Filtering the technology of mass communication

The Technology and evolution of communication is obviously here, and in the forefront of our lives today; but with all new things comes a chance to re-analyze how beneficial they are. The great thing about the next day as there's things like Consumer Reports, Lonely Planet, and other who give us great information about what to do how to go there and other reviews on relative matters. The problem is the fact that we have all sorts of other things to do besides read reviews all day.

This is where filters come in and become very much needed in this huge new frontier. For many of us this will be ket to us making sense of all that is out there. Things like Trip Advisor, New York Times List all sorts of Yahoo answers and review sites, are great but at this time is more about how can we find what we really need at moments notice.

So once again we are challenged. With time as our enemy - time is never on our side and in the new age of communication it is even worse. What is the next solution what is the next transition as far as how we communicate around the world. The best thing I can think of is to have all sorts of custom filters that are defined by the end-user, us. There are many things coming out now-a-days and I think that new focus can be very powerful in how we end up using the information that is out there on the Internet.

For the last few years the web has seen a social impact online through Facebook, Twitter MySpace, and others like that. These reviews and these recommendations moreover are very valuable and the fact that they're based on a foundation of trust a premise of what we do believe our friends now and don't know this is very powerful in the consumer realm.

New Tech Start Up Companies

Entering the fast track to technology and business success is at the forefront of many young tech companies’ minds (or groups of small tech companies). With some incredible ideas coming into play the tech market remains hard to pin down, but exciting non-the-less.

Sticking a pin in the map at NY, we find some great little tech companies that I feel are at the heart of the matter. I say that as these small little companies usually are passionate about what they are doing while less focused on the shuffling of money and stock share values and really just about what it is they are putting on the market. One of these companies is challenging a very profitable market and could be a game changer in the industry. Zipmark, is a great new mobile payment service that providing quick, easy, and inexpensive payment processing. Seeing this trend pop up over the course of the last year or two at least, I only see it gaining traction as small (and more importantly, mobile) business look hard at costs in a struggling economy. The best part being that the fee structure is simple to grasp, simple to reconcile and provides cost effective solutions to the masses. Well done, keep the surge going-technology should aid us in bringing these costs down for the small businesses.

Another interesting company that I think will bring a lot to the table as the instant information age further develops is CB Insights. They are making new strides in displaying new information and data in a useful way for new start-ups and private companies. I have a specific soft spot in my heart for info data and anything that continues to aid us in comprehending more, faster. We think in pictures, thus give us info in new and better ways. They will continue to aid in decision making process that include determining business partner strength and reliability, vender selection, investment decisions and countless others.

Very similar to that direction is Aqumin, a company displaying trading information in a 3-D format that allows traders to see trends and mass data in a new and more beneficial way. Again to me it is time that technology started to serve us in more specific ways, that meaning that we need to start by knowing who we are as humans and aligning new technologies with our inherent ways of learning, thinking, being, not the other way around. We should not be having to learn technology, technology should learn how to communicate with us. Aqumin takes data technology in that direction, aligning it with how we think-in pictures. That is how all data should be displayed anyways, whenever possible.

RecognizeMe app unlocks your iOS device using face detection

You might remember that we covered an iPhone app called RecognizeMe that uses face detection to unlock your iPhone, and today we have the latest version of this app that we want to share with you.

We have to mention that in order to use RecognizeMe app, you will need a jailbroken iOS device with a front facing camera. As for the app itself, it has been upgraded to version 2.0, and it has been completely rewritten so it can support iOS 5. The latest version of RecognizeMe has improved performance, it’s a lot faster, more accurate and reliable than its predecessor. We also have to mention that this app supports variety of devices including iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod Touch 4G, and iPad 2.

If you have a jailbroken iOS device that you wish to protect from unauthorized access, or simply to increase the security of your iOS device, RecognizeMe will be perfect for you. As for the price, RecognizeMe is available from the CydiaStore and it costs $2.99.

Causes and Prevention of External Hard Drive Failure

External hard drive is a best way of keeping your data safe and sound. It is really simple to work with it .This device lets the user to transfer all important files and data into it by connecting it to computer. When a user wants to access his data, he only needs to connect his PC with external hard drive through an interface cable and then to drag data and files from drive to computer. Thereby it serves as back up device from where he can save and retrieve his personal and professional data and files at any time. This device is very useful for a person until the time when a person handle it with due care otherwise its failure occur. Here are some common causes of external hard drives:

1. The most common cause behind the failure of External Hard Drives is the accidental tipping over the edge of computer table and this dropping may result in the physical damage of drive. The new hard drives are designed in such a way that they work only when these are standing upright on the flat surface. The device may drop down just because of sudden user’s touch or due to its upright position. It is really simple to cope with this issue; you can lay the external drive flat on the table instead of posting it upright.
2. Another cause of hard drive failure is the twisted and tangles cords and cables with which you connect the external hard drive with your laptop or computer. When the cables and cords are twisted then it is possible that external drive pull down. In order to prevent this situation, the user must carefully check the cables and cord. If there is any twist in these then he should readily arrange it otherwise this become a cause of external hard drive failure.
3. External hard drive may subject to damage and failure due to sudden and hard shut down. So it is advisable that you power down your drive whenever there is some lighting strikes as sudden power off lead to power surge and thereby damaging the drive.

The importance of backup

We’ve all been there, sat staring at the computer with our hands behind our heads in dismay as our hard drive fails and all those brilliant holiday snaps are lost and gone forever. You know that no amount of turning it off and on again will help recover them, but you do it anyway. 

It is then that you realize that you have all your passwords saved in one vital document on your desktop and that all-important presentation you have to do tomorrow morning at work has disappeared into the world of unrecoverable data.

This avoidable catastrophe always involves a lot of swearing involved, a lot of turning the computer off at the mains and giving it a good crack to give it some encouragement to whirr back to life. Yeah, it’s happened to the best of us, and we’ve all learnt from our mistakes and invested in some form of backup from Western Digital or an online cloud drive. Next time you will too, right?

We thought as much, so here’s our simple guide of four easy options to backup and save yourself the stress and even money of trying to recover lost files.

CD/DVD

Copying important files onto CDs and DVDs is a simple, if almost prehistoric, way of lowering the risk of losing everything. However, if you backup as often as you should, you’ll end up with piles and piles of old CDs with old files all over your office or spare bedroom. From bookcases, to shelves, to drawers and floors covered from top to bottom in dust-gathering discs, you’ll be surrounded by a sea of data that will take hours to filter through to find what you need.

USB sticks

Uploading your files to a small flash drive is much simpler than creating and sorting through multiple discs. However, with small amounts of memory you’ll have to use several to backup everything you need to. If you choose to use mini flash drives to store all of your photos, music and work files, keep them in a safe place as they are easily lost under car seats, in handbags and in the pub.

External hard drive

Attach a Western Digital external hard drive to your computer to backup your files with simplicity and ease. Just keep the hard drive hooked up to your PC or Mac and let the hardware do the hard work. External hard drives can continuously update and backup everything, so you’ll never need to worry if you forget to drag something across.

Online backup

If you don’t want to backup your backup, go for an online service which will come hand-in-hand with yearly fees in return for peace of mind. This is the easy solution for anyone who constantly forgets to keep their documents safe. There are some free options available online, but they often don’t give you the luxury of a full computer backup.

iPhone 5 to sport a 4-inch screen and new design

Another string of iPhone 5 related rumors surfaced. Recently, there is a buzz that the 6th generation iPhone will sport a quad-core qualcom processor. Just now, we heard rumors that the new iPhone might boast a screen bigger than 4 inches and a different form from its predecessor. This information came from an anonymous source from Foxconn, which manufactures a bulk of Apple’s components.

According to the source, the final specs are not yet finalized for Apple is still undecided with its numerous prototypes that all possess varying screen size not less than 4-inch and new ergonomics. It is to be expected from Apple which is known to scrap completed prototypes if not satisfied.

The adjustment or modification in design can be sort of anticipated in the next release since Apple already released two identical iPhone. But the increase in screen size might be a little uncertain. The reason for this is if they equip the iPhone with a 4-inch screen or more, it would compromise the so called Retina display that they are marketing. A 3.5-inch screen in an iPhone 4/s contains roughly 326 pixels per inch. If the size is boosted to 4-inch, the pixel count would drop to 285 ppi which is below the 300 ppi mark to be considered ‘Retina’. If Apple would really increase the screen size while retaining retina display, they will also have to increase the screen’s resolution which in turn might result in incompatibility with a lot of apps.

In any case, all of these are still rumors so let’s regard them with a pinch of salt and cross our fingers that another Apple employee loses another prototype at a bar somewhere in California for our amusement.

Intel releases seven new Sandy Bridge CPUs

Intel has been quiet for several times for few of its new CPUs that was aimed to refresh the current chips on it bloodlines, this time with Sandy Bridge. The company have just throw out three new Core-i5 processors namely i5-2550K, i5-2450P and i5-2380P replacing the old lineup of i5-2500K, i5-2400 and i5-2320, respectively. Along with this i5s, comes four Celerons, two low-voltage, two ultra-low voltage similarly replace older models, from the $70 B720 replacing the B71 through to the $134 Celeron 867, supplanting the 857. We got the full list after the break, check it out.

	Core / Thread	Freq.	L3 Cache	Price
Core i5-2550K	4/4	3.4GHz	6MB	$225
Core i5-2450P	4/4	3.2GHz	6MB	$195
Core i5-2380P	4/4	3.1GHz	6MB	$177
Celeron B815	2/2	1.6GHz	2MB	$86
Celeron B720	1/1	1.7GHz	1MB	$70
Celeron 867	2/2	1.3GHz	2MB	$134
Celeron 797	1/1	1.4GHz	1MB	$107