Is Twitter an Absurd Company?

Why is the company Twitter or TWTR as its stock is called, a terrible and absurd company? No I don’t mean that the use of it as a media device is bad, even though my personal opinions are that it is a generally a waste of time with all the nonsense like people tweeting what they are doing all the time. The company as a whole is a bad idea because it is not successful at

all.

Yes the company does make a lot of money through ads, paying for followers, and donations. But the amount of loss this company faces each quarter is astounding, they have had 13 losses quarters in a row. They don’t any positive income, nor do they even do that much work for the a lot of money they have to spend. People are starting to ask questions and wondering if all the promises the company has made are true. They continue to say that they will start making money and see positive gains, but they have been saying that for a year. They have adding features desperately trying to make money but they just seem to spend even more. They have thousands of employers, but what do they do? Why is there so much spending in the under levels of the company if they are losing so much money?

The problems is obvious, the people who own the stock of twitter need to just sell it. It is worth nothing, the company will continue to lose money until people finally lose faith and just pull out. They have recently just had a major crash in stocks and a lot of people are starting to pull out. Twitter continues to tell investors to just hold on, they will start making positive income soon, but the huge problem is the Twitter’s growth has slowed greatly. Not that many people are joining and the ads are not making nearly enough money to support the huge company. Twitter will follow most media sites and will lose a lot of its popularity. Right now the growth is falling way under predictions from the company and unless twitter starts lower its costs they will eventually fail. A large reason is because when Twitter became public the stock shot up way higher then it should have because people had a lot of expectations for it because the success of facebook.  

OnePlus One

The new smartphone coming out of OnePlus is hyped to be groundbreaking and being called a “Flagship Killer” product. One of the reasons that the product is supposed to be groundbreaking is because of all the new hardware that is launching with it. Not only is it the most powerful phone that is coming on to the market, it is also set at one of the cheapest prices only being 300 dollars. It is launching with the newest processor from SnapDragon, leaders in the advancements of phone hardware.

Another advancement was the increase in screen size of the phone, but without increasing the size of the actually phone that much. It has a quad-core processor, each 2.5GHz which makes it extremely powerful compared to its rivals. It packs 3 gigabytes of RAM, which is equal to many of its competitors. But the fact that it is a more advanced type of RAM  that allows it to run multiple Apps effortlessly at once. Its powerful camera outclasses many other smartphones allowing it to take breathtaking shots.

The operating system it runs off of is a modded version the android system that was the highest rated among operating systems by users. It has a new type of sensor built into it that will allow you to use gestures and signs in order to use functions without touching the screen. It has a new type of battery that is designed to last as long as possible with special sensors that limit use and its backlight  allows so it does not allow extra use. The battery is allowed to run all day long, plus a new system in the battery that allows it to charge faster.

Another big selling point for the phone is its ergonomics, that are specially designed for use and being held by a person. It has light sensors built into it to change the lighting of the screen as to lower battery use. The Wifi device inside it is stronger than other devices in order to give it longer ranges so it is easier to stay connected.

This phone is not out yet, but if it follows through even most of the features it promises it will indeed be groundbreaking. The fact that it is priced so low is amazing considering it is hundreds of dollars cheaper than the flagship phones on release. This is definitely a phone to keep your eye on.

Are Smart guns the future?

There are new guns coming out on the market that are called smart guns. They have devices built into them that make you have to be verified as the owner of the gun to shot it. You have to register in order to activate the gun and it keeps track of you when you use it. The new ones use watches that you wear to activate the , so you have to be wearing the watch in order to shoot it. The hope is that because of all this safe constraints gun related violence will go down.

A lot of the crimes committed with guns are usually illegal guns that are not registered and used by people who have records that make it illegal for them to own firearms. The creators of smart guns are hoping that the increase in gun safety will help lower crime rates. But the main problem is that people have shown that they do not want the “personal” guns. Because of the rules you have to follow to activate them, people think they will lose all their use in important situations. Like if a burglar breaks into someones home, and that person does not have their watch with them the gun is useless.  

But the counterargument is that people will not be able to steal and trade in illegal guns, nor will guns be able to be used by criminals that should not have guns. That people will not be able to use them in any crimes because of how will it is documented. The biggest problems are that there are guns on the market that do not use smart technology. Because they are available completely undermines the use of smart guns. Why would a person handicap themselves against people who are the committing crimes like robbery and murder.

Another big problems is the reliability of the guns. If one little thing goes wrong the gun will not work. Many of the smart guns made in the past have not been reliable at all and there have been many problems with them.  One model of a handgun have a fingerprint scanner on the grip to prove that your were you to be able to fire it. But the problem was that it did not always work or sometimes it would for someone one who was not its owner. I think that technology needs to advance more before we see smart guns as a popular safety barrier.

Keyboard configurations

Keyboards have changed a lot over the course of time. One of the configurations is Dvorak.The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr.August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, Dr. William Deeley. Over the years several slight variations were designed by the team led by Dvorak or by ANSI. It puts a lot of the most used keys in the home row and the most used combinations are easy to use as well. Dvorak proponents claim the Dvorak layout uses less finger motion, increases typing rate, and reduces errors compared to the standard QWERTY keyboard. This reduction in finger distance traveled is claimed to permit faster rates of typing while reducing repetitive strain injuries though this has been called into question.

The standard that we use now is called QWERTY. The name comes from the first six keys appearing on the top left letter row of the keyboard and read from left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in 1873. It became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, and remains in use on electronic keyboards due to the network effect of a standard layout and a belief that alternatives fail to provide very significant advantages. The use and adoption of the QWERTY keyboard is often viewed as one of the most important case studies in open standards because of the widespread, collective adoption and use of the product. The actual reason the keyboard is used mainly popularity, many people say that there are better configurations of keyboards that are faster and better for your hands.

The Colemak keyboard layout is another alternative to the standard QWERTY layout, offering a more incremental change for users already accustomed to the standard layout. It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of 17 keys while retaining the QWERTY positions of most non-alphabetic characters and many popular keyboard shortcuts, supposedly making it easier to learn than Dvorak for people who already type in QWERTY. It shares several design sensibilities with DVORAK, such as minimizing finger path distance and making heavy use of the home row. An additional defining feature of the Colemak layout is the lack of a Caps Lock key, an additional Backspace key occupies the position typically occupied by Caps Lock on modern keyboards.

How protected are you?

Well last week the heartbleed bug was running rampant and everyone was watching out of it but how safe are you online? Well it turns out the heartbleed bug was going on for months and it just came out that it was a serious threat and affecting millions and was a major problem but no one know about it. It turns out that only a handful of people who work at this companies are the reason if you have the virus or not. The threats online are so  severe that you are warned not to use debit cards online and be wary of sites, watch what you download, your information is never safe online. Why is this such a big problem and why has it been a problem for so long?

One of the most downloaded things is antivirus security and business are run off of people needing their computer cleaned out of virus and Trojan horses. The biggest problem is the general populations knowledge of computers. Most people don't bother learning the basics of computers let alone the advanced stuff like reading and learning how to really work the in depths parts of computers. This is all understandable because it is a lot to learn can be very confusing and does not make a lot of sense. So companies try to make it very simple and easy to use, simplifying everything, generally just giving people yes or no questions, doing short titles and hiding all the complicated stuff behind cute little images of folders and icons. But the problems is hackers and virus are easily able to hide behind this very brief data given to you and get access though a yes or no question that you don't realize you are making. Because you using a computer is so easy you can accidentally download something wrong. Everyone does this and only a few people can really fix it. People don’t have the time or dedication to learn all this things and how to protect ourselves from them. The fault lies with the people you do trust, the people you hire to fix the problem. So make sure you know what exactly is wrong with your computer when you take it in and try to get the people who helped you to explain everything. Little things like this can go along way to protect yourself the next time.

Kill Switch is a good thing?

A new feature is hopefully being added to smartphones at the start of next year that will have a big impact of crime hopefully. The idea is that it is a device in your phone that you could have activated to completely brick your phone and just make it useless. The idea is that it will completely deter theft of smart phones. If your phone is lost or missing and this might not be the best idea but if your phone is stolen you can completely disable it, rendering it useless. Because there is no point in stealing it, officials are hoping that it will cause them to be stolen less. Now if you can recover your phone the companies say they can retrieve all your data, photos and contacts, so there really is no apparent downside.

But the main concern from companies is that hackers might be able to hack into their computers and just start disabling phones. This is not really really a large issue most officials who back this idea say, because the companies should be able to get you your information back. Lawmakers are some of the strongest supporters of this movement because they believe this will greatly lower the theft of smartphones which has been growing rapidly in the last few years. The companies have been mainly against this idea, saying it's counterproductive and they deemed it not possible a few months ago. But increase in pressure from the customers have lead them to change their mind and in Minnesota, there is currently a law trying to make it mandatory to have this feature in phones for a company to sell. The companies are resisting this change because it would cause a drop in the money they make for replacing phones. If the amount of phones stolen drops so does the amount of warrants that are taken out to help if your phone is stolen. Many customers are switching to phone providers that encourage the kill switch, like Apple, who included a similar feature in their new IOS they just rolled out. The main fear for the supporters is that not enough will use this feature and that it will be left unused so people continue on stealing smart phones.

The Heartbleed bug

The heartbleed bug is a huge bug that was just uncovered by some big security companies that was allowing access to people’s information. Just about every major site has been infected with this virus. It has been around for about 2 years but was just discovered but the outcry has been large. This bug has allowed for thousands of people’s information to be stolen from all sorts of sites.

The heartbleed bug is a bug that opens up a hole in services that allows peoples to gather information for the site with having to have a password or username. It is very deadly on a site that has the ability to remember your password and automatically logs you in because the bug allows that person to enter as you anytime its wants. It allows access to emails, passwords, credit card access and other information.

The heartbleed bug also affects other things than just computers, it has been found in other devices like phones and smartphones. Information tapes have been found on things like video conferences and was found in things like the switches for the internet, which are used everywhere. It has been found in cameras and in hard drives so just about very type of information has been compromised.

The effects of this bug while been felt for a long time. The big companies will be compromised for a long time but changing your password and not being auto logged in will be not be enough. Even when new patched that will stop this bug come around, it will never be safe because small business and medium size business will not be able to stop the bug. The companies that the large companies outsource to or go through or use the services of, will affect the  large companies all over again. Experts are saying that is the bug of the century and the aftershocks of this will be felt for a long time. Because this bug has been active for a long time, there really is not anything to do about it, expect to just sit and wait. Some suggest it would be better to continue as you always have but monitor your bank account and emails closely to see if you are being affected by the bug.

Advancements for Smartphones

Advancements in cell phones that you might see in a year or 2 year. These are some new things that are being developed that will greatly improve on certain smart phones but not entirely new phones. The first advancement is a way to improve vibration. Everybody has missed calls and texts from not feeling the vibration so there are companies working on new ideas that could help improve a silent way to get messages, because having your ringer on is not practical in most places nowadays.  One company is trying to make the phone be able to send a pulse into your body that makes you aware of the phone. I am not sure on this because I don't think people would be willing to use this, even if it cause no pain. Another way to improve is the increase in the power of the vibration. Like if your phone is on a table it will vibrate hard enough that it will flip over and if its in your pocket it will turn and twist to get you to notice it. There will be pads on it or a special cast for your phone that makes it so it is no loud nor make a lot of noise as it moves on a hard surface.

Another big now idea is bendable phones. Sony is trying to create a phone that can bend and twist. Now its just a small amount but the use of it would be it would make phones a lot more durable and harder to break. They would also fit in just about any pocket, which is a huge problem with the problem that the increase in the size of phones is making them bigger then peoples pockets.

The next big advancement is companies are working on a new battery. They are working on batteries that will had enough energy for several days of use. The bigger advance is a company based in Iran. A group of scientist were working on a cure for Parkinson's and come upon a way to charge batteries nearly instantly. The battery has a new compound of chemicals that can charge fully in under 1 minute. They have a working prototype that is the size of a cigarette  packet but they are working on making it smaller. They say that their product will be on the market soon and I for one can’t wait for this.

Is the penalty for hacking too high?

Is the punishment for hacking to high? If you look at the crime itself, what is hacking? The law has trouble because the crimes you can commit using a computer change every day, new things are being developed that can be hacked and there are new ways to access data that might not be not be illegal but still violate laws. The punishments for hacking are very high, with tens of thousands of dollars in fines and up to 20 years in prison. Is that to high for a price for some minor crimes? While because the law is still new, the penalties have changed quite a lot recently. There are other situations that someone hacks a company but does not actually cause any damage but still violates so laws.

Recently a man was convicted to 20 years in prison and several thousand dollars in fines, and the man killed himself. The crime he committed was he hacked a company and stole some information, but the sentence he received was worse then so murders get. So there are so people advocating that the penalties be lower, mainly the prison sentences and an increase of the fines the people have to pay.

There are 2 kinds of hackers, black hats who are hackers that are doing it on their own and hacking into companies for stealing information and money. And there are white hats, that not always hired by the companies but they hack companies to show weaknesses and loopholes they can find and then advise the company how to prevent further hacks and help them close the holes. Some of this kinds of hackers have not been hired by the companies and are just doing it on their own so even though they are not malicious, they can be arrested for this crimes. A handful of the most famous white hat hackers are actually have asperger and do not know what they are doing is necessarily bad and wrong.

There have even been large groups of people who ban together and create hacking “clans”. The most notorious are MOD or masters of destruction, MOB has been stopped by government and the rest have gone underground but a few other groups have taken up in their stead and because they are so powerful they have the ability to bring entire company to their knees, so should this malicious groups be arrested for the same laws that other hackers that are not necessarily bad?

Do Pro gamers make enough money to live off of?

How much do Pro gamers make compared to the a regular job. Well the highest paid pro gamer at the moment, who lives in the United States, makes about 400,000 dollars a year but that's not mainly from him and his team winning tournaments and bringing in prize money. This money mostly coming from salaries, sponsors and money from things like streaming and doing other small things. There are other ways for making money from gaming to, Reginald a League of Legends player who switched from playing to managing his team, TSM not only does he make money off his team, but he is a smart investor and he runs a business based off his team selling merchandise. He has not gone public with his money but it's speculated that he is a millionaire and one of the ways he has done this is by making his team super popular, he has them stream on Twitch and they do things with fans and he advertises plus getting a lot of sponsors for his team.

This are the higher end Pros that are famous and make a lot more money than the average Pro. On average the lesser known and average skill level teams make about 85,000 to 100,000 which is still pretty good but that is average so half the players make less than that. But another time you have to take into notice is that most teams live in player house’s that are owned by the team and the players do not have to pay for housing expenses. Traveling is also not an issue because usually the sponsor's or the people holding the tournament pay for the travel and hotel costs. The average american makes about 50,000 thousand dollars, so the average Pro player makes more than most and it is a dependable job to support yourself. But compared to other professional athletes, most gamers do not make nearly as much money. Plus its no easy ride to just become a Pro gamer and the time required to practice and to get  good enough does take a lot of time and talent. This does not leave a lot of time to get another job so they have to rely a lot on gaming. There is also a age period just like other sports where after about 30 your reaction time is just too slow to be able to compete with the younger Pros. So, yes the average Pro gamer does make enough money to live off on and it is comparable to other having a full time job.

Is Pro gaming a real job?

Is being a pro gamer actually a thing or is it something a teenage boy says as he talks all his "skills pwning noobs"? There have been video game competitions since 1972, but the first major one was in 1981 backed by Atari. Recently video game competitions which are now referred to as e sports (electronic sports) have taken off with in increase in the popularity of live streams and use of the internet. They have been very popular in places like South Korea since the 2000’s but have not successfully launched in the United States. Recently with huge growths in live stream watchers and viewing websites they have taken off in the States. Websites like Twitch.tv and Own3d.tv really caused the popularity of e sports to increase greatly. Many times e sports had be on television but never received many views and they would only last a few years each. But with live streams e sports had found their place, with many competitions gaining tens of thousands of viewers, if not more. Because of this the events are growing larger and larger each year with millions in dollars of prizes during the seasons.
 Sponsorship are becoming a large benefactor to the growth as well and the companies not only help supply the funding but also the equipment required for the competitions. The current games that popular right now are games like DOTA 2, League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Counter Strike and many other games. Fighting games have been popular for a long time but have distanced themselves for other games and do not generally go by e sports. Pro gamers are almost always part of a team organization.  This teams get sponsors of their own and gives gamers the ability to earn a team salary, so winning tournaments and competitions are not the only way they can make money. 
A large trend that is happening in major team based games are that the teams are all being to live together in one big house, sometimes called a team house or gaming house. Because countries like China and Asia have had serious competitions longer than any other place generally leads them to be the best in most areas, but many European countries have caught and North America has caught up as well though still slightly behind. So yes, being a pro gamer is actually a thing and there is in chance that in the U.S it might one day be as popular as other sports.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is back in the news and is growing more popular than ever. A company called Oculus VR is working on a major project called the Oculus Rift, and so far its a success. They started out on Kickstarter where they were extremely successful in raising enough money for their project and have begun testing their new products with buyers. It has grown in popularity because of the company’s presence at just about every big convention and in everyone they are allowing demos or showing something new off. The new VR experience is so amazing and in depth that special precautions had to be made with first time users at the exhibits, you have to sit down with your back to a wall while an employee sits with you and helps explain you through it. It is supposed to be extremely distorting but feels amazing when you get used to it. 
What it is is a headset with HD displays on the inside that have huge fields of view. It has a gyrostabilizer that makes the world move as you move and is said to make it extremely immersive. There have been talks between game development companies and Oculus, and there are speculated that deals have been made, so you might start seeing games that make use of the Oculus Rift soon. 
You can buy a “dev kit” or developer kit from their website, but when they announced they sold out very quickly. You can place an order for one and they are surprising only 350 $ which is very cheap for what they do. There have been other advancements in accessories for the Rift, with things like a treadmill that moves with you, so while you wear the headset you can walk on the treadmill and actually move your character in the game. They have extended over they’re displays and exhibits in conventions as well. They have a digital model of Westeros, the imagery continent that the popular show Game of Thrones and the book series A song of Fire and Ice. They’re lasted big news is that Facebook has offered to buy their company for 2 billion dollars. They have accepted and Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook says he will also begin developing for educational purposes as well.