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15% of Laptops Break Within 1 Year

August 14, 2006 By Leave a Comment

According to Gartner, your laptop has a much greater chance of breaking than your desktop. They estimate that 5% of new desktops will break within 12 months compared with 15% of laptops. Within 4 years, 12% of desktops will break compared with 22% of laptops.

The main cause of broken laptops used to be broken screens but now, the culprit seems to be the motherboard and its integrated parts – and that’s requiring technicians to replace the entire motherboard to fix one component that goes bad. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Computers, Gadgets, Trends

Colbert Demonstrates the Power of Wikipedia

August 1, 2006 By 1 Comment

Tonight, Stephen Colbert discussed how Wikipedia is influencing culture on his show. After saying something to the effect of

I love Wikipedia: any site that has a longer entry on truthiness than on Lutherans has its priorities straight.

He then went on to make a point that Wikipedia reports “facts” as a collection of ideas that a group of people agree with. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Media, Trends, Web 2.0

Fast Food Chains Gain Efficiency with Robotics Technology

June 27, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Being from the Northeast, I have no idea what Zaxby’s is, but apparently, this fast-food chicken restaurant has started using technology to make their operations more efficient.

The computer program, called Hyperactive Bob, runs on Windows technology, a touch screen display and tv line cameras. According to the HyperActive Technologies website, the total equipment costs are less than $3,000 and the software is priced via a monthly licensing fee. [Read more...]

Filed Under: AI

Study: Nearly 25% of Americans Have No Close Friends

June 24, 2006 By Leave a Comment

A Duke University study reports that Americans are becoming less social. The study compared face-to-face interviews with 1467 people in 2004 with a similar number of interviews conducted in 1985.

In 1985, people had on average about 3 confidants they could talk about important matters with. By 2004, that number dropped to about 2. And almost 1 in 4 people say they don’t have anyone to discuss important matters – up 10% from 1985. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Media, Trends

China and India Produce Fewer Engineers Than Originally Thought Says Duke Prof

June 6, 2006 By Leave a Comment

According to Adjunct Professor Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, India and China aren’t so far ahead of the US in churning out computer science and IT degrees. In 2004, they calculate that there were 137,437 engineering grads from 4-year schools in the US compared with 112,000 for India and 351,537 for China. Those numbers are considerably lower than the 352,000 from India and 600,000 from China. He claims the higher numbers include graduates of 2 and 3 year programs. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Trends
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