Technology posts

As Tumblr users cope with news of a new overlord, many are voicing both concern and annoyance at the $1.1 billion deal. The most vocal are getting their message heard and it’s spreading across Tumblr as well as other social networks, but it’s not enough to make Yahoo or Tumblr concerned. Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg noticed something Sunday after the rumors of a done deal started surfacing: “Imports have actually spiked on the rumors even though it’s Sunday: normally we import 400-600 posts an hour from Tumblr, last hour it was over 72,000.” While some are saying this is just the beginning…

Smart phones have given millions of people easy access to information. Visually impaired consumers, however, have limited options when trying to use smart phones. That could change very soon with the release of the world’s first Braille smart phone.   What will it do? Here’s the problem faced by engineers: A Braille smart phone needs a way to make screens more tactile, so blind people can read with their fingers. Current designs use a technology called “Shape Memory Alloy” that allows metal to make and retain shapes on a screen. When a visually impaired person with one of these phones receives…

Yahoo is quickly going the way of AOL in that it’s becoming a place that simply isn’t “cool”, at least to the emerging internet users and those 20- and 30-somethings who still want to be cutting edge (and 40-, and 50-…). Everyone knows it, even Yahoo itself. “One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic,” said CFO Ken Goldman spoke at JP Morgan’s Global Technology conference. “Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years.” They started heading in the right direction by getting a hip, young CEO to run the…

For years the U.S military has been using unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones, to dominate its enemies. Being used frequently for such purposes as surveillance, transportation, and armed attacks, drones have come to play a predominant role in America’s conflicts in the Greater Middle East. They provide the U.S military with an incredible advantage over its enemies, and while several incidents have drawn questions to their moral and legal standing, the majority of Americans approve of drones being used against foreign threats. The foreseen deployment of drones over…

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…

When people think of “BitTorrent” most of them think of the peer-to-peer file sharing program that they use to pirate movies, games, music, and software. Not very many of them know that “BitTorrent” is also the name of the company that made the program and the name of the protocol that the program uses. Since the name “BitTorrent” has become synonymous with piracy, the San Francisco-based company is universally hated in the entertainment industry. However, the company just released a new torrent format, called BitTorrent Bundle, in an attempt to legitimize the format. Matt Mason,…

Tesla Motors, a company famous for its electric-cars, said that they’re looking into driverless technology as a possible feature for their future vehicles. Elon Musk, the head of Tesla Motors, said that driverless technology is the next logical step in the evolution of cars. The California based company has been in discussions with Google about the prospects for the self-driving technology that Google has been developing. However, he’s considering something more along the lines of an airplane autopilot system rather than a fully automated vehicle. “I like the word autopilot more…

The flying car has been on the tip of every geek’s tongue for decades. We want it. They know it. Despite these facts, it has yet to hit the mainstream. That isn’t stopping Terrafugia from taking the technology and making it into a hybrid vehicle. With a range of nearly 500 miles, the concept would include vertical take-off and landing capabilities, a plug-in petrol-electric hybrid flying car, and the ability to be a four-seater. It may not be in the immediate future for consumers, but we may see it someday according to iol. As the Transition program shifts from research and development to production…

Getting a ticket for speeding is a fear that most drivers face every day. For 16 percent of drivers this year, that fear will become a reality. Of those, only 5 percent of people will not contest their ticket, costing them an average of 150 dollars. While many drivers do get pulled over for speeding, there are others who have learned to avoid the police officer’s radar gun with a device of his or her own — The radar detector. A radar gun uses radio waves to detect distance and speed of objects based on the doppler effect. A radar detector is able to detect these waves before they catch the speeding car. A…

As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East and particularly at the Syrian/Israeli border, the Iron Dome is back in the news. Israel has moved more batteries to the northern border in case Syria launches a counter-attack for recent attacks made on weapons intended for use by Hezbollah. How does this amazing technology work? The concept had been floated around since the 1990s and gained steam in 2004 with the installation of Brigadier General Daniel Gold as the head of the IDF’s research and development bureau. It was initiated by Israel in 2007 and funded by the United States. With the threat…