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This article is about the comparison of the old apple earphones and the new EarPods. Apple claims that the new EarPods sound as powerful as the expensive earphones invented in the world (example: Beats by Drake.. if that's what they're called). These new EarPods are as powerful as a expensive pair of earphone, but cost only 29$ and if you purchase any apple device (iPhone, iPod touch, etc.) these earbuds are free.  I have watched the video below, and some people say they can't tell a difference from the old earphone, while other people say it's a big difference. I have never used the EarPods before, but in my opinion I do think it would make a difference because technology is improving and becoming more successful. One little piece of technology can make a big difference in the world. Also, the customers have commented that these EarPods are more comfortable to fit into your ears. These EarPods are not a great device to repair. However, they are a low price so once your EarPods break, you could buy a new pair.

In early December of this year Intel is going to come out with a new NUC (Next Unit of Computing) mini-PC. This mini-PC has everything a normal PC except its more compact. Its motherboard is 4x4inches and held by four screws to put memory, its PCIe cards, and its power cord. The PCIe slots accommodate half height cards, for WiFi, mSata, and you can put a full height card. The mini-PC holds a core i3 processor, HD 4000 graphics, two SoDIMM sockets, mSATA and mini-PCIe interfaces, one to two HDMI and three USB 2.0 connectors. The DC3217BY model carries a Gigabit Ethernet which favours Thunderbolt and everything listed above. The mini-PC will be priced from $300-$320 and sold on Amazon and Eggdrop. This portable computing by it's so small that it fits in your jacket, blazer, and purse. Many people won't need to buy big bags for their computer. Its economics because more PC companies will have to come out with better computers than the mini-PC or join in the race to build the best mini-PC. PC companies will have to make their computers cheaper to compete with the mini-PC. Overall it's good for the consumer because you many companies competing and making their products cheaper and better.  

Wouldn't it be great to communicate with almost anyone in the world without having to learn a new language?  Microsoft has created a software that can analyze your speech, translate it, then play a new recording of your own voice speaking in a different language.  There are some downfalls however.  To reach a stage where the software is able to copy the user's speech and translate it, it would require the software to be trained with said person's voice for hours.  As well, the software may misinterpret the word, and could translate the wrong word, throwing the entire sentence off.  This software gets around one word in eight wrong. Regardless of the flaws, this software will benefit almost everyone worldwide.  People from all over the world will be able to communicate with each other no matter what language they speak.  This will help many companies worldwide as they do business with one another, due to the fact of how easy it will be to communicate with global companies. As well, it will be easier for people to look for jobs since they communicate with almost anyone, which means they can look for a job almost anywhere.   This software seems like it could potentially change the world as we know it today.  Once this software is perfected, it would be an amazing breakthrough in technology, seeing as how many companies would want to buy it.  Many people who don't work for big companies may also want to purchase this software to communicate with people on a global scale, and just to say that they can speak a different language.  To me this software would've been useful long ago, so I would not have to worry about taking international language classes.  Nonetheless, it will be exciting to see this software in the future.

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.

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.

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

The OUYA Android powered gaming console started off as a Kickstarter exclusive, but will now be available to consumers on June 4 for $99. On Kickstarter, the OUYA was a huge success, raising over $8 million. It is basically an Android powered device that is capable of running console quality games. There has been much anticipation for the people who did not back the project on Kickstarter because no one knew that it would get this big and popular. When it hits the market, it will be sold at retailers such as Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and through OUYA's website. It will include the console, a controller and HDMI cables. I chose to use the economics tag because at just $99, this console is a steal compared to other consoles currently on the market. I believe that many people will pick this product up and OUYA may be able to compete with SONY and Microsoft in the next few years.

Social news website Reddit may soon have a feature where ads may be downvoted or upvoted, much like the content shared by users. This is one of few websites to currently have this approach with advertisements.  This is rather significant because if people are able to downvote advertisements that they feel are intrusive, ugly and downright annoying, and upvote advertisements that are funny, interesting and better, then we can see advertising companies change their tactics to make better ads for all of us. This can result in a win/win situation where companies generate real views on their ads and people are more inclined to buy their products, as opposed to being annoying by these companies and skipping over and trying to find ways around these ads by using extensions such as AdBlock.  If more websites use this feature then maybe people will start to like ads again, as they will see ads that they want to see, there may be a change in the advertising market where we will see an influx of more creative and interesting advertisements instead of the boring and tedious ones we mostly have today.

This article informs us on the latest news about Sony's new OLED TVs, which can output in 4K.  4K resolution is the highest resolution possible so far, and Sony wants to be one of the first companies to put a product out on the market with 4K resolution.  Sony's 30-inch 4K OLED prototype is set for a 2014 release date, with the A series monitor available in May.  This 4k technology will either be a break or bust for Sony.  If consumers are interested in 4k technology, then Sony TVs will help the company prosper.  That said, 4k may not be good for Sony. 4K TVs may end up not generating much of a user base, as 1080p is very good, and there is little improvement between that and 4k. Instead of buying these new TVs, people may just stick with their 1080p televisions. Only time will tell.

EA has once again made the Worst Company in American History. Although many think the constant hate towards EA is a circlejerking karma train their problems and mistakes are very much real. This article outlines 3 of their main failures: -not providing a product their costumer will want -not selling a product at a reasonable price -not supporting the products they sell Despite selling games that millions of people buy most are rushed, including features that nobody wants, and not fixing previous mistakes. They also try to squeeze as much money out of their consumers as possible. They make people pay for money in-game products that should already be in the original copy and the make many of their games pay-to-win. The last big point that makes EA the Worst Company in American History was the fact that they have a habit of not supporting the products they sell. For example when

        It is being reported that the newest Xbox console will have online DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). DRM is technology that puts restrictions on media such as software, games, music, etc. that limits how the buyer is able to use and share the media that he or she bought. This means that the Xbox will always need to have an active internet connection to be able to use the games that you buy, even if the game itself does not require internet connection. The point of this is to prevent to prevent the resale of used games. However, this will mean that people can not share games with eachother, play if the internet goes out or they they do not have the internet at all. This will increase the sale of new games giving the companies more profits. However, this may backfire on Microsoft, as many gamers may not purchase the new console as a form of boycott, reducing Microsoft's profit until the DRM is removed. 

This is a very great report, keep up the great work Spider Man

Uncle Ben would be proud

This article is about having too many emails, messages, etc. on your gmail, this prevents you from having space to receive or to send messages to other people. You will need more storage for you to receive more emails. But its not just emails that take up space. Its also your junk, and your spams. There are a couple of solutions for this. You can delete the emails that are not important to you anymore. You can also buy storage, so that you can have more space on your gmail. And you can also Archive your gmails to Google Drive. This would be the most helpful way of doing it. A group of people thought of the idea of making a script that archives old gmails to Google Drive. They also made a website called jellybend.com that shows you a tutorial video and useful scripts that work on Gmail and goggle apps. By archiving your emails, you can free up your inbox space, allowing you to receive and send emails to other people. Even though those emails arent relevant to you anymore, it might be useful to someone else. To do this: you have to make a copy of a Google Spreadsheet that has the script built-in. It makes a special label in Gmail. You add things to that label, then you return to the spreadsheet, click a button and those messages are archived to Google Drive.

For all gamers out there, Pokemon black and white version 2 is coming out.  There has been many pokemon lovers since 1998.  For those who play pokemon and grew up with it, is it worthy for Pokemon to continue a sequel? Or should they stick to the original pokemon that had only 500 creatures.  According to the article, the very first pokemon game has a number sequel.  The games coming up are getting extensions of the original game.  Mostly they have unique twists and try to convince the buyers that it is a "must buy" game for those that own the originals. Last year Black and White came out, this year the sequel of the game came out.  The players that own the first pokemon black and white will know it is a continuance of the plot line.     

This article is about the advancement of 3D printers recently. A 3D printer is a device that creates 3 dimensional objects from digital models. A 3D printer accomplishes this by spraying on layers of plastics or metals to eventually create an object. This article focuses mostly on new software which pinpoints weak spots in a 3D print digital model and adds thickness or struts where needed. There is also an option to reduce the thickness in some areas where it is already structurally sound enough, reducing the amount of material needed, weight and cost. 3D printers have become so advanced recently that an average person can go and pick one up for as little as $300. The future of 3D printing looks amazing and as time goes on, these devices will become more and more advanced.  I chose the tag of eLifestyle because 3D printers are quickly becoming a household device that many can afford. Advances in printer technology are making it possible to find a model online and then print it out right in the comfort of your own home, instead of going out and buying it. I really like the idea of 3D printing, it feels so futuristic in that we can print our own things on a whim. I think 3D printers could also be quite dangerous as anyone who has access to one of these devices could print out weapons such as knives and firearms. It seems as authorities would have trouble controlling this and could pose a major problem in the near future. Overall 3D printing has both its ups and downs.

This articles talks about how a computer security attacking program called Cross-site Scripting (XSS) is being more popular among hackers. As we know, ISC2O which is us, spend our classes on the computers each day. This scripting partially relates to what we do since we have already learned basics of HTML and CSS programming languages. Not to mention, we're leading up to learning about Java Script which is one example of a scripting language such as XSS. There are probably a few of us that have had our own computers attacked(hacked) or put our own secretive information has been put onto the web. Many of us use social networks and sometimes, we display some personal information which can be retrieved by others through using this program. In addition, when we buy different products online, we put out some credit card details that can also be stolen and potentially be used. In addition, the number of cyber attacks can still rise as the holidays come by and eCommerce will increase and can cause more attacks. This relates to Privacy and Security this has to do with social networking as information that's displayed can be stolen and any other personal information can be taken.

This article (by Emily Price) details a few interesting facts surrounding the social media giant 'Facebook', particularly around gaming. We are all familiar with social games, such as Mafia Wars and Farmville, and Facebook has been recently seeing most of their income from in-game advertisements and in-app purchases. Facebook has seen a 13% growth in gaming users since September 2011 (226 million - 251 million.) Facebook now has over 900 million users, and over 500 million users are utilizing Facebook via a mobile platform. Facebook says that games grow on the network in five different ways: App Center, Notifications, News Feed, Timeline, and games users have Bookmarked. 8 out of the 10 top iOS games have Facebook integrated, and the top two categories of games users play on Facebook are 'Simulation' and 'Games and Puzzles.' This relates to Portable Computing because Facebook has recently taken large steps to improve the user's mobile experience, understanding that most of their core audience is on smart devices. This relates to eLifestyle because we see these social networks like Facebook integrating gaming into the user's social feed, allowing them to spend more time on the site. This relates to Economics because as games become cheaper and more accesible, we see that most of the gaming market is taken by mobile games; no longer do we have to go to an electronics boutique to purchase a $60 triple-A game, when we can buy the $0.99 version of said game or another digitally. Mobile games are the consumer conscious choice because you get the most "bang for your buck." This relates to ICS20 because although most of us say that our time on Facebook is deteriorating, we still are entrenched in the social gaming environment; this is demonstrated by Facebook's 65 million user growth in 2012 alone.

Facebook was preparing to buy Instagram for $1 BILLION!!!!!! Many people are happy with the fact that Facebook bought Instagram while others are pretty upset. Added some changes as well. Instagram has alot to thank to Kodak

This article explains how the tablet is becoming increasingly popular and the sales have nearly doubled from last year. The tablet offers quite a lot of features and the design of it appeals to many people. If i had the money to get one, I would definitely buy a tablet. It is no doubt that Apple dominates with the sales of the tablet. The portablilty and the uniqueness of the tablet results in high sales. As more features begin to be added to the newer versions of the tablet the sales will also increase too

Now that Facebook has bought instagram, fans are concerned that like other bought apps Instagram is going to be ruined by Facebook. For Facebook buying instagram is a great investment. I think that instagram will not only remain popular but also grow in it's popularity.

This article is about the next generation of Macbook Pro's. Multiple Apple resellers are reporting  some of the current models as out of stock, including J&R and Best Buy. In fact, they are not accepting online orders at this point. Traditionally, the retail channel dries up as Apple shuts down production. This cleans the distribution channels out of units as they get ready to introduce fresh models into the market. There aren't many details on the incoming MacBook Pro 2012, but it's safe to expect that they will be much faster- using Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors.