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Apple finally building a real sized hd tv. Bloomberg didn't say much about it but it seems like it will be very interesting to see what it can do that is going to make people want to buy it. 

It's no surprise Apple's servers are barely holding on to the mass of people coming home from work and school at around 3:00pm-4:00pm all trying to download the new iOS. This is the biggest software upgrade apple has ever done with at least 200+ new features. Well that is what they said on the Apple Website at least. People are concerned that if Apple can barely manage this wave of "Updaters" how will their servers do when all the iCloud subscribers will all be uploading their photos?

New to the world of phones and transactions alike: the Blackberry Bold 9900 and Curve 9360 are the first SIM-based smartphones to earn the "MasterCard PayPass Certification." This means that MasterCard thinks the phones are advanced and secure enough to handle MasterCard's NFC-based Paypass system. Now that this has been decided, any MasterCard Paypass-issuing bank can give a PayPass account to the SIM card in these phones. As a Vice President of RIM puts it, this is a "significant step forward in the way we use mobile devices for payments." Indeed, VP, indeed. This quite the large leap for Blackberry, and Blackberry users alike, as it will affect the way we do our business and transactions, and therefore out everyday lives. Jealous, Apple & Co.? 

The latest in RIM's collection of Blackberry's have now been deemed secure enough to handle Mastercard's pay pass system which means that when one of these phones SIM cards is encrypted with a pay pass account it will allow the user to make payments from their Mastercard account through their smartphone

Do you love Starbucks coffee and want to learn more about your cup-a-joe? Then you're in luck. Starbucks is launching a QR code program which will let consumers learn more about their coffee. These codes can also provide additional information, most likely in the form of a video, about coffee sold at the stores. Some may provide a sample of music that people listen to in the region where the coffee was picked and found, or a description of just how great the coffee is, done by coffee experts. Whoa. Starbucks is working with Scanbuy on this initiative, who have previously worked with The Home Depot and Taco Bell. So, you get a background check on your coffee. That's useful, right?

To any X Factor fans out there: Twitter is now allowing viewers to vote for performers by direct messages. Starting November 2, X Factor will be the first reality competition to do this. You must be following @TheXFactorUSA and DM your votes to them. Note that regular tweets with @TheXFactorUSA mentioned will not count - they must be DMs. A limit of 50 has been set for voting on Twitter, though, whereas the classic forms of calling, SMS, and SMS in-app are still unlimited. This stretches the boundaries of TV and social networking, and makes it easier for people to vote and connect with others.

Facebook.....what did you do this time? The Timeline, which was supposed to be released "in a few weeks," but now it's two weeks late. Maybe, it's due to controversial feedback from early users. Many feel that Timeline is making them stay on Facebook for longer, and ultimately defeating the main reason they like it: to be able to quickly scan their news feed. However, Facebook has PROMISED to unveil the new Timeline, so all Facebook users will have it, whether they like it or not. Tough love. 

Christopher "moot" Poole, creator of 4chan and Canvas, talks at the web 2.0 summit on identity and the average person's persona on the web. According to him, social networking sites like Facebook think problems with security lie in who we share with, but Poole says that it's really our jobs to monitor the person we portray ourselves to be online. He says Facebook misrepresents people, making us think that a person's personality can be generally summed up in a name along side a photo. Poole praises Twitter for doing the exact opposite. We can't just blame companies like Google and Facebook for skewing our online image, because we are the ones who are abusing it by posting too much information anyways. But in the end, it's up to us to be careful what we post online.

A new way to watch your videos online? SoundCloud is the new website to watch your videos that could be the next YouTube the reason being that it has increased penetration of smartphones with microphones, and also better audio while doing other activities an example would be listening to SoundCloud in the car. I think that SoundCloud is good way to watch videos and i think i would use it.

A new look for BlackBerry but without RIM? You could do the same amount of things that you can do with your BlackBerry now but its just without RIM. It also has a lot of different features too. With a stainless steel face, leather back, a feeling of tenuous superiority. It also has exclusive BBM pin. So in the end it seems okay with just some minor changes.

Everyone wants their Facebook posts and statuses to be noticed by as many people as possible, and one way to do that is by timing them to when your last status update stops showing up in your fans' news feeds. This way, no one will get annoyed that you post too much, nor that you "never" post. Many should try this, especially if they are attention seekers who need to be noticed. Jokes.

Google Reader is a useful tool to help keep readers updated on current news. Google is updating this "long-ignored RSS app", giving it a new, modern design but removing the social features of this site. The problem? The social aspect of this site is not as in-your-face like Facebook, but instead enables your friends to keep you updated on things that you may not be subscribed to in Google Reader. The writer of this article even accuses Google of taking away the social features on Google Reader to drive people to Google +, which sadly, I can see them doing. Haha, nice try Google.

QR codes are a picture that when scanned, either brings a website or information up on your phone. The technology has great potential, but the only place where people are actually using it to its advantage is in Japan. In North America, all it's doing is bringing people to third-party websites that either give your phone a virus or send so many texts that your bill is ridiculously high. So why are we using this amazing technology for such bad uses?

With increasing use of new media in recruitment, you need more than a resume to showcase your personal brand and stand out from your competitors. Regular CVs alone are not enough to convince potential employers why you should be chosen for a job. Let your 1-min unique self-promoting video and LinkedIn profile do the personal branding for you and help you get noticed by employers.

Multitasking often gives us the feeling of being productive, doing numerous things at once. But does it really works? Studies revealed multitasking can actually result in losing 20-30% of your productive time.

A recent study indicates that more people in the world have cell phones than toilets. According to a national report, 6 out of 7 billion people on the Earth have cell phones, compared to the 4.5 billion who have access to a functional toilet. Cell phones are in no way a bad thing, the major concern here is the shockingly low number of toilets. The study shows that those in countries without proper sanitation lose about 4500 children a day, just because they lack proper cleanliness. The shortage of latrines makes disease spread quite easily, and it is shown that the countries with the most poverty have a direct correlation to the countries which lack proper bathrooms. Bill Gates and the UN have been working to make a toilet that can easily be installed and maintaining in a developing country, and hopefully these findings will decrease the amount of death and poverty in these third world countries. Although the article compares two completely different things (cell phones and toilets), it does well at shining a light on things we take for granted in our lives. It's great that cell phones are everywhere, it allows anyone anywhere to have access to information from around the world. However, the priorities need to be straitened out; toilets are way more important than iPhones.

I was going to do that article D:

Matthew doesn't have toilets in his house.

Online services such as cloud may be convenient, but there is always a risk of such services that your locally installed software won't. Unfortunately, what could happen is that your cloud service could abandon you at any moment. OfficeDrop users were facing just about the same scenario. After receiving a notice that last Friday that the online service of OfficeDrop stopped its service on May 5. This left collaboration and service no longer available to its users. Many people have come to depend on OfficeDrop to store and share your files in the cloud. Unfortunately, OfficeDrop is not longer able to offer OfficeDrop as a standalone service anymore and also discontinued it permanently as of May 5th, 2013. OfficeDrop as a company did not go away, just the service to its users. OfficeDrop signed an agreement to sell OfficeDrop to another Cloud Storage player. Also, the acquirer has decided to not continue offering the OfficeDrop service and instead will combine the product, technology and team with theirs and market it through their channels. According to the notice sent to OfficeDrop users, billing for OfficeDrop has stopped, and refunds are being issues when applicable. The notice urges all files be downloaded as soon as possible, because they will be securely and permanently deleted as of May 6th, 2013. This is a negative impact when you use the cloud.

you might ask what is Vapp??? well its an app that responds to sounds to take pictures automatically, without the press of any buttons. why should you get this app?, well first of all it requires no hands and it is voice activated, and you are able to adjust the volume level for the voice control, so it will respond to as little as a whisper and as much scream to take a picture, also this app is free and is probably going to be a successful app. this is another new product in the apple store, in my opinion everyone should get this appp it is useful to those who are not able to take pictures, or suffer from Parkinson. i would also recommend this app to people who enjoy taking pictures of what they do and what they eat.

As a social generation, we use various online 'social networks' to connect with others and share information (e.g. photos, text, videos.) But has anyone ever considered integrating one of these networks into a scholastic environment? This is exactly what Assistant professor of education at Michigan State University, Christina Greenhow has found in a recent study. While most say that social networks like Twitter are poisoning the minds of our youth, destroying their grammar and face-to-face skills, Greenhow finds that using Twitter in her class has allowed for more engaged students proven to attain higher grades. By integrating Twitter into some of the class' exercises, Greenhow was able to contextualize the material into something the students could relate to, "The students get more engaged because they feel it is connected to something real, that it's not just learning for the sake of learning." Twitter; something bored students would initially hide from teachers in class is now seeing some valid and practical applications in the classroom. This article relates to the tag "eLifestyle" because teachers are constantly trying to integrate web-based teaching into their classrooms in this constantly evolving technological age. This relates to ICS20 because we are one of the classes in the school on the forefront of technology, integrating web services such as Codeacademy, Diigo and even Twitter to enhance our learning experience. This article is not meant to give students excuses to wander off to Twitter during class, but to show teachers the validity in using a web-based social network to improve their teaching methods in the classroom.

Love this post. I've been thinking about this stuff for a while, as in - how do I work twitter into class activity? Any ideas?