Jason Howarth's Blog

One of the more interesting tech stories this year is the exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Smartphones. For throughout the three months since the phone’s launch, the media has reported multiple cases of the phones exploding and catching fire, primarily due to the phone’s internal lithium battery. The media did it’s job covering these events, which were too numerous to all be mere coincidence, and as result Samsung suffered for it. According to Parmy Olson at Forbes.com, Samsung’s third quarter profits took a 30% hit and forced them to postpone the release of their Galaxy Note S7, a slimmer, sleeker version of the original Galaxy Note 7. However, it appears the S7 is finally making its way to shelves in times for the holidays, with full assurance of the phone’s quality by Samsung in a press release last Friday. [Read more →]

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Everyone fortunate enough to have toys had their favorites growing up. Some inspired creativity, some intelligence, but all toys inspired fun and imagination. Since 1999, The Strong National Museum of Play has inducted toys and games into its Toys Hall of Fame. This year is no exception, as pointed out by Andrew Liptak of The Verge, with Fisher-Price’s Little People figures, the classic swing, and the cultural phenomenon that is Dungeons and Dragons, joining already announced entrants the Atari 2600, Frisbees, and the cardboard box. Dungeons and Dragons was created in 1974 by Gary Gygax, and is a fantasy game using dice and character sheets in combination with published books to create a role-playing experience. It not really surprising that Dungeons and Dragons is going in to this Hall of Fame, in fact it has a leg up of many of its fellow toys in that the game is still played today, often being updated and refined, but never truly removing the core experience. Many of the current and past generation look at D&D as a landmark game, yet very few seem to remember the struggle it went through to be accepted, with Christian groups demonizing the game for well, leading to devil-worship and increased practice of the occult. This of course, has never been proven despite the mass media’s attempts to draw people away from the game it instead drew them in. [Read more →]

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Well the presidential election of 2016 has come and gone, and the nation seems more divided than ever. However, this not a statement to rile up the winners and losers this election, but rather to make clear,  that despite the controversy heading into the polls, more than half the nation has been tallied as “didn’t vote”. Now it is important to note that Mashable, who has the initial numbers may wrong in the actual totals, but what is painfully clear is that as it stands now 46.6% of Americans didn’t vote.  Their statistics are based on eligible voters in the US which is a staggering 231,556,622. This kind of information becomes massive media news, so its no wonder Mashable (among many others) would jump at the story, but one has to wonder if such stories aren’t a bit premature. [Read more →]

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Note: This is not meant to be an attack on any political party or it’s representatives

When it comes to connecting with other people and sharing our thoughts we are now just a click or swipe away from doing so. That doesn’t mean that media like magazines or TV are invalidated, but there is one common thing that journalists no matter how they spread their opinions shouldn’t do and that is endorse political parties and their candidates. Yet, this is what The Economist and several other pieces of journalistic media of all platforms have done with their announcement of support for Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Now while there are others that support Clinton’s opponent Donald Trump, that is not the issue, rather it is any indication of the media like The Economist from removing bias from there reporting and trying to herd readers together to embrace their line of thinking. Now, while every human being has a right to opinion and can even express that opinion, it is different for journalists.

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