Time of the Tech

Every year Forbes magazine releases a list of the richest people in the world. For many years Microsoft founder, Bill Gates was #1 on the list, hence, I have always associated the list with technology. For this month, we will breakdown the top five riches people and whether they or their companies contribute to technology . Here are the top five: Carlos Slim Helu , $73 billion.  Mr. Slim is a Mexican of Lebanese descent. He is the chairman of Telmex ( THE phone company in Mexico). He also has holdings in other Mexican industries and the telephone industry in other Latin American countries. How can this man, in a country like Mexico, be the richest in the world? It speaks volumes about the gap between the rich and the poor Mexico, Latin American and the rest of the world. TelMex has been an impediment to the implementation of technology, even though TelMex is part of one of the industries (phones) which is going through the most innovation in the w...

Passwords are the ultimate headache. But passwords are a necessity, they protect our privacy and money. So hopefully after you read this article, you can take time out of your busy life and rewrite some of your passwords. Before the days of the internet, passwords were uncommon in our daily lives. However, as we age, our lives become more intertwined with the internet and thus we accumulate usernames/ passwords. How many online accounts do you have? E-mail, computer log in, social networking, finance, work, phone, retailers, etc... I lost count at forty for me. The passwords we use everyday, we remember well. But what about the passwords we use once a year (i.e.,  Turbotax).  Most people fall into two categories when they must recollect their passwords for rarely used accounts: Oh $^#t! I forgot my password.   Time to pray to the gods that you can easily recover your password by sending correspondence to a linked e-mail or phone. No problem-O! I know my password. ...

I have had about a month to play around around with Apple TV which gives me more than enough time to write a proper review. So let us get down to the nitty gritty. Hardware The Apple TV design is beautiful and small. The specs sheet looks good:  A4 processor, HDMI output and b/g/n wireless support. The remote is also beautiful and small. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can use those devices to navigate Apple TV. What did it need? A Blu-ray version or some method to reduce the amount of HDMI cords you need. If you are like me, you have one HDMI cord for the cable box, one for the Blu-ray player and one for the Apple TV. The Sony Google TV would have combined all three (TV, Blu-ray, Google TV) into one HDMI cord going into your TV, although it would have cost an extra $300 bones. Software The user interface is gorgeous and easy to use as you would expect from Apple. You have the ability to buy and rent movies/ TV shows from the vast iTunes library. You can sync ...

We must count our blessings, first we get a brand new Microsoft Internet Explorer, IE9, and now Mozilla is releasing Firefox 4.0. What's new in Firefox 4.0? Well much like Internet Explorer 9, the tabs have been placed at the top. Also like Internet Explorer 9, the "File", "Edit", "View", etc... buttons have been replace by a single button. In Firefox 4 it is the "Firefox" button. And according to Mozilla, Firefox 4.0 is 3 to 6 times faster than its predecessor, Firefox 3.6. Please note that Google's Chrome already had the tabs at the top and minimal buttons. We now have a serious war among web browsers, this reminds me of the Nestcape vs. Internet Explorer days. We have not even talked about Apple's Safari or Opera. I would highly recommend Firefox 4, click here  for the update. Update:   Lifehacker.com has released speed tests on Chrome, IE9, Firefox, and Opera, check it out  here.

I realize there's been a lot of free advertising for radiation detector companies out there and rightfully so. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of people (even people outside of Japan) are purchasing these elaborate detection instrumentation that is frankly, overkill. As a health physicist, I've been doing my best to try and calm the American & Canadian population and inform as much as I can. I just want to state for the record: Purchasing sodium iodide pills here in the US is absolutely pointless. There is no possible way significant amounts of radioactive iodine will ever reach the west coast. Now, for those interested in Japan's situation, according to the NewScientist, radioactive iodine-131 was discovered in Spinach grown at the Fukushima prefecture. As much as 15,020 becquerels of radiation per kilogram. Let me just say, that's not an insignificant amount. Here in the US, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows radiation workers to orally ingest 30 uCi of...

News broke yesterday that AT&T will be buying out T-Mobile for $39 billion. This is particularly hard news for me since I am a happy T-mobile customer and I have never been fond of AT&T. I am not alone in disliking AT&T, just look at the comments of any tech blog about this merger (i.e., Gizmodo, Engadget, Phandroid). Look at the JD Power & Associates reports for customer care scores.  Look at what the Apple co-founder, the Woz, said about AT&T. This merger is saddening news for everyone that likes innovation and lower monthly wireless bills. T-Mobile along with Sprint did not have a "large" customer base like Verizon and AT&T, they had to make up for it in other ways, which were innovative and resulted in cheaper monthly bills for us . This meant "MyFaves" from T-Mobile and "night calling starting at 7pm and affordable unlimited plans" from Sprint. This meant that T-Mobile took a chance on Android. Verizon and AT&T play a mo...

Have you ever thought about the pace that science is evolving? Well if you are like me, you have. And you have most likely concluded that technology, which is defined as the practical application of science to commerce and industry, is accelerating at an ever increasing rate. For example, look at the history of making of making a phone call: Let's start at the rotary dial, remember those things, we were stuck there for decades. Then we got push buttons, Hallelujah! Now we have voice dial, speed dial. What can be faster than than pushing a button for speed dial or speaking "dial so-and -so"? How about just thinking the action of dialing someone and then your phone beings to dial? That sequence of events, my friends, is the beginning of "magic". There will be a future where we just think of something and an action outside of our body occurs. Maybe we will be able to create fire or electricity with a single thought. I wrongly estimated that we were at least ...