Has Your Online Data Been Hacked? 1 June 2015
Posted by KentuckySerendipity in Technology.add a comment
Almost every week we are greeted with a headline about another hacking of online data. Banks, insurance companies, retailers, and others have had their sites hacked and customer data stolen. Federal and state laws require companies to notify customers of major data thefts but sometimes companies are slow to notify. have i been pwned? is an online site where you can check to see if your email address or user name is included in any known data breaches. Enter your email address or user name on the site, and it checks whether the address is in any known or suspected stolen databases. have i been pwned? is safe and is run by a computer security expert for the public benefit. As well as the email/user name checker, it has information on data breaches. This is a good tool for periodically checking whether your online data may have been compromised. (The word “pwned” is a corruption of the word “owned” as in “I owned him.” It is common slang term among gamers and has passed into general Internet and geek usage.)
Thanks kindly, Vets! 6 May 2015
Posted by KentuckySerendipity in Holidays.add a comment
May is National Military Appreciation month. Kind, a maker of healthy and tasty snacks, is sponsoring a project to help us say “thank you” to military veterans and active duty personnel. To participate, all one needs to do is tweet a thank you message with the hashtag #thankskindly. The tweet will be delivered to Bond, a company which uses robots to produce “handwritten” messages. The Bond robot will write the message and Bond will deliver it to a past or present member of the military. In addition, for each tweet sent, Kind will donate $1 (up to $10,000) to Cell Phones For Soldiers, a non-profit which provides free talk time to enable members of the military to stay connected with their loved ones. Visit the Kind web site or watch the video below for details.
A Helping Hand from Technology 1 April 2015
Posted by KentuckySerendipity in Uncategorized.add a comment
April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. About one million people in the US have Parkinson’s disease including about 3% of those over 60 years of age. A primary symptom of Parkinson’s is muscle tremors which usually affect the hands and feet. The shaky movements which result from tremors make many daily tasks difficult for Parkinson’s patients. Two companies have announced or released products which benefit people who suffer from muscle tremors in the hand. One product is the Liftware Smart Spoon and the other is the ARC pen from DOPA Solution. The products use the same technology as employed in some digital cameras for image stabilization. The digital cameras, Smart Spoon and ARC pen have sensors which detect movements which would result in instability in the image, spoon or pen, and the devices counteract these movements in order to increase stability. The result is a clearer image, a spoon which doesn’t spill, or writing which isn’t “spidery”. The technology is very interesting — it is the kinetic equivalent of noise cancelling headphones — and the latter two products clearly assist people in performing tasks needed in everyday life therefore increasing their independence.
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