Group items tagged

This article describes the effects of mobile/portable computing on our everyday lives. The article writes that mobile computing is a great advantage for both ordinary people and business men.  In the business area, portable computing is the easiest to approved business everywhere in the world. This means that you do not need to physically be at a business meeting to approve of a transaction. This saves a great deal of money, time and is much more efficient and fast. Portable computing has also made just our regular daily lives a lot easier. From just being able to call anyone outside of your house, to booking a hotel, flight, even finding the nearest gas station, it's all in the palm of your hand. Whatever the case may be, portable computing has made all of this possible.  In my opinion, being connected 24/7 increases productivity up to a point, but it also can cause stress and can also disrupts life. 

This article talks about how our technology has become more advanced over the last 30 years. Before computers, people used typewriters to type, but then PC's were made and it made life easier for everyone. Many people say that we are now in the post-PC era because we are developing things like the iPad or the Amazon Kindle Fire where you don't need a keyboard or huge desktop to surf the net or send out an email. But some say there is no "post- PC" era because PC's were just the beginning of a much bigger computing era. Either way, PC's were the first of something that would and already has drastically changed our lives.

Who is the internet run by? The answer to that would be 193 U.N. members. Surprisingly, countries are sort of blocked off when it deals with internet affairs. To gain more power, certain countries like China and Russia have lobbied an agency called the ITU (International Telecommunications Union). The ITU's goal right now is internet censorship. They feel they need to have more control, and are threatening it's open, 'free to do whatever you want', nature. Next week, the ITU holds a negotiating conference in Dubai. They have already a proposed a 200 page treaty which makes some internet users worrisome. The ITU is trying to propose a tax on visiting popular websites like google, facebook, etc.. Google is against the idea already, and putting up petitions that show the need for net neutrality. Online users are counting on their own countries governments that they will not control the internet at the users will

thoughts/opinions?

Nintendo is shutting down servers that support online play for the Wii and DS on May 30th. No longer will you be able to enjoy popular titles on said systems like pokemon, or mariokart, to its fullest. Playing with others is a big part of the enjoyment of a game, and communities for these games will likely collapse when the wifi deteonation comes. So, with the apparent loss of a large gaming group, why IS nintendo shutting down their servers for these two systems? Nintendo is looking for people to upgrade to the superior counterparts: the 3DS and WiiU. Similar games that shaped the online Wii community are coming out later this year for the WiiU. Nintendo did not officially say that the reason for the server shutdown was just a marketing ploy. It is speculated however, running a server shouldn't be a big problem for a tech giant like Nintendo... IMO, even with titles successors, sometimes you just want to relax by playing an old game on a system you already own. Variety is key.

For uploads of images and the like. Imgur is the leader in free image hosting, with a simple to use image hosting service with no extra perks. One of the things that I like about imgur are the small links, because they are very copy/pastable. Second in line, is flickr. Less like imgur, and more like a social networking site. It is geared more towards sharing. It contains massive amounts of storage for your photos, 1TB to be exact, just by signing up. So flickr seems to be more personalized than imgur, and that's not a problem. For a commoner like me, I'd just rather use imgur. Expect a photographer to use flickr. Next up is photobucket which is the same as flickr in many regards. Imageshack is an alternative to imgur if you want crop your image or add special effects after you finish uploading. Freeimagehosting.net is sort of a competitor... and the last two happen to be gimmicks, postimage.org and imgplace.com

The company that created the Angry Birds franchise, Rovio, came out/released the Angry Birds Star Wars game.  This game is available on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, PC and Macintosh systems.  There is a free version and a paid version of the game.  The paid version of the game adds HD graphics.  There are more than 80 levels in the F2P version.  All though the general idea of the game is the same, they have added little things that are unique to Star Wars.  You start the game on Tatooine and the settings you play through are planets and the death star.  Another addition is the change is bird abilities.  For example, there is now a bird that holds a lightsaber and can go through obstacles.  This game, personally, sounds very interesting and I am sure to download it.

This article discusses the relationship between Apple and Samsung, who are fierce competitors in mobile device market. In very simple terms, Apple's handheld designs were at the least partially copied by Samsung, but suing them is difficult since they supply many of the hardware components, primarily processor chips, for Apple products themselves. Should Apple sue and win a lawsuit against the sale of Samsung products anywhere, Samsung would cut off their shipments, leaving room for other competitors to take the scene. This touches on the legal aspect of things because Apple has a right to the products they made and clearly copying them should not be allowed. The problem is that it would be lost money for both businesses because Samsung would cut off parts being supplied to Apple. This brings the need for cooperation between the two companies because if they both take a serious loss in the mobile device market other companies like LG, Nokia and Microsoft would take the lead and dominate the market.

There is a now an IOS app that lets you fight in-justifiable parking tickets. This app is called fixed. Fixed is a service that will help you fight traffic tickets. You will be given a traffic ticket advocate to help fight for you, and give you your odds on winning your ticket. This service will charge you 25% the ticket if it becomes dismissed. I personally believe this app is genius. It is just another example of how simple applications will slowly help us in our every day lives.

In this article, Rob Beschizza examines how many medals each country in the olympics has per 10 million people living in that country. Canada has only 4 medals per 10 million people whereas Norway holds 27.9 medals per 10 million people. This graph shows a new way of calculating who has the most medals. Rob Beschizza has a career in writing articles for the site: BoingBoing, and each Olympian has a career in their favourite sport.

Missed the mark here. The intention was to post something related to Careers in Computing.

I just wanted to post this because i thought it was really interesting but useful too. Its an article about ways to get into the technology industry. It even gives pointers if you want to work for apple.

Research In Motion is on a quest for goodwill after last week's massive outage that left BlackBerry users without service for three days. The company just took to the wires and announced that over a $100 worth of premium apps will eventually be free for a limited time and enterprise users will also net one month of free technical support. RIM hopes SIM 3, Bejeweled, N.O.V.A. and many more will help calm the nerves those BlackBerry users thinking of jumping ship.