Do you or someone you know want to start a blog, but don’t know how? Is Twitter absolutely confusing to you? Do you need to create a website for a gallery of your work? Sign up to be a beta client to help build our Teen Media Techies’ customer service skills!

Beta client sessions last 30 minutes and can be scheduled between the times of 11:30am-1pm. Dates for our Fall and early Winter sessions are as follows:

October 8 & 15
November 5 & 19
December 3 & 10
January 7 & 21, 2012

Our Teen Media Techies provide services in the following fields:

• Facebook Accounts/Pages/Security
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Site building and hosting
• Safe web practices

To sign up or to get more information about Teen Media Initiative and being a Beta Client, please contact Corazon Rios at tmicoordinator[at] insideoutca [dot] org, or you can call her at (213) 254-5267.

Teen Media Initiative got some press this month in DaVinci Schools’ monthly newsletter!

DaVinci Design students Danielle, Domonique and Miyko are three of our Summer Techies in Training, and are featured, along with Bob, in their school’s newsletter! Check out what the article has to say as well as the other DaVinci news by clicking here!

The article was extremely optimistic. While I do think that technology is definitely becoming a lot more mainstream amongst everyone, even the older generations, I don’t think that it will help us end these major issues anytime soon. The stats for the teens (89%) who felt that world hunger would end within the next 5 years with the help of technology just seemed a bit…off. As did the stats for the teens (1/3 of them) who thought that gasoline-run cars would become obsolete within the next 5 years. Those stats just seemed a bit too optimistic to be realistic. I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but as a person who works with people who are dealing with poverty here in the states, and thats not even counting the horrible condition that third world countries are in, it just doesn’t even seem smart to think that way about things.

I for one would like to meet this group surveyed and just have a conversation with them.

What is the iPad? You may have heard of it at one time or another and maybe even raised an eyebrow at the name. The name actually sounds like an item that is supposed to parody an Apple product. In actuality, the iPad is in fact a real product, produced by Apple. It is supposed to be revolutionary in all ways, because it is the first Apple tablet computer.

At first sight, it looks like a huge iPod touch, or even an iPhone, and that is essentially what it is.  It appears to be almost three times as big as the iPod touch and has full touch capabilities. The iPad boasts many features. It’s an iPod, has a map, holds virtual books, can run applications, holds entire movies, your photo albums, andhas a browser. It seems like the ultimate tablet computer at first sight. I really emphasize the first sight part, because it is missing some important components. Those missing components are the handicapping of the iPad, making it nothing more than a giant iPod.

The iPad is being advertised as a tablet computer, yet it has no USB ports, no camera, and can only run a single application at a time. This means that, for example, if you were using an application for Instant Messaging and you wanted to use another application you would have to quit IM’ing in order to access a different application. You may want to listen to your Pandora while editing your photos, but you can’t because of its inability to run multiple applications. The fact that you cannot run two applications at the same time is quite an irking matter!

Leo Laporte, a tech reporter, wrote that the iPad should be viewed as an appliance for media consumers, because it is not a computer in the traditional sense. I support this view, as while it is an excellent gadget, it really isn’t a computer, which is what Apple is marketing it as. It was said that the iPad would replace laptops, which doesn’t seem much of the case at the moment. The iPad also doesn’t allow you to install software that isn’t approved by Apple. The use of iPhone OS as an operating system has made sure of this. The price is also causing many people to be wary of buying it. For this $500 (and up) price tag, you could buy an actual laptop.

To conclude my article, I’d like to say that while the iPad seems like an awesome device, it just doesn’t measure up to an actual laptop, especially for the price it’s being offered for. When you weigh the good features of this tablet against its missing components, you’ll most likely stick with your laptop.

Are you tired of your phone or laptop dying after only hours of using it? Well, imagine a battery that could last for months without a single charge. Currently, in development is a battery that uses the radioactive decay of radioactive material and is almost 10 times more powerful then batteries used in mobile devices.

You’re probably thinking, radioactive material in my cell phone? No way!  But there are three types of rays emitted by radioactive substances: Alpha, Beta, and Gama. An alpha ray has the longest wavelength of the three, making it hard to penetrate solid objects.  Alpha partials can’t even penetrate a sheet of spiral notebook paper. Beta rays could easily penetrate a sheet of paper, but could not penetrate a 70-page spiral notebook. Gama rays are the most dangerous because they have the lowest wavelength of the three, making it easy to penetrate many things, including the human skin! Too much exposure from Gama particles causes damage at a cellular level, which can rewrite DNA in a cell, which may cause cancer.

So these batteries use Alpha and Beta radiation and converts it to an electrical current that can be used by your mobile device. And since the container is quite dense, the particles are unable to escape. It may be 10 years before they are sold on shelves for mobile devices.  Since they are made for constant power supply, they are more likely to be used in more important things like the spacecrafts or the medically implanted devices before they are used for commercial products like cell phones and watches and laptops and what not.  Even though they would be really helpful for laptops considering how long the battery lasts!  They are most likely going to be sold to the medical field to be used in implanted devices such as pacemakers, or in the Exploration field where it may be used for spacecrafts or deep sea probes, within the next 2 to 5 years. Some think that they may even replace the batteries in electric cars.

These batteries are currently being developed at the University of Missouri and among many names, are known as radioisotope batteries. As of now, the power is unmatched to that of solar technology because when something radioactively decays, the particles are sent in random directions making it a bit difficult to capture power given off by the magnetic field of the radiation. A very early prototype the size of a small car engine was said to give off 50 kilowatts, which could comfortably power a refrigerator for about a week.  Now the batteries have reached the size and thickness of a penny. Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University said that the radioisotope battery can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries. Which, in other words, provides no less then a million times more power then your average 9-volt battery.

Though the radioisotope battery is already small, Kwon and his team think that they can get it even smaller. To achieve this, Kwon requested the help of professor J. David Robertson, chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research Reactor. Together, they hope to make improvements to the battery: making it smaller and more energy efficient. Kwon believes that the final product could be thinner then a human hair.

Small Business Owners, give yourselves a present this year by taking all the tedious and time-consuming web updating off your hands. Our highly qualified Teen Media Techies can easily update your product offerings, notify all your customers about your holiday specials and sales events, and give your business the social-networking edge before the holiday rush hits.

Check out Packages and Pricing for Special Holiday Discounts!

Surf safely!
-TMI