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Google has bought Nest Labs, buying it for 3.2 billion dollars about a month ago. Though Nest was bought by Google, it will still be somewhat independent. Nest will most likely be much more emphasized now with Google, though what Nest does is much different than Google. This topic relates to the tags of "Legal" and "Economics" due to the fact that Google has now bought Nest. Legally, Nest is now under Google who bought it for 3.2 billion dollars. Questions that I ask are, what things will Nest do now that it is under Google, and what new possibilities do both companies have? My opinion on this entire occurrence is that Google is becoming much bigger than ever, with so many new things appearing. Now that Nest is under Google's wing, it can accomplish many more things, though unknown what may happen.

California passes a bill that allows children under 18 to delete any posts that they may regret in the future. Some people, such as James Steyer, agree with this idea and say that it is a way to put "privacy in the hands of kids, teenagers and the parents, not under the control of an anonymous tech company," however big social media networks who already lets everyone delete their posted items which make people complain about this new law. This also is a burden to some social media networks due to the problem of having to find the people who live in California. This relates to my tag because it is a bill passed by the government for children in social messaging systems, so it includes both politics and politics. My thoughts on this are the same as the people arguing against this, because there is no point in creating a bill only for people under 18 when almost all social media networks can do this for all ages. < SORRY SIR I FORGOT TO SHARE THIS TO THE GROUP LAST WEEK!!!!

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.

Over the past few years, Facebook has grown to become one of the largest social networking sites in the world. People everywhere, young or old, have leapt at this opportunity to connect with friends or family from all over. This article brings up the possibility of creating a Facebook option that is available specifically for under 13 users as the current Facebook is only supposed to be available to users over 13. This new option would allow parents to create a link to their child's website and edit the Facebook Timeline options to whatever they think is appropriate. However, this possibility is met with a lot of opposition. People believe that allowing kids younger than 13 onto this site could be risky as they would be more susceptible to the dangers of cyber bullying and abuse. They believe that kids would simply be too young to understand the dangers of the internet and as a result would not know how to stay safe. Letting kids go on social networking sites like Facebook at such a young age is a huge decision. How do you know what is the right one? Despite the over 13 rules on Facebook, there are still thousands of young kids on this site that had simply lied about their age. It isn't hard to get onto this site. No matter what we do, with or without this new Facebook option, there will undoubtedly be young kids on Facebook. This fact is unavoidable. That is why I think that this alternate Facebook for children is not necessarily a bad idea. If we can't keep kids off of Facebook then we might as well work to make a safer version of it for them. Although, I don't condone young kids using this site, I am aware of the fact that we can never keep them all away from it and if that's the case then we might as well do all we can to protect them while on it. The growing world of technology is going to reach the younger children at some point and instead of trying to shield them from this other world and forcing them to explore it behind our backs, I thin

k we should find safer ways for them to discover this cyber world and educate them on its dangers. This article highlights people's concerns about rapidly growing social networks in the cyber world and its expansion to target younger children. It simply gives us a look at how much Facebook has really grown and what they are willing to do to keep it growing. It has grown so quickly and so has its number of users. It is only natural that young kids want to see and learn about what has fascinated so many of older people.

The law on hate speech being used on the internet does not interfere with freedom of expression, according to the courts. The penalty you get for doing this action clearly is a violation, but courts have not taken that into account. This happens to be section 13, a currently defunct law. A penalty for hate speech on the internet can result in up to a $10000 fine! This penalty is what gives people the reason to argue. Wouldn't fining someone for stating an opinion on something (no matter how bad it is) still be a violation of someone's freedom of expression? Unless you were under employment and did something of that nature within your job, you should be fired. But, the internet seems to be much different than real life. When something is written it must have more power, because saying your opinion in real life out loud, will not result in any fines. The problem is that section 13 violating free speech is right politically, but wrong legally. Section 13 is being removed in June of 2104, and for good reason. No internet hate speeches are being made in which a victim should recieve $10000 in compensation. Personally, I would never say anything to offend a large group of people to such a degree, but I still think section 13 should be removed, if it goes against a constitutional right under reasonable grounds.

As of 2012, illegal pirating is a huge problem in the technological world.  Everyone has illegally downloaded at least one file in their lifetime.  Under a new law that is active as of October 1, Japanese internet users who illegally download files could face up to 2 years in prison, or a fine of up to 2 million yen($25 700).  Even using applications such as Youtube, which stores video files on your computer, could be considered illegal and could land you a spot in jail.  Downloading copyrighted material was illegal in Japan since 2012, but the penalties were not as serious as they are now.  The law was passed by the Recording Industry Association, which cited a 2010 study, stating that illegal downloads in the country outnumber the legal ones ten to one.  This could be a legal problem, since people are not purchasing the files.  Instead, they are illegally downloading files, which is a form of stealing.  The big question here is should the rest of the world adopt this idea?

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 details a video released by Michael Bloomberg's (the Mayor of New York) office: the video compiles some data from a study on how to reduce New York's CO2 emissions by "The mayor's Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability." Those science nerds calculated that one tonne of CO2 would equate to a sphere with a 33-foot diameter, and knowing that New York as a city produces almost 2 tonnes of CO2 every second, the virtual simulation shows that over the course of one year, New York would produce more than 54 million metric tonnes of CO2; by those pre-determined facts, we would see that the entire island of Manhattan would be buried under a pile of those 33-foot diameter spheres. This relates to 'Environment' because as we progress in technology, our emissions of fossil fuel bi-products (especially CO2) increase rapidly. This relates to ICS20 because we often argue about the tech industry's impact on the environment, the most recent of debates being 'Cloud Computing' (which we all agree has a less minimal impact than a multitude of servers.) This video was released as an open forum to discuss the matters of New York's ecological impact, and since the video is quite self-explanatory, I recommend that you watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtqSIplGXOA.

hi minab

With all that's been happening with the Super storm, Hurricane Sandy, social networking may seem far from our mind, but it turns out social network sites, like twitter has become a common source for breaking news about what's going on in different places. At times like these, people often join together and find courage and compassion in one another, while others simply seek to make the problem worse. That's what happened when someone had tweeted false news about the hurricane, like tweeting about the New York Stock Exchange building being flooded and under three feet of water. The rumor had spiralled and even been repeated on CNN and the Weather Channel before being found fake. Normally, false tweets are simply overlooked or scoffed at, but at times like this those kinds of tweets can create mass panic and worry. They are definitely immoral, but what has come into question is whether it should be considered illegal. Some think that this type of tweeting was done to increase fear and endanger, but should his behaviour be considered criminal? After all, he does have freedom of speech and the freedom to lie is included in that, except in "rare occasions". Personally, I think that, normally, silly, fake tweets can be overlooked and just scrolled past, but in times of emergency, tweets like this that can add more fear and panic to an already troubled situation should be considered a criminal action. In times of crisis, everybody should be uniting and helping each other, not creating more danger and trouble. Freedom to lie in the face of disaster like this, about that kind of information is not something that should be tolerated. No matter how big or small the aftermath and reaction to those tweets, they should not be overlooked and in no way should the law consider it okay.

This article is about a location-aware Field Trip tour guide app for iOS. You can now download it from the apple app store. Previously, the app was only available for Android, arriving back in September 2012. Field Trip runs in the background on your phone, triangulating position via cell phone towers, and only notifies you when "get close to something interesting." This can include anything local businesses, historical facts, landmarks, art, or culture.You select the local feeds you like and the information pops up on your phone automatically as you move about. You can discover thousands of interesting places/experiences that fall under the following categories: Architecture, Historic Places & Events, Lifestyle, Offers & Deals, Food Drinks & Fun, Movie Locations, Outdoor Art and Obscure Places of Interest around you. Field Trip can detect when you're driving and automatically "talk" about interesting places and experience around you. I think that this is a cool app and should be used while you go on trips so that you can see all the places around you and choose where you want to go. 

Bitcoin, a wildly popular virtual currency has reached the status of a billion dollar market. For those unaware, Bitcoin in an online currency and market, somewhat like Paypal. What makes it different is that it strives under no rules or government regulations. It works on a peer to peer basis, where a database journals transactions and ensure security among it's users. Created in 2009, Bitcoin hasn't been able to hit the mainstream market, that is, until now. Up until this point, Bitcoin has been seen as a shady form of currency, used mainly to conceal illegal transactions over the internet. However, due to the support it has been given by large networks such as Reddit, Bitcoin has been able to access a mainstream market, where it continues to grow and prosper today. It is clear that virtual currency will have a chunk of market space in the future, but how long until the government tries to shut it down or bare down regulations? And if these regulations are in place, will online markets such as Bitcoin be able to remain popular? Only time will tell.

Google is looking to expand its high-speed internet service, Google Fiber, into the city of Austin in Texas. Google Fiber is an internet service that offers ultra-fast Gigabit internet speeds with no bandwidth caps that no other provider in Canada and the United States offer for a price under $120.  This is because there are major internet service providers who create a monopoly over the entire industry keeping all their prices the same so they maximize their profits and offer sub-par internet connection.  With Google Fiber, these companies will have to provide better internet or they won't be able to compete, so many people want Google Fiber to expand as fast as possible over North America so that the monopoly is broken and people are given better internet.   This plays into eLifestyle because Gigabit internet connections with unlimited bandwidth will allow most people who pay for internet to pay less, have a more reliable connection and have faster speeds. This also plays into economics because Google Fiber will allow small businesses to use the internet without fear of high costs.

Google has recently implemented a feature known as "Inactive Account Manager" which will allow users to control what will happen to their data after inactivity for a predetermined amount of time. The option gives users the option of deleting their data, or sending the account information such as passwords to another user or email address. Besides the use of this feature for alive users that just wish to remove their information if they don't use the services after a certain amount of time, Inactive Account Manager is one of the first mainstream Google features that will allow people to control what happens to their information after they're six feet under. With the way technology has become more and more involved in our every day lives, this new implementation is not surprising to me at all. What surprises me is that it took this long for there to be a service such as this. A quick Google search shows that on Facebook alone, there is over 30 million accounts of dead users still on the Facebook servers. It won't be long until other social websites implement such features, and it wouldn't be surprising if some even allow you to write a message or status update after their untimely doom. Imagine that, "John Smith is now dea! Like or Comment"

Photoshop is a software that is used by  It is used by  millions of graphic artists, print designers, visual communicators, and regular people like you. It's likely that nearly every picture you've seen ,such as posters, book covers, magazine pictures, and brochures has either been created or edited by Photoshop. they use Photoshop, because of imperfections in your face to make it more cleaner and your body to make you more skinnier or editing your picture to make illusion. But in this report a Greek police did a photoshop to hide an evidence to brutality. this Greek police will soon be in under investigation for attempting to airbrush out evidence of police abuse in the mugshots for four young men.  These men were arrested for an attempted for armed robbery, but the photos that were taken in the scene clearly shows that they were bleeding and bruised and several days after these mug shots however, shows that their in a better shape. The police defense, he did not admit that he changed the photo. This police has been accused treating immigrants and other prisoners like an animal. 

States in the US have been slowly gaining traction that allows gambling to be completely legal online. This would mean that anyone over 18 can sign onto an account which allows them to gamble away all the money they have. Nevada was the first state to legalize online gambling, and more states are estimated to follow suit. Although the article doesn't give an opinion on the newly legalized gambling, I believe that this news is terrible. More and more people will become addicted to gambling, and now it's very easy and very comfortable to lose your life earnings. These new rulings will eventually run into some legal issues, as people under 18 WILL find a way to gain access to these operations. There is no proper way that rules can be enforced in online gambling. People will become addicted, kids will gain access, and people will go bankrupt. Gambling is alright, in moderation, but these new laws will allow anyone with an internet connection to gamble away everything they own without even realizing it. Good thing we live in Canada.

Everyone knows about the election coming up this fall. It is down too Obama and Romney. Everyone knows that Romney and Obama are competing very heavily against each other. However, study shows that Obama is actually the more influential on Twitter than Mitt Romney. Obama has 20.3 million followers and has 8,000 times more than the average Twitter user. However, Romney with 1.2 million followers, has a pull of about 800 times the average user.What else do we know about Obama and Romney's Twitter followers? By matching the candidates' followers to over 60 public online and offline data sources, Peek you was shocked with the interesting statistics. A higher share of Obama's followers are female - 49% of Obama's followers compared to 35% of Romney's. Obama's followers also skew much younger than Romney's, with 24% of the president's followers under age 25 to 16% of Romney's.Interestingly, only 55% of Obama's followers self-identify as living in the United States, compared to 89% of Romney's followers. That's perhaps an effect of being a sitting president as opposed to a candidate and former governor. Obama's got a higher percentage of Floridian followers than the average Twitter user, while more than typical numbers of Ohioans follow Romney. To me I think the reason they both use twitter is so that they can get more votes for the elections and become president.

In the recent weeks, it seems to be the societal trend to chastise Apple Inc. for their mistakes, the most recent of them being their native iOS 6 'Maps' application. Earlier in the week, CEO Tim Cook published a letter on the Apple website apologizing for the poor quality of the app, saying that "At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment." However, this is not a first for Apple admitting their mistakes and apologizing; one example is in June of 2012, Bob Mansfield (SVP) expressed remorse for Apple's withdrawal of the EPEAT rating system, which ensured the company met an eco-friendly standard. They later recanted their actions and went back on to the rating system. Many people attribute Apple's recent downfall to the shift of power from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook. Apple has also come to fire for their general decreasing of employees per Apple store to increase profitability, their standalone podcast app and ultimately the widely regarded inadequate 'Siri', supposedly improved in iOS6. This relates to the tag 'eLifestyle' because when Apple limits the users experience by introducing faulty software and refuses to adress things because of pride, evidently the customers suffer. This relates to 'Environment' because of Apple's debacle with the EPEAT, and society's increasing desire for products that are eco-friendly, and Apple's supposed "higher environmental standards" that they operate under. Legally, Apple has actively been taking and giving lawsuits over the past years, including Samsung and Adobe (a lawsuit directly following Steve Jobs' choice to abandon flash on iOS devices.) From an economics standpoint, Apple seems to be making all the wrong choices, being that they abandon things that work (e.g. Google Maps, third-party podcast apps, EPEAT) and tries to 'reinvent the wheel' and many people argue that without the direction o

Homophobic words have become increasingly integrated into casual speech, more than one would like to admit. This problem has been amplified substantially with the use of social networking sites, in particular, Twitter. The University of Alberta's Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services launched the website www.nohomophobes.com on September 26, 2012, and has been tracking tweets containing the words 'faggot,' 'so gay,' 'no homo,' and 'dyke' since July. The site displays the numbers in current, weekly, and all-time charts, and updates in real time. A live feed lists the tweets containing the phrases as well.  As of 1:23pm on October 22, 2012, the number of tweets with the word 'faggot' broke 10,000. It is disheartening to see how such a hurtful word could be used so nonchalantly during the day. Since July 5, 2012, there have been about 3.27 million 'faggot' tweets, 1.16 million 'so gay' and 'no homo' tweets, and over 450,000 'dyke' tweets. As the site header reads, "Homophobic language isn't always meant to be hurtful, but how often do we use it without thinking?" This article is tagged under eLifestyle because our generation uses social networking sites daily. Although people may use these phrases without harmful intentions, they are still there for everyone to see on the internet. It is a real eye-opener to watch the numbers rise so quickly, from just one social network. As students and future leaders, we must give extra thought to what we post, and who it might harm when we use these social networks.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed to help protect digital rights, but allowed the Librarian of Congress to make exceptions to the act that would otherwise not follow the act. Today (October 28), four new exemptions to the DMCA were put into effect most notably the legalizing of jailbreaking on iPhones but not iPads. The other exemptions to the DMCA are the requirement of disabled people to own multiple devices in order to access e-books, the illegalizing of unlocking a cell phone purchased after January 2013 at a new carrier without permission from your old carrier, and the legalizing of ripping some content of a DVD only for specific purposes. The new exemptions put into effect could have a serious impact on the technology market. The number of e-book reader sold to disabled customers will decrease drastically since they will have to buy other devices so they can legally read e-books. Apple and app developers would also lose a lot of revenue from the App Store since more users will be motivated to jailbreak their iPhones and get pirated apps instead of actually buying apps since they can do so legally. The new exemptions could cause some providers to lose some money though not a significant amount should the provider refuse to unlock cell phones when consumers go to other countries since in the foreign country, consumers will be paying and using service from a local provider instead of their original provider causing them to miss out on some money. Finally, the DMCA exemptions could cause a decrease in DVD sales not just because they are losing popularity already but also because if someone wants to rip a part of a DVD, they can just borrow it from someone else instead of buying and ripping the needed content. I think these new exemptions are very silly and could end up being more harmful than useful. Making disabled customers buy multiple devices just to access e-books is very discouraging to potential e-book reader customers. I also wonder th

This article is about how 38% of children on Facebook are younger than 12 years old. I found this to be really shocking! Even though there are privacy settings for Facebook, you still have to be careful with the people you talk to. Another thing i found surprising was that 74% of parents are worried about their children's safety, yet they still let their children on Facebook. There are many things that parents have to look out for when their children are on Facebook. Including sexual predators and cyber bullying. Even though parents say they are concerned it doesn't show in the stats when there are 6 year olds on Facebook.  

This article talks about how 38% of children on Facebook are younger than 12! There is an age restriction on Facebook, you must be at least over 13 to have an account. This shows how the generations have really evolved. Children under the age of 6 already have Facebook accounts! All parents are concerned about their children's safety but by allowing them to be on Facebook at an early age might be in more risk. Children can have sexual predators, expose too much information, talk to strangers and many more. I think that parents shouldn't be exposing their children to networking site at such an early age.