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Introducing the all new BMW's very own M Performance sport steering wheel. This steering wheel offers a whole bunch of data and information while letting you concentrate on the road. What makes this steering wheel unique from other steering wheel is that high grip material and the small OLED display located 12 o'clock of the wheel. Within this small display it shows you many features of the car. For example, average fuel consumption, speed, oil and water temperature, lap times, G- force, and more. On each side of the display, there are LED's that glow and flashes to indicate the end of the current gear. So you do not have to look down at the dashboard to see your current RPM. There are also three readout modes: Efficient Dynamic, Sport, and Race. Depending of which mode is currently active, it gives you new information of the vehicle.  So you are probably all wondering the price of this wonderful steering wheel. The price is $1700. To me, I think it is worth it for those who wants to monitor their vehicle and see their lap times etc. The wheel looks absolutely gorgeous and it will attract many BMW customers. 

This article discuses the fact that google TV is now getting a voice search. I think this is a very good thing because it would save a great deal of time for everyone while they are scrolling through google. You now do not need to spend countless minutes scrolling through pages and pages of information and finding what you need. The voice search will allows you to find the exact information you need at a certain point of time. Google's also adding Primetime, an unobtrusive improvement to the on-screen guide. In my opinion this would be a good addition to google. I and lots of other students use google for help with homework, assignments, and just general research. Now students will be able to find the exact information they need, and in a very short period of time.

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.

*Disclaimer: Article above contains profane/vulgar language This article details the findings of the blog 'Jezebel', who compiled a series of racist, anti-Obama tweets following the U.S election, and 'Floating Sheep' who trended those tweets and imposed them over a map of the United States. Using the knowledge of geo-coded tweets and the Twitter search bar, Floating Sheep was able to trend racist anti-Obama tweets from November 1-7. They used an 'LQ' algorithm which compared a state's ratio of racist to normal tweets to the entire country's ratio of racist to normal tweets. States with an LQ score of 1 were on par with the country, while those 1 had more racist tweets on average. After trending the reassuringly low 395 tweets, the study found (unsurprisingly) that higher LQ scores came from South-Eastern states, with Alabama at 8.1 and Mississipi at 7.4. This relates to Privacy and Security because Floating Sheep used geo-coding to find out where the cruel tweets originated from. This relates to eLifestyle because the internet harbours some of the most ignorant/hateful people who make callous remarks without realizing everything that you do can be and often is tracked. This relates to ICS20 because we promote a positive online environment and we frown upon things like racism and vulgar language; the very opposite of what these people mentioned in the article are portraying. If there is a silver lining to this study, it is that in this technological era, we are able to publicize ignorance and judge/analyze those who advocate awful messages.

This post is about a $0.99 app on the Apple App Store. With this app (ImmediateSend) you can send messages or iMessages without closing the application you were using when you received the message. As many iOS users know, when you receive a message, you need to navigate to your Messages App and type the message. With this new app, a pop up appears, and you can answer all of your important messages a lot faster. This relates to Portable Computing because in this day and age it is very important to get things done as fast as you can. This app is very handy and can be very useful if you are using another app and do not feel like hitting the home button. I feel that it is worth paying $0.99. 

Today The Wii U came out, and even before that there are already positive posts about it. This Article talks about the Wii U's features, compares it to other consoles, and talks about Nintendo's future. The Wii U seems to have made quite an entrance, with many positive replies and it has been sold out everywhere in my area. Its main Qualities is amazing Multiplayer, as it has been designed to have fun with friends and family. Its new controller is also very interesting, as it has a built in touch screen. This is a big improvement as it allows for more control and eliminates screen picking as you can hide what you are doing and only see it on your controller. It also has completely free online interaction which puts it a step above the Xbox. As for its Hardware, it's processing is about 3 times as good as the Xbox' or PS3's and it also has a much improved graphics card. It also has its traditional motion sensor and controller, allowing for fun sword fighting and other motion controlled games. Overall, I recommend the Wii U for everyone, as it gives a lot of fun to yourself, and all your family/friends. It as an amazing console And will bring a lot o fun to your life.

Many with Google accounts have noticed that their homepage no longer has the nice background they picked, why? Once again, Google is eliminating another one of its least used service: iGoogle. At first iGoogle was a service with many features that are similar to those of other services, but Google also included additional gadgets to make it more Google-like. However, as time goes on, iGoogle's purpose became obsolete since many other apps, whether it is from Google or other services, of the same purpose became more popular. Less people used iGoogle and this forced the company to consider shutting down the service. Those who are upset about the company's decision still have a little less than a year to use the service since the company announced that they will completely shut down the service on November first in 2013. Although Google+, UStart, and ProtoPage, are services that can also serve as replacements, this is a disadvantage to those who prefer iGoogle. The company cannot make decisions that pleases everyone, so they make choices that appeal to the majority instead. For those who do not support the decision, will eventually have to adjust to using other services besides iGoogle.   

LG released its newest refrigerator called the Smart Thing.which as you can guess, is a "smart" fridge. The fridge can communicate and interact with your Android phone to complete or help complete some of its tasks. This fridge can tell you what is in the fridge, scan barcodes of food products, suggest recipes based on the user's preferences and lifestyle, notify expiration dates, and count your calories. All these features can be done on an Android smartphone. Everyday, technology is improving itself to be better than its predecessor and allowing us to live simpler, more automated lives. This fridge is bringing computing into the kitchen by allowing us to do more things with our fridge other than just store food. We can now have our questions like "when will the eggs expire?" answered automatically by this new fridge. It appears as time goes on, the implementation of computers into our daily lives will be more and more prominent. The LG Smart Thinq is an amazing appliance because it is redefining the refrigerator entirely by making it so that modern fridges should soon have built-in computers. Yes this fridge is expensive at about $4500, but over time this price will drop to something more reasonable and also influence other companies to make fridges just like this one. Though this is a cool fridge, I still wonder who would buy a $4500 fridge.

Scientists are researching new ways to grow food in space as farming on Earth becomes more advanced. Scientists have developed things like growing crops with LED light or heating greenhouses with waste nuclear power station heat. There are also farms that are automatic and self-sustaining. This gave scientists the idea of growing food in space since astronauts usually eat only pre-packaged food in space and a balanced diet is essential for extended trips. If all farms became fully automated, traditional farm technology companies will go out of business unless they could adapt because their products would no longer be needed. If companies started shutting down, it could cause some economic instability since many workers would be without work.Automated farming equipment will also raise questions if automated technology will spread to other industries. Since the Western world is a capitalist system, company owners really only care about their profit and will not mind investing in technology that can do what workers did for free as automated technology becomes more common. This advancement could also result in the collapse of the labour workforce since technology can take their place for less money. I hope that automated technology will not spread to other industries other than farming because the economy is already unstable as it is, deteriorating the labour workforce can put the world into economic turmoil. I can understand funding automated farming for sustaining long term space missions since astronauts could lack certain nutrients because of the absence of fresh food..

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. 

The new Nexus 10 is better than the iPad because it's lighter, it's thinner, it's easier to hold, and it has big loud speakers you can actually hear. The iPad feels precious and glass wants to shatter. The aluminum just wants to get scratched and dent. The Nexus 10 feels like it's built for working and playing. Its outer shell is made out of rubber so you can grip it. The edges are sloped so you can hold it in a variety of ways. The Nexus 10 has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 which is better than the iPads 2048 x 1536. The Nexus 10's wide screen is good for movies and is great for playing games because the speakers are on the front. The Nexus 10 supports multiple users on one tablet, the iPad doesn't. This is portable computing because the Nexus 10 has some many better things than the iPad and you get your money's worth if you do get the Nexus 10. 

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.

This article talks about 13 gadgets that will help make your life a lot easier during a natural disaster like a hurricane. Some of the artifacts mentioned are a  wind-up  radio, which would help if you don't have batteries. Solar powered water purifiers and chargers, which would be good in almost every situation. These articles will help you survive. I chose this article because of hurricane Sandy and it is possible that we might get hit by a natural disaster that bad. If we do , you should know what to have that will help you survive.

It has been over a year now since we heard about RIM's plans to release a 3G Playbook. We final get to see the Playbook.Much like its LTE sibling, it comes with 32GB of memory, and gets the same faster 1.5GHz processor too. (The original was 1.0GHz.) People say that they can't even compare it to the IPhone. Everyone knows how bad RIM has been doing and they feel like the Playbook will boost their earnings. However, statistics show that what RIM is hooping for is probably not going to happen. People are paying more attention to Apple's products more than RIM. Unless they come up with a better marketing idea. RIM will come to an end.

It is well-known that Apple has access to almost any music that one can think of. However, according to the New York Post, Apple is low-balling record labels for the rights to use their music in a new music streaming service. The company is only offering labels 6 cents per 100 listens, where as Pandora offers 12 cents per 100 and traditional radio pays 22 cents per 100. One can say that Apple is trying to enter this business, but not willing to go through all the trouble and complications that other music streaming services has to go through. I personally do not think this is right because record labels go through a lot of work just to try to get a little profit from the music industry. With Apple offering such a low price to use their music, it is not fair to those who work hard for a result.

The idea of this product is essentially to buy things for people and have them pick it up. You go to a local store scan the bar code with the app and then e-mail it to a friend. Your friend can then go to the store redeem the code and get the product its like mail but faster.  This is a good thing because if you live in a different city then your family or friends then you don't need to mail gifts, products all you need to do is scan and email and they receive, much quicker and more efficient

This article talks about some businesses that now only hire non-smokers. This article states that this is the new trend among North American employees. This new hiring practice has slashed in half the cost of employee health benefits compared to five or six years ago which means that businesses will save a lot of money. Smokers cost more money, miss more workdays and have more health problems which is why businesses don't like to hire them. Some people think that they shouldn't be excluded as long as they do their job and isn't going to help them end their addiction. This article relates to the tag economics because it doesn't allow non-smokers to work therefore limiting the amount of people that would apply for a job. This is a downside because if not many people apply for a job and if some of those applicants were smokers, less people would be able to take up that occupation.

Early in the afternoon today, a clever developer managed to sneak a Game Boy Advance emulator into an innocent looking app named "Awesome Baby Names". The secret emulator is activated by a series of taps on the touchscreen inside of the app. Once it is activated you can play your classic gba games just like you did in 2005. Apple was quick to catch this security breach as it was only in the App Store for twenty something minutes, but in that time many people including myself managed to download the app. This kind of sneaky activity from developers happens very seldom, but when something is smuggled into the App Store, it is usually very important. As stated in the article, it is a very easy process to unlock the emulator from the app, but getting the games and the BIOS onto the iPhone is the hard part. You must first download a program that lets you access the phone's file directory, then you must find the app's directory and drop the relevant BIOS and game files there. I chose the portable computing tag for this article because it deals with mobile technology and exploiting it to run handheld gaming software. This idea is not knew and has been around for a long time, but the idea of hiding the identity of apps and smuggling them into the App Store is a new idea. Apple is updating their security daily, but clearly couldn't spot this "child naming app" and make it out for the emulator that it was. I chose the privacy and security tag because Apple has a high priority for the security of their ecosystem and operating system, but clever people can still find ways to bypass this and get unidentified files into the operating system. I believe that Apple must keep a close eye on how they approve future apps into the app store because one day we may see cydia disguised as a senseless app make its way into the app store. If this happens, Apple with really have some explaining to do!    

Bitcoin is a digital currency that can be used to pay for a variety of goods and services online. It works like paper money, as in it can make purchases online, but it is primarily used in data form so you can trade it between peer and peer online. It is accessed by an online service that is gained through mining. The mining process includes running software performances and in return you are awarded a small portion of Bitcoin. You can also purchase Bitcoins using a wallet software. It requires a bit of disk space though. This new form of currency can be the change in the electronic economics. It is different from the other forms of online payment options that we are used to, like debit or credit cards. It is easier to obtain such currency, and it does not cost actual money. However, it is accepted only at limited service or goods websites. Also, a wallet software account is required in many cases. In addition, it may not be convenient or the best choice for all the consumers. This currency has a specific focus on who it is designed to target.

   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.