With start of summer vacation nearly upon us, it’s about time to take a break from the busy school schedules and the hectic work environment. Spend some time with nature. Get some fresh air. Why you say? Well, June is not only Camping Month but it is also the Great Outdoors Month! Check out some of these outdoorsy apps - you’ll be learning your way around in no time! Ever wanted to go camping but just didn’t know where to start? Try using Oh, Ranger! Park Finder, which allows you to use your current location or search a zip code in order to find parks and camping spots nearby. If you are looking for something specific, use this app’s filters to find areas for climbing, hiking, camping, or boating! There are parks for every activity, use Oh Ranger! to find a spot all your own. Strap on your boots and pack your snacks. If you enjoy hiking, this app is for you! All Trails, also uses your location but instead of finding whole parks, it locates individual hiking trails. It allows users to view different qualities about each trail such as duration, difficulty, and descriptions. Afterward, users are also able to review the trail for future hikers. No matter the skill level, All Trails is for all hikers! If you’re a foodie and refuse to trade your delicious dishes for a weekend in the wild, this app will give you hope. The Classic Camping Cookbook by Coleman gives you the best of both worlds combing excellent recipes with the rugged outdoors. Using advanced filters, you can search for recipes by type of meal, ingredients on-hand, or equipment available. This makes cooking a breeze, especially when you have limited materials! Ever look up and wonder which star is which? With the stellar news app, Google Sky Map, the universe is in your hands. Sky Map uses the capabilities of Android sensors to identify stars, planets, and constellations. You can scroll freely through the stars and constellations or use automatic mode, which shows you exactly where each star is, up in the sky. Exploring the great outdoors can be a riveting, adventurous experience. But what happens when the sun starts setting and you can’t seem to find your way back home? Watch out, Bear Grylls - Survival Guide is here to save the day! This app provides users with various tools such as survival medicine, tips on making shelters, ways to survive in multiple terrains and more. Even the most advanced outdoorsman could make use of this information and I’d rather be safe than sorry, wouldn’t you? Check out all these outdoor friendly apps and start planning your wilderness adventure. What better time to start than this June, the month of camping and the great outdoors!
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Imagine a future where virtual reality has taken the form of life-sized 3D images projected in your living room from your smartphone. Once only a science fiction fantasy seen in movies such as Star Wars, compact 3D holographic projectors are becoming a reality and may be accessible by the end of next year. Currently, Ostendo Technologies Inc. has spent the last nine years developing minuscule sized chips that use image processing and light projection to create 3D images with up to 48 inches of display. The tiny projectors are designed to display crisp video and glasses-free 3D images. With multiple chips working together the images projected can become larger and more complicated, potentially bringing this new technology to your very own living room. Founder Hussein S. El-Ghoroury, envisions a future where his 3D technology will be integrated in all sorts of electronic displays. El-Ghoroury told the Journal “Imagine if everything coming back to you was in 3D – all of your shopping, all of your gaming, every way you retrieve data.”
Although the chip isn’t available just yet, the company is prepping to release a 2D projector chip by the summer of 2015, and hopes to have the 3D version available by the second half of 2015. Does your computer have a webcam? Do you frequent social media sites? Have you ever had an online conversation of any sort? If your answer is yes to any of the above, you may have been under surveillance. But that was all in the past you say, that surely can’t happen anymore. With increasing rules and regulations, the surveillance and recording of Internet data is becoming more difficult. However, multiple apps are releasing feature that allow location awareness and the ability to save personal information. Should we sacrifice online privacy for a better functioning app? Is there really such thing as an online personal life? Despite growing concerns for online privacy, Facebook plans to release a new feature that allows it to listen in on the world around you. The goal is for Facebook to be able to listen, analyze, and post whatever music or television show that is playing. According to internet-analytics company comScore, Facebook is the most popular smartphone application in the market as of April 2014, reaching about 71.4% of all smartphone users. Because it has such a huge share of the app market, many people are alarmed as to why Facebook would go against popular views on protecting online privacy. While Facebook’s goal is to help users share posts regarding music, film and television many are concerned with the invasion of privacy. Just like using your location or receiving push-notifications, the use of your microphone is completely optional. If you do not want Facebook listening in, then you can simply turn it off. Initially, Facebook did not thoroughly explain the feature, which caused many to think it would be listening in on everyday conversations. In a later announcement, Facebook assured users that this was not the case and that they would not be saving any information. No matter how reassuring this announcement sounds, some of the public is still skeptical. And who can blame them? Just last year, NSA employee Edward Snowden, leaked classified government documents that contained surveillance of social media, saved device locations, private webcam images, and recorded calls. It raised many questions of the ethicality and legality of technological surveillance. Is online privacy your right or is everything on the Internet a free for all? As technology continues to grow, these questions are becoming more and more important. June is Adopt-a-Cat month. Whether you are planning on celebrating with a new furry family member or already have enough of them, check out these gadgets designed for kitty and show your furry friend some love. Cats are adorable, who can blame you for wanting tons of pictures to document their cuteness? Unfortunately with an endless array of distractions, capturing a flattering photo of your kitty can be nearly impossible. With the Superheadz Holga K202 Cat Camera, you can finally get a good one. The camera meows to draw your cat’s attention—or attempt to, that is—using a variety of cat vocals. The camera also looks like a cat and comes equipped with an electronic flash, 1/1000 shutter speed and a reusable tin case. Ever wonder what you cat spends her days doing when you’re not home? Or where she goes on her outdoor ventures? Keep an eye on her with the Eyenimal video camera. The small camera weighs just 35 grams and attaches to your cat’s collar to give you a personal view of what she’s up to when you aren’t around. It comes with 8GB of built in flash memory, records in AVI format at a resolution of 680 X 480 pixels, a microphone and battery that lasts 2.5 hours. At the end of the day, you can download all of her shenanigans onto your computer via a USB transfer. Spa days are the ultimate relaxing retreat. Give Kitty a spa retreat of her own with the Catit Design Senses Massage Center. The device helps her relax with a variety of sculpted surfaces and textures such as a gum stimulator, an acupressure mat for paw relief and a body groomer. You can even add catnip to bring her into a state of ultimate bliss. As most cat-owners know, cats love napping – so much so that sometimes getting them to exercise can be a challenge. Keep her fit with the Frolic Bolt, which helps ensure she exercises even when you aren’t there. The device is an interactive laser toy that your cat won’t be able to resist chasing after. The automatic mode moves the laser in random patterns, with a timer that switches off after 15 minutes. For truly dedicated cat lovers, give your furry friend a house of their own. The Kitty City is made from reinforced pipes and durable fabrics with built in scratching posts and detachable toys. The modular design allows you too add more components over time, so you can progressively build your cat the ultimate city. The various components include a tower, hideaway cave, tunnel, climbing hill, sleepy corner, peek-a-boo passage and slumber bed. Whichever news outlet you chose to visit to stay informed, chances are there are often tales of violence, death and grave misfortune in the headlines. Whether they are stories of mass shootings, accidental firings or the loss of lives during war they are always harrowing. It’s easy to get caught up in the political debates over trends of violence, gun control and protecting our freedoms, however a start-up in Oregon is moving past all of this to provide a very simple and very real solution to decrease death by gunshot or shrapnel. RevMedx’s co-founder, Dr. Ken Gregory, found himself enjoying the delightful American pastime of mall shopping, when he wandered into a Williams-Sonoma and a forlorn kitchen sponge happened to catch his eye. Dried and compressed, he knew if he were to take it home and splash it with water it would plump itself up to become a formidably-sized kitchen sponge. Taking this same principle, the great minds at RevMedx created Xstat – a dose of small sponge-like discs treated with an anti-hemorrhagic substance. Using a syringe, the dose is injected directly into an open wound where it will then expand ten times in size within seconds, thus providing compression and stopping the bleeding. On the battlefield the application of this new advancement could save an unimaginable number of lives from soldiers to civilians caught in the crossfire. John Steinbaugh, a former Special Forces medic told CNN that bleeding out is a major cause of fatality, “just three to five minutes can mean the difference between life and death.” Current methods of stopping blood loss (packing with gauze or tampons) take up to several minutes. XStat received approval from the FDA in April and will be in the hands of medics later this year. In the future the company plans to market to stateside paramedics and law enforcement officers. When you’re doing the dishes tonight, remember that removing bits of your burnt casserole isn’t the only miracle your kitchen sponge is capable of. With all things going digital in this day and age, almost everyone’s personal information is being stored within a hard drive and/or computer system. While it has made storing and searching information much more convenient, it has also posed a risk for personal information leaks and data breaches. In a recent study completed by Ponemon Institute for CNNMoney, statistics showed that 110 million Americans have had their personal information exposed by hackers within the last year. This number is almost half of the nation’s adult population—47 percent to be exact. Even more, in the past 12 months up to 432 million accounts have been hacked. This year we saw large companies become vulnerable to data breaches, thus putting their loyal customers and users at risk of having personal information exposed to malicious hackers. Some of the most monumental and damaging data breaches occurred within Target, Adobe, Snapchat, Neiman Marcus, Michael’s, AOL, eBay and the Heartbleed bug. Each record exposed typically includes personal information such as your name, debit or credit card numbers, email, phone number, birthday, password, security questions and physical address. When this sort of information is compromised and used by hackers, the results can be devastating. There is no exact way to prevent a personal identity breach, but updating your computer to comply with the most recent security updates and being careful about when and on which networks you log into your personal accounts can help prevent a digital hack. Also, listening to those emails that urge you to change passwords or login information to prevent an account hack will make a difference. Luckily, if you do become a victim of identity theft or have your phone number released, there are helpful resources to tackle the problem. Two of our clients, CreditSesame and PrivacyStar, can help in times of a data breach crisis. CreditSesame offers free services to monitor credit and to help victims of identity theft, while PrivacyStar allows you to block calls from spammers and report them to the FTC. In this world of digital data, keep in mind that your data can be compromised if you are not careful and more importantly, how to fix the damage that could occur as a result. |
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