Lifestyle posts

The biotechnology industry has been booming for decades in the United States, Europe, and Japan, but recent advancements in both science and economic situations have the industry hitting a tipping point around the world. Australia, China, and South Korea have made tremendous strides in this competitive and highly-lucrative industry as the races to create the next batch of wonder drugs and miracle treatments hits a feverish pace. This graphic by AssayDepot follows the money trail around the world, highlighting the newest batch of labs that are popping up across the globe. Click to enlarge….

After last week’s high-energy American Censorship Day flew through with amazing responses from websites everywhere, much of the buzz has faded in the last few days. That simply cannot happen. SOPA, the bill that would grant power to the US government to censor websites, punish users, and have unprecedented control over the internet in general, is up for a vote next month. Despite all of the feverish activity, now is not the time to slow down. This is a sprint – the vote is next month – and the money (via campaign contributions) behind those supporting the bill is growing. Congress must be contacted….

Among the perks of attending an online college is the flexible schedule and leftover time to hang out, read, play video games, or even socialize. Socializing is becoming more and more archaic as the Internet seeps into every nook and cranny of our lives; we prefer to online date, text, email, or create Vlogs instead of interacting with others face-to-face. A determined individual, however, may actually use their online education to improve his or her social life. Here’s how: Time The most obvious way online education can improve your social life is by giving you the time to do so. With online classes,…

In the next year or two (anyone’s guess is valid at this point) Facebook will be releasing a smartphone by HTC according to AllThingsD. Its codename: Buffy. Nobody can predict the future, but a combination of common sense, reality, and historical precedent point to the probability that a phone that focuses so acutely on Facebook will fail miserably. Here’s why: Niche phones are niche The 2nd biggest reason (with the biggest reason being price) that hyped gadgets fail is that they tighten their niche too much. Items like the Zune, HP Touchpad, and Playstation phone put too much emphasis on what…

The future of the internet and computing might be in the cloud, but people are reluctant to give up their hard drives and programs. This has been made clear by the assumed poor performance of the Chromebook line of laptops over the last six months. The most recent price reductions of Acer and Samsung Chromebooks to a base of $299 just prior to Christmas is enough circumstantial evidence to show that we’re just not ready to dish out big bucks for cloud-based computers. Like it or not, we use Microsoft Word. We feel safer storing our pictures on our hard drives. We don’t want to rely on persistent internet…

At some point, the sheer oddity of Japanese technological solutions to various problems will stop surprising us. That day may have come as the latest addition to the long list of creative Japanese problem-solving tech involves a bear pillow, snoring, and a smaller bear glove that monitors blood oxygen levels. Dr. Kabe from Waseda University’s Kabe Lab created the Jukusui-Kun (Deep Sleep), a robot bear that uses internal microphones to monitor for snoring. As you’ll see in the video below, snoring sounds makes the bear’s hand move towards the face and brush it with a cotton cloth to compel the…

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…

According to the LA Times, Google+ interest is fading. According to logic, history, and common sense, Google+ is exactly where it needs to be. Lest we forget, Google+ grew to 20 million and then to 50 million users ten times faster than Facebook. “Fading interest” is not a challenge for a site that grew that quickly. It’s a fact that would happen to any site that grew through buzz. Simply stated, buzz excitement is unsustainable. Google knows this. The LA Times and other bloggers apparently do not. Most things are falling into place exactly as Google has predicted. They’ve had some major missteps…

These have been around for a while, and every time I see one I thank the innovator who came up with it. Some people want to dip their fries. Others want to squeeze the ketchup (or catsup, as some still spell it) directly onto their food (or even apply it individually onto each piece). This is the best of both worlds. It goes to show that not all technology is a matter of wires, bytes, and binary code. Sometimes, the best technology involves taking an old concept and making it better. (Image above shot while eating Chick-fil-A at Pohanka Chevrolet)…

There’s a lot of hand-wringing over the so-called “dumbing-down” of America. We don’t read, we can’t write except in and LOLcat-speak, we barely know who’s president. Technology often takes the blame for some of this, with video games and the abbreviated speech of texts and Twitter squarely in the sights of our educators. But e-readers are beginning to create new readers and are getting more people than ever to buy books and read them. We’re buying 57 books a second in the United States, between the paper and electronic varieties. And though sales of print books have been declining (not precipitously,…