Foursquare: The Next Gen of Twitter

via Jennifer Van Grove from Mashable

I read Jennifer’s article months ago and was eager to get into location-based apps because the ones I’ve tried before seemed way behind. I downloaded the application for my iPhone and instantly fell in love with it. It’s so cool to get a notification about where your local buddies are and where they’re going or where they’ve been, create a social to-do list, and read reviews or tips in local areas or areas where you tend to travel and foursquare is provided.

i wonder why it hasn’t caught on “social media fire” yet. Maybe it’s meant for a bigger purpose. We will see soon.

Here’s a screenshot of the homepage on my iPhone when I open Foursquare. Check-In is for you to check-in to your location or send a shout-out to an event or something happening. Below are the other tabs you can view as shown below.

This tab is used to find places based on your location. There would be a list in this screenshot but I am in a location where there isn’t really anything nearby. If the place you are at is not listed you can use the ‘not in search’ or ‘we can’t find anything nearby’ to choose and input locations not show in the search.

As you can see there are nearby tips for places, a to-do list for myself, and you can also view your friends to-do list. This is a cool feature because if you go out and travel you can set up your own to-do list and people can view them and give you tips and etc. This also works for local use as well.

Badges is the coolest thing I think for Foursquare. They base it all on points and # of appearances. The more you check-in the more points you get. The more points you get the higher you are in your stats the more badges you get.

I’ll explain the point system briefly. You get points for checking in and you get bonus points for first-time appearances, adding places to the database, multiple appearances, multiple appearances per day, and more. Basically check-in as much as possible but don’t be overbearing. Don’t check-in at home or at the bathroom or any dumb places. Your compared to your local friends which is showed in the stat chart above.

You can add your friends, catch the latest scoop from FourSqare and updated your current location.

The application is just awesome. It is available for iPhones, Blackberries, and Android Phones. Just get it and join the community!

Uber-nano nanolasers could lead to faster computers and reliable internet

Researchers at Arizona State University and Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands have been collaborating on a project to make lasers significantly smaller than the ones that are currently available, by finding a way around the traditionally accepted diffraction limit — the idea that the size of lasers in any one dimension (say, thickness) is limited to half of the wavelength involved. One way around the size limitation, they’ve found, is to use a combination of semiconductors and metals like gold and silver, which causes electron excitement which helps confine the light in a laser to smaller spaces than that of the supposed limit. Using this method, the team has created nanoscale lasers that are one quarter of the wavelength or smaller — as opposed to the previously accepted size limitation of one half of the wavelength. As far as consumer applications go, the smaller the laser, the easier it will be to integrate them into small electronics components, leading to things like faster products and more reliable internet access.

It’s a mouthful right? As soon as I know more you will as well. Just informing you to be ‘aware’ of the ever changing way the tech world works. I’m outtie. I hope you enjoyed this post.