Author: Lorie Wimble

On April 20, 2010, the world watched in desperate shock as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was engulfed in flames. Over the next three months, oil filled the Gulf of Mexico from the seabed below, causing ecological damage that some say will never be fully healed. Today, BP, the company that has been held responsible for the disaster, is trying to focus on the future. The British company is turning its attention towards achieving domestic goodwill in America by pointing to a bright future of more renewable energy, less dependence on imported oil, and a stronger economy as a result of both. Will people…

If there’s one way to make adults feel like they’re behind on the times, it’s by taking college students and having them ridicule their elders over the technology they’re using. That’s the theory, at least, in the latest ad from Samsung promoting it’s new Galaxy S4. While many of the features on the S4 are nifty, the ad does not deliver a “must have” appeal that Samsung was hoping to spread. Being able to wave over your phone to answer it while you have barbecue sauce on your hands is cute, but the response from the parent was unrealistic when he asked, “Oh wow. That’s how you answer it?” The biggest mistake…

Perhaps I’m ignorant, but it struck me as somewhat shocking that only one-third of the world population is online. I didn’t think it was too high – perhaps 50%-60% – but for it to be as low as it is took me by surprise. We’re definitely making advancements. Latin America is over 40% now, and the saturation of North America, Europe, and Australia is all pretty high. Still, in this digital age, one would think that the wonders of the internet had hit a higher mark than it has worldwide. Asia has the highest percentage of mobile internet usage. Tablets and smartphones are often less expensive and more accessible…

Researcher Daniel Goldman from CRAB Lab (Complex Rheology and Biomechanics) at Georgia Tech studied how baby sea turtles were able to move so quickly along the beach straight out of their sandy nests after hatching in their trek towards the safety of the distant water. To test his hypotheses without having to bring baby turtles into the lab, one of his students built FlipperBot to mimic the movements. This isn’t just a feel-good waste of research dollars. The data can be used to help advance robotic technology by solving locomotion problems across multiple terrains. The baby sea turtles are of…

The acting President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro is the front runner going into today’s election followed the death of Hugo Chávez last month. His campaign suffered a minor blow as several Twitter accounts associated with the campaign her hacked a group calling themselves Lulz Security Peru. The primary, verified account has over 700k followers and has been very active over the weeks leading up to the election. For the last two hours since 3:22 pm Pacific time, the accounts has been under hacker control. This was their first Tweet from the account: Since then, the Tweets have been more boastful…

Golf is a game of the affluent. It’s a game of manners. It’s a game of pomp and circumstance. It’s a game of skill and more physical aptitude than most realize. Now, it can be a game of geeks. Granted, they still have to be affluent geeks if they want to cruise through 18 holes on the hovercraft golf cart that golfer Bubba Watson and his sponsors at Oakley created. “Bubba’s Hover”, as Oakley is marketing it, looks like more fun than a putting green to golfers and non-golfers alike. Water hazard? No problem. Hover right over it. “It takes you everywhere you want to go,” Watson said. “Through sand traps,…

From a software perspective, Google has been doing very well. Their Android platform for smartphones is dominant and on tablets it’s been making its mark. Unfortunately, the company still doesn’t see a ton of revenue from it with over 96% of their money coming from online advertising. Hardware is where they want to be and the original Nexus 7 tablet launched last June did pretty well with an estimated 4.7 million sold. This year, they hope to far exceed this with unconfirmed reports of the second generation Nexus 7 tablet launching in July. Google is aiming to ship as many as eight million of the Asustek-made…

This isn’t a big deal. It’s nothing new from a retail perspective and most will wonder what took Google so long to take advantage of their size and reach to take business from formerly-non-competitor Amazon and other online sales and delivery services. What most won’t realize is that this is another step towards world domination that should have investors betting even higher on Google and that should tell everyone that Google’s ownership of the world wide web is moving into ownership of the world wide real word. Google is now testing Google Shopping Express in the San Francisco area. Beta testers…

It’s a good thing that Google is building a driverless car because lawmakers are already sending shots across the bow to stop Google Glass from being used while driving. For a device that hasn’t even been released to the public yet, it’s certainly getting a lot of attention. The legislation, introduced in West Virginia by Republican Gary G. Howell, would add Google Glass to current laws regarding texting while driving. While some will argue that Google Glass will actually help prevent the more dangerous handheld device texting by allowing the driver to continue to look at the road and use voice…

Let’s start with the bottom line first. Both sides of the argument have valid points. With that said, let’s get to the facts on the matter… The full story can be found on Buzzfeed, but here’s the short version: A woman heard an inappropriate joke told behind her at a conference. She tweeted the incident including a picture of the perpetrators. Conference officials pulled her our, identified the perpetrators, then removed them. One of the perpetrators was fired from their job after the incident started going viral. The woman reporting the incident was fired from her job because of the backlash…