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this article talks about the increase in minimum wage that will come into effect june of this year. it tells us about things like how the cost of living is rising so the wages payed needs to increase as well. it also talks about the way employers do not want to increase the minimum wage but how it has to be done. this relates to me because i am a teenager looking to get a part time job and to hear that minimum wage is increasing is good news for me because as of now students get paid $9.60 and it will be increasing to $10.30

Make sure you tag it with the appropriate Topic Tag for the week, which is careers.

connection to careers and computers?

Apparently, SNCF, a french railway company who shipped a lot of Jews to concentration camps and by proxy their imminent deaths, is being demanded to pay reparations to many Holocaust survivors in the US who are also trying to pass a bill that makes sure no taxes will go towards that company until they take full responsibility for their actions and that partnerships with American businesses will be blocked. SNCF has already made an apology but goes with the excuse of saying that they were coerced by the Nazis, much to the disbelief of the survivors who think and have evidence that what happened was concretely a business deal. This controversy is a very big deal as it brings up past wrongs that still need to be fixed even to this day. Those Holocaust survivors have been through hell and surely they should receive all of the compensation and more because of the terrors they have experienced which no one in their entire life should. Until this situation turns out, I hope that justice gets served.

US carrier AT&T lowered the price of its 2GB monthly plan. This plan also includes unlimited talk, and international texting. The 2GB of data, can be shared with family, or other devices. The plan used to cost $55 per month, but starting today, it dropped $15 to $40 per month. The monthly fees for a smartphone on this plan is $40 per month on a 2 year contract, and $25 per month if bought outright or through AT&T's Next incentive which allows you to upgrade every year. The total cost of this plan would be $80 on a contract, and $65 outright, or through next. I think this plan, especially through Next is an excellent deal. I think that Canadian carriers should offer more plans like these to replace the costly plans we pay for today.

The article I am sharing is about how worldwide governments are beginning to pay more attention on social media and using it for better and for worse. I chose to share this article because as time continues, life is becoming more and more technology based. It is interesting to see how the government now sees social media as a way to reach younger people and help boost their campaign strengths. The Canadian government along with the US government are now more involved in our online actions. This worries me though because it feels that the government is watching us, and monitoring our actions which makes me feel insecure which is why I found this article interesting.

Ebay, a service beloved by all, is an online market place for the buying and selling of goods. This week, Ebay has been at the forefront of innovation yet again. The tech giants are now allowing sales to be made in crypto-currency (aka virtual currency; think Bitcoin or Dogecoin). This is a very interesting move considering the companies usual apprehension over the digital world; having a long-standing policy against digitally downloaded items. Ebay is widely renowned and is used by people everywhere, and making virtual currency a payable option shows how far the idea has come. Bitcoin started out as a crypto-currency reserved exclusively for less than savoury characters on the dark web. However, the currency has been since thrust into the light and has become wildly popular; going for $600 a bitcoin. This is ultimately a win for Ebay and for us the consumers. Another way to pay can make new transactions much easier and efficient, no need to bring a third party in (PayPal). All in all, this new move by Ebay is another step in legitimizing online currency and making it available to the masses.

This article talks about a "selfie" (self-taken photo) taken by MLB Red Sox' player David Ortiz with the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. The picture was used by Samsung for an ad which raised many questions for the White House. Obama did not know that "Big Papi" (David Ortiz) had connections with Samsung and did not know about the financial benefits. David Ortiz is being payed by Samsung for this photo which he also posted on twitter. Officials are saying that they are not going to take any action to take down the photo but also say that they have not approved of this photo.

The company behind Animal Planet has bought a two-year-old network called DogTV. The channel broadcasts 24/7 content for dogs with three categories: relaxation, stimulation, and exposure. The target market for this channel is for owners that feel guilty about leaving their pets home alone. The idea is not new either, a channel called Puppy Channel was launched in 1997 and still has a website today. In August, DogTV closed its distribution deal with DirecTV and DirecTV estimated that half of its 20 million customers are dog owners who would be interested in the channel. DogTV has gone with the HBO style charging their monthly subscription $5 on the channel and $10 for online streaming. If the owners of the dogs are interested in watching the channel as well, the channel may add advertising to it. Dan Fox, Discovery's senior vice president of corporate development, says that DogTV is a very natural fit and is lacking big-name stars. This is good because unlike other very popular shows, the channel will not have to pay a lot for salaries. I think this is a great ideas for dogs who have to stay home because their owners are not allowed to take them out. It will keep the dogs busy as well as keep them entertained and stimulated while the owner is out doing whatever they need to do without having to worry about if their dog is ok.

Sony provides many theatres with 3D glasses, but unfortunately it has decided that it will no longer provide 3D glasses for free. May 1st will be the last day Sony will provide 3D glasses, then "we" as in the people who watch 3D movies would have to pay for the glasses to watch the movie. 

If anyone has ever gone downtown you would know how congested the city is, and if you have ever needed to park and pay by the meter I'm sure you would understand how stressful it may be to have to worry about the time left in the meter. Well this iPhone app takes the worry off of your shoulders. It basically remembers where your vehicle is parked via GPS. This app is also a great idea as it will even show you how much time is left in the meter it self. 

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

Google Wallet continues on its slow (but exciting) march toward letting you pay for things simply by tapping your phone against a special, NFC-enabled credit card reader.

Bose came out with some new headphones called the OE2, it is apparently just as comfortable and has just as good quality, as Dr.Dre, the difference is the price, instead of paying over $200 you pay about $150, are they trying to beat Dr.Dre.

Google Wallet now lets you SingleTap that app. So what is Google wallet? Google wallet is basically merging your phone and your wallet, or credit card to be exact together. with the addition of SingleTap, Google wallet is now allowing you to both pay and redeem coupons at a given retailer, without having to print out paper coupons. Instead, the phone 'remembers' the offers you have saved and redeems them automatically. Also included is the ability to have a prepaid credit card which lets you load virtual money to use, in case your credit card is not natively supported by Wallet. It sounds like Google is trying to make an Octopus Card 2.0 or perhaps merging, no assimilating it into it's application. Currently however, it is not worth getting in my opinion, as its only supported on a Nexus S 4G and credit cards are pretty fast already, so i think it is a bit over rated and hyped up.

New to the world of phones and transactions alike: the Blackberry Bold 9900 and Curve 9360 are the first SIM-based smartphones to earn the "MasterCard PayPass Certification." This means that MasterCard thinks the phones are advanced and secure enough to handle MasterCard's NFC-based Paypass system. Now that this has been decided, any MasterCard Paypass-issuing bank can give a PayPass account to the SIM card in these phones. As a Vice President of RIM puts it, this is a "significant step forward in the way we use mobile devices for payments." Indeed, VP, indeed. This quite the large leap for Blackberry, and Blackberry users alike, as it will affect the way we do our business and transactions, and therefore out everyday lives. Jealous, Apple & Co.? 

The latest in RIM's collection of Blackberry's have now been deemed secure enough to handle Mastercard's pay pass system which means that when one of these phones SIM cards is encrypted with a pay pass account it will allow the user to make payments from their Mastercard account through their smartphone

did you ever need a plug to charge your phone but cant find one? well as long as you're outside and the sun is shinning, you can use a solar powered charger. this charger is still a prototype but it is expected sometime in the future. its really convenient to have this because you actually dont need to pay for the electricity. all you need is the sun and you are set. this type of technology is available for pre sale price of 400 dollars.

This article is introducing a new product that could possibly be put on the market soon. It is called AdTrap. You buy this device for $120 and it sits between your modem and router and blocks all kind of ads on the internet for all kind of devices. This device is in its working prototype stage and is on a crowd-funding site Kickstarter. If $150,000 worth of devices are pre-ordered by December 8th they will start shipping the device. It is like a small computer running the Linux OS and can be easily updated to black new kinds of ads. You can also have a list of websites where you do not want the ads blocked. This device is great for those who despise ads and just 10 hours after being launched they raised just over 10 percent of its goal.  This advertisement has to do with eLifestyle because this device can possibly change the way we spend time on our computers. Those who hate ads in front of videos and other side and popping up have an alternative for $120. Most people that use technology have at one point complained about advertisements and constant bombardment with these ads this is a way to protect yourself and possibly your kids from advertisements at least on the web. This also has to do with eLifestyle because if enough people buy this device and it becomes huge it can change the way websites make money or not make money because most websites rely on ads in order to be able to give people their services and posts.  If this device is shipped for those who pre-order it may be a big fail in the market because ads just may not be as annoying to some as they are to others or this can be a big success but in the long term be devastating for web sites because they will not be making money from ads anymore. I personally would not buy this device for $120 dollars because ads do not make me that mad and I have gone long enough without this device I can continue this way for a while. Also can change the websites that run because of ads and I wouldn't want that. 

Game of Thrones, the fantasy series that came out of a series of novels written by George R. R. Martin and adapted by HBO has just recently aired its third season with a bunch of people watching it during its premiere. The bad news is that the amount of people pirating the show is more then half the amount of people who actually watched it on HBO. With the premiere having around 6.7 million viewers and the amount of pirate viewers at 4.4 million. These stats are quite impressive but HBO can expect a lot more views when it counts on-demand, DVR, online streams with a gross audience of 11.6 million viewers when counting non-live viewers. On the other hand, TorrentFreak claims that GoT has been the most-pirated show over the past year and that the pirated audience is growing even faster. A few hours after the first torrent of the show was uploaded, it had around 110,303 leechers and 52,786 seeders, a total of 163,088 people. This number actually broke the previous record with 144,663 peers for another show called "Heroes".

College students now how a purpose to play their games. The company Grantoo is allowing companies to sponsor these students playing the games. What happens is that students can have online gaming tournaments on the web, and if they win, anything from 10% to 100% of their winnings will go to a charity of their choice, and the rest will go towards their school tuition. Not only does this help the students with money, but ti also makes them more aware of what they can accomplish when they help out other people/charities.

...And this is why no one should use Norton. Ever. Well that's not the only reason, it's slow, it makes you pay expensive subscription fees and it tends to put pop-ups on your desktop, but this is a good reason not to use it too.