Texting while walking could soon be illegal in New Jersey

Una asambleísta del estado de Nueva Jersey esta proponiendo una legislación donde sea ilegal (y sancionado) andar caminando por la calle texteando con el celular. No, no cuando vas manejando, lo que es común y penado ya en varios países, sino también como peatón.

Suena un poco radical, de principio. Pero la verdad es que si una persona causa un daño -a ella misma y/o a otros- por andar bobeando en su telefono y no estsar atenta de su entorno, me perece justo que tenga la misma responsabilidad, sin importar que vaya en un coche o caminando…

Es chistoso, pero no sé, quizá realmente se eviten varios accidentes. Porque seamos honestos, todos nos hemos dado algún resbalón, traspié o golpe por ir bobenado con el teléfono en la calle. O sea, sí te distreaes demasiado con el telefonito. En fin, a ver cómo jala esto…

Jared Schumacher is among the hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans who routinely use electronic devices to text, listen to music or do other tasks as they walk outdoors. But if a “distracted walking” measure recently proposed by a state assemblywoman eventually becomes law, the Trenton man and others like him could be facing fines or even jail time….

http://on.mash.to/1MI7umE

You don’t own your car, you just license it…

Ya he explicado en posteos anteriores (como este y este) las particularidades de la llamada guerra de patentes. Aquí hay una nueva, que me llamó la atención por la manera en que afecta directamente ya no solo al desarrollo de las marcas tecnológicas, sino también al usuario final.

Resulta que si tienes un coche GM que usa algún tipo de software, el coche no puede ser tuyo al 100% porque el software sólo te da licencia de uso, no de propiedad. Así que el coche no es tuyo. Eso es algo nuevo. Y no está lindo. Adiós al taller de confianza, a los arreglos domésticos (si quieres conservar la garantía). Otra nueva treta legislativa de los monopolios para controlarnos (al menos informáticamente)…

GM has joined with John Deere in asking the government to confirm that you literally cannot own your car because of the software in its engine.

Like Deere, GM wants to stop the Copyright Office from granting an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that would allow you to jailbreak the code in your car’s engine so that you can take it to a non-GM mechanic for service, or fix it yourself. By controlling who can service your car, GM can force you to buy only official, expensive parts, protecting its bottom line.

As Consumerist quips, GM wants you to know that the car in the driveway is “literally not your father’s Oldsmobile…”

http://bit.ly/1BeDL9Z

People who use emoji have more sex than those who don’t…

A veces sentía que abusaba mucho de los emoticones, al tener el vicio de cerrar muchos de los mensajes que mando con esto:  ; ) o con esto: , )
Pero después de que vi este estudio, me siento felizmente justificado…

Here’s something that will leave you speechless: Singles who use emoji are having more sex than those who prefer to use their words.

According to Match.com’s Singles in America survey, 54% of emoji users had sex in 2014, compared to 31% of singles who didn’t use them. And 64% of men and 46% of women who use emoji regularly are having sex at least monthly.

The survey, considered to be the largest, most comprehensive study of single men and women, polled more than 5,675 singles whose demographics represent the U.S. Census’ population…

http://on.mash.to/1AhfaUW

Steve Jobs no dejaba que sus hijos usaran el iPad…

Otra de esas paradojas de la vida (y  en un mundo tecnológico):
La gente que se dedica a producir -y vendernos- algunos de los gadgets más adictivos es la que menos permite que esta sea adoptada por su hijos en su vida diaria.

Seguro sabía algo, ¿no? Otra prueba de que los mejores negocios no se hacen vendiendo NO lo mejor; sino todo lo contrario…

When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was known to call journalists to either pat them on the back for a recent article or, more often than not, explain how they got it wrong. I was on the receiving end of a few of those calls. But nothing shocked me more than something Mr. Jobs said to me in late 2010 after he had finished chewing me out for something I had written about an iPad shortcoming.

“So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

I’m sure I responded with a gasp and dumbfounded silence. I had imagined the Jobs’s household was like a nerd’s paradise: that the walls were giant touch screens, the dining table was made from tiles of iPads and that iPods were handed out to guests like chocolates on a pillow.

Nope, Mr. Jobs told me, not even close.

Since then, I’ve met a number of technology chief executives and venture capitalists who say similar things: they strictly limit their children’s screen time, often banning all gadgets on school nights, and allocating ascetic time limits on weekends.

I was perplexed by this parenting style. After all, most parents seem to take the opposite approach, letting their children bathe in the glow of tablets, smartphones and computers, day and night.

Yet these tech C.E.O.’s seem to know something that the rest of us don’t…

http://nyti.ms/1G0nEBi