Being charitable is something that many people enjoy doing. It is also something that certain people may need a push or easy way to give. Because of this fact, charities have needed to be extremely creative with their campaigns and tactics. The easier the process, the more likely someone is to give. With the explosion of social media and the prolific use of smart phones, the company LetGive has created a different way to donate to one’s favorite charity. This unique new program is the iPhone app Snooze.

With this app, the user chooses the particular charity that he wises to donate to and then uses the program like any other alarm clock. Every time the alarm is snoozed, $0.25 is donated to the charity. Every month, there are two times that a person can then send the money out to the charity. Depending on the individual, this app may be a motivator to get out of bed more quickly or for the charitable type, it may cause a person to hit the snooze button again and again.

Regardless of what your take is on the app, it is surely a creative way to get people to donate to charities. It is not going to raise millions of dollars, but should assist in getting people to think about giving more frequently. There are currently not a lot of iPhone apps out there that promote charitable giving, so this one may help to pave the way for other organizations and developers to make creative opportunities for people to contribute.

A key speaker at the recent Emerging Display Technologies Conference has predicted some exciting future improvements to existing technology. Making the predictions was investment director Eileen Tanghal of Applied Materials. Applied Materials is a major player in the display manufacturing market.

Although there are still a few technological hurdles to be made, Tanghal speculated that it is reasonable to believe that significant improvement in modern displays will be available in the near future. One of her predictions was that interactive signs will become commonplace. These signs will be seen in the form of large wall mounted or stand alone touchscreen displays. They may advertise a product or provide directions or tidbits of information to passers-by. Users can interact with them by selecting different options on the screen to find more information about a particular item, or even compare prices. One mobile phone store already has a display of this sort set up. Its function is to advertise Android enabled mobile phones. Similar displays could pop up in many shops and public areas in the near future.

Tanghal’s second prediction was that television screens that can be folded up and placed in a pocket will someday be widely available. Such screens have already been prototyped, but are far too expensive to be marketed to consumers. The key to reducing their cost is to develop cheaper backing materials that hold the display elements together. Currently materials that can conduct signals to the individual pixels and be flexible and durable enough to repeatedly be folded and unfolded are extremely expensive.

With display technology in nearly every modern consumer electronic device, consumer demand is very high and massive profits are being made by display manufacturers. These profits provide funding for the research that will give birth to these exciting new technologies in the future.

In recent headlines, Motorola Mobility became a part of Google’s seemingly ever expanding corporate empire. Google paid twelve and a half billion dollars for the company, a seemingly high price. However, the surprise move by Google was not motivated purely by its desire to expand in the marketplace. The decision was partly made to avoid future legal distractions and expenses for the company.

Because of the large degree of crossover between Google and Motorola technology with the release of Google’s Android mobile operating system and Motorola’s most recently released cell phones, many of which are purpose-built to run Android, issues with patent infringement and intellectual property rights have arisen. The simplest way for Google to avoid future legal headaches was to purchase Motorola Mobility, effectively making all of its patents and intellectual property its own.

Google possesses relatively few patents compared to many other tech companies. Motorola owns more than seventeen thousand patents, with a great many more pending. Google has been the target of patent lawsuits by other companies in the past, and its new ownership of Motorola is hoped to protect it and Android from such legal battles and liabilities in the future.

Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility is also intended to keep Android ahead in the marketplace, allowing it a competitive edge against other technologies that are also performing well and could damage Android’s sales in the future.

Competition goes on, however, as other companies seek to acquire their own treasure troves of patents. Apple, whose iPhone operating system is one of Android’s main competitors, is thought to have plans to buy out Nokia. Apple has been in a similar position as Google in the past. Nokia has targeted Apple in lawsuits for infringing on its intellectual property, and Apple may want to pull a maneuver similar to Google’s by acquiring it.

Whenever Facebook changes a feature or adds something new, people get up in arms about privacy issues and how the company is stealing information and sharing it with all of the wrong people. The initial reports were that Facebook was giving out people’s phone numbers. A flurry of blog posts and Facebook wall posts erupted over this. That is certainly not the case and the recent change to the contact information in Facebook.

Every person who has a Facebook account has the ability to limit the amount of information that is shared. This can be very basic information or can include an address, phone number and more. There are account settings where a user sets who sees this private information. This is not decided by Facebook. If a user lists his cell phone, and has privacy setting where anyone can see all of his information, then anybody can see it. If you are concerned with this information sharing, take a look at the Privacy Settings of the account. It can easily be restricted to only those people who are on your friend list.

Facebook is a social media tool and the goal is to share with other people. People are on the site and have accounts because that is what they want to do. It is a wonder why people get bent out of shape over something they are electing to do. The bottom line is that if you do not want to share, do no have a Facebook account. Problem solved.

Every generation has its own trends and phases. However, with the creation of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, and the newest addition, Google +, American society reflects certain trends and phases from these sites.

For further clarification, social media makes obtaining news easier and quicker. As a result, Americans are accustomed to the fast-paced world we live in. In fact, sitting in a drive-through is considered a long wait for many consumers. Many Americans grow impatient faster than just a decade ago.

Additionally, social media has changed the concept of relationships and friendships. The concept of relationships has changed multiple times, starting with the invention of the telephone. However, social media now makes it easier to share with friends and family, including instant text messages, sharing news posts and videos, and other types of content.

Keeping in touch has never been easier, allowing people to connect with acquaintances as well.

If you think that social media only changed American civilians, think again. Business owners benefit from social media also. The Internet completely changed the economy, as well as our perception of relating with other people. Business owners can deepen their relationships with customers via social media. Of course, relationships are very important for success.

See if you fit in this mold of the modern American society:

.Do you find yourself sharing every new trend or viral video with your friends?
.Do you find yourself quoting popular media content that is not related to television or movies?
.Have you steered away from Hollywood and instead use Youtube for most of your entertainment?
.Did you find your girlfriend or boyfriend on a dating site or Facebook?
.Do you keep in touch with loved ones who live far away easily with the Internet?
.Does your phone constantly send you text messages or alerts of new notifications from your social media accounts?
.Do you use the Internet for research?
.Do you use the Internet to find businesses?

If you have answered yes to even just one of these questions, you have conformed to the new American society, created by the experts behind social media.

As you can see, these sites have made living in America different now than it has ever been. Whether it is for the better is for you to decide.

A recent study conducted by a Swedish research group used an innovative method to track the attention of users when viewing pages on social media sites Facebook and Google+. Web cams were paired up with special software and used to track the eye movements of fifty four study participants, pinpointing the screen locations they were looking at. Surprisingly, study subjects had nearly identical eye movements when viewing pages from the two companies.

Close examination and comparison of the pages can explain why this behavior was seen in participants. Both Facebook and Google+ use almost exactly the same layout for their pages. The main information, or “news feed” in Facebook speak, is displayed in a descending column in the center of the page. An option menu is placed at the top in a thin bar, with links to additional features in a column on the left of the page. The upper right corner contains a block of links to information regarding other users, and below that is a column of small advertisements with thumbnail images.

Viewers of both pages immediately looked at the main content, and then shifted their focus to the links in the left column. After a quick scan of the links, they moved to the upper right block and then to the top menu, finishing with the advertising column on the right. In both cases, the greatest amount of attention was focused on items at the top of the main content area and the links in the upper right of the screen.

The similarities can probably be attributed to the success and ease of use of Facebook. Google may have mimicked Facebook’s layout both to take advantage of an efficient design and to provide users with an already familiar interface, allowing them to feel more at home on Google+.

The software used in the study was EyeTrackShop, a leading eye tracking system used to analyze page layouts and facilitate their optimization.

The United States’ emergency response number, 911, has remained very much unchanged for many years. Children are taught from a young age to dial the number in case of any major emergency and verbally provide critical information that will help emergency response personnel navigate to the scene and address the problem. Now, the age-old system is being prepared for a technological update.

With the proliferation of multimedia messaging technology in phone networks during recent years, 911′s system seems archaic and outdated. The updated system will be known as NG911, or “Next Generation” 911. This system will allow callers to provide emergency personnel with critical information using a variety of methods, including text, video, and picture messaging.

The project was announced by Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC. The recent massacre at Virginia Tech highlighted the need for the new capability. During that incident, students in hiding were unable to contact 911 immediately because their voices would give away their presence to the shooter. If they had been able to text information about the emergency in silence to the police, a response could have been made much more quickly and some of the deaths could have been prevented.

The ability of the new system to receive and process photo and video data can also aid emergency personnel in a number of ways. Many 911 callers can now be located by GPS when they fail to provide their location verbally, but GPS systems do not work in all cases, such as when a victim is indoors. The new ability of dispatchers to receive pictures and videos can allow them to locate victims by recognizing important landmarks and well known public places. The new system will also give victims a reason to visually record emergencies, which will increase the availability of video and picture evidence of crimes for use in courtrooms during trials.