Author: Scarlett Madison

Technology has been accused of ruining many things in the world and in society, but there are times when it helps to preserve the natural elements around us by replacing things that once hurt the environment with more eco-friendly solutions. Such is the case with paper – more specifically, the ability to keep a few (million) more trees sprouting up and keeping oxygen levels at a sustainable level. E-receipts, paperless storage, and other forms of technology that have reduced the need for paper are poised to start making a difference. There are trade-offs of course; every device that replaces…

The only thing certain about the future of daily deals is that the industry’s future is uncertain. It’s not a play on words or a failed attempt at sounding clever. If you ask 10 people where daily deals will be a year from now, you’ll probably get 10 completely different responses. The truth is, nobody knows for sure. We know that Wall Street isn’t treating Groupon well right now. We know that LivingSocial is looking as strong today as Groupon did a year ago after announcing a national deal with McDonald’s. We know that fortunes in the daily deals industry can turn on a dime. We also know that users are…

In less than a month, Groupon’s highly-lauded stocks have plummeted from their IPO sale price of $28 closing today at $15.24, down 46% since their November 4th initial public offering. That’s the good news. The bad news is that recovery, if any, will be short-lived. We anticipated bad times, declaring that Groupon was not IPO-ready, but it appears that things are worse than we thought. Since going public, Groupon has done very little to enhance or promote their product the way that a newly-public company normally would. Their “big launch” this month of an “exciting new feature” is, for the most…

Skyrim is, of course, a hugely popular game. It’s immense in scope and the manhours it took to put it together will only be eclipsed by the hours the players will put into discovering its many secrets and fulfilling its plethora of tasks and quests. Call it an Easter egg. Call it a clever play on words. Call it whatever you want – this item available in Skyrim is an epic example of real-life memes infiltrating our games. Doublerain Bow. What does it mean? (Via: Reddit)…

When you have a brand like Apple, you’re always going to be a target. They have people watching for trademark violations and infringements of intellectual property who are constantly on alert, but many get pushed aside as minor and not worth pursuing. When it comes to porn, Apple doesn’t push it aside. They filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Forum for 7 domain names that include the word “iphone”, including iphone4s.com. As of this article, the domains are still pointing to porn, so be careful what you check out. Here’s the list: iphonecamforce[dot]com iphonecam4s[dot]com…

The internet takes up a huge part of our daily lives. Many of us have integrated real-world activities into our online and mobile experience to the point that everyday items such as checks, calendars, newspapers, and letters have become completely unused by a good chunk of western society. The infographic by Flowtown below breaks down common activities of people surfing the web. Here, we highlight some of the most interesting data: 61% of adult internet users bank online 21% download podcasts 78% research products online while 71% buy them online Despite their popularity, only 13% use Twitter…

Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy, far left in the image above, has died. This story is developing as there is no news on the cause of death. Diaspora, which mean “the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland” or “people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location,” made news last year when four NYU students decided to take on Facebook by offering a more private social networking experience. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg even donated to their cause. We will update this story as more is learned….

When people talk about mega-deals in the tech industry, it usually involves hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. On Monday, a deal will be announced for $10-$15 million dollars. The waves of this deal will likely be felt by a good portion of the world in the near future. According to the New York Times, Disney Interactive Media and YouTube will be working on original video series in the form of shorts.  They will be produced by Disney and distributed on a co-branded channel on Disney.com and YouTube. There will be some amateur video pulled in from the plethora of videos uploaded to YouTube…

If it wasn’t for Netflix, Wall Street, and Herman Cain, Groupon would probably still be one of the biggest punching bags by bloggers and mainstream media sites with slumping sales and tails of dissension. That isn’t stopping them from going public on Friday, according to AllThingsD. More and more we are seeing how good leaders make good decisions and lead good companies to good fortunes in the tech world. The late Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, even (gulp) Mark Zuckerberg have demonstrated strong leadership through passion and intelligence over the last few years. Groupon’s Andrew Mason has not. This…

I hate spam. Who doesn’t? I tend to hate it more than others because a relative fell victim to phishing a couple of years ago, so I tend to actually look at phishing emails to see what’s happening in the world of Nigerian Princes and people trapped in London. This particular email struck me as oddly awesome simply because of the “Trust Factor” (an important component in the world of phishing) that they employed at the end. “This message is never sent without Google Mail Accounts Trust & Safety Authenticator.” The message was sent, therefore the Authenticator must be working in full force. The…