This week may mark the first time in U.S. History that a Presidential kegger party hit the headlines, worldwide. I'm not sure if linking Barrack Oabama, a distinguished educator, a plain old cop and a keg is actually newsworthy. But toss in Microsoft, Bill Gates, a patent application for an ultra-high tech kegerator and Bill Clinton and you're gonna sell papers. What's all the beer hoopla about? Barrack Obama hosts a kegger later today. Special guests police Sgt. James Crowley, educator Henry Louis Gates, Jr (Harvard) and a passel of press. Need the backstory? The sarge arrested...

This may be the most important blog post you ever read. It is becoming clear that using a cell phone while you drive is at least as dangerous as drinking a number of cocktails and then hitting the road. Texting while driving? More dangerous than driving drunk. Texting is the most dangerous distraction on the road and an epidemic - especially among teens whose heads are firmly in their back pockets. If you know some teen drivers - ride herd on them until they get it. You may save lives. Two consumer groups FOIA-ed (Freedom of Information Act) documentation that indicates...

What are the worst electronic gadgets and concepts available today? I searched the web to see what venerable gadget gurus had to say and here's a list of sites for you to visit if you're interested in avoiding the crappiest gadgets on Earth. Save money. Wired's gadget lab disses AT&T, Asus and Apple, among others. Check out their list of trashy inventions. Audio gadgets to throw down a black hole - Sgt. Pepper??? Worst science cliches - are we done with silver bullet theory - please? Can we quit with the Holy Grail nonsense? Switched thumps Sega and Gizmondo among others Twenty worthless pieces of...

Holy smoke - cigarettes, cigars, room sprays, dust, mites, and allergens are making our homes one of the most polluted places we can spend time, according to an article I was reading at SC News out of Washington State. The EPA says technology can help cure indoor air pollution, if you choose wisely. It seems the more we try to do to stop the smells and particles polluting our homes, the worse we can make it. if we use the wrong products. But the article says good cleaning can go a long way to keeping dust and particles out of your...

Welcome to the 21st Century and beyond as science unveils an amazing piece of equipment that stands to benefit baby boomers for the rest of our lives. Toyota and a group of scientists have developed a thought controlled or mind controlled wheel chair. If you can't get excited over the potential of such an adventure, you're just not trying! The chair, pictured in the video below, takes commands from the riders brainwaves, through a funky looking cap. Think about Dr. Frankenstein shrieking, "He's aliiiive!" as lightening strikes the helmet on his monster's head, then discard that thought. The cap is closely...

The term "Smartphone" refers to most cell phones in use today. Early cell phones simply made radio-telephone voice conversations possible, but today we find that phones give us lots of extra features like internet, e-mail, text messaging and even computer applications. "Smart" gadgets in anyone's book. The Washington Post called Nokia's entry the most popular, that surprised me. The Post says in a recent article that iPhone will swamp Nokia in 2013. I would have put Apple ahead already, but the typically inflated price point on the iPhone is likely a stumbling block. You can expect a smart phone to: ...

GPS refers to a Geographic Positioning System. GPS receivers interpret signals from satellites to determine the receiver's location anywhere on earth. The signal bounces from Earth to space and back. Most GPS receivers process and display this information to give users a graphical indication of their place, direction and rate of travel -- all superimposed on a map.the point is to get you from point A to point B without having to ask a stranger for directions. Any baby boomer man can appreciate that. GIS refers to Geographic Information Systems. Although just about any information can be...

Let's get down to some basics - a quick 101 course in gadgets. What are the slickest, most popular and what do they do? Read on, Baby Boomer and let us introduce HDTV, smartphones, GIS and GPS. We're doing this strictly in the interest of economic stimulus - when you understand it all, you can go buy it all, right? HDTV - a micro-primer HDTV means High Definition Television. HDTV (or simply HD) and DTV (Digital Television) are not the same. On June 12, 2009 all US TV broadcasters were required to complete the switchover to DTV equipment (which didn't go...

This could be a boon to retired and semi-retired workers and consultants seeking revenue streams. Cisco, technology giant, claims to have saved an estimated $277 million in productivity by allowing employees to telecommute, telework, or work at home. That's a giant endorsement for people trying to sell employer son allowing remote work situations. Telecommuting is a concept long past its time to be recognized and supported. Cisco says many of their employees spend a day or two a week at home, connecting to co-workers or supervisors via phone, teleconference, email and group ware. But they have more than a few employees...

I just spotted this story in my Wired RSS feed. Google will release their own operating system later this year. Personally, I saw this as inevitable more than a year ago, when I first tried Google Docs. Not that Google Docs was the magic ingredient that started online applications, it was just the point where I realized that what was taking place was going to be significant. Apparently, the new operating system is a flavor of Linux, touted to be quick and agile like Google's browser, Chrome - which I have used quite a bit lately. Oh yeah, the OS...

Can hackers on the Internet figure out your social security number from the data trail you leave behind as you surf the web? Short answer -- probably. Two egg heads at Carnegie Mellon discovered that social security numbers aren't random. Since I figured that out years ago, and I'm no digital scientist, that fact in itself is uninspiring. However, their newly found knowledge created an algorithm that can come up with thousands of people's socials in an hour - if those people happen to live in Rhode Island or West Virginia, for example. Here's the story. The government confirms that social...

Google has dominated the search engine competition for so many years that they set all the rules now, and if Google doesn't like you or you don't meet their criteria, you don't exist online. Will Microsoft's Bing search engine rip off a piece of their market share? Might smaller, less monetized webmaster's once again have a  chance of being found online? I don't find Bing a terribly impressive search engine so far - the returns seem identical to Google, in the same order. The Twitter search thing means it'll return Twitter hits on your search terms, but only if people like...