Phone services

Saving Your Laptop Battery

2012-02-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

With as many devices as we use everyday that run on batteries, it might be a good idea to learn how to save that battery life. This is important if you want a relatively fast wireless connection which is needed for great video quality in internet phone services. If you are running a meeting, it would be horrible for the video to stop constantly and interrupt you. One of the ways that you can save battery life is by lowering the screen brightness. Another way is to get the scheduled tasks to run only on AC power when it is plugged in. If your notebook has a backlit keyboard, it will certainly help you see keys in a dark room, but it’s also sucking juice out of your battery. You’ll save some power by turning off that light. Every notebook has its own way of enabling or disabling its keyboard backlight, but the method usually involves hitting a Function key on the top row of the keyboard. While you’re surfing the Web, checking email or watching a movie, messaging apps such as Google Talk and Skype are hitting the Internet constantly, just to see which of your contacts are online and whether you’ve received any messages. Automatic updating apps from the likes of Adobe, Apple and Google may also be pinging the Internet to see if there are updates to your copies of Adobe Reader, Chrome browser or iTunes. To stop these silent power vampires before they start, prevent them from loading at boot time.

Military to Get New Android Phones

2012-02-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

With the increasing technology and the need for improved security that comes with it, it is important for the military personnel to be at the top of their game and ahead of the curve with the latest smartphones and phone services. The phones will run a modified version of Google's Android software, which is being developed as part of an initiative that spans multiple federal agencies and government contractors, these people said. The smartphones are first being deployed to U.S. soldiers, people familiar with the project said. Later, federal agencies are expected to get phones for sending and receiving government cables while away from their offices, sources said. Eventually, local governments and corporations could give workers phones with similar software. The Army has been testing touchscreen devices at U.S. bases for nearly two years, said Michael McCarthy, a director for the Army's Brigade Modernization Command, in a phone interview. About 40 phones were sent to fighters overseas a year ago, and the Army plans to ship 50 more phones and 75 tablets to soldiers abroad in March, he said. Currently, the United States doesn't allow government workers or soldiers to use smartphones for sending classified messages because the devices have not met security certifications. Officials have said they worry that hackers or rogue apps could tap into the commercial version of Android and spill state secrets to foreign governments or to the Web through a publisher such as WikiLeaks. As many as 5 million Android users may have had their phones compromised by a recent virus outbreak rooted in apps found on Google's market, said security software maker Symantec.

Holiday Scams

2012-01-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

With every new holiday comes a new scam, whether it is through email or a phone service. Valentine's Day is coming up and the scammers are already jumping on the ball to get people early. The crop of emails Symantec found come with addresses including, "Valentine's Berries," "Valentine's Gifts," "Valentine's Day Sweets," and variations on the theme, and attempt to lure victims with subject lines such as: "Be Different! Give yourself a gift for Valentine's Day"; "Impossibly delicious berries from $19.99 — the PERFECT gift for Valentine's Day!"; or "Got Fat? Get Thin. Lose 30 pounds before Valentine's Day."

Like any phishing scam worth its weight in impossibly delicious berries, some of the emails redirect recipients to Web pages that request their personal information and bank acount details. Others, Symantec noted, take users to a phony Facebook app that, if installed, can fire any number of weapons upon victims' computers. To stay out of trouble when shopping for Valentine's Day gifts, make sure you go directly to a store's website; don't purchase anything from a site included in an unsolicited email. Make sure the site you buy from is secured with HTTPS encryption and, as always, install anti-malware and anti-virus software on your computer, which can help weed out email offers that are out to harm you.

The part that I found entertaining was the promise of weight loss by Valentine's Day. Are we as humans that shallow? Come on people, what happened to getting to know a person for who they really are and why are we so quick to pass judgements at first glance? Just something to think about.

Search and Find

2012-01-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

Google and Bing are some of the biggest search engines around but this one, Beepl takes it to a different level. Not only will the site give you an answer to the question that's on your mind, it claims to know what types of questions you're likely to ask before you ever type them into the site's question-answer interface.

"Beepl ... understands the topics that questions relate to and users’ interests and expertise so that questions automatically reach the best people to answer them," the company said in a blog post on Monday, as the site went live to the public after three months of private trials. "It achieves this by employing natural language processing and machine learning to create a real-time network of experts in which questions are re-routed and matched to the most relevant users, marking Beepl out from similar Q&A sites." The site also leverages data from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to serve up Q&As that might interest a particular person.

I wonder what other places it gets information from and what sort of hoop they had to jump through to have access to things like social media and even internet phone services, such as the ones from Facebook.

Increase Meetings While Reducing Travel

2012-01-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

Knowledge is power. We have all heard that phrase a bunch of times but did you ever stop and think about it? Of course, the first thing that might be coming to mind is Google and the vast number of things that we can search for. What I am talking about is the knowledge of other cultures and bridging those communication gaps. This is where internet phone systems come in. People are using them in businesses to connect with employees and others are calling long distance. If they were used in schools and other education systems where kids could get exposed to their peers in other countries, they would be less sheltered and maybe even have compassion for those that do not have nearly as much. Also, once the communication barrier is gone, people would be able to use their energy to work on solving other problems which would improve the relationship between the two parties, no matter how far away they are.

Internet Phones Right on the TV

2012-01-08T08:35:00.000-08:00

I found an interesting article about internet phone services coming to television sets. What are your thoughts on it?

While every major smart TV manufacturer offers a brand-compatible webcam for its Skype-enabled TVs, use has been limited to calls between owners who both have the same TV and camera system. TelyHD works with most HDTVs connected to the Internet and supports calls to Skype users on PCs, smartphones and tablets. TelyHD adds Skype access in the same way that media-streaming devices and Blu-ray players add Netflix to TVs that do not have built-in apps. TelyHD comes with its own remote control to zoom, pan and tilt its wide-angle camera, which clips to the top of a TV. Four noise-canceling microphones are built into the device. It also has a SD card slot and a USB port, so users can share photos and videos during Skype calls. TelyHD runs on Android using a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core ARM A9 processor. TelyHD can transmit calls in 720p high definition, but success depends on the speed of a user’s broadband connection . Upload speed must exceed 1 Mbps for HD video calls, according to Tely Labs. Speeds between 512 Kbps and 1 Mbps will allow for standard definition calls (480p), any slower and video calls will not be possible. Tely Labs has included a quick speed test on its site to determine upload and download speeds.

Personally, it might be great to have so that when your business is holding meetings, it will feel like the people are actually there. You will also be able to share documents and even have all of phone service features that come with a VoIP systems.

Growth of the Internet User

2012-01-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

Even though it seems like everyone, including the cat and dog, are online these days, there are actually some people that have some growing to do before they progress to using internet phones or actually having a readable social networking site profile. If you get an email from someone that contains those extensive attachments that consist of reading lists of supposedly funny jokes that no one gets, that got forwarded to too many people to count for fear of "having the worst day of your life if you do not send this to at least ten people", you might be dealing with a newbie. Then these people progress to sending legible emails and internet fax. Still, there are definitely some improvement in the vocabulary area (which consists of about 20 words for now) but I guess that takes some practice. Towards the "adult" stage, everything is running much more efficiently and these people actually have a presence online that is of some importance. Finally, there will be people that have so much experience that they actually remember how all the wonderful technology came about and the days when they had to go without some of the gadgets.

Why

2011-12-26T19:39:00.000-08:00

Does this conversation sound familiar: you say something, the other person asks why, then you answer that question, they ask why again, you think that they are genuinely interested so you continue with your answer, they continue to ask why, by this point you realize that they are out to annoy you but to humor them you answer anyway, the next why comes with a sort of grating tone of voice, you scream, "Just because!" Now, how old do you think the "other" person is? This is much more interesting if the conversation is in person and not over an internet phone. If you have younger siblings or kids of your own, I am sure this sounds disgustingly familiar to you. We get irritated and do not have all day to entertain their fancies, but if you really think about it, this is something that should be cultivated and encouraged. Well, except the being obnoxious part. The great minds of today are that way because they never stopped asking why. They are like that little kid always wanting to know the answer. The beauty in all this is that even if they do not get the answer, they are better for asking the question of why.

Zombies: Seriously

2011-12-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

Have you ever considered that there might be a chance that zombies will take over? Of course not, that just sounds silly. What if I gave a couple reasons as to how it could possibly happen? There are parasites that can infect the brain and the person will see changes in personality and so on. Of course the parasite needs to evolve a bit more to ensure that the person will go completely nuts. Have you ever considered that these things can actually be weaponized. Chemicals can also alter the way a person behaves, in such a way that they just do simple tasks and have no memory. Ever heard of mad cow disease? Any idea why it is called that? And the worst part is that humans can get it just by eating the meat whose symptoms include hallucinations, lack of coordination, and possible dementia. Enough said. Next thing you know they, the puppeteers, will be using phone services to remotely control them. Think about it.

Blocking Caller ID

2011-12-13T18:34:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when you are making an outgoing call from your business, you want your number to be blocked on the caller ID because privacy is important to maintain. Calling Line ID Delivery Blocking allows you to block your number from being shown when calling other numbers. Members of your group can still see your number when they are called. You have the choice of turning it on or off for all calls and then selectively turning it back on or off using the feature access codes. When privacy matters, turn on this feature via your BroadVoice web portal to block delivery of your identity to all calls. You control when this feature is on or off. When turned off you can use the *67 feature access code directly from your phone for Calling Line ID Delivery Blocking per Call. When this feature is turned on via your BroadVoice web portal, dial *65 for Calling Line ID Delivery per call. Caller ID Block helps you make discreet calls. If the party you are trying to reach has Caller ID, they will not see your number with BroadVoice Caller ID Block. Your call will go through seamlessly and anonymously.

Making the World Better

2011-12-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

When it comes to making the world a better place, most people think about recycling, using less, and switching over to better technology such as internet fax services. What are the people though? I know that some education systems require that the students do community service in order to graduate but it seems like it does not work for some. So I think I have found part of the solution to making the world just a bit better. What if some people were required to have certain jobs for a period of time? I mean community service is great but there might be better ways to get the message across for those people that just do not get it. Take the job of being a server or waiter for example. There will be many thing that you will learn very fast. First of all, you will find out how easy it is to read people and from that, hopefully, you will wonder about the kind of person you are. Being in a position, with very little pay, where you have to serve other people can be an eye opener and sometimes get you off your high horse. I bet very little of you will even last a month waiting tables, trust me.

Auto-Attendant

2011-11-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

One of the best and most useful features of Onebox internet phone is the auto-attendant which gives your business an edge in the markets. When customers call, they will be able to hear a professional greeting along with an intuitive call menu. Your business will look like an enterprise because of all the virtual departments and extensions. If the caller knows the extension to whom they wish to speak to, they can bypass the menu. Also, since the departments are virtual, your employees can be anywhere and with call forwarding, they will be able to get the call. This means that you will save a lot of money because you will not need to rent a physical office. The call menu and call greeting can be personalized to fit your business personality. Providing great customer service means that your business will be able to grow and expand because the customers will keep coming back.

Touch Screens

2011-11-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

Do you ever find yourself misspelling words in internet fax, emails, or text messages that you are typing on your tablet because the keys are too small for your fingers? Well there is a solution created by Objects of Perfection which is a soft plastic tip that fits on your finger to help with the tactile feedback. The idea is to provide some of the tactile feedback that a stylus doesn’t (and for some keyboards, say a Blackberry, a stylus wouldn’t work well anyway). For some people – those whose dexterity is compromised by age or Parkinson’s, for example – it can be a great help. It would also be useful for anyone in an environment where keeping things sterile, such as an operating theater, is important. It is priced at a reasonable $19.95. This is a great tool for people with wider fingers or those who do not type very fast on a tablet.

Expectations

2011-10-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

One of the problems with high school education is that the expectations are set extremely low. The classes are supposed to make the kids more ready for college or the workforce. If low expectations are constantly set for them, they will never push themselves to do better and learn more. If I was one of the students and knew that the expectations for me were low, I would be offended and let down knowing that the people that are supposed to be the ones that help me learn have, in essence, given up on me. On the other hand, you would have to wonder why these people have given up all hope and just go to work and do not think twice about the kids when they go home. Learning is obviously a two way street and takes energy from both parties. The kids have to be willing to want to learn. Maybe it is disheartening for teachers to lecture to a class full of kids that constantly checking their phone services because they would rather be somewhere else.

Short Cuts for the Computer Savvy

2011-10-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are at your computers day in and day out trying up those emails, working on the latest programs, or polishing off the internet fax that you will will send to too many people to count, shortcuts are like cold water to a parched throat. I am sure that you have heard and probably use some of them but others will come in handy soon enough. So the classic ones include copying, cutting, and pasting with the ctrl button and x, c, v. Hitting the tab key can be even more useful when entering large amounts of data but not so handy when navigating through websites, such as this one. Some of the more interesting ones are the Alt-tab command which lets you switch from different screens and Alt-F4 which shuts programs down entirely, in case there are some prying eye. F7 launches spell check or in the case of web sites lets you navigate with the keyboard, which I guess some people will find useful.

Do Not Disturb Feature

2011-09-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just want and need some peace and quiet from the daily grind of work, phone calls and people. With vonages do not disturb feature this is what you"ll get whenever you need it and you use the do not disturb feature. When you utilize the do not disturb feature all incoming calls will go to your vonage voicemail plus. if you haven't enabled voicemail plus the callers will simply hear a message saying you aren't accepting calls at this time. When you use the do not disturb feature it won't affect your outgoing calls or other vonage lines. To implement do not disturb simply dial *78 from your vonage phone. to disable it dial*79. It's that simple and will get get some free time away from all the incoming calls to get your work done and the other lines in your office won't be affected so those people will still be taking calls and care of business. So business doesn't quit it still keeps going on while you have a break for more important things that need done in the office or elsewhere.

In Control

2011-09-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt like you were losing control in your life and commitments and internet fax and emails just kept piling up? Do you remember how you dealt with it? One of the things that people tend to do when it feels like they are not in control of their life is that they seek order and predictability. One of the characteristics of the things that people who do not feel like they are in control are drawn to are sharp and distinct edges. Edges and boundaries by their very nature define order by things being contained or constrained within those areas. With the economies of the world being in recession, people are feeling much more vulnerable and seek comfort in the certainty of order. You could always make the argument that there are certain people that crave that order and cannot live without it. Take researchers for example, they are the people that try to figure out how or why things work the way they do. So aren't they in essence, trying to put a predictable constrain on the things that they see? Have you ever taken the make order out of chaos approach to life, or just let the entropy continue to increase without a blink of an eye?

Slurs Online

2011-09-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Are there certain conditions when it is alright to use derogatory slurs? In a recent survey, it was found that people between the ages of 18 and 25 feel that even though they never use the slurs, they do not find it offensive if other people do online. I wonder if the line is also drawn where it comes to internet phone services. I mean is it the screen that makes people forget all social standards or the fact that they do not have to look the other person in the eye when they say those things? This data is rather disturbing because it shows just how prevalent online bullying really is. Word can cut deep and the fact that the kids have no problem with throwing around these slurs just perpetuates the problem which can turn into real life issues. It is not really a good reason if they are said just to be cool.

Tech-ed Out Bentley

2011-09-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

When is a lot of technology in a car too much? I mean, do the passengers really need that internet access to answer their internet fax and using the internet phone services? What happened to talking to each other in cars. It seems like the new and available technology is exponentially making the wall between people and their surrounds bigger and bigger. Here is part of an article that I found on the decked out Bentley. Personally, I think that they went a bit overboard.

"Bentley's Mulsanne Executive Interior concept — which was on display at the 2011 Frankfurt Show in Germany — features Apple iPad workstations with full Internet access and Apple Bluetooth keyboards behind the passenger seats. The workstations are integrated into two electric-powered, foldable wood-veneer picnic tables.

The twin iPads give passengers access to video files and music, personal and work email as well as the Internet (via W-Lan). The back of the car also features Apple iPods, a docking station, USB connectors and a panel to control the dropdown TV screen in the front interior of the car. The large, drop-down LED screen is 15.6 inches."

Meditate

2011-09-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

Meditating can be very important for the body and the mind. Unfortunately, many people do not really know how to meditate and let go. We live in a world today where we constantly have to be connected and never have any time to ourselves for reflection and being able to sort things out and reason through them. I mean, there is so much pressure to be constantly updating status and to be interesting in our social lives, which usually means keep up with the current trends of the week. With all the social networks coming out with internet phone service, things did not really change. When people are more comfortable talking to each other "face to face" over video conferencing than face to face in person, some things need to be seriously reconsidered. Maybe this is the reason that we do not have time to really think about what we are doing and to reason through things. We are just to business living our lives for the entertainment of other people. Here is a suggestion: leave all devices at home and go find some wood and sit right in the middle among the trees. Close your eyes and listen and try to distinguish every sound you hear.

Social Media and Identity

2011-09-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Even though many social media sites now have internet phone services where we can communicate face to face with the other person, no matter how far they are, our identity seems to be getting blurred. Part of the reason for that is because everything is so public, that we try to hide our vices which as bad as they may seems are a part of our identity and who we are.

"But as anthropologist Herbert Spencer describes in his theory of the social organism, society is a system of interrelated parts that operate interdependently. Social media users understand that concept intuitively, and segment their relationships accordingly. For instance, you are not the same person at work as you are among friends on a Friday night. The things you talk about, the vocabulary you use and the friendships you maintain in different contexts are the products of years of learning how to interpret relationships cues. From flirting to non-verbal communication, the way we present ourselves to others is constantly shifting based on whom we are talking to, and why.

The current social media environment has evolved to reflect this reality. It is made up of a number of independent social channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc.) that allow users to create and maintain separate and distinct parts of their identity with different social circles. For example, your friends are on Facebook, but you find business colleagues on LinkedIn."

The question is, what happens when some of these networks overlap? From what we have seen so far, it does not seem like a great thing if there is too much overlap between the sites and the people that are in your social networks. What are your thoughts?

Ringcentral a Cloud Based VoIP Phone Service Provider

2011-08-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

Ringcentral is a cloud based internet phone service company that offers you a high quality phone service that allows you to make and receive call from anywhere in the world where you have internet access. To get started all you need to do is download the free Ringcentral call management software for your computer, call controller with Softphone and all you need is a headset. If you choose you can instead use your own phones and connect to a Linksys Analog Adapter and get started this way. After your on your way their are so many features to choose from that fits your needs for your business. You can choose extensions and assign calls to any desk,home or mobile phone. You can also connect employees in different offices as if they were in the same one with extension dialing. They also offer answering rules which is perfect for keeping all your data stored by time, date and caller ID. If this isn't enough to get you excited with Ringcentral you can easily track all inbound and outbound calls with unified call logs in your online account.

Punishing Students for What They Post

2011-08-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

With as much as the social networks are expanding, there are more issues that have to do with the freedom of speech and expression. In Indiana, two girls decided to post pictures of themselves that push the boundaries of the ratings. The next day, they were reprimanded at school by being suspended from participating in some of the extracurricular activities. The question is if the school had a right to do that or if they were tromping on the girls' rights. With so many different internet and phone services, the lines here are getting blurred. The court ruled that this type of expression was protected by the law and the school had no right to intervene. As far as the brilliance of the girls posting those pictures goes, it just hit rock bottom, even if it is protected under the law. I think they should be able to express themselves, if they call that expression because the only thing that I am hearing is that they want to parade their bodies around for people to comment on but that is another matter. Someone needs to tell them that the photos will affect their future employers' view of them and things that can happen if they get into the wrong hand. But hey, go ahead and express away without thinking of consequences.

Malfunctioning Mind

2011-08-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

The mind is an amazing thing that is very complicated and yet to be fully understood. With all those connections, there is the possibility that it can malfunction epically. Some examples of this phenomenon are:

Fregoli syndrome. This is when you think that you are seeing the same person everywhere you go and even when you log into your internet phone video conference, they are there as well. Definitely something to drive a person over the edge but the disorder is partners in crime with other paranoia disorders so you end up with a nice mental stew.

Mirrored-Self Misidentification. Have you even gotten up and went to the bathroom only to find someone that you do not know staring back at you through the mirror? And I am not talk in metaphors, you literally do not know the person in the mirror even though it is you.

Greener Travel

2011-08-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Having internet fax to help make the environment more green does not even come close to this new technology. Not only are there smart electric cars, there are also bikes that will be "smart" with a motor. When I first read the article, it seemed like it was slightly counterproductive because a bike is supposed to be something that you pedal. Either way, tell me what you guys think of it:

The Mercedez-Benz SmartForTwo plug-in electric car is getting a major revamp this year, and the third generation will make its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. The newest version of the tiny two-seat car will boast a motor with 47 HP nominal output and a peak of 73 HP, a top speed of 75 mph (up from 62 in the current car), and an increased range of 87 miles (up from 71).

New to the Smart line-up for 2012 will be the Smart Ebike, a plug-in electric bicycle, which will also be unveiled in Frankfurt. It uses a 250-watt brushless electric hub motor mounted within the 26-inch rear wheel to supplement the power produced by pedaling. Three gears and four power levels let riders choose how much effort they expend and how much the bike provides.

Bells and whistles for the gadget-lovers include LED front and rear lights and an infotainment system with a USB port. There are plans in the works to develop an iPhone app which would let users monitor battery power and range. There's no word yet on the price of this futuristic bike, but the smart money's on a fairly hefty price tag. No doubt, however, many bicycle commuters will find the novelty and environmentally friendliness well worth the cost!

Requirements for School

2011-08-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

These days, it seems like a pencil and notebook just won't cut it for school success. Many elementary schools are now using more advanced technology such as internet phones, emailing, and certain apps. The internet phone services can be used in the classroom to connect with peers from different countries. This way, the kids will be able to be exposed to different cultures and customers. The other communication systems can be used to bridge the gaps between teachers and parents. In order for these systems to work, families need to have access to a computer and the internet. This is bound to cost more than the average number 2 pencil and paper. I have heard that some people are fighting to get a law passed that states that internet access is a human right. Many homework assignments are done online and papers are usually uploaded so that they can go through sites that prevent plagiarism. Progress can also be check online by the parents. So what about those parents who cannot afford to have a computer of internet access? Some people might say that the kids could use the computers at school or in the library but the truth is that there are other things that come up and libraries are not open at 2 am. What are your thoughts?

Effects of Social Networking

2011-08-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

Even though Facebook got new internet phone services, the effects of different social networking sites is pretty much the same, especially when it comes to kids using it. Some of the positive aspects of it is that it helps kids that are shy to build more relationships and be social. Forming relationships is a very important part of growing up and maturing. Another great thing about the sites is that kids can see and understand other people's feeling which in turn encourages empathy. This empathy can then spill over in real life where the kids will be able to be more understanding or others and other situations. Of course, there are some negative side effects such as distractions for school work and non-digital social interactions which are just as important in development. There is also some relationship between mental disorders and time spent on the social network. It is not clear yet if it is the narcissistic people who spend more time on the sites or the sites making people more narcissistic. How do you feel about the networking sites?

Thinner Computers

2011-07-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple years, computer have been getting smaller and smaller. Now the trend is that they are getting thinner. Since a lot of storage, such as internet fax and other documents, is moving to other servers through cloud computing and media is streamed, some of the drives and devices are not even needed. Here is part of an article I found on it:

"The best way to have thin devices is to integrate as many components as possible on one single board," says Djuric. "That really keeps the thickness as minimal as possible, but also affects the upgradeability, repairability, and features of the device. These thinner devices also make for excellent throw-way devices," Djuric said . That means consumers are more likely to toss it out when it gets old, rather than trying to fix or upgrade it. This could lead to environmental problems in the future, as these products build up in landfills, he said.

Another great thing that will come from laptops being smaller is that less materials will be used so the price will be not nearly as high since the supply of rare earth metals is decreasing. What do you think of these new thinner computers?

3D Phones

2011-07-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

You think certain phone services such as emails and internet fax give you a headache now, wait till you see the phones that are following the latest craze and are in 3D. Studies have shown that they will cause eye strain in much the same ways as the 3D movies do. The phone companies are all saying that it is one of the greatest advancements in the visual technology. These studies are bound to spur more research when it coming to the consumer's comfort. Another problem of the 3D technology that researchers and developers are working on is that when it comes to the television, the viewer has to be in the correct spot to be able to experience the 3D when no glasses are needed which, as it was seen, are extremely expensive and uncomfortable. In a word, useless. What do you think of this new phone technology?

Google: The Beast Under Your Bed

2011-07-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

Even though Google has come out with a social networkesque services and internet phone services which are great for communication purposes, nothing is really free. Ever. What you give up for all these services and the ability of search engines to find just what you are looking for is information about yourself, and a lot of it. This information contains what you searched for, the sites you may have visited, and all of this is connected with your IP address. So your next thought is something along the lines of "Oh, $#*&!" Never fear, they say that the information is stored for only 9 months. Or so they say. They will protect this data but if they are going to be liable for any number of things, they will give it up in a heartbeat, especially with a little thing we like to call a warrant. Google is powerful which is testament the saying that knowledge is power. Think about it.

The Next Hacker: Your Neighbor

2011-07-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

If you get the itch to piggyback on your neighbors internet service to either surf and troll around the web or try to get back your neighbors for saying something that you did not like or just to catch up with people using various phone services, consider the following article:

"A Minnesota hacker that prosecutors described as a "depraved criminal" was handed an 18-year prison term Tuesday for unleashing a vendetta of cyberterror that turned his neighbors' lives into a living nightmare.

Barry Ardolf, 46, repeatedly hacked into his next-door neighbors' Wi-Fi network in 2009, and used it to try and frame them for child pornography, sexual harassment, various kinds of professional misconduct and to send threatening e-mail to politicians, including Vice President Joe Biden. His motive was to get back at his new neighbors after they told the police he'd kissed their 4-year-old son on the lips.

"Barry Ardolf has demonstrated by his conduct that he is a dangerous man. When he became angry at his neighbors, he vented his anger in a bizarre and calculated campaign of terror against them," prosecutor Timothy Rank said in a court filing. "And he did not wage this campaign in the light of day, but rather used his computer hacking skills to strike at his victims while hiding in the shadows.

"Over months and months, he inflicted unfathomable psychic damage, making the victims feel vulnerable in their own home, while avoiding detection."

Ardolf's attorney, Kevin O'Brien, said in a telephone interview that "it was a lengthy sentence for a first-time offender." The defendant also forfeited his house and computer gear. Ardolf had no criminal record, but an investigation revealed that he'd also hijacked the Wi-Fi of other neighbors, and terrorized them as well."

End of the Hard Drives?

2011-07-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

The Cloud is used for phone services, streaming videos, and even games. This brings up that question of whether we really need hard drives anymore since everything is stored online. In certain respects, it's already happening. Compared to modern Windows PCs and Macs, every smartphone and tablet is short on storage--if you've got as much as 64GB, you're doing very well indeed. But these gadgets don't feel painfully constrained, because they're designed to work well with Web-based services. Netflix, for instance, provides access to a gazillion hours of streaming entertainment--but almost all of it stayed stored on Netflix's servers. It's a departure from the old way of doing things (still seen in products such as Apple's iTunes) that assumes consumers will store their entire movie collections on their devices, not in the cloud. Are you guys ready to give up the hard drive? I mean right now they are extremely cheap and it is easy to have access to massive amounts of space in the form of a external hard drive. Personally I like the cloud but it still has some improvements to overcome.

Facebook Internet Phone

2011-07-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Facebook has announced that they are partnering with the internet phone company Skype to enable internet phone calls between users. Group chats are also now available with the service. Google on the other hand, is kind of lagging behind. First they tried venturing out into the social media in 2006 when they rolled out with Orkut but unfortunately they did not succeed in this venture because most of the people already had a Facebook account. Now they are trying to make up for it by rolling out with the Google Plus network which as of now is only on an invite-only basis. I think this internet phone chatting will really catch on because "Facebook now has 750 million users. And they share 4 billion things such as photos, links and status updates on the site every day." It is going to be interesting to see how these new services will affect wireless phone usage. Since internet phones are much more cost efficient, it might actually drive down the costs of talking on the phone but the cost of internet might go up. This also brings into question the idea that internet should be a human right.

Security Settings

2011-07-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

The security settings of the ViaTalk internet phone service is one of the best. They have many features that enable businesses to maintain their security. With Anonymous Call Routing you have the ability to not only block anonymous calls, but you also have the options to either route them directly to voicemail or require the caller to enter an authentication code. With Incoming Call Routing you have complete control over who can call through to your ViaTalk line. You have the option to have incoming calls route to another number, a busy signal, a recorded message, a prompt to enter an authentication code, or have them sent directly to voicemail, based on either the phone number or caller id name of the caller. You can even set up the record option to record each incoming call from the specified party; this recorded call is then sent right to your ViaTalk voicemail. Another security feature is the Do not disturb button. If you are in a meeting or with a customer, you will never be interrupted again.

Social Media Statistics

2011-06-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Social media is pretty amazing but I do not think that anyone needs convincing on that fact. Nonetheless, here are some insane stats that I found on TechNewsDaily:

1 in 5 couples meet online
Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears together have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Greece, Chile, North Korea and Australia
If Wikipedia.com were made into a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long and would take about 123 years to read
An education study revealed that online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
Kids are starting to learn on iPads, not chalkboards
Facebook tops Google in weekly U.S. traffic, and if the social networking site were a country, it would be the third-largest behind China and India
69 percent of parents are "friends" with their children on social networks
A new member joins LinkedIn every second
The Ford Explorer launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad
Gen Y and Gen X consider e-mail passé. Some universities have even stopped distributing e-mail accounts and even use internet phone services.
E-books have surpassed traditional book sales
A baby in Egpyt has been named Facebook to honor the social networking site's role in the country's revolution
Groupon will reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history
24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute

When Your Device Gets Wet

2011-06-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

I found a good article about what to do when your device gets wet. It really helped me out and I found out some things I did not know. I would have taken out the battery right away but I guess you should not do that. After following these directions, all my phone services work wonderfully.

Everyone knows that gadgets and water don't get along. But fear not, all may not be lost when your smartphone, digital camera or other tech device takes an unexpected nose dive into the pool or ocean. Resuscitation can still be done with the help of a few key tips. Although your gut reaction may be to take the battery out of your drenched device, dry it off and try it again, the battery should remain out until it's completely dry to avoid a shortage. Then use a towel to not only dry the battery, but also the area inside the device where the battery sits. However, resist all temptation to pick up a hair dryer or let the device sit in the sun to help along the drying process. Gadgets need to be dried with still, dry air, not with excess heat.

Drying the device shouldn't stop with just cleaning up the wet areas. Place the device into a covered bowl or container of dry, uncooked rice to soak up all of the moisture from the device. It should sit there overnight in a cool, dry place. Uncover the container the next morning, remove the device and hope for the best.

Political Internet Warriors

2011-06-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

When countries went through revolutions in the previous years, the face of that revolution were protesters and even militia. In today's world, there are still protesters and the rest but with a twist. These days revolutions are being inspired and even carried out with the use of the internet. One of the interesting things about these types of revolution is that the internet is still used even if the whole country shuts it down. Certain communication devices such as internet phones and social networking sites are being used in great numbers. Here is some more on the subject from an article I found:

Routers and mesh network-enabled laptops can link together to form a network enabling individuals to send messages along these linked "nodes" to create a local system that allows individuals within a group to communicate. If one individual within the mesh network is able to connect to the outside world, that person can share the connection with others on the network. Mesh network technology is not new, nor is it the only work-around to disabled wireless and Internet communications.

But Pishevar and fellow tech entrepreneur Gary Jay Brooks are providing a space where online activists in the world's hot spots can come together to share their ideas. Starting in January, a regime-changing wave of protests started in Egypt, inspired by demonstrators in neighboring Tunisia who ousted their president in a popular uprising. The Egyptian government shut down the Internet for five days during the protests, so Egyptians used satellite connections, dial-up modems and land lines to call Internet service providers in other countries to get online.

Features of the iCloud Phone Service

2011-06-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

This new internet phone service that I found that is a competitor in the telecommunication field has some comparable features. For the flat fee, you can get unlimited in and outbound calls to the US and Canada. The local number and even the toll free number can be taken with you if you move to another place. The service also includes enhanced 911 emergency services which might be helpful depending on the area that the business is located in. There will be a directory listing and a 411 information service. As a phone line replacement, SIP trunks require an IP-PBX, PBX, or Key Telephone System already in place. The only other thing that you will need is an internet connection. They simply enter our network authentication information into your IP-PBX and it will instantly subscribe to however many SIP trunks and DID telephone numbers you have on your account.

Running Out of Addresses

2011-06-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

The internet is running out of addresses, and fast. So researchers are testing out the new generation of internet addresses. It is called IPv6 and it is the next-generation of unique identifying numbers for computers and other gadgets connecting to the Internet and is designed to replace the original addressing system, IPv4, which is nearing exhaustion. It will provide a billion more addresses than the current system. The non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which regulates the architecture of the Web, doled out the last batches of IPv4 numbers in February. The change to IPv6 mainly impacts Internet service providers, websites and network operators who have to make sure their systems can handle the new online addresses and properly route traffic. Internet phone providers will also need to redo their systems but the customers will not be affected. The users will not notice anything and the transition will most likely be seamless.

New Email Scams

2011-06-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, there are less 800 number scams than before but emails are getting hacked more and more scams are appearing. Here is the latest article that I found on the subject:

This is spear phishing, a rapidly proliferating form of fraud that comes with a familiar face: messages that seem to be from co-workers, friends or family members, customized to trick you into letting your guard down online. And it has turned into a major problem, according to technology companies and computer security experts. On Wednesday, Google disclosed that it had discovered and disrupted an effort to use such pinpoint tactics to steal hundreds of Gmail passwords and monitor the accounts of prominent people, including senior government officials. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that the F.B.I. would investigate Google’s assertion that the campaign originated in China.

Such tactics were also used in an attack on a company called RSA Security, which security experts say may have given hackers the tools to carry out a serious intrusion last month at Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest military contractor. The security specialists say these efforts are a far cry from more standard phishing attempts, which involve spraying the Internet with millions of e-mails that appear to be from, say, Citibank in the hope of snaring a few unfortunate Citibank customers. Spear phishing entails sending highly targeted pitches that can look authentic because they appear to come from a trusted source and contain plausible messages.

PCs Going Extinct

2011-06-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

Over the years the desktop computer has been becoming obsolete because people want a more mobile way of computing such as laptop and tablets which are great for internet phones because of the video capabilities that are built in. One of the ways that the laptops are being improved is that they are thinner and much lighter. They also run much longer on the battery charge and include a touchscreen interface in addition to the keyboard. Even though the sales of PCs are declining, the market will not go away just yet. Many businesses still use the desktop computers especially in offices. They are getting many improvements because of the technology that is surrounding them. For example, in hospitals PCs are still widely used because it is actually much more convenient than laptops. Where do you stand on this? Will you ever buy another PC?

Phone Services Improve Health

2011-05-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

Over the years, there have been studies done on if cell phones cause cancers and other health issues but new data is emerging about how phone services improve health in such numbers that it outweighs the chances of radiation coming from the phones that can potentially cause health concerns.
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, for example, health-care workers now can use cellphones to reach mothers to check on their health status, and that of their children. Among the more recent studies, as reported in the January 2011 issue of the journal Trials, researchers were able to effectively monitor HIV-positive mothers in South Africa with cellphones to help prevent the transmission of the virus to their children. In Kenya, HIV and AIDS patients who received routine text messages about medications had significantly improved adherence to their drugs and consequently had better rates of viral suppression compared with the study control group. This was reported in November 2010 in the journal The Lancet.
Elsewhere in Africa and Asia, health researchers are using text messaging and phone calls to educate the public on safe sex and health and nutrition in general.

Turkey Has Internet Filters

2011-05-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

In 2007, YouTube was banned in Turkey because of a video that was deemed insulting to one of the founders of Turkey. Since then, the ban has been lifted but there are still many sites that are blocked. The country considers this a safety precaution while many citizens feel that this is censorship. There have been new filters that were placed on the servers but it will take effect in early August. One of the reasons that many people do not like these new filters is because the country has complete control of what the people can look at while they are online. Another concern that they have is the communication abilities. Over the past couple years, internet phone systems have really taken off but if the country has a lot of control over internet use, business might not be able to use the phone services to their advantage. What do you guys think? Where should that line be drawn between things that are able to be viewed and those that are not?

New Ways Of Donating

2011-03-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

The ways that people donate money has changed over the years in relation to the technology that is developed in that time period. Before, phone services and even person to person contact was the way that people donated money to help out when there were disasters in the world. Now, since practically everything is done over the internet, even donations are being done that way. E-giving is becoming especially popular among college graduates. After the Indian Ocean tsunami, 33 percent of college graduates said they had donated traditionally, while 10 percent donated digitally. Nowadays, giving to Japan among college graduates is almost evenly split between digital donations (12 percent) and traditional donations (14 percent). When was the last time you donated, whether it is your time or money? I understand that it can be hard with the economy today and we all have other things to be worrying about. I will ask this of you then, do not make life any harder than it has to be. Smile and you might just make a difference in someone's life.

Best EReaders

2011-03-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

Not all ereaders are created equal, some are much better to suited to the needs of some people while others just suck. Some offer services such as wireless internet which opens new possibilities for business professionals such as internet fax and online work. Others come without the bells and whistles but they offer solid reading experiences. Here are the best eReaders of the bunch:

Greengart's list of the five best begins with Amazon's Kindle 3 ($139), a light and thin e-reader supported by the vast content catalog of the e-commerce giant. The 6-inch grayscale screen uses low-power e-ink technology in which microscopic pigment particles arrange themselves inside transparent microcapsules in response to magnetic fields. Thanks to a screen resolution of 600 by 800 pixels, the experience is as good as reading a printed page. Unlike tablets such as the iPad, this is not a touch-screen device. Buttons have to be pushed to navigate the unit.

By searching Amazon's e-bookstore directly from the Kindle, users can download newspapers, magazines and even blogs as well as books. The device is linked up to an Amazon account so a credit card can be used with just a click of the button to pay for purchases. The material then downloads to the device via a Wi-Fi connection and is ready for reading almost immediately. Users who want to download books without Wi-Fi, so the books can be accessed on the go, can buy the Kindle 3G instead, for a higher price ($189).

Another device worth considering — the second one on Greengart's list — is the larger Kindle DX ($329). Its 9.7-inch e-ink screen has a resolution of 824 by 1200 pixels, and the text rotates automatically when you turn the unit sideways. The device also runs on a 3G network, so readers can access and buy books while traveling.

Third on the list is the Nook ($149), the e-reader from Barnes & Noble. Similar to the Kindle, the Nook has a 6-inch e-ink touch screen with a resolution of 600 by 800 pixels. It has a Wi-Fi connection; adding 3G brings the price to $199.

The fourth on Greengart's list is another Nook device, this one in color. The Nook Color is $249 and comes with a sleek 7-inch color LCD touch screen with a resolution of 600 by 1024 pixels. The Nook Color can also be used in low light, and its battery life is less than the e-ink Kindle models. It connects to Barnes & Noble’s NookBooks online store only via Wi-Fi.

For his No. 5 selection, Greengart suggests the Apple iPad 2 for those who want everything in one device from surfing the Web to using front-facing and rear-facing cameras. The iPad 2, which costs $499, can use Kindle and Nook books via software apps. It has an arsenic-free 9.7-inch color LCD touch screen with a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels. Both Wi-Fi and 3G are available on the iPad 2.

Alien Robots

2011-03-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

In civilizations advanced enough to travel between the stars, it is quite likely that machines have supplanted their biological creators, some scientists argue. Automatons — unlike animals — could withstand the hazards to living tissue and the strain on social fabrics posed by a long interstellar voyage. Furthermore, nonliving beings would not have to worry all that much about the environmental conditions at their destination — if the planet is hot or cold, bacteria-ridden or sterile, has oxygen in the air or is airless, machines would not care. They would probably have their own phone services as well. Unfortunately, there will be no "ET phone home....". The idea of robotic masters so to speak feels a bit uncomfortable. Also, at the rate that we are going, AI will eventually be inevitable. Scary, huh? What are your thoughts?

Lawyers Replaced by Software

2011-03-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

Did you ever have nightmares after watching the Terminator and find yourself surrounded by robots who basically do all jobs for you? Well it seems as though we are getting closer and closer to that time when we have robots and software replacing people and doing their jobs more efficiently and in a word better. Granted we still need to have communication to make all of this work. Now lawyers can be replaced by software and documents which can be sent over internet fax. Computers are getting better at mimicking human reasoning — as viewers of “Jeopardy!” found out when they saw Watson beat its human opponents — and they are claiming work once done by people in high-paying professions. The number of computer chip designers, for example, has largely stagnated because powerful software programs replace the work once done by legions of logic designers and draftsmen. Software is also making its way into tasks that were the exclusive province of human decision makers, like loan and mortgage officers and tax accountants.Its seems as though through innovation some of the people that design the software and computer chips are putting themselves out of work since they make programs that can do what they do but much cheaper. Go figure.

Verizon iPhone Not So Hot

2011-02-26T21:05:00.000-08:00

The iPhone at Verizon is not getting the reception that it was hoping for, literally. It has bad reception with the phone service. Regardless of a Consumer Reports' blessing or finger-wag, the iPhone 4 still sold spectacularly, and Verizon has moved record numbers of units as well since the phone's introduction to its network in early February. Apple tweaked the antenna design for the Verizon version of the phone, along with other components, but has not quite engineered its way out of the death grip's vise, according to Consumer Reports. Other problems that arise with the antenna is that there is research about the antenna causing the brain to process sugar differently. What do you think of the new phone? Is it really worth all the hype that this phone service has gotten?

Consequences of Sitting in Front of the Computer

2011-02-20T19:44:00.000-08:00

As you are reading this, the issue of how your back feels is probably the last thing on your mind or you do not even notice it at all. There have been some recent studies and surveys done with adolescent kids and young adults and laptops' effects of their posture. Many kids are already complaining of back pain. This is a major concern because during this stage of development it is crucial that there is nothing hindering the growth of the spine. It is also important for older people to realize the effects of sitting in from of a computer all day if you have a job that entails answering massive amounts of email or internet fax. The computer mouse is often to blame for an increased risk of upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, which is characterized by nerve pressure that causes numbness, tingling, weakness, or muscle damage in the hand and fingers.
Elevated carpal tunnel pressure while using a mouse is a result of both wrist extension and excessive fingertip force applied to press the button and grip the sides of the mouse. A lot of stress is also put on the forearm, especially when the external mouse is used incorrectly.

Egypt Cuts The Internet

2011-01-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Can you imagine what it would be like without the internet for just one day? To be honest, we live in an age where internet access can be about as crucial as say breathing. For some people, they depend on it for work and using the internet phone services to communicate. For others, it seems like it is a pathological need and it really should not go that far. Either way, if you do not live in Egypt be very thankful. Then again, if you did live there, you would not be able to be reading this. The internet was cut along with cell phone service while officials were trying to contain the riots. The way that the whole country of Egypt managed to go offline is by several authorities calling the people that control the border gateway protocol routers and disconnected the country from the routers. This could carry some serious economical consequences which will add to the serious problems that are already going on there.

Image Enhancer

2011-01-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

When it comes to business, not only communication is important but also the professional image. In order to bring customers in and show off those communication skills, they have to be able to trust the company if they are going to buy their services or goods. Having an internet phone system will give that professional image that a small business is looking for. They will even look like a much bigger company even with only a couple employees. Features such as call forwarding and extensions will improve customer service which will make the people want to come back. When I started looking for an telecommunication system for my business, there were many to choose from but the one internet phone company stuck out. RingCentral had the best prices and services out of all the other companies. They also won the most awards for the services provided to small businesses. If you are trying to make a decision, try RingCentral.

Cyberthreats in 2011

2011-01-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of threat to watch out for on the internet. These are not the only threats to watch out for. There are plenty of other scams to watch out for such as through a phone service or a virus in cloud computing, which is more and more widely used in communications.

1. Mac Apps Malware: Apple’s brand-new Mac Apps Store doesn’t check to see if the person using an app actually paid for it. This opens up a second-hand market, and a huge opportunity for hackers to exploit.

2. Cyberscammers’ Greatest Hits: Nubile Russian women, Nigerian money managers and overseas employers are all part of the top scams used by cybercriminals over the past 10 years.

3. Estonia’s Cyber Army: The tiny Baltic nation, already crippled once by Russian hackers, is forming what it calls the Cyber Defense League to ward off future attacks.

Science To-Do List for 2011

2010-12-31T12:45:00.000-08:00

I found this article on LiveScience and I just wanted to share it with you guys. People should be kept up to date on this things that are happening around them and the discoveries being made. I thought of these things are very interesting and relevant to most people. Hope you guys enjoy!

Finding "the God particle"

The Higgs boson – a particle so important to science that it's been dubbed "the God particle" – may come out of hiding in 2011. This fundamental particle, thought to give mass to all particles, has been theorized since 1964 but never detected. "If nature is kind to us, we will find it next year," said particle physicist Christoph Rembser, of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, where the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, went online in September 2008. With the atom smasher up and running, Rembser said physicists have everything they need to detect and measure the particle.

Offering an X Prize for brain breakthroughs

A $10 million prize to spur the creation of innovative neurotechnologies for the human brain could debut as soon as next year. The first possible challenge might be a Neuroeducation X Prize that seeks to dissect learning in the brain and eventually give a boost to the brains of students, or a Paralysis X Prize that promotes recovery of body functions in spinal cord-injured patients. Future X Prizes could even tackle far-out ideas such as virtual telepathy, allowing humans to effortlessly interface with computers using only their brains, and smaller X Challenge rewards could drive innovation for brain issues such as Alzheimer's disease.

The effort is backed by the X Prize Foundation, which successfully spurred on the first private spaceflight with the Ansari X Prize and has also launched the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize for teams racing to land a robot on the moon. Similarly, the $10 million Progressive Auto X Prize recently awarded money to the most fuel-efficient vehicles from among more than 100 competitors. Now the X Prize Foundation hopes the lure of big rewards can attract more private money and talent to the effort of untangling the serious brain puzzles faced by modern-day researchers.

Securing a satellite for free Internet access

Kosta Grammatis doesn't see the Internet as a luxury as a human right for the billions of people who still lack access to one of the most powerful tools of the 21st century. That's why he launched a bid to buy a satellite and move it to a new orbit where it can provide free Internet access for one or more developing countries. His nonprofit organization, called A Human Right, is looking for $150,000 in donations through the online site buythissatellite.org so it can put together a business plan.

The target acquisition is the Terrestar-1 satellite, which is owned by a company that filed for bankruptcy protection in October. Grammatis hopes eventually to persuade a generous big spender such as Google or Richard Branson to back his bid for Terrestar-1, and then to re-park the satellite above a region with poor Internet access – perhaps above Papua New Guinea or even Africa.

To keep the operation funded, Grammatis envisions leasing out high-speed bandwidth to telecommunications companies, even while providing free Internet connections at lower speeds. If a serious project backer can be found, look for a possible move on this plan in 2011. Free internet will also increase the number of people that use internet phone services which will improve communication. Since more people will be online, there will be a much bigger consumer base for companies that advertise online.

Confirming an Earth-like planet beyond the solar system

Plenty of claims have been made about finding what may be an Earth-like exoplanet – one that's rocky, about Earth’s size and orbiting its star within the habitable zone (where it's not too hot or too cold to sustain life as we know it). "As regards 'definitively and positively identifying' a truly earth-like planet outside of our solar system, that all depends on what one means by definitively and positively," astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told LiveScience in an e-mail.

"I would argue (and indeed have argued) that we have already done this, with the announced detection of GJ 581g," said Vogt, who led the team that found the planet. Gliese 581g, one of six worlds orbiting a star in the constellation Libra, was announced as the first Earth-like planet where life might exist. While Vogt stands by the discovery, some science groups question the finding. For instance, a group of astronomers, led by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, performed a follow-up investigation in an attempt to confirm the existence of Gliese 581g and said they were unable to.

Even with Mayor's team and Vogt's team trying to confirm Gliese 581g, "it may take another season or two to really know, so I expect we won't see any possible confirmation (or refutation) for another year or two," Vogt said. "In the meantime, we are hard at work not only gathering more data on this system, but on others that may yield similar potentially habitable planets."

The Kepler mission, which launched in spring 2009 and whose goal is to search for Earth-like worlds, hasn't been under way long enough to confirm habitable Earth-like exoplanets, Vogt said. Even so, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager said she expects Kepler will making some amazing exoplanet discoveries in 2011, though likely not a truly Earth-like planet.

"To find a true Earth twin, we need to be able to find and characterize Earths orbiting true solar twins," Seager told LiveScience. "This isn't possible until we have the money to invest in a 'Terrestrial Planet Finder,' a direct imaging space telescope, one that is capable of blocking out the starlight to search for a planet that is 10 billion times fainter than its host star. I hope this year brings some breakthroughs in technology in this regard."

Gregory Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Samuel Arbesman, a computational biologist at Harvard Medical School, are more optimistic, and specific, though they are not referring to an "Earth twin," but instead a planet similar to Earth where there's a possibility of life.

"In the past decades, the number of known extrasolar planets has ballooned into the hundreds, and with it the expectation that the discovery of the first Earth-like extrasolar planet is not far off," they write in an online research article published on arXiv.org. Using statistical analyses based on past exoplanet discoveries, "we predict the discovery of the first Earth-like planet to be announced in the first half of 2011, with the likeliest date being early May 2011," they wrote.

Understanding what your genes do for you

The studies linking genes to behavior come fast and furious these days: Scientists have found a gene for impulsivity, for promiscuity, even for liberalism. And that's just in the last few months. Of course, all these findings come with a huge disclaimer: Genes aren't destiny. A single gene won't make you prone to violence or sex, nor will it force you to vote for Barack Obama. On its own, the presence of one of these "behavior" gene variants tells you precisely nothing about the person carrying it.

So what's the point? It’s a growing understanding of the complex interactions between our genes and the environment, researchers say. New genome sequencing techniques allow researchers to cast wider and deeper nets in the search for genetic links to behavior. Close study can reveal how early-life experiences or exposure to certain situations can influence those genes. Even your parents' experiences could make a difference in how your genes are expressed.

It's the beginning of a new era, said David Goldman, a geneticist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, who authored the study on the genetics of impulsivity. "To generate a million nucleotides of DNA sequence costs about 25 cents, which is just an astounding number," Goldman told LiveScience. "What else in life is that cheap?"

Don't expect a simple breakthrough in 2011 – it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to discover THE depression gene or THE schizophrenia gene. But psychiatry researchers say they're gradually piecing together the gene-environment puzzle, and new clues could arise any day.

"We really might identify new genes and new proteins that are involved in depression that we never thought to look at before," said Srijan Sen, a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan. "That's happening a little bit in schizophrenia and autism... In that way, I think revolutionary things could happen."

Who Has The Smartphones

2010-12-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

Over the past five years smartphones have become increasingly popular, and not just in the business world where they are used for internet fax and other communication services such as internet phones. Most people still use the basic phones without any features but the youth of each country that was studied was the leading user of the smartphones. In all countries studied, the majority of young mobile users own feature phones (basic phones that don't run apps) -- which isn't surprising, since they indicated that price is the main driver in their purchase decision (except for Russia, where design was ranked as slightly more important). In the U.S., only 33% of young mobile users have smartphones. Italy had the highest smartphone penetration among youth (47%), and India had the lowest (10%). One surprise: Most young U.S. smartphone users (55%) are female. In every other country studied, most young smartphone users are male. One of the reasons for that is that women in the US seem to be more equal with the men than in other countries where gender roles are more prominent.

Glowing Flowers

2010-12-06T18:17:00.000-08:00

What if you could get flowers for Valentine's day that were not only the brightest red but they also glowed in the dark? Or decorate for the holidays with different colored flowers that really stood out? Just one of the many beautiful things in nature, bacteria can be a very good thing. The genes that make certain marine animals glow were successfully transplanted into a tobacco plant. The researchers at BioGlow are looking for ways to improve this effect and eventually be about to create plants that glow so bright that it will make streetlights unnecessary. Unfortunately there is a lot more work to be done and it is not like there will be glowing flowers popping up on every corner. Even so, this research indicates that at some point in the future this might be a possibility. For more information on this topic, just call the toll free number for BioGlow.

TSA Horror Stories

2010-11-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

People tend to travel more during the holidays so the security has to be increased. Passengers are stating to complain that the pat-downs are a bit too personal. One of the things that people have to consider is the fact that to increase security, privacy has to be decreased. It might even get to a point where people's electronic properties, such as emails, voice mails, and internet fax, are being checking for potential threats. People need to find that middle ground. Either way, here are some of the horror stories that I found online:

Thomas Sawyer said TSA agents removed his urostomy bag, which was used to collect his urine from an opening in his abdomen. Sawyer told the employees that the pat down process could break his bag, but they continued the search. The removal of the bag left him covered in his own urine.
In another instance, a Charlotte, N.C.-based U.S. Airways flight attendant and breast cancer survivor Cathy Bossi was mortified after a TSA agent demanded she show her prosthetic breast during the screening. According to reports, the agent put their hand on her breast and asked her to promptly remove the prosthetic.

"As a cancer survivor, it was my worst nightmare, to have people know I had breast cancer," Bossi told WSOCTV, a news station in Charlotte. Meanwhile, a YouTube video of an eight-year-old boy being screened at the Salt Lake City International Airport has made its way onto the Internet, collecting over 1.6 million views in just three days.

The shy child was screened shirtless as his angry father watched nearby. The father told The New York Post that the TSA agent patted his son using the backs of his hands to check his genital area.
"I didn't think it was going to be as horrible as [the agent] was describing," the father said. "We spend my child's whole life telling him that only Mom, Dad and a doctor can touch you in your private area, and now we have to add TSA agent, and that's just wrong."

Pushing The Limit

2010-11-21T21:46:00.000-08:00

If you thought that going for your yearly physical or having your boss go through your emails and internet fax was invasive, you have not seen anything yet. Check out the latest news on these airport scanners that are all the rage:

With the start of the busiest air travel season just a little more than a week away, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been under scrutiny following complaints that the federal government has taken airport security too far, from new intrusive body scans to intensified pat-downs. Even pilot unions have protested against airport security body-scanner technology — said to be intrusive with radiation-based health concerns — and called the alternative pat-down method too invasive. The issue also made headlines last weekend when 31-year-old passenger John Tyner posted a video on YouTube that he captured with his cell phone recording an argument with a TSA screener.

"If you touch my junk, I'm going to have you arrested," Tyner told the screener. He was ultimately removed from the San Diego International Airport.
Air passengers have put up with increased security measures for several years now. First it was taking shoes off at the security line. Next was the removal of liquids from bags, followed by the removal of laptops for scanning. Now with body imaging and pat-downs, many passengers have reached a point where enough is enough, said Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, told TechNewsDaily. "The post 9/11 environment is making the TSA's job in facilitating travel security extremely difficult," Freeman said.
"Given the way Congress responds to security instances, the TSA has put layer upon layer on security each year without removing the other layers. The build-up has become very burdensome and frustrating for travelers. We have received so many complaints from passengers — most of which are people just wanting to know if the TSA plans to make this process easier for everyone in the future."

Car Tracking

2010-11-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

Did you know the the phone services and technology is getting so advance that you can practically total control over your vehicle and its features? Firstech's DroneMobile system gives you access to your car remotely, allowing you to open doors, start the engine and remember where your vehicle is parked. It has some pretty high-tech big brother touches, too. It can monitor whether teens are driving after curfew, keep track of GPS to see where a vehicle is headed and send security alerts if it’s been stolen or towed. Once its DR-1000 hardware system is installed in a car, a user can access all of its features directly from a mobile device, including the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.What I was wondering was how much of this technology infringes on privacy. We all want our kids to be safe but making them live in a bubble is not the answer.

Energy Vampires

2010-10-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

These are nicknames for common household electronics – including computers, microwaves and air conditioners – and the amounts of electricity they drain while not performing their primary function or even when they are turned off.
Vampire, or standby power, allows inactive TVs to receive signals from a remote control, for instance. Standby power also charges batteries and energizes digital displays, clocks, and LED status lights (think of those green and red lights that shine spookily in a darkened room).
While an individual gadget's power consumption is relatively small, when lumped together, the energy vampires in an average home account for five to 10 percent of total electricity use, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
"There has been a proliferation of products that use standby power," said Alan Meier, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who has worked extensively on the issue. "The modern home can easily have 40 or more devices that are drawing power continuously."
This seepage in a typical electronics-crammed home in the United States ends up costing consumers around $100 extra on the electricity bill per year; nationwide that adds up to about $3 billion annually, the DOE estimates, although the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a non-profit science advocacy group, has pegged the dollar damage at twice that figure.
Worldwide, the electricity generation for standby power makes up about one percent of annual carbon dioxide emissions, Meier said. In the U.S., the thirst of energy vampires results in the spewing of almost 100 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, according to the UCS, which is the equivalent of nearly 10 million cars' emissions.
The most heinous leeches
Tests conducted by the DOE have shown that among the vilest energy vampires around – the Draculas, we'll say – are digital video records (DVRs) and set-top cable and satellite boxes. Many slurp down over 40 watts while in standby mode.
The second worst offenders as a class – the Lestats, or maybe the Nosferatus – tend to be televisions. Old-school cathode ray tube televisions use 13 watts or so while in standby mode, same as a combination TV/VCR. Rear-projection televisions turned off by a remote lustily drink up electron juice – nearly 50 watts – and plasma and liquid-crystal display televisions can also quaff significant power.
Other vexing vampires – Edward from "Twilight," perhaps? – in many cases are components of home audio systems, such as CD players and receivers that use almost 20 watts in standby mode.
Slaying energy vampires
Here's some tips on how to drive a stake through the heart of your home's energy vampires:
•    Unplug devices when they're not in use. An energy vampire cannot do its power-draining business without having its metal fangs stuck into a wall outlet. So stem the bleeding with those household electronics that rarely get used, such as a television in a guest bedroom, and just pull the plug.
•    Use a power strip or a surge protector. Of course, having to plug back in a device every time you want to use it can be a pain. Instead, run the cords from multiple electronics – such as a DVD player, speakers and so on in a home entertainment system – to an easily accessible multi-outlet power strip or surge protector. A single flick of the strip's switch and power is restored to an array of electronics. When the strip or protector is turned off, electricity does not drain, and in the case of the latter, surge protection is still assured.
•    Opt for weak vampires. Different products draw varying amounts of electricity while in standby mode. The DOE maintains a database of low standby power devices that meet federal procurement guidelines that anyone can use to seek out less-thirsty equipment.
Governments break out the garlic
Beyond encouraging greater care at the consumer level, governments have taken important steps to respond to the the insidiousness of energy vampires.
In the U.S., for example, federal agencies since 2001 have had to purchase products that consume only one watt of standby power or the lowest available amount for that type of device. The United Kingdom and the European Commission have adopted similar measures.
Also across the Atlantic, a European Union-funded research initiative has recently been launched to sharply reduce electronics' power consumption while running and in standby mode.
The project, called Steeper, aims to make electronic components less "leaky" when they are passively plugged in but shut off. Using new kinds of transistors, researchers also hope to lessen the jolt of volts needed for a device to transition from an off to an on state and to take power needs in standby mode down to virtually zero. Internet phone services are also better than regular phone services when it comes to energy.

The iPad Useful in College

2010-10-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

The iPad is doing more that just a good tool for internet fax, it might just be the next learning tool in schools and colleges.

Positive reactions
So far the reactions are mostly positive, but that may be in part due to the iPad's celebrity status among electronics. "The students in my class are very much enjoying using their iPads, and they tell me that their peers are jealous. Several professors have asked me about my experience using the iPads in class, and a few have asked how they can get a pilot study of their own," said Corey Angst, a business professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana who helped pioneer use of the iPad in classrooms. Angst also pointed out that the iPad is appealing because it is so intuitive. "We offered no training on the iPad and the students learned how to use them almost immediately," Angst said. Eric Greenberg, a business professor who helped pioneer the use of iPads at Rutgers University in New Jersey, agreed that the simple but powerful nature of the iPad made it an interesting tool for teaching.
"The powerful thing about the iPad is that it engages people. Students want to use it," Greenberg said.
Versatility, however, is the single most laudable thing about the iPad for teachers. It offers so many functions in one simple device. For example, “students are using an iPad note-taking app to record their notes from class. With the iPad, students can create, produce and share work instantly with faculty and fellow students," Coleman said.
The variety of apps available seems to be the most effective part of the iPad as a teaching tool. Professors can find apps that cater specifically to the topic they teach, and students can find a myriad of apps that help with study, research and preparing for tests.
"We gave the iPad students $30 in iTunes credit with the recommendation that they purchase all or at least some of the iWorks [productivity] apps. We have also recommended various apps that support academics and student time management," said Greg Smith, chief information officer at George Fox University in Oregon, where the iPad is also an option for incoming students.
Apps are a big success with teachers and students alike because they can streamline the learning process and lessen the amount of paperwork involved.
"We replace all the traditional things we give the students, such as books and case studies. Instead of carrying around a big binder, it's all in the iPad,” Greenberg said. “We now use the iPad for all the administrative stuff. It's been a tremendous success in terms of getting rid of the paperwork. And instructors can update the curriculum instantly online, instead of changing a document and printing it out again for everyone.”

Not perfect
And yet, despite all the benefits, pilot programs are revealing that the iPad is not the perfect education tool. For instance, there is the problem of typing on the iPad's touchscreen.
"When given the choice between handwriting and using the iPad, we've found most students don't use the iPad. Having no [physical] keyboard is limiting,” Greenberg said. “We're thinking about giving out portable keyboards for future classes."
The difficulties don't seem to be enough to make students give up their beloved iPads, though.
"While a few students have struggled with annotating and highlighting using the iPad and our e-textbook, I have offered to provide a physical textbook to anyone who wanted one and no one has taken me up on the offer," Angst said.
Some educators also worry that the iPad could actually be a hindrance to learning by providing too many distractions.
Greenberg has seen little or no distraction from iPad use in the classroom, but he admits that his is a special circumstance. He teaches business executives in a "mini-MBA" program.
"I'm not sure if I'd want to give undergraduates iPads with games during a lecture. We only give them to executives, people whose companies’ are paying for them to get an MBA. I'd be more cautious to use it in undergraduate classes due to the propensity to distract students in the classroom," Greenberg said.
The sheer volume of apps available for the iPad can also pose a problem because there is often something better that has just been released. Switching apps in the middle of a course can cause frustration for students and teachers alike.
"It's a challenge for the faculty to stay up to date with all the developments and app changes,” Greenberg said. "The apps we found in June are already replaced with better apps.”
The use of iPad apps can also be frustrating in classrooms where not everyone has the device. For instance, at George Fox University students can choose between a MacBook Pro and an iPad, and at Seton Hall University, only the latest incoming freshmen have received an iPad.
Caitlin Corning, a history professor at George Fox University who teaches in just such a mixed-device environment, has to be very flexible in order to accommodate all kinds of technology.
"I cannot require the students to all have access to a specific app if they do not have the equipment for [it]. So, if I am using, say, PollEverywhere, I set this up to work on the Internet, on cell phones, via Twitter, etc., so the students can participate with the device of their choice," Corning said.
Start of a revolution?
And that seems to be the lesson many people are learning from their experiments with the iPad in the classroom. The important thing isn't necessarily the iPad itself, but the versatility and flexibility it provides. It's more important that students have a variety of tools to choose from and be allowed to decide what works best for them. Educators must provide information in multiple ways to accommodate them.
The iPad is well suited for this kind of learning environment, but it’s not the only device that can do it, teachers say.
"I wouldn't be surprised if next year we have a class using a Barnes & Noble Nook [e-book reader], or another tablet, or even a smartphone. I wish, for example, that in our social media class we had explored using a smartphone instead of the iPad. That would have given students important features such as a camera and mobile marketing experience," Greenberg said. Angst also believes these iPad tests are more valuable for learning how to integrate technology in Notre Dame classrooms than for proving if the iPad itself is the best option. "I would say this is definitely a successful pilot program in that we are gaining information about how to integrate e-devices and e-publishing platforms in the classroom. I know most students are still using laptops and smartphones. Our intent was never to replace laptops," Angst said.
Ultimately, the true legacy of the iPad among teachers may be as the device that proved Word docs and textbooks aren't the most effective ways to help students learn.
"I would encourage everyone to use technology in different ways," Greenberg said. "I think the way we teach kids hasn't changed much in fifty years. We need to do a better job of engaging and educating our youth. So we might not always use the iPad, but I know we won't be going back to paper."

Imagine Being Able to Erase All Personal Information From Social Sites

2010-10-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

With all the different profiles that you can make, they can get hard to keep track of. Another thing is that you would have to watch what you post and what the people that have access to posting on your wall put up. Internet fax and even emails can get mixed up in all of it because some social sites such as LinkdIn are made for finding potential employers or employees. One of the ways to get rid of all the information, instead of deleting the whole account which can be traced more easily, is to use a program that deletes all the information for you, a sort of profile suicide.

Rather than deactivating its client’s online social network profiles, the Suicide Machine removes all private content and friend relationships. From Facebook, all friends, groups, notifications, and wall posts are erased; all friends are removed from MySpace and all business connections on LinkedIn; all followers and tweets are expunged from Twitter. The entire killing process takes less than an hour.
“Everyone should have the right to disconnect,” reads a blog post on the program’s site, www.suicidemachine.org. Seamless connectivity and rich social experience offered by Web 2.0 companies are the very antithesis of human freedom. Users are entrapped in a high resolution panoptic prison without walls, accessible from anywhere in the world.”
Once a customer avails himself of the Suicide Machine, the company suggests he regain the independence and freedom he is assumed to have had previously. “Try calling some friends, take a walk in a park or buy a bottle of wine and start enjoying your real life again,” the blog reads.

Bedbugs Do Bite

2010-09-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Ever since the bedbug scare began a couple months ago, there have been a lot rumors about what to do about them. Before you guys go running to the phone to call the 800 number of the exterminator, try a couple home methods. First is the detection on the bugs. Since they are almost exclusively nocturnal, it might be hard to spot them but signs include rashes, bug fecal stains, and blood smears on sheets. They feed on the warm blood of mammals, so detection is better the sooner it is. Over the years they have grown resistant to different pesticides. One of the approaches include vacuuming the bugs and the eggs but some might be missed doing that. You could also wrap and heat treat the mattresses if that is the only place they are. If all else fails, do not panic and call the exterminator, preferably one that has a bedbug detecting dog which are 97.5% accurate in detection under ten minutes.

Cuts Run Deep.....and Are More Common

2010-09-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

There are plenty of hot-lines and toll free numbers that teens can call for help. Even at the schools and colleges, there are services that will be more than willing to help with any issues or problems. Yet, it seems like the "cutting" epidemic is still growing. Many specialists have said that the self injury is not intended to be a precursor to suicide but the exact opposite, a way to deal with life. It acts like a drug or alcohol and the reasons that teens do it varies. It can be in order to feel something even if it is pain, communicate to others that something is wrong, or to just relieve tension. One of the reasons that it is more popular among teens is because their brain is not fully developed and they do not have the skills to cope with the intense emotions. Since many outgrow this stage in their life, there is not much treatment for the rest of the people that become stuck in the cycle. As far as gender goes, males and females do it the same amount but they injure themselves in different ways. For example, girls are more likely to cut and boys will burn their skin.

Improving Medical Service

2010-09-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

Medical facilities field a tremendous number of calls, both from patients and insurance companies. An organized phone system can send calls to the appropriate parties without spending valuable resources having medical assistants act as receptionists. It can also help small practices have a professional image on par with any large medical office. Some of the best features in this case are the call forwarding and the extensions. Calls will always be able to be answered by the right person and less time would be spent trying to figure out which person should take the call. The calls are also more organized and be tracked. Internet fax can be used for medical records because it is one of the safest and fastest ways to send information and data.

Technology in the Classroom

2010-07-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

With all the new gadgets that we have, come new debates. Some colleges and universities give iPads or laptops to incoming students. The teachers are starting to argue that it has become a serious distraction from the material being covered in class. Using different mediums to learn is a great thing, it is even encouraged. But as with anything, there are limits and to when and how the internet is incorporated into the classroom. Of course when certain things such as internet fax and other communication skills are being taught, it is a different story. Here is the article I found. Tell me what you guys think. Should teachers take more action?

School may be out for summer, but the topic of technology’s place in the classroom is still in session.
Some universities such as University of Maryland and Seton Hall University in New Jersey are gearing up to give incoming freshman iPads or new Mac computers – or both -- in the fall, but there still exists an ongoing debate as to whether these devices are aiding or disrupting the in-class learning process.

“There is a fear that laptops are distracting students from the material and content of the class,” said David Weinberger, a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. “On the other hand, there is a hope that class access to the Web would enhance a lecture. However, it’s easy to think you are going online for one thing and end up spending a lot of time doing another.”

Classroom distractions
Among the biggest in-class technology offenders: Texting, playing online games, perusing Facebook and watching YouTube or movies.
"You'd think they wouldn't even bother coming to class, especially when they are watching a movie and listening to headphones," said Heather McMahon, 24, a senior at New York University's School of Nursing program. "But many professors take attendance. If a student does poorly on an exam, they can cover themselves by saying they attended every session. However, what they are actually doing in class is another story."
McMahon is currently taking summer classes in the accelerated second bachelor-degree nursing program, which attracts a wide age-range of students. She recalls an instance where an older classmate in her mid-40s turned to a younger student who was looking at bridal gowns online during class and asked if she realized how much money she was wasting by not paying attention.
"Many younger students don't care because they’re also participating in some sort of multitasking activity, but it's easy to become distracted by them being distracted,” McMahon told TechNewsDaily. “I tend to sit in the front of the classroom for that very reason."

Taking action
It wasn’t too long ago that many educators fought to get laptops into the classroom. Now many are mandating that students leave them at home.
Some educators such as Diane Sieber, an associate professor at the University of Colorado, has taken matters into her own hands by showing students how excessive laptop use can influence what’s absorbed in class. Sieber identified 17 of her students that were most often using laptops during lectures and noted that after the first exam, the tech-obsessed group performed 11 percent worse compared to their peers. In response, about half of her students started to put away their computers and as a result, test scores went up.

Sieber recently told the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper that students often ask their classmates, “Please don’t watch movies on your computer, because if I’m behind you I can’t focus.”
“Student laptops are disruptive of an old model of learning -- taking notes with a pen and paper emphasizes the gap between teachers and students, and students don’t want to be told how to learn,” Weinberger said. “Those who have been brought up on the Internet believe they learn from peers and through various mediums, they just have to exercise precaution of the downsides when doing so during class.”

LG Trying to Keep Up With the Demands of the iPad

2010-07-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

The demand for the iPad has been astounding. In fact, the demand is so high that LG, the company that manufactures the flat screens for the device cannot keep up. If you have noticed a shortage of the iPad anywhere in the the world, this is the reason. The company CEO said that they will be able to meet the demands by next year. In the mean time, they are planning on expanding the production line to make a separate line just for the screens. The iPad sales have grown tremendously and there is no end in sight yet. A lot of colleges and business have found it very useful, especially for reading and storing books as well as internet fax. There will be plenty more news about this to come!

HP Slate Targeted Towards Businesses

2010-07-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Previously, HP had wanted to cancel the tablet that they were coming out with. Now, they had decided that they will continue with it but only market it towards businesses. HP is also planning on coming out with a tablet for consumers but it will be running on a different operating system. The Slate would be useful for businesses to have because it will have more company oriented features such as advanced communication features which will include internet fax, email, and internet capabilities. It is made to improve the productivity and efficiency of businesses and the workers. In the average consumer market, the iPad would have been some serious competition but for businesses, the road for the Slate is wide open.

Looking Good

2010-06-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

Following this alcohol trend, here is some more interesting information on the topic. Ever heard of beer-goggles? Wouldn't you know it, they are real. In a study done in England, participants rated photographs of other people while drinking and while sober. Researchers found out that the people in the pictures seemed more attractive after the person drank just a small amount. The investigation into this will continue with other forms of perceived beauty. Just like bottles of booze and packs of cigrarettes carry warnings, they should also have an 800 number with information or even more warnings. With all the new data that scientists are collecting about the dangers of these substances, we have a right to be informed, and it should be accessible to the public.

Hangovers are Forever

2010-06-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

The world has been able to put people on the moon, yet we cannot figure out how to get rid of hangovers. Scientists are even looking for a so called "fat gene" that will let us eat all we want and not worry about weight. So why is not anyone looking into this hangover crisis? Turns out it is just a reality that we have to live with and endure. First of all there are just too many symptoms. Dehydration and all the other wonderful things that alcohol can do to your body. There needs to be a certain phone service or app out for such drinking cases. You know how there is an app for texting while driving? Well something along those lines. If we can engineer clothing that can detect moods and then sends the information via internet fax to your smart phone, there needs to be something for drinking as well. Cheers.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

2010-05-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

According to a recent survey, the answer is no, Google will not make the population stupid. In fact most people believe that it will improve our reading and writing skills. Another point that they make is that with the wealth of knowledge that we have, we will have to remember less (for better or for worse) which will free up space in our heads for more creative and innovative thinking. The survey is based off of Nicholas Carr's article about how Google will be the end of our intelligence, so to speak. My thoughts on this is that the internet will make us more informed which will enable us to make better decisions. In Carr's article, he stated that people are not reading things in depth and only skimming through the information. I say it is about the survival of the fittest, if the world is demanding that we are informed and can use our resources then, we need to be able to adapt. We need to be able to use internet phones and internet fax. If we do not grow with the technology, eventually we will be speaking a different "language" from everyone else.

With the Increase in Technology Come More Danger

2010-05-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

I am sure that you might think that your phone service is the one to trust or that when you send an internet fax, there is little to none to worry about. The fact of the matter is that as our phones get fancier, the vulnerabilities grow. I found an article that describes how we could be spied on through our cell phones and smart phones. Just something to think about, tell me what you guys think.

As smartphones become more powerful, they become susceptible to even more sophisticated attacks from hackers. Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey recently used a special kind of malicious software, or "malware," called a rootkit to demonstrate just how vulnerable smartphones are. Rootkits are not a new phenomenon. They have been used for two decades to infiltrate various kinds of computers. "The point of this work is not to demonstrate a new kind of rootkit but to show the greater damage they can cause on smart phones," study team member Liviu Iftode, professor of computer science at Rutgers, told TechNewsDaily. Today's smartphones are really just mobile computers. Many of them run the same class of operating systems as desktop and laptop computers, and as a result are just as vulnerable to malware attacks, the researches say.

In fact, they add, vulnerabilities in smartphones are even more dangerous because people carry them around at all times, making it easier for attackers to eavesdrop, track locations or even collect personal information. Also, features such as Bluetooth receivers and text messaging make it easier to deliver rootkits to phones. Iftode and his colleagues recently demonstrated different kinds of rootkit attacks. For instance, the microphone on a smartphone can be turned on remotely using rootkits, allowing someone to listen in on anything going on around the owner.
Another attack uses a common smartphone feature: GPS receivers. A simple text message allowed researchers to track the location and activity of the owner.
"I can listen to all of your corporate meetings where trade secrets are released. I know where you are all the time," said study team member Jeffrey Bickford, also at Rutgers. "In the future, when smartphones are ubiquitous and everyone has them, they can be particularly dangerous."
Finally, the team used another exploit to turn on all power-hungry applications and features in order to run down the battery quickly, leaving the phone inoperable.

The researchers say their intent is not to just scare people, but to inspire action. "What we’re doing today is raising a warning flag," Iftode said. "We’re showing that people with general computer proficiency can create rootkit malware for smart phones. The next step is to work on defenses."
The team used an open-source smartphone called the Openmoko FreeRunner running Linux software, but they emphasized that with enough time and effort, any smartphone operating system can be attacked with malware. The Rutgers team plans to use their results to inspire developers to create new ways to detect and prevent rootkit attacks on smartphones because none exist right now.
"It turns out that solutions that can be used to detect rootkits on a traditional desktop [computer] environment are either not directly applicable or require modifications to make them applicable to smart phones," said Vinod Ganapathy, assistant professor of computer science at Rutgers.
The team will present their findings at the International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile 2010) this week in Annapolis, Maryland.

You Finally Lost Your Cell Phone: Now What?

2010-04-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

So lets say that you were one of those people who said, "That type of stuff doesn't happen to me, I won't lose my cell phone and there is no way it can get stolen." And not an hour after those word were uttered from your mouth, your cell phone is nowhere to be seen. Great. What are you going to do now, besides blush and realize that you had made a fool out of yourself? Luckily, I did some rooting around and found some information that might be of some help to the poor soul that lost that precious phone.

Here are some simple steps to take if you lose your phone:
Call your phone from another phone. If you're lucky, someone will answer and you will be able to arrange to pick up your phone. If there is no answer, perform a "remote wipe" to remove all data from the phone to protect your information from unauthorized access. You will only be able to do this if your phone service provider offers this, or if you previously installed software.
Corporate cell phone users using Microsoft's Activesync enabled smart phones have "remote wipe." This feature is activated by the email administrator and ensures that the contents of the phone are erased.
Don't wait to report the loss to your carrier. Go online and deactivate your account or do it by phone. There is usually a toll free number that you can call. Within moments, your phone will be deactivated, so no calls can be made or received from the phone, and from that point, any unauthorized charges made on the device will not be charged to your account.
You may also want to file a police report if the phone was stolen or a file a claim through your homeowner's insurance if the device is covered under your policy.

Before Losing Your Cell Phone

2010-04-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

Losing a cell phone send some people into shock and others to hyperventilate. I found an article about some of the things that you can do in case something might happen. There are many phone services that offer different protection plan and some are definitely worth looking at if your cell phone is at risk of being either lost or stolen. Please leave your comments!

Consider insurance through the cell phone carrier when you purchase your phone. For under $10 a month, most carriers will replace a lost phone with a comparable model after paying the deductible, or allow you to purchase a replacement at the one year contract price.
Carriers and manufacturers differ in their replacement policies. "A friend of mine left his iPhone in his pocket and actually threw it in the washer, complete water damage! iPhone doesn't even have any insurance," said Nunez and suggested iPhone users check with their homeowners policy for coverage.
Verizon Wireless recently changed its replacement policy, and now offers its customers the ability to buy a refurbished phone to replace a lost phone with or without insurance. Before this policy took effect, uninsured customers paid the full price of a replacement phone if they were not eligible for an upgrade.
Make a note of the serial number and keep it in a safe place. This number will be helpful to both the police if you file a report and your insurance company if the device is covered under a homeowner's policy. If you are unclear about the serial number just the toll free number of the manufacturer.
Back up your phone on a regular basis. Motorola offers a free backup service for many of its phones, while iPhones and BlackBerrys can be connected to a computer through their own sync software.
Third party mobile data backup software is another option. Syncables 360 for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones is a simple solution that automatically synchronizes a cell phone to a computer as soon as the phone is within range, no intervention required by the user once the software has been installed.
Consider anti-theft software and apps that can be used from a computer once the phone has been lost. SMobile Anti-Theft allows the user to backup data, lock the phone to prevent access by an unauthorized user, wipe all data from the phone, and even track the location of the phone on a Google map. All of these emergency measures can be activated from any Internet connection by logging into your SMobile user account. Service cost is $20 per year.

Bionic Humans: How Close Are We?

2010-04-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

Scientists are now able to replace limbs and organs but how far will they go? Comment and tell me what you think!

Here are some of the innovations that might become reality in the future:

1. Brain Replacements (some of us need it more than others). Replacing a part of your brain isn't as simple as replacing a limb, but in the future it could be. Theodore Berger, a professor at the University of Southern California, created a computer chip that could take the place of the hippocampus, a part of the brain which controls short-term memory and spatial understanding. Frequently damaged by things like Alzheimer's and strokes, a hippocampus implant could help maintain normal function in people who'd otherwise be severely disabled. Berger is still testing this implant, but he'd like to see more. This device could possibly be hooked up to the internet for a surreal type of Twitter. Data could be transmitted from person to person faster than internet phones. He even wrote a book, "Toward Replacement Parts for the Brain," in 2005.
2. Artificial Cells. Sometimes, when you need to deliver drugs to just the right spot in the body, a pill or an injection won't cut the mustard. Daniel Hammer, professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, has a better method: artificial cells, made from polymers, which can mimic the ease with which white blood cells travel through the body. Called c, these fake cells could deliver drugs directly where they're needed, making it easier and safer to fight off certain diseases, including cancer.
3. Strap-on Kidney. For people with failing kidneys, basic necessities of life like removing toxins from the blood and keeping fluid levels balanced requires hours hooked up to a dialysis machine the size of a clothes dryer. But a new, portable artificial kidney, small and light enough to fit on a belt system, could change that. Despite its small size, the automated, wearable artificial kidney (AWAK), designed by Martin Roberts and David B.N. Lee of UCLA, actually works better than traditional dialysis because it can be used 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just like a real kidney.
4. Portable Pancreas. An artificial pancreas, capable of monitoring a person's blood sugar and adjusting the level of insulin to meet their body's needs, will likely be on the market within a few short years, said Aaron Kowalski, director of strategic research projects at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Kowalski said the device would initially be a combination of two existing technologies: an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor. The contraption could help insulin-dependent diabetics lead more normal lives and make it easier for them to avoid the disfiguring and life-threatening side effects of having too little or too much blood sugar.
5. Bionic Eyes. When you're blind, being able to see even the basics of light, movement and shape can make a big difference. Both the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis, currently in FDA trials, and a system being developed by Harvard Research Fellow Dr. John Pezaris record basic visual information via camera, process it into electronic signals and send it wirelessly to implanted electrodes. The Argus II uses electrodes implanted in the eye, which could help people who've lost some of their retinal function. Dr. Pezaris' system, still in the early stages of research, would bypass the eyes entirely, sending visual data straight to the brain. Both systems will work best with people who could once see because their brains will already know how to process the information. "The visual brain depends on visual experience to develop normally," Pezaris explained.

Social Phones

2010-04-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

With the social networking age, the phone services have to keep up to be able to survive in the market. Microsoft came out new phones that are specifically made for networking. According to the supervisor, before a single line of code was written, the researchers went into the field and asked the customers of their needs to make sure the phone is accommodated to them. Here is an excerpt from the article about it:

The key feature of the Kin phones is making the sharing process instantaneous. Derek Snyder, product marketing manager for the Mobile Communications division showed the "Kin Spot," a small green dot at the bottom of the touchscreen that shows up at all times. Whenever a user finds something to share, be it in the Web browser, photos or another person's social site update, simply tapping and dragging that item to the Kin Spot brings up a list of contacts. The user then drags the contacts he wants to send to and the Kin instantly sends those updates to the relevant people.
Kin also helps solve the friend clutter problem for people who have hundreds or even thousands of contacts and "friends" from all their various accounts. Snyder explained the phenomenon with three categories: best friends he talks to daily, friends from high school and acquaintances he interacts with infrequently, and people he follows but doesn't interact with, such as celebrities on Twitter.
Kin automatically lists contacts by how often the user interacts with them, so people who the user is likely to share with come up at the top of the list when using the Kin Spot.

4-Color, 3-D: Now Thats Sharp Image

2010-04-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Found this really interesting article that I wanted to share. Please leave your comments.

Sharp demoed some large 3-D screens that also incorporated the Quattro four-color technology in sizes up to 60 inches. The fourth color is yellow, which combines with the traditional red, green and blue pixels to create the "industry's brightest" screens, according to Sharp.
Sharp also unveiled some smaller 3-D screens intended for netbooks, tablets and similar devices. Sharp's demo screen was 10 inches, perfect for a netbook, but differed from the larger screens in that it did not require glasses to display a 3-D image.
The smaller screens use a technology, called parallax barrier, to simulate a 3D image without the need of glasses by using a material with special slits that lets each eye see different pixels in the image.
Sharp plans to sell the 3-D TVs in Japan this summer, with worldwide availability sometime after that.

This new technology will definitely pave the way for things like different phone services such as video conferencing. Maybe they will come up with devices that will make it seem that the person is right there in that room. Not only will businesses take advantage of it, but it will become a mass market device because it will enable people to talk to their friends and family in more places around the world. Communication will increase the sense of community and connectivity.

Google Making a Tablet Too

2010-04-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

The CEO of Google accidentally let slip that they were working on a tablet that runs on the Android operating system. Along with the other phone services that Google intends to provide, this is the going to be the newest thing. HP has also been working on a tablet but one that is a lot smaller than the Google or Apple one. There are no details yet as to when these devices will go on the market. With the shortcomings of the iPad that we have seen, the new tablets coming out should be better and have more advanced features.

Externalities of Hotels

2010-04-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

Found some news about hotels. Leave your comments!

There's good news for nonsmoking hotel guests: The scales are about to tip in your favor this summer when Wisconsin's Act 12 takes effect, and the Badger State becomes the first in the nation to ban smoking in all hotels.
Wisconsin joins a long list of other states that have, to one degree or another, limited hotel guests' lighting up. In fact, only 13 states have no smoking restrictions, according to Ryan Patrick, an analyst at MayaTech Corp. in Silver Spring, Maryland, who tracks state legislation for various public buildings, including hotels.
"Many hotel chains have also banned smoking at their hotels voluntarily," he said. Among them are Westin Hotels & Resorts, which became the first smoke-free brand in early 2006. Marriott followed later that year, and Sheraton Hotels & Resorts put up the "no smoking" signs in 2008.
Not everyone is happy with the limits. Some hotel owners, for example, believe that going smoke-free might hurt business. The Wisconsin Innkeepers Association, a trade group for the state's hotels, is trying to amend Act 12 to allow hotels to designate up to a quarter of their rooms as smoking.

Smoking along with other things such as phone services and internet services are privileges that are decided by the hotel and should not be regulated by the government, as stated above. If there are any problems, people should be aware of the hotel's toll free numbers to call.

iPad Still Somewhat Lacking

2010-04-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

The iPad definitely has some glaring shortcomings but one of the most prominent ones are the fact that it does not replace any other device, it just adds to the electronics that we carry, and the lack of phone services. This maybe be the internet era and the age of technology but phones will always stick around no matter what form or shape they take. Now we have phone services that range from internet phones to video phones and VoIP. The iPad does offer a lot of features but they are designed for the person who wants to be able to read news, look at pictures, watch movies, and read emails. All of these things can be done on the iPhone which can easily be put in a pocket or purse, unlike the iPad. What I want to know is why there is all the excitement over it?

Google Taking Center Stage

2010-04-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Move over AT&T, Verizon, and any other phone service provider, here comes Google. Great article that I found and wanted to share with you guys.

Computers have long been the only hardware for VoiP calls, and required the caller to use a headset to both send and receive messages. Newer computers, including netbooks, with their built-in webcams and microphones, can be used for VoiP calls with a simple software download, eliminating the need for a headset. Smartphones were the next devices to get VoiP, and like computers require the user to download an app and secure a wireless connection.
The Google phone may be the first smartphone designed specifically for VoiP service, and will come with all of the goodies Google has introduced this year:

The Android operating system in a newer version than what is currently offered on the Droid, on schedule to sell a million units before the end of the year, far ahead of analysts’ expectations.
Google Voice, Google’s free multi-phone number and message management application, currently available by invitation only and only in the US.
Google Latitude, the free app that lets friends share their locations with one another.
Google Maps, the free GPS app for mobile phones offering voice guided, turn-by- turn directions that could replace not only the pricier phone apps, but stand-alone GPS systems altogether.

This is going to change the way we see communication and our concept of it. Google doing all these things could eventually mean no phone bills which translates into more people being able to stay connected with others. I can just imagine all the other possibilities this will bring. I will keep you posted on the future innovations of phone services to come so please check back soon.

Consumers surfing more, cutting phone bills

2010-03-30T03:58:00.000-07:00

Some news for today!

A new consumer survey reveals that people are spending more time on the internet while at the same time cutting their spending on fixed and mobile phone services.

The Commission of Communications Regulation's residential consumer ICT survey looks at attitudes to and usage of information and communications technologies and services by consumers here.
The survey shows that mobile penetration at 95% continues to increase, while fixed line penetration decreased marginally to 65%.

Home internet penetration has remained stable at 66%, while the average time spend on the web has risen from ten hours in December 2008 to 13.2 hours in January 2010.

The report also says that there has been an increase in perceived awareness of contracted internet download speeds. However, 40% of internet users are still not sure of their contracted speeds.

The ComReg survey says that the bi-monthly spend on fixed line services continues to fall. People now spend almost €80 on these services compared to over €96 in December 2008. Average monthly spend on mobile phones is also coming down, with consumers spending just over €36 at the start of this year compared to €41 in December 2008.

New rules to prevent the mis-selling of fixed-line phone services are a good move says Consumer Panel.

2010-03-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

The Communications Consumer Panel says that new Ofcom rules on fixed-line mis-selling will provide better protection for vulnerable consumers. The new rules should prevent consumers from being switched to another fixed-line provider without their explicit consent or entered into a new landline contract without understanding the terms and conditions.

"Mis-selling of fixed-line phone services is one of the longest-standing problems affecting consumers in the communications sector," commented Panel chair Anna Bradley, "so we welcome this move to strengthen the rules and to allow Ofcom to enforce them more effectively." But the Panel warns that the communications sector will need wider-ranging changes in future to keep up with the way consumers buy products.

"Consumers are buying bundles of services, such as fixed-line telephone, mobile and broadband, in increasing numbers and each element of these bundles have a different switching process." Said Anna Bradley, "We want industry to develop a single, quick and easy switching process that can be used for all these products as soon as possible." Mis-selling covers a range of sales and marketing activities that can work against the interests of consumers. It includes giving false and/or misleading information, or applying unacceptable pressure on a consumer to change telecoms providers, such as refusing to leave until the customer signs up or using threatening behaviour; and 'slamming' - where customers are simply switched from one company to another without their knowledge and consent.

Some broadcasters like spectrum plan

2010-03-15T06:06:00.000-07:00

Nice article for today! Enjoy!

Some U.S. TV broadcasters have indicated they support a proposal to give up their airwaves to help resolve a shortage of spectrum for advanced mobile phone services, the top communications regulator said.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said "a number of broadcasters" were open to his plan, which would call for them to give up airwave licenses for auction in exchange for receiving a share of the proceeds.

Some analysts have been skeptical about whether the plan would appeal to broadcasters unless the FCC offers them a very big percentage of the auction proceeds.

"We've certainly heard from a number of broadcasters who have told us that this is a promising direction and (they) are getting ready to roll up their sleeves with us," Genachowski said in an interview on Friday.

He did not name specific broadcasters, nor would he comment on the percentage of proceeds that would go to broadcasters under the plan. Analysts say there could be a public outcry if the FCC gives broadcasters too big a share, since wireless auction proceeds typically go to the U.S. Treasury.
The country's broadcasters - including General Electric's NBC, News Corp's Fox, Walt Disney's ABC and CBS Corp - hold spectrum licenses estimated to be worth $50 billion.

Genachowski will unveil on March 16 the National Broadband Plan aimed at promoting U.S. Internet speeds and usage. He promised on Friday that the spectrum plan would be attractive to everybody, including broadcasters and viewers.

"We've developed a plan that is a real win-win for all involved. We've every expectation it will work," he said.

He has said the plan would include a goal of releasing 500 megahertz of spectrum by 2020 for wireless broadband services. This would include any spectrum relinquished by broadcasters.
Genachowski also aims to auction another chunk of wireless airwaves known as the D-Block band, which the FCC had failed to sell in a 2008 auction.

Analysts said operators had previously shied away from bidding on the D-block because it came with many restrictions, such as an obligation to agree on network technologies with public safety groups that would also use the airwaves.

Genachowski vowed that the FCC would not to make the same mistake again.

"One of the core lessons the team has learned was not to replicate what didn't work in the past," he said, adding that the terms would have to be attractive to potential bidders. "There won't be any onerous conditions."

Wireless operators including AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc, are under pressure to increase their network capacity in coming years due to surging demand for mobile Internet.

TO SET SPEED MILESTONES

The national broadband plan also has the goal of providing 100 million U.S. households with broadband connections at speeds of 100 megabits per second by 2020, which would be about 25 times faster than the current average.

Operators including Qwest Communications and AT&T Inc have questioned the viability of the goal, which would require billions of dollars in new investments.

Genachowski said the goal could be reached by degrees, following milestones set for between now and 2020. He said market demand would likely be a big factor in achieving the final goal of helping the United States stay competitive.

"It is both aspirational and achievable. We will have to find a way to get there," he said. "Network innovators in this country will get there. There will be market demand to push them there."

Asked if the broadband plan will help lower prices for consumers, Genachowski said it will take competition among broadband service providers "very seriously" and will commit the agency to an "energetic competition policy."

That would involve providing consumers with tools to inform them of the quality of broadband services. The FCC also plans to collect data and information to measure competitiveness.

Basu: Stop exploiting inmates with phone services

2010-03-09T06:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some news for today! Read and make your opinion and comment of course!

The Polk County Jail expects to make $708,500 in fiscal year 2009-10 off the families and friends of inmates who want to keep in touch with them. Pottawattamie County Jail, with about a quarter of Polk's population, will pick up $82,863. And the state prison system will receive about $800,000.

These are profits from commissions received on exorbitant fees charged by private inmate telephone services.

In a Feb. 17 column, I described trying to call an inmate at the Pottawattamie County Jail. I was directed, through an automated recording, to an outside company where a person instructed me first to set up a payment account so the inmate could call me.

At 50 cents a minute, a minimum charge, plus various fees, that cost $31.95. But then the man informed me the company doesn't notify the inmate to make the call.

Theresa Gregory had the same experience with Polk County Jail, where her husband spent five days in January on a drunk driving charge. (He was arrested pulling out of a bar after learning of a relative's death, she said.)

She called the jail to speak to her husband and says a jail official told her to call the 800 number to put money in an account. Then she could call the jail official back to relay the message to her husband to call her. After she spent $31.95, Gregory says the man refused to contact her husband. She was promised a refund, but is still waiting. A sheriff's spokeswoman said it's policy not to take messages or have people call into the jail. Inmates must call out.
At the very least, jails should inform callers of such policies and what they'll get for their money. But since jails stand to benefit financially each time someone uses the service, there may be little incentive to do so.

Pottawattamie County Jail Administrator Stu DeLaCastro said that after my last column, he and the sheriff had spoken to Securus Technologies, the phone service's parent company, and told them, "We expect that the inmates and their families will be treated fairly and with professional courtesy."
He says the jail and taxpayers benefit from the service, because they avoid equipment and repair costs, and each call is digitally recorded "which keeps down criminal activity." The revenues go into the general jail fund.

Acknowledging the high markup, he said, "Some would say phone privileges are not a right, they are a convenience."

But Amy Fettig, staff counsel with the ACLU National Prison Project, says they're a necessity. Rehabilitation and recidivism studies show prisoners reform more if they maintain contact with the outside world, she said. "Unfortunately when you are charging the families outrageous rates, it really discourages positive behavior."
There's little regulation of this hidden tax on inmate families and how it can be spent, says Fettig. There have been efforts to get the FCC involved, but so far it hasn't acted. However, in response to one case, New York State's attorney general prohibited prisons there from receiving what Fettig calls "kickbacks."

If you had to have loved ones in prison, you'd be better off having them in Nebraska than Iowa. The Nebraska Department of Corrections refuses to take commissions on inmate calls. "We really did not want to have any profit here," said Terry Ewing, an administrator. "Typically inmate families have a difficult time making ends meet." Nebraska inmates can call collect anywhere in the country for a charge of only $1.45 for 15 minutes. Or they can buy prepaid phone cards for $1.25 or set up debit accounts for the same price for the same length of time. In Iowa prisons, to call out of state on a debit account costs a $3 surcharge and 30 cents a minute for a maximum of $9. That's not quite as steep as at the county jails, notes Fred Scaletta, corrections spokesman, who said the prisons use a debit system only, not the Correctional Billing Service the jails use. He said the revenues pay for unfunded mandates such as inmate education and legal information.
At the jails that use Correctional Billing Service, no matter how much you're willing to spend, you're allowed only so many calls. So even attorneys trying to represent their clients can find they've maxed out. That's happened to Fettig.

The phone service is just one of many ways inmates and their families are financially exploited in this state, according to some I've heard from. They complain of added markups on everything from clothing to snacks in vending machines. At one jail commissary, someone wrote me, a cup of coffee costs $7 - enough to make even Starbucks blush.
Fair is fair. People who break the law should expect punishment - although many in jail haven't even been convicted. But nothing justifies jails swooping down like vultures to grab commissions of up to 60 percent, or a signing bonus of $50,000, from companies that gouge inmates and their families. Iowa should follow Nebraska and put an end to this extortion.

T-Mobile boosts prepaid market, loses subscribers

2010-03-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

News for today! Comment below!

T-Mobile USA gained ground in signing up new subscribers during the fourth quarter, but much of the surge came from its prepaid business.

T-Mobile USA parent company Deutsche Telekom reported earnings on Thursday. The U.S. carrier, the smallest of the big four nationwide carriers, said it added a total of 371,000 new subscribers in the fourth quarter. This is an improvement over customer losses from the third quarter. But it's still lower than customer gains the company saw in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In total, T-Mobile USA now has 33.8 million subscribers, up from 33.4 million in the third quarter and 32.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Customer growth is good news for T-Mobile USA, but the company is still struggling to expand the highly valuable contract customer base.

In fact, the company actually lost 117,000 net contract customers in the fourth quarter. This was better than the third quarter when it lost 140,000 net contract customers. It had added 267,000 net contract customers in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile USA added a slew of prepaid customers, including ones from wholesale partners. In the fourth quarter, it added 488,000 prepaid customers, up from 63,000 in the third quarter of 2009 and 355,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008. The company said that higher wholesale net customer additions were the primary reason for the sequential and year-on-year increase in prepaid additions. Wholesale customers totaled 2 million as of December 31.

Still, T-Mobile says that 79 percent of its customers are on a contract, down slightly from 82 percent of its base in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Why does it matter? Contract customers are more valuable subscribers to wireless operators because they tend to spend more money and they are less likely to leave the service.

During the fourth quarter, contract customers spent on average about $51 per month. On average, prepaid customers spent about $18 a month.

More troubling for T-Mobile is the fact that both these average monthly spends were down sequentially and were also down when compared with the same quarter a year ago.

T-Mobile USA is the fourth largest wireless operator in the U.S. and has trailed far behind its national competitors, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel. It has also been late to the 3G market, and the operator, which acquired more spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission's AWS auction, is still building that network.

As T-Mobile has been losing valuable subscribers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless have added millions of new customers. Rumors have flown that Deutsche Telekom is looking to spin off T-Mobile or combine it with another wireless entity. But so far no action has been taken.

The company continues to build its 3G wireless network. T-Mobile has said that its network could potentially offer service to more than 200 million people. It also recently launched the first HSPA+ market in Philadelphia with plans to continue rolling out the faster 3G wireless service across the country.

Wroten by Marguerite Reardon, a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services.

Realtor likes follow-him-anywhere phone service

2010-02-17T04:23:00.000-08:00

Found this and decided to share this with you! What do you think of it?

Realtor likes follow-him-anywhere phone service. Bay Area realtor Jonathan Fleming has used RingCentral for a couple of years, and likes the way it lets him maintain a big-firm profile even while he's on the road. His plan costs about $25 a month, but start lower. Could this be an option for the job-seeker who is also working freelance while searching?

As the owner of a real estate business that serves both Oakland and San Francisco, I spend a lot of time on the road. While I need to be mobile, I also want to give the impression that I am in the office and always available.
Most businesses struggle with not having the proper tools to successfully operate outside of the confines of a physical office. For me that meant I missed calls, voicemails, and faxes. By the time I would return to the office I was bombarded with an excess of items that needed follow up.
One of the tools I adopted was RingCentral, which gave me a single 800 number with multiple extensions. I now have calls screened and forwarded to me no matter my location, I can receive faxes and voicemails through email on my mobile and even when I place calls from my mobile device, it appears as if I am calling from my office number.
Overall, I've saved money and improved my productivity.

RingCentral customers expect to keep spending

2010-02-09T01:33:00.000-08:00

Have found this page. There are many articles about RingCentral. So, if you are interested, you may read it. As for our theme I have found this:

RingCentral's customers gave the virtual phone system vendor an early holiday present when they told an online survey that economic concerns won't slow their telecom spending in 2008. The survey, which RingCentral conducted among more than 100 small business customers between Nov. 27 and Dec. 13 showed that, contrary to public pronouncements that the economy is tanking, small businesses will keep on spending and telco spending will be a priority.

According to the survey e-mail (81 percent), mobile phones (77 percent), business phones (69 percent) and Web sites (61 percent) are the most important technologies for conducting business and 60 percent of respondents expect to increase technology spending next year while only 6 percent plan to spend less and 31 percent plan to maintain current spending levels.

"They want to spend money on things like new phone services, new Web sites, new smartphones. About a third of the folks are looking to add social networking to their customer acquisition and marketing mix next year," said Michael Mullany, chief product officer at RingCentral.

Mullany dismissed the notion that customers were providing unreasonably rosy forecasts or that the survey was a self-serving ego boost for RingCentral, since 43 percent of respondents also said RingCentral was the best new technology they adopted over the past year.

"They could have easily said ‘No, we’re going to spend less on technology next year," he said. "A lot of people are predicting recession because of the housing business but … in terms of small business investment in technology, spending seems to be very positive."

Probably the two biggest surprises the survey presented were that small businesses are planning to increase their use of social networks and that smartphone penetration would be "much higher than average," Mullany said.

"It certainly made us think more deploy about how to work with smartphones. if everyone is going to have a smartphone in two to three years, then enhancing our smartphone capabilities is probably a good direction for us," he said.

RingCentral adds VoIP

2010-02-01T04:08:00.000-08:00

Waiting for you comments!

RingCentral, with a business model based on making small businesses look big - at least from a telecommunications perspective - has added a VoIP service to its virtual phone system. Called DigitalLine, the added feature lets customers use a mix of land line, mobile and now VoIP to both place and receive phone calls.

"You can actually receive and answer on your PC an inbound call and not just forward it. We introduced VoIP in a way that allows users to try it and see how it works over their broadband, and then decide to move forward with additional capabilities from our DigitalLine service," said Jay Blazensky, vice president of Business Development for RingCentral.

The virtual phone service provider now has more than 40,000 paying subscribers in a group comprised of very small businesses of one to 10 employees, SOHOs, mobile professionals and online merchants. The customers are connected via a single phone number that tracks them down to any device operating on the network, including the PSTN as well as IP networks. The service also offers call screening and 800 numbers, auto-attendant functionality and music on-hold.
DigitalLine is a soft client sitting on top of the RingCentral offering that gives customers full VoIP functionality.

"You can now not only answer calls but you can place outbound calls using a headset through your computer," said Blazensky. "In addition to having the softphone which is a download from RingCentral, you also have the option to purchase an analog adapter that allows you to use your existing analog phone … so you can talk over a regular handset if that’s what you prefer over the softphone."

The package is priced to sell - and to meet the budgets of the small customers RingCentral pitches. A $4.99 monthly package lets customer place and receive calls using the softphone from the computer and minutes spent on the phone come out of the existing RingCentral plan. A limited plan, at $9.99 provides 500 VoIP minutes and a rate of 3.9 cents per minute beyond that; an unlimited plan is $24.99. The DigitalLine service includes a soft client that opens a stream of information including made calls, missed calls, voice mail and other capabilities on a softphone, as well as click-to-send faxes.

"There’s quite a bit of functionality now integrated with the RingCentral service," Blazensky said.

To tie telecom services only outside Mexico

2010-01-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

Found this article and decided to share it with you, leave your comments below!
Telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim said Wednesday that a plan to combine his fixed line and cell phone companies seeks to integrate those services in the rest of Latin America, but not in Mexico.
Mobile phone carrier America Movil SA, controlled by Slim, announced plans last week to absorb Telmex International SAB, the foreign arm of his fixed line provider Telefonos de Mexico SA, or Telmex.
America Movil is Latin America's largest mobile phone carrier, with operations in 17 countries. Telmex International provides phone land lines as well as subscription television and Internet services in Latin America outside Mexico.
Under terms of its telephone concession from the Mexican government, the parent Telmex is barred from offering video, phone and Internet services at the same time in Mexico.
Slim, one of the world's richest people, said he hopes to offer packages of both types of phone services, television and the Web elsewhere in Latin America.
"The competition has integrated services, so it's very important to be able to integrate those services in Latin America," Slim said at a news conference.
He dismissed speculation that he wants to do the same thing in Mexico, a move that would increase his control of the telephone market in the country. Telmex controls more than 80 percent of Mexico's land lines.
"There is no integration in Mexico," he said.
Following America Movil's announcement, cable television companies urged the Mexican government to block the company's plans, warning of an impending "telecommunications cartel."

Companies struggle to restore power and phone services

2010-01-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

Found this and hope this will interest you! So, leave you comments!

Companies struggle to restore power and phone services. The ESB will attempt to reconnect 200 households this morning, many of whom are located in the higher areas of the Wicklow mountains close to Roundwood. The houses were without electricity last night following bad weather.
The move comes as telephone company O2 will attempt rectify a fault with its service in the north Wicklow area. The fault has left a number of its customers without mobile service. A spokesman for 02 said the company had identified a problem with its network on high ground and access by repair crews had been a problem.
Some households in upland areas have been snowbound since Christmas and high winds in recent days have caused trees to fall across power lines and snow to drift. Wicklow County Council has warned it may have to cut off water supplies at night.
Roads across much of the area remained impassable. On Monday teams from Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue, and the Glen of Imaal Red Cross Mountain Rescue rescued two stranded British tourists who had become snowbound in their vehicle on the military road above Drumgoff.
Also on Monday a Television crew from Sky News had to rescued when their satellite navigation system routed them through the mountains on their way from south Wicklow to Enniskerry on the Wicklow/Dublin border.
On Tuesday night the Dublin Civil Defence and the Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue team went to the aid of two locals who had gone driving in a 4X4 vehicle near the Sally Gap. The spokesman emphasised the dangers of the Sally Gap region where he said snow was so deep it was not possible to discern where the road lay.
Elsewhere, water supplies were disrupted in Sandyford, Enniskerry Road and Stepaside areas.
Last night Dublin City Council was providing water from tankers in parts of Cabra, Clonshaugh, Finglas, Coolock, Ballymun and Artane on the northside of the city. On the southside tankers were in place at the junction of Rathgar Avenue and Rathgar road and near Bushy Park.
Local authorities have advised consumers to check their websites for information on possible curtailment of water supplies.
Last night the ESB confirmed it was it had begun increasing the levels of water being released from the Inniscarra Dam in Cork, following recent heavy rainfalls in the Lee catchment area.
The company does not expect the increase – understood to be 100cu m a second – will cause any flooding downstream.
In Kilkenny the Severe Weather Local Co-Ordination Group was stood down yesterday afternoon.

Google coy about Android changes

2010-01-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

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Fanning speculation that Google could unveil a self-branded smart phone to challenge the way mobile devices have been sold, the company has scheduled an announcement for this week about its Android mobile platform.

It's unclear whether Tuesday's event will involve details of Google's plan to market a heavily rumored "Google phone" -- an HTC-built prototype dubbed the Nexus One was distributed to Google employees recently -- or will be about a bundle of software services or applications built around the company's Android operating system.

"There has been a lot of back and forth about the latest Android phone, so I imagine it could be something that has to do with that," said William Stofega, an analyst with research firm IDC.

Google was coy about its intentions in a terse invitation released to media organizations last week.

"With the launch of the first Android-powered device just over a year ago, we've seen how a powerful, open platform can spur mobile-product innovation," the company said. "And this is just the beginning of what's possible."

At a Dec. 7 media event, Google executives hinted at new smart-phone services that would be unveiled in the first quarter of 2010, including linguistic translation services that would allow a smart phone to translate between a wide variety of languages.

"The real question is, what is Google planning to do? I have a whole litany of questions," said Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices with Current Analysis.

"Google is an enormous consumer brand, and they have made a lot of progress recently in the mobile space, and the question that comes up is, are they going to build on this momentum, or are they going to shoot themselves in the foot by doing something that competes with their partners?"

Greengart was referring to media speculation that Google as early as this month will offer an "unlocked" smart phone, meaning consumers could pick their wireless carrier, but might have to pay much more upfront for the device. Such a plan could cause friction with phone manufacturers that have licenses to produce devices that run Google's software.

Phone services available at ATMs

2009-12-28T02:59:00.000-08:00

Found this info and decided to share it with you! I also would like to wish you a Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to meeting you in the new year!

Phone services available at ATMs. Digicel Fiji customers across the country can now use Colonial National Bank (CNB) ATMs to top up their mobile phones.

The CNB ATM mobile phone top up service was launched at the Fiji Institute of Technology, Samabula Campus on Tuesday and went live on all 42 ATMs yesterday.

Colonial head of banking and group marketing John Harper said the new service was designed for customers' convenience.

"Digicel is continually looking at ways of enhancing the service we provide to customers, ensuring Fijians have access to the most convenient ways to top-up. The launch of the Digicel ATM top-up service is testament to that and we are delighted to be collaborating with Colonial National Bank in bringing this facility to our customers," Digicel Fiji CEO John Delves said.

"This service makes recharge more accessible and convenient. ATMs are operational 24/7 so customers can recharge at their convenience at anytime of the day or night," Mr Harper said. "This new service is another step in our drive to provide excellent customer service."

New Law Protects Consumers Against Illegal Billing Practices

2009-12-23T02:19:00.000-08:00

Have found this!

The holidays are a time of hustle and bustle - and now AARP is urging Illinoisans to add another critical item to their holiday to-do lists. As families come together for the holidays, AARP is urging people to review their phone bills, particularly bills of elderly friends, family, and neighbors, who may be paying too much -- and needlessly -- for phone services.

Many Illinois consumers have paid untold amounts of money for phone services or products they did not even order or authorize -- a growing and illegal practice known as 'cramming.' However, a new Illinois law will help protect consumers against this illegal practice and will help to drive down costs for individuals in a tough economy.

"Access to affordable telephone service is critical for older adults, many of whom live alone and may not have access to other forms of communication," said Bob Gallo, AARP Illinois Senior State Director. "That is why it is also critical that older adults, and all consumers, be protected against illegal practices that result in wrongfully inflated phone bills."

The law fights cramming practices by requiring third party verification on charges placed on telephone bills. Third party charges may include charges for services such as three-way calling, voicemail, and caller ID. Parties that charge for services or products on a consumer's bill must now confirm the consumer has requested the service, and must also record the phone call. Records will also be maintained by the service provider for at least two years.

"We are urging families to take a few minutes to review their phone bills this holiday season and make sure they are not a victim of this deceptive practice," Gallo added.

If you feel that you have been charged unfairly for telephone services, please contact your telephone service provider. You may also contact the Illinois Attorney General's Senior Citizens Consumer Fraud Hotline.

RingCentral changes their site design!

2009-12-08T04:37:00.001-08:00

Hi guys!

Got some news for you! Today I found that RingCentral have changed their homepage design!
It is more comfortable and easy to use than the previous one, I think.
Now it is easy to find necessary services and it seems to me that many useless info is gone from the homepage, but maybe it is just correctly placed now?
Due to the new color pallette of the page it became more comfortable to read and orient.
As for the main menu, it was also optimized and made like a dropdown menu, everything was sorted by categories, it allows to find necessary info by simply choosing right category tabs.
Fonts, keys and distance between headers were increased and it also makes the homepage more comfortable to use!
Sign up forms are united now and the sign up button was moved to the right part of the page and increased and is more noticeable now.
Also, I would like to note that the new design is modern and trendy, and it is so important in nowadays due to a huge number of sites.
It is clear that the site design change is the correct and necessary company step, because of the specificity of the product, many potential and existing clients come to the site to find information about the offered services and it is necessary to make the homepage maximally informative and comfortable. I think they achieved it!

You can find new design here. I hope this article will be interesting for you. I will be glad to receive your comments!

Phone Power Offers VOIP Phone Services at Best Buy

2009-12-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

Some news for today. Read and enjoy!

Phone Power announced that its VOIP phone service is on the shelves at Best Buy retail stores nationwide.

Featuring a home-and-travel combo kit, Phone Power said its VOIP phone service offering includes a two-line home adapter as well as a USB travel adapter. Both devices use the same phone number and with no extra monthly service charge.

"Phone Power's unlimited residential and small business service has been saving people money on their telephone service for years. Expanding that reach through Best Buy, the premiere distributor of electronics in North America, has validated our efforts," said Jim Murphy, President of Phone Power. "We live in an increasingly mobile society. The ability to have two lines at home is nice. But people also find value in taking their number on vacation with the small travel adapter. It allows them to stay connected anywhere in the world."

Phone Power is a telecommunications company, providing telecommunications service to the continental US, and Canada.

New laws to tackle rogue phone services

2009-11-17T01:20:00.000-08:00

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CONSUMERS who are fleeced by rogue operators providing premium-rate text or phone services will be legally entitled to get their money back, writes Michael Brennan.

The Cabinet yesterday approved further technical changes to of the Premium Rate Services Bill, which is expected to be passed into law next year.

Rogue operators will also face fines of up to €250,000 for breaches of the rules, and the potential loss of their licence.

Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Eamon Ryan is due to brief the Oireachtas Communications Committee on the details of the legislation today.

Its chairman, Fianna Fail TD MJ Nolan, said it would give TDs a chance to make certain the proper controls were in place to deal with the substantial rise in the number of premium-rate phone services.

"Some rogue operators have targeted people with cons that have left users with extortionate phone bills," he said.

Regtel warning on new phone Bill

2009-11-06T05:31:00.000-08:00

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Consumers who have been overcharged or ripped off by premium rate telephone service providers will find it more difficult to seek redress once a new communications Bill become law, the chairman of RegTel has warned.

At the launch of what is expected to be its final report before its functions are transferred to the telecommunications watchdog ComReg, RegTel’s chairman Fred Hayden expressed concern at the manner in which the Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan had introduced the Communications Regulation (Premium Rate Services) Bill 2009.

The Bill proposes an end to self-regulation by the industry, which will in future be subject to supervision by ComReg. It proposes substantial fines for abuses by operators of popular phone services such as ringtones, wallpapers, chatlines, competitions and information services.

“It is the Minister’s prerogative to bring about a reorganisation and legislative changes. But in the process the Minister has failed to listen to the board and staff of RegTel who have direct experience of regulating a difficult sector for the past 15 years,” Mr Hayden said.

He said the new Bill “does not include the power to order refunds in cases of wrongdoing, a power that RegTel now exercises, thereby providing a powerful means of deterring wrongdoing by service providers”.

He accepted that the new legislation – which enters its committee stage next week – includes “powerful sanctions” to deal with unauthorised services but pointed out that they failed to provide any redress for consumers.

Mr Hayden said that in RegTel’s experience, the aggrieved consumer “wants a refund now rather than fines on offenders sometime in the future”.

Under the Bill, premium rate service providers will require a licence. If the specified conditions are not met, the licence can be amended, suspended or revoked by ComReg.

Premium rate phone service generated 76 million text messages in the Republic last year, with mobile phone ring-tones, wallpapers, games and competitions and quizzes amongst the most popular services available.

A number of providers have been accused of taking advantage of vulnerable groups who have spent large sums after inadvertently subscribing to expensive services.

Over the past 10 years, €460,000 in refunds to consumers have been made via RegTel, according to the report. It notes a drop in the number of premium rate phone services delivered, with revenue down about 14 per cent and a drop of 7 per cent in the number of complaints and queries received through Regtel’s helpline.

Subscription services continue to generate most complaints, making up 91 per cent of calls received. In the report, the regulator Pat Breen blamed some of this on a few service providers acting in breach of RegTel’s Code of Practice, but also draws attention to consumer indifference to terms and conditions when signing up for services.

RingCentral Office: Comprehensive Internet-based Phone Services

2009-10-30T02:40:00.000-07:00

Today I offer you this article to discuss. Enjoy!

RingCentral Office includes all of the features that have become standard for Internet phone services. They offer numbers in the U.S., Canada and the UK.
RingCentral offers two types of phones. The phone RingCentral provided to me is a Linksys (now owned by Cisco) SPA942. At first glance, it looks much like a modern business phone. But instead of plugging it into a phone jack, one connects it to the Internet using a standard RJ-45 network cable. If you only have one Internet connection, you can plug the phone into your internet connection, and then plug other devices into the phone. I was pleased with the phone. It’s relatively easy to operate, but strangely, it doesn’t support a headset, something I’ve gotten quite used to.

If you would prefer to use your existing phone equipment, RingCentral also offers an ATA adapter which connects the Internet to regular phones. Since most people aren’t technically-minded enough to want to fiddle with ATAs or configuration of phones, RingCentral ships their equipment pre-configured. All I had to do was plug in the power and the ethernet cable, and the phone was online and ready to use. RingCentral tells me that they provide their phones at or below wholesale cost; a little research confirmed that their equipment prices are quite low.

When you or your colleagues are out of the office, you can use the web site and Windows- or Mac-based softphone application to send, receive and manage calls and messages. One of the unusual features of the softphone app is the ability to view incoming calls and reply with a short message like “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes” without actually answering the phone call. There’s also integration with Outlook’s contact list.

For iPhone users, there’s a native application that provides easy access to voicemail (separate from the iPhone’s built-in voicemail) and faxes. You can also use the iPhone app to make calls showing the Caller ID from your business line — without displaying your iPhone’s telephone number. Similar native applications are being developed for other platforms; I gather that the BlackBerry is next on RingCentral’s list. I didn’t test RingCentral’s software, but I’ve gotten positive feedback from others who’ve used it.

Cuban Telephone Company Expands Phone Services

2009-10-21T02:05:00.000-07:00

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The Cuban Telephone Company, ETECSA, will install some five new facilities that will provide some 4,000 new telephone lines in Las Tunas in 2010.

The Cuban Telephone Company, ETECSA, will install some five new facilities that will provide some 4,000 new telephone lines in Las Tunas in 2010. The new facilities are part of a nationwide project to expand residential phone services in Cuba.

The new project in Las Tunas required the support of several different local entities and people to build the facilities. For example in Jobabo, a trench of some 960 meters had to be excavated to bury the fiber optic cable.

The fiber optic cable is one of the major advantages of these new facilities as it allows for faster and more expansive line installations while using considerable less copper cables.

In Jobabo, the whole community lent a hand to dig and bury the cable in sun and rain. There are many advantages of having the community participate because in addition to saving time and money, the community feels like they are and active part in solving their problems.

Lufthansa to offer in-flight Web, phone service

2009-10-14T04:12:00.000-07:00

Some great news about Lufthansa! Hope they will interest you! So read below and leave your comments!

Lufthansa announced plans today for new onboard WiFi and phone services. Starting on routes between the U.S. and Europe in the next few months, the services are expected to be fully implemented by mid-2010, according to The Associated Press.

'The German carrier's goal is to leapfrog rivals by allowing passengers on international flights not only to make calls and send emails from 40,000 feet, but also to surf the Web and download videos at faster speeds than currently possible," The Wall Street Journal writes. "Lufthansa hopes to gain an advantage in the increasingly competitive inflight-communications field by becoming the first carrier to offer high-speed connections optimized for the full range of handheld and Wi-Fi devices."

Frequent fliers may remember that the German airline attempted to pave the way to in-flight WiFi three years ago, but was forced to end the program due to lack of demand. The program, a satellite-based broadband service--Connexion by Boeing--was pulled in 2006. This new system offered by Japan's Panasonic Corps., FlyNet, will offer WiFi services through its satellite-based technology.

"Michael Lamberti, a Lufthansa spokesman, said the airline expected the cost of the service to be 'in the same dimension' as in the past," The New York Times writes. The airline's previous go at in-flight WiFi set passengers back $10 per hour or $27 for the entire duration of the flight. The WSJ reports that in-flight phone calls could cost as much as $3 a minute.

"The connectivity Lufthansa promises to deliver is faster and applies to more devices than options available elsewhere," the WSJ reports. "Other airlines currently focus on voice and text messaging, with less capability for full-blown Internet access."