Group items tagged

As many of us may or may not know, Apple filed a lawsuit against Samsung for apparently copying Apple's iPad when Samsung released the Galaxy Tab. However, the UK court ordered Apple to repay Samsung after proving that the information Apple provided in the lawsuit was false and misleading leading to proof that Samsung didn't copy Apple. Apple made two apologies to Samsung and will now have to repay Samsung all the money they sued them for.  This has to do with the legal tag because the lawsuit from Apple and Apple's compensation to Samsung are both legal actions. These actions also have to do with following the law since Apple wrongfully accused Samsung of copying which is against the law. I think that the UK court's decision is just because a company cannot sue another company just because they are remotely similar. If they could then we would have very little options when it comes to technology. For example,the first company to release a first person shooter game would be the only FPS game since the company could sue other game companies for copying their game genre. I just think Apple's lawsuit against Samsung was really just unreasonable in general.

With Google's new product, "Google Glass", the company must come up with a new way to promote the product to its customers. Since the device will be costly, most likely to be around $1500, the company has decided to expand into retail stores which will be open all around the world. This can make it easier for consumers to test out products before buying it, and Google is also promoting and expanding its market in this way. The launch of Google retails stores can create competition for other companies, like Apple or Microsoft, and is a risk to invest in such a large project. Google, however, think this idea makes sense if the company wants to expand its business, and they believe it will satisfy its customers. I think these stores can create easier access to electronic information and products, which can benefit the company's profits, and with the rapid expanding of new technology, Google stores can use this factor to benefit and change the way people buy products from the company.

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.

This article talks about new gesture that could be used in addition to finger touch in order to have more options easily and launch new apps using your knuckle, fingertip, fingernail and more. A trio of Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh managed to modify a Samsung Galaxy SIII to accept input from all three different touch variations, and tell the difference between them. It accomplishes this with the help of a vibration sensor and software that listens for the acoustic differences that come with the different types of touches. A man named Harrison has already started a company called Qeexo to start selling this tech. This vibration sensor can easily be added to any smartphone's "guts" and the software added too.   This article has a lot to do with portable computing because different companies are always coming up with new innovative ways to make smart phones more "smart". This is one of those things that a new company called Qeexo is doing. They are looking to improve the options and speed of using a smartphone for example instead of opening up a note pad by going into the menu and clicking it with your finger, you can use the "shortcut" of taping your knuckle twice to open it. This can also be used in gaming, option menus etc.  The main point is that companies are always changing making technology much more natural and easy to use. I think that this is a very good idea and over time if people hear about this depending on how much this would cost to upgrade it may become big and even become a pre-installed feature. 

In this article, Apple's current CEO, Tim Cook expresses his opinion on the suing of South Korean company, Samsung. Although, Steve Jobs was very clear with his intentions to take out Samsung as a major source of competition, Tim Cook was opposed to suing Samsung because the company was a major supplier of parts for Apple. However, Jobs suspected Samsung was abusing the supplier relationship to shield it from any legal claims and his fears were confirmed with the early release of the Galaxy Tab which was very much like the iPad. Apple's dependency on Samsung is displayed by the nearly $8 billion dollars worth of components bought from Samsung last year. For this reason, Tim Cook has made several moves to wean Apple's dependence on Samsung products, including hiring away a top chip designer formerly working for Samsung. This and the $1.17 billion dollars apple was given from the jurisdiction between the two rivals was a big win for them. This article fits under the legal category because it touches upon the legal issues between the two rivaling companies, and the opinions of stakeholders such as Jobs and Cook. Also, this article is related to economics because it predicts the future of major companies like Samsung and Apple. With these two companies at the top, changes in consumer behaviour can easily result if one of the companies falls behind.

This article states that you have to be careful when you are looking for a job that lets you work from home because scammers make fake websites to get valuable information from you. For example the company CNBC website has been copied to http://cnbc.com-index.in. The URL is .in and not .com that is one way to know that the website is a fraught it should be .com. People who have gone to this copied websites to apply for a job have been asked very personal questions such as are you married, bank information, and to pay a fee for a company laptop. You should be suspicious if your contact for the job has an email of @gmail.com or @hotmail.com usually companies have their specific email. To avoid this scam always Google the company and your contacts email. Always have an opened eye to URL's and what the job application is asking for. I choose privacy and security as my tag because these scammers can get a lot of information from and start maxing out your credit cards and take money out of your bank account. In my opinion the government should step in and start watching out for theses fake websites and take them down of the internet or block them.  

Many of us think of Apple as this giant in electronics. Over the past decade, Apple set the market for smartphones, ultrabooks, and tablets. However, in the past couple of years, Apple has begun to fall off. Rather than being the huge 'juggernaut,' Apple has become a follower, forced to play catch up to other companies including Google and Amazon. Evidence of this are tied to the recent releases of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. Apple's response was the iPad Mini, when they realized consumers enjoyed smaller tablets. Before that was the iPhone 5, in response to people wanting larger phone displays. Apple Maps is a blunder that both iOS 6 users and Apple pays for. Apple was slow on the draw to join in on changes to the market specifications. Having controlled the market for the past decade with the popularization of smartphones, tablets, and retina display, Apple was simply unprepared to react to these changes. Apple still has their innovation and secrets hidden in R&D, but the fact of the matter is their most recent releases contain ideas from other companies' progress. This relates to elifestyle because our generation uses these products in our daily lives. Most of us do not remember a time when electronics did not make up a substantial part of our lives; when Apple was not a prominent consumer electronics company. This reminds us that power does not last indefinitely; innovators become followers, and companies fall. The next big thing in electronics may not even exist yet. 

This article explains how Dell, one of the largest and most successful PC makers in the world, has given up on a possible creation of their own smartphone. Dell expressed that they tried multiple times to produce a product that would be successful in the US smartphone market, but with a number of devices facing some serious bugs as well as a problem with slow speed, the company did not see positive results and they decided to trash the idea and process once and for all to focus on other opportunities. Dell is not getting out of the mobile device business altogether thanks to sales and success with devices sold in Asia and Japan, and the company will continue making low-cost phones and tablets for sale in emerging markets. With smartphones becoming a very successful and poplar device that many customers are increasingly taking an interest to, this setback has to worry or concern Dell because they are not able to compete will other huge named brands and companies in the mobile device bushiness. Dell has had it's highs and has had success over the years with products and devices, but maybe this is a wake up call that they don't have the money, resources, and high praise that more well-known companies do and this could be a huge factor to why the amount of success, more specifically in the phone industry, hasn't been enough to be a top contender in the mobile business altogether.

This article explains how the successful and profitable Samsung company has decided to open various electronic retail stores in Canada to compete with well-known rivals Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. For Samsung, the retail push is the company's latest move to establish itself as a premium electronics brand, an evolution due to Samsung's success in the smartphone and tablet markets. Another reason for Samsung to have an interest in opening stores, is part of a global movement by the company to expand it's presence with consumers. Samsung, being a major technology company, believes these retail outlets will help showcase their products in a way so  consumers can experience the brand and everything Samsung has to offer like never before. This is a smart strategy for Samsung to take part in because this opens up opportunities for consumers to purchase and learn about new and popular Samsung products in a way that was never offered or accessible to them before. A variety of Samsung stores will give this company a huge advantage on the market and this will ultimately set themselves up for bigger and better success in the years to come. 

Brendan Eich, the chief executive of open-source software company that makes the Mozilla Firefox web browser resigned - the reason seemingly to befall on his beliefs of gay marriage. As a company, Mozilla's goal was not to make a ton of money and call for fame. Instead, the Firefox team aimed to be an activist organization in promoting the Internet as a public resource (but who honestly still uses Mozilla???) . When you think about it, how does a man's beliefs on the gay rights affect and even begin to relate to his line of work and leadership in an internet company? Apparently ,because of Eich's opinion towards homosexuality, his affiliates and colleagues were uncomfortable and unsure whether their new boss could lead the company in the right direction as an activist organization when his moral story tells otherwise. Maybe this is karma for being not so accepting and acknowledging equality towards other people.

Many hardware development companies have been popping up all around the world even obscure places like Kazan Russia. This article is specific to Navigator Campus which will try to make itself into a larger company. Their focus currently is into consumer goods and products like robotics, 3D-printing, and wearable technologies. I think it's really good that many hardware producers are being formed because a lot more people will be given the chance to try out their ideas and develop new technologies. Also when you have more people working on the same things like 3D printers the technology will evolve that much faster. Finally, I like that smaller companies are trying to come into the market and try to grow and compete with the larger corporations.

This article states how the Kindle E-reader has evolved over the years, how Amazon has lowered its book prices so much so people would buy e-readers and book buyers would go to Amazon.com and get books instead of going to a book store, and how people try to destroy Amazon for almost having a monopoly of it. Many people like this because new Kindle E-readers cost from $69 to about $100 and many of their book cost from about $1 and up. Also Amazon helped self publishing authors sell their books. The Kindle E-reader has evolved from being a big electronic book with many books in it and having pages flipping crazy if your hand was in the place. Now it has evolved to be a slim e-reader with a brighter screen and having cheap books to buy and not as clunky. A few years ago Apple and five big publishing companies made a contract to stop Amazon from selling books so cheap. The publishing companies would only sell books on apple products. In April of this year the Department of Justice sued Apple and the five publishing companies to stop Apple from trying to get the monopoly on selling books on their products. It is portable computing because people know can have hundreds of books in a device the size of a small book and you don't need to keep buying bookshelves that take a lot of space and the books it has are cheap. It is very light and people can take it anywhere they want to. It is eLifestyle because you a many people in the bus or subway reading away on their e-reader comfortably without having a big book to carry. Many people use it because they can't carry that much weight.    

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.  

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.   

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..

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.

As if 3D printing wasn't impressive enough. A unnamed man in the US successfully had 75 percent of his skull replaced using just a 3D printer. The printer printed out an implant, which the company (Oxford Performance Materials) was granted permission to install within the patients skull. Also stated was that the implant has special indent and features that allows and promotes brain growth within the patient. The potential of 3D printing is extremely high. The company has said that they can now print out implants to fix any type of bone damage, whether it be from disease or trauma. The company also says that 500 people in the US a month could use this technology to fix any injuries. 3D printing is the future of the medical field, and I wouldn't be surprised if some day we could 3D print organs.  3D printing is talked about a lot in Mr. Fabroa's class, but I believe that it deserves all the coverage it gets. It truly is the future of the technological world.

JavaScript is a well known programming tool that has been around for quite awhile. Many up and coming programmers start out with JavaScript based on it being flexible, maintainable, powerful, and very easy to use. However, once these startups start becoming larger and larger, many lines of coding are needed, and this is where the issue arrives. When being used on a larger scale, JavaScript is in no way the main performer as it is on the smaller scale. JavaScript's features previously stated are what attract programmers to using the engine. However, now that larger companies are using it, the limitations are becoming evident. Being described as an 'iron triangle', JavaScript's issues lie in the fact with an improvement in one area. another area suffers. If you want high flexibility and performance, it's going to be harder to maintain the code. If you want great performance and maintainability,  the flexibility and ability to adapt to change will be reduced. Big budget companies don't have time to be messing around with JavaScript's shortcomings, which is keeping them attracted to lesser engines, such as Flash. The article then continues to discuss whether or not JavaScript is on it's death bed. Some argue that a total revamp is required to keep JavaScript afloat, while others believe that the death of JavaScript will allow newer, more optimized engines to be developed and brought to the world's attention. I tagged this article as economics simply for that last point. Browser engines such as JavaScript and Flash have been around for quite awhile, with no threats to their status in sight. JavaScript is in no way broken, and it is still a very viable tool for web development. However, it may take the death of JavaScript and perhaps Flash for companies to be inspired to build from the ground up a new engine that will pick up all the short comings of the past years and completely rid of them. At the end of the article, JavaScript variants and languages are seen a

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.

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