I was reading some articles over at Engadget about Windows next operating system. I’m not going to just rephrase what they said, so here’s a link to the article. Hopefully this one will suck way less than Vista.
Not like it matters to me, though… OSX is superior to all operating systems ;D
That’s right, it’s finally here… almost. One of the biggest complaints about the iPhone since day one is finally going to be solved - the only thing we’re waiting on is for Apple to accept it. It’s going to be great, we’re finally all going to be able to watch those pointless animations and videos from other websites besides Youtube! That’s all there is for now, but as soon as more information is available, I’ll update!
Facebook is the world’s greatest social tool. Ever since February 2004, this website has been growing and growing. It started as a resource purely for students at Harvard University, developed by Mark Zuckerberg. Over time, it was expanded to all Ivy League schools, and then eventually it was released to the public. Most people see Facebook as a fun website to talk to their friends, look through pictures, and throw around fun “bumper stickers” But what you don’t know is that your Facebook profile is slowly being sucked into the real world. At college and job interviews, the interviewer will often click to your profile to get a better feel about who you are outside of the work environment… which can either be a really good thing, or it could be a really big problem. If you have a relatively clean profile, nice pictures, some good ambitious things written in your info section, and conversations with plenty of people to show that you’re not socially inept, chances are it will impress the interviewer very much… but if your profile is made up of pictures of you half naked with a beer in one hand and a joint in the other, unless thats the field your planning to go into, it will most likely hurt your chances of getting accepted for that college or job position.
In addition to being used to see who you are as a person, many companies are using Facebook as a way to reach out to people. A few months back I was working for a college housing company named Sweet Spot Housing. The specific job I was hired to do was maintain their Facebook. SSH used Facebook to advertise and recruit people to live in their locations. Until then, I had no idea that Facebook was such a widely used tool… and every day I notice more and more ways it is being used for work. I’ve noticed that many companies have their own networks that they use to be able to easily communicate with anyone within the company who has a Facebook profile. Here’s an example:
Let’s say that there is a big presentation tomorrow that will determine if your company gets funded that extra 10 million dollars they need to expand… and the day before the conference, your boss paired you up with someone you barely know. So you go home, write down the points you want to bring up on an index card and then suddenly realize after you decide what needs to be done, you have no way of contacting your new partner because you forgot to ask for their phone number or email address. You’re life is over. Or is it? If your company has a network set up on Facebook you can quickly run to your computer, search for your partners name within the network, go to his personal info, grab his phone number, and give him a call. Crisis averted.
Those are just a few ways that Facebook is evolving into a tool that is much greater than connecting students from different schools. So if you don’t have a Facebook profile, I suggest you go ahead and make one right now, because in today’s world, it’s almost impossible to get by without one.
Remember that ridiculously fun application for your iPhone, PhoneSaber? Then do you remember how it got removed from the iTunes application store? Well if you were missing it, this is some great news for you. PhoneSaber has been re-released as Lightsaber! The only catch is that THQ completely ruined it. After dealing with this new application for a little while, I decided I don’t like it nearly as much as the old one. I’m actually probably going to never use it again… let’s go through the pros and cons…
PROS:
-It’s still free
-You can still “battle” people with it
-It came equipped with some cool battle music
CONS:
-There is an annoying launch screen every time you launch it
-Then after the launch screen, there is an advertisement for TFU
-No more quick-whip-out-your-iPhone-and-fight because of all the loading screens
-Out of the five color choices, three of them are red (no more purple and yellow lightsabers for you)
-The accelerometer seems way less responsive
So overall, I’m going to go ahead and say that the new version of PhoneSaber is a complete fail. There are much better ways that they could have dealt with getting it licensed. For instance, there could be a “No thank you, and please don’t show this screen again” option when the screen asking you to buy stuff comes up. I’m hoping they update soon and make it a little more bearable, but I feel like the chances of that happening aren’t too great. If you want to go download it and check it out yourself, don’t let me stop you… but when you’re extremely disappointed by how little fun it is compared to the previous version, I’ll be standing there waiting to say “I told you so!”
Google: The answer to any question you can think of, in front of your computer.
ChaCha: The answer to any question you can think of, anywhere.
If you’re ever on the run, and looking for the answer to the question that just keeps bugging you, be sure to check out ChaCha. All you have to do is text a question, or call in and ask your question, and a few moments later, you will receive your answer in your text message inbox, FREE of charge, answered by an expert.
This service is completely free, and is run not by a computer, but by humans, called guides. ChaCha originally was created by Scott A. Jones, with the intention of providing guided desktop search, which was searching the web, with the help and with suggestions from a guide, with an integrated live chat.
In April 2008, the desktop service was terminated as a more competitive mobile market was on the rise, so ChaCha became a specifically mobile search engine/answer service.
Ask any question in conversational English from any cell phone. All you have to do is call 1-800-2ChaCha or text 242242 and get the answer as a text message in a few minutes. Give it a try!
I’m still not completely sure I believe this after seeing both pictures and a video… it’s just too cool for words. A man named Sylvain Calinon was actually able to create a robot that can draw portraits of people. At first it had very robotic movements and a voice that sounded similar to that of Steven Hawking, but in this new version of what they call Salvador DaBot, the robot not only has a more natural voice and movements, but is capable of carrying out conversation.
I think it’s amazing that technology has come far enough to enable a robot to look at someone and accurately depict their face in an old-school cartoon style. It really makes you think about where things could possibly be 10-20 years from now.
Still don’t believe it? Click here to watch Salvador DaBot in action.
PleaseDressMe (www.pleasedress.me) is a really cool tool that I’ve come to be madly in love with. It’s idea is simple, but it is totally amazing. PleaseDressMe is a search engine for t-shirts created by AJ Vaynerchuk, Chris Henslin, Joe Stump and Wine Library TV’s Gary Vaynerchuk (a.k.a. the new 24736five team). Gary and AJ were always big fans of finding new tees, but it wasn’t necessarily easy with the massive amount of great t-shirt websites out there. So in the summer of 2008, PleaseDressMe was though of, created, and widely accepted as the perfect remedy to finding that special tee from a vast selection of different websites. Over the first few weeks, I had the pleasure of watching it grow, due to the team’s dedication and frequent twitter updates. The website literally shot up in less than a month. Amazing. With hundreds, if not thousands of t-shirts indexed from various t-shirt companies, finding exactly what you want is never a problem. Or if you’re bored and you have absolutely no intention of buying a t-shirt, looking through shirts in the new random feature is always a pick-up.
So click here to check it out right now. I promise you’ll love it.
Photos for this amazing sounding device surfaced not too long ago for a phone with a supposed 8MP camera, and everyone immediately started saying it was fake. “How can a cell phone have such a good camera?!” Good news! It is not fake. Samsung confirmed that the Pixon is indeed a real cell phone. At an extremely slim 13.8mm enclosure, this phone has a 3.2inch touch panel, an 8MP camera, a built in accelerometer and 7.2mb/s HSDPA (very fast mobile internet).
This thing is going to kick some serious ass in the cellphone market. And assuming it will have a half decent MP3 player and a headphone jack, the Pixon has the possibility of being serious competition for the iPhone. One thing I’m really excited about for this phone is the fact that it will increase pocket space. If you’re usually carrying around your cell phone, your camera, and your iPod like me, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, and this would be the perfect solution. For the camera part, it’s truly amazing. It beats my Casio Exilim EX-Z77 by .8MP. There haven’t been any photos from it released yet, but I have no doubt that it will live up to expectations. For the cell phone part - it is also very, very nice. It has the fast internet, the cool touchscreen that everyone wants these days, and it’s very slim. And as for the media player - that is just an idea that I have in my head and it has not been confirmed either way yet. Depending on how the reviews are upon release, I would definitely consider switching out my iPhone for this baby.
Until October 2nd, there isn’t going to be any more information released, but you can click here to go to the website (with a ridiculous url) where the information will be posted.
Scientists studying earthquakes want you! Well…not you, but your computer equipped with an accelerometer. Yes, that same device which keeps your data safe when your drop your laptop, can in fact help predict the onset of an earthquake! Using sensors that usually sense motion of a falling laptop, seismic activity can be measured, and recorded, and sent to a central computer tracking all activity, based on location.
”But what about when I’m typing?” The suggested software will only kick in after the computer has been idle for 3 minutes, at which point data of motion will be recorded. So, no need to worry about causing a faulty earthquake claim when your pounding out that essay at 3 am!
“Does my computer have an accelerometer?” Most computers manufactured today, and in the past year or so at least, come standard with one of these chips, for the (former) sole purpose of protecting your hard disk in case of physical abuse to your notebook!
If you’re a mac user, and want to see what sort of seismic rumbles you can conjure up, go ahead and download Seismac, a 3rd party application for Mac users to see visual data of motion of their computers, for free!
This method of obtaining data is still just being kicked around, so don’t expect to have scientists in California hacking into your motherboard anytime soon!
If you ever drop you iPhone in a river, make sure to give this guy a call. He’ll turn it into a fishing lure for you!
Sounds boring, right? Wrong. This is the phone everyone has been waiting for since Google first announced it earlier this year. This is the Google Phone running Google’s Android mobile operating system. I’ll be honest, from a company as huge as Google, I was expecting a whole lot more when I first took a look at this thing; I thought to myself, “Great, another crappy iPhone knock-off.” But after reading a lot about this phone, and seeing an enormous amount of pictures, I decided it is completely worthy of the iPhones competition.
Even the look is really growing on me the more and more I look at it. Anyway, Let’s discuss some of the cool features its got, shall we? First of all, I really like how it has a smooth sidekick style flip out keyboard, I’ve always been a big fan of that. In that respect, It’s better than the iPhone mostly because typing on a touchscreen can be a real pain when you look away for a second, and “Hey where are you?” turns into, “Hey wheiri asd nwi>”
There isn’t really much else information out right now, being that the pictures I have posted are the first pictures from the first hands on experience with the G-phone. But as soon as there is more info out, I promise I’ll update.
At this time I would like to ask everyone to get on their knees and thank their god, because Muxtape.com is back in business! Or it’s going to be soon, anyways.
Muxtape is an amazing website, in my opinion. After reading the extremely long (2504 word) novel on the current Muxtape home page, I learned a couple of things about it that made me respect the founder of Muxtape, Justin Ouellette even more. Muxtape essentially came from a list. When Justin worked at his university radio station, he used to write down songs that were to be played, in the order he wanted to play them (a playlist ). Years later, he decided that it would be an amazing idea to take that same list idea but make it interactive, and an amazing idea it was;Muxtape was born. Not too long after being uploaded to the inter-web highway, Muxtape quickly began experiencing issues with the RIAA and many music labels ranging from large to small. To protect himself from a possible multi-million dollar lawsuit, Justin made the smart decision to temporarily take Muxtape down until all this issues had been sorted out, and now that everything has been sorted out, we are getting our beloved Muxtape back. If you’re in need of more information, go check out the homepage and read all about the past, present, and future of Muxtape.
If you have used Muxtape in the past… when it returns it will be slightly different than you remember. Instead of being free to public use, only bands will be able to upload their own original material… to please the RIAA. But for me, that wont really make any difference because the only reason my friends and I used Muxtape was to quickly shoot demos for songs back and forth. I think this is a good decision in the long run. It will stop millions of people from uploading songs that are already all over the internet, and give that space and bandwidth to people who use it for its true purpose: to quickly and easily share a tune.
Anyway, you should definitely go check Muxtape out right his very second, and when it starts up again for real make sure you stay tuned. That website has a lot of potential, and I expect it to take off soon after, if not immediately after its re-launch.
Welcome to TechTwoPointOh. TTPO is a new website though of, and designed by two 15 year old males from New York; Jordan Michnoff and Kevin Spellman. Our mission is simple yet elegant - to bring you to latest, coolest news in technology, web, and more. Over time we hope to develop into a bigger company, bringing you more news, more frequently, possibly even with a weekly podcast to accompany our articles. Our reason for creating TTPO is pure; we are two kids who truly love messing around with technology and we are not alone. There are many more teenagers with interests similar to ours, and we want to give them the latest news from their perspective. There are plenty of adult technology bloggers out there, but I haven’t heard of a single teenage technology blog, ever. So please subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Tumblr, share our articles via the links at the bottom (digg, share on facebook), and help us further advance into the space of the great world wide web.
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