiving treatment.

The robotic leg is designed to respond to electrical impulses from muscles in his hamstring. When Vawter thought about climbing the stairs, the motors, belts and chains in his leg synchronized the movements of its ankle and knee.

The computerized prosthetic limb, like something one might see in a sci-fi film, weighs about 10 pounds and holds two motors.

“We were testing the leg under extreme conditions. Very few patients who will use the leg in the future will be using it for this purpose. From that perspective, its performance was beyond measure,” Smith added.

To prepare for his pioneering climb, Vawter said, he practiced on a small escalator at a gym, while researchers spent months adjusting the technical aspects of the leg to ensure that it would respond to his thoughts.

Read the Rest >>>

From the “it’s-only-funny-because-nobody-has-died-yet” category comes this story: It seems that a particular BMW model has a software glitch that inadvertently opens doors and  could result in what the company calls “occupant ejection.” Here’s DetriotNews.com with the details of the recall:

BMW AG said Thursday it is recalling 7,485 2005-07 7-Series vehicles that may  have a software glitch that may allow the doors to inadvertently open when they  appear closed.

BMW says “the door may unexpectedly open due to road or driving conditions or  occupant contact with the door. The sudden opening may result in occupant ejection or increase the risk of injury in the event of a crash.”

The German automaker said the recall covers vehicles equipped with both  Comfort Access and Soft Close Automatic options, and built from August 2004  through September 2007.

The automaker says no crashes or injuries have been reported related to the  condition.

The recall is taking place five years after BMW recalled vehicles in Japan  and five years after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration first  asked BMW about the issue.

In May 2007, the Japanese Ministry of Land and Infrastructure Transport asked  BMW about two complaints alleging inadvertent door opening on 7-Series vehicles  in Japan.

Even though BMW didn’t think it was a safety issue, it ultimately recalled  the vehicles in Japan in September 2007.

Read the Rest >>>

The internet on the east coast underwent some major in-the-wild load testing in the run up to Hurricane Sandy’s landfall on Monday. With the vast majority of businesses, organizations, offices and schools closed a lot of people stayed home with either a day off or a directive to work from home. That’s a lot of people who likely turned to the internet – causing internet traffic on Monday to go up 114%. Sandvine, a company specializing in deep-packet inspection gear for ISPs, noticed the sharp increase. Here’s what they found when they looked at “a singular US city on the east coast of the United States that was directly in Sandy’s path:”

[On Monday], in this city, Internet usage between 9am and 5pm as a whole saw an increase of 114% over the equivalent period on a typical Monday in October. Traffic levels were elevated throughout the entire day, but returned to normal as subscribers began to go to bed around 11pm.

Read the full Sandvine blog post >>>

Later on Monday was also the time Sandy was actually hitting land and beginning to wreck havoc on internet infrastructure.

Usage was up across the internet, but Netflix and Skype in particular saw major spikes – up 150% and 122% respectively.

I haven’t heard of any outage issues from Netflix or Skype on Monday, so it appears they, as well as other popular web destinations, did a good job handling the load increase. Its a good thing these companies took the time to load test their websites – preparing for in-the-wild situations is what testing is all about

No matter how prepared you are, when harsh weather hits the effects are usually quite damaging. Hurricane Sandy not only put homes and buildings to the test, but took a big hit on cellphone and cable services. Most likely you will be struggling to make and receive calls and text messages for a while. According to Jordan Crook of TechCrunch:

“According to the FCC, 25 percent of cell towers in ten states were disrupted or damaged during the Hurricane. Landline outages are “far fewer” but 25 percent of cable services have also gone down, meaning many are without news updates at all.

As far as 911 is concerned, there are only a very small number of call centers that were affected by the storm. But while cell coverage is still shoddy, 911 calls are being rerouted to different call centers for the time being.

…We’ve seen throughout the past couple days that some of the carriers are having issues, namely Verizon, which still has a couple feet of water in its Manhattan headquarters. Still, these service providers are asking that customers use social networks like Twitter to take the load off of cell networks.”

Read more …

How fragile are the electronic devices we own? The harsh elements of the real world often puts our phones and tablets to the test. Life happens – we leave our devices in a hot or freezing cold car, forget them in the rain or drop them.

So how do different devices hold up when these in-the-wild occurrences happen? Molly Wood, of CNet’s Always On, tests gadgets to see how they will survive and thrive under extreme conditions. Her most recent test was of the new ‘phablet’ (phone and tablet), the Galaxy Note 2. She put the Galaxy Note 2 through her usual tests, such as going into the freezer and the oven. She also let her son Eli have the honor of throwing the gadget down the stairs – and give it a few kicks. The Galaxy Note 2 also gets dunked in a fish tank, which will give you a good idea of what would happen to a ‘phablet’ if it were left outside during an event like Hurricane Sandy.

Does the Galaxy Note 2 survive these real world torture tests? Check out the video below:

Testing in-the-wild intended to see how your application works in the real world and how users interact with and feel about your product. In theory, this will help you correct potential issues before they hit the public. Or, you could take Amazon’s route and just tell potential users about these issues in a sort of “heads up” fashion. Here’s the official statement they released:

Kindle Paperwhite is the best Kindle we’ve ever made by far, but there are certain limitations and changes from prior generations that we want you to know about. Kindle Paperwhite does not have audio or Text-to-Speech. This makes the device smaller and lighter than it would otherwise be. Audio and an improved Text-to-Speech engine are supported on Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD.

Under certain lighting conditions, the illumination at the bottom of the screen from the built-in light is not perfectly even. See examples ofhow the screen looks in different lighting conditions. These variations are normal and are located primarily in the margin where text is not present. The illumination is more even than that created by a book light or lighted cover. The contrast, resolution and illumination of the Paperwhite display is a significant step-up from our prior generation.

The Kindle Paperwhite has 2 GB of storage. Some previous Kindle models had 4GB of storage. 2GB allows you to hold up to 1,100 books locally on your device. In addition, your entire Kindle library is stored for free in the Amazon cloud, and you can easily move books from the cloud onto your device.

These aren’t bugs. These are known limitations that Amazon has decided are acceptable. Releasing an official statement regarding the limitations before users begin complaining is an interesting take on in-the-wild success.

Part of the mobile testing matrix is testing on different carriers. CNET set out to do some in-the-wild testing regarding the call quality of the iPhone 5 across carriers. They stood on a street corner in New York City and made several calls from iPhone 5s operating on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Here’s what they experienced:

AT&T: You can hear the most background noise, and voice quality is perhaps the most grainy. Call volume is fine, and you can make out conversations via speakerphone and regular calls.

Verizon: At first listen, the Verizon and Sprint models seem better, but too close to call between them. Background noise is far quieter, nearly silent, and my voice is crisp and audible in all calls. However, notice on the test call to San Francisco that there’s distinct popping and a bit of distortion.

Sprint: This is the winner, and the more, we listened the more we agreed. Background noise isn’t a factor, and my voice comes through loud, clear, and even a bit richer. I also noticed that Brian’s call came through clearer and louder on my end. The audio sample shows off how much better it sounds.

CNet cautions readers that this test shouldn’t be seen as an end-all-be-all endorsement. Each carrier has different signal strength in different locations and this quick test was conducted from only one spot. You can listen to recordings of the calls at CNET >>>