Sound Waves Replacing Wipers

Theoretically, high-frequency sound waves would blast water droplets and other debris from the window. It is a high frequency electronic system that never fails and is constantly active. Nothing will attach to the windscreen. As of right now, it is just an idea in the making and might not make it to the larger market in several years. Obviously there are a lot of things to work out with this system especially the software development and since it is yet another electronic part of the car, it has the potential to be hacked and controlled by outsiders. It might seem like no big deal but in rainy or snowy weather, it would definitely be a necessity. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told The Huffington Post that McLaren's proposed technology "has not been fully developed," and that "there is not enough information available at this time to determine whether the product would meet existing, applicable federal motor vehicle standards."

Think Yourself Well

When people are doing everything "right" -- eating veggies, avoiding red meat and processed foods, exercising, sleeping well and so forth -- we should expect them to live long, prosperous lives and die of old age while peacefully slumbering, right? So why is it that so many health nuts are sicker than other people who pig out, guzzle beer and park in front of the TV or the internet phone? I have come to believe that the purely physical realm of illness -- the part you can diagnose with laboratory tests -- is only part of the equation. It's a big part, mind you, but not the whole shebang. Many people have never heard of Ayurvada and that is a very sad thing. Western medicine has taken precedence of the other arts of healing and many of those people that practice their medicine in the East have become known as quacks and not real doctors. The mind of a human is connected to the body in more ways and more intimated than we have ever thought. The lifestyle choices you make can optimize your body's relaxation response, counteract the stress response and result in physiological changes, leading to better health. The body doesn't fuel how we live our lives. Instead, it is a mirror of how we live our lives. So if you're not feeling well, despite doing all the "right" things, take a deep breath and ask yourself: What do I think might lie at the root of my illness? What does my body need in order to heal? If you're honest with yourself, the answers could save your health -- and your life.

Facebook Losing Teens

The number of teen users in Facebook has declined. Of course, those precious teens haven't decided to spend less time on their phones, tablets or computers interacting with friends. They have just decided to spend the time using different social networks. So where are the teens going? Instagram doesn't outrightly share how many younger users it has, but according to Pew, 18 percent of cell owners use Instagram and Instagram states that it has 150 million active users. Teens are also spending a lot of time looking at photos that disappear within 10 seconds. Snapchat is another teen mobile staple now. Again Snapchat doesn't share stats on the age of its users but says 350 million photos or "Snaps" are sent every day across the network. Teens are also creating their own social networks, much in the same way many did with AOL or AIM before there was Facebook. Using chat apps like Kik and WhatsApp many use the group messaging and other messaging features in this app to keep up with friends. According to WhatsApp, the service has over 300 million users. Internet phone services are also great services.

Best VoIP Apps

When it comes to internet phone services on your desktop, there are a couple different ones that are really useful. First of all, Skype is pretty much on top of this list. Skype has changed hands a couple of times. What hasn't changed is the app's large user base, with more than 50 million users logged in at one time during January 2013. Google Voice (formerly GrandCentral) is a telecom service for making and receiving telephone calls, receiving and transcribing voicemail, SMS messaging, and more. Google plans to integrate Voice into its Google+ Hangouts service, which has already replaced Google Talk and features instant messaging, group chat, video calls and conferencing. ooVoo is an instant messaging and voice/video calling service featuring instant messaging, text chat, video calls and messaging, and 12-way video conferencing, which is great if you are running a business.

Activity Trackers

We have definitely come a long way from the pedometer and into the tech and application developments of devices that are close to rivaling what the monitoring systems hospitals use. If you wear a watch, the Basis B1 Band is a great choice. Not only does the display default to show you the time in large, easy-to-read numbers, it’s a sleek, modern-looking device that actually looks like a watch. In addition to offering you hard data about your nocturnal movements and metabolism, the Basis tracks habits or goals such as waking up or going to bed at the same time every day, torching more calories or getting up from your chair to move around for a certain amount of time during the work day. As you do better meeting such goals, the Basis lets you unlock more of them, so you’re constantly in improvement mode. The Misfit Shine is a quarter-sized, futuristic-looking device you can wear on your clothing, on a sport or leather band on your wrist or as a necklace. It’s a beautiful device made by Misfit Wearables. Within the Shine iPhone app, you determine what activity level you’re aiming for and earn points according to how well you perform meeting that goal. So what is holding you back?

Living Well

Happiness is something that is very individual for every person. There might be three people in the same room and five definitions of happiness. It might include sitting down and doing some web development or just reading a good book. Either way, it is definitely something to think about at least a couple times a year. This has been thought by humans since ancient Greece. Aristotle came up with one of the most famous definitions of happiness, eudaimonia, or human flourishing. By this theory of self-actualization, personal well-being and happiness are the highest goals that we can strive for. For German phenomenologist Martin Heidegger, a good life could was not possible unless you were living authentically, directing your life on your own terms, rather than following the blueprints set by others. To Emerson, the early American Transcendentalist thinker, taking each day in stride -- as unburdened as possible by worries about the past and future -- was the best route to a life well-lived.

Cell Phone Trade In Catch

Apple has released that they will be accepting trade ins for credit to get the new iPhone. There is a catch though. Isn't it always the case that there is a catch? Here is what the program said, "To get a credit, customers have to show that their trade-in iPhone works by powering it on. Customers also have to be in wireless carrier contracts when they leave the store." The thing that you have to understand is that the mobile or cellphone business is a mass, even a mess, of various subsidies from one group to another. Apple demands, and gets, a subsidy from the phone service providers. They agree to sell the handset to the consumer for less than they are paying Apple for it: they make this up from the monthly charges over the life of the contract. I guess the bottom line is almost always coming down to commission and money.

Appliances Spying on You

For people concerned about their privacy, the NSA data grabs are daunting, but what about the data grabs happening inside your own home, perpetrated not by the government but by your internet phone or mobile applications? There are some other items in your home that have the potential to spy on you and collect data about you. Some of the connected televisions can be hacked and the personal information can be discovered. The embedded camera on the TV can also be turned on without the person knowing it. The same technology that enables monitoring of your home appliances also could allow would-be spies to monitor your lights. In addition to tracking your schedule, taking control of your home lighting system could help robbers invade your home by turning off the lights and keeping them off during an invasion. Forget about hacking your house. What about hacking your body? In 2012, White Hat hacker Barnaby Jack proved he could kill a diabetic person from 300 feet away by ordering an insulin pump to deliver fatal doses of insulin. This summer he announced he could hack pacemakers and implanted defibrillators. "These are computers that are just as exploitable as your PC or Mac, but they're not looked at as often," Jack told Bloomberg. "When you actually look at these devices, the security vulnerabilities are quite shocking."

Pre-paid Phones

The prepaid phone market has one simple purpose: To provide wireless service to people who are unable to secure a regular contract account or people who don't want one. Prepaid plans enable people to pay for their device in cash and then choose any kind of plan they want. And because users pay up-front for the device, they tend to buy a lower priced device. People who simply want to talk and don't ask much more from their smartphone, are apt to choose this route. In Europe this is extended to prepaid sim cards as well. In other words, you buy a device and then choose a carrier by buying a prepaid sim card. In this particular case you don't have any monthly bills at all. On the other hand, not having a smartphone might mean that you will not be able to have access to internet phone services which might even be cheaper in the long run.

Science: A Question

Science is a way of thinking about the Universe in terms of measurable and empirical evidence, ergo science is also a method of testing the same. It seems as though people lost track of what science really is. For example, it is not an ideology or a religion, nor an orthodoxy. Science is not an academic oligarchy, or the prestige of residency. Sometimes we need to get back to the basics. It all begins with a question, a curiosity. Then we follow the evidence. And it has to be an endless cycle where the information is always growing. In mobile application development, it is always changing and improving. This is what makes AB Soft different from the rest. They never stop trying to improve their products and it is a constant cycle of questions.

Wireless and No Batteries

As far as the great tech stories go, this makes the top of the list. Some engineers at the University of Washington have managed to create several such devices, allowing users to interact or communicate with each other battery-free by repurposing existing radio signals. It’s called ambient backscatter, a technique whereby a device appropriates wireless signals already bouncing around in the atmosphere and uses them both as a power source and a way to communicate with other devices. Ambient backscattering has similarities to RFID, but differs in that it doesn’t require a high-power signal source, has a relatively small footprint and can communicate device-to-device — unlike RFID, where tags have no ability to detect each others’ existence. This could mean great things for internet phones and communication services. Just imagine have this technology in clothing or vehicles. Where else you apply this type of tech?

Back To School Tech

With the end of August looming, there are plenty of sales going on for different back to school supplies. This can get very costly in terms of tech and all the mobile applications as well as either print or digital books. If your budget is fairly tight, you can always consider a laptop for $200. You shouldn’t expect much from a $200 laptop, but for a $200 laptop, Acer’s C7 Chromebook is a pleasant surprise. For starters, this is a Chromebook. It doesn’t run Mac or Windows; it runs Google’s web-based operating system, called Chrome OS. You’ll be dealing with Google’s Chrome web browser 99% of the time, so you’ll want to be surrounded by reliable Wi-Fi access, which shouldn’t be a problem at a college campus. For basic tasks, the system runs smoothly in light of the meager hardware setup (Celeron processor, two gigabytes of RAM, 16 gigabytes of flash storage). You won’t be able to install traditional programs on this machine such as iTunes or Microsoft Office, so keep that in mind. What you can do is get on the internet and work in a web browser. Instead of Microsoft Office, you’ll use Google Docs. If you need a machine for surfing the internet, taking notes and writing papers, and you’re on a budget, this machine is absolutely worth a look.

Your Word

In the end, all you ever have is your word. Nothing else will matter if your word means absolutely nothing. No matter what communication service you may choose to use, your word better carry weight. I am sure that you have experienced being lied to and told one or two. One of the things that really gets to me is if people make promises and then do not follow through, which is very close to lying. I mean if you lie several times, people will quit trusting you and/or believing in you. When you are treated like that, imagine trying to function further. This is the same idea that you need to have when running a business. If you are trying to get customers to buy your products or services, make sure that they are getting their money's worth and not getting ripped off because in the technology age, business are becoming more transparent. This means that people can look up a business within seconds and see the type of reputation that it has.

Surveillance of Phones

When Snowden leaked the information about the government collecting phone service data, was anyone really that surprised? Hasn't everyone already assumed this? Everything we do in the digital realm -- from surfing the Web to sending an e-mail to conducting a credit card transaction to, yes, making a phone call -- creates a data trail. And if that trail exists, chances are someone is using it -- or will be soon enough. Big data analysis works by identifying patterns and anomalies in our behavior. Nobody cares about the reasons why certain people do certain things. They only need to be able to predict the future. As those of us that had exposure to statistics, you will know that to spot the anomalies, there needs to be a good database of information. The silver lining in all of this is the fact that the transparency can go both ways. The digital trail of the government or businesses are just as transparent as the public's records. Just something to keep in mind.

Next Steps in the Mobile Phone Market

The market of mobile phones is pretty saturated and more or less bursting at the seams. With all the amazing technology available, the question that potential customers will be asking themselves is not whether they like the screen or operating system but whether it is compatible with all the other existing gadgets such as the car and the TV. Phone services are also straying away from the old fashion land line as it is seem by the fact that many people actually just get rid of that service at their homes. The first wave was seen by the smartwatches. Many of the big companies will be rolling out with the watches in the coming year and they will act as an extension of the phone. Car and home integration are going to be soon to follow. For example, iOS 7 is going to have car connectivity options. What are your thoughts on the shift in the mobile market.

How Much Time Do You Spend On Your Phone?

A study that explored how people use their smartphones and just how much time is spent on them. It was found that people spend about an hour on their phones a day on average. Most of that time is spent communicating for talking taking up the most time, followed by texting and emailing. With all the new app development and the world becoming more mobile, I am sure that number is actually much higher. How much time do you spend on your phone? I have gone on this rant before but I think that it doesn't hurt to be repeated. We sometimes need a break from our technology and phones in order to be able to see the world for what it truly is. I know you know that person that records a whole concert on their phone and does not even watch it in real time. Seriously, when was the last time you had dinner or lunch with someone that you have not seen in a while without whipping that phone out? You should try it. It might surprise you what you will find out.

How Do You Measure It?

How would you measure success? Is the measure of it, for a business, the amount of money that they make? Or is it something more? With a whole week of the new year almost over, I was thinking about the whole idea of making a resolution. Making a resolution means that we somehow do something different in our lives. Well, why? Why do we want to change things? The answer might be that we want to be happier or more successful or more something. So which comes first, success or happiness? I realize that it is a question that has been beaten to a pulp and then kicked around for a while. In my world, success means changing other people's lives, making them a bit easier to bear, or just improving them. Technology has the power to do that but only when it is used to the best of its ability. Here at AB Soft, technology is changing the way people communicate with each other and the world at large. The success of web development is one of the most important faces that businesses present to the world so we make sure it is picture perfect. Through our software development, business are able to achieve what they define as their success.

VoIP Market

Many more businesses are choosing to go with IP telephony because of the advancements in the technology and security. The VoIP systems market had about 17% growth in the past five years and it is not stopping anytime soon. The advantages of having an internet phone are clear as far as saving costs and being more efficient. It enables employees to communicate over different devices as well as hold meetings in remote areas while in the field. Virtual phones also lower long distance costs and no calls are missed because of the call forwarding services. Perhaps sensing the increasing popularity of VoIP, Google announced it is extending its free VoIP calling offering from Gmail in the United States and Canada through 2013. Also, more software companies, such as AB Soft, are offering the infrastructure and software for the mobile applications that are needed for the phone service.

Honesty

Honesty has always been the best policy in the work place but with social media readily available, it is just more motivation to make sure that nothing is said that you would not want another coworker or boss to find out. Just like internet phone services and other forms of communication need to be kept professional at work, so does everything that you do on the social networks. Employees have witnessed the many recent dishonest behaviors that have been exposed through social and traditional media and realized they don't want to suffer the same fate. With social media giving their employers access to nearly every detail of their lives, many employees are being more up front with employers. So is it a good idea to "friend" a coworker? From personal experience, let me just say that it is better to separate work and private life as much as possible. Another reason that people are being more honest is because of all these stories that are coming out about scandals caused by social media and things found on the internet.

Consequences of Presence Technology

One type of problem is simply not using presence settings properly. These options help end users self-manage their availability, so if their status is regularly changing, presence can be invaluable. However, it can just as well create artificial blockages when settings are not updated. To illustrate, if you switch to “do not disturb” or “offline” when going to a meeting – but don’t switch back to “available” after the meeting, you may miss out on important messages or invites. Some people rely solely on presence indicators to determine who gets contacted for ad hoc requirements, and if you’re not in the habit of updating your status, that can become counterproductive. Another unintended consequence of comes from the information you share in your presence profile. IM platforms allow for some degree of personalization, such as a photo, avatar, personal tag line, etc. In the workplace, this type of content is expected to be professional and business-like. So when it comes to your presence over VoIP services and the like in the business, remember to keep it professional.