Group items tagged

Google Inc buys Nik Software's "Snapseed", in competition to Instagram, which was recently bought by Facebook. Despite being less popular than Instagram, and costing $4.99, in contrast to Instagram being free on Apple's mobile devices, Snapseed won Apple Inc's "iPad App Of The Year (2011)" award for its photo editing abilities. This article describes reactions to Google's purchase from companies including Google Inc., Nik Software, and BGC Partners. It seems once again that Google is playing catch up in social media to companies such as Facebook. Google Inc. reported this week that Google+ had reached 400 million users, and 100 million monthly active users. As a user of both Facebook and Google+, I feel as though Google is once again the underdog, albeit a rising one. In comparison to the battle for social media supremacy, Snapseed also has 9 million users, versus Instagram's 100 million. Google is rising in popularity and Facebook may have some competition. Perhaps this purchase of the photo-editing power of Snapseed may help Google in their obstacle ridden climb.

I can not count how many times already that I have had something spoiled for me, be it a television series I have yet to watch, a book I have yet to buy and read, a movie still left to watch, or even a new music video for a certain Korean boy band that I follow and cry over. And all of these disgusting spoilers, that ruin my entertainment, come from the single source that is the Internet. I can't even innocently scroll through my dashboard on Tumblr to update my blog anymore without discovering five plot twists in which I have not yet been pleasantly surprised in, a death scene I least expected before it was my time to watch it, and maybe even a leaked practice video to a supposedly secret EXO comeback. Not only does this infuriate me to no end, but it also fuels the fires of my happiness in that someone created the "Spoiler Shield" app - a way to specifically block all of the spoilers you will find while going through your social media sites. Just simply input the subject you would not like to previously see before you invest the time to actually watch it, and the app will block all spoilers relating to it in real time so that going on your social media daily will never be a problem again. At last, I have found an app that will keep my eyes innocent to .gifs from Game of Thrones Season 4 so that I can now watch the show without it being ruined. The idea that this app will prevent me from stumbling over random spoilers greatly pleases me.

Wemo Media has partnered with top animators from Avatar and Tron, the director of MIT's Media Lab and other high profile activists for an ambitious, underwater animation project called theBlu. TheBlu is a project to replicate the entire ocean system, from North America to Asia. It is part social network, part educational tool and part art project. The program will also have a feature where newly designed aquatic creatures can be bought and sold at theBlu's marketplace, which will feature common fish, user creations and exotic or rare animals tied to "philanthropic missions." Currently theBlu is in a closed beta.

Facebook and the Washington Post Company have recently introduced a new app at Facebook's f8 conference, called the Washington Post Social Reader. The app features the ability to allow users to read and share news articles from other media sites from within Facebook itself. In simpler terms, when using the app, it will not require you to follow any other links - it can all easily be done on Facebook. It appears entirely on Facebook, and it is very convenient and easy-to-use for any user.

This article is about how Twitter has introduced a music service to it's 200 million users. Twitter recently bought We Are Hunted,which is a service that recommends music based on social media, changed the service, and incorporated it into Twitter. This music service gives the user suggestions for songs to listen to. It does this by scanning the service's posts for music references. After signing up, a user is sent to a page with many charts of artists and songs. The #NowPlaying list/hashtag collects songs that have appeared in Twitter posts among the people that a user follows.Other lists/hashtags show what music is popular everywhere on Twitter. Artists' accounts highlight the music they follow, allowing their followers to see the type of music they listen to. This new services influences our lives in a positive way because now we as users are exposed to different types of music that we may not know existed. Also, we could share our music and show the world what songs that we like and which we don't. This service influences our lives in a negative way because some people may not like a certain type of music, and may find a certain type of musician offensive. For example an anti- feminist group found Rick Ross an offensive spokesperson for Reebok because of his songs. If a person in politics decided he/she liked Rick Ross's music and shared it on Twitter, this may spark an uproar with the media and this anti-feminist group

Unfortunately, Apple will be selling the iPhone 3GS for free as well as the iPhone 3 GS with a new 2 year contract. The company will sell the iPhone 4 for $99 with a two-year contract, but this will only happen when Apple starts selling the iPhone 4S. For the iPhone 4S, the price is $199 which includes a two-year contract, pre-orders start October 7. 

   Today's society uses  technology to communicate by email, and social networking. But now that we think about it, we don't use the old-fashion way of doing things, and some people don't know how we ever did communicate back then. This cartoon shows us  the way we communicated way back. It shows us in a comedic way in a cartoon picture how we ever caught up with old friends, check our location, track professional contacts, publish our thoughts for others to read and look at cat pictures before the internet. 

Twitter could potentially change our politics in multiple countries for better or for worse. This article describes how twitter has changed the landscape of voting for a president, party, or prime minister. Many countries have adopted twitter as a means of reaching and interacting with their voters. Some examples could be Barack Obama, who has a group of 100 people working on social media for his campaign. Mr. Pinera, the president of Chile has also made it mandatory for all of his cabinet members to get twitter so everyone can interact. Politicians though, have also abused this system by making either very rude tweets to anti-party members or making bland tweets to not offend anyone (causing less followers towards the party.) I would like to call this e-politics, and I believe it is change towards the better. Expanding into the internet for new voters is a genius idea that all parties should add to their campaign.

The title explains. It's Russia instigating the attack like always! This time on Ukraine. So, instead of letting Russians freely figuring out the state of affairs of their own country and Ukraine by the internet -a widely used resource-, they decide to censor matters related to it. Particularly, Ukranian protest group websites. It's currently unknown why Russia is organizing this attack on Ukraine. Land? (greedy bastards) Rebuilding the USSR? Who knows. I wouldn't call this a crisis just yet, as the USA hasn't made any major moves except a warning to Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty. I am totally against internet censorship in all respects, to be honest, so to me Russia is acting ridiculous. A person's right to information is pretty much broken, and that is where the line is drawn for me. Although, I am sure Putin thinks hardly of his citizen's well being, so this is not surprising for Russia.

Simply, there are creepers on the internet that will steal whatever image you think yourself to be without hesitation and then commit mysterious, illegal, dangerous, suspicious activity under your name which could unfortunately get you into jail even though you are innocent. This is a fact. And you know what helps them create this problem of identity theft? It is the information people freely and openly decide to share on their social media accounts like Facebook. Just one insignificant status allows bad people to assume your identity - all they even need is a vague birth date and birth place, and you are basically done for. YOU COULD BE FRAMED. This goes beyond security issues and transcends what illegal is defined as. Say goodbye to your privacy laws and hello to a never ending game of pretend. Identity fraud is swarming on this site and people don't even realize the massive extent it goes to. People are oblivious and frankly don't care if someone is unfortunate enough to fall victim to identity theft.

Google plus is not only able to compete with Facebook, but actually do well. With a 95% profit margin it doesn't look like their stopping any time soon. This is interesting as it asks the question, should we rely on one company or organization for all our information, networking, communications and social media without giving that company too much power that they could eventually control or monitor us.

It just seemed like yesterday that the iPad 2 was released but now it's been confirmed that the iPad 3, the newest edition of the iPad in technology, is in the process of creation and has officially released onto the market. The iPad 3 officially made it's first appearance on March 7th, when Apple introduced it's newest creation to the world at a media event in San Francisco. This notable information is relatable not only to our course, but also to society, and our world because it truly demonstrates how our world is constantly evolving and developing with new gadgets and technology being produced and used at our every use everyday. As consumers, we should also be aware that once the iPad 3 makes its way onto the market, the value our iPads and iPad 2s will significally drop, so it is advised that if you are interested in making a purchase and investment towards the iPad 3, to make a extra couple hundred dollars, try selling your older iPads while they are still valuable and worth an acceptable amount of money. Overall, tablets and iPads have definitely taken our world by storm as they have made a huge impact both economically and socially and Apple hopes to continue to make more and more designs and productions to further the success and effectiveness of their products. 

MindJolt, the game distribution company that was acquired by MySpace founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe last year, has made two significant acquisitions in the gaming space today- game developer Social Gaming Network (SGN) and game network Hallpass Media. The acquisitions were first reported by the New York Times. Financial terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.

With the popularity of social media growing rapidly everyday, so are the number of ways people are trying to steal your information. One such case is the Dorkbot or Ransomware worm that has previously attacked Facebook and Twitter has now began spreading through Skype. Criminals using Dorkbot infect it into computers through sending innocent-looking links to victims. Once a victim clicks the link, the worm blocks all files on the victim's computer from use  and uses these files as ransom for a set amount of money. Should the victim refuse to pay the ransom, all the files will be deleted.  This article shows that as easy as it is for our computer to collect data, it can just as easily have this data stolen, all it takes is a single opened link. It is always stressed to never open links that seem suspicious, yet many people will open links without any regard for their data. I think it's very low how online criminals will stop at nothing to find sneaky ways to steal other people's information and their money. Are they so lazy to make money on their own that they will just leach off of people who worked hard to make money to support themselves? People who don't take precautions while browsing the Internet are just as at fault as the criminals who plague the web. Since people are caring less about the safety of their data as the number of cyber criminals increases, it will be inevitable that web browsers will have to increase security or the government will have to make an effort to track down cyber criminals and set laws to punish cyber criminals more harshly.

This article touches on a very important topic about whether technology is helping the economy and job markets more or if it is in fact hurting it. The answer is they do both. The New York Times among others write that tech companies have created relatively few jobs compared to industries such as GM. However TechCrunch argues that technology has created a lot more indirect jobs due to technology. There are in fact new jobs created such as social media marketers online. Most of these jobs are part-time because they are online and connect employers and workers with no hassle. Their conclusion is that there are millions of jobs created with a high demand but an unprepared workforce. The jobs that are needed now are more technology based than ever before and our economy is moving so fast in that direction that some skills that were needed in the past are no longer needed now. Therefore people are losing jobs not because there are not enough jobs produced but because our job market is drastically changing.  Some companies are allowing people to step into job positions with just a bit of online training or courses. Startups like General assembly are creating programs that are accessible to everyone and helps address the needs of the labor market. The final verdict is we need better training tools to quickly acquire high demanded skills and help workers adapt to the change that technology brings to the labour market. This article relates to economics and eLifestyle mostly because it has to do with how our economy is growing from the jobs created by technology but also how our workers have to respond to this change. This article deals with the changes that the labour market is going through now and how the increase in technology is now changing our lives. Some of our old jobs are being replaced by new jobs that not enough people are qualified for, so certain careers are feeling a job decline making it seem like technology is replacing workers. But in fact these new tools a

This article tells how the constant evolution of technology has enabled students to teach themselves without the need of a teacher. One way technology has been proven  to help students teach themselves is when the MIT Media Lab delivered tablets to schools in a remote village in Ethiopia. With only the tablets, the children taught themselves the ABCs and even found their way around restrictions MIT put into the tablets. Another way students can teach themselves with technology is proven is by an 11 year old girl  from Pakistan that passed a university level class even after the government blocked Youtube which was the source of the videos she used to study. Thanks to a Portugese professor who uploaded the videos to a website the girl could access, she was able to complete the course. Our access to technology influences us by allowing to be (mostly) self-sufficient since we do not have to rely on the help of teachers completely to learn. With this, students can get homework done more easily and be up to date on lessons taught in class. I think that students cannot teach themselves solely on technology since it isn't that evolved yet. I think this is a good thing that students cannot learn only with technology because in school, it is easier to learn things when someone else explains it to you, promotes more social interaction, saves the jobs of teachers, and makes it harder to procrastinate. I believe that eventually students will be able to learn at home with only the Internet because of how fast technology evolves and how much information is stored everyday.

Previously, Twitter, Apple, and Facebook have been on the list of tech companies hacked within the last couple of weeks. As of March 2nd, 2013, Evernote also joins this list when their network is breached by an attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service. Evernote has notified users via  e-mail, blogs, and social media to change passwords so that users personal information can remain safe on the Evernote network. The hackers had successfully accessed usernames, e-mail adresses and encrypted passwords, however, they were stopped before any damage could be done. This relates to the "Privacy & Security" category because users data and personal information is being accessed without authorization. Obviously, this can cause many problems for users especially because their work and information can be stolen or deleted. Evernote encourages creating a strong password to ensure that an account remains secure, however, this is a questionable matter because the website should also consider upgrading their system in order to keep users safe. As part of the eLifestyle, many users rely on cloud storage to store information, especially on Evernote. The recent hacking just proves how reliable cloud storage really is. When saving data, it is important to consider the possibility of it being stolen or deleted. With this in mind, one shouldn't depend on cloud storage for saving all of their work or important material as it hasn't proven to be very reliable. And if you are using cloud storage, it would be smart to backup important files on a USB or Computer.

This article talks about a new samsung galaxy player. This player looks very similar to android smartphone but has latest media player. This can send messages and calls through bluetooth as well as receiving them. This player would be very useful for those who want to avoid paying for another phone and adding to monthly bills. you just have to be connected to bluetooth to receive and send calls or messages. This player is cheaper than the IpodTouch but has tons of useful features that includes, clean sound, camera, whole collections of apps. This relates to our course because our course focus on the technology and this player represents the improvement in technology and changes in generation of players and how they improved and changed. 

this article is about how social media makes a big different from when you studying, compared to alcohol , Facebook is worse because the human brain can not multitask and lowers grades. so next time Students should think twice before logging into Facebook or sending text messages during study time.