Technology posts

The once popular social networking site, Bebo, isn’t faring so well against it’s competition: Facebook and Twitter. Bebo is owned by AOL but the company is in talks of whether or not they should sell the site and end their involvement entirely. Bebo reached it’s highest peak of popularity in 2008 and has slowly been plummeting since then. I’m an avid social-networker and I have to admit that I’ve rarely heard of Bebo. Flashy sites like Facebook and Twitter have sucked me in with their chat options and sleek new designs. According to this article, Bebo was the second largest social-networking site…

The good news: Blu-Ray has released a new format standard, bumping the capacity of a single disc up to a brainbusting 128gigs! Now maybe Avatar and its features will fit on a single disc after all. The bad news: The new format doesn’t work on your current Blu-Ray player. Looks like it’s time to upgrade again. Maybe. Right now, you can cool your jets – the new format is strictly being released to the pro sector, for those who require high-capacity storage options. But every new storage medium begins that way, and it’s likely only a matter of time before we see lonely current-gen Blu-Ray players…

Analysts Gartner have churned the waters of their scrying pool and apparently decreed that by 2015, at least 50% of people under the age of 15 who have computers purchased for them, will be recipients of touchscreens. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here typing on an ‘old school’ keyboard and feeling like a total dinosaur. The good news for me is that apparently 90% of business computers by the 2015 projection will still be old, reliable mouse-and-keyboard units. Which is dandy, because frankly, I’m not buying this whole touchscreen ballyhoo just yet, even if it is hip with the kids. Especially if…

Ever heard of StreamTV? Neither have I. But apparently, unbeknown to you, I, or the rest of the Internet, they’re the leaders in 3DTV technology. Right now on Amazon, you can pre-order StreamTV’s two offerings (though I only suggest pre-ordering one of them… they’re pretty wallet-killing). The first, ‘Stream TV 37-Inch 3D TV with Super BluRay Player, Black’, is four thousand dollars, and touts the following: 37-Inch 3D TV viewing without glasses. Builtin browser, Entertainment Portal, Video conferencing, over 500 FREE Live TV Channels, Download and Stream, 500 GB HDD, 3D Gaming, Software…

Most people who grow up to be police officers or soldiers do it because of one childhood dream- they wanted to be like Superman. Maybe one day they can be like the man of steel by wearing a simple t-shirt that has been converted into a tougher, more comfortable form of body armor. A group of researchers at the University of South Carolina worked together with researchers from China and Switzerland to increase the toughness of a t-shirt by combining the carbon in the shirt’s cotton with boron, which is the earth’s third hardest material. The outcome was a lightweight shirt reinforced with boron…

Ever sent a text while driving? Thought it would be alright to just pick up the phone and have a quick conversation while trying to pay attention to the road? Chances are we’ve all done it. Now that Ontario has passed the ‘Countering Distracted Driving and Promoting Green Transportation Act,’ motorists have to wait until they’re off the road or use a Bluetooth device if planning to chat while driving. Voice on the Go unveiled their new hands-free idea today. DriveCarefully is a unique app that allows BlackBerry Smartphone users to keep their eyes on the road instead of on their phone. Completely…

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a flawed concept, but content publishers are clinging to it as a means of maintaining control. Is it possible to maintain control of digital media in the internet age, and is the recent trend towards Software-as-a-Service just a new kind of DRM? Digital Rights Management and its proponents are fighting a constant battle to combat an obvious truth in digital technology: if you can see it or hear it, you can duplicate it in perfect quality. This simple fact hasn’t prevented companies from experimenting, sometimes with very public and almost farcical results….

The WritePad is an iPad application that identifies a person’s handwriting. The WritePad allows users to write down information in their own handwriting with their finger or using the iPad pen. The handwriting application will learn a person’s handwriting over time. WritePad can do things that a notebook can’t. The WritePad can do simple tasks that you would find in a Microsoft Word program such as select text, copy, cut, paste, insert special characters, spelling and grammar check and auto-corrector. WritePad also comes with a Shorthand feature which allows users to do editing tasks,…

A three-judge panel overturned an August 2008 FCC decision today that had found Comcast in violation of FCC rules due to throttling of Bit Torrent files. After that decision was handed down, Comcast immediately turned around and sued the FCC for overstepping their boundaries through trying to enforce net neutrality laws. Today’s decision is the outcome of that lawsuit. Technically, the FCC had ancillary powers over broadband communications at the time, but today’s decision effectively removes any teeth that they may have had. Specifically, the three-judge panel ruled that Congress had…

Even if you’re uncertain where you stand in the green debate, rising electricity bills alone should be enough to get you interested in Fujitsu Lab’s latest product, a power consumption monitoring power strip. What it does: It works just like any other power strip carrying plug sockets for up to four electrical devices. What it does that other systems don’t do is offer real time measurement of electrical energy output at each outlet to help you assess how much electricity each device uses….