What Would You Do For $5? [What the Tech?!]

If you’ve ever wondered to yourself what you or someone else would do to earn $5, there’s a website for that! It’s called Fiverr.com and it just got a nice user interface revamp last week which took it from looking like Craigslist’s awkward cousin who knows a little about html to looking like a seriously legit marketplace where I’d feel comfortable tossing a few $5 bills around! Fiverr allows individuals to create “seller” accounts and get online and sell whatever it is they feel is worth your $5. These goods and/or (mostly) services fall into one or many of eight categories: gifts, graphics & design, video & animation, fun & bizarre, writing & translation, advertising, business and music & audio. Sellers are all over the globe and sometimes you can end up getting a pretty darn good deal when your $5 exchanges well. For example, seller priyankareddygk is an event organizer in Hyderabad, India by day and edits short videos on Fiverr by night. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked into video editing services but that’s kind of a freakin’ deal. One second of good footage can take up to an hour to edit, and she’s willing to do a :30 complete package for five bucks. She has over 194 ratings with all positive feedback from previous clients. I wish I could sell ANY service of mine for five bucks 194 times, I’d feel like a rockstar. Maybe that’s just me. That’s more of a practical service offered – but Fiverr sure does come to bat with some unique services that feel that they’d best be used for gimmicky marketing strategies on websites and social media – or even as a creative way to say Happy Birthday to a friend. Sometimes your thinking on how to best utilize the service might have to be as creative as the service itself. What do I mean exactly? Here are a few examples: Seller peabodysmith will have this deer hot dog say anything you want! peabodysmith, aka Vincenzo of Nova Scotia describes himself as a writer, journalist and giraffe enthusiast (which makes me wonder why he wasn’t inspired to make a giraffe hot dog?). He’ll do customized videos as well – I’ve seen some from his portfolio and they’re quite good. Seller raybears will make a pizza featuring a design of your choosing. My favorite snippet of her biography reads:  My gig on Fiverr is a fun, casual way for me to subsidize my “pizza-making habit”, and pushes me to get really creative with how I use my ingredients. Having studied various forms of art (watercolor, acrylic, charcoal, ink, graphic design, etc.) almost all my life, I like to think of food–in this case pizza–as just another medium, and have enjoyed the challenges that come from working with it. No, she won’t send you the pizza. But you will get six photographs of it and can just IMAGINE that it tastes good and not feel all food teased like when something looks AWESOME and then tastes like crap. I’m not saying your pizza tastes like crap, Ray. I’m sure it’s absolutely delicious. You could always look at a pic of this $5 pizza and eat a $5 pizza at the same time and you won’t know the difference. That’s $10 spent for an excellent pizza experience. If you’d ordered a pizza that looked like this from a local “artisan” pizza maker, you’d be paying like $40 for it! Let Ray eat the pizza, send you the pictures, and everyone’s happy!   coreworkouts, from Australia 18 gigs of super creative videos starring his handsome self doing anything from silly, to creative, to “testimonials”. This video makes me miss Steve Irwin, but makes me happy that Jamie is in my life.   bshore2000, probably from America 14 gigs, from product testing videos to German translation to Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions to…. whatever this is…. I should note...

Three’s a Crowdsource [What the Tech?!]

What the Tech’s techy buzzword of the week is “crowdsourcing”. I’m calling it a buzzword because I’m sure many of you have heard it and been able to deduce a general meaning behind it, but there’s a decent chance you’re still sort of in the dark. Crowdsourcing is when a company or individual employs a not-yet-determined group of people to contribute a small piece in order to create a bigger-picture puzzle. If you were to ask your friends to help you out with something, that’d be outsourcing. But if you were to put your thing you needed help with out there to reach a broader public, and members of the public voluntarily participated in helping you, then that’s crowdsourcing. What the tech does this have to do with technology? Well most crowdsourcing projects today are taking place via websites or apps and usually to accomplish building a self-perpetuating service. Allow me to share with you some of my favorite apps and websites that utilize crowdsourcing in some awesome ways.   1. My Fitness Pal App – Android and iOS My Fitness Pal is possibly the highest rated fitness and food tracking app on the market and *bonus*, it got a revamp this week with a nicer UI (user interface – the fancy word for ‘what it looks like’) than ever before. Their website also provides the same function as their app. As is the case with most people I’ve met, I have a hard time keeping track of what I put in my mouth (that’s what she said!). My Fitness Pal allows me to customize how many calories I’d like to eat a day by guiding me to either weight loss or weight maintenance. I then log my food into the app as I eat each day. Here’s where the crowdsourcing comes in. My Fitness Pal allows users (unlike myself – you’ll find that I utilize more than contribute in these crowdsourcing gigs) to input foods and their nutritional info and barcode into their food database. Then, when lazy users such as myself eat something, all we need to do is use the camera on our phone to scan the barcode on the packaging (or search by name/brand) and voila!, my nutrition has been logged based on whatever serving I tell it I’ve eaten. The best thing about this, as is pretty much the best thing about all crowdsourced services, is that the database never becomes obsolete. The app also allows you to log your exercise, measurements, weight and water intake and of course, link with friends to give each other shit for eating like crap.   2. Quora.com Quora is a website where one can go to ask a question they’re seeking answers to. When Jeeves, Google or Yahoo Answers have failed to satisfy your curious mind, Quora steps up and provides the same type of hoity toity users you find on Linkedin. Users self important enough to sometimes regard their answer to your question as a blog posting in and of itself.   Not to say everyone on this website is a professional and should be regarded as such, but it’s a place to ask your question and be confident that you won’t get “COOL STORY BRO” as the only answer offered. Questions posed can fall into a variety of categories and range from academic to thought-provoking and philosophical. You can ask one yourself or spend hours browsing through previously asked questions. It’s my new place I go to BEFORE Google and the emergency room. And that says a lot.   3. Airbnb.com Although recently deemed illegal in New York due to hotel regulation laws, Airbnb is like hotels.com had a lovechild with craigslist. It’s glorious. As a matter of fact, I recommend that no one stay in a hotel ever again. Airbnb allows you to search for short term stays in cities you’re traveling to for...

Whatever I Want [What the Tech?!]

The best part about being a writer for Fierce and Nerdy is that I can write about whatever I want to write about. And that’s the theme of today’s What the Tech?! What I Don’t Want to Write About I bet everyone was expecting a big E3 post this week but really, the thing is, I’m not THAT BIG on video games. Playing them, that is. I am a huge fan of watching the E3 live coverage and seeing what developers are coming up with in the gaming world because I can appreciate the work they’re doing – and who doesn’t like seeing cool new stuff?! That’s as far as my thinking usually goes, though. It’s not to say I haven’t tried. I’ve bought the consoles, I’ve bought games whose trailers have given me goosebumps, I’ve read the blogs and I’ve tried my darndest to really GET INTO gaming. The thing is that I haven’t yet met a video game which keeps my attention. What’s weird is that I can sit and watch someone play an RPG with a good storyline for hours, but if the controller’s in my hands, I can only stay engaged until it gets hard. Not to say I’m not a problem solver – I LOVE puzzles. I realize there might be something wrong with me. So in total anti-E3 fashion, I’m gonna show you something there I thought was pretty cool. Here it is: The Hyperkin Retron 5. This thing runs on Android and emulates (definition- ‘plays’ the games of through more efficient technology) nine different retro consoles including NES, SNES, Genesis, Famicom, Super Famicom, Mega Drive, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color.   It takes the cartridges of all of these consoles in one nifty little box. It also allows you to use the original controllers for most and post-produces graphics so that they’re HD friendly. The best part – this magical box is set to retail for less than $100. That’s why I’m declaring this the best thing ever at E3 2013. If you want to read about Xbox One or PS4, head over to my friends at TechCrunch.   Something I WANT It’s hard for me to ever WANT anything because I’m pretty bad at spending money on myself. But man, I saw this leaked this week and I am STOKED. I was pretty content with my Samsung Galaxy S3 and saw no real need to chase after the S4 despite it’s nifty new features. Then out of nowhere, the Galaxy S4 Zoom was reviewed somewhere in Russia, leaking these photographs.   My S3 takes BEAUTIFUL pictures and snaps them faster than I’ve ever seen on a cell phone, but as with any phone ever made, I’ve always wanted more quality out of the digital zoom. I have no qualms about keeping this beast in my pocket because of its sheer AWESOMENESS. It’s a full featured S4 with a 16MP camera which now has 10x optical zoom. Engadget confirms it also “…includes optical image stabilization and a Xenon flash, along with a special “Zoom Ring.” That ring surrounds the camera, and when twisted (even while on a call), it can launch in-call photo sharing or go straight to other camera modes. Extra software features are also on hand to take advantage of the combo device’s capabilities including Photo Suggest that shows great pics taken by others in the area, Smart Mode auto settings and more. Samsung has confirmed we’ll be getting it sometime before Christmas. Hint HINT. I should note that I’ve always thought it to be a bit awkward when iPhonetographers whipped out their lens attachments, slapped them on their phones and started snapping away at still life or sports or whatever. But I have no issues with the design of the S4 Zoom. I actually also feel that this will become a new trend in smartphones...

Your Kid Is Not Good At Computers [What The Tech?!]

When I was a kid, no battery operated toy was safe from my 6-year-old screwdriver. I’m not sure when it started, but since before I can remember, I was pulling the motor out from the rotary plastic fishing game or ripping the simple circuitry out of the Operation man’s face. I should make it known that I hated Operation. The damn thing gave me a heart attack and I wouldn’t go NEAR it if others were playing. The suspense, followed by the heart-stopping and the unpredictably timed BUZZZZ were all a little too much for me. And yet, for some reason, every time Santa had discovered I’d ripped the poor man’s nose out he’d bring me another one! Listen, Santa (mom), I didn’t want another Operation game. It wasn’t getting destroyed due to regular wear and tear. I can’t even say I had ever played one single turn. What I really wanted was a circuit set or electricity kit or a “My First Soldering Iron”. I was intrigued as to how and why this stuff worked, what made it do what it did, how it was made and how else it could be applied. My learning never went very far though. I mostly just tore stuff out and tried hooking it up to Legos. Nothing really ever DID anything and I never really LEARNED anything until the introduction of the internet in my life around the 7th grade, then I was able to just dial up and AOL [verb] how to REALLY get stuff done, like linear editing on my VCR and rigging an old mouse as a bedroom door alarm. I only wish that there were the resources for kids back then that there are today. I think every single kid should be encouraged to explore and should be given the tools and kindle they need to light the fire of discovery and invention inside of them. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing with myself today if someone recognized my habits as more than just a nuisance. A 15 year old developed the first early test for pancreatic cancer which is 168 times faster than the old standard and costs 5 cents. When asked about his childhood, what he reflects on the most is the fact that his parents encouraged exploration in him more than anything else. They never directly answered his questions but encouraged him to experiment, to find his own answers. Now, I’m not sure what trust-fund-millionaire-don’t-have-to-work-a-day-job-so-can-be-parents-of-the-century-family this kid CAME FROM in an alternate universe, but maybe the least we can do is equip our kids with the tools that tickle their exploration fancy. It’s important right now that you know what an Arduino is. They call it a ‘micro controller’ but that’s a little too fancy so let’s just call it a ‘mini computer’ (but don’t actually call it that because technically, that’s not at all what it is). Arduinos are like the Legos of the future (read: the NOW). They’re circuit board sets and accessories that you can use to build virtually ANYTHING, from alarms that email you when certain events take place, to ‘brains’ for a 3D printed robot, to a tracking device. Arduinos exist so that REGULAR people can learn about how stuff works and make that stuff work for themselves. Adafruit is a website with the most user friendly FREE tutorials you’ll find to learn about and become advanced with Arduinos. I recommend anyone who’s ever wanted to learn how to make cool stuff (or to program, for that matter – they go hand-in-hand) take a look at that website and tell me you don’t want to buy a starter kit right now! Now that you’re a little familiar what an Arduino is, I’ll tell you how it’s going to make your kid a genius. LightUp is a fully funded startup that exists to use augmented reality (AR) to show kids what’s...

Google Says I Put My Baby In The Microwave, How Do I Make Them Stop? [What The Tech]

Michele Agius is on vacation but will return next week. She has graciously (and foolhardily) allowed me to fill in today. I pre-apologize on her behalf. Back in 2007, a 19-year-old, pastor-in-training was arrested in Texas for shoving his then 2-month-old daughter into a microwave and turning it on. Thanks to Google, because this would-be pastor shares my name, the first thing that pops up in a search is this wonderful story. A few hits down, a separate article clarifies the facts: According to the Houston Chronicle, Detective Johnson testified that Mauldin first threw the baby on one of the beds in the hotel room. He then confessed to striking her in the groin, placing her in the hotel room safe, and then putting her in the refrigerator prior to placing her in the microwave oven. Fortunately for me, this situation hasn’t caused too much harm (not like, third degree burns or anything). A high percentage of my friends can process basic math and geography so, “holy shit, did you see this?” was the worst I had to deal with. But what if I was the same age as Mr. Mauldin? What if I lived in the same city? In a job market where employers are looking to disqualify me for even the simplest of discretions, what if they pulled that article up and decided to skip over my resume on the off chance it was me? What could I do about it? Who could I turn to in my hour of digital need?     Fret not hypothetical me, there is a blossoming cottage industry of companies specializing in making sure you’re never confused for a devil-possessed baby cooker again. So many in fact, that a quick Google search of “online reputation” yields an almost endless array of options. Now I know what you’re thinking, doesn’t this sound a lot like those fly-by-night operations in the 90s that guaranteed to fix your credit for a ridiculous fee? The ones that turned out to do nothing more than write a letter to your creditors, hoping your file had been misplaced? Steve Henn of NPR wondered the same thing in this illuminating piece for All Tech Considered yesterday. Henn followed the story of Pete Kistler, the co-owner of BrandYourself.com and minor celebrity whose business defining-story was picked up by The AP, USA Today, Forbes, CBS and NBC. “My GPA was 3.9. I had a bunch of relevant internships and I wanted to go into software,” Kistler says. “By a bunch, I mean dozens and dozens. And I’m not hearing back from anyone.”   Kistler says he was puzzled until a friend gave him a call. He worked at one of the companies Kistler had applied to. “And [he] said, ‘You won’t believe this, but they Googled you and they found another kid with your name that is a drug dealer and they thought that you were him,’ ” Kistler recounts.   Kistler says he still remembers the exact moment he Googled himself. “You know, my stomach dropped,” he says. “Everyone who Googles me thinks I am this kid — I am this drug dealer. And there are all these Google images of a car crash and a DUI.”   According to Kistler, there were many online management companies willing to help him but the cost was so high he couldn’t hire them. After missing out on multiple job opportunities due to what he was convinced were his Google search results, Kistler finally turned to a friend with knowledge of how companies accomplish what they promise. It’s called search engine optimization, or SEO. Kistler didn’t have the cash to pay for it while he was in college. So he and Ambron tackled the problem together — and realized that maybe there was a business in this for them. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, basically floods search engines with positive stories, pushing...

Technolog-a.d.d. [What the Tech?!]

I read about two hours of tech news a day, all from various sources. Some are geared to alert consumers about new products coming to market, some are more business oriented (startups, acquisitions, etc.), and some of the stuff I read veers into the dark trenches of R&D. So deep your mind probably can’t handle it. Technology, science and discovery are moving at such a rapid pace that fifty years from now, 90% of what we know won’t resemble anything we know today. I’ll let that marinate with you for a second. This week I’ve decided to bring you a ton of random information about this past week in technology and serve it up in no logical order or interrelation between topics. I call this Technolog-A.D.D. 1. AT&T is sending HTC back their Facebook phone because no one’s buying it. I feel like an asshole here because I should’ve called it in my review of Facebook Home.  But yes, it’s true. Just four short weeks after HTC revealed their First Facebook Phone, which included Facebook Home as its native OS, sales were so slow the price dropped to $0.99. One week later, it’s DONE. People have said this could be due to the fact that AT&T sales reps hated it, but also because Samsung and Apple are taking over the world. Go figure. 2. Somebody 3-D printed a gun and shot it without exploding their head off. First of all, this guy is a total freakin’ idiot. I, personally, would’ve loved to have seen the entire barrel combust in his hands and blow his face off. Unfortunately, it fired without doing any fun damage to the dummy. Don’t get all upset though, as the same thing could be made with a piece of metal tubing, a spring or rubberband, and a nail. So no, 3D printers don’t kill people. People kill people, and unfortunately TERRIBLE ideas don’t always kill the people who attempt to execute them. But look forward to the fun legislation and press this shit is gonna get now! Also, it should be noted that if this boy had blown any body parts off, he could conveniently just 3D print himself some bionic ones to slap right back on and get back to his gunsmithing. I just bought my own 3D printer so I could make myself an invisibility cloak. That way you can’t even see me to shoot me. I can smack you upside the head and you’ll have no idea WTF hit you. 3. It has been proven once again that the only reason our energy isn’t sustainable is because of politics. Twenty years ago, second graders were inventing water-powered automobiles at their school science fairs. If America could sacrifice a few miles of tourist beach, wave power could fuel the entire country. Soccer balls have been invented which, after being kicked around for a day, can light an entire home for the duration of an evening. Now a device has come to market which harvests ambient vibrations and converts them into energy. Seriously! It makes power just by freaking sitting there!!! Somebody, please, give these people a million, bajillion dollars and the keys to the city. If it weren’t for bringing down what’s left of the economy as we know it, we’d all be driving flying cars powered by our trash and the energy created when we blink our freakin’ eyes. 4. A tablet designed for the zombie apocalypse is headed to market Sqigle has designed a ruggedized tablet which surpasses anything in its class by ensuring that you can still use this thing if you’re the last person on the face of the planet. They’re using e-paper, Android, a 20 hour battery and solar powered recharging, plus an ANT+ sensor to make sure that you can get around when the zombies have taken everyone else out. Oh, also, there’s a carabiner attached. But seriously, this thing...

Tech Your Mom Out [What The Tech?!]

Most, if not all of our parents are what we might consider “technologically challenged.” Instead of holding it against them, think about how you’re going to feel in 30 years when cars are flying themselves and a breakfast resembling a bullion cube is handed to us by your apron-wearing robot maid and then take the time to reach out to your mom this Mother’s Day. Let’s begin to bridge the gap with a few nifty gadget gift ideas. Present them sensitively enough and you might even see some progress. So without further ado, here’s a list of cool shit you can get your mom to amaze her and make her life a little easier while getting her toes wet in some new fangled technology. Roku Streaming Video Player -$49-$99 It was a huge success last Black Friday when you got your parents to finally invest in their first flat screen, and they only did it because their old TV went out the week before and the quote for repairs came in higher than the $295 46″ Vizio steal at Target. While you were waiting outside for the doors to open at 4am, you skillfully planned your presentation to them, tried to anticipate any oppositional quips they might have as you read over the installation manual PDF on your smart phone so that you’d be able to sneak into their house while they were at church two days later and have that thing fully installed by the time they came rolling in from brunch. Needless to say, it was a huge effort. Now that they’re just settling down into (and- gasp! maybe beginning to enjoy) their new television, you once again fear that they will be falling behind without a source of streaming video in their lives. Can you IMAGINE ever trying to explain to them why they need a Smart TV? That’s where Roku comes in. This bad boy can be installed in less than 3 minutes, and assuming your parents aren’t on dial up, it will allow them to access all kinds of streaming video services from Netflix to Hulu and Amazon yadayadayada. I’ve seen (13 minutes of) HOUSE OF CARDS. Trust me. Your parents want to be watching it.   Brookstone Iceless Wine Chiller- $74.99 Here’s one way to blow your mom’s mind. This thing has an LED display which allows you to indicate one of forty different types of wine. It then programs itself to either chill or warm the bottle based on the optimal serving temperature. Tell me that’s not rad. If you really want to look like a smarty pants, you can tell them that it uses the Peltier (careful here- say it with me- PELL-TEE-AYYY) effect. This little sucker is considered a phenomenon which was discovered about 200 years ago. Basically what happens is you take two different types of conductors and shoot some electricity through there. By messing around with the direction of the flow of electricity, when you overlap the two conductors you can make them either absorb (seriously) or release heat. Crazy right? This thing just sucks the heat right out of itself therein cooling the air around the bottle of wine. Nothin’ like making your momma proud of your knowledge of thermoelectric energy!   Travel Luggage Scale- $39.99 Maybe this one just reminds me of my mom shrieking from across the house on nights before a morning flight,  “SHELLY! GET THE SCALE!”. So I’d come running across the house with the scale knowing she was about to make me stand  on it, weigh myself, grab her luggage, weigh myself again and then subtract to find out how heavy her luggage is to ensure she wouldn’t run into any overweight bag fees at the airport the next morning. By the time I was 22 I could tell a 47lb piece of luggage from a 52lb piece in my sleep. So this gift is really...

Obligatory Facebook Home Post [What The Tech?!]

I wasn’t going to make this post because I couldn’t quite put into words how I felt about Facebook Home. I kept trying to come up with analogies that would help relay my true feelings about it and because of this, I kept putting it off. Then, last weekend my dog lost his toe in a tragic ‘pawing at the wicker basket’ accident. In case you’ve been living under a rock, on April 12th Facebook released its app/jacket/cover/non OS thing called Facebook Home. Rumors have been brewing about a Facebook phone since Facebook itself went mobile. Zuckerberg was always quick to let it be known that a phone itself wasn’t in Facebook’s scope for the near future or probably ever. Then, in true Facebook fashion (meaning yet another Facebook press conference surrounded by hype where Zuck appeared to not have noticed the outfit his wife laid out for him that day RIGHT on the bed so he threw on whatever was closest to him on the ground) Facebook Home was announced! Is it an OS? No. Is it an app? No, not really. Well then, what the frig is it? Facebook Home, currently available to a few select Android devices, is something I would’ve first begun to describe as a sort of mask. As in… it hides your OS and Facebookifies your phone through features like Chat Heads (trying not to be another blogger with shit to say about THAT name EEEeeee), which is an attempt to integrate texting and Facebook messaging by alerting you just to the side of your Cheezburger viewathon that your mom is texting you to ask what it is that you were taking that worked so well for your Nigerians… oop she meant migraines. Frickin autocorrect. I thought this feature would be a pretty cool one. You don’t have to exit your current app to open your messaging app and it would flow really nicely into having a conversation with someone. However, since I’m not the most active Facebook Messaging user in the world, I found the chat list and messaging app to be a total clusterfuck. The biggest turn off for me being that in order to send a message, I’d have to distinguish between if I was sending it to my friend’s cellphone or their Facebook. And, well, since I’m over 25, Facebook Messaging just doesn’t happen to be my standard form of communication.It felt cumbersome and totally in the way of me trying to send a text. Second ‘big’ feature: Cover Feed. This basically replaces your phone’s lock screen and home screen wallpaper with a continuous flow of photos and news items that you would normally find in your feed upon signing onto Facebook or opening the mobile app. I knew since before I downloaded Facebook Home that this would be a feature I would opt out of (allegedly it’s disableable) and not even use for so many obvious reasons. I don’t need to see shirtless selfies of my 18 year old cousin when I go to check what time it is (said cousin being a ‘he’ but still…). Facebook Home also disables the ability to secure these things from random people picking up your phone, so there’s that. I downloaded Facebook Home on April 12. I actually checked multiple times throughout the day to see if it was available for my S3 in the Play Store yet. I was excited about switching things up a bit from my standard Android experience. I enjoy interfaces (interactive experiences are what I do for a living), and it’s fun to see developers stray from the intuitive (or what becomes intuitive based on prior experiences). I was happy to see Facebook take a stab at changing my phone experience altogether and “putting people at the center” of it. I checked the Play Store for the 6th time that day and there it was. Click. Download....