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It's too surprising that Apple actually beat Google. This survey asks the public to measure the most visible companies in the country, and last year Google was at the top number one. But this year Apple won with 85.62, and Google won with 82.82. Apple won with the most highest RQ score this year. It's surprising over all these years Apple beat Google, finally. This proves that Apple is way more well known than any other brands in the United States. 

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.

This post is about Online Universities and why they don't compare to the real thing. Products like Saba LMS, Moodle, and iTunes U have made e-learning mainstream, and most universities offer and allow some or most of their coursework to be completed online. First off, the concern with many online universities and colleges is post-graduation employment statistics. Most have very low graduation rates. A government recruited states that "it's not ideal. It doesn't set a baseline expectation, for me or for the people he or she will meet in the field. If I just need to check off a 'degree' box on a requirements form, online will do, but if two candidates are similar, I'm going with the one from Stanford or UVA." Moreover, the differences come down to two things: brand and social interaction. Traditional schools can clearly understand reputations, strengths and weaknesses. Without historical data and a history of success or failure, the online schools' GPAs, class standing and other performance metrics are just numbers and statistics. The author of this article also states that "Giant online schools that accept pretty much everyone may be democratizing education, but they're not helping employers or anyone else separate out the best and the brightest." This can hurt the prestige, and ultimately the graduates of the school. This issue relates to the "eLifestyle" tag because in the end it will definitely affect not only the students, but the regular citizens of a country. The graduates of universities, online of traditional,  will be the leaders of the future, and I believe that traditional universities and colleges are better because professors can get to know and understand students at a different level. It is hard to judge or mark a student based only on online text. For instance, you will never be able to distinguish a student that truly tries and works hard but cannot understand the information properly to a student that understands it but is lazy and slacks off.

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.

This story truly puts an end to the rumor that macs never get viruses and that they are unhackable. It was only a matter of time before something like this would happen, maybe not to this extent.  600,000 macs is a huge number which will cause macs reputation and reliability to take a hard blow.

Link shortening service Bit.ly just announced the launch of its beta search platform and "reputation monitoring" service for its paying Enterprise customers.

We should all probably know that when technology starts upgrading as time goes by, we always want to get the new products. Our generation is getting more and more into technology and in this article, it explains a study of how we are digitally getting distracted in our academics. This study shows that 47% of teachers should make courses and content in digital literacy into a school's curriculum. I agree with this because as our generation spends our days mainly on our phones or on computers, we wouldn't be distracted on the technology if we have our work finished with it. The only back draw to this is that many students would just go on Google or Wikipedia for their answers as the Internet has a huge amount of information displayed for us to use. This article relates to portable computing because it's starting to affect how we do in our education. In addition, it relates to eLifestyle because we're using this technology as a daily part of our lives and if we start to use it as a method of education, we can use it as a form of gaining new information.

The article, by Neha Prakash, is about a study on the effects of technology on the current generation of students. The study concluded with 87% of teachers saying students were easily distracted and had short attention spans. This is most likely due to the internet providing such quick and easy access within a keystroke in search engines such as Wikipedia and Google. Students are used to having things accomplished and out of the way so quickly that they no longer have the attention span to complete more complicated and time consuming tasks. Due to this, students lack time management and also do not check if their sources are reputable. A solution to this problem could be to incorporate digital literacy and technology into schools' curriculum. With this additional knowledge, methods of education can be improved in today's technological environment. This relates to elifestyle in that we use technology so much that we can take it for granted. Normally, we do not acknowledge the consequences of repetitive and prolonged use of social media, search engines, cell phones, and so on. As the class of ICS2O, we learn to use technology in a healthy balance in our lives. We are at the forefront of electronic education, using sites such as diigo, Google Drive, and Google Reader to complete assignments and engage in the events of the outside world. While there are negative impacts to the overuse of technology, like most other things, technology, used in balance with other aspects of life, can be beneficial.

This article states that a new study has shown that more and more kids/teenagers are distracted by technologies which affect their learning.  87% of the teachers in this study have said that "technology is creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans."  Other teachers also claim that "technologies do more to distract students than to help them academically."  Teachers, though, remained somewhat optimistic about digital impact, with 77% saying Internet search tools have had a "mostly positive" impact on their students' work. I think that technologies help out a lot in kids learning however it could still distract them. A lot of kids use the internet with homework and study help which could in some cases is a very beneficial thing. They would learn and find out more about the subject they are studying. Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project, says that maybe it is not the problem with tech, but the lack of digital literacy training in students that creates the problem. I agree with this also.