outofoffice.today

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Why the World Can't Stop Talking About Elon Musk

Why the World Can’t Stop Talking About Elon Musk

Elon Musk believes in the good of humanity.  As he sees things, the collective power of goodness will save us from our future inventions, namely AI robots.  That’s why he is spearheading an effort to create a platform for AI research that is open-source.  It’s also why he’s so admired by the world.

There are plenty of philanthropic rich people with vision- look at what Bill Gatesis doing for the…

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Eli Pariser's Filter Bubble is Now 5 Years Old...Have We Popped it Yet?

Eli Pariser’s Filter Bubble is Now 5 Years Old…Have We Popped it Yet?

The sites we turn to for our information, whether it be news, research or entertainment, filter our results to make them more relevant for us.  It is called personalised search and it is now the norm for not only Google search results but also shopping sites like Amazon, news sites like Huffington Post, Facebook and more.

The result is called the “filter bubble“ and if you have been anywhere…

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Technology Can Help ... If You Want To Start Homeschooling

Technology Can Help … If You Want To Start Homeschooling

When we think of apples and technology, we often think of the Apple Watch. But apples are also associated with teachers in the old west.

Children would bring their teachers an apple, placing it on the teacher’s desk. And so began the association of apples and education.

For many parents, it can be hard to decide how to provide homeschooling for a child. Do you have what it takes to become a good…

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Does Your IT Provider Help with UX?  Well It Should

Does Your IT Provider Help with UX?  Well It Should

As business strategy becomes more vertical because of the demands of good user experience, so too must your outsourcing partners.

To avoid the eCommerce kiss of death, which is downtime, it is essential to have all the right tools in place for your online business.  That means lining up a technology provider who provides a seamless experience for your users.

Increasingly, however, successful…

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The European Tour, It Has Started At Abu Dhabi

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Crowdsourcing: The Brilliant, Clever Way To Combat Slow Internet Speeds

Crowdsourcing: The Brilliant, Clever Way To Combat Slow Internet Speeds

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman uses crowdsourcing to call out internet service providers on their speed claims.

Sometime it truly pays to vote.  New Yorkers, for example, can laud their choice of Eric Schneiderman, at least on this one count: he is making, it his mission to get to make sure consumers in his state are getting what they pay for in their internet service.

What’s The…

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Cutting the Cord 2.0: The WiFi Phone Revolution

Cutting the Cord 2.0: The WiFi Phone Revolution

Cutting the cord feels great- we can finally stick it to those cable companies who have been charging absurd prices for worthless TV for decades now.

Now there’s another cord to cut, and you could stand to save just as much money, if not more.  It’s the cord to your cell phone company with it’s similarly outrageous pricing, lock-you-in contracts, and tricky pricing schemes.

Cutting the Cord-…

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Business Owners Now Have a Kind of New Cyber Crime to Worry About for 2016

Business Owners Now Have a Kind of New Cyber Crime to Worry About for 2016

Hackers were especially busy last year, developing a new species of malware to worry about.  It’s called “ransomware”, and as we continue to look ahead to the new year, it’s going to be an even bigger deal than in 2015.

What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware is malware that asks for a payment in exchange for reversing the effects of the malware.  There can be all kinds of ransomware, including scareware…

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2015 in review The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here's an excerpt:

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Yahoo's Marissa Mayer Sees Plan Rejected, Gives Birth to Twins

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer Sees Plan Rejected, Gives Birth to Twins

Since last January, the tech world has been reading the tea leaves on Yahoo, wondering aloud what will become of this aging behemoth.  There was some surprising news this week that should put an end to speculation…at least the type we have generated over the past 11 months or so.

It all began in January of 2015

It was in January 2015 that Chief Executive Marissa Mayerannounced a bold plan to…

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E-Book, Print or Neither?

E-Book, Print or Neither?

Print is long dead and nobody reads books any more anyway.  Yet e-book revenues continue to climb. What’s really happening to reading?

Long live the print book, the print book is dead.

If you are one of the few people who bought a book this year, then congratulations.  You’re of a dying breed, since a depressing 80% of us didn’t spend even one dime on books in the past year.

And it is a growing…

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Qwerty, Dragon And Football: Why We Are Still Not Using Password Managers

Qwerty, Dragon And Football: Why We Are Still Not Using Password Managers

Last Spring after months of teeth pulling, Hillary Clinton finally revealed why she chose to use her own email account for sensitive government communications.  Her explanation:  “I opted for convenience“.  Let’s hope she didn’t also opt for convenience when she chose her passwords.

Sadly, that is what most of us do, despite frequent warnings from hacker headlines, the websites we use and our own…

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Here is Elon Musk's Newest Way of Saving the World from Dirty Energy

Here is Elon Musk’s Newest Way of Saving the World from Dirty Energy

When it comes to imagining the power of humanity to change the world for the better, nobody puts teeth into the conversation like Elon Musk.  His latest venture, the PowerWall Home Battery, is set to lead a revolution in the way we use and distribute power.

We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky called the sun- you don’t have to do anything, it just works

Elon Musk, describing his Tesla…

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SuperHack: What The Zero-Day Exploit Means for Your Daily Commute

SuperHack: What The Zero-Day Exploit Means for Your Daily Commute

Why there is just no way we’ll ever keep hackers out of our cars.

Attendees at DefCon conference in Las Vegas last month sure had a lot to feel smug about. With the GM and Chrysler car-hacking stories fresh on the minds of the the general public, hackers were once again in the mainstream spotlight.  Only this time it wasn’t just about big corporation data breaches…it was something that could…

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Apple's Going to Fix Television for us All

Apple’s Going to Fix Television for us All

What better way to make a big debut than to claim you’re revolutionizing the way we watch TV.  Has Apple really done it this time?

This past Monday, Apple released the fourth generation of their Apple TV.  Reviews are already pouring in, and they are mixed.  Expectations were high, and the new inclusion of Siri added to the excitement of the release date, which was officially just last week on…

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Chromebook: Can a Computer Really be Virus-Free?

Chromebook: Can a Computer Really be Virus-Free?

A Latecomer’s Guide to the Real Advantage of Owning the Chromebook Laptop

Ahh, the future.  You’ve seen it: wonderfully sleek and uncluttered, simple yet technologically so far advanced anything seems possible.  That’s what Google had in mind when they brought to us their Chromebook laptops, devices pared down so as to be so beautifully simple and hassle-free that it would redefine the idea of…

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What if Your Window Could Power Your Office?

What if Your Window Could Power Your Office?

What do the world’s coolest offices have in common? Here is a hint: it has nothing to do with dog-friendliness or crazy cubicle designs.  Office design trend-makers are moving beyond hip fabrics and ergonomic desks and beginning to thinking globally-globally as in saving the planet.  As in sustainability.

Forget ping pong tables in the office lounge: now you have to be Green to be hip

Sure enough…

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