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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?

Over the years, the internet has become faster and faster and as this has happened our patience has decreased. We have come to expect fast speeds and short loading times on the internet and anything slower is considered unacceptable. However, before reading this article I didn't realize how impatient we had really become when it comes to the internet. This article talks about the results of a study that showed that users were likely to give up on a video after only two seconds of loading! This had come as a surprise to me. To me, two seconds seems like only an instant, but I have to admit that I still am not willing to wait much longer than that for a video especially if the video is only 10 minutes or less. However, I find it interesting how two seconds of loading has become an issue, while we are still waiting through 30 seconds or more of advertisements before we are able to view our video. If we have already spent so much time watching an ad a couple more seconds shouldn't seem like a big deal. This article shows how our expectation of high speeds has affected us and our lifestyle. We have come to expect our video to load almost immediately and if it doesn't do this then it isn't worth the time. Our ability to wait is being altered. We're no longer used to having to wait for things that we want to watch, see or listen to on the internet. We've changed into thinking that if it doesn't load instantly, then it isn't worth watching. Of course, our patience should have limits. If it really is taking longer than the length of the video itself to load then perhaps it is time to abandon the video, but I feel that waiting only two seconds before moving on shows how impatient we have become with technology.

This article talks about new gesture that could be used in addition to finger touch in order to have more options easily and launch new apps using your knuckle, fingertip, fingernail and more. A trio of Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh managed to modify a Samsung Galaxy SIII to accept input from all three different touch variations, and tell the difference between them. It accomplishes this with the help of a vibration sensor and software that listens for the acoustic differences that come with the different types of touches. A man named Harrison has already started a company called Qeexo to start selling this tech. This vibration sensor can easily be added to any smartphone's "guts" and the software added too.   This article has a lot to do with portable computing because different companies are always coming up with new innovative ways to make smart phones more "smart". This is one of those things that a new company called Qeexo is doing. They are looking to improve the options and speed of using a smartphone for example instead of opening up a note pad by going into the menu and clicking it with your finger, you can use the "shortcut" of taping your knuckle twice to open it. This can also be used in gaming, option menus etc.  The main point is that companies are always changing making technology much more natural and easy to use. I think that this is a very good idea and over time if people hear about this depending on how much this would cost to upgrade it may become big and even become a pre-installed feature. 

This post is about making videos viral. Currently, people have to work hard, be creative or create something different in order for it to be noticed on the internet. This parody predicts that it will no longer be the case in the future. The video promotes the company "Buyral" that can ensure that your video has a huge amount of views, (goes viral) without you even trying to make a good video. It seems ridiculous, but as Brian Barrett points out: like all good satire, it is perilously close to becoming a reality. Many times, a viral video goes viral because it is a great video. Can you imagine if anyone could just as easily give up a few bucks and have an internet smash? Some companies are already promoting videos on Youtube and other websites, buy you can clearly read the caption that says "Promoted." If this parody were a reality, you would have no way of knowing if it truly earned those views, or if somebody with no imagination paid a website to get his or her video views. I believe that this defeats the whole purpose of a video becoming viral, and it relates to eLifestyle because it would definately influence our daily lives. When people go on youtube and click on the "most viewed" section, they are expecting to find something that is worth their time. Furthermore, if someone is searching for a video, for instance, on making apple pie, the first video that will come up is the one with the most views. Instead of getting a video that earned the views, people will likely get an advertisement from a company that makes apple pies or such, that paid an amount of money to obtain those views.

This article is rather interesting, because it talks about a patent Apple recently filed. The patent, "Sensing capacitance changes of a housing of an electronic device," - it sounds quite confusing, and the article described what it is.  Basically the patent is talking about the ability for our mobile devices to differentiate between how we hold our device, and react to it. For example, to open up our camera app, we have to unlock the phone and select it, but with this new technology we could simply hold our device with our fingers around its perimeter and have the app open up. Another example is turning on the device, instead of pressing a button we could simply squeeze the device slightly and it will turn on. We might also not need to lock our phones or have passwords if they are configured to recognize only our grip and fingertips. One last interesting feature is the ability to wave our hand over the device and reveal a keyboard that would later disappear when you wave your hand again.  It all sounds terribly interesting until you realize that it's only a patent and Apple hasn't even begun building a prototype. Right now it's an idea that I hope can exist in the near-future, so that accessing certain applications would be a lot easier and faster. Also, if the keyboards become tactile with thin, bendable metal plates that may solve a lot of the complaints about typing on most current tablets and smartphones. 

In science it is known that Graphene was the lightest material known to man but now graphene aerogel is the lightest material in the world. Aerogel is nothing new. China's zhejiang University made some aerographene and has a density of 0.16 mg/cm3 compared to the previous lightest material aerographite with a density of 0.818 mg/cm3 . Building chunks of an almost weightless material involves high-tech freeze drying. Aerographene is extremely resilient and can mop up 900 times its weight in oil making it potentially indispensable as a clean-up sponge. 

This is  just another way to hold our electronics when we are "occupied".  This toilet paper holding iPad  stand allows you to view things on your iPad while in the bathroom because the stand holds it. This makes you have your iPad with you at all times. A negative effect would be the stand breaking or falling and the iPad drops into the toilet but it's positive because it will do what it's supposed to do which is hold up your iPad when you are occupied. Although it doesn't make sense as to why you would want to bring something like a tablet to the bathroom, it is something to hold it up when you can't hold the tablet. This may seem efficient for some people but I think it would be more efficient for other use like putting it as a stand but without the toilet paper holder to hold the tablet, but there is no reason why you should bring a tablet of some sort into the bathroom. Some people would like this invention but personally, I find it unnecessary.  

When signing up for a social networking website or any website that involves signing up for, you must accept the terms and policies of that website. Although most of us accept and go on with our social networking, others take the time to read and understand what the website can do with their information. Although this process is lengthy and is sometimes confusing with the language used in these documents, companies can sometimes abuse this power and sometimes add in capabilities to the website which allow them to sell and use your private information.  Along came the California Assembly and proposed Assembly Bill 242. Assembly member Ed Chau proposed that websites should limit the length of their  Privacy and Terms and Conditions to about 100 words. This shall save alot of people time and allow users to fully understand what the capabilities of the website are and how their information can be used. 

This article is about having too many emails, messages, etc. on your gmail, this prevents you from having space to receive or to send messages to other people. You will need more storage for you to receive more emails. But its not just emails that take up space. Its also your junk, and your spams. There are a couple of solutions for this. You can delete the emails that are not important to you anymore. You can also buy storage, so that you can have more space on your gmail. And you can also Archive your gmails to Google Drive. This would be the most helpful way of doing it. A group of people thought of the idea of making a script that archives old gmails to Google Drive. They also made a website called jellybend.com that shows you a tutorial video and useful scripts that work on Gmail and goggle apps. By archiving your emails, you can free up your inbox space, allowing you to receive and send emails to other people. Even though those emails arent relevant to you anymore, it might be useful to someone else. To do this: you have to make a copy of a Google Spreadsheet that has the script built-in. It makes a special label in Gmail. You add things to that label, then you return to the spreadsheet, click a button and those messages are archived to Google Drive.

This article is about the capital of Peru which is the second largest capital in the world located in a desert. It rarely rains which means that many residents are forced to get their water from dirty wells. The good thing is that the humidity there is 98% so the local University designed a billboard that's able to harvest the moisture in the air and turn it into potable water. The University teamed up with with an add agency to create the billboard. A series of five tanks located at the top of the tower can store up to 96 liters of water at any given time, and the liquid reserves are accessible from a single faucet located at the base of the billboard.  The water vapor is being pulled directly from the air and further processed by a filtration system. The water is guaranteed to be clean enough for drinking all year round. I think that this is a great invention and should be used in many other places around the world with a high humidity. This article relates to the selected tag of Environment because even though it doesn't damage the environment it is a renewable resource and will only benefit us in the future.They get the water vapor from the air and change it into water from the environment. 

For all gamers out there, Pokemon black and white version 2 is coming out.  There has been many pokemon lovers since 1998.  For those who play pokemon and grew up with it, is it worthy for Pokemon to continue a sequel? Or should they stick to the original pokemon that had only 500 creatures.  According to the article, the very first pokemon game has a number sequel.  The games coming up are getting extensions of the original game.  Mostly they have unique twists and try to convince the buyers that it is a "must buy" game for those that own the originals. Last year Black and White came out, this year the sequel of the game came out.  The players that own the first pokemon black and white will know it is a continuance of the plot line.     

This post is about an idea that Facebook is testing slowly in more and more countries as time goes by. Facebook is considering introducing "Promotions" to personal posts. What this means is basically that you can pay $7 to move your posts on facebook higher up in the news feed. This increases the chance of your friends seeing your post as it will be higher up in the news feed for a longer period of time. This is a test that is being used on facebook users with less than 5000 friends in the U.S. I find this strange, wouldn't it make more sense for facebook to test this feature on people with a higher number of friends? Moreover, I think that this is a bad idea coming from Facebook, because $7 dollars is likely more than the average annual revenue per individual user. For a multi-billion dollar company such as facebook, I think this is a greedy and unnecessary move on their behalf. They have more money than they could ever need, yet they want to charge $7 dollars to promote a post...This could work for business posts, however, to me it seems absurd for an individual to pay $7 dollars  to promote their post on facebook, which will likely only last near the top of the news feed for a couple of hours maximum.

With the thin, sleek design, the shiny screen, and the convenient touch screen, the iphone has grown to become one of the most wanted phones in our country. Behind the high-tech phones and tablets though there's a much more serious issue. Iphones are often created in factories in China that exploit their workers. Things like child labor and abuse are practiced often in these factories. However, this article didn't only bring up the issue of human rights violations, but also our role in it. In the past, companies like Nike have been forced to improve the quality and treatment in these factories after many people boycotted the brands once discovering the ethical issues in the production process. We have not let the exploitation of workers in China pass before, so why are we doing it now with these Apple products. Every time we lay down our money and pick up a new iphone or ipad, we are encouraging this type of production and becoming a part of it. Even our simple, silly complaints about the Apple products can make the conditions worse for those poor workers. They are forced to work even harder and longer, no matter how tired, underpaid and overworked they already are. Has it become important for us to own the best phone, that the rights and sufferings of other human beings no longer matters? Why are we not taking the action necessary to help those workers and send a clear message of opposition? Before, reading this article I also wanted an iphone. It's a great phone, very convenient and high-tech. Knowing the conditions these phones are made in though has started to really make me doubt what I used to consider an amazing phone. It's an ethical issue. Do I want this phone so badly that I'm willing to turn a blind eye to the places it came out of? What scared me was that as much as I knew what the clear answer was, it was still a hard decision to make. Exploiting other humans is wrong and no matter how big Apple is, they are not an exceptio

This article is about the advancement of 3D printers recently. A 3D printer is a device that creates 3 dimensional objects from digital models. A 3D printer accomplishes this by spraying on layers of plastics or metals to eventually create an object. This article focuses mostly on new software which pinpoints weak spots in a 3D print digital model and adds thickness or struts where needed. There is also an option to reduce the thickness in some areas where it is already structurally sound enough, reducing the amount of material needed, weight and cost. 3D printers have become so advanced recently that an average person can go and pick one up for as little as $300. The future of 3D printing looks amazing and as time goes on, these devices will become more and more advanced.  I chose the tag of eLifestyle because 3D printers are quickly becoming a household device that many can afford. Advances in printer technology are making it possible to find a model online and then print it out right in the comfort of your own home, instead of going out and buying it. I really like the idea of 3D printing, it feels so futuristic in that we can print our own things on a whim. I think 3D printers could also be quite dangerous as anyone who has access to one of these devices could print out weapons such as knives and firearms. It seems as authorities would have trouble controlling this and could pose a major problem in the near future. Overall 3D printing has both its ups and downs.

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.

Many of us people keep social networking as a daily part in our lives. Apparently, we can end up putting a social media footprint. This article shows us three habits to manage this footprint; to make sure that we don't put our too much of our thoughts and private lives out to the world. We know that a huge social media footprint can end up getting us judged by others. This has to do with privacy and security because we can go off on what we post on facebook and twitter and share many private things, but we need to remember that the internet has a lot of memory and can keep those posts and private things for a long time. This also relates with eLifestyle because as we have access to these different social networks we share a lot of thoughts and other things out on the internet and it can have a negative or positive effect on us.

Many of us think of Apple as this giant in electronics. Over the past decade, Apple set the market for smartphones, ultrabooks, and tablets. However, in the past couple of years, Apple has begun to fall off. Rather than being the huge 'juggernaut,' Apple has become a follower, forced to play catch up to other companies including Google and Amazon. Evidence of this are tied to the recent releases of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. Apple's response was the iPad Mini, when they realized consumers enjoyed smaller tablets. Before that was the iPhone 5, in response to people wanting larger phone displays. Apple Maps is a blunder that both iOS 6 users and Apple pays for. Apple was slow on the draw to join in on changes to the market specifications. Having controlled the market for the past decade with the popularization of smartphones, tablets, and retina display, Apple was simply unprepared to react to these changes. Apple still has their innovation and secrets hidden in R&D, but the fact of the matter is their most recent releases contain ideas from other companies' progress. This relates to elifestyle because our generation uses these products in our daily lives. Most of us do not remember a time when electronics did not make up a substantial part of our lives; when Apple was not a prominent consumer electronics company. This reminds us that power does not last indefinitely; innovators become followers, and companies fall. The next big thing in electronics may not even exist yet. 

Windows users like myself have all experienced it when your computer starts to slow down.  this article shows tips and ways to improve how your computer runs, its speed and how it opearates as a whole.

this article is about a company called The Defense Advanced Research Priojects Agency who is asking anyone who can help them help make their already impressive robots even better. They've made robots that can walk, crouch, climb up stairs, and even robots that can do push ups. i found this very interesting and it relates to this class because we need to learn more about how we can use our computers to make advanced technology and make our lives just a bit easier.  

The Berlin Boombox is a stereo for any type of device that has a headphone jack. It is entirely made out of cardboard and it is easy to construct. The guy who came up with this was inspired by the boomboxes from the 1980s, he was looking for an appealing and affordable speakers but couldn't find any so he came up with his own. I think this is pretty cool but the only thing that concerns me is the quality of the sound, because it is cheap and the speakers are probably not that good either, the quality of the sound might not be as good as regular speakers.