Need a Moment to Refocus

Do you ever feel like you are web browser with too many tabs open? You are probably focused on everything and nothing and running a bit slower on top of that. There are several great approaches to get you back on track though. The first step is shut everything off and that means completely. You should go to a quiet space where you do not have distractions such phone services or social media. You can even go so far as to shutting your phone off. The second step is to take deep breaths. It helps to connect with your body and get back on track. Once the outer distractions are gone, it's time to deal with the inner voice. Often the workload at hand distracts me. I might have a jumble of client tasks, school projects, column titles, family needs, and more. As it all jumbles around in my head, my brain struggles to keep centered on what's in front of me. That's when I pull out the notebook and make the classic to-do list. Lastly, take a look at that list and prioritize.

Textng Bad For Your Back

When you are texting or using many different phone services, how much of a tilt do you have on your head? When you tilt your head about 50 degrees, that is 50 pounds of pressure on your neck. This research was done with a computer program that analyzed the stress on your neck while the head is bend at various angles. One of the most important things to do is to pay attention to where your head is in space all the time. It is best when you are looking directly at the screen. Another cause of back problems is constantly being in a seated position. For those people that are constantly sitting at their job, whether it be software development or in a business, it is best to get up often and stretch. You should also take some walks, even if it is not outside. There has been some research that pointed to the fact that even if you do exercise in the morning, sitting all day can negate all the effort put into it.

Make Your Own Apps

Mobile applications are very important for businesses these days. On average, people spend over two hours a day on mobile applications. This means 86 percent of the average person’s phone usage is spent accessing apps. The data reveals that gaming apps lead the way, and account for 32 percent of people’s time, followed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which collectively account for an additional 32 percent. One of the approaches that you can take is to appeal to gamers. Your company does not necessarily have to do with gaming but it might be a great way to put your logo and brand on something. When brainstorming, the first people that you should go to is your team because they know your target audience and customers and clients better than anyone. Another thing to think about is how to better use the features that are already in the phone such as the motion sensors and accelerators. After brainstorming ideas, you could hire a designer, then get quotes for the programmers, and lastly introduce and market the app.

The Power of Body Language

Whether you are talking to a client or having an interview over video conferencing, it is important to remember that most of the communication is nonverbal. You need to be aware of your body language and what it is communicated to the other person. One of the things that is very important when talking to other people is to maintain eye contact. If you do not make eye contact, it will come across as that you are not comfortable or not confident. Shaking someone's hand is often one of the very first impressions we have of another person. If your handshake is weak or flaccid, then you are sending the message that you are, too. Be firm in your handshake, but avoid the kind of death grip that actually causes pain. When your arms or legs are tightly crossed, this indicates to others that you are in a defensive frame of mind. The key here is to relax and not fidget either.

Driverless Cars

After all, we are prone to road rage; rush headlong into traffic jams; break rules; get distracted; and crash into each other. That is why our automobiles need tank-like bumper bars and military-grade crumple zones. And it is why we need speed limits and traffic police. Self-driving cars won't have our limitations. They will prevent tens of thousands of fatalities every year and better our lifestyles. The liability issues regarding fully driverless cars will be easy: the car's manufacturer or software developer will be responsible for any accident unless it can be shown that a human driver was at fault. This sounds like very muddy territory. There is also the risk of hacking and this software development for cars has to include some serious protection from viruses and other people. Being the devil's advocate, there is no better opportunity for hacking than a several hundred pound weapon on wheels. On the brighter side, just think about how efficient things would be because the cars will not need to have all the human precautions and we will not even need to have our own because it will be always available. Not to mention wasting time to find parking spots or being stuck in traffic jams. What are your thoughts or expectations for these cars?

The Phone Call

Is the phone call dead? The younger generation seems to be using other communication services such as texting and emailing. There is just so much that written words cannot convey when you can just call the other person. A lot of misunderstanding could be avoided if we would just pick up the phone. There is a mobile application that can combine all of these communication features and you can even do conference calls with it. It is called Talko. It is not the first of its kind but it does have some interesting features. If a conference call is in progress, for example, a late participant can listen to the part they missed or replay the entire call (or parts of the call) after the call is over. The app also includes indicators that display if a contact is driving or has a low battery; it can also tell whether that person is using Wi-Fi or cell signal. That way, others can ascertain when — and how — is the best time and way to contact that person.

Professional Texting

In businesses, there are many ways to communicate with your employees and coworkers such as using internet phones, emails, and leaving voicemails. What about texting? Does it seem to be unprofessional? We use texting much more widely but business professionals are still not jumping on the wagon of sending texts for work. What happened to the phone call? You would think that would be the first choice in order to get things done quickly but these days it is a second option to writing text. But, just like email, any sort of text does not include tone and messages can be easily misunderstood. I think it all comes down to being more permissive, flexible and allowing people to Band-Aid their fear of rejection. If we text or email someone, we can re-read it 15 times before sending until it’s just the way we like it. If we interact on the phone, we don’t know what can be thrown at us and how we will react.

The iWatch: Where Does it Stand?

It has a "crown" knob to control scrolling and zoom without having to touch the screen, silent pulse notifications, a slate of health and fitness mobile applications and compatibility with Apple's new Apple Pay app, which lets users scan and pay card-free at participating stores. One of the drawbacks is that it has to be connected to the iPhone and comes with a $350 price tag. Some analyst think that it might be able to really shake up the market with smartwatches. Personally, they have been around for a while and it is a matter of people not adopting this technology. I also think that the watch is a solution to a problem that we have not found yet. Accord to several surveys, only about 3% of the population wear watches. Apple is going to do some heavy lifting if they want to get the other people to even think about wearing a watch, let alone getting a smartwatch. What do you think?

Signs To Consider If You Are Thinking of Quitting Your Job

We all come to a point in our lives when we need to re-evaluate where we are headed. Sometimes that includes thinking about changing jobs or even careers and that is never a bad thing. One of the things that you need to consider is if you are feeling bored and uninspired. Are you showing up every morning dragging your feet and just feeling miserable? Do you really want to put up with it for eight hours a day Monday through Friday? Hopefully you have an awesome job with a great paycheck. You probably tolerate fairly well most of your co-workers. But you just don’t belong at the company. Everything is going great but the schedule is not what you want it to be or something just does not jive with your morals or personality, or you do not care for the services of your company. First look to see if you can go to a different department though, there might be more opportunity with the software development team versus the mobile applications. If you keep being passed over for high-profile projects or promotions, then clearly someone up top hasn't realized how talented you are. Instead of wasting your potential at a place where your work isn't acknowledged or respected, find somewhere else where you might thrive.

iPhone 6 Rumors

It is almost that time of the year again....the new iPhone is going to come out in a couple months. There are a lot of rumor surround the new smartphone as far as what sort of specs it is going to have. First of all, it is going to have a larger screen. The market is leaning toward larger screens but the the past iPhones have not been keeping up with that demand. The larger screens are better for photographs and video conferencing and other communication services. Not only will it have a larger screen, it will also be thinner and lighter. As far as the software development goes, it will be a lot better and faster. Laptop Magazine reported that the iPhone 6 will potentially include a 20-nanometer quad-core, 64-bit A8 CPU. This would make it noticeably faster when browsing the Internet, processing graphics and running apps. That all sounds wonderful but we might have to wait a couple weeks longer because of some possible production glitches. That and people mauling each other over the newest shiny toy.

Personal Earbuds

Every person's ear is like a finger print, it is unique and has its own shape. Yet, earbuds are usually made to fit close enough. Wouldn't it be amazing to have your own custom earbuds that are made specially for your ears? This means that they will not be falling out when you are jogging or just using a phone service. Enter OwnPhones. These earbuds are wireless and custom 3D printed just for your ear based off of a scan that you can do with your phones. It is a project on Kickstarter which claims that it will be the best earphone that you have ever worn. The price at this point is about $300. The goal has been reached on Kickstarter and there are already several prototypes. This is just the beginning of 3D printing projects and I am sure that there will be more to come.

Telecommuting: The Benefits

Employees who telecommute can actually save their employers a great deal of money and it can be a win-win situation on both sides. For one thing, according to researchers, workers who telecommute are more likely to work overtime than people that do not. Of course this does not always mean that the productivity will go up. Reduced overhead is an obvious cost-saving opportunity of allowing employees to work from home. The costs that can be reduced or avoided include mortgage or lease, utilities, janitorial services, office supplies, coffee and water expenses, office equipment, furniture and transit subsidies. There are also fewer sick days because telecommuting workers are able to better deal with personal issues such as stress and burnout. Not to mention there will be decreased travel costs for businesses. Using communication services such as VoIP systems and cloud systems, employees can collaborate virtually and decrease the costs of traveling. This might not work for every business, but it is definitely worth a try and a test run.

Energizing Park Benches

I have to say that this is a rather interesting concept as far as remodeling benches and other furniture to keep up with the software development and mobile revolution. This is an idea of a bench that can charge your device through a USB using the energy that it gathers from the solar panel. The first dozen benches will be installed around Boston this month; prototypes had dotted the Boston landscape this winter. Boston residents will be able to find free benches on an interactive map at Soofa.Co. Clicking on a bench brings up information about the temperature, noise, air pollution level, and recent foot traffic around the location, as well as whether a charging port is available. For now, it’s BYO cable if you want to juice up your phone. Future versions of the Soofa, Richter said, will have inductive charging, or the ability to place your device on a surface and have it power up, no cord required. Like I said, it might be an interesting concept but it digs the digital hole just a bit more when what we really need is to be able to unplug. A park bench is the best place to find that quiet solitude without a digital device. Do you think we are taking one step forward or back?

The Global Internet and Language

When mail and communication services such as telegraphs came onto the scene, the world shrunk significantly. We were now able to communicate with anyone in the world in a reasonable amount of time. This meant that information and stories were able to shared with much more ease as well as languages. Flash forward to the twenty first century and we have the internet which made the world the size of a block. You can now message people or even use internet phone services to see them as if they were sitting right there next to you. We have instant access to people and hordes of information. Though, it seems like the information is not used all that much but that is a completely different story which I may get into later. With more people being online, it is becoming more important to break down language barriers. The way to do that is for people to either learn the other languages or have the computer programs translate what the other person is saying. Skype, the internet phone company has finally ventured out into the territory of translating what the other person is saying over the internet phone. It is looking like the improvements are making it much more seamless and pretty soon language difficulties and barriers will be a thing of the past.

Can you hear me now?

Bone conduction in hearing is not something new but it is becoming more popular as an alternative way to hear and not just for people that do not have a functional pathway to the eardrum. Ludwig Van Beethoven overcame deafness by biting a metal rod attached to his piano to hear his work. Communication technology has certainly come a long way in this field as well. Baha (bone anchored hearing aids) units work by passing sound from a microphone to a magnet or implant beneath a patient's skin, which is converted into vibrations in the skull and eventually arrives at the inner ear. The bone conduction system offers key safety advantages over traditional earphones, by leaving the user's ears free so that they are not distracted from their environment. It is even possible to drive wearing them, as they comply with the legal requirement to be able to hear on the road. Of course there are security concerns if people around you are about to hear the vibrations. Either way, the voices in your head are real.

Ways to Use Your Smartphone Camera

Did you know that your phone camera can be used for more than just video conferencing and taking really bad pictures that will later get you in trouble? One of the best best ways that you can use that camera is to take pictures of receipts and airline boarding passes. It is very convenient because receipts can be lost and you can use the boarding pass pictures to get your miles credit. And I use my phone sometimes to record where I park by taking a picture of street signs at a nearby intersection. When I rent a car, I take a picture of its license plate or maybe the car itself, so I can find it later, lest I forget what I'm driving that day. You can also use it to document accidents and help you avoid legal trouble. Hope these tips help!

Beaming Internet From Drones

Facebook is reportedly in talks to purchase a company called Titan Aerospace, which makes solar-powered drones that can fly around without needing to land for five years. These drones may be used as satellites to project free Internet to developing nations from outer space. This is part of their philosophy that everyone in the world should have free access to the internet and all the communication services that come with the world wide web. You may be wondering: Is it legal for Facebook to just launch a bunch of flying machines over Africa and have them chill there for five years? Sort of! Because these drones are deemed satellites and they’re being launched to a height above the official U.S. Class A airspace (about 60,000 feet), the country isn’t able to regulate them. Obviously this law will be different in, say, Africa (where Facebook reportedly aims to launch the program first).

The Internet of the Future

So here we are with all this technology at our fingertips and the question becomes, what is next? What will the future of the internet and website development look like? A lot of people speculate that it will be more pervasive but less visible. This might be an indication of the idea that we are always going to be online and connected. To some degree, that should make us a bit more nervous. Speaking of always being connected, it will eliminate the need for some professions, or at least nearly as many open spots for them. With existing resources like Wikipedia and Khan Academy, the Internet currently provides access to education like never before. Many of the academics surveyed believe that these resources will only get better over time, creating a more equal playing field. The internet will also break down geography and at the same time make us more lonely. While our interactions may increase, they will also become more superficial and unsustainable. Any thoughts?

Don't Text and Walk

Researchers at the University of Queensland observed 26 people as they walked, both without a smartphone and with one. They noticed that participants who were texting walked more slowly, hunched their shoulders forward, and didn’t walk in a straight line. Although I don't think that you need research to figure out that paying attention to phone services while you are walking will make you do a face plant in a fountain or a telephone poll. I have written a lot of times about the necessity to put phones and other things away when you are doing something important like for example walking on a busy street or catching up on some sleep. It also makes me wonder just how humanity was able to survive all these years leading up to thirty years ago when the Mac can onto the scene. Either way, it has been thirty years of innovation and now it feels like it is the dawn of a different era in terms of computing. What are your thoughts? And please answer not while walking or driving for that matter.