Category Archives: Technology

Run-n-Read keeps e-book text steady while you’re on the treadmill | Engadget

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Weartrons may help those athletic readers maintain their focus with its upcoming Run-n-Read peripheral. The clip-on device detects its wearer’s movements and compensates for them on a host Android or iOS device, keeping e-book text steady in the midst of a treadmill run. Owners can also tap the Run-n-Read to turn pages, and the gadget doubles as a pedometer in between reading sessions.

via Run-n-Read keeps e-book text steady while you’re on the treadmill | Engadget

See the Weartrons Run-n-Read crowdfunding campaign.

50 Google Search Tips and Tricks | Stephen’s Lighthouse

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50 Google Search Tips and Tricks | Stephen’s Lighthouse

Examples:

14. Find recipes
24: Track your packages
39: Check flight times
46: Find medication information

Start-Ups Take Library Jobs | Reinventing Libraries | Library Journal

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Three years ago, I wrote here that “libraries are so valuable that they attract voracious new competition with every technological advance” (see “Libraries, Ebooks, and Competition,” LJ 8/10, p. 22–23). At the time, I was thinking about Google, Apple, Amazon, and Wikipedia as the gluttonous innovators aiming to be hired for the jobs that libraries had been doing. I imagined Facebook and Twitter to be the sort of competitors most likely to be attracted by the flame of library value. But it’s the new guys that surprise you. To review the last three years of change in the library world, I’d like to focus on some of the start-ups that have newly occupied digital niches in the reading ecosystem. It’s these competitors that libraries will need to understand and integrate with to remain relevant.

The full story: Start-Ups Take Library Jobs | Reinventing Libraries | Library Journal.

The article reviews competitors GoodReads, Wattpad, Readmill, SIPX and Zola Books.

People Like Giving More When The Giving Is Social | Co.Exist

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There are many, many selfless motivations for giving to a charity or doing a good deed. But being honest, most of us would also admit that these activities also make us feel good about ourselves–perhaps, dare I say it, even increase our overall happiness.

Do-gooders, charities, and even governments, then, might want to listen up to the results of a set of three recent psychology studies that are the first to measure in experiments what forms of “giving” are most likely to give us a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

The full story: People Like Giving More When The Giving Is Social | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.

Forward Spam Text Messages to 7726 to Report Them | LifeHacker

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Ever get a text message that appears to be spam, but you don’t really know what to do with it? It turns out, most carriers will let you report it by forwarding it to 7726 (SPAM).

The full story: Forward Spam Text Messages to 7726 to Report Them | LifeHacker.

The article reviews the carriers in the U.S. I researched carriers in Canada and some of them have the same 7726 spam reporting service.

Rogers discontinued 7726 spam management service September 1, 2015. Rogers Spam Controls information page. (Link no longer valid as of June 1, 2016: Received Text Messages – Protection for Text Messaging SPAM | Rogers Wireless)

What to do if I get mobile spam? | Bell  + Plan Add-ons | Bell

Report spam text messages sent to your smartphone | February 2, 2016 | Telus +  TELUS guarantees spam free text messaging service – no questions asked | Telus

The 10 Governments That Requested (And Got) The Most Facebook User Data | Co.Exist

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74 countries sought data from Facebook for 38,000 of the network’s total 1.15 billion users.

Requests for Facebook data made from Jan to June 2013 (some requests include multiple users):

  1. United States (11,000-12,000 requests, 79% success)
  2. India (3,245 requests, 50% success)
  3. United Kingdom (1,975 requests, 68%success)
  4. Germany (1,886 requests, 37% success)
  5. Italy (1,705 requests, 53% success)
  6. France (1,574 requests, 39% success)
  7. Brazil (715 requests, 33% success)
  8. Australia (546 requests, 64% success)
  9. Spain (479 requests, 51% success)
  10. Poland (233 requests, 9% success)

The full discussion: The 10 Governments That Requested (And Got) The Most Facebook User Data | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.

What’s Holding Up The Internet Of Things | ReadWrite

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From June 2013. The article reviews the issues why the Internet of Things is not further along in actualization. The issues being protocols,  network architecture and the economics.

The Internet of Things – in which ordinary objects get smart and connected, making possible all sorts of new services – promises to give us smarter cities, fewer traffic jams, a cleaner environment and a Series victory for the Cubs. (OK, maybe not that last one.)

Trouble is, while lots of technologists and technophiles talk about the Internet of Things as if it were already here, there really isn’t any such thing. Not in any true sense of the term. Here’s why.

See the full story: What’s Holding Up The Internet Of Things | ReadWrite.

Why Big Tech Companies Are Going After Smart Watches | Mashable

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After two years of seeing smaller companies dabble with smart watches, the big tech companies have decided it’s time to enter the market.

Samsung and Qualcomm both unveiled their first connected watches this week, Sony recently updated its SmartWatch product and Google and Apple are both rumored to be prepping their own releases in the next year or so.

The smartphone war is heating up, but what exactly are these companies fighting for?

See the full story: Why Big Tech Companies Are Going After Smart Watches | Mashable.

World’s largest Aboriginal exhibition goes online | Australian Geographic

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THE WORLD’S LARGEST AND most representative collection of Aboriginal artefacts will soon be accessible at the click of a mouse.

The South Australian Museum has undertaken a significant project to digitally photograph and database every object in its Aboriginal Material Culture collection, which is recognised as the world’s largest and most comprehensive.

Aboriginal Artifact

via World’s largest Aboriginal exhibition goes online | Australian Geographic.

Related: Australia’s Oldest Culture Enters the Digital Age – One Image at a Time | South Australian Museum

Social Media’s Seven Deadly Sins | The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian’s Weblog

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Social Media’s Seven Deadly…09.05.13 | The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian’s Weblog.