Technology
Hot Technology: Newest Items on the Market
This Christmas many things will be written down on your wish list, but before you send it off to the North Pole for Santa to look over, here are some new, hot pieces of technology that may make you have a change of heart.
An item on the market that is always popular in today’s society is a cell phone. One of the newest, high tech cell phones is the iPhone. Not only is the iPhone a phone, it is a widescreen iPod that has access to the internet and a buttonless touch screen. This little device has the highest technological capability, better than any other cell phone, MP3, or iPod today. If you wish to have this handy, multi-functional phone as one of your Christmas gifts, you will need a pretty penny to afford one of these. These bad boys go for as high as $599, but some stores are lowering the price to $399. Another phone that has people running to the stores is the Juke. The Juke is the one player that is for all your sound, music, and video files, and also includes music CDs. It allows you to create mixed play lists easily by dragging and dropping. Use DirectX plug-ins to turn Juke into a professional music production system with an equalizer, compressor and limiter. This little gadget has it all. So, if the iPhone is on the expensive side for you, the Juke is definitely cheaper and the way to go.
Another thing that is a hit for everyone is a digital camera. The EasyShare V550 digital camera is perfect for every occasion. This year it is dressed up in the season's hottest colors -- Absolute Pink, Red Shimmer, Midnight Black, and Silver Essence. The V530 camera is small enough to fit in a small handbag for the girls or in the back pocket for the guys.
Last, but never the least, is the iPod. The iPod has been a complete success for Apple. There are many different kinds of iPods. For example, there is the shuffle, the nano, the mini, the classic and the iPhone. But now the newest iPod version can tune in FM radio. Tech analysts were skeptical on how Apple would top the wildly popular and current iPod models that include video capabilities and ever-smaller sizes. But, as always, they did. This version is said to be “The best remote control and the best FM radio listening experience for iPod" quoted by President Apple Vice President Greg Joswiak. Also another compliment said was, “The iPod Radio Remote combines two great features in one elegant product."
Instead of getting everyone the same thing for Christmas this year, go for a change and pick up one of the hottest electronics on the market today. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
Columnist: Shea Farris
StumbleUpon & Yahoo
Being bored on the computer is a common problem for many teenagers, after they've checked their emails and MySpace profiles (never at school!) and have instant messaged their friends until there's nothing left to talk about. There are billions of amazing pages on the internet, but many of them go unvisited.
StumbleUpon fixes that. It's a database of user-reviewed websites that are separated into categories, and rated by members. There is also the more popular downloadable toolbar. This feature allows members to search the database by keyword or category, and rate whether or not they like the page with either a thumbs up or thumbs down icon.
The amazing thing about StumbleUpon is that it gets 'smarter' the more you use it! It takes note of the pages you rate thumbs up and thumbs down, and then shows you pages that are shared with users who rate pages similar to you. For example, if you rate a page on photography thumbs up, and so does another user, you might be referred to a page that the other user also rated thumbs up - this shows you more of what you like, and less of what you don't, the more you stumble.
A similar move has been taken by Yahoo, the popular internet services company, to inprove their search engine. Their new "Search Assist" technology bases results on keywords entered in the search. This may sound similar to what Google and Windows Live already do when they ask "Did you mean...?" The difference is that the software 'remembers' whether you were satisfied with your results, and uses these statistics to improve other searches.
To download StumbleUpon, visit http://stumbleupon.com, and to try out Yahoo's new search tool, visit http://yahoo.com.
Technology: Kat Stein
Saltwater: The Fuel of the Future?
By: Amanda Sgroi
If you ever went out and had to buy gas, which I’m sure most of you have, then you all know how much money it costs, and I bet sometimes you all wish you could make your own fuel out of something else, like saltwater?
In Erie, Pennsylvania, a cancer researcher by the name of John Kanzius found a way to create gas by bombarding saltwater with radio frequencies. The way this works is the energy from the radio waves cause bonds in the saltwater to become weak, thus creating hydrogen and oxygen gasses. Roy Rustum of Penn State said, “Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it’s exposed to the frequencies.” When the researchers found this out, they were all very excited, especially since the saltwater is such an abundant source.
Later this week, Roy will meet with the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try and raise money to help further research. They will also try and figure out “if 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit would be enough to power a car and other heavy machinery.” This reporter decided to then ask a science teacher at FRHS too see how this would work and create energy. Mrs. Sugaya-Jones brought this equation to life with this diagram:
There will also be limitations in this way too get energy to your car from saltwater, such as, will you get enough energy back from which you first started with, but a plus if this all does work is that there will be no pollution.
This reporter will research further on the topic in the future. As Roy said and this reporter believes, “The potential is huge.”