Tech Article May 20, 2011

Lady Gaga is teaming up with Zynga to creat a new game called GagaVille, a spin off of FarmVille. The new game will launch on May 17, 2011. People who visit GagaVille will get to listen to unreleased songs from Gaga’s new album Born This Way before the CD hits stores on May 23, 2011. When you play Words with Gaga, a game inside GagaVille, you’re entering yourself in a contest to win tickets to see Lady Gaga in concert. To get the full abum, Born This Way as a free download, you need to purchase a Zynga giftcard at Best Buy before you play.

Organization

On my computer, I use different folders to organize my documents, music, pictures, etc. For example, for school, I have different folders for my essays, projects, and homework. I label the folders by subject and teacher. Within the main folders, I have other folders that help me organize my work. I use a hierarchical system on my computer. A tag is a keyword that helps you locate things on the internet. For example, you can search the word Bieber on Google and it brings up a list of websites. Google Docs and Gmail use tagging. Social Bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Two examples of social bookmarking would be Facebook and Twitter.

Tech Article April 29, 2011

Will the Royal Wedding break the Internet?

When Kate Middleton and Prince William get married on Friday morning, the Internet is going to be filled with pictures and videos of the event. It is possible that all of this uploading could cause major websites to shut down and some networks might stall. It's not definite that this could happen, but their is a very good chance it will. Major websites might crash because of a traffic flux. The one thing that might save the major websites is the fact that the wedding is on at 4 A.M in the United States and most people won't be awake at that time.

Tech Article 4/15

When playing trivia games at restaurants and bars, you aren't allowed to use your phones to Google to search the answers. Now, there's a trivia game that lets you use Google called A Google A Day. The search engine offers a daily quiz question that will get harder as time goes on. The answers will be printed the day after in the New York Times above their crossword puzzle. The purpose of this trivia game is to get people to use the Google search engine more and see what capabilities it has.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/11/google.trivia.game/index.html

Podcasting

What is a podcast?
A podcast is a series of media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication.

Why do people create podcasts?
People create podcasts for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes.

What are your experiences in creating podcasts?
I have never personally made a podcast but I have listened to them for school when studying for tests.

What tools can help you create a podcast?
You can create podcasts using programs like iTunes and Audacity.

What topic specifically would you like to create a podcast for?
I'd like to create a podcast on a trip I took with my brother.

Tech Article April 7, 2011

On Wednesday, Toyota and Microsoft announced that they are teaming up to create an advanced digital information and communication system for the Japanese automaker's cars. The partnership will be deploying telematics in Toyota Vechiles. Telematics is communcations in cars such as GPS. The best known telematics services are OnStar and General Motors. One important feature Toyota and Microsoft are adding onto their approach at telematics is that plug-in electric cars can "talk" to each other which has rarely been seen in cars.

Spring Break Plans

During Spring Break this year, I have softball almost everyday. I'm hoping that the weather's nice though so I can at least get a tan. Hopefully, I'll have a day off so I can go to Six Flags with Alani.

Tech Article March 25, 2011

The U.S military contractor iRobot is going to be used soon to help the reconstruction of Japan. iRobot, which is based in Massachusetts, is donating four robots to help Japan. One of the robots that will be used is the Packbot. The Packbot is an agile, battle-tested robot. It will be used to search for chemical, biological, or radiological anomalies. The second robot that will be used is the Warrior. The Warrior is a 347 pound robot that can move rubble or wreckage and carry up to two hundred pounds. Both of these robots are remote controlled and can be controlled from up to eight hundred meters away. The main purpose of these robots is to keep people safe. If the robots do the jobs instead of people, people won't get hurt.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/03/23/robots.japan.relief/index.html

First Voki

Tech Article March 11, 2011

OR Books is using Twitter to tell the history of the reign and resignation of Hosni Mubarak. The book is going to be called Tweets from Tahir. It is set to hit shelves on April 21. Most of the trending topics on twitter are more funny and relaxed, but this is a very serious topic. There might  be some legal problems with using twitter because of the rights of the tweets. OR Books is trying to contact authors for permission first so they don't run into this problem.

Tech Article March 3, 2011

Earlier this week, some Google users lost all of their e-mails and contacts. Most people are very curious as to how Google lost and retreived all these e-mails so fast. The e-mails and contacts were said to be lost due to a glitch in Google's system. The strange part about this is that Google stores it's information in numerous places so a lot of people were unsure of how their e-mails and contacts could have completely disappeared. Google retreived these e-mails back quickly because they keep them all on tape.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/03/01/gmail.lost.found/index.html

Tech Article February 25, 2011

Sports fans could soon tune in to 

YouTube

YouTube is a site usually used to watch videos that people upload, but there has been talk that the NBA and NHL are trying to work with YouTube to stream live games on their site.  Last year, YouTube streamed live cricket games from India and it was very successful. Most people hope that streaming basketball and hockey games live on YouTube will be successful as well. If this does actually end up happening, there are high hopes that other sports like the MLB will soon become involved as well.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/02/23/sports.youtube.mashable/index.html

Tech Article February 16, 2011

Today it was announced that LG is trying to put a 3D Smartphone on the market. This new phone can display 3D images without special glasses, and take 3D pictures and videos with a pair of camera's in the back of the phone. LG hopes that this new phone will be a success with all of the 3D movies that have been circulating around Hollywood. To make this 3D phone an effect called switchable barrier is used. The name of this new phone is called the Optimus 3D and was shown this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. At the meeting, people were allowed to play 3D games and watch 3D movies on the phone. After this phone's release, LG is going to come out with a tablet that has 3D features just like the Optimus 3D.

My Weekend February 11, 2011 - February 13, 2011

On Friday afternoon, I found out that my brother got me Taylor Swift tickets for her concert in July for my birthday. It was honestly the best surprise I've ever gotten. Friday night, I slept at my friend Gabby's house after I got back from my basketball game in Northern Highlands.  We stayed up later than we should have and I was absolutely exhausted the next day. Saturday morning, I went to the doctor to get my knee checked. The doctor said I might have a tear in one of the muscles surrounding my knee which might result in surgery. Saturday afternoon I went to the movies with Dina and Emily to see Never Say Never. It was amazing. Saturday night I decided to stay home because I was really tired. I ended up going to Ice Cream Charlie's with my mom and saw Lauren working. I woke up Sunday morning to a plate of pancakes my dad made me for Valentine's day. My cousin turned thirteen yesterday and I went to her birthday party and pretty much babysat my other cousin. I was bored out of my mind. I got home and did my homework, went on facebook, watched the grammy's, cleaned my room unwillingly, and then finally went to sleep.

Tech Article February 11, 2011

For the past couple of years, people have been waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon. Surprisingly, when the iPhone 4 was available in stores yesterday, few people were lined up to buy it. Fifteen minutes after the iPhone 4 was available at the Apple store in New York, only eight people were there and purchased it. In Atlanta, Georgia, only about a dozen people were there for the release of the iPhone 4. In California, there was actually nobody waiting outside the Apple store for the phone’s release. The iPhone 4 is the same on AT&T and Verizon, the only difference being the different service providers. Even though the many people weren’t waiting outside at 6:30 in the morning for the iPhone 4, Verizon sold between 250,000 and 1 million iPhone 4’s on pre-order last week. A lot of people waited for the iPhone 4 to come out instead upgrading to smart phones like the Droid and Blackberry.

My Multimedia Post

Check out Alani's Blog!

Hello.

I'm Elizabeth. I'm fifteen years old and I play volleyball, basketball, and softball. My favorite color is purple and my favorite numbers are eleven and three. I absolutely love music. There are two things I love to do the most, the first thing is going to concerts. I've been to nine so far and my goal is to go to fifty before I turn twenty-eight. The second thing I like to do is go to watch the Rutgers football and girls basketball team play with my older brother Andrew. I'm always with my friends, and they're the only reason I actually like coming to school.