Residents in California have been using drones to document flooding and coastal erosion

Residents in California have been using drones to document flooding and coastal erosion that has been caused by El Nino. The idea is to capture photos and videos of storm surges and flooded beaches, which could possibly give scientists a brief estimation of what could happen in the future as sea levels continue to rise due to global warming. “Sort of like a crystal ball for climate change.” Images from the latest drones has provided high-resolution 3D maps that will help spread public awareness. http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/california-residents-turn-drones-document-coastal-erosion-n50407

Uber- they new taxi!

Uber is an app, to get you rides places. Very similar to a taxi, but there are some things that set them apart! For example, uber is an app, you request rides on the app, not by calling. Basically you open up the app, you say where you are (for example- South Portland High School) and then you say where you want to go, (50 Herford ave) and then you click "Set Pick Up Location" for about one minute it searches, until a driver accepts! Usually uber drivers are 10-20 minutes away, and they show up to get you! The cars are much more nice, and clean. All the cars have to be 2012 or later, so they are all fairly new. Payment method is via credit / debit card, or Paypal. You can tip them with cash as well. The minimum fair for one ride is $5.15, the base fare is $1.00

Will today's kids be stumped by the technology of the future?

At the rate we are going right now Apple believes that they could release IPhone 24 by 2050. People are wondering if kids will be able to understand the new technology that will be coming out. "Chris Lucas, a fellow at the university of Edinburgh, says kids' willingness to try new things comes from a fundamental fearlessness. Adults, Lucas says, are encumbered with years and years of experience that has taught them that failure is painful and potentially dangerous; kids, on the other hand, have a safety net in the form of their parents, and few preconceptions about the world." Chris has even lead an experiement to see if adults and kids could turn on a strange machine with different objects. You would put an object on the machine and see if it would start playing music. I think that people are stepping to far ahead of themselves because they are trying to figure out if children will be able to understand new technology that isn't even around yet. They need to slow down and use the technology they have now before they start to try and figure out if kids can use brand new technology.

 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/will-todays-kids-be-stumped-by-the-technology-of-the-future/425082/

This supersized drone will fly you to work (or anywhere)

Ehang has recently created a jumbo drone that carried humans- The Ehong 184. They chose 184 because this drone carries 1 person, has 8 propellors, and has 4 arms. When you get into this drone, you are a passenger. Not a pilot. You simply enter in your destination and the drone brings you. Every drone is pre-plotted so you never have to worry about crashing into anything while flying through the air. Each propellor also has a back-up system, so if any propellor is somehow damaged of malfuncions, it will slowly decent to the ground. The Ehong 184 has all electric motors, and can fly around for a maximum of 23 minutes. It also only takes about 25 minutes to charge. Retail price at the moment is anywhere between $200,000 and $300,000. http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/184-delivery-drone-for-people/

Google Chrome is about to get much faster

Google has recently announced that it has created an update to Chrome that will boost the speed of your internet browser. This update contains a new data compression algorithm called Brotli. This update helps squish the size of a website down by 26% more than the previous compression tool, making your browsing way faster. Google also made this code open-source, which means it can be used by any browser. Not just chrome. http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/21/technology/google-chrome-faster/index.html

Hoverboards that actually hover? They're here

Canadian entrepreneur, Philippe Maalouf, is working his way to create a real life Hoverboard. He had seen all of the so-called “hoverboards” that have become popular lately and was astounded that people were actually calling them hoverboards, considering they have wheels and touch the ground. So Maalouf, as CEO at Omni Hoverboards, decided he would lead a small team and work towards developing a real overboard. One that actually flies. He says that he not only wants these inventions to be accessible, but he also wants them to be designed by engineers looking to move forwards in the worlds sports, recreation, policing, military and urban transportation. Though at this time it’s estimated retail price would be from $25,000 to $50,000, they are coming up with ideas from small, cheaper, more accessible models. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/20/tech/future-of-adventure-flying-hoverboards/index.html

phones in your body

We have smart watches, smart phones and tablets and next we could have phones implanted into our bodies. We could have smart phones in out hands, literally. People expect to have this technology
Avalible  commercially around 2023. They also to have predict that 1 in every 10 cars in the U.S will be driverless by 2016. People are expecting technology to keep improving and to have more advanced technology within the next decade

Seeking Gun Safety Technology

     Obama wants the United States to star making smart guns which is a type of gun that uses technology to stop the gun from being fired. This smart gun is supposed to stop accidental shootings by toddlers, supposed to lead to less teen suicides, and is supposed to cut down illegal trading of weapons. "In each of the three categories of gun deaths — accidental, suicide, and homicide — there would be a reduction in the number of personalized guns were widely available," Stephen Teret, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center of Gun Policy and Research, said. See I think that these smart guns can help out a little bit but people also have to think what if something goes wrong with the gun? What if the gun doesn't work when I need it to? People need to think of those things because it could still hurt people. If parents have them teenagers can find away and use it still. Stephen Teret also said " No one can tell you any precision exactly how many lives are going to be saved" He noted there were 33,000 gun deaths in the U.S. in 2013. "But it would be a substantial enough number. Enough to make it well worth it to put smart guns on the market." I think it is a good idea to have smart guns but there are some negatives to having them. 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/barack-obama-praised-seeking-gun-safety-technology-article-1.2488134

5G cellphones

Cell phone developers are working on bringing 5G cellphones to the market helpfully as soon as 2017. So what's 5G even mean, so the G stands for generation, so 5th generation. 5g will be 40 times faster than 4g, which will allow it to stream 8k video or download a 3-D movie in six seconds compared the six minutes on 4G.

Spotify vs Pandora app review

Spotify vs Pandora which one is the spirit music streaming app?
Let's start with Pandora, Pandora lets you choose an artist or a genre of music and it will play song that are by the band you look up and other band that are in the same genre. Without Pandora Plus you have a 6 skips per hour.
The Pros of this app are that it opens you to a lot of new music, another pro is that you don't need a subscription(limited skips).
 The cons of this app are that you can't choose exactly what you want to listen to, you can't go to a bands/artists page and choose an album and choose a song of that album. Another con is limited skips. You can't fast forward and rewind the songs. There are ads.

Spotify is another music streaming app that is a little different than Pandora, because of the ability to choose the what artist/bands song you want to play, unless you are on mobile because than you can choose the album but not the exact song(unless you have premium). Spotify also has radios like Pandora where you can choose a band or genre for the station. Without Spotify premium you have limited skips on the radio and on mobile you can choose the exact song but can choose the album.
The pros of Spotify are that it has a galore of music that you can go through and look at and listen to unlike Pandora where everything that plays is random. You can fast forward and rewind the songs. There is a way to trick the skip limit by instead of hitting skip you fast forward the song until the end. When you have premium you can create playlist where you can listen to the music without being connected to the Internet.
Cons of this app are that if you are on your mobile device(not iPads though) and using Spotify there are some annoying restrictions like only being able to hit shuffle play on albums instead of being able to choose any song. There are ads and they are the same ads a lot and even play back to back. Also songs repeat a lot.

Overall I believe Spotify is the superior music streaming app because you have more of a choice of what you listen too so you have more variety.

Pandora - Free Music & Radio by Pandora Media, Inc.
https://appsto.re/us/PHG7q.i

Spotify Music by Spotify Ltd.
https://appsto.re/us/KSKwt.i

Poin app review

Poin is an app similar to Tumblr. In many ways they are very much alike. Poin isn't exactly a blog, but it does have a blog type feel to it. You have a page, and in your page you create "books". These books consist of only pictures, but you can add a description to the pictures as well. It's a very easy app to use and navigate, I had no problem figuring it out. However some things I don't like-
Although the app was easy to navigate, there aren't very many users on it, so everything is kind of the same. Also, people's pages were white. Now there's nothing wrong with the color white, but I would have loved to see much more color in the app, it is rather bland (aside from the pictures themselves). I still prefer tumblr over this app (I might be slightly biased, having 4 different tumblr blogs, and being a blogger for them since 2011), yet this is an app I am interested in. I'd love to see what the developers can come up with over time on how to improve it.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft: weakening encryption lets the bad guys in

    Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Twitter, Facebook, and 56 other technology companies have decided to stand together to reject calls saying that the encryption would be exploited by the bad guys. The encryption is security used to stop criminals from getting information on people and stealing their identities and getting people's bank account numbers and draining their bank accounts.  The Information Technology Industry councils chief Dean Garfield said "weakening encryption or creating backdoors to encrypted devices and data for use by the good guys would actually create vulnerabilities to be exploited by the bad guys, which would almost certainly cause serious physical financial harm across our society and our economy." Security experts have said that a man is crazy because he thinks that encrypted messaging apps should be banned.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/23/apple-google-microsoft-weakening-encryption-back-doors

Virtual Reality is a reality

Samsung has partnered up with Oculus have developed their own take on virtual reality with the Samsung Gear VR. Virtual Reality has been an idea that's been around for a while always a futuristic idea. And now their are companies making these things now but none have had too much mainstream success, maybe because of pricing or lack of features yet but now Samsung wants to try and hopefully will have a breakthrough that can bring the virtual reality world to the level that everyone has always wished for.


http://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-new-virtual-reality-ad-makes-it-look-astonishingly-real/

Computers are learning our emotions

A student at a college in mass is trying to create a computer that can read emotions. Be able to tell when we're happy, sad, angry. He's starting off with 7 basic emotions but hopes someday it will grow more. Of course with different regions people's facial expressions when they feel one emotion might be different. We all express emotions on our face, everyday, all day, without even thinking twice of it. So many people are working on this, trying to develop it more.  Can you imagine, a computer actually knowing how you feel? The freaks me out a lot. Computers are getting more and more smart, will they outsmart us?




http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34797189

If you've ever wanted to spray paint something with your phone as a contro.... Well here's your chance. A new device has been made that you can hook up to your phone, allowing it to control the paint. So you take this pice, and put it over the nozzle of the spray paint, select the picture, and go to town.

http://gizmodo.com/computer-controlled-spray-paint-lets-you-print-graffiti-1740003049

Companion. Theresa a new app called companion that will let your friends virtually walk you home. This app is available for android and iPhone. Basically it uses your location services, and then you type in where you're going. You then send it to some people I your contacts on your phone, and even if they don't have the app they can see how far you've gotten. There's two buttons, a "I feel nervous button" which allows you to anonymously report the areas that you feel unsafe in, and the the "call 911" button. The 911 button allows you to call police when needed, but it isn't the type of button that you can accidentally hit, it'll ask you to press it again. Once you've arrived at your destination, it'll send another message out to your friends saying that you have arrived safely.

https://www.google.com/search?q=companion+app&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS605US605&hl=en-US&prmd=anvi&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAoQ_AUoBGoVChMI9MjTv--FyQIVhW4mCh3wrAg6#imgrc=w9pQX2kFBX_-_M%3A

Tech giants come together to make Lobbying Group

Tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon and others have come together to make a lobbying group. Their focus is integrating new technology in financial services as well as increasing fraud protection and increasing convenience in financial service for consumers.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/11/03/apple-amazon-google-others-join-forces-in-finance-technology-lobby-

Why drivers may not like new Gadgets in cars

Sometimes technology does more bother to us when it tries to make life more convinent. In a recent article by the huffington post (found here http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/andrew-tai-/new-car-technology_b_8437666.html) drivers outline why they do not like new technological features in modern cars. They go on to outline three main reasons, firstly because most features like surfing the web and built in apps, are just redundant when people can just do that on their phones with less hassle. Other reasons are that some safety features can actually be distracting when trying to drive and most drivers would chose to leave them off. Lastly these parts can be expensive, things like brake sensors, those things that are suppose to brake you car before you hit something, can be damages easily and can cost thousands of dollars to repair.

Blog post hendo 2.0

Hendo 2.0 is the latest model of a hover board. Yes like in the movie Back To The Future II in 2015 there are hover boards. They have a retail price of $10,000. This is just the start, being able to invent something that you can ride and not have to touch the ground and being small and convinent is amazing. Imagine what people with be able to invent next, maybe a hoverboard that works exactly like the movie and maybe even other types of things that hover and then cars and stuff could start flying like planes.

Drivers Push Tesla’s Autopilot Beyond Its Abilities

Tesla has invented autopilot for their new cars. It can fully control your vehicle and steer for you. There have been a few problems with it though. Sometimes is doesn't fully detect the road or other cars leading to dangerous situations. The car uses 12 ultrasonic long distance sensors. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542651/drivers-push-teslas-autopilot-beyond-its-abilities/

Facebook giving free internet to Africa

Facebook and French satellite company Eutelsat are going to send a satellite up into space to give 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa free internet. It is set to be sent into space in late 2016. Facebook is on a mission to connect the world. They believe that the satellite will be the start of it.

Model S electric car by Tesla

There is an electric car that was announced a while back in 2012 by a company called Tesla. I bring this up now because after three years of waiting the car is finally being released. The car is called the model S, and it's and entirely electric car capable of going from zero to sixty miles in 2.8 seconds ( I mention this because everyone won't stop bring it up, I get it it's impressive). It's designed a lot like a sports car from what I can tell, and is available in a cheaper, but slightly downgraded version. It's hard to list all the features and statistics this car has, especially because I'm not particularly into cars but this is a very interesting development for people like me who would much rather see more electric cars then the legions of gas powered ones we have to day, and if you want to find out check out the articles here:  http://mashable.com/2015/07/17/tesla-ludicrous-mode/#EK0AIDmTKgkx

And the Tesla website if you want to see other stuff they do: http://www.teslamotors.com

AT&T gets fined $100M

The FCC fined AT&T because of their so called unlimited data plan. They were being fined because for the unlimited data users if they used more than 3GB in one bill cycle that they would be getting slower data. The FCC Chairman said "Consumers deserve to get what they pay for, Broadband providers must be upfront and transparent about the services they provide. The FCC will not stand idly by while consumers are deceived by misleading marketing materials and insufficient disclosure.". So AT&T seems to have mislead customers to buy a not so unlimited data plane but now they have bumped it up to 22GB.

ios 9 jailbreak

Just recently with the release of apples new iOS 9 hackers have already released a semi jailbreak for it. I have enjoyed jailbreaking my apple devices for a long time. I am hoping they release a full unteathered jailbreak fairly soon because I would love to jailbreak my iPad Air. I really enjoy learning about coding and the way they exploit codes. http://www.ibtimes.co.in/ios-9-jailbreak-update-semijb-launches-jailbreak-script-cydia-what-pangu-taig-pp-jailbreakers-647016

My Bleeding Heart!

Heartbleed- just another reason to change your passwords

Encyryption is the way internet data is kept safe in transit. Data is encrypted, and given an encryption key necessary for it to be unencrypted. The Heartbleed bug is a flaw in the encryption used by many sites. It has been around for a couple of years, potentially exposing personal data in such sites as Google and Facebook. 

Yes, it is time to change passwords folks. Now. 

For a great list on what sites may be affected, read the Mashable article below...


FMY on Mashable.com- "The Heartbleed Hit List: The Passwords You Need to Change Right Now"