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Whether it’s for business or for social reasons, many people have been tempted to text while driving. However, if you get into an accident, your insurance company will check your cell phone record and you will likely lose your claim.

Recent studies are suggesting that texting during driving, or playing with gadgets such as GPS units is a leading cause of accidents. The data shows that 45% of drivers ages 16-17 admit to texting while driving.

4 states are actively trying to ban DWTs(driving while texting and )In 16 states and the District of Columbia, young or inexperienced drivers are banned from using mobile phones, including hands-free devices. The only exemption is for emergency calls.

Texting while driving appears to be a generational trend, with 37% of 18-27 year olds text messaging while driving whereas only 14% of 28-44 year olds, and 2% of 45-60 year olds do the same.

The fines in Washington are $101 and in Oregon there is a proposal for a $720 fine.

A company called Virtual Management has come up with a solution, the Electronic Virtual Assistant(EVA), which offers a live transcribing service which sends and receives text messages or email via voice mail. The system reads the messages back to the driver on a hands-free kit. The data is backed up on the company’s servers for 10 years.

This services can be considered a tax write-off and, therefore, relatively cheap for businesses. Of course, it also removes the need to type while on the road so you can drive safely.

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Besides technical experts, most people do not know that potentiometers can be found inside many electronic devices. These potentiometers are often located in volume controls of many gadgets, in light dimmers, and in many other places.

One company that produces potentiometer devices is Spectra symbol. The company’s products are used in various industries such as automotive, medical and others. These products have been patented to make potentiometers that can withstand high temperatures and are very thin in size. For example, Spectra Symbol is able to manufacture thin-film position sensors that are 0.02 inch thick and of any length or arc.

Potentiometers are important since they allow the sensing and position tracking of moving objects. Potentiometers are used in various applications, such as used for automatic sliding doors, as found in shopping malls. Additionally, some medical applications require the equipment to be sealed, which Spectra Symbol can provide. The company sells standard as well as custom-made products.

Notably, the manufacturing process is ISO certified, meaning there is consistency and quality in the products being offered. The engineers working on these products have a combined experience of decades and they are well suited to utilize the technology and innovate it further.

Beyond learning about the products on the company’s website spectrasymbol.com, the company can send a sample of its products to any interested party.

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Shoppers will receive a reprieve from having to struggle with difficult to open packages during the holiday, thanks to the “frustration-free” packaging.

Amazon will attempt to cut back on the massive volume of packaging that is used to deliver parcels bought on the website. This approach will start with items from nineteen manufacturers, such as Microsoft and the toy company Fisher-Price and Mattel.

This would be undoubtedly become a welcome news for many, including parents who order various gifts for their children.

For example, on a pirate ship toy, the revised packaging will eliminate thirty six inches of plastic-laden wire ties, 1,576 square inch of printed corrugated inserts,thirty six square inches of printed folding carton materials, 175 square inches of PVC blister, 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene and two molded plastic fasteners.

This endeavour is part of a larger plan to make Amazon a more eco-friendly organization. In addition, this is also an attempt by the company to save costs in an uncertain economic times.

The manufacturers that are participating in the “frustration-free” packaging effort are part of Amazon’s largest sellers. These manufacturers are small in number but represents millions of products sold through Amazon.

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Mozilla, the creator of Firefox, has recently debuted a plug-in with a geolocation feature for the browser. The plugin, known as Geode offers web users to track their location anywhere they take their computer.

One feature of the plug-in will allow websites to request and for the device owner to allow or deny their location information. This would provide relevant information as far as proximity of the user to close by stores, theaters, restaurants, entertainment events, etc’.

Other applications could be applied for instance to a news website which has a local section that is indeed local or a website authentication application that only allows a user to log in from a specific physical location.

Geode will be able to operate by accessing the standard GPS signals but also find a user’s location based on any nearby network signals such as WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular IDs, and even IP addresses.

Geode additionally allows the ability of tracking the location of mobile users. For instance, a tourist will be able to travel, take photos, tag them and write content about each location. The software would then upload the information to a social networking website. The tourist’s friends will be able to see, almost in real time, where the tourist has gone and his impressions from what he saw.

For security, Mozilla states that Geode users will be able to control the amount of information they can provide regarding location.

Geode will also work with Yahoo’s Fire Eagle service, which mediates the user’s last updated location so they do not have to reenter the information. The service would offer users the ability to control privacy issues, such as which web apps to trust.

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A recent study showed that the highest growth in Apple’s iPhone purchasing came from individuals who made less than  the median household income.

The study is based on the research consulting firm comScore. Since the month of June, there has been a significant increase of 48% of iPhone purchases among individuals making 25-50,000 per year. The growth rate for people making under $25,000 was 16%.

Approximately 43% of iPhone buyers are making above $100,000 per year, however the rate of growth for individuals making less than that is 3 time as high.

For the actual content on the iPhone, the study showed a 7% increase in mobile email usage and 5% increase in mobile music purchases.

Although this sounds like a big investment for lower income individuals, there are costs being saved when the device is utilized instead of multiple gadgets and services. So the iPhone is more practical for communication and entertainment, than the original perceived luxury item. An iPhone offers various services such as: phone, Internet, email, music collection, digital camera, and games, in addition to many third party applications.

Even if the numbers for a lower income group are mostly skewed by purchases of the iPhone by college students, it still signifies the deep market acceptance that this product has achieved.

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The battle ensues for controlling your desktop now that Google Chrome has entered the mix.

Google Chrome is a fast web browser that has a no nonsense look, basically just containing the bare essentials. This is in keeping with Google’s straightforward home page. Sergey Brin, the co-founder describes the new browser as “basic”.

So what is so valuable about the market? Firstly due to the reason that our browser choice often influences our search engine choice as well as our growing reliance on web applications. These including anything from webmail, online games, etc’. As a result, a faster and more secure and stable browser has a higher demand.

Google is counting on a move by people from software installed on their hard drives to hosted software, often referred to as cloud computing. This would make Microsoft’s Windows less important. The Chrome browser allows Google to move into this market.

For its share, Microsoft has fine tuned its next browser, Explorer 8 by making it more secure and copying certain features found in Firefox.

Which browser is better really does depend on individual preference. It’s either Google’s more stream lined design compared to a preference for Explorer’s web development tools. According to independent tests, Chrome offers faster browsing than either IE8 or Firefox. Also, tests show that explorer uses more memory than either Chrome or Firefox.

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A hard drive, which according to a UK tabloid newspaper contained sensitive information on 100,000 active personnel in the British army, went missing.

According to the ministry of Defense, EDS the contractor had managed to lose track of the hard drive however for now it isn’t saying whether the drive had contained confidential information such as: names, addresses, certain driver’s license data, and passport numbers of military personnel, in addition to data regarding 600,000 potential recruits.

It isn’t even clear if the disk was protected through encryption and the military is still involved in investigating this case.

This is the last of a series of breached information cases. Last month there was a disk carrying confidential military data had been stolen from an army installation. Also during this year, a government laptop was stolen with information of hundreds of thousands of new military recruits had been stolen.

Relatedly, the British government is currently attempting to roll out a national identification card but has been struggling to maintain related data secure. During the previous year, disks containing such information as banking records of approximately half of the UK population in addition to other data-related mishaps.

EDS, which is an IT company, has been hired to work on various British government projects such as the Justice ministry’s offender system, the pension department, as well the upgrade of the army’s IT infrastructure.

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The Antivirus software maker Trend Micro has recently announced that, based on its reports, computer virus infections using USB memory drives have more than doubled in September.

Infections during that month with a specific worm called Otorun, known for propagating via mobile drives, have spiked 140% from the prior month to 347 cases.

Trend Micro’s monthly analysis showed that virus infections through USB drives had began to rapidly go up in February, and the number of Otorun infections in January to June had reached 517.

According to the report, 53.7% of viruses newly discovered in September were able to infiltrate computers using USB drives.

These viruses are becoming a significant security risk since most computer users aren’t aware of their existence.

Many corporations and organizations are attempting to halt the loss of personal and classified information by building proprietary networks which are removed from the web. This is to prevent the most common type of viruses, those being transferred vie email or web files.

However, USB drives are quite often being used on a number of computers belonging to various users, which results in a spread even in those proprietary networks.

Every computer user should check regularly for infection on both internal and portable disk drives and to cautiously use them on unfamiliar machines.

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IBM isn’t letting go of a top executive without a fight. The tech giant has filed a lawsuit against a former top-level executive who left to work for Apple.

Mark Papermaster is a server expert and vice president of IBM’s blade development unit. He is supposed to start working at Apple in just a few weeks but since he knows IBM trade secrets, he could be prevented from working for the competing platform.

IBM spends billions of dollars on research every year and is basing the lawsuit on a non-competition agreement that Papermaster signed in 2006. The agreement prevents Papermaster to work for a competitor for a duration of up to a year after his employment ends. In addition, the suit also mentions the potential for the trade secrets to be divulged if the new employment takes place.

Papermaster is a 26-year veteran as well as being a member of IBM’s Integration and Values Team, a group of 300+ senior managers which is responsible for the company’s most important and challenging tasks.

Therefore, Papermaster’s knowledge of business practices and blade servers may give Apple the upper hand in the business servers market. IBM’s System X and BladeCenter lines of server do compete with Apple’s Xserver line.

Another issue could be competition for future products since Apple recently acquired PA Semi, and the combination of a top IBM executive with a semiconductor company could provide it additional competitive edge in the handheld device market.

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A program for people who work with access to seaports faces fresh delays due to a crucial system collapse and with no backup in place. The program was developed after the events of September 11, 2001 and cost $70 million.

A power surge hit the government building in the state of Maryland which contains the technology that activates special ID cards for the workers. The computer system needed for the 120,000 workers was knocked out and will cause the October 31 project deadline to not be met.

The application was intended to guarantee that terrorists are prevented access to sensitive areas of US seaports.

The program has previously faced several problem and subsequent delays. A majority of the machines responsible for printing the cards malfunctioned earlier this year. The deadline was extended by 6 months. Criticism was also drawn because of the program’s potentially intrusive background checks and the $132.50 cost per card which the workers pay. The deadline now is pushed to December 1.

The breakdown apparently only affects about 10% of the workers. Also, the backup is now being added and should be available in the next few weeks.