Showing Archived Posts

Sub-Saharan Africa Increasingly Going Mobile

Posted November 20th, 2015 at 11:00 am (UTC-4)
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Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to reach 100 percent mobile penetration by 2021, with smartphone subscriptions accounting for nearly 95 percent of the region’s mobile data traffic. The region will see “a significant shift to mobile broadband” in the next few years as more people look to mobile devices for Internet content and data-intensive apps, said […]

Mobile Consumes Teen Generation; Emoji Makes 2015 Word of the Year

Posted November 17th, 2015 at 11:30 am (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: I’m 15 and I Can’t Look Up From My Phone Mobile devices and their various apps are sucking in a whole generation of teenagers. Writer Ruby Karp notes how young people easily grab their smartphones in the middle of a social gathering or a conversation because they don’t know how to be […]

Harassment Scrubs SXSW Panels; the Texting Generation

Posted October 27th, 2015 at 12:30 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: SXSW Cancels Panels on Gaming Harassment, Citing Threats After receiving threats of violence, the South By Southwest Festival Monday canceled two panel discussions focusing on video games and harassment in the gaming community. The festival, scheduled for March 2016, was set to feature panelists who have been publicly vocal about the #Gamergate controversy, […]

Data Access Fight; 3-D Printing the Bronze Age; Mobile Dominance

Posted September 3rd, 2015 at 4:16 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: How Microsoft’s Data Case Could Unravel the US Tech Industry Backed by a host of tech giants, Microsoft again heads to court next week to fight a U.S. Department of Justice search warrant seeking to access data stored in Ireland in a case related to international drugs. The case will determine if […]

Tech Devices Displace Memory, Boost Digital Amnesia

Posted July 10th, 2015 at 3:35 pm (UTC-4)
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Digital devices have become where we keep many of the vital pieces of our lives – snapshots once relegated to photo albums, contact information that used to be committed to memory or recorded in address books, even sensitive records kept in filing cabinets. All it takes is one careless moment for all those digitally-stored ‘memories’ […]

Are Cell Phones Harmful to Your Health?

Posted June 5th, 2015 at 3:41 pm (UTC-4)
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Cell phones and mobile devices that use electromagnetic radio frequencies continue to invade nearly every aspect of modern life despite concerns that they might prove harmful. But extensive research into the health effects of these devices has only produced inconclusive evidence. “The evidence is not certain that these devices are dangerous,” said Jonathan Samet, M.D., […]

Rise of Smartphones; Global Wi-Fi; Bitcoin; Apple; PayPal User Policy

Posted June 3rd, 2015 at 2:26 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: The Unstoppable Rise of the Smartphone A new mobility report from Ericsson said about 70 percent of the world’s population will be using smartphones by 2020. That means that 6.1 billion smartphones will be sold globally within five years. Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa accounted for the highest number of […]

Smartphones Detect Cancer; Venom Fixed; Apple Watch Flaw

Posted May 14th, 2015 at 2:47 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: Smartphones Can Detect Eye Cancer Believe it or not, smartphones can actually diagnose Retinoblastoma, a rare type of aggressive eye cancer that develops as a tumor in the retina and almost exclusively affects children. Those suffering from this disease often have a white glow around their pupils that shows up when photographed with […]

The Homeless Need Cell Phones Too

Posted April 24th, 2015 at 2:11 pm (UTC-4)
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They may not be able to afford them, but homeless people need cellphones too. Those who can afford them tend to be disconnected after a while for not being able to pay their bills – a problem that takes them out of the social services loop. But a recent hackathon from a Silicon Valley non-profit […]

Teens & Smartphones; One-armed Robots; Lego Dimensions

Posted April 9th, 2015 at 2:00 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: Study: Most Teens Rely on Smartphones to Go Online A Pew Research Center survey of more than 1,000 teens aged 13-17 found that 91 percent of them go online using their mobile devices. Black and Latino teens used the Internet more frequently, with 34 percent of black teens and 32 percent of […]