Chuckle Buddies

I was at the Dallas airport yesterday, hurrying to my connecting flight when I walked by a small toy store. I noticed there were two stuffed animals rolling around on the ground back and forth in front of the store laughing uncontrollably. I looked on the shelf displaying the animals and saw they were called Chuckle Buddies. This particular store was selling them for $19.99. I couldn't help but to smile when I saw them in motion. They were cute and interactive and their laughs are kind of contagious. After looking the item up on their website, I found out they are motion activated. There were only four different animals displayed on the site: a monkey, a lion, and two different dogs. The concept is owned by a company called 50 Fifty. The company announced they are even launching Christmas versions of their toys; they will be wearing Christmas hats.

Online Class Evaluations

So, it's the end of the semester, and with the close of each course comes class evaluations for students. Usually these evaluations are done by hand in standardized testing format. However, this semester, for the first time, students (primarily those in new media) were given links to online evaluations. All of my evaluations for the end of this semester were online, except for my Yoga evaluation. Likely this is because all of my classes but yoga were in the school of informatics due to my major, and if any of the evaluations are going to be available online, it would be in this area. I found this format convenient because I spend a great deal of time on a computer anyhow. The original manner of completing the evaluation by hand I felt was more bothersome compared to this new method. It was nice I did not need a pencil in order to complete it too. I would imagine many things involved with the school of informatics will likely become available in an online format in the near future.

Microsoft Debate

I was watching Fox News this morning while waiting for an estimate on my car. One of their news stories involved Microsoft and the European Union. Microsoft was previously fined by the EU for 2.53 Billion because they limited internet browsers on Windows OS, which the EU felt was an unfair advantage to other browser makers. However, at the beginning of the month they adjusted their planned antitrust settlement and decided to expand their options and "allow users to choose between browers" (as mentioned in the Fox News update) in hopes to settle the suit. In the agreement they declared they would automatically offer at least five different web browsers. I can understand the EU's position on the matter, but the suit surely was for quite an extensive amount. Luckily Microsoft avoided the costs by settling the suit, so in a way everyone wins.

Wearing Recycled Music

I discovered a pretty neat fashion concept directly related to technology on ecouterre.com. Two designers, Alyce Santoro and Julio Cesar have taken recycled cassette tapes and created fedoras. The hats, featured on sonicfabric.com are tightly woven with fifty percent recordable cassette tape and fifty percent colored polyester. If that isn't interesting enough, the tape actually becomes audible when a tape head is ran across the fabric. What an inventive concept- a hat that has the potential to play music! These hats are made to order, come in brown or black and are available in medium and large. The cost: $165. Not too pricey if you think about the work that goes into each hat, although the process could be more simple than one might think. This isn't the only item they've created you can wear using the same cassette-tape concept. Artist Alyce also fashions neckties using the same process.

More Options on Airplanes

When I first started flying, which was about five years ago, it was not a possibility to access the internet while in flight. Passengers were permitted to use their computers, but were asked to shut off electronic devices such as cell phones which contained a signal or put them in airplane mode. Now many airlines have added wireless internet to their flights. Not only does American Airlines and Delta/Northwest offer this feature currently, but AirTran advertises wireless internet on every flight. According to an article in the L.A. Times Business section here's the basics on how it works: "The network operates through an air-to-ground system that uses three small antennas installed on the aircraft to connect to Aircell's mobile broadband network, which has 92 cell towers throughout the country. The equipment costs about $100,000 per plane to install, but weighs only about 125 pounds...The connection is fast... about 3.1 megabits per second." The article states that passengers can't use the network for making phone calls, however, and mobile internet service on American isn't free. I believe that will be one of the next steps forward for improving flights though, enabling phone calls while in-flight.

iPhones and Boarding Passes

Earlier I was checking in online through American Airlines for my flight to Seattle tomorrow. There were a few options for me to receive my boarding passes. The first was the usual, which was just to print them. Another option which I found intriguing was to check in and have your boarding passes sent to your iphone. I started to think how that would work once at the gate considering the typical routine is to just hand your paper ticket to the attendant checking in the passengers. Would the iphone owner just hold their phone under the scanner and have it read the barcode from their screen? That would seem to be the most reasonable option. It is so interesting how many iphone applications there are that cover so many aspects of life. Maybe someone on my flight tomorrow will have chosen the latter option for check-in, and I can see for myself just how checking in with an iphone works.

Locating Someone Online

As mentioned in my previous blog, the vast amount of information the internet provides is incredible as well as the ease with which you can obtain your desired information. Recently a friend mentioned to me they happened to type my name into google search. Interestingly enough, he said my N201Fall09 blog appeared along with my posts. My profile for my blog is very minimal, but it does include my photo. I didn't think he was lying, but wanted to see the results for myself, so I googled my name. Immediately two links were displayed that were directly related to me: my linkedin page and the link to this blog. (A facebook page link was also displayed with the same name, but when I clicked on it, did not show my profile.) It only took a few seconds to find my place on the web.