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Looking Back on… Final Fantasy VII (Sony Playstation)
March 18, 2015 by Mark B Writing	in Looking Back On and tagged Looking Back On, Video Games
Genre: Role Playing Game
Developer: Squaresoft
Release Date: 8/31/97 (So here's a fun thing I haven't really posted anywhere else: the review I wrote as my application to write for IP Games/DHGF almost a decade ago now. It's… not great at this point, but it's fun and considering that it gave me the chance to do all kinds of cool things I wouldn't have done otherwise, I consider it historically significant at least.)
It's kind of weird to be playing a Final Fantasy game on any system other than one with the Nintendo name on it. I should admit, I've been something of a fan of the games since FF 1 was released back in 1990 on the NES. (This is kind of a fallacy, in that I didn't play the original Final Fantasy until years after the fact, and in point of fact, Final Fantasy III/VI was my first actual exposure to the series. It's correct in that I liked the first two games when I played them, but incorrect in that it presents the idea that I played them when they came out, which isn't even close to true, as I was an SMS kid growing up.) Two SNES titles (as well as a handful of Gameboy games) later, and here we are, facing down the correctly numbered sequel to one of the best RPG's ever made (that being FF3/6; though I still like Phantasy Star 4 better, I have to give credit where it's due) (Still true; Final Fantasy VI is almost certainly the very best traditional JRPG ever made, but I still like Phantasy Star IV better because it pays off the franchise storyline well and I like the characters a whole lot. It also kind of pays off the romantic subplot from Phantasy Star II to a point, which is neat, and I wish that the Sega Classics franchise had lasted long enough for PSIV to see a re-release, if only because I'd have paid actual money to see that come to the US. As it is we have a fan translation of the first game, with the sequel being worked on now, so that's something at least. Maybe someday Sega will finish the series off with a proper remake, but maybe someday I'll win the lottery, because of the two, that one is the more likely possibility.) on the PSX. I had high hopes as I brought it home and popped it into my system, but I had the utmost faith that Squaresoft would once again deliver the goods with yet another highly entertaining RPG.
Well… not exactly.
1.) Story
The story is easily the most hurtful thing about this game. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere that the story of FFVII is "Immense" and "Colossal". (I think I was pulling those observations out of my ass.) I suppose that's true… it's "Immense"-ly boring and a "Colossal" waste of time and effort. (Naiiiiled it.) After the efforts I've seen from not only Square, but also from Sega, Konami, and Sony themselves (by that I mean Wild Arms, not Beyond the Beyond… ugh) (Which I eventually wrote about in Playing the Lame, so you can call that foreshadowing if nothing else.) in this regard, it just seems so ludicrous to have to slog through a story that is as weak and convoluted as this.
In short: Your main character is one Cloud Strife, he of large hair and even larger swords. Cloud is part of an organization called AVALANCHE (you have to write it that way or it doesn't work), whose sole modus operandi is to fight the horrible acts committed by the Shinra corporation, of whom Cloud was a member until recently. (The one thing I kind of love about FFVII is that they spend like the first ten hours of the game making AVALANCHE a thing, then Cloud meets Aeris and the whole plot kind of derails to become about something BIGGER and MORE IMPORTANT, which is fine, but it makes you wonder why we spent so much time establishing a freedom fighting organization that won't matter worth a shit in another ten hours. Economy of storytelling helps a lot in hundred hour long games.) At first, Cloud is a member of the group only because of the promise of financial gains, but as the storyline progresses, he comes to truly understand and appreciate the plight of AVALANCHE, and he finds true love and blah blah blah more clichés than a Disney movie. (Well no, he comes to appreciate the plight of Tifa and Barrett. AVALANCHE stops being a thing fairly early on, for several reasons, unless you want to call Cloud and his party AVALANCHE, and the game doesn't seem especially interested in doing so.)
The thing is, clichés can work, if the writing is solid. Here, it's not. The characterization is weak; three of the four "main" characters either come off as unbelievable, of dubious motivations, or just limp and uninteresting. (Specifically, Cloud's motivations and mental state needed an additional game and a standalone movie to really help them make anything approaching sense, Tifa's motivations can be summed up as "I love Cloud, but I was brainwashed to love Cloud, but I love Cloud anyway, even though he was brainwashed into loving Aeris and doesn't seem to give a shit about me until the end of Advent Children, maybe," and Aeris needed Crisis Core to give her a personality because you couldn't describe her character in more than two sentences without a lot of assumptions or ass-pulls. Only Barrett has a clearly defined motive, mental state and character arc that makes sense in the game, and he's essentially a non-factor in all of the other media after FFVII.) Characters like Cait Sith, Vincent, and Yuffie have dubious motivations for joining the group, and even by the end of the game, you really have no idea who these characters are, or why you should give a damn about them. (Which is almost certainly why they appeared in Dirge of Cerberus, since we knew so little about them that the creators could devote an entire game to their character arcs knowing any story developments would be new to us, since few, if any, existed. So of course that game ended up proving that these characters had no plotlines to speak of because their character arcs kind of sucked a dick.) Only a handful of the characters have any sort of logical storytelling, and since they're all basically secondary to the main story, they do little to bring the story together. (Red XIII seemed to have something to go off of, for example, so of course we've never revisited his character ever again in a side story since.)
Oh yes, and let's not forget Sephiroth, a bad guy who is not only more interesting than any member of your own party, but also has more logical motivations for his actions than anyone else in the game. Sigh. (The one thing that I actively hate about Sephiroth as a character, when boiled down to a base level, is this: the only reasons we're given to hate him are that he killed a character with no personality to speak of and because he wants to end a world we have little investment in. In the first point, Aeris' entire character arc exists around Cloud, and her actual personality is nil; taking the game on its own merits, because you can't assume that Square knew they were going to make more properties in this universe, Aeris is a cipher, so Sephiroth killing her means… what, he killed nobody? Who cares? Further, the world is mostly bullshit; by the point where Cloud realizes dude wants to end the world, even if we don't know why, all we know about it is that the world is mostly blank or full of assholes. Sure, Sephiroth burns down a town, but it's not like we had anything approaching an actual connection to the town. It's a cheap tactic; burn down a town and OOOH WE HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE EVIL but it's not like there were any real reasons for it. It's generic evil. Meanwhile, Sephiroth himself is sympathetic as fuck; he's a science experiment, made by an evil father out of the cells of a quasi-Elder God… thing, driven mad by the revelation, who simply wants to become a God possibly or possibly not because mommy "made" him do it. He'd be an amazing heel antagonist if the game had given more effort toward making Cloud sympathetic and making the world seem truly worth saving, but the game relies on the belief that the player will sympathize with the protagonist because he's the protagonist. In other words, it doesn't do the work.
Oh, and if you're one of those people who's showing up to say "Fuck you, you only hate Final Fantasy VII because it's cool to do that now," bitch I wrote this a decade ago, and I've held these beliefs since about 1998, I hated Final Fantasy VII before hating Final Fantasy VII was cool. You heard me, I'm a fucking Final Fantasy VII hating hipster. Come at me bro.)
The storyline is also highly convoluted; people do things for unfathomable reasons, are given stupid explanations for their actions, and everyone accepts these explanations and moves on with their lives. (Specifically, the whole "Cloud was brainwashed into pretending he was Zack because something something Jeonva Cells, and he then used these powers to brainwash Tifa because something something Jenova Cells," never really resonated, because "magical MacGuffin powers," aren't a substitute for good storytelling. I'll believe that Tifa always kind of loved Cloud if you show your work, but while the childhood stuff is handled well, Cloud's return implies he brainwashed her into giving a shit about him, and everything about their romance afterward is honestly really just disheartening and weird.) We never really understand why any member of the storyline "love triangle" likes any other, because the characters never really mesh well together. (Square Enix eventually explained that Cloud loves Aeris because Zack's memories of her imprinted on him, so that's an explanation, but at the time it was hard to swallow unless you love enigmatic girls with no discernible personality traits. They've also tried to imply that Cloud and Aeris eventually fell in love "for realsies," but I'm not sure how you could; Cloud was a gigantic dickass of the highest caliber for hours in-game, and Aeris has no personality to speak of beyond "being mysterious and a little weird," so it's not like they had anything in common besides Zack. The Tifa romance subplot was contrived, but at least it ended with implied sex and the possibility of something happening; Advent Children picks up with Cloud having abandoned Tifa because he's still obsessed over a dead girl he didn't even really love, and ends with the most half-assed "hope for the future," dialogue imaginable. Oh and its creators have gone out of their way to try and make the Tifa romance fucked while still allowing for an Aeris romance, even though Aeris is dead and all, so if I didn't hate FFVII before all of the back-pedaling fan wank, I sure as shit would've hated it afterward.) It's difficult to believe that the characters would forgive other members as often as often as they are required to, either. And, of course, there's the death scene we're treated to about halfway through the game that is simultaneously unneeded, solely in the game for shock value, and utterly lame in its execution. (First rule of thumb for RPG death scenes: make resurrection impossible and show your work. A sword through the guts in a game where characters have been literally shot is a stupid-ass way to die. You want a good RPG death? Vay. The bad guys poison a character while the bridge he's on is collapsing with an assassin's arrow, and he then falls to his death afterward. Mortal wound, poison, death fall and the body is gone so we can't even try to resurrect him. That's a fucking final death. Phantasy Star II and IV also handle this well, with the former insisting "you can't clone this character, they've been literally deleted from the system," and the latter insisting "they were poisoned with evil magic we literally cannot cure." It's not hard, guys, just show your fucking work.)
In short, you've seen better stories before.
Story Rating: 2/10 (I really fucking hate this plot, but it had a couple moments that saved it from a 1. Final Fantasy X, on the other hand? "Your main character didn't exist and that guy over there was dead the whole game." Now that's a 1/10.)
2.) Graphics
Seriously. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out where the most effort in FFVII went: the presentation. The graphics are far and away amazing, and as you play through the game, you get the distinct impression that Square put a massive amount of effort into every single place your characters can go, from the squalid ghetto your characters live in to the gaudy Gold Saucer, as each radiates its own unique life and charm. (That's been a common trend, honestly, since FFVII; the games always look amazing relative to their time.)
This is not to say everything is perfect… the normal character models clip infrequently, and the background graphics look very nice, but occasionally come off as being too flamboyant or tacky (the aforementioned Gold Saucer is a primary example of this), even when that's the exact intention. (Yeah, that's always been one of the problems with pre-rendered visuals; since they're static you don't exactly know how they'll come across and occasionally levels look weird because of it. Parasite Eve and Resident Evil had the same issue, honestly.) The battle graphics, however, make up for this, as they are appropriately clean and flashy when they need to be. Overall, I've never seen anything really like this before, and FFVII, even with its imperfections, not only blows away older games, but also anything on the PSX I've seen to this point. (Oh, right; this was supposed to have been written as if I'd been reviewing it at the time it came out, not as if I was reviewing it at the moment I actually was. That actually creates something of an odd paradox, come to think of it, because I didn't actually finish the game when it came out; I became sour on it towards the end of the game because of the plot and didn't end up finishing it until a year or so after the fact, just to do it, so technically I don't know what I would've said at the time. Also I was eighteen so that review would've been trash.)
The CGI intermissions, however, are far and away the most impressive thing in the game, and I dare say the most impressive thing I've seen in a video game to date. They're sharp and clean, and don't pixelate like video captures from Sega CD and 3DO were prone to do. They're all very slick and well rendered, and they add to the presentation immensely. (A lot of people blame FFVII for the inundation of cutscenes in RPG's we saw for years afterward, but looking back on it now, it was surprisingly conservative with its talking head sequences and cutscenes. In reality, it was how well they were received that caused the wave of cutscenes in RPG's, to the point where Final Fantasy VIII ended up being exactly that experience, oddly enough.)
Graphics Rating: 9/10
3.) Sound
If you've ever played a Final Fantasy game, you know what to expect here, and FFVII easily meets those expectations. The music is heavily orchestrated this time around, as opposed to the MIDI goodness from previous games, so it sounds absolutely amazing. I don't know if I'd be willing to listen to it on the drive to work, but it's absolutely appropriate in the game, and sounds very good overall. (No argument here; you know what you're getting with a Square/Squeenix soundtrack.)
The in game sound effects are also fairly appropriate; swords hitting things sound like swords hitting things, I suppose you can't ask for much more than that. The only notable thing here is that there's no voice acting to speak of, which isn't really a bad thing… after Resident Evil on the PSX and Lunar on the Sega CD, I think I could go the rest of my life without a single voice acted game ever again. (Eh, Lunar was okay for its time. Square took a long time to get on-board with voice work, though, which I think was probably because they realized that it'd be hard to rename the protagonist with fully voiced stories. They managed it in Final Fantasy X in the most depersonalized way possible, but Bioware and Atlus have done a much better job of it overall, pound for pound.) Still, in this day and age, it seems kind of lazy to leave something like that out of a CD based game, so if that matters to you, knock a point off of the score.
Sound Rating: 8/10
4.) Control/Gameplay
There's not too much I can say about the controls here… moving your characters around on the map and in towns/dungeons is a snap, combat controls are responsive, and you're never struggling with the controller at any point to make the game do what you want. Menus are easy to operate, and your characters' Materia is easy to change around at any point.
Speaking of Materia… FFVII offers two unique elements this time around; Limit Breaks, which are basically high-power attacks that your characters can use once they've taken/dished out enough abuse, and Materia, which are stones the characters can equip on armor and weapons to modify their stats, cast spells, and more. (Limit Breaks show up in games now and again even now, though under different names, and are still a useful tool when implemented effectively, in that boss-killing emergency tool sort of way. I fucking love the Materia system here, though, and it's annoying as hell that Square Enix won't really go back and do it again in the same way because it was so badass.) The Limit Break system works well enough… you can't do them too often, and they're powerful enough that they can easily be a lifesaver in desperate situations. The Materia system, on the other hand, is actually very well designed, and offers a large amount of customization. You can put together a lot of different and interesting combinations of Materia, which will probably carry your interest long after your interest in the story has waned. (Seriously, I cannot stress enough how great the Materia system was. At this point we were still using pre-defined character rolls to dictate how characters worked in party, so the death of Aeris, as the only true healer was fucking bullshit in theory. In practice though, you could equip healing Materia to anyone so it hardly mattered. To be fair, Final Fantasy VI did some aspects of it better by letting characters learn spells from the Materia so everyone could learn every spell, because that was fun in a "grind to make everyone death incarnate" way, but FFVII did it better in a game balance sort of way.)
The only real condemnations I can bring against the game are the feature where the game highlights all exits from the zone, and the active time battles (basically, everyone goes when they are ready to go, instead of battle being dictated into turns). On one hand, the highlighting of the zone points is a necessity, because the in-game backgrounds are often confusing as hell. On the other, this takes out any sort of exploration the game might have had otherwise. (Necessary evil when you're trading up 2D dungeons with clear paths for 3D dungeons with pre-rendered backgrounds and locked cameras, sadly.) As for the active time battles… the fact that there's no real time to plan things out can be disconcerting to players who aren't used to this sort of play system. Of course, if you've played a FF game before, you've already had your chance to decide if you like this or not. (Yeah, that one's really a matter of personal opinion; either you like turn-based combat or you don't, honestly.)
Control/Gameplay Rating: 7/10
5.) Replayability
The first time you play through the game, it will take around 40 hours. Assuming you do everything the game has to do (and there is a lot; hidden bosses, spells, summons, weapons and armor are scattered all across the game world), tack on another 10-20. Once you've completed the game and seen all there is to see, that's it; you are given nothing new on successive playthroughs. (This was long before the days of things like New Game Plus or extra dungeons and such; the first game I can really remember offering stuff like that was Persona, and even then outside of picking a different last character to be in your party during the plot, the actual "extra" content was left in Japan. Back then, RPG's were just done when you finished them, sadly.) The interesting Materia system isn't so interesting as to carry the game beyond its poor story and slightly above average combat system… so unfortunately, after you've completed the game, there's honestly no real reason to go back to it. (And yet, people clamor for a remake.)
Replayability Rating: 2/10
6.) Balance
FFVII is about as well balanced as an RPG can be. Enemies consistently rise in level as you explore different locations, and I never felt as though I needed to spend any sort or time leveling up before I tackled a dungeon or boss. (Emerald and Ruby weapon notwithstanding of course.) Granted, you're pretty much going to have to munchkin like crazy to beat the two hidden bosses in the game, but otherwise the game is fairly well balanced across the board, and unless you're spending hours and hours leveling, it does manage to provide a fair challenge throughout the game.
Balance Rating: 8/10
7.) Originality
Well, the storyline is mostly cliches and rehashes from previous RPG's, so strike that. (Half of the game is basically Final Fantasy VI all over again, also.) The game world is interesting, but we've seen the medieval/technological crossbreed many times before (most recently in FF3/6 and the above-mentioned PS4), so strike that. To be honest, the only really original things in this game are the Materia system (which itself is based on the FF3/6 Materia system), the Limit Break system, (Which several games have ripped off since, but that wouldn't be a known factor at this point.) and the overall presentation of the game (other RPG's have used cinematic intermissions to advance the story, but never as frequently, or to as much effect). ("As frequently" implies that there were a lot of cutscenes, but again, that's not so; it's a case where we're saying, "Lunar had like ten cutscenes, and half of them were kind of ehh, while FFVII had twenty, which were mostly well-used." Meanwhile FFVIII had like fifty and half of them sucked.) That said, FFVII ends up being the video game equivalent of a ham and cheese sandwich from a four star restaurant: sure, the bread is amazing, and the ham is succulent and juicy… but it's still a damn ham and cheese sandwich.
Okay, I'm hungry. I'll be right back. (That joke never gets old. Never.)
Originality Rating: 3/10
8.) Addictiveness
… okay, I'm back.
Whether or not you get addicted to this game depends solely on whether or not you can get past the facts that 1.) you've played this game before, and 2.) the storyline is weak. (Apropos of nothing, I'd love to set up an experiment of some kind where we basically have a person who's never played FFVI or FFVII but has played a bunch of the best JRPG's from modern times play them, just to see how much different their perspective is on those games when they've played some of the best ever from the genre first. I have no idea how it'd end up, but it'd be interesting to see if I'm just super-picky or if spending my whole life prior to playing this game reading shitloads of fiction books made me expect better than what the game had to offer.) Assuming you can get past these two issues (or even appreciate them), you'll find a solid combat system and a decent amount of control over the development and abilities of your characters. If you're a heavy RPG player, though, it's doubtful that you'll find anything here to keep your interest that you haven't seen somewhere else.
Addictiveness Rating: 4/10
9.) Appeal Factor
I'm not exactly sure who this is supposed to appeal to… old-school RPG fans will have seen everything this game has to offer outside of the pretty graphics, and FF fans will be disappointed by how much better of a game FF3/6 was. (Writing a review like this with the expectation that it was supposed to be in a vacuum was kind of weird, because I had to pretend that I didn't know that there are people in the world who have claimed, with a straight face, that FFVII is basically the logical evolution of FFVI like that's not pants-shittingly insane. I hold very few truly strong opinions of video games, but if you're legitimately of the belief that FFVII is a better game than FFVI for any reason besides "pretty graphics," you legitimately make me achingly angry.) I have to imagine that unless you're totally new to the RPG genre (or a hardcore Squaresoft fanboy), there really isn't much here to appeal to you. On the other hand, for the casual gamer, this is a simple, balanced introduction to the RPG genre, and might open the door to better games. (Suikoden as an example.)
Appeal Rating: 4/10
10.) Miscellaneous
I know I said I thought the presentation of the game was top notch, but I'm not so sure I want to see something like this ever again. The game seems to rely heavily on its minigames and cinematics and such instead of delivering an actual compelling game, and I'm not too fond of that. (I think the "cinematics," line was a throwaway line to endear the IP staff to my piece, since I don't think they were oppressive at this point. The minigames, though, I agree with. There were a good amount of them and I don't think they were really needed.) Also, I didn't really dig the spirituality/science fiction vibe they were going for here… both elements seemed a bit heavy-handed, and seemed to take something away from the experience. (Which is funny because most people seem to agree with that; while fans of the games tend to come out in force over the weird-ass Lifestream subplot in this release, when Square tried to get that over as an actual plotline in The Spirits Within, movie critics shit all over it. It's kind of weird to realize that video game critics tend to love Final Fantasy VII and its associated plot points/media, but when you hand it to someone who works in another medium they dump all over it.) Overall, I just didn't find a lot to enjoy here, though your mileage may vary.
Miscellaneous Rating: 4/10
The Scores:
Story: 2/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Control/Gameplay: 7/10
Replayability: 2/10
Balance: 8/10
Originality: 3/10
Addictiveness: 4/10
Appeal: 4/10
Miscellaneous: 4/10
Overall Score: 5.1/10
Final Score: 50 % (Average). (I still agree with that score, honestly. Very pretty, sounds good, plays fine, but I have no desire to ever play it again. For reference FFVI is probably an 8-9, and FFX is probably a 4 or lower.)
The Inside Pulse:
All of the pretty graphics and awesome presentation in the world don't make for a good game, and sadly, Final Fantasy VII proves that rule. More style than substance, and in serious need of a re-write, FFVII suggests that Square should go back to the drawing board for the next Final Fantasy game. (Well, they did, just not in a way that anyone really wanted…)
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Assistant Professor in School of Nursing
The University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley
Education, Educational Administration & Leadership, Health & Medical, Nursing
Four-Year Institution
Faculty TitleJob Class CodeFLSAPosting NumberFRGV1065Working TitleAssistant Professor in School of NursingNumber of Vacancies1.0LocationRio Grande ValleyDivision/OrganizationDivision of Health AffairsAppointment Period for Non-Tenure PositionTenure StatusTenure TrackFTE1.0Scope of Job
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is seeking applications for a faculty position in the School of Nursing to begin in Fall 2020. Duties may include teaching students in classrooms and/or online, simulated laboratories, and clinical settings as well as student advisement. Additional efforts in professional achievement and professional service are expected, and experience working with ethnically diverse populations is a plus.
Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications. UTRGV faculty will be expected to demonstrate a strong commitment to scholarly work, student success and to advancing the university, college, and program missions and are committed to UTRGV's strategic plan, vision, mission, values and core priorities. (https://www.utrgv.edu/strategic-plan/)
Doctorate (DNP, PhD)
MSN (with a Doctorate degree other than in Nursing)
Eligible for licensure as a Registered Nurse in the State of Texas.
Discipline Specific Required QualificationsPreferred Qualifications
Doctorate in Nursing and at least 2 years of clinical experience, previous teaching experience at the baccalaureate and/or graduate level(s), and evidence of strong potential for teaching effectiveness, educational leadership, and professional achievement (scholarship, research, creative activity)
License or Certification Required?YesSalaryCommensurate with Qualifications and Experience.Desired Start Date11/02/2020EEO Statement
UTRGV is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer that strives to hire without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information or veteran status. UTRGV takes affirmative action to hire and advance women, minorities, protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.
UTRGV is a Hispanic-serving Institution dedicated to student success and building a diverse faculty committed to working in a multicultural environment. UTRGV has an NSF ADVANCE grant to increase the representation of women in STEM fields and to promote a positive, family friendly workplace for all faculty. We strongly encourage applications from women and minorities.
Open Date10/12/2020Close DateAdditional Information
UTRGV is a distributed institution. As such and as assigned, the position may
require presence at multiple locations throughout the Rio Grande Valley. Work is
performed primarily in a general office environment. This position is security sensitive
and thereby subject to the provisions of the Texas Education Code
§51.215. The retirement plan for this position is Teacher Retirement System of
Texas (TRS), subject to the position being at least 20 hours per week and at least
135 days in length. This position has the option to elect the Optional Retirement
Program (ORP) instead of TRS, subject to the position being 40 hours per week
and at least 135 days in length.
Special Instructions to Applicants
Human Resources will not be held responsible for redacting any confidential information from the documents you attach with your application. The confidential information includes the following:
*Social Security Number
*Ethnicity/Race
Please make sure that you omit this information prior to submission. We are advising that Human Resources will be forwarding your application to the department as per your submission.
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley reserves the right to discontinue accepting applications prior to the stated close date of this position, after meeting the posting requirement of three (3) calendar days.
Texas law requires faculty members whose primary language is not English to
demonstrate proficiency in English as determined by a satisfactory paper-based
test score of 500 (computer-based of 173 or internet-based of 61) on the Test of
English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or a satisfactory test score of 6.0 on the
International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Incomplete applications
will not be considered.
Quick Linkhttp://careers.utrgv.edu/postings/26002Posting Supplemental Questions
Required fields are indicated with an asterisk (*).
Applicant DocumentsRequired Documents
Unofficial Transcripts
List of 3 References
Letter of Interest
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Reference Letter 1
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


There was great excitement in the school as the finalists in our School Gaelic League, na Cealla Beaga and Naomh Conaill faced each other on Monday, 5th February. Master Devenney got proceedings underway in the school early when he conducted an intercom interview with the opposing captains, Jack and Caolán, Both spoke openly about their fears and hopes for the final in a candid interview!
Both teams then lined up for a heartwarming rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann on the Astro-Pitch. Master O Donnell was shortlisted to referee on the day, with Adrian and Master Gallagher as his understudies on the line.
The game began at a frantic pace. It was a pulsating contest with fine scores from both teams. The crowd were thoroughly entertained and encouraged both teams.
In what was a truly absorbing contest, na Cealla Beaga emerged as victors on a 5-8 to 5-7 scoreline. Well done to both teams.
Many thanks are due to Master Gallagher for organising the league.
Print article This entry was posted by Admin on February 6, 2018 at 12:39 pm, and is filed under General. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


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Android App Inventor To Eventually Expand Third Party Support With Component Developer Kit
This morning Google officially unveiled App Inventor for Android, giving non-developer Android users the ability to build their own applications using a visual, puzzle-like interface. I've been playing around with the tool all morning (more on that soon), and noticed that one set of Components allows users to seamlessly integrate Twitter functionality. As far as I can tell this is the only third-party service that's currently included, but Google tells us that it will eventually offer a Component Developer Kit, giving third party developers the ability to integrate their services as well. And that could be a very big deal.
For those that haven't seen it in action, building an application in App Inventor involves putting together puzzle pieces called Components. Want to do something when the user taps on a Button? Use the Button.Click component. Want to change the color of something to Red? There's a component for that too. There are also over twenty Twitter-related components, which let you integrate functionality like Twitter Search, user authentication, tweeting, and direct messaging with a few drag-and-drops.
Now imagine what will happen when you can do the same thing for Facebook, Dropbox, Foursquare and other services that offer an API or widgets. Implementing Facebook Connect could potentially be as simple as dragging-and-dropping the proper puzzle piece. Your custom data entry app could possibly upload files to your Dropbox account. Likewise, it may also be possible for developers to build Components that don't necessarily tie directly into third party services but are more advanced than the default Component set. It's still obviously very early days for App Inventor, and this all assumes that third parties will be throwing support behind the CDK, but it's quite exciting.
Google declined to get into specifics on the timing of the release of the CDK. App Inventor is still in Google Labs and the core set of components still needs some work, so this is probably still a way off.


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The IASSA Secretariat is hosted by ARCTICenter, University of Northern Iowa, U.S.A.
On October 29, 1992, during First International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences held at the University of Laval in Ste-Foy, Quebec, IASSA's Second General Assembly adopted the first bylaws.
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Leksell Top 25 - Meningioma
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Journal of Neurosurgery's Top 25 highly cited articles on Gamma Knife surgery for meningioma
Jason P. Sheehan
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 127 (2017): Issue Suppl1 (Dec 2017): Pages 1-2
Gamma Knife radiosurgery for posterior fossa meningiomas: a multicenter study
Jason P. Sheehan, Robert M. Starke, Hideyuki Kano, Gene H. Barnett, David Mathieu, Veronica Chiang, James B. Yu, Judith Hess, Heyoung L. McBride, Norissa Honea, Peter Nakaji, John Y. K. Lee, Gazanfar Rahmathulla, Wendi A. Evanoff, Michelle Alonso-Basanta, and L. Dade Lunsford
Posterior fossa meningiomas represent a common yet challenging clinical entity. They are often associated with neurovascular structures and adjacent to the brainstem. Resection can be undertaken for posterior fossa meningiomas, but residual or recurrent tumor is frequent. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has been used to treat meningiomas, and this study evaluates the outcome of this approach for those located in the posterior fossa.
At 7 medical centers participating in the North American Gamma Knife Consortium, 675 patients undergoing SRS for a posterior fossa meningioma were identified, and clinical and radiological data were obtained for these cases. Females outnumbered males at a ratio of 3.8 to 1, and the median patient age was 57.6 years (range 12–89 years). Prior resection was performed in 43.3% of the patient sample. The mean tumor volume was 6.5 cm3, and a median margin dose of 13.6 Gy (range 8–40 Gy) was delivered to the tumor.
At a mean follow-up of 60.1 months, tumor control was achieved in 91.2% of cases. Actuarial tumor control was 95%, 92%, and 81% at 3, 5, and 10 years after radiosurgery. Factors predictive of tumor progression included age greater than 65 years (hazard ratio [HR] 2.36, 95% CI 1.30–4.29, p = 0.005), prior history of radiotherapy (HR 5.19, 95% CI 1.69–15.94, p = 0.004), and increasing tumor volume (HR 1.05, 95% CI 1.01–1.08, p = 0.005). Clinical stability or improvement was achieved in 92.3% of patients. Increasing tumor volume (odds ratio [OR] 1.06, 95% CI 1.01–1.10, p = 0.009) and clival, petrous, or cerebellopontine angle location as compared with petroclival, tentorial, and foramen magnum location (OR 1.95, 95% CI 1.05–3.65, p = 0.036) were predictive of neurological decline after radiosurgery. After radiosurgery, ventriculoperitoneal shunt placement, resection, and radiation therapy were performed in 1.6%, 3.6%, and 1.5%, respectively.
Stereotactic radiosurgery affords a high rate of tumor control and neurological preservation for patients with posterior fossa meningiomas. Those with a smaller tumor volume and no prior radiation therapy were more likely to have a favorable response after radiosurgery. Rarely, additional procedures may be required for hydrocephalus or tumor progression.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 122 (2015): Issue 6 (Jun 2015): Pages 1253-A1579
Gamma Knife radiosurgery of large skull base meningiomas
Robert M. Starke, Colin J. Przybylowski, Mukherjee Sugoto, Francis Fezeu, Ahmed J. Awad, Dale Ding, James H. Nguyen, and Jason P. Sheehan
Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has become a common treatment modality for intracranial meningiomas. Skull base meningiomas greater than 8 cm3 in volume have been found to have worse outcomes following SRS. When symptomatic, patients with these tumors are often initially treated with resection. For tumors located in close proximity to eloquent structures or in patients unwilling or unable to undergo a resection, SRS may be an acceptable therapeutic approach. In this study, the authors review the SRS outcomes of skull base meningiomas greater than 8 cm3 in volume, which corresponds to a lesion with an approximate diameter of 2.5 cm.
The authors reviewed the data in a prospectively compiled database documenting the outcomes of 469 patients with skull base meningiomas treated with single-session Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS). Seventy-five patients had tumors greater than 8 cm3 in volume, which was defined as a large tumor. All patients had a minimum follow-up of 6 months, but patients were included if they had a complication at any time point. Thirty patients were treated with upfront GKRS, and 45 were treated following microsurgery. Patient and tumor characteristics were assessed to determine predictors of new or worsening neurological function and tumor progression following GKRS.
After a mean follow-up of 6.5 years (range 0.5–21 years), the tumor volume was unchanged in 37 patients (49%), decreased in 26 patients (35%), and increased in 12 patients (16%). Actuarial rates of progression-free survival at 3, 5, and 10 years were 90.3%, 88.6%, and 77.2%, respectively. Four patients had new or worsened edema following GKRS, but preexisting edema decreased in 3 patients. In Cox multivariable analysis, covariates associated with tumor progression were 1) presentation with any cranial nerve (CN) deficit from III to VI (hazard ratio [HR] 3.78, 95% CI 1.91–7.45; p < 0.001), history of radiotherapy (HR 12.06, 95% CI 2.04–71.27; p = 0.006), and tumor volume greater than 14 cm3 (HR 6.86, 95% CI 0.88–53.36; p = 0.066). In those patients with detailed clinical follow-up (n = 64), neurological function was unchanged in 37 patients (58%), improved in 16 patients (25%), and deteriorated in 11 patients (17%). In multivariate analysis, the factors predictive of new or worsening neurological function were history of surgery (OR 3.00, 95% CI 1.13–7.95; p = 0.027), presentation with any CN deficit from III to VI (OR 3.94, 95% CI 1.49–10.24; p = 0.007), and decreasing maximal dose (OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.63–0.93; p = 0.007). Tumor progression was present in 64% of patients with new or worsening neurological decline.
Stereotactic radiosurgery affords a reasonable rate of tumor control for large skull base meningiomas and does so with a low incidence of neurological deficits. Those with a tumor less than 14 cm3 in volume and without presenting CN deficit from III to VI were more likely to have effective tumor control.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 122 (2015): Issue 2 (Feb 2015): Pages 237-481
Gamma Knife radiosurgery for sellar and parasellar meningiomas: a multicenter study
Clinical article
Jason P. Sheehan, Robert M. Starke, Hideyuki Kano, Anthony M. Kaufmann, David Mathieu, Fred A. Zeiler, Michael West, Samuel T. Chao, Gandhi Varma, Veronica L. S. Chiang, James B. Yu, Heyoung L. McBride, Peter Nakaji, Emad Youssef, Norissa Honea, Stephen Rush, Douglas Kondziolka, John Y. K. Lee, Robert L. Bailey, Sandeep Kunwar, Paula Petti, and L. Dade Lunsford
Parasellar and sellar meningiomas are challenging tumors owing in part to their proximity to important neurovascular and endocrine structures. Complete resection can be associated with significant morbidity, and incomplete resections are common. In this study, the authors evaluated the outcomes of parasellar and sellar meningiomas managed with Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) both as an adjunct to microsurgical removal or conventional radiation therapy and as a primary treatment modality.
A multicenter study of patients with benign sellar and parasellar meningiomas was conducted through the North American Gamma Knife Consortium. For the period spanning 1988 to 2011 at 10 centers, the authors identified all patients with sellar and/or parasellar meningiomas treated with GKRS. Patients were also required to have a minimum of 6 months of imaging and clinical follow-up after GKRS. Factors predictive of new neurological deficits following GKRS were assessed via univariate and multivariate analyses. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox multivariate regression analysis were used to assess factors predictive of tumor progression.
The authors identified 763 patients with sellar and/or parasellar meningiomas treated with GKRS. Patients were assessed clinically and with neuroimaging at routine intervals following GKRS. There were 567 females (74.3%) and 196 males (25.7%) with a median age of 56 years (range 8–90 years). Three hundred fifty-five patients (50.7%) had undergone at least one resection before GKRS, and 3.8% had undergone prior radiation therapy. The median follow-up after GKRS was 66.7 months (range 6–216 months). At the last follow-up, tumor volumes remained stable or decreased in 90.2% of patients. Actuarial progression-free survival rates at 3, 5, 8, and 10 years were 98%, 95%, 88%, and 82%, respectively. More than one prior surgery, prior radiation therapy, or a tumor margin dose < 13 Gy significantly increased the likelihood of tumor progression after GKRS.
At the last clinical follow-up, 86.2% of patients demonstrated no change or improvement in their neurological condition, whereas 13.8% of patients experienced symptom progression. New or worsening cranial nerve deficits were seen in 9.6% of patients, with cranial nerve (CN) V being the most adversely affected nerve. Functional improvements in CNs, especially in CNs V and VI, were observed in 34% of patients with preexisting deficits. New or worsened endocrinopathies were demonstrated in 1.6% of patients; hypothyroidism was the most frequent deficiency. Unfavorable outcome with tumor growth and accompanying neurological decline was statistically more likely in patients with larger tumor volumes (p = 0.022) and more than 1 prior surgery (p = 0.021).
Gamma Knife radiosurgery provides a high rate of tumor control for patients with parasellar or sellar meningiomas, and tumor control is accompanied by neurological preservation or improvement in most patients.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 120 (2014): Issue 6 (Jun 2014): Pages 1259-1502
Stereotactic radiosurgery for cerebellopontine angle meningiomas
Seong-Hyun Park, Hideyuki Kano, Ajay Niranjan, John C. Flickinger, and L. Dade Lunsford
To assess the long-term outcomes of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for cerebellopontine angle (CPA) meningiomas, the authors retrospectively reviewed data from a 20-year experience. They evaluated progression-free survival as well as improvement, stabilization, or deterioration in clinical symptoms.
Seventy-four patients with CPA meningiomas underwent SRS involving various Gamma Knife technologies between 1990 and 2010. The most common presenting symptoms were dizziness or disequilibrium, hearing loss, facial sensory dysfunction, and headache. The median tumor volume was 3.0 cm3 (range 0.3–17.1 cm3), and the median radiation dose to the tumor margin was 13 Gy (range 11–16 Gy). The median follow-up period was 40 months (range 4–147 months).
At last imaging follow-up, the tumor volume had decreased in 46 patients (62%), remained stable in 26 patients (35%), and increased in 2 patients (3%). The progression-free survival after SRS was 98% at 1 year, 98% at 3 years, and 95% at 5 years. At the last clinical follow-up, 23 patients (31%) showed neurological improvement, 43 patients (58%) showed no change in symptoms or signs, and 8 patients (11%) had worsening symptoms or signs. The neurological improvement rate after SRS was 16% at 1 year, 31% at 3 years, and 40% at 5 years. The post-SRS deterioration rate was 5% at 1 year, 10% at 3 years, and 16% at 5 years. A multivariate analysis demonstrated that trigeminal neuralgia was the symptom most likely to worsen after SRS (HR 0.08, 95% CI 0.02–0.31; p = 0.001). Asymptomatic peritumoral edema occurred in 4 patients (5%) after SRS, and symptomatic adverse radiation effects developed in 7 patients (9%).
Stereotactic radiosurgery for CPA meningiomas provided a high tumor control rate and relatively low risk of ARE. Tumor compression of the trigeminal nerve by a CPA meningioma resulted in an increased rate of facial pain worsening in this patient experience.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 120 (2014): Issue 3 (Mar 2014): Pages 583-790
Radiosurgery for parasagittal and parafalcine meningiomas
Dale Ding, Zhiyuan Xu, Ian T. McNeill, Chun-Po Yen, and Jason P. Sheehan
Parasagittal and parafalcine (PSPF) meningiomas represent the second most common location for intracranial meningiomas. Involvement of the superior sagittal sinus or deep draining veins may prevent gross-total resection of these tumors without significant morbidity. The authors review their results for treatment of PSPF meningiomas with radiosurgery.
The authors retrospectively reviewed the institutional review board–approved University of Virginia Gamma Knife database and identified 65 patients with 90 WHO Grade I parasagittal (59%) and parafalcine (41%) meningiomas who had a mean MRI follow-up of 56.6 months. The patients' mean age was 57 years, the median preradiosurgery Karnofsky Performance Status score was 80, and the median initial tumor and treatment volumes were 3 and 3.7 cm3, respectively. The median prescription dose was 15 Gy, isodose line was 40%, and the number of isocenters was 5. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to determine progression-free survival (PFS). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with PFS.
The median overall PFS was 75.6 months. The actuarial tumor control rate was 85% at 3 years and 70% at 5 years. Parasagittal location, no prior resection, and younger age were found to be independent predictors of tumor PFS. For the 49 patients with clinical follow-up (mean 70.8 months), the median postradiosurgery Karnofsky Performance Status score was 90. Symptomatic postradiosurgery peritumoral edema was observed in 4 patients (8.2%); this group comprised 3 patients (6.1%) with temporary and 1 patient (2%) with permanent clinical sequelae. Two patients (4.1%) died of tumor progression.
Radiosurgery offers a minimally invasive treatment option for PSPF meningiomas, with a good tumor control rate and an acceptable complication rate comparable to most surgical series.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 119 (2013): Issue 4 (Oct 2013): Pages 829-1086
Single-fraction radiosurgery of benign cavernous sinus meningiomas
Bruce E. Pollock, Scott L. Stafford, Michael J. Link, Yolanda I. Garces, and Robert L. Foote
Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is an important treatment option for patients with cavernous sinus meningiomas (CSM). To analyze factors associated with local tumor control and complications after single-fraction SRS, the authors reviewed cases involving patients treated with Gamma Knife SRS between 1990 and 2008.
Excluded were patients with WHO Grade II or III tumors, radiation-induced tumors, multiple meningiomas, neurofibromatosis Type 2, and prior or concurrent radiotherapy. Five patients were lost to follow-up and 3 patients refused research authorization. The remaining 115 patients (29 men, 86 women) had either histologically confirmed WHO Grade I (n = 46, 40%) or presumed (n = 69, 60%) CSM. The median treatment volume was 9.3 cm3 (range 1.3–42.2 cm3). The median margin dose was 16 Gy (range 12–20 Gy). The median follow-up after SRS was 89 months (range 12–251 months). Thirty-nine patients (34%) had 10 or more years of follow-up after SRS.
Six patients (5%) had tumor progression (in field, n = 3; marginal, n = 3) at a median of 74 months (range 42–145 months) after SRS. The local tumor control rate was 99% at 5 years and 93% at 10 years after SRS. No analyzed factor was associated with local control after SRS. Fourteen patients (12%) had permanent complications at a median onset of 23 months (range 2–146 months) including trigeminal dysfunction (n = 9), diplopia (n = 2), ischemic stroke (n = 2), and hypopituitarism (n = 1). The 2-year, 5-year, and 10-year rates of complications were 7%, 10%, and 15%, respectively. Multivariate analysis found larger treatment volume (HR 1.1, 95% CI 1.02–1.2, p = 0.01) to be associated with complications after SRS. The complication rate for patients with a treatment volume of 9.3 cm3 or less was 3% (2 of 58 cases) compared with 21% (12 of 57 cases) for patients with a treatment volume greater than 9.4 cm3.
Single-fraction SRS at the radiation doses used in this series provided durable tumor control for patients with benign CSM. Larger tumor volume remains the primary factor associated with complications after single-fraction SRS of benign CSM despite advancements in SRS technique.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 119 (2013): Issue 3 (Sep 2013): Pages 591-827
Gamma Knife surgery in the treatment paradigm for foramen magnum meningiomas
Georgios Zenonos, Douglas Kondziolka, John C. Flickinger, Paul Gardner, and L. Dade Lunsford
Microsurgical management of foramen magnum meningiomas (FMMs) can be associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Stereotactic radiosurgery may be an efficient and safe alternative treatment modality for such tumors. The object of this study was to increase the documented experience with Gamma Knife surgery (GKS) for FMMs and to delineate its role in an overall management paradigm.
The authors report on their experience with 24 patients harboring FMMs managed with GKS. Twelve patients had primary symptomatic tumors, 5 had asymptomatic but enlarging primary tumors, and 7 had recurrent or residual tumors after a prior surgery.
Follow-up clinical and imaging data were available in 21 patients at a median follow-up of 47 months (range 3–128 months). Ten patients had measurable tumor regression, which was defined as an overall volume reduction > 25%. Eleven patients had no further tumor growth. Two patients died as a result of advanced comorbidities before follow-up imaging. One patient was living 8 years after GKS but had no clinical evaluation. Ten of 17 symptomatic patients with at least 6 months of follow-up had symptom improvement, and 7 remained clinically stable. Smaller tumors were more likely to regress. No patient suffered an adverse radiation effect after radiosurgery.
Gamma Knife surgery was a safe management strategy for small, minimally symptomatic, or growing FMMs as well as for residual tumors following conservative microsurgical removal.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 117 (2012): Issue 5 (Nov 2012): Pages 807-981
Gamma Knife surgery for skull base meningiomas
Robert M. Starke, Brian J. Williams, Claire Hiles, James H. Nguyen, Mohamed Y. Elsharkawy, and Jason P. Sheehan
Skull base meningiomas are challenging tumors owing in part to their close proximity to important neurovascular structures. Complete microsurgical resection can be associated with significant morbidity, and recurrence rates are not inconsequential. In this study, the authors evaluate the outcomes of skull base meningiomas treated with Gamma Knife surgery (GKS) both as an adjunct to microsurgery and as a primary treatment modality.
The authors performed a retrospective review of a prospectively compiled database detailing the outcomes in 255 patients with skull base meningiomas treated at the University of Virginia from 1989 to 2006. All patients had a minimum follow-up of 24 months. The group comprised 54 male and 201 female patients, with a median age of 55 years (range 19–85 years). One hundred nine patients were treated with upfront radiosurgery, and 146 patients were treated with GKS following resection. Patients were assessed clinically and radiographically at routine intervals following GKS. Factors predictive of new neurological deficit following GKS were assessed via univariate and multivariate analysis, and Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox multivariate regression analysis were used to assess factors predictive of tumor progression.
Meningiomas were centered over the cerebellopontine angle in 43 patients (17%), the clivus in 40 (16%), the petroclival region in 28 (11%), the petrous region in 6 (2%), and the parasellar region in 138 (54%). The median duration of follow-up was 6.5 years (range 2–18 years). The mean preradiosurgery tumor volume was 5.0 cm3 (range 0.3–54.8 cm3).
At most recent follow-up, 220 patients (86%) displayed either no change or a decrease in tumor volume, and 35 (14%) displayed an increase in volume. Actuarial progression-free survival at 3, 5, and 10 years was 99%, 96%, and 79%, respectively. In Cox multivariate analysis, pre-GKS covariates associated with tumor progression included age greater then 65 years (HR 3.41, 95% CI 1.63–7.13, p = 0.001) and decreasing dose to tumor margin (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.80–1.00, p = 0.05).
At most recent clinical follow-up, 230 patients (90%) demonstrated no change or improvement in their neurological condition and the condition of 25 patients had deteriorated (10%). In multivariate analysis, the factors predictive of new or worsening symptoms were increasing duration of follow-up (OR 1.01, 95% CI 1.00–1.02, p = 0.015), tumor progression (OR 2.91, 95% CI 1.60–5.31, p < 0.001), decreasing maximum dose (OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.84–0.97, p = 0.007), and petrous or clival location versus parasellar, petroclival, and cerebellopontine angle location (OR 3.47, 95% CI 1.23–9.74, p = 0.018).
Stereotactic radiosurgery offers a high rate of tumor control and neurological preservation in patients with skull base meningiomas. After radiosurgery, better outcomes were observed for those receiving an optimal radiosurgery dose and harboring tumors located in a cerebellopontine angle, parasellar, or petroclival location.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 116 (2012): Issue 3 (Mar 2012)
Gamma Knife surgery for parasellar meningiomas: long-term results including complications, predictive factors, and progression-free survival
Brian J. Williams, Chun Po Yen, Robert M. Starke, Bhuvaneswara Basina, James Nguyen, Jessica Rainey, Jonathan H. Sherman, David Schlesinger, and Jason P. Sheehan
Stereotactic radiosurgery serves as an important primary and adjuvant treatment option for patients with many types of intracranial meningiomas. This is particularly true for patients with parasellar meningiomas. In this study, the authors evaluated the outcomes of Gamma Knife surgery (GKS) used to treat parasellar meningiomas.
The study is a retrospective review of the outcomes in 138 patients with meningiomas treated at the University of Virginia from 1989 to 2006; all patients had a minimum follow-up of 24 months. There were 31 men and 107 women whose mean age was 54 years (range 19–85 years). Eighty-four patients had previously undergone resection. The mean pre-GKS tumor volume was 7.5 ml (range 0.2–54.8 ml). Clinical and radiographic evaluations were performed, and factors related to favorable outcomes in each case were assessed.
The mean follow-up duration was 84 months (median 75.5 months, range 24–216 months). In 118 patients (86%), the tumor volume was unchanged or had decreased at last follow-up. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated radiographic progression-free survival at 5 and 10 years to be 95.4% and 69%, respectively. Fourteen patients (10%) developed new cranial nerve palsies following GKS. Factors associated with tumor control included younger age, a higher isodose, and smaller tumor volume. A longer follow-up duration was associated with either a decrease or increase in tumor volume. Fourteen patients (10%) experienced new or worsening cranial nerve deficits after treatment. Factors associated with this occurrence were larger pretreatment tumor volume, lower peripheral radiation dose, lower maximum dose, tumor progression, and longer follow-up.
Gamma Knife surgery offers an acceptable rate of tumor control for parasellar meningiomas and accomplishes this with a low incidence of neurological deficits. Radiological control after radiosurgery is more likely in those patients with a smaller tumor volume and a higher prescription dose.
In Journal of Neurosurgery Volume 114 (2011): Issue 6 (Jun 2011)


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A Measles Outbreak Hits Google Headquarters in Silicon Valley
By Carmela on April 19, 2019
The Silicon Valley campus, where thousands work, is now confronting its own in-house case of measles as the virus resurges across the United States.
Hulu and Google's 2017 Bundle Channels Alot Like Cable
By Carmela on January 2, 2017
Hulu and Google announced plans to offer bundled channel services, joining those launched by SlingTV, Sony's Vue and, most recently, AT&T's DirecTV Now


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A heart to heart talk
Home » News » A heart to heart talk
Pam Harris, Apprenticeship Advisor and author
February is Heart Health Awareness Month. We speak to Pam Harris, one of our Careerforce Apprenticeship Advisors and author of Getting to the heart of the matter about her experience recovering from a triple heart bypass operation that came as a huge surprise.
It was Waitangi Day 3 years ago now when Pam awoke in such a bad mood which she says is really unlike her at all. She couldn't understand why she felt so grumpy. To shrug off her moodiness, she started moving the lawn. Ten minutes later, she couldn't breathe.
"I managed to get myself to the lounge and laid on the sofa, telling husband Pete, that I would be okay. But after 20 minutes, I realised I wasn't feeling better, and I agreed for him to call the health phone line. They advised Pete to give me an Aspirin and that made me feel better."
"Sadly, having worked in health care for way too long, I realised that it wasn't good news and the doctor advised Pete to call an ambulance as they should check my heart signs due to my age."
"I was taken into Christchurch Hospital and after a further test, I was told that 3 arteries were blocked, and I would need a triple heart bypass operation. It turns out, I had a congenital health issue that none of us could possibly have known about!"
Because Pam looked after her health and kept fit, her recovery was faster than expected. "It took 4-6 weeks for me to be fit enough to return to work part-time." She walked every day to stay strong, initially 10 minutes at a time and by 4 weeks, she was walking for 30 minutes to an hour."
"To recover mentally, I read a lot, listened to music and wrote my book, Getting to the heart of the matter, which was very therapeutic. Emotionally was probably the worst part and I still have times when I wonder, 'why me?'. But I have good friends and family around who helped me through the ups and downs of this side of my operation."
The book also looks at her husband's experience of events and gives insight to those who may be supporting someone going through a similar health trauma. It is laid out with the experience first and then goes onto the medications involved with all heart surgery.
The next part of the book gives good information around the right foods to eat and drink to maintain good health. Finally, Pam shares her meal plan for the week based on what she would have normally eaten, and have created a healthy option ensuring that cholesterol in recipes is low as are saturated fat and sodium intake. "I have personally tried all the recipes and lost a few kilos in the process," she shares.
"I live quite differently with the main changes being on diet and food. I am mainly vegetarian, no sugar and no red meat. I also drink herbal teas and eat lots of porridge oats as they are so good for your heart, as is tuna and avocado. At team brekkies, there are no more full English breakfasts for me – it is vegetarian or Avo smashes. I also drink a lot more, no not alco
hol, but water and fruit juices. I also walk regularly, every day for at least 3-4 km and my puppy Rosie makes sure that I do this."
If you are looking after someone who has a heart problem, Pam says, "we need and want more than anything to have your love and care. We need compassion and underst
anding and time, time to come to terms with what we have been through. We may never have needed medications before in our lives, so try to remember this." "I have a dear friend Chrissy, who is a nurse, and I talked about the shock of all the medications and needing tablets and check-ups and she said she honestly had never thought about this when she worked with people like me and now would be different in the future."
For resources and more information, visit the Heart Foundation website: www.heartfoundation.org.nz/. They are currently doing some fundraising to continue supporting people with heart disease. If you or your organisation can help, please get in touch with the foundation.


This nice condominium features 2 bedrooms and 2 baths with approximately 1,767 sq. ft. for your senior clients to entertain, play golf and enjoy nearby amenities in the beautiful city of Menifee. Located in a senior community of 55+ with water, trash and front landscaping paid by the HOA. The home includes a den, large master suite, formal dining room and eating area off the kitchen. There is an individual laundry room with lots of storage space and large cabinets over the washer and dryer. If your clients prefer, the refrigerator, washer and dryer can remain.


Great Debate: Are $200 tablets a game changer?
Do the arrival of Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Nobles' NOOKColor herald digital convergence for the rest of us? Jason Perlow and David Morgenstern face off.
Jason Perlow: In 2010, Apple set off the "Big Bang" for the tablet industry, by introducing the iPad. While the consumer electronics giant did not create the tablet, they created the entire model for which all tablets must have today: an App store as well as cloud-based services to back it up.
However, at an entry point of $500, the iPad (and other full size Android tablets that followed) cannot ever be the "People's Tablet" or the industry equivalent of the Volkswagen.
Indeed, $200 is the magic price point that will enable tens of millions of people to buy tablets and eventually propel us into the Post-PC era that Steve Jobs will establish as his true legacy.
David Morgenstern: Every couple of months there comes along a technology vendor with an announcement of a tablet that will knock the iPad off its dominating 75+ percent share of the market. It ain't going to happen this time with Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Nobles' NOOKColor.
The problem for competitors is multifold -- even those as well-funded as Amazon and B&N, which have captive audiences in popular Internet storefronts. The Apple iOS/iPad combo is now a major computing platform for enterprise, business and consumer segments; the iPad is now integrated into many uses beyond simple content playback, including sci-tech and industrial segments. And its form factor is completely understandable by users. The iPad's large user base make it attractive to developers, whether for consumer or business apps.
All these hurdles make it difficult for the competition, even devices with a smaller handprint. Perhaps other devices can find niches. Or maybe not.
Jason and David will post their closing statements tomorrow and I will have my verdict on the winner on Thursday. Between now and then, remember to vote and post your thoughts in the comments.
How will the Kindle Fire and Nook Color change the tablet market? What will they mean for the iPad, Android tablets, and eventually Windows tablets?
In the same way that iPad set the $500 or less bar for 10" devices, The Kindle Fire (and to a much lesser extent, the NOOKTablet) have set the bar for $200 for 7" devices. Other 7" Android tablets will find difficulty breaking into the market unless they come with significant value add for about the same price as Amazon and B&N's offerings. We can expect this new price alignment to affect the Android tablet market as a whole, including full sized devices, as it is almost certain that within one year, Amazon is likely to release a 10" Kindle Fire for around $300-$350. As to how it will affect Windows tablets it is much more difficult to say. I have argued recently that maybe that Microsoft should consider a Kindle Fire-like Windows Phone 7.5 Mango device, price it aggressively and launch it in the Spring of 2012. However this plea from customers to productize their mobile OS in the tablet space has fallen on deaf ears. Microsoft is probably under the impression that it is much better off focusing their efforts on marketing Windows 8 tablets to enterprise customers, since they are much more likely to pay for $500.00 tablets that have full integration with the Microsoft enterprise stack and with 3rd-party ISV enterprise and vertical apps.
Little for the dominance of the iPad, which is now a primary mobile platform for solutions in many market segments. I am a big believer in the consumer electronics market model, which says that consumers will buy more than one piece of equipment that does the exact same thing as another, such as radios. We might have a radio in the bathroom and kitchen, a nicer one in a receiver etc. We don't say that we will only have one radio for the whole house. In this consumer electronics model, we might buy a number of mobile computing devices: a smartphone like the iPhone that lets us communicate and compute anywhere and everywhere; a tablet that offers strong mobile computing capabilities and with a screen size that supports collaboration with another person (iPad), and a notebook computer that is the mobile desktop, a machine with enough horsepower to create any kind of content and share that content with a greater number of people. But the tablet market isn't mature and unlike most consumer electronic purchases, the devices are relatively expensive. So it's a stretch to think that customers will buy more than one tablet right now. Either they will be swayed by the low price point of the Kindle or they will pick the one tablet that offers the most capabilities for the buck. That latter choice is still the iPad, which can do more and better. Some consider that the Fire's $199 price point is at the "impulse purchase" range but I don't buy it (ouch, sorry). The e-ink original Kindle at $79 is at that range.
How about the 7-inch factor? No 7-inch tablet has ever sold particularly well -- including promising candidates like the original Galaxy Tab, the HTC Flyer, and the BlackBerry PlayBook. Why will the new Amazon and B&N tablets be any different?
Again, all about the price and the content.
Price, Price and Price. And Content/Value Add. The 7" form factor is valid but none of the previous devices have had the correct combination of pricing as well as ecosystem and content in order to be compelling enough for the consumer. Kindle Fire and Amazon Prime is the correct formula for this type of device.
Apple executives have been very insistent on the 7-inch form factor. Apple obviously has done a huge amount of research on tablet form factors and tablet UI usability. Jobs said at an analyst call a year ago that 7-inch screens weren't good enough for greatness. He called 7-inch tablets "tweeners" and said that this form-factor wasn't mobile enough when compared with the iPhone and yet was too small for "great tablet apps." 10-inches is just right. I agree that the smaller size isn't capable of serving as a reliable platform for data input. For the growing class of computer users with eyes north of 40, the larger screen real estate is super important. As we get older, it is natural to find that it's more difficult to focus on objects up close this is called presbyopia. The iPad's extra screen real estate makes it easier to zoom in on text or important objects such as links. If you want a super-mobile device, there are the iPod Touch and iPhone. However, if all you want to do is have an e-book reader, then the 7-inch form factor makes sense. It's like a book. The problem with the Kindle Fire and B&H Nook is that they are being pitched as something more: as a "real" tablet app platform like the iPad.
Both the Kindle Fire and the Nook Color are totally aimed at being consumer media devices. The iPad has gotten a lot of its sales from professionals who use it as a dual purpose device for work and home. Will the iPad continue to own that market segment, or can the Kindle Fire and the new Nook Color poach some of it?
Possibly, but the Productivity Apps need to come.
I believe this depends on the actual professional use cases for the device, which may not be completely apparent or fleshed out at this time. While most of Kindle Fire's market will almost certainly be in consumer, the smaller form factor may prove popular with professionals that want a more portable device (such as female executives that only have so much space in a pocketbook or prefer a device with a lighter weight) so it would not surprise me to see it being used in the same sort of dual work/play role that the iPad currently serves. To fill this dual role, more productivity apps will have to make their way onto the Amazon Appstore and I would expect better built-in messaging and calendar integration as well. After all, the Kindle Fire was modeled after the BlackBerry PlayBook's reference design, which was supposed to be targeted towards professional users.
This is the great new market for mobile computing and Apple owns it. Period. This will account for many millions of units yearly for Apple. It is amazing how business and enterprise customers are starting to deploy iPads. I've spoken to a number SMB managers who are rolling out iPads to sales field teams in the insurance and financial markets. Many IT departments aren't deploying notebooks anymore, but they are purchasing and deploying iPads. Apple recently pointed to airline deployments putting iPads in every cockpit to replace paper-based flight bags. The iPad and iOS are now a platform with a growing range of interesting hardware accessories for automated data collection and other scitech virtual instrumentation. These hardware devices are all integrated with apps and data dashboards. There is no way that Amazon and B&N will be involved in this part of the market. All other tablet vendors want to break into the enterprise. The entry-level pricing of the iPad won't be much of an for influence enterprise rollouts, rather decisions will be about the technology and the partnership. Apple has been a difficult partner but it is making changes in support. It will never open the kimono to plans but it has executed well on the hardware; the Apple IDE that supports both iOS and the Mac; and in iOS features.
What's missing from Kindle Fire and Nook Color?
What are the most important factors missing from the Kindle Fire and Nook Color that will limit their appeal?
I beleive the lack of Google integration is something of a negative. The Kindle Fire and Nook cannot currently use native GMail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Plus or other native Google Apps that ship with other Android devices. While I would not rule out the possibility that Amazon might negotiate the use of some of those apps and services from Google, it's unlikely to happen for a while if at all. 3rd-party software packages will have to take the place of those instead, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. In the case of email, there's already a decent selection of GMail-compatible applications on the Amazon Appstore. The lack of cameras, GPS and Bluetooth on both the Kindle Fire and the NOOKTablet also limit their appeal since they cannot be used as video conferencing devices or use GPS-aware apps. Kindle Fire's lack of memory expansion and paltry 8GB built-in of storage make it an extremely cloud-dependent device which is inadequate for content side-loading, particularly video. For those who want the ability to side-load movies for viewing on aircraft and in bandwidth-constrained areas, the NOOKTablet, the iPad and full-size Android tablets are currently much better choices.
Do the Fire and the Nook seem like toys compared with the iPad?
Some stray thoughts: First is the number of apps. It's way too low even for a launch situation. Content yes, but customers will want apps. Battery life is key to any mobile device. Sorry to say, the iPad's battery life is more than 30 percent higher than the Fire's or Nook. Perhaps this a place to mention the accessories market. There are dozens if not hundreds of cases for the iPad. Some can make a statement for a salesman or executive and others can go underwater. These can influence a purchase decision for many customers. The iPad is a grownup tablet with cameras and features for collaboration. Both the Fire and the Nook aren't big enough or grown up enough for those features. I agree with Jason on the integration issue. Very dicey.
We've recently learned that up to a quarter of iPad buyers in one survey regret the purchase. The low cost of the Kindle Fire and Nook Color will drive a lot of impulse buys and holiday gift purchases. Will there be a lot of people who end up regretting it and wish they had a more useful or powerful tablet? Will it be higher than 25%?
As Larry Dignan said, a more impulse device, less risk, thus less remorse.
That 25 percent figure is somewhat hard to swallow given the usually high satisfaction stats on Apple as a vendor. But the hype on tablets in general and the iPad in particular is to the moon. Many customers believe that they can do without a PC by buying an iPad (the same crazy things were said about the iPhone a few years ago). I wonder if any tablet can meet the stratospheric expectations of the market. Still, even in this economy some customers will look at the entry price points (Kindle) and others will look for the total ROI value (Apple). This issue can bite Amazon harder than Apple, I might add, which can direct users to its One-on-One education program and other group sessions at its stores. Amazon can't reach out so easily on the education front.
Will the Kindle Fire squeeze the Nook Color out of the market now that it's available at a cheaper price, or does the Nook Color still have some advantages working for it?
I concede that NOOKTablet's increased RAM, built-in storage and SD expansion may prove to be useful for a small subset of users. However, ultimately I believe that based on Amazon's superior ability to leverage the supply chain, strong partnerships in retail as well as their ability to monetize the ecosystem for a tablet which is being sold for very close to or less than margin will prove the company to be too difficult an adversary for B&N. Unlike Amazon, B&N lacks the strong app and ecosystem and content cloud with the exception of a comparable e-book library.
The Nook has more onboard RAM for video and app storage. The Fire has only 512M and what 8G. That's slim but they are counting on a robust wireless connection. Lots is made of cloud services around streaming rather than downloading or syncing with a wired connection. I've always had great results from video content stored on my iPad and mixed results from live streaming. So, it's unknown how Amazon's live streaming approach will work in the wild. And with customers whose expectations are driven by the experience of television or watching video on a computer connected by wire. B&N has a presence in bricks and mortar stores, so that might be something in its favor. They will be easier to return on the day after Christmas presents are opened.
How does Amazon's tablet ecosystem compare to Apple's?
Initially weaker, but that will change very quickly.
Right now Amazon's app ecosystem is less robust than even Google's which has about 200,000 Android apps total and has fewer native apps than the iPad which is around 155,000. The exact number of Amazon Appstore certified apps for Kindle Fire as of launch is unknown, but I expect it at this to be anywhere to be 10 to 15 percent of the size of Google's Android Market. However, that being said, the gap should close very quickly based on the simple fact that once volume sales of the Kindle Fire pick up, the developer interest and submissions to the Appstore will increase dramatically. Amazon will "curate" for their device, but I expect Amazon's ecosystem in terms of apps to be very similar in scope to Android Market by mid-2012. In terms of other content, Amazon is a very strong competitor to Apple in terms of e-books (unrivaled in this area), Magazines, Music and streaming video. It should be noted that Apple currently takes a side-loading approach to music and video content with iTunes and iCloud as opposed to Amazon which is completely dependent on streaming from Instant Video and uses a hybrid approach on Cloud Player, but I expect more streaming from Apple on tablets as well in 2012.
I know I'm a broken record: there will be no comparison with the number of apps in the Amazon AppStore compared with iOS offerings. However, there are many Android developers in the world. Many that I've spoken with have settled on developing for two platforms: iOS of course, and a second, usually Android. I am intrigued by talk of the company leveraging its Amazon Prime service ($80 yearly) that gives customers "free" two-day shipping for all of their Amazon purchases, but also streaming TV and movies. Amazon recently announced that Prime customers will also be able to read from a library of recently-released books. The tear-down stats that came out this morning in news reports were interesting. I were buying a Kindle Fire, I might be concerned that they are selling them at a loss. What will be the support and the continued development for a product that out the gate costs more to make than it's being sold for? It's another question for Kindle buyers.
Did someone say ecosystem, yet?
Okay, so let's talk ecosystem. I've said repeatedly throughout 2011 that the Amazon tablet will be a success no matter what it looks like or what's loaded inside it because Amazon has the content, apps, and cloud services lined up to make its tablet immediately useful to the masses. Do you agree or disagree?
Ecosystem is everything. The Hardware itself is only a vehicle for content.
I agree. Sure, there's nothing particularly impressive about the Kindle Fire hardware. It's a pretty pedestrian dual-core, 7" tablet with a fairly standard 1024x600 IPS screen with no storage expandability, no bluetooth, no GPS as well as no cameras or other frills that its 10.1" Android cousins such as the Motorola XOOM or the Samsung Galaxy Tab have. But let's put this in perspective. The iPad 2 also is a somewhat lacking piece of hardware if you compare it to something like a XOOM or a Galaxy Tab. It has no expansion whatsoever, it cannot output to standard HDMI ports without an overpriced accessory or AirPlay on an Apple TV (which works only questionably) its cameras are mediocre when compared with competing devices, it has a weak Wi-Fi radio and has about half of the RAM of the competition. But it still manages to be the most popular tablet around. Why? A fantastic industrial design and excellent marketing, but also largely because of the strength of the App and content ecosystem. And this is why Amazon is going to sell millions upon millions of Kindle Fires in 2012.
Maybe: that is my waffle answer. Amazon will have plenty of face-time with its customers and that will be important. It has content but how will it be presented and delivered. The mobile service is different than the earlier Kindles for both user experience and for the Kindle's server-side infrastructure. But there are many consumer side unknowns: To say that Amazon has "the apps" is an overstatement, it's an insignificant number compared to the 140K iPad-centric apps on the Apple Store. In addition, Amazon is only making its AppStore available in the U.S. and as far as I understand, has it is unclear on international availability. The iPad is available in 90 countries worldwide. Apple execs said in Oct. that it has iPad for sale in about 40,000 points around the world. And it's still rolling out the product. It's unknown whether customers will accept Amazon's transition to a general-purpose tablet vendor. As I mentioned before, the tablet market is immature and the not well understood by customers. Much of the positioning of the Kindle has been around books. Or content viewing. And that's what its pitch is still. But will the Fire be a great platform for new games? Or other types of tasks, such as mobile content creation, something iPad users like to show off. Collaboration? And will Amazon support them? All unknowns. The iPad is well established as a content and gaming platform. And every consumer knows this.
What will be any different at this new price point?
The Nook Color has already been on the market for most of the year at $250, and while it has become a cult favorite among hackers and tinkerers, it hasn't made a huge impact on the overall tablet market. Why will the new Nook Color (at the same price) or the Kindle Fire (at $200) be any different?
The correct formula has been achieved this time around.
While I think the NOOKTablet will have a reasonably sized following for the reasons you have stated, ultimately B&N cannot make a business model out of hackers and tinkerers. Barnes & Noble needs to monetize its platform with a compelling app ecosystem as well as with paid content delivery in order to make up its margins on the device costs, which have to be razor thin. The Amazon Kindle Fire, however, will be successful for all the reasons the B&N NOOKTablet will have problems. Amazon has spent several years developing cloud services to feed the Kindle Fire with in the form of the Amazon Appstore for Android, Amazon Cloud Player (MP3), Amazon Instant Video and of course Kindle eBooks and Magazines. And it will serve as the perfect platform for Amazon to sell you more and more stuff. Additionally, one needs to consider the value add that Prime membership serves as part of the Kindle Fire "Secret Sauce". Today, it provides a complimentary reading library as well as selected free Instant Video content. Amazon can continue to bolster Prime with additional benefits such as more videos, more free premium books and perhaps free music content.
Certainly, the Kindle Fire has more of a chance to break out than most. It's backed by the world's biggest online store and can splash the device on every page that customers see this holiday season, even when they're buying underwear, or whatever. Kindle goes with EVERYTHING! And just by definition, you can't have a market success based on hackers and customers who want to find a cheap entry-point to "try out" a tablet. Yes, the Nook is a more appealing hardware platform with its SD port and 1GB of RAM. But that's really not the value proposition to consumers. So, regardless of its capabilities, the Nook is in trouble as a market leader. There appears to be plenty of confusion around defining a tablet's value proposition on the Android side of the market. What is a tablet computer going to be used for? Much of the positioning appears to be around viewing mobile content. That's different than the iPad proposition. Of course, the iPad has proved to be a much more robust and mature platform during 2011, one targeting content but also a wide range of collaboration, creativity, business and gaming apps. Not only is the hardware more capable, and there are more apps, but Apple's solution approach and marketing has caught on with consumers as well as in other segments.
There has been plenty of competition for the iPad in 2011. New tablets have poured into the market one by one, but none of them have made much of a dent in Apple's momentum or market share. Why?
In my opinion, it's all about the price.
There are a number of reasons why previous rivals to the iPad failed. The most important of all of these being price and overall value. The first 7" Galaxy Tab and Android Honeycomb Tablets, the BlackBerry PlayBook and the HP TouchPad were all priced way too high after Apple set the bar at $500 for their entry-level model iPad. Apple had the superior ecosystem for content and Apps as well industry leading design, component integration and build quality that none of these competitors could come even close to matching at the prices they were selling at. When you're coming in as the underdog, pricing your product at $450-$550 doesn't make a lot of sense, and I think that resonated with consumers.
Certainly, potential customers for tablet computers found Apple's iPad solution a better value, whatever the price point (with the competition often higher). But price was just a part of the value proposition. The iPad has the greatest collection of apps specific for the device and can use the hundreds of thousands of iOS apps for iPhone/Touch devices. In the first quarter of 2011 there were a third more iOS apps than Android (the total for all devices, which have incompatibilities). Now, that may look decent on the Android side, but there were way fewer tablet-optimized Android apps during the first half of the year. According to Apple in Oct.,there were more than 140K iPad native apps. Orders of magnitude fewer tablet-specific apps on the competition. And customers now mostly trust Apple as a purveyor of technology and online services. Amazon is new as a technology partner and same with B&N. Millions of customers around the world use iPhones and have an existing investment in iTunes media and in iOS apps.
Are both of my debaters online and ready for the first question?
It's all about price and value.
I've already stated that I feel very strongly that Kindle Fire will succeed because of price and the value add that Amazon brings to the table with their content delivery capabilities and integrated app ecosystem.
My opponent, while making some valid arguments relies heavily on Apple's current strong market position and is under the questionable assumption that their research into form factors and Steve Jobs's vision ultimately will outlast Amazon's attempt at achieving tablet supremacy.
But even visionaries can sometimes be dead wrong. Thomas Edison, the man who Steve Jobs has been compared to numerous times, was stubbornly convinced beyond any doubt that Direct Current (DC) was the future in electrical power.
It only took an enterprising businessman named George Westinghouse and the brilliant mind of a young Nikola Tesla to prove him to be incorrect, and as a result the much more efficient Alternating Current (AC) became in use all over the world for power transmission instead.
Is Jeff Bezos destined to be the George Westinghouse of tablets and digital convergence? We'll soon find out.
As Jason suggests, the question isn't really whether Amazon or B&N have the better hardware than the Apple iPad, because they don't. Or whether they have the better ecosystem or the larger number of apps for the platform. They don't.
Instead, the question for the tablet market is whether $200 will be the magic price point for mass market consumers to enter the tablet market. Ironically for Amazon, this year's impulse buy may be last year's buzz. Consumers may finally get behind the mobile e-book reader proposition and go for the $79 Kindle model, rather than the more expensive 7-inch iPad wannabes without apps.
Apple keeps showing customers and its competitors what a real tablet can do. It has sold 40 million iPads in 18 months. And that's not counting this fall quarter. And Amazon is selling Fires below cost. Where's the beef?
The iPad has resiliently fended off challenges from a steady stream of upstart tablets throughout 2011. However, it is about to get its stiffest challenge yet from the Kindle Fire. As Perlow noted, Amazon has nearly all the pieces in place to challenge Apple from an ecosystem perspective, and that's far more important than the tablet itself. While I still have my doubts about the general usefulness of a 7-inch tablet, the $199 price tag of the Kindle Fire will override those concerns for most people.
Barnes & Noble doesn't have the ecosystem and its tablet is $50 more expensive than the Kindle Fire, so I don't see it being as big of a threat. The best thing the Nook Tablet has going for it is a strong retail presence. I also don't see either the Kindle Fire or the Nook Tablet being as appealing to business professionals, who are some of the iPad's most steady buyers because they want to use the tablet for both work and leisure.
Still, I give Perlow the nod on this one. The Kindle Fire is about to have a huge impact on the tablet market.


Fernanda Levine creates vibrant canvases with rich saturated colours of magenta, pink and fuchsia, blended with yellow and blue. Her captivating florals, such as this piece commissioned for Art Gems, are part of her Backyard Series.
Levine studied Fine Arts at the Finis Terra University in Santiago and received her MFA from the University of Chile. She has won numerous awards and honours, and has also exhibited her work at the National Library of Chile, Artespacio Galeria de Arte Santiago, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Santiago), and SOMArts (San Francisco). Levine lives in Santiago, Chile, and she is represented by Mónica Reyes Gallery Vancouver.
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