5/1 Weekly Tech Article

The new Apple Watch was shown to be water resistant in an early user test. Fonefox tossed a sports edition watch into a shallow end of the pool, and after 15 minutes, it was still ticking away. However, this doesn't mean you can go swimming with it regularly. While the watch is water resistant, it is not water proof. The Apple Watch's water resistance is rated at IPX7, meaning it should survive dips as deep as 3.2 feet for 30 minutes. Taking the watch deeper or longer and it will stop working. Though the watch is shown to be water resistant, it is best to keep it away from any wet surfaces. 

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4/24 Weekly Tech Article

According to Defense One, the Army is working on an attachment for the M4 assault rifle that would basically turn it into a ray gun. Nicknamed "Burke's Pulsar" after its inventor, the device works similar to a ray gun bayonet. The rifle fires a blank round, with the same gunpowder explosion, but without a bullet. The explosive energy is then converted into electrical energy, via the piezoelectric effect. The electrical energy is sent out by two "antennas" which then spreads from the barrel of the weapon. The purpose of this device is to be able to disable and destroy circuit boards from range. It would be used, for example, to stop trucks without shooting them or just destroying someone's cellphone.

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4/20 Weekly Tech Article

Moley has created a robotic chef that can chop, stir, saute, and serve by using two robotic arms from a company called ShadowRobotics. This invention, which is programmed to replicate recipes, was created by Mark Oleynik. In a demo for the IBTimes, the robot was able to make a soup dish with in 30 minutes without any human help. In addition, the robot was also able to put dirty dishes in the wink. However, despite this progress, the robot is still not fully ready for consumers to use. There are still a lot of changes and programming to be made, as the robot is not able to taste the final result of their product.

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Wikipedia

The videos shown in class further explained my opinion on Wikipedia. Wikipedia was always rumored to be unreliable and untrustworthy; however, the amount of people using this website only contradicted these opinions. The videos were silly but intriguing. It was very informative.

Spring Break

     

     Last week, I went to South Carolina for vacation. My family and I went to Myrtle Beach and rented a pent house there. Instead of taking a train, which is probably the faster and easier way of transportation, we drove. Driving there was about a 15 hour drive, due to traffic and stopping in between to rest. We left the house at 6 o'clock in the morning and got there at 9 o'clock at night. It was a very tiresome day, sitting in the car, but seeing the view that night made the whole day worth it. The pent house that we rented was top floor and it included three balconies that gave you a beautiful view of the ocean/beach. If you'd like, you can read more information about Myrtle Beach by clicking here. 

     We spent about 5 days there, relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather. We went to many attractions such as the boardwalk and an interesting exhibit called Wonderworks, which is a cool interactive attraction that allows families to try over 100 hands on exhibits that "challenges the mind and sparks the imagination." Read more about Wonderworks by clicking here. After coming back from South Carolina on Thursday, I had to go to play practice for the rest of the week. This year, the drama department is doing the musical Footloose and I am helping Ms. Blender and Mr. Colarusso out by being stage crew again this year. We have practice all week and it's turning out to be a really cool production. Students should buy tickets to see Footloose, which is on April 17, 18, and 19, today! The play cast has put a lot of time and dedications to make this production happen.

4/2 Weekly Tech Article

Google has unveiled a whole new Chrome device, called the Chromebit. It's basically a chromebook crammed into this tiny device. This package contains a Rockchip 3288 Soc, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of eMMC memory, a USB 2.0 port, WiFi 802.11 ac support, Bluetooth 4.0, a Smart Ready controller and an ARM Mali 760 quad-core GPU. In order to use it, all you have to do is attack it to any device with a HDMI port, and then the device will turn into a computer. Google is still currently testing the product. However, Google promises that the Chromebit will be sold for less than $100. It will be available in silver, blue, or orange and will be out later this summer.

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