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Netflix is starting to slowly impress us bit by bit. They've signed an agreement with both CBC and Warner Bros. Recently Netflix has also signed an agreement with The CW. Shows like Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and One Tree Hill and future shows will be available on Netflix starting Oct.15. signing agreements with these programs will definitely give Netflix a boost.   

This article is about how just recently, companies Apple and HTC have signed a 10-year licensing deal meaning that every single one of Apple's and HTC's lawsuits filed against each other has now been settled. Both have been sued by each other for infringing on each other's patents. This new licencing deal means that the companies can use each other's patents to a certain extent- giving their phones an edge over the rest of the smartphone market. HTC says they signed the deal to focus on making better products instead of spending so much time dealing with court. Some analysts say that Apple settled the lawsuits quickly to deal with Samsung and their lawsuits towards them. Apple has signed agreements previously with Nokia and Microsoft allowing them to use certain patents. I chose the tag of portable computing because both Apple and HTC produce many successful smartphone portable computing. Hopefully this deal will help improve both of their smartphone operations benefiting us consumers. In my opinion I think that this whole suing fest (lack of a better word) that has been going on recently is pretty silly as many cases don't seem as if they are worthy to be being sued about. I am glad to see that Apple has settled their disputes with HTC to cut down on this smartphone lawsuit drama.

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. 

For two hours today, March 27th 2012, Google shut down their Gmail feature. This prevented anyone from accessing their emails when they signed in (the message: "Tremble before Google! With the mere flip of a switch, we can bring you to your knees." was what was shown if you tried to sign in). This affected many gmail users from accessing their emails into frustration because this was just an unnecessary way of google showing us how "powerful" they've become over the internet. 

A company called Aereo is a Tv broadcasting website that gives you an antenna and a DVR without actually giving you them. You sign up on their site to get all the tv shows on your tablets,phones, and computers. If this is free, i would honestly sign up but imagine the fees if you were to use your 3g, 4g, or 4G LTE?

Aren't you always annoyed by your parents because they ask you when to come home from the mall, or tell you the specific time when you have to go home? Well, to me that's annoying. Luckily, there's an app called "ImOK." This app works when parents sign up for an account and send a code to other members of the family. After this the other member of the family then signs up into the network of their phones. Teens check-in to the app for points, which plot their location on the map. While the adolescents check-in and add more information every time, they receive in return for their points is up to the parents. teens have a wishlist which they can suggest rewards in return of their points. Parents can either accept their ideas or add their own which both members can agree on. I believe that this app is a benefit on parents and their children because they both get something in return. The parents get their teen's trust, loyalty, and less stress, while the teen earns allowance. 

Online services such as cloud may be convenient, but there is always a risk of such services that your locally installed software won't. Unfortunately, what could happen is that your cloud service could abandon you at any moment. OfficeDrop users were facing just about the same scenario. After receiving a notice that last Friday that the online service of OfficeDrop stopped its service on May 5. This left collaboration and service no longer available to its users. Many people have come to depend on OfficeDrop to store and share your files in the cloud. Unfortunately, OfficeDrop is not longer able to offer OfficeDrop as a standalone service anymore and also discontinued it permanently as of May 5th, 2013. OfficeDrop as a company did not go away, just the service to its users. OfficeDrop signed an agreement to sell OfficeDrop to another Cloud Storage player. Also, the acquirer has decided to not continue offering the OfficeDrop service and instead will combine the product, technology and team with theirs and market it through their channels. According to the notice sent to OfficeDrop users, billing for OfficeDrop has stopped, and refunds are being issues when applicable. The notice urges all files be downloaded as soon as possible, because they will be securely and permanently deleted as of May 6th, 2013. This is a negative impact when you use the cloud.

A recent survey has proven that the downloading of illegal music has decreased by 26 percent from 2011 to 2012. It seems that fewer people are illegally downloading music for three specific reasons. With the introduction of P2P music sites a few years ago, illegally downloaded music was becoming more and more common. Since, the music industry has responded very negatively trying to shut down these sites.A famous example was the shutting down of the huge P2P site and software, Limewire, after they were found guilty of copyright infringement. Limewire had millions of users that ripped off artists music millions of times and the record companies were not just going to stand there and watch. People are also not downloading illegal music as much because of the new music streaming services, such as Songza.  These sites stream music to many computers and devices free of charge for the listener to enjoy. The last reason that people are downloading illegal music less is because of the malware and spyware risks that downloading this music poses. You may think you are downloading your favourite techno song when really you are downloading a trojan virus that will steal all of your passwords and personal information. I think this is a sign that people are finally realizing that this is an immoral act and they are taking away money from the artists that make the songs. I personally have bought all of the songs I own and I rarely use the music streaming services. Hopefully by 2014, there will be no illegally downloaded music by anybody.

This article is about how Twitter has introduced a music service to it's 200 million users. Twitter recently bought We Are Hunted,which is a service that recommends music based on social media, changed the service, and incorporated it into Twitter. This music service gives the user suggestions for songs to listen to. It does this by scanning the service's posts for music references. After signing up, a user is sent to a page with many charts of artists and songs. The #NowPlaying list/hashtag collects songs that have appeared in Twitter posts among the people that a user follows.Other lists/hashtags show what music is popular everywhere on Twitter. Artists' accounts highlight the music they follow, allowing their followers to see the type of music they listen to. This new services influences our lives in a positive way because now we as users are exposed to different types of music that we may not know existed. Also, we could share our music and show the world what songs that we like and which we don't. This service influences our lives in a negative way because some people may not like a certain type of music, and may find a certain type of musician offensive. For example an anti- feminist group found Rick Ross an offensive spokesperson for Reebok because of his songs. If a person in politics decided he/she liked Rick Ross's music and shared it on Twitter, this may spark an uproar with the media and this anti-feminist group

Anglophone= English speaking person Francophone= French speaking person Technology has become a large part of our everyday lives. This article talks about how Canadians are purchasing more and more electronics. (Cell phones, iPads, tablets) The article also talks about how Canadians are also signing up for Netflix, a service that allows users to watch movies in the comfort of their own home. The Media Technology Monitor states that 28 % of English speaking Canadians owned a tablet at the time of the survey which was 7 times the amount in 2010. I think this this is a result of society and the services that businesses now offer that they hadn't previously. EX: Now, we can watch movies on our tablets, but let's say 10 years ago, we would have to go to a movie theater. I believe that portable devices have positively affected our lives. These devices make everything we do more convenient, for example, cell phones allow me to contact my friends anywhere in the world and they also provide me with help in an emergency. I strongly believe that portable devices have positive effects in our lives, and judging from the increasing amount of technology users, many others think so as well.

6/10 would read again

Don't be fooled by this imposter, I am the real spider man.

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.

This article informs the world of a computer program created by researchers from North Carolina State University, that allows a computer to have the tools to help, guide, and take control of a unpleasant driving experience. A computer with this program installed can understand what a camera is looking at and makes decisions based on what it sees. The program is highly intelligent because it can sort visual data and make decisions related to finding the lanes on a road, detecting how those lanes change as a car is moving, and controlling the car to stay in the correct lane. I find this program extremely fascinating and more importantly is also useful for lazy or bad drivers because if it just so happens you fall asleep at the wheel, this program acts as a lifesaver to prevent you and others from severe harm while you can trust you will be safe and secure with your computer taking over. This computer is essentially driving your car and is designed to notice a pedestrian or a stop sign and is assigned the appropriate action to complete. This could be the start in advances in technology where more computer programs can allow assistance and advisement when someone is struggling or in need of help. Something like this can definitively be cool and if it works effectively at all times, I believe this will be a huge invention that we all look back on one day. 

this is where your 100 word descriiption.  This is great!!!

I find this article interesting, it shows how we could put music to your secondary media player. It's amazing how it can become your best way to back up and access your music from where ever. It's pretty cool that Google is trying their best to improve their site, and Google is taking time to improve their site. Since it's one of the best music web apps, i can get to sync my music library and it can connect to my mobile, and also it's for free.

Google Music is states only for now, though. But an easy way to get around it is to either use a web proxy (hidemyass.com) or something like hotspot shield, sign into your google account and go to music.google.com. Turns out you only need to sign into Google Music once with a US IP address to be let in forever. So once you do that you can close the proxy and you'll be able to use it normally.

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.

For uploads of images and the like. Imgur is the leader in free image hosting, with a simple to use image hosting service with no extra perks. One of the things that I like about imgur are the small links, because they are very copy/pastable. Second in line, is flickr. Less like imgur, and more like a social networking site. It is geared more towards sharing. It contains massive amounts of storage for your photos, 1TB to be exact, just by signing up. So flickr seems to be more personalized than imgur, and that's not a problem. For a commoner like me, I'd just rather use imgur. Expect a photographer to use flickr. Next up is photobucket which is the same as flickr in many regards. Imageshack is an alternative to imgur if you want crop your image or add special effects after you finish uploading. Freeimagehosting.net is sort of a competitor... and the last two happen to be gimmicks, postimage.org and imgplace.com

Netflix has lost over 800,000 users after announcing a 60%price hike, and the numbers keep growing. Never fear, though, because there are alternatives to Netflix that are even better! Most of them don't even require you to sign up to get a free trial, and they truly are good. if you still want a Netflix-like service without the actual Netflix part, think about trying the six sites in the article. A sucker punch to Netflix, this is.

Hiring the right employee is the key to business success. Organizations spend huge amount of time in looking, connecting and bringing on-board the right kind of talent. Losing and replacing an existing employee may cost companies both time and money. It is better that you identify these few early warning signs of an employee planning to quit.

my first bookamrk

       Last year american congress introduced CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). Although this act  speaks of protection it does quite the opposite. With this act almost all privacy on the internet will disappear. Despite many people opposing this bill last year a new version of this bill has been released this year. This CISPA 2.0 would grant immunity to private companies who can share your data with other companies, private agencies, and the government. This means that your private information and cybersecurity is virtually non-existent and can be shared with anyone. At the end of the article it tells people how they can fight against this bill. Although this bill is for the united states, Canada has attempted to pass a bill like it in the past and I personally do not want any bills of this sort to pass legislature.