The Amazing Stuff

Kids always look for the newest trends. Whether a style of clothing, a video game, or the latest tech, if it’s cool, they need it. Things like this are usually passing fads, but like tattoos, some trends are little bit harder to get rid of than others.

Take these LED implants that you place under your skin, for example.

About the size of a small coin, the Northstar V1 is a silicone-coated chip that’s illuminated with LED lights.

The chip is designed to emulate bioluminescence, which is a natural phenomenon that occurs in animals like butterflies and deep-sea fish.

Since these require surgery, many doctors are unwilling to do the procedure. Sadly, this often leads to dangerous self-surgery. Others seek help from professional body modification artists like Jowan Österlund.

He recently installed three of these at a Cyborg Fair in Dusseldorf, Germany. Making a small incision in the skin, the chip is inserted just beneath the surface.

Tim Cannon, the founder of the company that created the device, was one of these three people. The original device, called Circadia, was the size of a pack of cigarettes, and it was designed to record data from the user’s body.

While the implants are pretty gross, these little ones record similar data. They use health monitoring software and transfer that data to linked mobile devices.

But honestly, these implants can’t be safe. Just get a Fitbit, okay?

Eleven-year-old Baylee Abbott may be missing fingers on one hand, but what she lacks in physicality she makes up for tenfold in intelligence. After using prosthetics for her entire life, she came across a project called Enabling the Future, which gave her an idea. She could build her own custom prosthetics with a little help from 3-D printing technology.

Once she figured out the basic principles, she enlisted the help of the folks at DoES Liverpool. Together, they came up with a prosthetic that could change thousands of lives.

video-player-present

Not only did Baylee come up with a great, practical tool for her to use every day, but she also found a way to express her creativity. She’s clearly a clever little one, and we can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!

Would you be able to live without your phone? I use mine for just about everything — banking, navigation, scheduling, you name it. I would be completely lost in the world if I didn’t have my phone…both literally and figuratively.

Because smartphones are so popular, people are always looking to challenge our love for them by perpetuating ridiculous myths. Here are a few rumors and myths about smartphones that definitely aren’t true.

1. Closing apps improves your battery life.

As it turns out, it doesn’t. All of that app-closing actually drains your battery even more in the long run, since your phone has to do much more work to reload all of that information every time you open a closed app.

2. Turning on airplane mode will prolong battery life.

Sure, it’ll save a bit of battery life, but not as much as you’d hope or think. A test was organized to see how much battery life it actually saved, and it concluded that leaving a phone on airplane mode will only keep it alive for 30 minutes longer.

3. You can only use the charger that came with your phone.

While you shouldn’t use really cheap chargers to power your phone for a number of reasons, you can technically use any capable charger to keep your phone going.

4. A phone camera with a high amount of megapixels will take better pictures.

It’s not the amount of megapixels that contributes to taking high-quality photos, but the size of them. The bigger the megapixels, the better the image.

5. You should let your phone battery run out before charging it.

Because smartphones now use lithium ion batteries, it’s okay to charge your phone whenever you want without worrying about killing your battery in the long run.

6. Put your phone in the freezer to maintain battery life.

Please do not do this. A phone’s optimal operating temperature falls somewhere between 35 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit, so exposing it to temperatures below or above that will actually hurt your phone’s battery life and cause other major problems.

7. You shouldn’t charge your phone overnight.

Plugging your phone in and letting it charge for eight hours is fine if you’re using a good charger. It won’t hurt your battery life, and it won’t ruin your phone in any way.

(via Metro UK)

Don’t let these myths fool you! You are a more enlightened person now, and your phone will thank you for it. Go forth and spread the news that these myths are totally false.

One of the saddest realities that we face is the fact that the world is an unsafe place. Violence against women is a global problem, and it’s one that women from all walks of life have to deal with each and every day. While it’s important that we work to fix the root of this issue, one company has created a piece of wearable technology that will at least help women stay physically safe and emotionally empowered in the meantime.

The accessory, called Athena, clips directly onto clothing and handbags, and it can even be worn as a necklace. The idea is that users keep it within arm’s reach so that they can use it if they ever feel threatened.

Here’s how it works:

When you feel threatened, all you have to do is reach for Athena — which is specifically designed to be discreet and fashionable. When you push the small button and hold it down for three seconds, the device emits a powerful alarm to stop attackers in the their tracks. But that’s not all.

Because Athena is linked to your smartphone through an easy-to-use app, alerts are sent to parties of your choosing whenever you push the button.

These alerts will include your exact location.

If you don’t feel like setting your Athena device to sound an 85-decibel alarm every time the button is pushed, you can set it to silent mode, much like a cellphone. That way, you can still discretely send out distress signals.

Athena is also designed to withstand the elements, so you’ll always be safe, rain or shine. Plus, the battery can last up to three months on a single charge!

And the team behind this amazing invention wants to do more than create a useful device.

Through a project called “ROAR for Good,” the entrepreneurs behind Athena plan to use proceeds from the product to support organizations that teach empathy to children across the country. Studies show that lack of the emotion correlates directly to a marked increase in sexual violence.

Much like anything worth accessorizing with, there are different color options available!

You can wear Athena in a ton of different ways! Style it to you heart’s content, ladies.

(via Wimp)

The creators of Athena have one simple goal, and that is “to protect women from physical assaults at the touch of a button.” It’s pretty clear that they’re well on their way to reaching that goal.

If you’re interested in preordering your very own Athena, or if you want to learn more about this team’s amazing mission, head over to their Indiegogo page!

Prosthetic technology is improving every day. But recently, it’s also gotten a lot more stylish. Open Bionics, which works to create and distribute low-cost prosthetics to people worldwide, just teamed up with Disney to create character-themed prosthetics for kids.

And the best part? All of the designs were given to the company royalty-free by Disney, so kids can channel their favorite characters for a more affordable price.

Designs include characters from the Avengers and Star Wars franchises, as well as from Frozen.

Open Bionics hopes to make prosthetic limbs accessible to all, and they also hope to remove the stigma attached to missing limbs. In an interview with The Independent, CEO Joel Gibbard said, “The power of these prosthetics is that the public perception is completely different. All of a sudden, they’re not being asked how they lost their hand. They’re being asked where they got their cool robot hand, how does it feel, and how does it work?”

The company, a startup, was granted $120,000 by Disney, and their specialists worked in Disney’s labs while creating the pieces.

They might look like toys, but they’re actually very advanced prosthetics.

Their movements are controlled by the electrical signals given off by the wearer’s muscles. What’s more, the lights and motors that make the hands seem so appealing to kids are actually feedback systems that let doctors and specialists know about how the kids and their prosthesis are interacting.

According to Gibbard, the kids who tested them out really liked them, and they picked up on how to use them very quickly.

The Star Wars models can also be personalized, so they light up with the user’s favorite colors.

Gibbard also hopes that the stylish nature of these prosthetics will remove the stigma that comes with having a missing limb, especially for children.

(via My Modern Met, The Independent)

In the future, Open Bionics hopes to be able to produce prosthetics that cost less than $500, which would make them more accessible to a greater number of patients in need. You can see their other work on their website, and on Facebook.

These days, it’s impossible to go anywhere and not see some kind of electronic gadget at work. Smartphones are pretty awesome, since they allow us to access the Internet from just about anywhere and help us stay in touch with everyone we love.

As photographer Eric Pickersgill noticed, however, there’s another side to them, too. They can isolate us, and keep us from appreciating the world we’re currently inhabiting in favor of embracing a virtual one. His series Removed takes a look at what we look like when we stare at our phones.

The series poses subjects to look like they’re holding their phones.

The only catch is that the phones are actually missing.

As a result, we’re just left with their awkward postures and their obvious disconnection from one another.

By looking down, people give off somber, closed-off vibes.

Much of their body language looks similar to that of someone who is feeling sad and lonely.

Pickersgill got the idea one morning in a cafe when he saw a family sitting around a table, each one of them on their separate phones. They were occupying the same physical space, but were totally disengaged.

When he first came up with the project, he disliked the idea of taking pictures of people using their phones without their consent or knowledge — after all, portable technology also allows people to be creepy.

That’s when he decided that he’d stage the photos.

According to the photographer, all of the subjects seemed happy to be part of the project.

He based the various poses off of his own experience. Checking his emails in bed, he fell asleep and dropped his phone. “Before I thought to bend over the edge to pick it up I looked at my partially open palm resting on the edge of the bed that still held the shape of my dropped device. I realized that was how I would be able to make the photographs for Removed,” he explains.

People’s reactions, he says, have been just as interesting as the photos themselves.

This image, which points out the very real danger of distracted driving, is one of the most powerful.

“Some seeing the image of the potential head-on collision feel embarrassed or perhaps emotional if they have been impacted by an accident like this,” Pickersgill says, referring to the photo above. “Others, specifically when accessing the content online, proudly exclaim ‘hypocrite’ or ‘too bad I’m reading this on a device."”

But that’s part of the complexity of the series. There are vast benefits to this kind of technology, but it has changed the way we interact and socialize.

By just making this project, Pickersgill says that he has been in communication with many people (like the gang here at ViralNova), all thanks to technology.

He says Removed is not an attempt to bash on technology or smartphones, but simply to make people aware of the ways our methods of interaction have changed.

And Pickersgill doesn’t take a high-and-mighty approach, either. In this photo, he’s included himself.

“I often feel that this work is most impactful for those who have performed for the images,” he says. “Once you see yourself within the photograph, you become a little more aware of whats going on.”

(via Ufunk)

You can see more of this series on his website, and more of Pickersgill’s other photography projects on his personal page. You can also keep up with him on Tumblr.

Smartphones are more ubiquitous now than they’ve ever been before. Honestly, it seems like people are glued to their phones, which is kind of upsetting. If someone’s battery dies or if someone is without their phone for a few minutes, they act like it’s the end of the world. Sure, smartphones are great for many things, but if you are starting to realize that your phone is ruining things for you, you’re not alone — and you’re not exactly wrong, either.

Here are the ways in which smartphones are actually ruining our lives.

1. Being Present

There is a reason why officials in some cities have had to write “Look up!” on their crosswalks. People were getting hit by cars because they wouldn’t look up from their phones while crossing a street. That’s an extreme example, but how many times have you been at a concert or any kind of amazing live event and been confronted with a sea of outstretched arms taking pictures and videos on their phones?

No one experiences life anymore. I mean, think about it. Why would you pay to attend a concert, sporting event, or Broadway show just to watch it from behind your phone screen. Put down the electronics and enjoy yourselves, people! “Pics or it didn’t happen” isn’t actually a thing.

2. Car Accidents

This one is pretty obvious, but if you are texting, tweeting, or browsing Facebook while driving, it makes your chances of getting into an accident so much higher. Just remember that you’re driving a two-ton hunk of metal around. No text, tweet, or status is worth losing your life, or taking the life of someone else.

3. Dating

With dating apps becoming all the rage, smartphones have even killed romance. With just a swipe of your finger, you can judge a person solely based off of pictures and superficial online profiles. Gone are the days when you could admire the apple of your eye and build up the courage to talk to them in person. Now, “true love” is just a swipe away! Except that most relationships that begin on dating apps usually end in failure (no matter what that Match.com guy says).

4. Information Retention

It’s actually astounding to me that so many people can’t rattle off the phone numbers of their spouses, children, friends, or parents. I guess some people feel like it’s unnecessary because our phones store those for us, but what if you get into trouble and your phone is dead?

The same principle applies to the retention of general knowledge. Since the advent of Google, people have been able to look up anything that their little hearts desire at the touch of a button. And if they need to bring forth that fact again, they can just go back to Google. No need to store it in our brains, right? That’s a scary thought.

5. Charging

Have you ever freaked out at the sight of a low battery message? Most of us probably have. The anxiety associated with dying phones is wholly unique to the age of the smartphone. Next time you stop by your local cafe, check out how many people are attached to the wall while charging their phones. Sounds like a blast, doesn’t it?

6. Interpersonal Communication

Have you noticed that people seem to have a more difficult time talking to each other these days? So much of our communication is done via e-mail, text, and other forms of instant messaging that we’ve literally forgotten how to talk to one another.

If you don’t believe me, try talking to someone under the age of 20 for more than 15 minutes without watching them reach for their phone. It’s borderline impossible. And even if they don’t take out their phone, it’s still hard to keep up a conversation with someone who is totally unfamiliar with using actual words to communicate with others.

7. Posture

Good posture has become a thing of the past, and that’s because we’re all constantly hunched over our phones. It’ll be interesting to see how many people from our generation will be able to stand up straight when they’re 80 years old.

8. Employment

During the work day, how many times do you look at your phone? Probably a lot, right? This is especially true if your job isn’t constantly busy and engaging. Next thing you know, an hour has gone by and you haven’t done any work. Smartphone surfing is making people worse at their jobs because they are constantly connected browsing social media.

9. Increased Stress

Have you ever broken or lost your phone? If you have, then you’ve probably experienced the deep depression that goes along with breaking your precious little phone. Most people will spend any amount of money to replace their smartphone as soon as possible for fear that they’ll miss something.

10. Irresponsible Spending

Going off of that last point is the idea of irresponsible spending. Whether you spend $700 to replace your broken phone before the contract is up, or you feel the ridiculous urge to have the newest phone at all times, smartphones aren’t exactly good for your wallet. These companies make people think that they need the sleekest, most innovative phones the second they hit the market. This means that your money is benefiting phone companies and making things a whole lot harder for you.

11. Having Sex

This might sound crude, but nothing kills the mood quite like someone’s phone going off during sex. What’s even crazier is that some people truly cannot fight the urge to look at texts and interactions, even when they’re…you know…in the middle of things!

Don’t you think you owe it to yourself and your partner to remain totally in the moment? Instagram will still be around tomorrow, but if you keep that kind of behavior up, your sex life may not be.

12. Fitness

Research from Kent State University shows that people who spend the most time on their phones have the lowest fitness levels. Even with all the helpful fitness apps out there, people are more prone to play games and lie on their couches than hit the gym. In the study, people who limited their phone usage to 90 minutes per day were found to be in the best shape.

13. Sleeping

If you are using your phone in bed, you are really screwing up your sleeping patterns. Studies have shown that your bed should be used for only two things: sleep and sex. If you do anything besides that, it puts your mind into an active state that will ultimately keep you up at night. Sleeping is more important than checking your likes on Instagram.

14. Hearing

We’ve all heard our parents and grandparents going on about how bad our hearing is going to be after blaring those headphones for years. While it may be annoying to hear, what they’re saying is totally true. All you have to do to avoid this issue is keep the volume at a reasonable level. Most devices will actually tell you when things are getting into dangerously loud territory.

15. Paying Attention

Because people are so fixated on paying attention to the phones that are vibrating in their pockets, it’s often difficult for them to focus on the outside world. This can be a problem, especially if you’re expected to do well at school or work.

16. Getting Sick

Using your smartphone too much can lead to an increase in headaches, vision problems, carpal tunnel, and feelings of fatigue. Is browsing Twitter worth feeling like crap all the time? Probably not.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of want to throw my smartphone into a river and break free! Even though none of us will be getting rid of our phones anytime soon, it’d probably be a good idea to take stock in the lives we’re living and stop focusing on what life looks like from behind a screen.