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This article is about how Facebook created a new feature to their website. They allow many students to collaborate with other students and faculty members to share documents that aren't copyrighted. Since, many have left Facebook for other social networking sites and have become bored of it Facebook this new group will attract them to come back. I think that this new feature they added will attract many more users, especially those who are in colleges and universities because it is an easy way to communicate to those in your classes and it is user friendly. 

Social media has been playing a huge role in our everyday live so its no surprise that it also plays a big part in campaigning. I read this article about the importance of social media in political campaigns I now understand the impact. In the article Patricia Misutka was saying that it is very difficult to win a campaign without social media. The social media tool is very important because it allows you to reach out to the people and get immediate responses. Now rather than going from house to house and calling and polling people you can see responses to things like platform and policy ideas much quicker and with more accuracy. Another very important reason for campaigning with social media is important for reaching younger people who may not watch the news or read newspapers. Social media is a necessary tool in campaigning but it is not sufficient and will never replace face-to-face interactions with voters.

This article is about how social media has become a very big part of our lives and how it is important for government candidates to have social media because so many people are already on it. The article uses Edmonton as example. The most famous candidates in Edmonton has social media accounts but the least famous ones don't. The article talks about how candidates need social media accounts and you need to be constantly updating since so many people have it. Having social media even when you are in politics are very important. Many people can connect with you if you are on social media. They would know you better and become more well know if you are on social media. Election campaigns are more effective if you have a social media account because people who followed you would constantly get campaign updates and would re-tweet it. That means more people would know you and you would have a higher chance of winning the election.

AdBlock is tool that many of us know of, and would totally never use because it can take revenue from content creators *shifty eyes*. All of us hate annoying ads, whether they be prerolls on videos or pop ups, or less than appropriate advertisements on streaming and torrenting websites. Adblock is a wonderful creation that hides most of those, and is thusly loved by many. Recently Adblock has done another thing which will undoubtedly make its user base happy, the web application now also blocks trackers, malicious cookies and scripts. This can be extremely important to people who value their privacy as it helps to ensure that as little of your private data is being sold as possible. The issue of online privacy has been gaining traction over the past few years and especially sine the Snowden revelations. I personally commend Adblock for their goal to protect their users, I and many others care about privacy and make active decisions to stay anonymous (I, for instance, use encrypted search engines and web browsers that encrypt data). This decision by Adblock isn't a huge step forward in online protection and privacy, but it is a step, and that's important.

As many of you know smart phones are all the rage today. But I really don't think that anyone really stops to think.... how are these devices produced? Well in September of this year one app developer tried to get this out to the world. This developer created an app entitled "Phone Story." This application shows the negative aspects and the abuse and hard labour many of the workers must go through, which many times ends dramatically. 

For many years scientists have been banging their heads on the wall that is Cancer. No cure seems to be found that is perfect, but they keep striving on. In this article Scientists are starting to develop a new approach. Scientists have developed a technology that allows them to manipulate nano-particles and are using them to fight cancer. These particles are ejected into the cells along with protein and then travel into their system. They then latch on to three separate "nodes" and attach them together. This in fact is the cells death switch causing it to self district Furthermore, this has proven successful in destroying many cells, but there are still problems. First of all, there is so far no way of controlling which cells are targeted, so this is not very safe for you, and some cancer cells are making attempts to resist this. To conclude, I believe that this is an ingenious piece of technology and with some further development we may see a cure for cancer.

As you all probably know, the new Apple maps available on iOS 6 is failing to live up to many expectations and requirements. Since coming out, it has had a lot of criticism and many apple customers were disappointed. There has even been a public apology from Apple CEO Tim Cook, who promised that Apple were hard  at work improving Apple Maps. In my opinion, it is embarrassing when such a prestigious company such as Apple develops something that receives this much criticism. I also think that this can hurt Apple's reputation, and even cause users to switch over to rival companies such as Samsung for phones. The big question, however, is whether or not Apple can match or even improve on the previously incorporated with Apple products, "Google Maps." Some say this is unlikely, as Google has much more experience in make map apps, and as Apple still has a long way to go until they can improve Apple Maps to a level where it could be considered decent.

If you're the type of person who loves Samsung and has every product they have released, then you'll probably get interested in their new product, the Samsung Galaxy Camera. This camera will be based off the Galaxy S III. That means it'll have a screen size of around 4.8'', have the TouchWiz UI, and JellyBean. However, instead of the original 8 Mp camera on the SIII, this'll have 16Mp camera with xenon flash. Too me, I think Samsung is taking it a bit too far. Yes I know that their are many competitors out there trying to steal the competition, but I thought that Samsung releasing their Smart Tv's was already the big thing. I have to admit, this is an innovative product. No doubt there'll be many good things to be said about it in the future.

The main idea of this article is the possible effects on the environment that laptops have over desktops. This article discusses the possible of conserving natural resources, using energy efficiently, and how laptops contribute to landfill toxins. Connection: The main problem that laptops have is the resources that laptops are made of. For example, laptops are usually made of metals such as mercury, lead, chromium and other various metals that if not recycled could contaminate the land and resources around the landfill. For example if such metals end up in the landfill, they could contaminate ground water, land water, and the soil around the landfill. This wouldn't allow us to drink the water as well as growing crops or using the soil around the landfill. This highlights how important it is for us to create laptops that use less harmful metals and the importance of recycling laptops.  In my opinion, considering some of the harmful effects that laptops have they also have many positive ones. For example, now that people can use things such as power point presentations, sending emails, we don't need to use as much paper as we used to which saves paper and preserves trees. Due to computers, communication has also become much easier. People can now order things off the internet rather than drive far away to a specialty shop, their item is delivered by a delivery person who has many things to deliver. This is far more efficient than each person driving to a shop to buy something.  In conclusion, computers do have some negative effects on the environment but they also do have some positive effects and made our life much easier. Roman.

This article describes how scientists are working to create new top off the line security. As we've seen in many sci-fi movies ; there is such a thing as eye scanners. they have existed for sometime now, but they have been primitive and worked just by using the iris of your eye. This could be faked easily by someone just taking a picture of your eye and simply holding it to the screen. This new technology however is a lot more sophisticated. It uses your eyes "fixations" and "saccades" to determine if it is really you. Fixations is how your eye behaves when it is still and saccades is how your eye behaves when it is moving from point to point. This new technology is a breakthrough in security, as it is virtually impossible to fake. no more stolen passwords, or hacked systems. Now unless its really you, the system wont let the person in. THis is extremely important as it prevents theft, hacking, and many other problems. To conclude, this technology is extremely important to our security and will greatly contribute to our future

In the previous six months, Instagram use has septupled easily surpassing twitter.  The app use went from nine hundred thousand people per day to well over seven million.  Instagram is based around a mobile app and has no website.  Before the evidence of Instagram's epic 6 month growth, Silicon valley were obsessing over mobile-first development.  Twitter, who started mobile and then became a website is being shadowed by Instagram.  Many other mobile apps have expanded and surged like Instagram but they all died out.  Instagram has not died out yet however, because people seem to really enjoy looking at pictures and sending up their own.  Instagram users spend an average of four hours on it beating Twitter's average of three.  Many people think Instagram is a bad thing and is for "attention seekers" but I think it's a good thing.  People can express their emotions and feeling through pictures and it's not Facebook so that's a win-win situation.  However I don't use it.

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.  

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. 

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.

This article is about how just recently, companies Apple and HTC have signed a 10-year licensing deal meaning that every single one of Apple's and HTC's lawsuits filed against each other has now been settled. Both have been sued by each other for infringing on each other's patents. This new licencing deal means that the companies can use each other's patents to a certain extent- giving their phones an edge over the rest of the smartphone market. HTC says they signed the deal to focus on making better products instead of spending so much time dealing with court. Some analysts say that Apple settled the lawsuits quickly to deal with Samsung and their lawsuits towards them. Apple has signed agreements previously with Nokia and Microsoft allowing them to use certain patents. I chose the tag of portable computing because both Apple and HTC produce many successful smartphone portable computing. Hopefully this deal will help improve both of their smartphone operations benefiting us consumers. In my opinion I think that this whole suing fest (lack of a better word) that has been going on recently is pretty silly as many cases don't seem as if they are worthy to be being sued about. I am glad to see that Apple has settled their disputes with HTC to cut down on this smartphone lawsuit drama.

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. 

It's been less than 200 years since the birth of photography and in those years it has evolved a lot from the first camera to the smart phones that we so often use to take pictures today. This article maps out the evolution of photography throughout the years, and what it has come to be today. Cameras and photos have come a long way from what they first were. Even the digital camera, has become a smaller part of our lives as the phones with built in cameras had been introduced to our society. In fact, about 741 million mobile phones worldwide now have some photo capability. We no longer look to digital cameras or computers to edit and share our photos. All of those capabilities have been added to our smart phones. It has now become very easy to simply snap a photo and share it on a social networking site like instagram or facebook. In fact, Facebook has 10, 000 times more photos than the Library of Congress. Many of us have lost the need for digital cameras. Mobile photography is the latest evolution and many are experiencing the shift. Our phones are always with us and it provides us with the perfect camera when a picture perfect opportunity is right in front of us. 91% of smartphone owners take a picture at least once a month while only 73% of digital camera owners do the same. Personally, I've also experienced this shift. I used to have a digital camera and would bring it with me on field trips and special occasions. It was great to have, but now that I think about it before I had my smartphone and only used the camera I missed out on all the photo opportunities that I had in my day to day life. I only captured the big events and even when I took those photos, I always got a little lazy when it came to transferring them to my computer and sharing them with friends and family. It usually sat on my camera for a while before I finally got around to doing it. With my smart phone, I am simply able to snap a photo and share it without losing a mome

nt. I find it very convenient. Our lifestyle with technology has made our day to day life easier for us and now it is making it possible to capture our day to day life, wherever we are. To me, this move to mobile photography hasn't killed photography, but transformed it.

The new Wii U review came out today. The Wii U is longer than the old one and looks sleeker. Also it's lovely fingerprint black. It has an HDMI port (cord is included), other USB ports, and a SD card slot. It runs on an IBM Power-based multi-core processor and an AMD Radeon custom high-def GPU. It comes in 8GB of internal flash memory for $300 and for $350 you get 32GB of memory. The Gamepad is pretty much all your Nintendo devices in one. It comes with a camera. The battery life is about 3.5 hours with everything turned down. If your parents are watching TV you can still play on the gamepad. The pro controller is small copy of the PS3 and Xbox 360's controller. The battery life is 6-10 hours. Overall there are many interactive games and the family will love playing together. eLifestyle because this will become the new trend. Many people will want to get it. Sunday nights the family will get together and play all night. Economics because the Wii U is going to be big competition for the other companies because they don't have a gamepad and you can play while dad is watching CFL playoffs. 

We all know how dreadfully horrid Internet Explorer can be, especially older versions. Many have us have grown accustomed to cleaner, more versatile browsers such as (and pretty much only) Google Chrome. With the release of Windows 8, Microsoft has produced IE10. Microsoft is painfully aware of their browser's reputation, and has taken advertising it in a humourous way. The video depicts a typical basement dweller sending "IE sucks" comments and replies to forums, videos, twitter, and the like. Eventually, he comes around when IE creates a new "Karaoke standard" for the web, changing his point of view to "IE sucks... less." The ad directs to www.browseryoulovedtohate.com. Although many of us may never use IE voluntarily, the browser has come a long way from being the decrepit, slow "browser for people who don't know any better." It has made progress, and that is the driving force of technology. Who knows? Perhaps IE10 will be a bit more bearable than its predecessors.

your mother was right- Posture is important! In this article, a new innovating chair has been introduced to the market, Gesture chair. Ever since the progression of technology in the last decade, tablets, smartphones and computers are everywhere- including the office. These new technologies, and their frequent use have uncovered nine new postures that have never been seen before. And with these new postures, a new chair is needed for the proper support. Many overlook the importance of posture in you health but good posture is as imperative as eating right, exercising and so on. For example, when we are sitting at a computer much like you are now reading this, you are most likely hunched over with you head and neck tilted forward.This hunched over position creates an imbalance between your head and your spinal column forcing the human body to stretch certain spinal ligaments to support your head. This can eventually cause fatigue and pain. However, this is where Gesture comes in; this chair has the ability to support you body's many postures and movements through out the day. Its features include movable arm rests, fluidity in the back that cradles your back and more. This chair encourages movement rather than restricting the body to a certain position. Overall, it is something that can positively affect your health, and shares new ideas regarding the chair and how we can use technology and kinesiology to improve our lives.

This article is about a new infrared technology that will let firemen see through flames. This was a new study in Italy and researchers have created a system that cuts through smoke with infrared lasers. The lasers bounce off of anything such as people and go back through an imager to show the firefighters a 3D view of everything around them. The current infrared camera monitors that firefighters use can easily be blinded by thick smoke and flames because they have a lens that must zoom in on light. The new system will let firefighters see them in holograph form. This product still has to be refined but once it is it can help save many lives. This is an example of security because many more people will be more secure and safe when this product comes out.