Wednesday, October 30, 2013

iPhone 5s & iPhone 5c

Apple released two new iPhone, the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. The iPhone 5s is similar to the iPhone 5 but the main difference is that it has a new touch ID home button.  The home ID button allows you to unlock your phone with the fingerprint.  The also installed a new A7chip to that gives you CPU and graphics performance up. They also have improved the camera by adding an iSight feature, which allows you to awesome pictures. As well as a new recording feature that allows you to watch parts of a video in slow motion. The iPhone 5s has u to 13 LTE bands.  Which allows iPhone users to experience fast download and upload speeds. LTE is extremely fast on the iPhone 5s; I feel that it is one of the fastest smartphones as far as downloading speed and ability to browse the web.  It also features the new iOS7 mobile operating system. The iPhone 5s has a few applications that aren’t available on the other iPhones.  iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are all available on the iPhone 5s free from App Store.  The price of the new iPhone 5s is $199.

With the iPhone 5c is just like the iPhone 5 but it has a hard plastic case on it that comes in many different colors.  A steel case is attached around the plastic frame to help protect the phone.  The phone has a difference appearance but it still is the iPhone 5 at the end of the day. It just allows you the option of choosing more colors for your phone.  The iPhone 5c has more LTE wireless bands than ever before. There are other small features on the iPhone 5c but it is basically just like the iPhone 5. The price of the iPhone 5c is $99.



Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Air France offers mobile alerts to passengers

Air France is developing mobile application that will allow passengers to arrange flight information through their mobile advice.  The application allows passengers to receive real-time travel alerts, book flights, or download electronic newspapers on their mobile phones and tablets. This is an application that may be more popular in the near future because of the fact that more people are starting to depend on their smartphone and tablets.  The article talks about how 25 years ago the main source of ticket sales was travel agencies, but that’s not the case at this point in time with the way smartphones are being used.  Smartphones have the ability to do just about anything you would do on a normal computer.  The airline is using mobile devices to provide staff with information on passenger list and flight preparation.  Air France has replaced the traditional pilot’s briefcase containing the flight manual with an iPad. It has also equipped ground staff with mobile phones that help them check information about the plan before they take off for flight.

 
The company is building its mobile services on top of it internally developed enterprise messaging system. The system will allow Air France to exchange data with its partner Delta Airlines, which operates on some of Air France’s routes. This will allow airlines diverse IT systems to communicate between one another to compare flight information. The article talked about how the main reason that company was choosing Tibco technology, was for their quality of service. The article talked about its main goal of the application, the article stated, “Ultimately, the airlines aim is to open up application programming interfaces to third-party application developers for the development of its mobile applications. “ What they want to do is to introduce the idea to other developers so that they may develop application for other airlines. Air France is taking a major leap that will help bring flight arranges and flight information to the mobile applications. 

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240207376/Air-France-offers-mobile-alerts-to-passengers

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Cloud Computing Security Issues and Solutions

Cloud computing is growing at a very fast rate. More and more companies are starting to take advantage of this new technologies and services that are being offered from cloud computing. Since cloud computing involves information being stored over a network many are concerned about how secure is the data stored in the cloud. The article talked about how cloud computing has several major issues and concerns. Those issues and concerns are data security, trust, expectations, regulation, and performance issues.  These issues and concerns are some of the reasons that some people are afraid of using cloud computing. There are many hackers that can potentially access the data via cloud computing. 

There are many advantages to cloud computing that are useful for businesses. The article mentioned a few of these advantages. The main two that stood out to me were the limitless flexibly and unlimited storage. With limitless flexibly it allows you to access different databases and combine them into a particular service to fit the needs of your business.  Unlimited storage is also an important factor because some companies consume a large amount of data everyday. With unlimited storage they don’t have to worry about running out of storage space.

The article talked about current problems and solutions.  In the article it says, “ The main problems could computing faces are preserving confidentiality and integrity of data in aiding data security.  The primary solution from these problems is encryption of data stored in the cloud. “  From this statement you can see that confidentiality is a problem because companies want to make sure their data is private and not able to be accessed by anyone who isn’t within the company.  Keeping data private is probably the most important thing for any company using cloud computing. If their data gets exposed the company may become vulnerable and hackers may potentially gain access to companies data.



Tuesday, October 1, 2013

This Doc's Prescription? Use This App, Twice Daily



On Science Friday radio they talked about how smartphone apps and add-ons can now be used to provide medical attention to you without having to go to the doctor.  Dr. Eric Topol a Cardiologist who wrote a book called The Creative Destruction of Medicine.  During the radio call Dr. Topol talked about many apps that could be use to perform things like ultrasounds, electrocardiograms, and test of the blood pressure.  Also Dr. Topol talked about how certain apps along with the add ons could monitor things going on with your body. Dr. Tropol talked about an app that he felt was his favorite app that monitors when someone has heart rhythm problem. The two apps are called Alive Core and EGC Check that are available on both iPhone and Android phones.  Another app that was mentioned was an app that help measures the blood pressure called iHealth and Withings. You still have to buy add ons that will allow you to be able to check your blood pressure from your iPhone. Also there are many apps that measure your sleeping patterns. The only problem with that is that the app is not as accurate because it doesn’t actually measure the brainwaves. It focuses more on how much movement is going on while you are sleep.  People were calling in the radio wondering if they could use these apps instead of going to the doctor. In some cases people could get away with not going to the doctor but the doctors office will always be the best bet. These apps will be used a lot in the future. The way technology is growing this doesn’t surprise me at all. Dr. Topol talked about how he would like to see an app that predicts heart attacks. Think about how many lives would be save from the app that predicted that a heart attack was about to occur. These apps are wonderful technology that will help people and save many lives in the future.