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With the thin, sleek design, the shiny screen, and the convenient touch screen, the iphone has grown to become one of the most wanted phones in our country. Behind the high-tech phones and tablets though there's a much more serious issue. Iphones are often created in factories in China that exploit their workers. Things like child labor and abuse are practiced often in these factories. However, this article didn't only bring up the issue of human rights violations, but also our role in it. In the past, companies like Nike have been forced to improve the quality and treatment in these factories after many people boycotted the brands once discovering the ethical issues in the production process. We have not let the exploitation of workers in China pass before, so why are we doing it now with these Apple products. Every time we lay down our money and pick up a new iphone or ipad, we are encouraging this type of production and becoming a part of it. Even our simple, silly complaints about the Apple products can make the conditions worse for those poor workers. They are forced to work even harder and longer, no matter how tired, underpaid and overworked they already are. Has it become important for us to own the best phone, that the rights and sufferings of other human beings no longer matters? Why are we not taking the action necessary to help those workers and send a clear message of opposition? Before, reading this article I also wanted an iphone. It's a great phone, very convenient and high-tech. Knowing the conditions these phones are made in though has started to really make me doubt what I used to consider an amazing phone. It's an ethical issue. Do I want this phone so badly that I'm willing to turn a blind eye to the places it came out of? What scared me was that as much as I knew what the clear answer was, it was still a hard decision to make. Exploiting other humans is wrong and no matter how big Apple is, they are not an exceptio

This lifehacker article explains how to save money in terms of finding and purchasing the best deals on mobile apps. If you are someone who is either tired or annoyed by paying full price on an app that never really lived up to your expectations or your someone who just wants to find a good deal, then your in luck, because the best sales or price drops to find for apps is not that hard, it just requires a little patience. If you are a iPhone or Android user, the best way to track price drops easily and efficiently is to create a list so you can easily check on the price of an app to see if it's gone on sale or not. A particular nifty tool on the iPhone is when you add a interested app to your account of a created wish list, the App Shopper app will either send you an email or a push notification when an app you're keeping your eyes on drops in price. Another method in saving money while wanting to purchase apps for your mobile device is to hold out for common sale times. Both the iTunes App Store and Google Play love having sales around the holidays. Also, apps tend to go on sale after they hit the top of the charts to celebrate their success or after an anniversary of some kind. A third strategy is to look at the sale history or possibly a one-year anniversary to see if a possible sale is sure to come around soon enough. Overall, holding out for a good sale and knowing when those sales happen is a good way to keep your app purchasing budget in check. It's important to not waste your money on pointless apps or on ones that end up dropping in price the next day. Wait the extra day or two and save an extra couple dollars because in the long run, this will pay off both economically as well as feeling satisfied with how you shopped to make your mobile device experience that much better.

Here are some steps into getting some of the best deals on Mobile apps. Most apps are $1.29 to 99 cents and sometimes you think they're too overpriced and you just want a good deal! They're are two things about buying apps, you're always looking for the best deal on apps and hate paying full price, or you buy the app, and then find out the next day that the app goes on sale. Here are some easy ways to find out about cheap apps. 1. Set up price drop alerts and create a list of apps YOU want. This is great so you can track the prices of apps you want. 2. Set up notifs of price drops, for iPhone, there is an app called App Shopper where you can search for any app, and add it to your wish list, and when the price of that app drops in sale, you'd get a e-mail telling you the price dropped. You can do the same thing with Android, and those apps are called AppBrain and AppsFire. 3. Hold out for common sale times. Apps tend to go on sale during holidays like Christmas or Easter. Also, they go on sale after they hit the top of the charts to celebrate their success or after an anniversary of some kind. Many think apps aren't that big of a deal about prices, but when you buy a lot, the bill adds up. These steps great tips on how to get a great deal on apps! SO THIS BOOKMARK BETTER BEAT JASON'S BOOKMARK....but it looks like it didn't :'(

Unlocking an iPhone is now illegal. Any smartphone bought after January 26, 2013 can not be unlocked as it is illegal in the USA at least. Although unlocking an iPhone is illegal jailbreaking is not. At least it is legal to jailbreak an iPhone or iPod Touch but to jailbreak an iPad is illegal. With all this in mind the real winner is the carrier/provider as the consumer cannot jump from company to company with the carriers phone. Only in the states can one go to jail for unlocking a phone but can own an assault rifle!

As an eReader owner, I find this very interesting. On an eReader, you can highlight sections of a passage in an eBook and it will save it for future reference. Now, Findings, a social corporation, has turned into "an online destination where readers can collect, share, discuss, and discover such highlights from eBooks and web texts," which basically means that you can now share your highlights with the world on Findings. Not very impressive, I know, but for an eReader owner, it is useful. You can look up someone else's saved passages from a book you don't even own, so there's a way this technology can help you out in this world - save a couple dollars.

The smartphone market has been dominated by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android devices, but with this dominance many people think they do not have any other options when it comes to smartphones other than Apple and Android. Yes, there have been other companies that have tried to combat the powerful hold of Apple and Android but they have faltered and ultimately could not dethrone these smartphone giants. Now the Finnish company Jolla plans on competing against Apple and Android with its new OS, Sailfish which they claim is an alternative to Apple and Android. Jolla also partnered itself with Chinese phone retailer D.Phone so Jolla would have phones that will run Sailfish. For many of us, we are stuck with the decision of buying either an Android or an iPhone since any other phone trying to appear differently was simply forgotten. But the release of Sailfish phones would completely change the smartphone market by giving consumers another option when considering buying a new phone and releasing some of the control that Apple and Android have. It could also be possible that Sailfish phones will be more revolutionary and better looking than Androids and iPhones but still cost less which would attract many consumers who want an innovative but low-cost phone. I think Sailfish will have a large impact on the smartphone market since it uses many gestures that makes the OS unique. Whereas Apple's iPhone and Google's Android will eventually lose their popularity due to Apple and Android's lack of innovation, the Sailfish phones could possibly have the same effect the first iPhone had on the world and become the new dominant smartphone. 

This article is about new apps that help disabled people. Many computer science researchers have been looking for an app that would help the disabled, and now they have created a few. One is called VizWiz. This is an app that helps the visually impaired. The user takes a picture of what he/she has a question about, asks a question, and receives an answer by a worker at Mechanical Turk. Mechanical Turk is a service, featuring many people that answer questions. Another app is Scribe. This app helps the deaf and hearing-impaired. Users send an audio stream to many of the Scribe workers who provide real time transcription. Since only highly trained transcribers with special equipment can transcribe all of the words in a live stream, Scribe coordinates a group of six or seven amateurs to transcribe the stream.

This article talks about a new tablet line from Microsoft called "Surface". It is supposed to go with the new Windows 8 operating system which is supposed to be a more touch and mobile friendly system. At an event in LA Steve Ballmer showed 2 versions of Surface.  One is running Windows 8 Pro the other Windows RT. Each tablet comes with a stand and magnetically attachable covers to allow the tablet to be like a laptop. The type cover has a keyboard and trackpad, while the touch cover is a thinner keyboard cover that comes in many colours and has an accelerometer to let the system know when it's folded to deactivate the keyboard. Both have a 10.6-inch display. The RT version is 9.3mm thick and weights 673g while the Windows 8 Pro is 13.55mm thick and weighs 903g. Only the RT comes with productivity software like Office Home and Student pre-loaded. This release ties in with portable computing because it is an all new portable tablet that is from Microsoft. It also ties in with their new operating system that goes hand in hand with this tablet. It is something with a new innovative style and can be used in various ways as a laptop or tablet. It also ties in with economics and the whole Apple vs. Microsoft competition. Microsoft has created an "even better" version of the iPad. Now instead of going for the iPad people that like PC's and working with them can make the choice to use the Surface tablet which once again puts Microsoft and Apple in competition with one another for sales. All in all this is a great new tablet and I think it is great for all those Windows users that can get their hands on a new tablet from Microsoft.  It will be interesting to see if this new technology will blow up compared to the iPad and now the iPad Mini.

This article is about how 38% of children on Facebook are younger than 12 years old. I found this to be really shocking! Even though there are privacy settings for Facebook, you still have to be careful with the people you talk to. Another thing i found surprising was that 74% of parents are worried about their children's safety, yet they still let their children on Facebook. There are many things that parents have to look out for when their children are on Facebook. Including sexual predators and cyber bullying. Even though parents say they are concerned it doesn't show in the stats when there are 6 year olds on Facebook.  

This article talks about how 38% of children on Facebook are younger than 12! There is an age restriction on Facebook, you must be at least over 13 to have an account. This shows how the generations have really evolved. Children under the age of 6 already have Facebook accounts! All parents are concerned about their children's safety but by allowing them to be on Facebook at an early age might be in more risk. Children can have sexual predators, expose too much information, talk to strangers and many more. I think that parents shouldn't be exposing their children to networking site at such an early age.

This article tells the readers about 7 apps that were released this week. The seven apps are Pair, Bump Pay, Fuze HD, Babbel forAndroid, MTA or Merifian, Paper, and Wonders of the Universe.   Pair is an app for many of those who are in a long distance relationship. They allow couples to create a private timeline, swap photos, share videos, and their location. The app also has "thumb kiss" feature that vibrates the phone when they both touch the same part of the phone. This app is available for iPhones. Bump Pay is an app that allows you to pay others by simply "bumping" your phones together. You would pay them using PayPal. Fuze HD is an video conference app that allows others to have a video chat with up to ten people on at once. You could  also send text, images, and other media during the presentation. Babble for Android is a language app. It has over 3000 vocabulary words, sounds, images, speech recognition and a personalized review manager for multiple languages. MTA on Meridian is a app that you can use to browse art of particular line or plan your own transit system art tour. Paper is a new app that allows people to draw diagrams and sketches and shared them with others on the web. Wonders of the universe is an app that lets you explore space with graphics and visuals.  I think that this article is interesting because it tells me many of the apps that I didn't know about.

Online courses are now being used by students in university. This allows them to study and complete work from their own home, but the question asked by most is if the online course investment is worth it, in terms of careers. Lou Adler, (a self proclaimed hiring expert) believes not so, because when you take an online course,classes require you presenting your skills to your employer. An online course is not the same as a sit down university course, because it does not provide you with the practical skills necessary. Someone taking an online course can still have an advantage over people who commute to university. e.g. submitting a project you did using your computer, easily, and using it in a job application. You can distinguish yourself from others, using computer generated projects, etc. Depending on what field you want to get into, online courses can be harmful or helpful.

Bitcoin; the once elusive currency reserved for shady transactions on the deep web has become popular over the past 12 months, but a recent collapse has its integrity in question. Firstly, it is important to understand what bitcoin is. For the uneducated, Bitcoin is a digital only 'currency' that is used like regular money, to make transactions, with the added bonus of (possibly) being anonymous. Due to an exploit in Bitcoin and in the online wallet service, Mt. Gox, Many people are raising an eyebrow about the reliability and integrity of the currency. Goldman Sachs, a HUGE investment banking company, recently weighed in and called Bitcoin a "speculative financial asset", not a currency. Personally, I think the currency, which was created with the purpose of being an anonymous hard currency, has failed because it has gone to the mainstream. The money isn't heavily secured, as the recent online bank heists have shown, and has no real advantage for the public. Bitcoin worked fine, amazing even, as a P2P currency only used by the deep web community, but its gotten to big and needs regulation to stay constant. This, however, is against the very nature of BTC and will therefore not be supported by the community. All in all, BTC is an interesting idea that worked on the micro scale, but cannot hope to function on the macro.

Going for an interview is like going for a first date. You want to look and behave your best at your first date/interview, to grab your potential date/employer's attention. Like in a date so in an interview, you get only one chance to create an impeccable first impression, to prove why you are the perfect match for the job.

This is article is all about running a second operating system in a virtual machine or dual boot. Choosing between this two methods is up to you, because  you need to think which better for your particular needs.Both have pros and cons, but are better suited to specific situations. Dual booting is great for games and other Long stints in an operating system while virtualization is great for running that one program, or testing out a new OS.

This article discusses the options of running an OS within an OS for example a VMware image of Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion running on a Windows based machine within the VMware software package. It discusses the issues of performance when you use another OS within a host OS and how the processor has to utilise and manage its resources within the both OS's for it to run, so therefore the virtual OS will be very laggy and unresponsive if it has to utilise a lot of resources and if it has a lot of programs and processes open simultaneously. While Dual booting is great if you own a Apple Mac due to the fact that not many games can run on the Mac environment because of the need of most games require the Microsoft DirectX 10 codec or higher for example CRYSIS 2  which is only available to windows machines for it to function properly. This therefore is relevant to my course due to the fact that it discusses many software package limitations and also hardware limitations which can get in the way of what you want to achieve for example VMware .ISO file of Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion running on an Acer Aspire 5247.  

We all know that voice recognition software exists having been created by companies like Apple, some of us thought that advanced technology would end at a computer recognizing words and responding to questions. However that is not the case. A company called Kimera Systems is developing a system that figuratively reads your mind. This isn't a software that literally reads what you are thinking and performs an action based on your thought since that would require an implant into your body. Rather, Kimera's system consisting of the Salience Engine and DigitalMe (or DMe) Smart Agents. The Salience Engine collects information from its users and uses this to understand human action better while the Smart Agents perform actions based on the user's preferences and the user's previous actions. For example, if a user sent out party invitations to friends and then went out to buy groceries, Kimera's system would automatically download a shopping app for the user because the system understands the user is going to the grocery store to buy select food items. This system, should it be implemented into future phones and devices could very well change society for the better and for worse. This system could make people's lives better by allowing decisions to be made by the system for the user so they can worry about other things while knowing Kimera's system will take care of tasks for them. This could negatively impact society though because since the system automatically makes decisions for the user, if they begin to rely on this system and lose their sense of judgement rendering them unable to decide without this system. Though automated technology is the dream of many, is an automated life really what we want? From this new technology Kimera is creating, other more advanced automated technologies could arise and eventually we could end up losing our humanity since everything we need to do is done for us by a computer. We would end up like the humans in the movie Wall-E who were

This post is about an app created by eleven year old Victoria Walker and David Grau that helps prevent texting while driving. With it people can form "packs" and will be able to prevent their friends form texting while driving. This is done through setting off a loud baring noise that dosn't stop until the offender stops texting. I believe that this is an amazing app as it will help prevent accidents. Also it makes people more interactive and aware of the dangers of texting and driving. This app will cause more interaction because it doesn't make preventing texting while driving a chore, instead it makes it fun. Furthermore i find it amazing that this app was created by eleven year olds. This really goes to show that you can do anything, and you don't have to wait until you get older. It shows that opportunity awaits everywhere. In conclusion I would like to say that those kids are brilliant and they've created an amazing app.

Great post. Apps that serve the most basic purpose are always the best.

Over the years, the internet has become faster and faster and as this has happened our patience has decreased. We have come to expect fast speeds and short loading times on the internet and anything slower is considered unacceptable. However, before reading this article I didn't realize how impatient we had really become when it comes to the internet. This article talks about the results of a study that showed that users were likely to give up on a video after only two seconds of loading! This had come as a surprise to me. To me, two seconds seems like only an instant, but I have to admit that I still am not willing to wait much longer than that for a video especially if the video is only 10 minutes or less. However, I find it interesting how two seconds of loading has become an issue, while we are still waiting through 30 seconds or more of advertisements before we are able to view our video. If we have already spent so much time watching an ad a couple more seconds shouldn't seem like a big deal. This article shows how our expectation of high speeds has affected us and our lifestyle. We have come to expect our video to load almost immediately and if it doesn't do this then it isn't worth the time. Our ability to wait is being altered. We're no longer used to having to wait for things that we want to watch, see or listen to on the internet. We've changed into thinking that if it doesn't load instantly, then it isn't worth watching. Of course, our patience should have limits. If it really is taking longer than the length of the video itself to load then perhaps it is time to abandon the video, but I feel that waiting only two seconds before moving on shows how impatient we have become with technology.

The new Wii U review came out today. The Wii U is longer than the old one and looks sleeker. Also it's lovely fingerprint black. It has an HDMI port (cord is included), other USB ports, and a SD card slot. It runs on an IBM Power-based multi-core processor and an AMD Radeon custom high-def GPU. It comes in 8GB of internal flash memory for $300 and for $350 you get 32GB of memory. The Gamepad is pretty much all your Nintendo devices in one. It comes with a camera. The battery life is about 3.5 hours with everything turned down. If your parents are watching TV you can still play on the gamepad. The pro controller is small copy of the PS3 and Xbox 360's controller. The battery life is 6-10 hours. Overall there are many interactive games and the family will love playing together. eLifestyle because this will become the new trend. Many people will want to get it. Sunday nights the family will get together and play all night. Economics because the Wii U is going to be big competition for the other companies because they don't have a gamepad and you can play while dad is watching CFL playoffs. 

This post is about making videos viral. Currently, people have to work hard, be creative or create something different in order for it to be noticed on the internet. This parody predicts that it will no longer be the case in the future. The video promotes the company "Buyral" that can ensure that your video has a huge amount of views, (goes viral) without you even trying to make a good video. It seems ridiculous, but as Brian Barrett points out: like all good satire, it is perilously close to becoming a reality. Many times, a viral video goes viral because it is a great video. Can you imagine if anyone could just as easily give up a few bucks and have an internet smash? Some companies are already promoting videos on Youtube and other websites, buy you can clearly read the caption that says "Promoted." If this parody were a reality, you would have no way of knowing if it truly earned those views, or if somebody with no imagination paid a website to get his or her video views. I believe that this defeats the whole purpose of a video becoming viral, and it relates to eLifestyle because it would definately influence our daily lives. When people go on youtube and click on the "most viewed" section, they are expecting to find something that is worth their time. Furthermore, if someone is searching for a video, for instance, on making apple pie, the first video that will come up is the one with the most views. Instead of getting a video that earned the views, people will likely get an advertisement from a company that makes apple pies or such, that paid an amount of money to obtain those views.

This article is about the transition from HD to 4K, which is know as Ultra High Definition (UHD). It talks about how a decade ago, we were introduced to HD TV, which is now a standard in the TV and technology community, and how the consumers reacted to it and how it transitioned compared to how we were transitioned into 3DTV. At the time, HD TV was expensive, but when the price came to an affordable price, it was a big hit and made a lot of money over the years. Now we are being introduced to UHD and the question people are asking is how will the consumers react to this. When 3D TV was introduced, it sounded like it was an amazing thing to have, but it did not sell well, as it was marketed to children and the only real 3D programming were sports and some action films. 4K is a huge improvement in technology from HD, but not many people think it will bloom just as HD did. We will have to wait for an answer when the public is able to purchase these TV's, but for now, the road that 4K is looking like it will take is right down the middle.

Yes

An up and rising company by the name of DoorJamz has created something that is perhaps the pinnacle of human ingenuity and progression. The guys at DoorJamz have a door bell that can be altered using a smart phone. This means that no longer will you have to hear the annoying ding dong sound, now your guest recognition device can be any sound clip your heart desires. The app side of things has many additional features. It lets you lower the volume of your door bell in case you trying to raise a colony of ants to do your evil bidding. Also available is to have the ability to pre-schedule specific sound clips for certain times and days. Having an annoying relative over that has an irrational fear of Celine Dion? Have the Titanic sound track play while she's over whenever a guest arrives. Can't control your bowels unless you hear the opening song to Jurassic Park? You can have that play as well. The possibilities are truly endless. I'm surprised you're still reading this, by now I would've expected you to violently type in the URL to DoorJamz's website and order 20 of these bad boys. Trust me, you're kid defiantly wants a DoorJamz door bell for Christmas.