What If Everything Was Finally Connected….
We all love our gadgets. We love our cool SMART phones, our flat screen 3D tvs, our cars that stream sattelite radio and play MP3s. Only a few short years ago most of this was just a dream and you could only see these things on TV. Imagine what will happen in 5 years? Or in 10? What if everything in our house, and outside, was completely interconnected. Imagine touch-screen TVs connected to our phones, to our mirrors, our phones to retail displays, to all the things we use and our everyday life. Now, when you're done imagining, check out Corning's vision of how this all will look in the near future at the link below. I think it's amazing!
Is Facebook suitable for all ages ?
Is it OK for an eight year old to use Facebook? if not then what is the right age. I have an eight year old who helps his grand parents to navigate Facebook and he wonders why he cannot have his own account. Based on my conversation with family and friends, many parents are being asked the same question. I have yet to come across any parent that has allowed a kid under the age of ten to have an account on Facebook. The most common comment is that he or she is just too young and when pushed, the usual answer is that I do not have any specific reason but it just doesn't feel right. I tend to agree, I think kids spent too much time playing with electronic game consoles and computers which tend to be in groups of one to two and seldom play in larger groups. Read more to see the results of a study conducted by the London School of Economics on this subject.
Source: BBC
Stop downloading videos to your phone, it’s costing me money !!
The carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint) are at it again!! It seems the cost to use data services on our phones will go up soon. Who is to blame? Who else...Us. Downloading videos is the big culprit here and it will only get worst as more videos are becoming available online. This trend is also closely monitored by companies like YouTube and Netflix which hope to expand their share of your entertainment hours and dollars. I for one do not download movies to my phone and probably will not till I buy my dream tablet (currently not in the market). So please stop downloading movies to you phones or tablets, I cannot afford it.
Source: CNN
Flip Is Dead!
I have been seeing ads and hearing about Flip for a while now. I had made a mental note to look in to it more and perhaps even buy one. Frankly, I couldn't make up my mind about buying one since most cellphones (including mine) record better quality video. The shape is odd too, just like most cellphones - square and not suitable to hold close to your eye - unlike most camcorders. Well, I can now completely cross it of my list since Cisco, the giant networking company that owns Flip, has just killed the entire Flip division.
Source: CNN
Charge your Laptop battery in seconds
Batteries are an important part of our daily lives and help power many of devices that we do not seem to be able to get through the day without. In my case, it is my cellphone and laptop. I have many charges for both. I charge the batteries at home, at my office and in my car. Some may think I am paranoid but I do not want to be caught with dead batteries on my cellphone. Thank fully I work at shopxtreme and we have all sorts of gadgets to keep you powered up. We have quick chargers, car charger, conductive chargers, USB chargers, etc... But additional help is also on the way. New technology that allows you to charge your batteries in seconds.
Source: MIT
Internet Access for all.
I recently drove from Boston to New Jersey with an 8 year old. The trip takes about 5 hours, I know some of you can feel my pain. It took about 25 minutes into the trip before the famous words were uttered. ARE WE THERE YET?
Well luckily I had enabled the Hot-Spot feature on my mobile phone ( HTC EVO 4G by Sprint) which allows as many as 5 devices to connect to the internet at the same time !! You guessed it, I had brought along my laptop loaded with his favorite games and ready to go. To my surprise we had connection all the way to New Jersey and a rather pleasant drive. I actually had to shut off the internet access on my phone before I could get him out of the car.
FCC has now come to the rescue of those of us with mobile service on smaller carriers by obligating AT&T and Verizon to allow other to use their expansive data networks. All parents should rejoice over this decision and upgrade to a Smart Phone with Hot-Spot capability !!!
Source: CNN
New Battery Models are here!
Hey guys! If you're waiting for replacement batteries for some of the brand new cameras and camcorders that were not available before, wait no more! They are finally in stock and ready to ship! Check out these 10 new models:
Olympus BLM5 / PS-BLM5 / EA-BLM5
Olympus BLS5 / PS-BLS5 / EA-BLS5
Panasonic BLC12 / DMW-BLC12 / DMW-BLC12T
Panasonic VW-VBL090 / VW-VBK180
We also have the following new batteries arriving in the next few weeks. Please check back often!
Canon BP-110
Casio NP-130
Panasonic BLD10 / DMW-BLD10 / DMW-BLD10T
Panasonic BCK7 / DMW-BCK7
Panasonic NCA-YN101F
Polaroid PoGo2
Samsung BP85A
Samsung IA-BP210E
Samsung IA-BP420E
Android phones are more popular than Apple’s iPhone
iphone has dominated the news for the past couple of years but it turns out that there is an alternative out there that we do not hear much about. Phones powered by Google's operating system Android. Many manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, LG offer Smart Phones with Android as the operating system. Google is offering the operating system at no cost to the developers and manufacturer's for the time being. I wonder for how much longer, since Android is now the most popular Smart Phone in the Market and well Google is in business to make money ( Market value of about 186 billion) !!!
Source: Engadget
Robots from iRobot to help in Japan
Japanese are no strangers to Robots working on assembly lines at their factories but Robots are now being used to help with the rescue and clean up after the recent earth quake and tsunami. iRobot a Massachusetts based company has supplied 4 robots for this task. Robots have been used in the past for rescue efforts in other disasters around the world but Japan presents a unique situation due to the radiation leak from the Fukushima nuclear site. Sensors used to controll Robots are not well protected from radiation and controlling them will not be easy in such environment.
Source: MIT
How would you like to work for Facebook ?
If you answered yes then you are one of more than 250000 people that submitted a job application to Facebook !! It is only going to get tougher to get a job at Facebook with is consistently rated as one the most desirable place to work and lets not forget that Facebook is going to go public not too far in the future. As you can imagine , the process of getting a job at Facebook is not easy and only the very best candidates get hired but I hear if you already have a Facebook account then you are half way there !
Source: CNN