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This article explains that Apple's newest piece of technology, the iPad 3, has caught their attention, but not for the right or wanted reasons. Apple's iPad 3 has had WiFi issues with plenty of complaints from a number of consumers bringing their thoughts to the company's attention. Weak Wi-Fi seems to almost be a standard part of an iPad launch. Both previous generations had difficulty with WiFi just out of the gate, with users complaining of weak reception and problems connecting to a network. The fact that this is not new for Apple is reassuring and some what comfortable for them because they have been in this situation before and they know the solution to their problem. Although Apple may know what to do and they aren't too concerned, this has to be a issue that Apple has to bring up and deal with in the future to avoid any complaining or angry impressed consumers about the issues that people are facing with newly developed Apple products. 

The video by, Youtube channel ExtraCreditz, is about the issue of frequency space. All information that we use is transmitted through the air by different forms of radiation (radio waves, microwaves, etc.) The problem is we are running out of frequencies to use; there are only a limited band of wave lengths to transmit information with. These wavelengths can't be infinitely divided because they would end up cancelling each other out. This issue derives from the explosion in smartphone and mobile device popularity. These devices use 24x and 122x the spectrum of older cellphones respectively.  Along with other devices, we are running out of the amount of frequencies available to transmit information with. By 2014, there will no longer be any more spectrum to use. This is detrimental to any progress in developments of information sharing, such as cloud gaming. The demand for spectrum space in such ideas and innovations is simply to high with the current usage of the resource. Unless we can find a way to solve this 'Spectrum Crunch,' many future developments will not be possible. This is tagged under Portable Computing, as well as eLifestyle because this issue is born from the expansion of technology into everyday use. Before mobile technology became popular, the 'Spectrum Crunch' was never an issue. However, many companies are now racing to free up spectrum. Some solutions include freeing up spectrum used by television stations. But there is no definite answer. As the future in the world as leaders in an era of information and electronics, our generation must address problems like these to progress in the advancement of technology.

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

 IPhone 5 is a the new phone that everybody wants. However is it actually everything we expected? Many IPhone 5 users are talking about how they have been noticing their phones flickering. The first reports were as soon as the device was launched. The main thread for the issue is over 12 pages long with reports of flickering screens. When people began investigating they realized that this issues seems to most frequently occur when a user accesses the virtual keyboard in the App Store. Because the users don't see flickering each time they use it , it only affects the virtual keyboard which means it is a software issue. My personal opinion on this topic is that if Apple doesn't want to lose the rank they have they need to fix this!  

Some people have experienced an issue with Google Voice. They have claimed that when they send SMS messages through the service, their messages are sent from random numbers. Some have received other people's personal messages and this can threaten privacy. Although many have been warned that they should never send personal text messages for security reasons, many ignore it. This issue with Google Voice can cause confusion for the people sending and receiving the texts since the sender does not have the option to send their messages to someone they know and the receiver receives a mysterious texts from a number that they cannot identify. Others might also receive multiple texts from random numbers which may irritate the person rather than confuse. Since texting is a very popular form of communication. those who use Google Voice may have to use other methods to communicate if the problem if affecting them too much and will have to wait until the issue is solved. Though this affects only a fraction of those who use Google Voice, this is bothersome. 

Facebook heads have launched a new 'search engine' for those using Facebook. Entitled 'Graph Search', this engine allows users to type in specific tags to find users that fall under a specific group. The tags include things such as age, location, relationship status, and other similar traits. The Facebook developers should have seen this as an issue from the very start of the project. Many executives and onlookers anticipated that this engine will cause issues, especially with youth. The main concern being privacy. Facebook claims that only users who opt into this feature will show up on the results, but for mindless teenagers who click accept on anything simply out of haste, this could cause an issue. Although there has been no recorded cases yet, this engine opens the door for sexual predators on Facebook, allowing them to easily search for 'Women under 18 in my area' and similar search options. CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself claimed that they are heightening privacy settings for this engine, but there are still concerns to be had. This new feature is obviously a ploy to send more information to advertising companies and other Facebook partners. Facebook is renown for sending information and demographics of it's users to paying companies, but with Graph Search, anyone can do it themselves, including said companies. Facebook is finding new ways to sell out their user base, while still looking like the 'good guy'. Although it has it's benefits for the honest users that want to use it for social purposes, Graph Search is a very bad decision. If it wasn't apparent to you before, now is the time to get off Facebook.

For my bookmark on legal issues I found an article on the newest court issue where Apple wants Samsung to pay 2.191 billion dollars on the issue of another patent infringement. I found this article to be interesting because it is not the first time Apple and Samsung have gone to court over patents and I do not think this will be the last. It is interesting to see which two of the biggest tech giants will win the case. I like law and technology so combining the two into an interesting case attracted my attention.

With each new generation of smartphones, dropped calls and battery life issues are still an issue, the reason is partly because antenna technology has not changed very much. Scottish scientists have changed this. They spent 7 years to create a cellphone antenna quite smaller than a coin. The Sofant Technologies team claims that this new antenna is more efficient, finding signals faster and using up less battery life. The smaller something is in technology the less it has to travel therefore speeding the device up. The antenna also takes advantage of the full potential of LTE and 4G connectivity. Sofant plans on licensing its designs to smartphone manufacturers all over the world.  I chose the tag of portable computing because this article is about antennas, a vital part of a cellphone. This new antenna will affect people who use cellphones, which is a large amount of people in North America. In my opinion I think this new antenna is long overdue. The fact that antenna technology hasn't changed much over the years is pretty surprising. This new antenna is a step in the right direction for smartphones. 

For a service that had such an artificially high demand, the tech industry has not really capitalized on Video Chat. When Apple unveiled their video chat service 'FaceTime' in June of 2010, many thought that this would become the primary standardized service used by all. In practice, FaceTime is a clunky system that is evidently less productive and convenient than just vocal or text communication. So why hasn't video conferencing taken off as the industry had hoped? The answer is most likely because there is no standardized system and the market is too saturated; Polycom Inc. hopes to adress this issue by introducing a Universal Video Chat in early 2013. The product (called RealPresence CloudAxis) monetizes all of your contacts from Skype, Facebook, Google Talk and other apps into one place - all hosted on a web browser. This is a very ambitious task and if it delivers on what Polycom says (with the "same security and reliability as enterprise systems"), then there may be some validity to the video conference service. This relates to Privacy and Security because when monetizing a group of services, there is a chance for data leak and possible identity theft; Polycom promises to adress all security issues in order to make a safe and immersive experience for its users. This relates to eLifestyle because companies and their consumers have been trying for the past years to create a universal video chat service that actually worked in order to establish a multi-faceted social network: it might be too early to tell if Polycom has something that will fulfill the needs of consumers. This relates to ICS20 because as a class, we are no stranger to multiple accounts that often times serve the same purpose. As consumers, we hope for a streamlined service that can connect all of our multiple accounts into one place, preferably on a browser. It will be hard for Polycom, both legally and economically, to convince all of these pre-existing video chat developers to allow Polycom to

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

Recently, there have been a lot of passcode exploits, especially on the iPhone and Samsun Galaxy. On the iPhone, it can allow the attacker to access their way into the Phone app, letting them place calls, see/edit contacts, and access photos via the "assign new picture" option. On the Samsung Galaxy, the attacker can flash whatever was open before the phone was locked for a second. This is enough time to launch an app, which can be repeatedly downloaded and completely unlock your phone. The article suggests the user of the phone should download the Apple's Find my iPhone app or Prey, which can track the location of your smartphone if it is ever lost or stolen. This, they say is the best protection for your personal information stored on your phone. These passcode exploits can let one worry and doubt how much protection the lock screen actually provides. The truth is they are no more secure than any other password or PIN, which means they can eventually be cracked. However, it is still suggested to always lock your screen, just in case it is robbed by someone who does not know anything about getting around locked screens. Many companies are aware of the issues and is releasing new techniques, like the iOS 6.1.3. Hopefully, with time, these password problems will not be an issue anymore.

Over the past few years, the iphone has become much more popular.  It's thin, light and efficient design has attracted many users. However, despite the improvements made to the phone over the years it still remains rather fragile.  Our society has become so reliant on technology, yet our day to day life is very hazardous to these delicate electronics.  Every day, people drop, kick, and spill on their iphones and end up with a broken phone.  You'd think because of this constant issue iPhones would be made sturdier so that it can make it through the day, however, in the last year 30% of iphone users have damaged their phone.  Iphones come at such high prices.  We expect that when we buy one, we have not only bought a phone that can meet our daily expectations, but one that can also last through the day.  Hopefully, this is an improvement that we will see on the new iPhone5.   I think that as great as the new iPhone features are, they should also be focusing on making it last, because if the phone breaks what good are the new features?  My sister had dropped her iphone a couple of times and part of the screen had cracked.  However, despite the damage she had still had to use and rely on this old, cracked phone for a few more months until she could get it replaced, due to the costs of getting it repaired. It had caused her some problems and I'm sure many other iphone users have encountered this issue.  I don't think the goal is to make it easier or cheaper to repair iphones, but rather make it so that less people need repairs.

In this article it talks about how computers are a bigger threat to the enviroment than SUVs! They say that because a lot of computers are not very energy effeicient and they waste a ton of electricity. And in the report, An Inefficient Truth it says that with mopre than 1 billion computers on the planet they are responsable for about 2% of human carbon dioxide emissions. In the article it says that one of the biggest issues is the fact that with SUVs you can clearly see that it damages the enviroment but with computers nobody really sees it as a problem so nobody tries to fix it. I can certainly see that computers are a problem for the enviroment and the biggest issue is that they can only grow in size.

When people decide they have no use for old technology and do not think twice before throwing it out, they probably do not realize that their outdated piece of hardware finds its grave half way across the world. Possibly even in Guiyu, China where the largest electronic waste or "E-waste" dump site exists. People are oblivious to the fact that this is a recurring problem, not just a small matter of sorting and recycling through a few pieces of plastic, metal and wires. This black hole of scrapped computers, television sets, air conditioners and even refrigerators is toxic towards the environment, and is contaminating the growth of crops all around the area, such as rice, from the gases of the poisonous elements contained within the gadgets to make them work. The consuming pile of E-waste is not just environmentally deadly but also causes health hazards, along with the expensive and dangerous recycling operations that are needed. If people continue to neglect this issue, E-waste will continue to grow, swallow the earth with a blanket of harmful bi-products and affect everyone's lives, which is something we do not want. E-waste is hazardous and will eventually kill the planet with the path that it seems to be following without any real rise against the issue. This is such a nice way to give back to the environment don't you think? Polluting the earth and by proxy ourselves with technological garbage is obviously a smart thing to do, as if we aren't destroying the world enough already.

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.

As technology constantly evolves, we replace our old electronics with brand new ones. on average, Canadian households have 24 electronic devices. When our old electronics go past their useful life, they become e-waste. In Canada, e-waste is a big issue. Environent Canada estimates that 140,000 tonnes and counting of e-waste is dumped in landfills every year. These electronics include harmful materials such as arsenic, mercury, and lead. Many of the electronics we buy were developed with planned obsolescence, which is planning to design a product with a life span. This is good for manufacturers, because it encourages consumers to buy their new products sooner, as these companies use cheaper components. Instead of old electronics dumped in the landfill, they can be recycled and used for new products. When planning to buy a new product, it is best to read reviews of the product and check if it lasts for a long time, or uses recyclable materials. Also, the cheapest model might not always be the best, and quality may come at increasing costs. in my opinion, if electronic companies plan for sooner obsolescence for their products, they should try to use more recyclable materials, and try to use less of materials that are harmful to the environment.

this is a problem because people are demanding more computers and phones now because life without them is hard, now you can only apply for jobs on computers or do homework on computers now, so more people need them. This is affecting the environment because to make all these devices are harming the environment, for example the pollution from the factory making the products and the precious metals and supply's we are using to make the devices are non-renewable. So we should find a way to make computers and phones without effecting the environment as much as we are now. this is how computers and phones are affecting the environment, and the demand on computers are just gonna get higher and higher, so we should find a way to build the computer without effecting the environment as much fast.

This is an article about how computers affect our environment, how we can help, and what computers can do to actually benefit us in the world. Some examples of computers ruining the environment could be usage of valuable resources and pollution due to computer waste. Some examples of how we can help would be sanitizing our hard drive, donating our mobile device, raising funds from techno trash, and re-using ink cartridges. Technology can help the environment by helping us develop and produce sustainable practices in the environment. It also allows for paperless communication which limits the taking down of trees. In my opinion I completely agree with what this article has to say. It expands on computers issues but also its strengths.

Many people do not know that just throwing away your old electronics can build up and create a lot of air and water pollution, as well as heat and noise pollution. In our electronics there are many different types of non-renewable resources, also many precious metals are used such as gold, and silver. All electronics contain hazardous  materials that can have a negative impact on our environment, this materials have to be disposed using special methods. You can help the environment by buying more energy efficient products, as well and products that have less hazardous materials inside of them. Also you can dispose your electronics properly and safely. But on the other side using computers can help the environment, because less trees will be cut down for paper. When disposing of electronics improperly can increase the amount of carbon emissions that are the main cause to global warming, also known as greenhouse gases.    

A 16 year old teenage girl attracts the attention of her followers after her tweet claiming that there was someone in her house. The girl was supposedly kidnapped by the stranger in the house when she disappeared; however, after the investigation, the police confirmed that she left voluntarily. Within two days of searching for the lost teen, the police found her walking at the side of a highway. The police finalized that the teen faked her kidnapping.  After the teenage girl tweeted that there was someone in her house, more than 30,000 people retweeted and the local police department received over 6,000 calls about her frightening situation. This event shows how fast news travels through social networking sites and how messy the issue could become if what you post is untrue. The teen that was once known as the young lady who was kidnapped by an intruder, is now someone who has made poor choices and worried many people for reasons unknown.  

This article talks about our famous #firstworld problems jokes on Twitter and other Social Networking sites. They may seem funny to you, but DDB New York sees them as creating an online atmosphere of neither sensitivity nor awareness to deal with real social and worldwide problems. So DDB decided to team up with the non-profit organization called WATERisLIFE. Together they traveled to Haiti to film locals reading aloud a series of these "problems" to show how ridiculous they are in comparison to real problems that people face in third-world countries like Haiti. In addition to the video they tweeted some of the original authors of the #firstworld problems saying things like "I'm sorry you were awoken by your cleaning lady. I hope today is better" as well as a call to action to donate money to WATERisLIFE which helps create water solutions and rebuilding communities.  This article relates to eLifestyle and how those posts may be funny to us they can also be insensitive to real problems world-wide even though we don't always intend to be hurtful. This also relates because it shows how the internet can be such a positive or negative thing worldwide. In this case out of an insensitive tweet people were inspired to create awareness for bigger issues and a way to help through a video and a few tweets online.  I think this shows a positive side of the internet where people can take something and turn it into a way of helping people world-wide and getting word out faster and to more people all with the power of the internet.

Social media has exploded over the years and become a huge part of all of our lives. From facebook to twitter, from instagram to tumblr, everywhere we look there's some kind of social media being thrust in front of us. It has appeared so often that we have grown used to it. It's not unusual when someone stops to update their twitter or upload a picture of their lunch to instagram. There's that sense of excitement when your phone buzzes to tell you that you've been retweeted or your post has been liked. Social media has become part of our lifestyle and it's a great benefit to have. It allows you to keep in contact with relatives and friends and stay updated on the lives of those around you, but have we started to become too reliant on this advantage. This article had provided a look at various social media addicts, like 'the liker' and 'the constant checker' and despite the humorous aspect to it, you can still see a slightly more serious question behind it. This article brings to light an issue that we all knew existed, but never really paid much attention to. It had referred to the different types of reliance's on social media as addictions. It's a strong word to describe what most might usually think of as just small habits or pastimes, but maybe addiction is the right word to use. This post not only highlights the different types of social media addicts, but it also tells us the 'symptoms' and downfalls that can come out of each one and it raises some fair points. It draws attention to the fact that the addiction to social media can not only annoy those around us, but also hurt yourself and waste your valuable time. I mean, it becomes very hard to concentrate on the work at hand as soon as your phone or computer buzzes to tell you that someone has mentioned you in their tweet. Social media makes procrastinating so much easier, not that we wouldn't find our ways to without it. This article is just proof that the world around usis growing, especially the cyber world