Checking Twitter this morning only to realize that all my followers were gone. Actually, this also was the case for a few other people I knew, and had therefore heard about it before I checked twitter. There were still people’s status updates, but the profile said there were no followers. It turns out it was a glitch and it probably shouldn’t be worried about. Twitter claims that they were fixing a glitch that allowed you to make anyone accept your friend request so that celebrities would have to follow your feed. It was a large glitch, discovered and published by Gizmodo. In order to fix it all twitter profiles can not follow or unfollow people, as well as the profiles all claim that no one has any followers. They are claiming it will be back up and running soon.

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People are surrounded by technology that they don’t understand. Less than a century ago it was unheard of for a household to possess a machine unless someone in the family would be able to repair it should it break down. People today carry so many types of technology that they couldn’t even begin to repair it. In many cases they don’t even stop to think that it is technology in the first place. How many people realize that all those smart cards in their wallets and purses are really a piece of technology?

There are actually two distinct types of smart cards. Most people carry at least one contact smart card with them at all times — their drivers license. They likely also have credit or bank cards, store discount cards, library cards and other membership cards or key tags. These pieces of plastic have embedded data on a magnetic strip or within the card itself that can be read when it comes in contact with the appropriate reader. This means swiping it through a card reader or placing it on a contact pad, such as a work ID badge. Even hotel room keys and other electronic keys work on this technology.

The second type of smart card is the contactless card, also known as an RFID. These contain an integrated circuit that actually transmits an RF signal. As suggested by the name, these types of cards and badges do not need to come in contact with a reader. They simply have to be within the prescribed signal range of the appropriate antenna. This can range from a few feet to up to hundred feet. Because these cards use a circuit, they have a much larger memory capacity and also posses computational capability which makes them ideal for tracking and identification.

When the telephones was first created it would literally ring. This was accomplished by an electromagnetically-driven clapper hitting a ringing mechanism in the phone to indicate an incoming call. For decades this is how phones sounded — the only variation being the exact tone of the bells used in specific phone models.

Once the technology evolved far enough the rings became “tones.” These are electronically created sounds like chirps, warbling, or other sounds. They are essentially produced the same way as the original ring sounds, with the electromagnetic signal activating the tone on the phone. This is how all land line phones work to this day.

What most people think of when they hear the term “ringtone” is associated with cell and smart phones. These devices allow users to play customized sounds to indicate incoming calls. Phone owners can download free ringtones or purchase additional ringtones so that every caller in their contact list has their own sound or song. Modern ringtones can mimic antique phones or they can be voices or other sounds that the cell phone owner chooses. The most popular ringtones are snippets of songs, with everything from classical to rap music finding their way to cell phones around the world.

In the hunt to find out if former FTC chief was hired by Facebook to help them with their privacy issues, a story was almost buried.  It can to light that someone had at some point hacked one of the Board Member’s accounts sending out phishing messages to any and all who it could get a hold of. Now, for most common users this would just be an annoyance, which you then have to go through some training on what is safe to click on and when you probably shouldn’t click on a link. For a top exec at Facebook, this is bad news. It is probably a good thing that it only sent messages out to his friend’s the program not realizing what it had gotten it’s fingers into. If this had been a person, we all would have been in trouble.

The newest phone from apple, the 4th Generation Iphone (which has been nicknamed the 4G, but probably will not as it most likely does not support 4G networks yet) will be unveiled on June 7th. There has already been a lot to do about this new phone when one escaped from an apple employee as he was partying in a bar and made it into the hands of a couple of tech bloggers. Because of this, people are expecting less of a surprise in what the new Iphone features will be.

The Youtube Project Report Winners have been announced and the contest overall has been a success. The idea was to offer money to Youtube’s top reporters to do a documentary anywhere in the world. Below is one of the winning videos. You should check out Youtube for the other winning videos.

Having gathered online, specifically on Twitter and organized the event, now a group of twitterers will be meeting offline to raise funds for education. This is put together by thousands of volunteers and joined by hundreds of businesses. This is the second annual Twestival, the first one raised money for clean water wells to be dug in Uganda as a kind of social experiment to see what happens when normal people band together for a good cause.

Just as a study was put out about how much teens love to text, another story broke about what might happen to you if you are texting on your company phone. A police officer may be in trouble if his case turns up that the City worker who was reading his private text messages sent on his work phone was not in violation of his rights. Unfortunately for many employees these days, work phones are the way many people communicate with each other, even when not at work. If that is you, you may want to re-think the way you have been talking to people, what messages have been sent out from your phone, and if you might be in trouble next.

Seeing as how we are solidly in the “Now” generation, and everything should be delivered to us “Now!” it is now wonder that search engines are trying to perfect the ability to get us the relevant information that we want to know about, as it is published. A new article came out recently regarding what this is going to mean for the three search engine giants, twitter, you  and much more.

Some students dream of interning at a small startup company, being there when it takes off, and hopefully being kept on as it fly into stardom. There has not really been a way for students to find these companies unless they happen to already know someone who is starting a company right now. StartupRoots is working to change this.