Tag: electronic

Posted on

“E-cigarettes” are sublime?

There are lots of reasons people smoke less today. Health is one. Stigma is another.  For some time smoking has lost it’s rebellious allure.

But addictions persist, legal and illegal ones, especially if a multi-billion industries benefit from them. Enter the e-cigarette.

Altria Group rolls out its plans to get into the electronic cigarette market today, and Facebook investor Sean Parker just invested $75 million in e-cigarette giant NJOY. No doubt about it, the e-cigarette market is on fire, reports Marketplace.org.

imgres“At a bar in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, 32-year-old Andy Lee takes a drag from a Puf brand e-cigarette. He started smoking them about six months ago. “I wanted to quit smoking, and I wasn’t ready to do it cold turkey,” says Lee. “Unlike other forms, like the patch or the gum, e-cigarettes still let me have the feeling like I’m smoking.”

“E-cigarettes contain liquid nicotine that turns into a vapor smokers inhale. Lee says e-cigarettes are sold pretty much everywhere now, and a lot of people he knows are starting to buy them.”My friends are slowly ditching regular cigarettes for e-cigarettes,”  he says.   Continue reading ““E-cigarettes” are sublime?”

Posted on

Be careful what you technologically wish for

Everyone thinks the recent availability of 3-D printers is a great thing. Well, not everybody.

What if do-it-yourself fabricating was a ruse to allow manufacturing to be transferred from sweatshops into homes? Writing recently in Le Monde, Johan Soderberg reflects on the positive and negative implication of this emerging technology: “Recently, electronic machines capable of producing objects, functioning as three-dimensional printers are available to the general public. They arouse enthusiasm in a vanguard that sees the seeds of a new industrial revolution. But supporters of these DIY tools technology often forget the story that they were born.imgres-1

“It would be the industrial revolution of the twenty-first century: what previously had to be purchased in store may now be made at home using tools such as a laser cutter, a 3D printer, a CNC Continue reading “Be careful what you technologically wish for”

Posted on

Top games link to gun makers

This is terrible news for video game makers – but they brought it on themselves. images-1Apparently, Electronic Arts and other developers of some of the most violent shooter games employ a form of product placement in which the “real” guns depicted can be found through links to gun manufacturers from within the games themselves.

“Among the video game giant’s marketing partners on the Web site were the McMillan Group, the maker of a high-powered sniper’s rifle, and Magpul, which sells high-capacity magazines and other accessories for assault-style weapons,” reports a front-page story in the Christmas Day edition of the New York Times Continue reading “Top games link to gun makers”