Computer Support Blog

Bre Pettis’s company MakerBot is a manufacturer of 3D printers.  3D Printers use three-dimensional product designs developed via computer software programs to “print” out an object made from plastic material.  Most 3D printer manufacturers cater to the industrial market and their products often cost tens of thousands of dollars.  However, Pettis wants MakerBot to buck that trend.  Founded in 2009, MakerBot focuses on developing and selling more affordable 3D Printers that hook up to regular desktop computers.  Pettis is working to make 3D printing a reality in an everyday home setting.  If Pettis fully realizes his dream, it is possible that people will someday be able to design physical objects and print them right at home using their computer.  In theory, this could affect heavily affect the larger manufacturing industry. Read more »

Smartphones, tablets, and computers have made the digital distribution of entertainment media a major industry in the last decade.  While the first major changes came in the music and film industries, recently the publishing industry has seen major shifts towards digital markets as well.  However, it’s not only prose that people read on their computers and mobile devices these days.  With his company Comixology, David Steinberger has helped to make comics a part of the digital publishing industry as well.  Comixology sells digital comics for reading on the web, on tablets, and on mobile devices.  Readers can buy comics in both the shorter, more traditional issue format or as larger collections of issues in many cases.  Comixology has allowed comics to storm on to the digital market thanks to the vision of its CEO, David Steinberger. Read more »

Privacy is becoming a more and more frequently discussed topic these days.  This is likely because online services like Facebook and Google continue to collect large amounts of data on their users.  Some users do not seem to mind trading a bit of their privacy for free online services. Others have been less than enthusiastic about the way users seem to be paying these companies with their personal data instead of cash for their services.  Brian Kennish, cofounder of Disconnect, is most certainly in the latter camp.

Brian Kennish formerly worked at Google as a software developer.  However, in 2010, Kennish left Google due to increasing dissatisfaction with their mass data collection and the secrecy around how that data is used.  That is part of the reason Kennish developed Disconnect, a browser extension that blocks third-party sites from tracking you when you use the web.  Disconnect is available to download for four different browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.  If you have trouble installing Disconnect, you can always ask computer support for assistance.  Read more »

Flipboard is a tablet application for iPad and Android that aims to improve the user experience for consuming social media and news.  Mike McCue, the CEO of the company, founded Flipboard in 2010 alongside iPhone engineer Evan Doll.  He branded the app as a “social magazine”, which collects information from a person’s many different social media accounts and specific news sources and places it into a magazine aesthetic for the user.  Users can then quickly flip through the digital pages of their personalized magazine to take in all the information from their media and news feeds in a single place.  This is opposed to the traditional web format of news and social media, which usually involves vertical scrolling and does not consolidate and organize your data the way Flipboard attempts to do. Those who have interest in Flipboard but are struggling with the app should find iPad support for help. McCue has lead Flipboard to great success since founding it.  He has helped to make the application one of the most featured and prominent on both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems. Read more »

SwiftKey is one of the most successful pieces of Android software in the history of the operating system.  Millions of people have downloaded the keyboard app and used it to replace the less popular stock keyboard of the operating system.  What makes SwiftKey so popular?  The people behind the technology designed SwiftKey to be an effective and convenient program that accurately predicts what you are trying to say as you type it, saving you time as you send your messages by e-mail and text on your phone or tablet.  Dr. Ben Medlock, a computer science expert specializing in Natural Language Processing, is the man behind this technology.  Dr. Ben Medlock is currently the CTO of SwiftKey, which he founded with current CEO Jon Reynolds in 2008.  While Reynolds runs the business side of the company, Medlock is in the man in charge of the SwiftKey program itself.  Medlock’s technology has clearly resonated with Android users, as the app constantly remains one of the most popular in the Android store.  If you need help replacing the Android keyboard with SwiftKey on your mobile device, you should call for mobile support. Read more »

Information is everywhere with the Internet these days, but what if you don’t want to be exposed to some of that information while you’re online?  It may seem like an odd problem, but this issue has affected many people.  The most prominent example is encountering TV show or sports “spoilers” when people post a plot element or game outcome in your social media stream before you get a chance to see for yourself.  Zack Shapiro has created a Google Chrome browser plugin that attempts to solve this problem.  Named Silencer, Shapiro’s software actually blocks social media posts on websites like Twitter and Facebook that contain words or phrases that users want to filter out of their stream.  For example, if you recorded the World Series game on your DVR because you missed it while at work but still wanted to go online without learning the outcome, you could block phrases like “World Series” or the names of the teams on your Facebook and Twitter feeds.  This tool could possibly prove useful if one wanted to use social media without fear of ruining the outcome of a game or TV show. Read more »

It’s a common experience: you turn on your computer, go to Google, Bing or whatever search engine you prefer and you search for local restaurants.  You end up with countless choices to sift through and an immense amount of research to do before even leaving the house.  Tom Copeman, CEO and founder of Nara, is trying to eliminate this problem with his artificial intelligence based restaurant recommendation service.

The most common model for websites and apps that review and recommend restaurants is usually review-based.  There are common listings and individual customers can rate their experiences.  However, this leads to inconsistent data and often times, you’ll enjoy a restaurant that someone else will hate, making their review a hindrance more than a help. According to Copeman, Nara handles recommendations differently. Copeman informed Rescuecom that Nara uses artificial intelligence to mine the Internet for information and make more personalized recommendations for you based on its analysis of your preferences and larger trends.  Read more »

Engaging children with engineering concepts at an early age can often be a difficult task.  LightUp looks to solve that problem with specialized hardware kits and an augmented reality mobile app designed to teach kids about the inner workings of electronics.  Using the augmented reality app, kids view their electronic constructions through a mobile device’s camera.  The app will then superimpose virtual electrical currents over the image of the hardware kits to show kids what’s making their constructions work.  The app can also detect if something is wrong with a construction, indicating what that error is, explaining it to the child, and prompting them to fix it.  The kits themselves actually work as electronic circuits and aren’t just models.  However, since they are designed to teach kids, each piece of hardware connects together easily through magnets rather than through soldering.  This creates a “building block” feel to the kit as kids can easily put constructions together, tear them apart, and tinker with them at their whim.  Read more »

There have been reports in recent days that the National Security Agency is collecting data from multiple Internet communication giants in a broad surveillance measure where the government collects e-mails, social media data, and other communications.  The report has stemmed from a leak of an NSA employee’s internal presentation on the surveillance program, which the NSA named PRISM.  The leaked slides claim that the NSA was receiving data from the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, Paltalk and others.  These companies have all publicly claimed that they the NSA does not have direct access to their servers.  They also claim only to provide customer data if presented with a court order.  However, if reports about the surveillance program are true, all of these companies would be legally required to deny knowledge of PRISM, as it is a classified program.  Read more »

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice takes Apple to court.  The government claims that the computer technology giant was part of a conspiracy to fix prices in the eBook market along with five major publishing companies.  Allegedly, Apple worked with all of the major publishers to radically change the eBook market and enforce their preferred “agency” model as opposed to the standard wholesale model.  Amazon, the dominant retailer of eBooks before Apple entered the market in 2010, sold eBooks on a wholesale model.  This model involved paying publishers a fixed price for each eBook sold, and then reselling it to the consumer at whatever price a company chose.  The wholesale model allows retailers to choose their own profit margins on books they sell.  The government says that Apple tried to create a new standard by working with publishers to replace this wholesale model. Apple’s new agency model had publishers, not retailers, set a standard retail price for eBooks. Retailers then received a 30% cut of the price specified by the publisher.  Read more »