Time of the Tech

The Princeton dictionary defines reality as "the quality possessed by something that is real". Real is defined as "being or occurring in fact or actuality". Then you start to define fact and actually, and it does not take long before you have reached the circular definition dilemma of our languages and dictionaries. How can we truly define reality, when we can not define truth? Okay, let us not get that deep... Is reality then just being awake? Or perhaps, reality is being in a realm where you are are able to imagine. Because our dreams sure feel real while we are in them. Movies and books feel real when we are engrossed by them. We cry in some movies. I don't cry, although I have gotten "misty" eyed. The Ancient Greek, Aristotle, took it further and believed in catharsis , that this emotional connection in the reality of plays was therapeutic. For all we know, reality, can just be the perfect mix of synapses in our brain firing off, a view suppor...

It is business as usual for T-Mobile. They keep on selling 4G phones. They even have the girl from the picture above making fun of AT&T's network in recent commercials. Did we forget that AT&T bought out T-Mobile USA? Did we forget that AT&T said they were going to raid T-Mobile's towers for its upcoming LTE 4G network. Let us also not forget that T-Mobile and AT&T do not have compatible 3G and 4G, so if you buy a new T-Mobile phone now, it most likely will not work in three years for 3G or 4G speeds. The phone might not even make it to two years. So if you are thinking about buying a new T-Mobile phone, DON'T! And why does AT&T not have an LTE 4G network, like the one Verizon has? AT&T was racking in profits with the help of iPhone for the last years. Perhaps AT&T's priorities are in buying out companies rather than building up its network. Though I dislike to admit it, buying out your competitors is a winning strategy for gaining new ...

The other day, I attempted to pick up an "eye-ball" estimated 35-pound lead cylinder. My estimate was tragically incorrect, one thing led to another and and I ended up with a cut on my right middle finger. I started bleeding. All I could think of was to disinfect the wound. A friend at the scene, Matt, immediately diagnosed me with a sore [insert woman's part]. Keep in mind two things, he is not a doctor and I am a male. Which made me think about how we must weave through the stigma associated with having a watchful eye on our health. The label hypochondriac gets tossed around so freely as if were going out of fashion. People should not be ashamed to properly take care of a small cut or any other similar injury. Chronic small cuts leave us vulnerable to other life threatening infections (e.g., viruses, bacteria). That is why researchers at Tufts University are looking into speeding up the healing time for chronic "small cuts". Here is what they have so far*: ...

Perhaps you might not be excited about spaceflight. However, if you are human, you will be excited after you check out the promotional video from Virgin Galactic. The music alone should get you "pumped". You no longer need to be an astronaut from Russia or the US to fly into space, if you have US $200,000 lying around, you can book a flight on Virgin Galactic. The company is on pace to send the first commercial passengers within the next couple of years. Testing thus far has been favorable. Yes, I'm being cynical about the price range, but that is a necessary starting price, this technology is not going to fund itself. I'm truly happy that Sir Richard Brandson has resurrected space flight. I'm hoping the price comes down during my lifetime to something more affordable for little peasants like me. The project even has a cool port, no longer is it an airport , it is a spaceport, named Spaceport America which is located in New Mexico, USA. Spaceport America wil...

On January 28, 2011, I took a stab in the dark about Facebook's future. My exact words were that it has "two more years of being relevant". I must admit, I was guided by my own negative feelings towards the website. I compared Facebook's lifespan to that of Friendster and MySpace. However, there is one variable that I did not take into account, let us call the variable "K". "K" is the critical mass of users needed before businesses can not ignore you and in contrast join you. Friendster and MySpace never reached "K", Facebook definitely has. Even the US government is getting in on the Facebook action. Every company seems to have a Facebook page and is enticing Facebook users to "like" their page. Some companies even reward users for "liking" their page, like American Airlines, which recently gave away miles. But Facebook can still die off. Businesses have just extended the lifespan of Facebook. With its current busi...

During my 26th birthday-happy-hour celebration, I put a temporary passcode on my phone. The passcode was set for the rare case that I would consume too many fermented drinks. You see, I did not want to call or text people if I were to overconsume. The passcode that came to me that day was 2-3-5-0, that was the year I wanted to be born in. I associate that year with a period of time when we should be approaching the highest possible technologically advanced society. A society where energy is limitless thanks to nuclear fusion. That pesky little energy that we have been "30 years away from harnessing" for the past 70 years. That energy source which would solve our energy problems. That energy source that would make trips to Mars and beyond feasible. In this advanced society of 2350, we have spaceships that travel at the speed of light! In 2350, we are finally exploring the universe like in Star Trek. Please note: I am not a Star Trek geek, but the concept of exploring the ...

Honda, who has been a leader in “green” car technology for the past decade is working on continuing to develop their latest project, the Honda Civic GX. This Civic is unique in the fact that it runs on natural gas. This technology 1st caught my eye when I saw a GX driving around the campus of UCLA. In my quest for more information I ran across this article. So that you don’t have to read the article, I’ll give you the guts. Why they think this car is the best “green” car: At 250 miles on a tank of natural gas it can go father than electric cars. It basically destroys the other cars on the market as it relates to miles. The Nissan Leaf can only go up to 138 miles on a charge and the GM Volt can only go 20-50! (cough...weak) until switching over to gasoline power. Costing only about $1-$2 per gallon, the Civic is cheaper to fill up than a gasoline hybrid (~$4.00/gal) and comes about even with an electric (~$4 a charge, but your charging twice or more often than if you were filling up w...

The city of Long Beach, California is introducing smart parking meters in select locations on Broadway Avenue and 3rd Street. The city of Long Beach is not the first city with these parking meters, but it made me think about how annoying it is to park in congested cities, especially with wicked parking meters. Some parking meters are beyond wicked for example the ones in Santa Monica, California. However, with this news there is hope for a better future. The new meters allow you to pay via a mobile phone application,  Parkmobile , available for Apple iOS, Android and Blackberry. You can also pay with a credit card or coins.... coins? We might as well wear togas and name our kids Lucius like ancient Romans. The phone application will also alert you through text or e-mail when you are going over your time limit. If you can purchase more time, you will be able to do it through your phone, without ever having to revisit the parking meter. And the parking meters are solar po...

Sleep. Good 'ole sleep. With food, they form the basic needs of our bodies. Hence, it is not surprising that both give us so much satisfaction. Yet we neglect the basic needs of our bodies. I am guilty of staying up late for no good reason. Not surprisingly, I feel like poo poo the next day. So when my friend Matt suggested the "Sleep as an Droid" application to help me manage my sleep, I jumped on it. The application is a special alarm clock. "Sleep as an Droid" has a trial version that is good for 14 days. After the 14 day trial period, I bought the unlocked version. A month later, I am still using the application. "Sleep as an Droid" has helped me sleep better and thus feel better overall. Here is what I like about "Sleep as an Droid": The alarm wakes you up gently. No longer do I wake up abruptly and jittery. First the application will start to vibrate and then slowly increase in volume. The alarm tracks your sleep cycles based on ...

Name: Lawrence "Larry" Page DOB: March 26, 1973.  Aries. Education : Bachelor degree in computer science from Michigan University. Stanford University PhD drop out. Have you started to get the picture about these billionaire founders of tech companies? They drop out. School can not contain them, much like college would have been a "waste" of time for Lebron James or Kobe Bryant. Too bad we can not all fit that mold. Memorable Quote: Could not find that many quotes. Not surprising since Mr. Page is considered an introvert. Hooray for introverts! Other Endeavors: Mr. Page invensts in alternative energy companies, such as Tesla Motors. Interesting Facts : Mr. Page gets an annual salary of $1. Do not feel bad for him, he gets plenty of bonus money. Why we love him : The first thing he did when he took over as CEO earlier this month is shake up management. To foster more innovation he has empowered the individual groups within Google (i.e., YouTube, And...

I remember my first digital camera...about 8 years ago. A Sony 3.2 megapixel camera, a beauty back then, but now we can universally agree it is a brick. I stopped using it after about four years. Never once did I print out the pictures. I felt like I failed, after all, a hard copy should be the final destination of our photos. When we do not print our photos, does this mean we do not care about the pictures stuck on flash drives and hard drives? We do care! It is just that we have become over-saturated due to the amount of photos we take. There are too many photos and managing them is a hassle. So maybe printing our photos is not feasible for all of us, we must still find a good resting place for them. Our hard drives are fine, but they are not portable like a photo album or their space capacity becomes obsolete after several years. Another idea is the "cloud", a.k.a. internet storage, here are some websites that specialize in photo storage. These website give you the ability...

Amazon released Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player a week ago.  What are they? They are the future of how we will store and access our music. Amazon Cloud Drive will store 5 gigabytes of music for free in the "cloud". An average song is 5 megabytes, which means you will be able to store 1,000 songs with the 5 gigabytes allotment. For a fee you can upgrade to 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 gigabytes for $20, $50, $100, $200, $500, $1000/year respectively. For those of you not familiar with the "cloud", it is the new way to store data ( see Sherrie's article on cloud software ). Instead of using your physical hard-drive or flash drive, you store the data in the internet, in this case, Amazon will host your music data in the "cloud". The advantage of the Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player is that you can access your music with any computer or Android device. You are no longer limited by the songs on your computer's hard-drive or phone's SD-card...