In the past three years, I’ve had to do this twice due to these issues, and I imagine that I will be forced to do the same in the near future as these problems become more prevalent. The thieves of the future will not be stealing at gun-point, but with advanced algorithms that take advantage of weaknesses in virtual security setups.

So what do we do to protect ourselves? In cases like the one I’ve recently dealt with, there really isn’t too much that can be done–at least on the part of the consumer. Companies need to evolve along with the new criminal methods to make sure that their customers can be protected. For the most part, they’re doing a decent job, but there is no time to sit back on their laurels. They need to constantly monitor themselves and make their security stronger.

Where we can protect ourselves are at places like ATMs and online vendors. ATM machines have become new targets for thieves who use devices called card skimmers. These devices act as an overlay for the slot where you slide in your card and skim the magnetic strip on the back before it goes into the machine. A small pinhole camera installed in the overlay takes a video of your pin number, and the innards of a cell phone that have been squeezed inside send that information wirelessly anywhere in the world. The criminals who install these skimmers have gotten increasingly smart and can produce very accurate overlays that can even fool the banks who maintain the machines. The best way to avoid this type of fraud is to either go into the bank and get your cash from a teller, or get your cash when you shop at stores that offer cash back on debit purchases. The latter is also a great way to avoid ATM fees as well.

As for online purchases, only make purchases from verified vendors who have a good reputation. If possible, call them to make your purchases rather than entering your information on their website if you’re unsure.

While there are now risks that exist that we didn’t have to worry about before, there are ways we can protect ourselves against them to minimize how exposed we are to those risks. Quick action when fraud is caught is crucial, so if you think that something is wrong, call your bank right away.

Shop safe, shop smart, and have fun.

Serotek’s popular SAMNet service, which allows users access to an amazing internet portal filled with material available to the blind, will now be made available for free to blind veterans. Any legally blind veteran will be eligible for a lifetime subscription to this service starting December 15, 2011 when this new initiative kicks off.

“For many veterans sight loss is a new battleground,” remarked Serotek CEO Mike Calvo. By offering this wonderful service to them for free, Calvo hopes that they will be given all of the tools that they’ll need to maintain the same confidence they carried when they served our country.

In addition to opening up SAMNet for free to all veterans who qualify, they are also adding a bunch of different services as well. These include chat rooms, forums, and other communication channels geared towards veterans as well as the general public who utilize the SAMNet service. They hope that these new features will greatly increase the amount of communication channels within the blind community and allow individuals to reach out and connect with others.

Showing appreciation to all veterans who have come back home is incredibly important. By also providing services for those who have come back wounded, Serotek is reaching out to help a new segment of blind Americans who have to learn how to live with both the memories of battle and the physical scars that occasionally accompany them. Hopefully, with help from Serotek and their SAMNet network, our soldiers will be able to be able to heal and adjust to their new lives as quickly as possible.

For more information on Serotek or SAMNet, you can visit www.serotek.com

First, with the newest iPhone 4S coming out next week, pricing has dropped drastically on the older models. While the new 4S will start at $200, the standard iPhone 4 will now be $100 with a two year contract. But the biggest news is that the iPhone 3G will now be free with a two year contract. While the 3G model isn’t the latest and greatest, it is still an amazing device that will continue to be supported by Apple. For any of you who have been on the fence about buying a smart phone, now might be the best time to do it. As multiple writers have said here in the past, while there is a learning curve involved, the voice-over software on the iPhone makes it the most accessible smart phone choice out there.

Now, onto the newest upgrade–Siri. Siri, as it was explained, is going to be your humble personal assistant. Available only on the newest iPhone 4S, Siri is able to listen to a host of voice commands and respond in turn. What is so remarkably different about Siri, though, is its ability to understand commands in normal speech. Instead of saying, “Call Dad’s Mobile,” you can say, “Can you give my Dad a call?” More than that, it can handle voice-to-text as well, so saying, “Text Bill and let him know that I’ll be a few minutes late” will result in a text message to Bill alerting him of your delay exactly how you spoke it. When creating a text message, Siri will compose it and read it back to you, giving you the opportunity to edit the message or simply say, “Send.”

Siri goes way beyond calls and text messages, though. If you ask, “How is the weather going to be today?” Siri will read you the forecast. You don’t even have to talk that official. You can simply say, “Will it be chilly out today?” and Siri will tell you something like, “No, not really. The high for today should be around 76 degrees.”

The potential for software like this is incredible, because it creates a communication bridge between you and your phone without the need to see or touch anything. In a way, it even makes voice-over moot. I’ve spoken before about how the future of technology for the blind will be drastically improved, and available at a much lower cost, when there is mutual use for both the blind and the sighted. Siri is a massive leap forward in that direction, and its implications, should it work properly, are huge.

Two professors involved in the University of North Carolina Greensboro Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Sciences online degree completion program are helping to pave the way. Douglas McCarty, Ph.D. is deaf, but his students have no idea that he lives without his sense of hearing. Each of his classes are highly interactive, done entirely over the internet, and supplemented with email and individual chat sessions. As students continue to progress through his course, he is able to constantly interact and give feedback and track their accomplishments as they move through the material. “I’ve taught face-to-face, and the main challenge has been lip reading quickly enough to student responses,” he said. With the online courses, he can clearly see what they’ve written and respond in real-time with no issues.

Another professor, Ann Millett-Gallant, Ph.D., was born with physical impairments and has prosthetic legs and uses a mobility scooter to get around. While navigating her way through campuses was frustrating at times, she can now teach her courses from home. Among other things, she is an expert on disability and its portrayal in contemporary art and uses her own experiences as a way to connect to the works she studies and her students. The online course also allows her to teach world-wide. “I have students from all over the world, which makes the discussions diverse and lively” she said.

The university is very pleased with the successes of their online program thus far. “We can offer broader learning opportunities to students and teaching opportunities to professors, regardless of where they are based,” said Robert Brown, dean of the UNCG Division of Continued Learning.

Online learning has always seemed like a great way to get an education if a student needs to work around a busy schedule. It also allows students to access programs that they would otherwise never be able to consider due to their distance from those schools. But the fact that these programs benefit disabled professors as well makes them all the more ideal. Hopefully, as more universities make their courses available online they will also reach out to disabled professors to teach those courses and allow them to continue comfortably in a career that they are passionate about.
Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/9/prweb8786056.htm

In a word–technology. New technology like email, document scanning, online services like PayPal for money transfers (even gift giving), have all served as a very convenient, quick–and moreover, cheaper–alternative to sending things through the mail. The US Postal service, with its increased labor costs and its reduced revenue is quickly beginning to realize their dire situation and is scrambling to come up with a solution before they go the way of the dodo.

Their first option, which has been discussed for about a year, was to eliminate Saturday mail service. Now, with even scarier numbers staring them in the face, they’re planning to do that, as well as close up to 3,700 post offices and lay off roughly 120,000 workers. In a time with jobs already in trouble, this would have a terrible impact on the lives of all of those employees.

The postal service needs to think hard and quickly to devise a way to compete with all of these alternatives. They’ve offered new programs like flat-rate shipping, which had been mildly successful with individuals and small businesses, but has been met with fierce competition from companies like UPS and FedEx, who have a stronghold on most of our domestic shipping needs and less expensive labor costs.

What are your thoughts about the current situation with the postal service? Would the elimination of Saturday mail have an impact on your life? What about if your local post office closed? If things get even worse and they deliver mail only a few times during the week, would you be upset?
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5837512/the-post-office-is-dying-because-we-dont-need-it-anymore

14 year old Matthew James was born without a left hand. In an effort to seek funding for a prosthetic one, he sent a witty letter to the head of the Mercedes Benz F1 team asking for just shy of $60,000 to make that possible. In return, Matthew offered up space on the proposed hand for sponsorship–allowing Mercedes to place their logo on it much like they do on their F1 cars.

But what seemed like a long shot to him and his family ending up touching the powers that be at Mercedes F1 so much that they not only agreed to help him, but also teamed up with the firm Touch Bionics, one of the premier hi-tech artificial limb makers in the world. What came out of their partnership is the i-LIMB Pulse, the most advanced prosthetic limb on Earth.

The hand, as you would expect, is a marvel of engineering. Constructed of high-grade plastic with a black silicone socket, it “plugs in” to Matthew’s arm. Electrodes on the inside of the socket detect electrical impulses from muscles in the base of his arm. Those signals are then beamed to a mini computer in the palm of the hand which then translates those messages into movements so accurately that it mimics the motions of a real hand. Each finger is controlled by a separate motor which allows them to move independently and it even has Bluetooth, so he can connect it to a computer and track the strength and speed of his movements. The i-LIMB Pulse is so versatile that he can grip a pen to write and draw, tie his shoe laces, and catch a ball.

“It is just amazing,” Matthew said, as he related to reporters that his old artificial hand was a very basic mechanical clamp. “It’s going to make such a big difference in my life.” Though the 14 year old revealed a maturity well beyond his age, the kid did come out in him. “It also looks really cool,” he said. “The outer shell is see-through so you can actually see the mechanics working.”

Mercedes was not able to pay for the hand outright, but agreed to help Matthew raise the money by asking for donations from fans and sponsors. For their part, Touch Bionics also agreed to fit the hand and train Matthew in its use at their state-of-the-art facilities for free, which would have otherwise cost another $40,000.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/8700621/F1-fan-receives-bionic-hand-from-Mercedes-team.html

As Rory looked back on his experience, he remarked that it was very necessary to be as descriptive as possible during the hike. “You can’t just call a cliff ‘massive,’” Rory said. “The blind students want to know how many feet it is, its colors and the kind of trees that are growing on it.”

Aside from describing the view in front of them, Rory also had to make sure that they were able to safely navigate the terrain. Each guide was required to have bells on their backpack so that the hikers could orient themselves in the direction of the guide. Though, Rory said that he removed his bells because the students preferred to hear what he was saying rather than the constant ringing of the bell. “It gets kind of grating after a while,” he said.

Without the bells, though, he had to alert them of any dangers. As he guided his hikers, Rory would warn them about large rocks, which he called “ankle rollers,” and low branches, which he called “head hunters.” Though, he was concerned that he was warning them too often about non-threatening obstacles. He was very overprotective of the students, and said, “I almost went too overboard with the amount of help I provided.” Rory quickly learned that by using their trekking poles or canes, the blind students had no problem making their way behind them. “They’re quite remarkable,” he commented.

Overall, the final hike that Rory led the students on took ten hours and covered seven miles. The temperature was 107 degrees. As he reflected on his trip with the blind students, he said that “It’s very humbling being among people that are so energetic and so ready to go places even when they have such a serious disadvantage.”

Programs like this are important for both the sighted student guides and the visually impaired student hikers. For the guides, it shows them the abilities of the visually impaired in situations that they may not have ever believed they’d be able to operate. For the blind students, it gives them more confidence when they know that they can finish a hike that some sighted people would have difficulty with. It’s truly a situation where everyone wins.
Source: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/082011/08012011/642012/index_html?page=1