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The British company behind the personal assistant app Indigo for Android and iOS is looking into creating a more sophisticated voice-controlled personal assistant like Siri. The company's inspiration was the movie Her. A story about a lonely writer who falls in love with Samantha an extremely refined Siri. The new technology connects various systems within you home. You can search for a route to your friends house on your computer and get in you car and your phone will direct you there. Another thing is rather than filling out forms with your information you can just tell the voice controlled personal assistant your address and other information and it will put it into its memory. The new Siri will learn more about you as you search thing through it . If you look for restaurants in your area and you look at different sushi restaurants it will register that you like sushi restaurants. To tell you the truth i am very excited to see how this ends up and I will be happy to see its release.

Last November, Google has removed the feature and option of people personalizing their backgrounds when they use the search engine on Goggle. But now personalized backgrounds are back! You can do this by just simply specifying that you want a certain picture to be your background.  This feature makes Google feel like your own and it's fun to do. Plus it adds a bit of flare onto the page instead of looking at a boring Google search page. You can also upload a photo if you chose for it to be your personalized background. 

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. 

On the internet, it,s our responsibility to keep our personal lives private. This article is about how 3 celebrities got hacked, and how we can learn from it. The celebrities include Paris Hilton, who's phone got hacked and her personal information was posted. Scarlett Johansson had nude pictures of her, and lastly, Brett Favre who also had nude pictures of himself. We need to be aware of the fact that our personal information may be falling into the wrong hands. Celebrities have different lives than us, particularly those who have paparazzi who follow them around all day which means the information a celebrity chooses to keep on a digital device is in jeopardy. Imagine if someone was constantly trying to hack into your e-mail or social accounts to post embarrassing things about you? This is why we have to be careful about what we post online.

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.

Some people today, act in one way in the real world but once they go on the internet and social networks, it's like they're a whole different person. This article explains how we communicate in different ways through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. When you're feeling down or not in the mood it doesn't hurt to just vent to someone on the internet rather than freaking out and acting crazy. If you can socially act online in a positive way, it gives a reciprocal, so maybe you can receive some back that's positive. The internet should be a reason for use to jump out of reality because it gives a certain impact on ourselves. this article relates to Portable Computing because through out phones we can also access social networks which goes back to jumping out of reality and acting like were some bad person but as this article says, that's not a good excuse.

Google's very own Gmail has overtaken Hotmail as the world's most-used email service. ComSorce released its data confirming that Gmail had 287 million unique worldwide visitors last month, while Hotmail received 256 million. I personally have both accounts but I use Gmail as my more personal email than my Hotmail. I always thought Gmail was ahead of the game by far. However, after seeing this statistic, Gmail is only a hair more popular than Hotmail. Don't forget Yahoo. In third place, with 281 million visitors, Yahoo is top three on the most visited email service.I believe that after Gmail has finally surpassed Hotmail, the gap of visitors between Gmail and Hotmail and even Yahoo will increase drastically with Gmail in first place by far.

Previously, Twitter, Apple, and Facebook have been on the list of tech companies hacked within the last couple of weeks. As of March 2nd, 2013, Evernote also joins this list when their network is breached by an attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service. Evernote has notified users via  e-mail, blogs, and social media to change passwords so that users personal information can remain safe on the Evernote network. The hackers had successfully accessed usernames, e-mail adresses and encrypted passwords, however, they were stopped before any damage could be done. This relates to the "Privacy & Security" category because users data and personal information is being accessed without authorization. Obviously, this can cause many problems for users especially because their work and information can be stolen or deleted. Evernote encourages creating a strong password to ensure that an account remains secure, however, this is a questionable matter because the website should also consider upgrading their system in order to keep users safe. As part of the eLifestyle, many users rely on cloud storage to store information, especially on Evernote. The recent hacking just proves how reliable cloud storage really is. When saving data, it is important to consider the possibility of it being stolen or deleted. With this in mind, one shouldn't depend on cloud storage for saving all of their work or important material as it hasn't proven to be very reliable. And if you are using cloud storage, it would be smart to backup important files on a USB or Computer.

A recent survey has proven that the downloading of illegal music has decreased by 26 percent from 2011 to 2012. It seems that fewer people are illegally downloading music for three specific reasons. With the introduction of P2P music sites a few years ago, illegally downloaded music was becoming more and more common. Since, the music industry has responded very negatively trying to shut down these sites.A famous example was the shutting down of the huge P2P site and software, Limewire, after they were found guilty of copyright infringement. Limewire had millions of users that ripped off artists music millions of times and the record companies were not just going to stand there and watch. People are also not downloading illegal music as much because of the new music streaming services, such as Songza.  These sites stream music to many computers and devices free of charge for the listener to enjoy. The last reason that people are downloading illegal music less is because of the malware and spyware risks that downloading this music poses. You may think you are downloading your favourite techno song when really you are downloading a trojan virus that will steal all of your passwords and personal information. I think this is a sign that people are finally realizing that this is an immoral act and they are taking away money from the artists that make the songs. I personally have bought all of the songs I own and I rarely use the music streaming services. Hopefully by 2014, there will be no illegally downloaded music by anybody.

Anglophone= English speaking person Francophone= French speaking person Technology has become a large part of our everyday lives. This article talks about how Canadians are purchasing more and more electronics. (Cell phones, iPads, tablets) The article also talks about how Canadians are also signing up for Netflix, a service that allows users to watch movies in the comfort of their own home. The Media Technology Monitor states that 28 % of English speaking Canadians owned a tablet at the time of the survey which was 7 times the amount in 2010. I think this this is a result of society and the services that businesses now offer that they hadn't previously. EX: Now, we can watch movies on our tablets, but let's say 10 years ago, we would have to go to a movie theater. I believe that portable devices have positively affected our lives. These devices make everything we do more convenient, for example, cell phones allow me to contact my friends anywhere in the world and they also provide me with help in an emergency. I strongly believe that portable devices have positive effects in our lives, and judging from the increasing amount of technology users, many others think so as well.

6/10 would read again

Don't be fooled by this imposter, I am the real spider man.

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.

People tend to get upset when they are trying to hear the person on the other end of the phone. It could be very irritating not not hear the person and we tend to struggle to higher the volume. Now RIM has created a handset that changes the volume determining how far the device is away from your ear. It has detectors that adjust the volume. Its very cool because it can sense when you are walking and talking so it can change the volume. It relates to this course because it take in operating system to know what to do and it is on a hardware. It also needs to be programmed to work. 

I learned from this article how to secure your information on your mobile device using 6 simple tips. Setting a solid password, installing antivirus or security apps, and using encryption, a hardware security system, are just a few various methods of how to help and improve the security on the everyday use of your phone. Mobile security is important especially if you have a lot of important and valuable data and information, such as passwords or your email is accessible, you want to know that this information is stored and saved safely on your mobile device for no one but yourself to be able to use. With technology evolving and more and more people are being familiar and learning about hacking and breaking into systems, it is more important and necessary than ever in our society for everyone to have their information secured. Taking your mobile device's security seriously and keeping it at high maintenance is crucial so nobody can hack or see what information is important to you but also so that you aren't giving people the opportunity to rearrange or change this data that you trust that you are the only person to see and alter your personal data at your leisure. 

Through the innovation of technology, with faster CPUs, GPUs and RAM comes one problem. Heat. A lot of it. Due to this, water cooling came into play allowing heat to be pulled away from components faster and more efficiently than ever. This allowed enthusiasts to get the most out of their hardware through overclocking. Kingston decided to take it even one step further with their HyperX H2O RAM. This 2133Mhz DDR3 stick of RAM runs much cooler than it's air cooled competitors and is one of the first of its kind, allowing overclocks to get a greater performance boost that ever. And, it just looks plain awesome. Personally, no matter how much of a PC enthusiast I am i would not install this in my Personal Computer as this technology is not perfected yet. For a little more cost, not including a water cooling loop, you can get a stick of RAM with not only more memory, but with a greater base clock than even this hyperX H2O at it's finest can't overcome, without the hassle of leaks, and the extra cost of installation due to piping and radiators.

This article explains about the benefits and disadvantages of building and buying your own personal computer (PC). All computers that are sold are made up of parts that have been put together, whether by factory or by a specialist. The parts inside help us to tell apart other computers and their parts. The article goes into detail that building your own computer allows you to pick the parts that you want, such as the motherboard, processor, or hard drive, whereas, if you buy a pre-made computer, the parts inside are picked by the manufacturer and it will take you a long time to find the perfect package at the right price. Lastly, the article teaches you how to build your own computer, so that if you choose that path, you will see the difficulty of it and see if you have the know-how to do it. In my opinion, I would build my own computer, even if it costs more money, because I want to install the parts that I think are right for me based on what I use my computer for (eg. gaming, video editing, etc).

On February the 23rd, Microsoft made a few announcements on their Windows Phone. The new update 8.1 will have more flexible support for hardware and the phone will be able to use dual-SIM, apps on microSD and virtual softkeys instead of the original capacitive keys. The Windows phones will also not be required to have a hardware camera shutter key which people are excited for. The new update is refreshing and the updated hardware opens up more ability for the market to grow. I personally think this is a great move for Windows because it adds the options that their customers have been asking for. It has also been said on a similar article that the new update will allow Windows hardware to work on other phone companies such as Android. This might not be a good idea because people might not find the need to use the hardware if they already have one on their phone. Personally, if I wanted to use the Windows hardware, I would just buy a Windows Phone instead of downloading it on my existing one.

Just when you thought that the Apple-Samsung dispute was long gone, the two rivaling tech companies will once again appear in court next week in Silicon Valley. As usual, they are accusing each other of ripping off designs and features. Apple is accusing Samsung of infringing on 5 patents including Samsung's popular Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Samsung on the other hand is accusing Apple of stealing ideas to use on Apple's iDevices. According to Apple attorneys, Apple "revolutionized the market in personal computing devices, while Samsung "systematically copied Apple's innovative technology and products. Samsung in defense says that it has been a "pioneer in the mobile business sector since the inception of the mobile device industry, and that Apple copied many of Samsung's innovations on Apple's iDevices. Some things Apple claims that Samsung copied are tap to search technology, and "slide to unlock" the latter in my opinion, is not true. However, each smartphone has many patents, but Apple is only challenging 5 of them. personally I think that Apple and Samsung devices are very different. Sure some features may be similar or identical, but that's just to have competition. Although both of them are innovators, I think that Samsung/Google is innovating more nowadays than Apple.

For the longest time we have all felt very safe while on the internet. Even with feeling this security, we should be more cautious with what we put out on the internet because there has been a bug lurking around in the most important security measures for years. Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) has been keeping your browing page secure and safe for numerous years and is a huge part of the internet and thankfully it is still working as it should. The problem that we have been experiencing is a software library called OpenSSL has a hole in it that has been there for years called "HeartBleed". OpenSSL allows people to get the protection from TLS/SSL easy and fast and has worked fine just like TLS/SSL but because there has been a minor coding error, malicious people can abuse different versions of OpenSSL and grab information that should originally be secured by TLS/SSL. The main problem that everyone can understand is that all of your personal information is being opened up and placed into the hands of someone who should not have the information. The other problem that this "HeartBleed" has is that the attackers will also get to see how the site that is taking your data indentifies. Not only can they see recent transactions but they can look back at old transactions that have already happened. The worst part about all of this is that none of the attackers leave a trace.Since they leave no trace, it is hard to tell how many websites and people have already been effected by the "HeartBleed". While sites try to fix up the problems it is recommended to change all of your passwords and to keep a close eye on your credit card statement. This bug is a huge problem for our society because absolutely no one is safe because there is no way to know if you've been attacked. The article says that Google, Amazon, and Microsoft hasn't been infected yet so that is at least good. I think that everyone should always be careful with their personal information

Cyber bullying is defined as a young person tormenting, threatening, harassing, or embarrassing another young person using the internet or other technologies. This page gives 11 important facts on cyber bullying that you might not have heard of. Some of these facts include: 70% of students report seeing frequent bullying online, only one in 10 victims will inform a parent or trusted adult of their abuse. I completely agree with these facts and agree with the motive of this site. Cyber bullying is a cowards way out and is not nice in any way.

social networking can be very dangerous or even deadly to some police officers and crime scene witnesses. Someone could easily bring up the officers Facebook profiles and find out so much about the person.They could get picture of the officer, the officers friends, and even their family photos. I think that social networking is part of the ways people kidnap these days. that why you always here no to put  your personal information onto the computer, a place were when you put something in, you can never take it back out.