Hawaii's Garden Isle: Hollywood roles haven't spoiled Kauai just yet

POIPU, Hawaii — The problem with loving a laid-back place so much is that you want to tell everybody about it, yet you don't want to tell anybody about it, lest it be spoiled.
So it is with Kauai, Hawaii's fourth-largest island and a vibrant, green oasis in the Pacific. Then to your horror, the island shows up in an Oscar-winning movie like "The Descendants," and you figure it's all over. It'll be overrun.
With trepidation I returned to this 33-by-25-mile Eden known as the Garden Isle to try to rediscover that sweet calm and connect with the rich vein of history referenced in the film. I hadn't been there in a decade, and I feared that its tranquil lifestyle so jealously guarded by George Clooney's movie character would be under threat.
Arriving at the main airport after a 40-minute flight from Honolulu, I picked up a rental car in Lihue for the 14-mile trip to Poipu, a resort on the south side of the island known for pristine white-sand beaches.
This was March, and upon arriving at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa in Poipu, I took a dive into island history.
Hawaii's beloved Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, a crown prince of the Kingdom of Hawaii and onetime rebel, was born in Poipu in 1871. After Hawaii's annexation as a U.S. territory, he served as territorial representative in Congress. His birthday, March 26, is a state holiday and cause for a two-week string of celebrations in Poipu.
Each March the hotel's lobby and grounds are transformed into a living-history and cultural experience. Visitors and many of the island's 67,000 residents flock to free cultural demonstrations. A highlight was the Kauai-based male hula troupe Na Kane O Keoneloa, renowned throughout the islands for its booming voices and thundering beats on hand-carved wooden drums.
Venturing out from Poipu, I headed to the rugged hills of the Na Pali Coast, where the intense green of the island meets the vivid blue Hawaiian Pacific. Ten years ago I had viewed the coast's Kalalau Valley from a 4,000-foot overlook while on a mountain hike. This time I took a leisurely alternative aboard Blue Dolphin Charters, a sailing catamaran out of Port Allen, a small port on the south side of the island.
We cruised along an expanse of sand that just wouldn't quit: Polihale Beach, at 15 miles one of the longest in the state. After passing Polihale Beach State Park, we reached the beginning of the Na Pali Coast. The view from the sea is spectacular, especially where crystalline waterfalls tumble thousands of feet to the sea. Each remote valley seems more gorgeous than the next.
So far so good. Not a hint of trouble in paradise.
After two days and three nights in Poipu, I headed to the north shore. Just as on Oahu, some 70 miles away by ocean channel, the north shore of Kauai has the island's best surfing.
This surf nirvana is about 40 miles northwest of Lihue by road. Perfect weather followed me as I drove through one scenic town after another in light traffic on mostly two-lane roads.
The north shore is home to plantation-era towns such as Hanalei and Haena, including many historic and picturesque old wooden buildings along the road. Built to supply basic goods and services to sugar plantation workers, most have morphed into quaint-looking surf shops, restaurants and boutiques.

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With its crescent bay, white-sand beach and a 90-year-old concrete pier, Hanalei Bay is a must-see. Try sunset on the terrace of the luxurious St. Regis Princeville.
There, hotel butler Kaleo Guerrero told guests that the Hawaiian name of the majestic mountain peak in the distance is Makana. It's an image some people might find familiar because it starred in the movie classic "South Pacific." Many refer to it by its fictitious name, Bali Ha'i.
I later got a closer look at Makana from the adjacent Limahuli Garden and Preserve. My guide was Kawika Goodale, a grandson of garden founder Juliet Rice Wichman. He explained that Makana illustrates an unwelcome change to the island, and you can see why in the classic film.
"Look at the peak in the movie," he said of "South Pacific." "It looks completely different. It's now covered with the invasive schefflera shrub" known as the octopus tree.
While on the north shore, I wanted to experience the Na Pali Coast on foot, but I had time only for a two-mile hike along the famed Kalalau Trail. Because steep cliffs can be hazardous to those unfamiliar with the trail, I made the trek with veteran outdoorsman Nick Oliver, from Hanalei-based outfitter Kayak Kauai. A guy like Oliver is even better than Googling, stopping frequently to point out native and invasive plants while recounting Hawaiian folk tales.
I spent my last night on the island at a restored plantation cottage near the beach in the historic town of Waimea. One of more than 50 that have been moved from various locations on the island, they now are the charming and comfortable Waimea Plantation Cottages.

If you think texting while walking is dangerous, just wait until everyone starts wearing Google's futuristic, Internet-connected glasses.

NEW YORK — If you think texting while walking is dangerous, just wait until everyone starts wearing Google's futuristic, Internet-connected glasses.

While wearing a pair, you can see directions to your destination appear literally before your eyes. You can talk to friends over video chat, take a photo or even buy a few things online as you walk around.
These glasses can do anything you now need a smartphone or tablet computer to do _and then some.
Google gave a glimpse of "Project Glass" in a video and blog post this week. Still in an early prototype stage, the glasses open up endless possibilities — as well as challenges to safety, privacy and fashion sensibility.
The prototypes Google displayed have a sleek wrap-around look and appear nothing like clunky 3-D glasses. But if Google isn't careful, they could be dismissed as a kind of Bluetooth earpiece of the future, a fashion faux-pas where bulky looks outweigh marginal utility.
In development for a couple of years, the project is the brainchild of Google X, the online search-leader's secret facility that spawned the self-driving car and could one day send elevators into space.
If it takes off, it could bring reality another step closer to science fiction, where the line between human and machine blurs.
"My son is 4 years old and this is going to be his generation's reality," said Guy Bailey, who works as a social media supervisor for a university outside Atlanta, Ga. He expects it might even be followed by body implants, so that in 10 years or so you'll be able to get such a "heads-up display" inside your head.
But is that what people want?
"There is a lot of data about the world that would be great if more people had access to as they are walking down the street," said Jason Tester, research director at the nonprofit Institute For the Future in Palo Alto, California.
That said, "once that information is not only at our fingertips but literally in our field of view, it may become too much."
Always-on smartphones with their constant Twitter feeds, real-time weather updates and "Angry Birds" games are already leaving people with a sense of information overload. But at least you can put your smartphone away. Having all that in front of your eyes could become too much.
"Sometimes you want to stop and smell the roses," said Scott Steinberg, CEO of technology consulting company TechSavvy Global. "It doesn't mean you want to call up every single fact about them on the Internet."
Still, it doesn't take much to imagine the possibilities. What if you could instantly see the Facebook profile of the person sitting next to you on the bus? Read the ingredient list and calorie count of a sandwich by looking at it? Snap a photo with a blink? Look through your wall to find out where electrical leads are, so you know where to drill?
"Not paint your house, because the people who looked at your house could see whatever color they wanted it in?" pondered veteran technology analyst Rob Enderle.
Wearing the glasses could turn the Internet into a tool in the same way that our memory is a tool now, mused science fiction writer and computer scientist Vernor Vinge. His 2007 book, "Rainbow's End," set in the not-so-distant future, has people interacting with the world through their contact lenses, as if they had a smart phone embedded in their eyes.
Unlike Google's glasses, at least in their current state, Vinge's lenses know what you are looking at and can augment your reality based on that. That could come next, though.
"Things we used to think were magic, we now take for granted: the ability to get a map instantly, to find information quickly and easily, to choose any video from millions on YouTube rather than just a few TV channels," wrote Google CEO Larry Page in a letter posted on the company's website Thursday.
In Google's video, a guy wearing the spectacles is shown getting subway information, arranging to meet a friend for coffee and navigating the inside of a bookstore, all with the help of the glasses. It ends with him playing the ukulele for a woman and showing her the sunset through a video chat.
Google posted the video and short blog post about Project Glass on Wednesday, asking people to offer feedback through its Google Plus social network.
By Thursday, about 500 people did, voicing a mix of amazement and concern about the new technology. What if people used it in cars and got distracted? What about the effect on your vision of having a screen so close to your eye?
Some asked for prototypes, but Google isn't giving those out just yet. The company didn't say when regular people can expect to get their hands on a piece of Project Glass, but going by how quickly Google tends to come out with new products, it may not be long. Enderle estimates it could be about six months to a year before broader tests are coming, and a year or more for the first version of the product.
With such an immersive device as this, that sort of speed could be dangerous, he cautions.
"It's coming. Whether Google is going to do it or someone else is going to do it, it's going to happen," Enderle said. "The question is whether we'll be ready, and given history we probably won't be. As a race we tend to be somewhat suicidal with regard to how we implement this stuff."

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Seven Cybercrime-Fighting Steps For Small Businesses

 

How To Defend Against Cybercrime

Cybercrime represents a $2 trillion annual business, representing 15 percent of the global production of goods and services, according to the United Nations. Each year, criminals hone their skills and tools to become more adept at penetrating computer systems to steal credit-card numbers and corporate and government secrets.
This year already has seen some high-profile break-ins. The most recent was at credit-card processor Global Payments, which acknowledged the theft of 1.5 million card numbers and other important information that could be used to produce counterfeit Visa and MasterCard credit cards. While such security breaches are sure to continue as the year progresses, there are steps small businesses can take to improve security online and in the office.
Here are seven tips from Karl Volkman, chief technology officer for Chicago-based IT services firm and Microsoft partner SRV Network.

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Hawaii surfer fights off 10-foot shark, suffers bite on foot

HONOLULU — A 28-year-old surfer suffered injuries on his left foot after he says a 10-foot-shark bit him off Oahu’s North Shore.
Joshua Holley was paddling Tuesday when he felt something on his foot.
Honolulu lifeguard operations chief Jim Howe tells the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (http://bit.ly/HRHflZ) the shark came up to Holley, bit him and let go, and then bit him again.
He says Holley fought off the shark with his surf board and got a good look at it. Holley believes it was a tiger shark.
Howe tells Hawaii News Now (http://bit.ly/Hfebr9) Holley was treated on the beach before being taken to Wahiawa General Hospital.
Holley is due to have minor surgery Wednesday.
Ocean safety officials are warning people to stay out of the water in the area where the attack happened. Warning signs have been posted at several North Shore beaches.