HardwYred

In the time of "fake news" and alternative facts, we should not be surprised by the dishonest media, and yet, I am still slightly surprised by deliberate misleading by the major news. While I find it pretty uneventful that media companies are politically biased (I mean we kind of expect that), I do think that trying to circumvent fact for click-bait is completely heinous. A journalist's first motive should always be the truth Is this just a one-sided problem? Absolutely not. In fact, there are two instances recently (on both sides of the aisle) that make me think that the time of journalistic integrity is fading away. Maybe I am wrong. If you don't keep up with the news (or spend anytime on Twitter), you may not be aware that there is clearly some divide between some NFL players (and fans) and some NFL owners (and the president). In the spirit of that divide, President Trump announced that he was not welcoming the Super Bowl champions to the White House. Now, t

Numerous social media companies fight for teens attention Not long ago, a  study was conducted detailing the social media usage of teenagers, and surprisingly (or not), Facebook did not come in at the top of the list. In fact, Facebook came in at the center of the pack with only 51% of teenagers using the platform. Compared to the 85% for YouTube and 72% for Instagram, Facebook is fading quickly from the forefront of social gathering. (Note: Instagram is owned by Facebook) The real question is, "why are teens abandoning the platform?" To me, it is not a simple as a single reason, but more a combination of factors. Firstly, the platform has quickly diluted and lost the "coolness" it once had. Now, not to insult anyone, but no teenager or tween wants to share their life and spend their time on a platform that their parents or grandparents are on. Once upon a time, Myspace was the overrun platform and Facebook was young and fresh; if you look today, I am s

Apps like Tynker and Grasshopper teach coding to kids and beginners Let's face it: technology is not going to go backwards. For instance, 20 years from now, we will not be suddenly sitting at home playing Minesweeper on Windows ME. In fact, most industries and products are moving more toward the digital world than the physical world. It is because of this that I often, simultaneously, laugh and cringe when I hear people complain about the amount of time that their children spend with "devices". Now, I get it. Parents do not want their children spend every second of every day with their face in front of a screen. Not only does that prevent them from having some positive experiences, but it also is not exactly going to keep them from getting fat; as you know, I am very much about preventing childhood obesity. However, that does not mean that time spent with technology is not a valuable, if not more valuable, than the time they spend "playing outside". V

Digital well-being is this year's buzzword With the keynote of WWDC officially over, it is safe to say one thing: digital well-being is the trendy topic of the year. I/O last month and WWDC have demonstrated that the key players in mobile devices (seemingly) want you to put your phone down. However, which company has the right idea in how to do it? Both iOS 12 and Android P have showcased coming features to address "digital well-being". For all intents and purposes, these words just mean that Apple and Google "want" you to spend less time on your phone; at least, that is the image they are portraying. Both iOS and Android offer new dashboards Now, how are they both doing it? While they differ in the approach, they have very similar tools. For instance, both operating systems will allow you to set timers on apps so that you can spend as much or as little times in those apps as you choose. If you go over, you get shut out of the app. In additio

As detailed by multiple sources yesterday, the Xbox may be getting much more friendly with Alexa and Google Assistant. Windows Central reports that upcoming dashboards are showing an option to enable digital assistants including Alexa and Google Assistant; this would mean Xbox users would no longer be locked in to Cortana. Xbox Dashboard shows digital assistants on the way Currently, Cortana is the only digital assistant that works within the Xbox, but the writing has been on the wall for her demise for a long time. With the discontinuation of the Kinect for consumers, her use was possible only through headsets and microphones which I would imagine few people used on the daily basis.As someone that routes their TV through the Xbox to take advantage of the entertainment system aspect of the device, I can assure you that I seldom have access to a microphone. The death of Kinect basically ended voice interaction However, with the introduction of other digital assistant capabi

WiFi Smart Plugs I have considered trying to make my apartment a little smarter ever since I moved in. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to just start changing things considering I am renting. For instance, I cannot just start ripping outlets and switches out to swap them with smart switches, and I am definitely not going to swap out the refrigerator, stove, or microwave of a place I do not own. So, what did I do? Nothing for the first month. Unfortunately, that desire for a smart home that I have had since I first started renting years ago never went away. So, I did the easiest and cheapest upgrade I could do: I bought some smart plugs to work with my Home Mini. Only two days in, let me just say that I absolutely love it. First off, smart plugs are dirt cheap in terms of smart home tools, and if you spend a lot of time on eBay like I do, it is even cheaper. For less than $20, I got three smart plugs to try out. If you don't know, smart plugs just plug in to the outlet

Just do us all a favor I may be alone in this, but I highly doubt it.  My phone number is certainly not private as I have it listed in various public places; because of this, I get a fair amount of phone calls from numbers that I do not recognize. Now, everyone that knows me, knows that I do not answer phone calls from numbers I either do not recognize or I cannot find the source on Google. Rather than listen to telemarketers or possibly scammers, I choose to just ignore the call. The system works for me. With that in mind, I do often gets call from people that I do actually know and wouldn't mind speaking to, but there is a problem: I do not know it is them. If only there was some kind of system where if I do not answer the call, the individual calling could leave me a message to identify themselves and ask for me to call back. Oh wait, we have something like that; it is called voicemail. No number? No answer On any given day, I receive at least two to three ca