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The "Green Brain Project" aims to create an insectobot (a robotic insect) with the brain of a honey bee. It's not as crazy or difficult as it sounds though, the researchers working on this Project are not directly copying a bees brain but trying to recreate it. More specifically they are recreating bees two most important senses- sight and smell. They will then upload this fake brain into a small insect like robot so it can act somewhat like a real honey bee. This is important, as it would be a huge step forward in robotics and also because scientists say they could use robotic bees to artificially pollinate. This could help  with the reduced number of honeybees. Bees are very important to the whole environment so this Project could possibly be revolutionary. I chose the tag "environment" because scientist are trying to recreate a natural animal that not only comes from Earth but greatly impacts it. Plants need bees pollination to grow, and animals need plants to eat so with a lack of bees, the whole food web would take a major hit. This Project aims to try to fix this. To me, it seems like it would be extremely expensive and difficult to create as many bees as the earth would need. Maybe in the distant future though, this may be realized.

What can I say about Kickstarter, we have all heard of it, used it (or at least wanted to), and watched our favourite projects grow, and now it has officially passed the 1 billion dollar pledge mark. For the uninformed Kickstarter is a website that allows people and companies alike to market their product and 'crowd source/ crowd fund' their idea. According to Kickstarters statistics page, the company passed the mark mere hours ago and did so with 5.7 million backers. Was all this money for naught? Well, there have been 131,000 projects proposed on the site and 44% of them have been successfully funded and of those funded there has been less than stellar reports of full completion of projects. Despite this, however, this marks a major milestone in internet business. This company has done the impossible, be profitable and make the dreams of others come true. This service is a great sign of the internet's importance to business. Being an entrepreneur is easier than ever, a couple clicks gives you an audience of millions. Congratulations to the kickstarter team, hopefully the next billion comes quickly.

Wemo Media has partnered with top animators from Avatar and Tron, the director of MIT's Media Lab and other high profile activists for an ambitious, underwater animation project called theBlu. TheBlu is a project to replicate the entire ocean system, from North America to Asia. It is part social network, part educational tool and part art project. The program will also have a feature where newly designed aquatic creatures can be bought and sold at theBlu's marketplace, which will feature common fish, user creations and exotic or rare animals tied to "philanthropic missions." Currently theBlu is in a closed beta.

I guess in the future, wars won't be called "bloody" anymore because these guys, namely DARPA, are creating robots that would take the place of human soldiers. With the use of complicated interfaces and algorithms, they are aiming to enable these robotic avatars to effectively partner with their respective human soldiers. Amazing but at the same time scary because the more technological advances in weaponry means the more destructive the war will be. Another thing is they are trying to make these soldiers indestructible as possible. What if those robots start a rebellion or something? Just saying.

Online courses are now being used by students in university. This allows them to study and complete work from their own home, but the question asked by most is if the online course investment is worth it, in terms of careers. Lou Adler, (a self proclaimed hiring expert) believes not so, because when you take an online course,classes require you presenting your skills to your employer. An online course is not the same as a sit down university course, because it does not provide you with the practical skills necessary. Someone taking an online course can still have an advantage over people who commute to university. e.g. submitting a project you did using your computer, easily, and using it in a job application. You can distinguish yourself from others, using computer generated projects, etc. Depending on what field you want to get into, online courses can be harmful or helpful.

This article is about how Google is launching an Android Wear Project. Their goal is to bring Android to wearable devices. The world is staring to elaborate more with mobile technology and increasing the number of different uses for mobile tech. Right now, Android wear is focused on watches, which are designed to offer several functions. The app is planned to provide notifications, messages, and updates from social networking apps and it will include Google Now, which will allow the people to ask questions, send texts, set alarms and much more. Android Wear is also being designed to help with fitness and health by providing reminders. The company is partnering with chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek, and Qualcomm, plus fashion brands to help introduce the new Android Wear powered watches in 2014.

What if there a was a way to charge your smartphone and get a workout at the same time?  This project is currently being implemented in New York City. Bikes open to the public that are able to charge phones have been scattered all over New York City.  The Charge Cycle hopes to bring a network of outdoor neon-green stationary bikes that allows anyone to charge their phone for free by simply peddling.  It takes the same amount of time to charge as if you were to directly plug it into the wall. Although there are some concerns of theft, developers have chained the bikes and also put locks on the bikes, which makes it harder to move. Nowadays, we all rely on our smartphones, they are technically our everything.  Many people would be devastated if it were to die, and they will not be able to use it until they have their charger and an outlet.  The Charge Cycle offers a charging system for smartphone users while they get a workout as well, so it is a "win win" situation for these users.  This affects our lifestyle because instead of sitting around doing nothing while waiting for our phones to charge, we can get a workout out of it, and stay fit and healthy. I do think this a good idea because obesity rates today are increasing, which is dangerous.  In order to maintain a healthy diet, exercise is important.  This bike allows us to maintain said healthy diet, while charging our phones at the same time, which truly is a win win.

Many of our teachers tell us clearly when we have a project or an assignment that involves research, we should try to avoid Wikipedia as a source. I think it's because of the fact that Wikipedia makes it easy to find information and that most of the information is starting to be more accurate instead of being fake information. In my opinion, most information that's on Wikipedia is almost no difference from the information found in textbooks. This article explains that Wikipedia should be used if the assignment is to find information and summarize it to something simple because Wikipedia simply shows you a summary that can be referenced in classes. This is related to being legal because mainly, copying information from something site like Wikipedia would be plagiarism. Although in my opinion using Wikipedia as a way to gather any information and constrict it into a small summary of that information, then it should be used.

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. 

The OUYA Android powered gaming console started off as a Kickstarter exclusive, but will now be available to consumers on June 4 for $99. On Kickstarter, the OUYA was a huge success, raising over $8 million. It is basically an Android powered device that is capable of running console quality games. There has been much anticipation for the people who did not back the project on Kickstarter because no one knew that it would get this big and popular. When it hits the market, it will be sold at retailers such as Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and through OUYA's website. It will include the console, a controller and HDMI cables. I chose to use the economics tag because at just $99, this console is a steal compared to other consoles currently on the market. I believe that many people will pick this product up and OUYA may be able to compete with SONY and Microsoft in the next few years.

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.

With Google's new product, "Google Glass", the company must come up with a new way to promote the product to its customers. Since the device will be costly, most likely to be around $1500, the company has decided to expand into retail stores which will be open all around the world. This can make it easier for consumers to test out products before buying it, and Google is also promoting and expanding its market in this way. The launch of Google retails stores can create competition for other companies, like Apple or Microsoft, and is a risk to invest in such a large project. Google, however, think this idea makes sense if the company wants to expand its business, and they believe it will satisfy its customers. I think these stores can create easier access to electronic information and products, which can benefit the company's profits, and with the rapid expanding of new technology, Google stores can use this factor to benefit and change the way people buy products from the company.

Space rocks as much as 100 feet wide are estimated to hit a hundred years or so. But, there are rare " killer asteroids" that can wipe out a city the size of Moscow and kill 30,000 in an instant. But the university of Hawaii's new meteor tracking systems come online, we'll be able to forecast meteor strikes as accurately as predicting when a blizzard is coming.  This device is known as ATLAS ( Asteroid terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). This device consists of a pair of observatories located about 60 miles apart, each equipped with four, 10-inch telescopes with 100 MP cameras. Together, these observatories would scan the sky 2 times a night. The telescope may be very small  but will be sensitive enough to spot and estimate an incoming threat in the exact location and time.  This project started since 2012 but got a a jump start with a $5 million grant by NASA.

This article is about a supercomputer consisting of 1716  Playstation 3's. This design is also known as the Condor project and is used specifically for the Air Force's image processing tasks. This supercomputer is also recognized as one of the fastest computers in the world. The main task of this computer is monitoring 15 square miles 24/7, meaning that it can examine what is happening that far. The reason why the supercomputer uses this much PS3's, is to solve its problems in image processing. With this, the Air force is able to obtain clear processed photos from their aerial photo gatherings. I believe this will help a lot in other situations in the future.

The sad part is that if they updated any of them to the newest PS3 firmware they would stop working because Sony took out the Other OS function.

This article is very interesting and informative to people who has mac. Many students bring mac to school for projects and homework and it is embarrassing for many students for their laptop to make sound in the middle of class. Many of them find it difficult to silence up because of its long, drawn out process but with this program called start ninja, it becomes very easy to silence up the mac with just one click. I think this is very helpful because i have this problem too and i bring my laptop often to the library and it is very embarrassing for my laptop to make sound in the middle of silence and it must be very annoying for other people around me too.   This program is free for any people who has mac and this is great for many people who can't afford to buy program.

This article is about a new plastic that can "bleed" and "heal" itself over and over again. This was discovered by the researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi. They said that this project takes its inspiration from the human skin- - it "bleeds" red when it's scratched or cut and then heals itself when it's exposed to light. These plastics are made up of water-based copolymers which means it is more environmentally-friendly than most plastics. They stated that this discovery has a lot to go before it can be available in the market.

This article is about the evolution of the normal cell phone vs the smartphone. The Pew internet and the american life projects  reported that smartphone users have now surpassed(Be better than) basic phone users. It also talks about how the mobile phones will over take PCs.

This article is about the company IBM. There's a massive telescope on the drawing board that hasn't even started construction yet, but when it's finished in 2024, it'll generate more data in a single day than the entire Internet. For scientists to ensure they'll be able to handle all that raw information, they need to start working on new computing technologies now. the project is called DOME

This article is about this great new product called google glasses. This product that their making is basically like Siri in the Iphone 4S. The experimental "augmented reality" glasses--from the same team that is developing self-driven cars--can snap photos, initiate videochats and display directions at the sound of a user's voice. The prototype digital glasses, unveiled on the company's Google+ social network on Wednesday, are still being tweaked and tested, and are not available in stores yet.

This article is about a new phone that has not officially been allowed on the market yet but is already well known. This device is called the Samsung Galaxy Beam. This phone has a projector on the top of the phone which can project a 50-inch wide image. The phone is 800x400, has a 6GB of memory, and has a 5-megapixel camera.