My Appearance on WGST's "The Sully Show" 3/20/15 - March Madness and the Tech News of the Week

As the NCAA Tournament continues its run..  Rick and Sully take a look at the tech news and happenings of the week.

Rick is also out at the SEC Women's Gymnastics Championships today at the Gwinnett Arena competiton goes through tomorrow

Have a listen:

listen to ‘The Sully Show March 20, 2015’ on audioBoom

1.  Tech for watching and following NCAA Tournament Games costs $1.7 billion in workplace productivity  -  We now have streams and more on our mobile devices

During the first week of the tournament, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, American companies will lose at least $1.7 billion in work productivity. That's a lot of chatter around the water cooler; to say nothing about those employees who watch the tournament games on their office computer or smartphones.

Of course, March Madness helps build office morale, if you look at it in that way.

 

2. Speaking a Second Language May Change How You See the World - Now there are apps that help you learn another language

Speakers of the two languages put different emphasis on actions and their consequences, influencing the way they think about the world, according to a new study (abstract). The work also finds that bilinguals may get the best of both worldviews, as their thinking can be more flexible.

Apps like Rosetta Stone, Duolingo and Babbel can get you up to speed on a second or third langauge.

 
3. Nintendo Finally Working On Games for Smartphones

More problems for workplace productivity.

Nintendo is finally bringing its games to mobile devices. It's partnering with Japanese game publisher DeNA to develop games for phones and tablets based on Nintendo's popular game IPs.

Games like Mario, Zelda and Pokemon are coming...  some maybe with some 3-D effects.

4.  Facebook Introduces Payment System

Will Sully send some money to Rick?

Facebook announced a new feature for its Messenger services: the ability to send money to friends. The payment system will work by connecting debit cards from Visa or Mastercard — no credit cards, and no bank accounts. The company claims they aren't trying to make money on it, since it'd be such a small business compared to their ad revenue. "Once the $ button is tapped, users simply enter the dollar amount and hit Pay.

The money is instantly taken from their debit account and delivered to the recipient's debit account. Facebook never holds the money, though the receiver's bank will usually take a few days to make the funds available as is standard. Both users see a confirmation message detailing the transfer status and time." Facebook says transaction information is encrypted, and users will protect their cards with a dedicated passcode.

5. Microsoft will make Windows 10 upgrades free to all, including pirates

Microsoft will make Windows 10 available as a free upgrade even to pirated copies of other Windows operating systems in China. Terry Myerson of Microsoft's operating systems unit made the announcement at the WinHEC technology conference in Shenzhen, China, and then told Reuters, "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10." Microsoft has a history of attempting to tackle massive and rising software piracy rates in Asia and developing countries, and periodically offers low-cost "licence amnesties" to the worst-offending countries, such as Indonesia and Kenya.