Making Unlocking Cell Phones Legal Again: In January of this year the Librarian of Congress did not renew an exception to the Digital Millennium Act which made it legal for consumers to unlock their cell phones. So currently, if you buy a locked cell phone via a contract with a carrier like Verizon, Sprint or AT&T and want to switch carriers but use the same phone after your contract expires – you can’t – at least not without permission of the carrier through whom you originally bought your phone. And 100,000 people have signed a petition on the White House website requesting that the exemption that made it legal to unlock cell phones be reinstated or that legislation be passed that would make it legal to unlock cell phones.
NPR offers a brief article on this subject titled Petition To Legalize Unlocking Cellphones Meets White House’s 100K Requirement – here’s the link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/21/172614930/petition-to-legalize-unlocking-cellphones-meets-white-houses-100k-requirement
And here’s the link to the petition on the official White House site – just FYI in case you’d like to check it out:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7
10 Apps For Work: The tech site Mashable offers a list of 10 apps they suggest will improve your productivity at work. The ten apps include: Evernote, Wunderlist, Cloud Storage apps and more.
Here’s a link to the list page on the Mashable site:
http://mashable.com/2013/02/20/10-mobile-apps-work/
Digital Photo Albums: The New York Times features a fun article today titled A Digital Update to Those Old Family Photo Albums which relays new ways that you can enjoy digital photos and even create and easily view digital photo albums. Basically you can use apps to organize your digital photos and play slideshows; you can view slideshows on your computer or even plug your laptop into your TV and project photos to your television. And if you’re an Apple fan you can even use an Apple TV player ($99) to stream your photos from your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or computer to your TV so you can easily bring up and show friends all the fun photos of you and your family on your last vacation!
Here’s a link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/technology/personaltech/digital-slide-shows-are-a-worthy-update-to-photo-albums.html?ref=technology&_r=0
Google Glass (Glasses) Will To On Sale This Year: Remember those Internet display glasses that Google has been demonstrating for about a year and that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been photographed wearing? Google has surprised everyone by announcing today that those glasses, which were previously expected to go on sale in 2014, will go on sale later this year.
Here’s a link to a short CNET article on the subject titled Confirmed: Google Glass arrives in 2013, and under $1,500:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57570779-1/confirmed-google-glass-arrives-in-2013-and-under-$1500/
And one last link to the Google Glass description page just in case you’d like to read more about what Google Glass glasses actually allow you to do – besides connect to the Internet that is!
http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/
Have a great weekend everyone!
Linda
References
Berkman, Fran. (2013, February 20). 10 Apps You Need To Dominate Your Work Day. Mashable. Online.
Chappell, Bill. (2013, February 21). Petition To Legalize Unlocking Cellphones Meets White House’s 100K Requirement. NPR. Online.
Eaton, Kit. (2013, February 20). A Digital Update to Those Old Family Albums. New York Times. Online.
Mack, Eric. (2013, February 22). Confirmed: Google Glass arrives in 2013, and under $1,500. CNET. Online.
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal. White House. Online. Accessed February 22, 2013.
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