Most useful invention of the year.

You know when you are typing a response on yahoo answers, or leaving comments on a youtube video, and you want to put a smiley face at the end, but it just seems like way too much effort? Well now there is a keypad that attaches via usb, allowing you to leave a variety of emoticons by just hitting one button! Aside from sparing us the agony of hitting more than one button for our emoticon needs, the bubbly keys will supposedly also sport customizable glow options! lol

Raising a nation of useless genuises

A lot of us grew up with a computer in the house, but if you are around my age, it probably didn't start to be a large part of your life until your teen years. As far as gaming, you probably had an Atari, or maybe (like me) you had the original Nintendo, or Sega. Maybe you even played a little 'Myst' on your desktop, but you probably did not use a computer on a daily basis as a child, and you certainly didn't play with apps on a smartphone, or mess around with your mom's i-pad, like the kids of this generation do. AVG recently did a study, which polled 2,200 mothers with Internet access across the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The mothers, all with children aged 2-5, were each asked to rank a list of computer and traditional life skills according to how early their children had mastered them. Here are a few of their findings:

•  More young children know how to play a computer game (58%) than swim (20%) or ride a bike (52%)

• 28% of young children can make a mobile phone call, but only 20% know to dial 911 in case of an emergency

• 69% of children aged 2-5 can operate a computer mouse, but only 11% can tie their own shoelaces

This is kind of amazing, and slightly disturbing to me. I mean, I am in my twenties, and it is incredible how much computers have changed every aspect of our lives since I was a child. I love computers, the internet, gaming, etc. but I have to wonder if we might be sacrificing something when we devote so much of ourselves to these forms of communication and entertainment. Computers can be awesome learning tools for kids, and the internet opens up a world of information to kids that they would never have had 20 years ago, but is it at the risk of their basic life skills? Are they spending time playing computer games instead of socializing with their peer group, or learning the skills necessary to develop normally?

I'll take "Computer Superiority" for $500, Alex.

So, apparently some researchers at IBM have spent the last four years creating it's DeepQA Supercomputer. They showed it off at a media event on Jan. 13th, just about a month before it's debut on Jeopardy will air. The computer, named "Watson", will compete with two of the most successful Jeopardy contestants to date (Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter), whom the computer actually beat in a practice round before today's taping of the official showdown airing February 14th. All I can say is, this is going to be the BEST Valentines Day ever!!! I know, a sad commentary on my life, but whatever. I can go out to a romantic dinner anytime, but watching a computer wipe that sanctimonious grin off of cheesy Ken Jennings face... Once in a lifetime, my friends!