Agreed, Baby Pandas Are Cute. But Why?

Panda cub Xiao Liwu was eager to play with a plastic ball during an exam last month. He made his public debut at the San Diego Zoo on Thursday.

Ken Bohn/San Diego Zoo/AP

Panda cub Xiao Liwu was eager to play with a plastic ball during an exam last month. He made his public debut at the San Diego Zoo on Thursday.

Ken Bohn/San Diego Zoo/AP

Xiao Liwu made his public debut Thursday at the San Diego Zoo. Fans crowded around the exhibit, their camera lenses extended, hoping to catch a glimpse of the 5-month-old giant panda cub. If they're lucky and actually do see the 16-pound panda (his Chinese name means "Little Gift"), there'll be much oooing and aaahing.

You'd have to be heartless not to agree that pandas, especially the youngest of them, are as cute as all get-out. Right? But why?

The New York Times tried to answer that question back in 1987:

"Ask the people at the zoo, and they say things like 'It's the eyes' and 'It's the black and the white.' Ask a behavioral neuroscientist like Dr. Edgar E. Coons, and he will say that giant pandas are the world's most adored animal for a very simple reason: they set off an almost sublime combination of 'hedonic mechanisms.' 'Cues' to Say 'Ooh' and 'Aah.'

"The big eyes in their black sockets, the round face, the pug nose, the way giant pandas tumble about like toddlers: 'There is considerable evidence that these things are what are known as innate releasers to our parenting instincts,' says Dr. Coons, a New York University psychologist who studies the mechanics of pleasure and pain."

In 2005, The Washington Post asked Stephan Hamann, a psychology professor at Emory University, to explain why humans think certain animals are cute. Hamann conducted studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure tiny changes in brain activity.

Tai Shan and his mother, Mei Xiang, enjoy frozen fruit treats at the National Zoo in 2006.

Avie Schneider/NPR

His studies "found that 'cute' pictures cause increased activity in the middle area of the orbital frontal cortex, located behind the bridge of the nose, and in the amygdala, the emotion-control center of the brain responsible for fear and arousal," the Post reported.

"According to Hamann, increased activity in the middle orbital cortex is usually associated with pleasure and positive emotion. Some evidence suggests the brain activity there is greater when the stimulus is 'neotenous,' which is to say it has juvenile characteristics ? a button nose, big eyes, a large wobbly head, chubby extremities or pudgy cheeks."

Many researchers have concluded that "cuteness, or 'baby schema,' is an evolutionary adaptation that triggers nurturing responses from adults ? allowing survival of the cutest, in Darwinian terms," the Post said.

NPR's Kitty Eisele had been a panda skeptic until she got hooked watching Tai Shan, the National Zoo's panda cub, in 2005:

"OK. I get it now. I understand. I wasn't in the club before, but now I'm up late and I'm not sleeping and I'm watching him do everything for the first time. It's the first time he scratched his nose, the first time he stretched his legs, the first time he rolled over. After so much waiting, he's finally arrived and I can't stop staring. He is a miracle. He's our panda. And like much of my city, I am mesmerized watching him on my computer on panda cam."

In a blog post last year, NPR's Robert Krulwich explored the mystery of the panda, from the panda's perspective:

"Every giant panda, said evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould, is a riddle. A contradiction. Each one is, first, a soft, furry ball of adorableness 'with a large, round head and clumsy, cuddly body' that we all want to hug. That panda, said Gould, 'exists in our mind.'

"Then there's the hidden panda, the real one that isn't as we imagine, that lives in the wild ? and that panda, Gould wrote, 'has remained essentially a mystery.' "

George Schaller, a scientist from the Bronx Zoo, studied pandas in the wild, where he found that they are "rarely romantic, don't cuddle and are certainly not like the pandas of our minds," Krulwich wrote.

"As to what goes on in a real panda's mind, Schaller says he has no idea. After years spent tracking, poop collecting and bamboo measuring, he says pandas remain deeply strange to him. He knows everything they do, but he can't say much about who they are."

(Avie Schneider is NPR.org's business editor.)

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/10/169057467/agreed-baby-pandas-are-cute-but-why?ft=1&f=1007

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Recasting History: Scholarly Study Finds that Race, Class, and Gender Studies Crowd Up University American History Classes

This week the Texas legislature is kicking off its 83rd session in Austin. The funding of public education in the state will be a hot topic as it always is, but this session, the content of public education will be worth a look. The National Association of Scholars today released the findings of a study into the contents of university-level history teaching at two of Texas? (and the nation?s) most highly regarded public universities, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University, in Bryan-College Station.

Specifically, the NAS looked at the syllabi and reading assignments of classes at both universities, in 85 sections of lower-division American history courses. These classes covered the state requirement, passed by the legislature in 1971, that all undergraduate students at Texas public institutions take two American history courses. What the NAS study found is very disturbing.

The study found that U.S. history courses at both universities strongly emphasize race, class, and gender (RCG) in reading requirements. Fully 78% of faculty members at UT emphasize race, class, and gender, while 50% of faculty members at Texas A&M do the same. Likewise, 78% of UT professors have special research interests in RCG, while 64% at A&M do too.

The study contends that the strong emphasis on RCG crowds out other relevant themes in American history, such as the nation?s intellectual, military, spiritual, and economic history. The emphasis on RCG studies also influences a further narrowing of history subject matter and the tailoring of ?special topics? courses, which omit the use of significant primary source documents. These narrowed-focus classes, the study finds, ?seem to exist mainly to allow faculty members to teach their special interests.?

The effect: Students at two of Texas? flagship universities are not being assigned to study such important and influential milestones as the Mayflower Compact or President Lincoln?s Second Inaugural Address. ?Only one faculty member,? the study finds, ?assigned the ?Letter from a Birmingham jail?? or Alexis de Tocqueville?s Democracy in America. Major historical figures, from John Dewey to Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers, are increasingly being left out of American history courses at both universities. The result of this is that we are losing touch with our history, replacing it with an overemphasis on grievances.

Source: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/01/11/recasting-history-scholarly-study-finds-that-race-class-and-gender-studies-crowd-up-university-american-history-classes/

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Mali says army repelled Islamist attack

A $20,000 diamond ring found in a tanning salon in St. Charles, Mo., appears to be at the center of a legal dispute over "finders keepers." The St. Louis Post-Dispatch attempts to explain murky statutes revolving around found property versus stealing. After Bonnie Land found the expensive ring and agreed to return it weeks later, she was arrested. She subsequently sued the ring's owner for $66,500 alleging breach of contract as Land wasn't given the posted $3,000 reward money.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mali-says-army-repelled-islamist-attack-204946060.html

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Salazar, Coast Guard announce drill vessel reviews

This aerial photo shows the Shell floating drill rig Kulluk in Kodiak Island's Kiliuda Bay on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2013, as salvage teams conduct an in-depth assessment of its seaworthiness. The Kulluk, which ran aground a week ago on Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak, was taken to Kiliuda Bay for repairs and a survey. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)

This aerial photo shows the Shell floating drill rig Kulluk in Kodiak Island's Kiliuda Bay on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2013, as salvage teams conduct an in-depth assessment of its seaworthiness. The Kulluk, which ran aground a week ago on Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak, was taken to Kiliuda Bay for repairs and a survey. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)

This aerial photo shows a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter sling a trailer aboard the Shell floating drill rig in Kodiak Island, Alaska's Kiliuda Bay on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2013, as salvage teams conduct an in-depth assessment of its seaworthiness. The Kulluk, which ran aground a week ago on Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak, was taken to Kiliuda Bay for repairs and a survey. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)

This aerial photo shows the Shell floating drill rig Kulluk in Kodiak Island, Alaska's Kiliuda Bay on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2013, as salvage teams conduct an in-depth assessment of its seaworthiness. The Kulluk, which ran aground a week ago on Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak, was taken to Kiliuda Bay for repairs and a survey. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)

This aerial photo shows the Shell floating drill rig Kulluk in Kodiak Island, Alaska's Kiliuda Bay on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2013, as salvage teams conduct an in-depth assessment of its seaworthiness. The Kulluk, which ran aground a week ago on Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak, was taken to Kiliuda Bay for repairs and a survey. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)

An Era Alaska helicopter lifts off from Kodiak State Airport, in Kodiak, Alaska, on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2012 en route to the floating drill ship Kulluk on Monday afternoon, Jan. 7, 2013. Salvage teams conducted an in-depth assessment of its seaworthiness. The Kulluk, which ran aground a week ago on Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak, was taken to Kiliuda Bay for repairs and a survey. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) ? A day after Royal Dutch Shell PLC towed a damaged floating drill rig to shelter from a remote Alaska island, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the department will perform an "expedited, high-level assessment" of the 2012 Arctic offshore drilling season.

Salazar said the review will pay special attention to challenges that Shell encountered with the drill barge Kulluk, which ran aground New Year's Eve, the drill ship Noble Discoverer, which last month was found with safety deficiencies, and Shell's oil spill response vessel barge, which could not obtain certification in time for year's drilling season.

The administration is committed to exploring potential energy resources in frontier areas such as the Arctic, Salazar said in his announcement.

"But we also recognize that the unique challenges posed by the Arctic environment demand an even higher level of scrutiny," he said.

Salazar announced the 60-day review shortly after the Coast Guard commander overseeing the Alaska district said he had ordered a formal marine casualty investigation of the Kulluk.

Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo said the investigation will look at every aspect of the incident, from possible failure of materials to evidence of misconduct, inattention or negligence.

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and the Coast Guard, also announced he would conduct a hearing on the grounding.

Shell Alaska spokesman Curtis Smith said the company welcomes the Interior Department review and that it would help strengthen the Alaska program. Shell has already been in dialogue with the department, Smith said.

"While we completed our drilling operations off the North Slope safely, and in accordance with robust regulatory standards, we nevertheless experienced challenges in supporting the program, especially in moving our rigs to and from the theater of operations," he said.

The Kulluk, a circular barge 266 feet in diameter with a 160-foot derrick rising from its center, drilled last year in the Beaufort Sea. It was being towed to Seattle on Dec. 27 when it lost its tow line to the Aiviq, a 360-foot anchor handler. The Aiviq a few hours later lost power to all of its engines.

Lines to the drill vessel were reattached four times but broke and the barge ran aground New Year's Eve on tiny Sitkalidak Island near Kodiak Island. The Aiviq on Sunday night pulled the drill rig to deeper water and towed it Monday to a sheltered bay on Kodiak Island.

Shell's second Arctic drill ship, the Noble Discoverer, owned by Noble Corp., experienced a separate set of problems, starting with a vibration its propulsion system after leaving the Chukchi Sea in early November. The vessel was inspected in the Aleutian Islands port of Dutch Harbor and the vibration problem got worse after the ship sailed for Seward.

Coast Guard inspectors in Seward found what the agency describes as several major issues regarding crew safety and pollution prevention equipment. Investigators ordered the vessel to remain in Seward more than two weeks while deficiencies were addressed.

Drilling in Arctic waters last year was limited to top holes and other preliminary work. Neither vessel was allowed to drill into petroleum-bearing rock because Shell's oil spill response barge was unable to achieve certification in time for the short open-water season. Shell's spill response plan calls for the barge to carry a containment dome that could hover over a compromised well and funnel oil and gas to the surface. The dome was damaged during testing Sept. 15.

Shell Alaska vice president Pete Slaiby said in October a faulty electrical connection associated with one of the valves caused the valve to open and the device descended rapidly, seriously damaging buoyancy chambers.

Salazar said Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Tommy Beaudreau will lead the Shell review. It will look at safety management systems, oversight of contractors and the company's ability to meet the strict Arctic standards, he said.

Ostebo said the Coast Guard investigation of the Kulluk will review the cause of the accident looking at the full scope of all towing vessels, towing equipment, procedures and personnel involved. The investigation likely will take several months, he said.

No date for the Begich hearing has been set. The Senate will reconvene in late January.

Environmental groups strongly oppose Arctic drilling.

Greenpeace spokesman Dan Howells said a review is long overdue and that 60 days may not be enough.

Mike Levine, an attorney for Oceana, said a broad public review about whether companies can operate safely in the Arctic should include other expert agencies.

"We hope this is more than a paper exercise," he said. "The Department of the Interior, after all, is complicit in all of Shell's failures. It granted the approvals and the permits that allowed Shell to operate and ultimately created the situation that led to the Kulluk running aground."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-01-08-Shell-Arctic%20Drill%20Ship/id-90e0c84c132a4995a988af7050fae31b

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Wildfires rage across Australia amid searing heat

Wildfire smoke rises from hills behind the village of Numeralla in New South Wales state on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. Wildfires raged across much of southeast Australia. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

Wildfire smoke rises from hills behind the village of Numeralla in New South Wales state on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. Wildfires raged across much of southeast Australia. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

In this photo provided by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, plumes of smoke rise from a fire near Cooma, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. Temperatures across much of New South Wales state are expected to reach 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) causing extreme conditions. (AP Photo/New South Wales Rural Fire Service) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

Wildfire smoke rises from hills behind the village of Numeralla in New South Wales state on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. Wildfires raged across much of southeast Australia. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

Wildfire smoke rises from hills near the village of Numeralla in New South Wales state on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. Wildfires raged across much of southeast Australia. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

A charred vehicle sits near the remains of a destroyed home following a wildfire near Dunalley, east of the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013. Australian officials battled a series of wildfires amid scorching temperatures across the country on Saturday, with one blaze destroying dozens of homes in the island state of Tasmania. (AP Photo/Chris Kidd, Pool)

COOMA, Australia (AP) ? Firefighters battled scores of wildfires raging across southeast Australia on Tuesday as authorities evacuated national parks and warned that blistering temperatures and high winds had led to "catastrophic" conditions in some areas.

No deaths had been reported, although officials in Tasmania were still trying to find around 100 residents who have been missing since a fire tore through the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, last week, destroying around 90 homes. On Tuesday, police said no bodies were found during preliminary checks of the ruined houses.

"We are shaping up for one of the worst fire danger days on record," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said. "You don't get conditions worse than this. We are at the catastrophic level and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Catastrophic threat level is the most severe rating applicable.

Wildfires have razed 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania since Friday. In New South Wales, the country's most populous state, the fires had burned through more than 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) of land.

More than 130 fires were blazing across New South Wales, though only a few dozen houses were under threat by early evening. One fire was threatening about 30 homes near the small town of Cooma, south of the capital of Canberra. Cooma-Monaro shire mayor Dean Lynch told Australia's Sky News some residents had evacuated to the nearby town of Nimmitabel.

Strong winds were hampering efforts to bring the fires under control. Wind gusts more than 100 kilometers an hour (62 miles per hour) were recorded in some parts of the state.

All state forests and national parks were closed as a precaution and total fire bans were in place with temperatures surpassing 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in some areas.

One volunteer firefighter suffered severe burns to his hands and face while fighting a grass fire near Gundaroo village, about 220 kilometers (138 miles) southwest of Sydney, on Monday. He was flown to a hospital in Sydney for treatment.

Fitzsimmons , the fire commissioner, said the firefighter's condition had improved on Tuesday, and he should be released from the hospital in the next few days.

Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. In February 2009, hundreds of fires across Victoria state killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

___Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-08-AS-Australia-Wildfires/id-e361f95a3af445778370201460ff6583

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Technology and Religion: YU Graduates and Brothers Chanoch ...

If you?re in the field of computer science, there are few better employers to work for than Google. Since 2010, Chanoch Goldfeder ?04YC has worked at Google as a software engineer focusing on Google Apps Script, designing new features and supporting existing products.

?When I entered YU I intended to major in electrical engineering. It wasn?t until my junior year that I changed my mind and turned to computer science (CS),? said Chanoch. Computer science runs in his family: both of his parents majored in CS, as did his sister Ita (at Stern) and his brother Tzvi (at YC). Yehuda, the youngest, is already a competent programmer in 9th grade. ?My brother Moshe, a rabbi and lawyer, is so far the only one of us to branch out in a different direction,? says Chanoch.

In YU?s CS department, Chanoch recalls several notable professors, including Dr. Michael Breban and Dr. Arnold Lebow. ?In the math department, I still consider my two semesters of Advanced Calculus with Dr. Thomas Otway to be the most enjoyable course that I took in college or graduate school,? he says.

Though Chanoch had originally considered applying to Columbia or MIT for his undergraduate education, in the end, he didn?t apply anywhere other than YU because he was confident that YU would be the only university in the U.S. where he could obtain a real liberal arts education while attending world-class shiurim.

Chanoch also took full advantage of the liberal arts at YU. He was active in the Yeshiva College Dramatics Society, both as an actor and behind the scenes; competed in the Association for Computing Machinery?s International Computer Programming Contest; wrote fiction for the annual writing contest; and drew political cartoons for The Commentator. ?I also may have been the only student on the Wilf Campus to actually use the pool,? he says wryly.

He continues, ?When I entered Columbia to obtain my PhD in Computer Science, I found that the overall quality of my undergraduate education was quite comparable to my Columbia peers.?

While at Columbia, Chanoch interned at Google, where he built a search engine for 3D models that is still running. ?Internships are really the best way to get your foot in the door at Google and other software companies, and anyone who wants to work in the industry should try very hard to find one,? he advises current YU students interested in pursuing the field of computer science.

Continuing his counsel for students, Chanoch says that there are two parallel programming industries, ?IT?, which generally means working for a company that is not in the software industry, and software companies. ?It?s a good idea to focus on one or the other and tailor yourself to be a good candidate for one kind of job by learning the right language and the right tools,? he explains. ?The core fundamentals of CS cut across this divide, but you still do need to have the specific skills that employers are looking for. Anecdotally, my experience with the software industry is that most students in liberal arts schools like YU should expect to need a masters degree before landing a job. Also, what will matter most is how well you understand foundational computer science, or the theoretical stuff that students may pay less attention to. Computer Science has always been a branch of applied mathematics, and you can never know too much math.?

Chanoch has won numerous awards and scholarships for his work, including three from YU and one from the U.S. Department of Defense.

A typical day of work for Chanoch involves projects having to do with Google Apps Script, a programming language built into Google products that allows users to tweak and extend them. ?Our work is very self-directed at Google,? says Chanoch. ?Generally, there will be some overarching objectives that everyone is working towards, but technical decisions are usually left to the individual engineers.?

Chanoch explains that the stereotype of the software engineer hunched over a computer for days on end with no human interaction is mostly wrong ? especially at Google, a place famous for its innovative?work spaces?and practices.

?We have desks and open-plan cubicles like anyone else, but ours are made out of giant tinker toys,? describes Chanoch. ?There are some things that are purely for fun, like the ?secret? reading rooms in the library hidden behind revolving bookshelves or the Lego room where you might stumble upon a senior engineer building a giant Angry Birds model. Other things are both fun and actually useful, like the razor scooters for getting around the office or the nap pods for when you need a quick snooze. There are often interesting celebrities visiting ? recent examples that I can recall include Stephen Colbert, Rainn Wilson, Justin Bieber and Yo Yo Ma. Google is also a very inclusive workplace. There is kosher food available for lunch and dinner every day, and whenever there is a company event, whether it?s a pizza-and-demos night or the holiday party at the Waldorf, Google makes sure to have kosher options available for those who want them. Engineers largely make their own hours and no one has ever blinked when I?ve taken off for yom tov or worked from home on an early Friday, even if we?re nearing a major deadline.?

Chanoch?s favorite perk thus far, however, has been paternity leave, as his wife Chani, who is studying to be a clinical psychologist, recently gave birth to their first child, Reut Batya, at the end of October. ?I was able to take off seven weeks to spend at home with my daughter, and you can?t really put a price on that,? he says.

Meanwhile, Moshe Goldfeder ?07YC?has followed a very different path. The only Goldfeder not studying or working in CS, he found success working in what he loves: the intersection between law and religion. Moshe is a rabbi and a lawyer, and is currently finishing his training to be a dayan, one who delivers religious judgments.

?When I had my high school interview at MTA, Rabbi Michael Hecht, Esq. who was MTA principal at the time and would one day be my law school adviser at YU, asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up,? recalls Moshe. ?I told him that I wanted to be a lawyer and a rabbi, and I?m proud to say that I was able to stay focused and meet that goal. I love the interaction between law and religion. For me, there is nothing like seeing Torah concretized in that way, with the timely application of timeless principles and the synthesis of two worlds. I love being able to help people make the rules relevant and meaningful in their lives.?

When he was 21 years old, Moshe began working at the Beth Din of America after finishing his first year of semicha at RIETS. He said, ?Soon after I arrived, the senior rabbinic intern left and about a month or so after that the Assistant Director made aliyah. I suddenly found myself with a lot more responsibility than I had originally expected, and it was truly an amazing learning experience.? He stayed on another year while learning at Yeshiva and also received a Wexner Graduate Fellowship to continue his semicha and study law at NYU.

His role model through it all has been Rabbi Michael Broyde ?82YUHS, ?85YC, ?93R, a dayan and law professor at Emory University School of Law. ?When I was deciding where I wanted to do my doctorate, the ability to study with and learn from Rabbi Broyde was one of the major draws to Emory,? says Moshe, who is currently finishing up his doctorate in Law and Religion at Emory, where his dissertation focuses on the intersection of family law, criminal law and religious law with regards to polygamy. He lives in the neighborhood of Toco Hills, a suburb of Atlanta, with his wife Michelle ?11C, a fellow lawyer.

Moshe learns in the Atlanta Dayanut Institute, Rabbi Broyde?s personal kollel for dayanim in training, and occasionally mediates disputes. This spring, he will begin teaching a course on Law and Religion at Georgia State University School of Law.

?I definitely feel like YU gave me the tools I need to succeed,? Moshe explains. ?I have a pretty full day going back and forth between several different subjects, and just having been through the dual curriculum system helped me prepare for that lifestyle.?

Moshe advises that YU students who might like to carve out an intersecting path in both law and religion should work hard and not listen if anyone says it is too hard to do both.?I would recommend that students find a rebbe and mentor that they can really learn from, not just in the way that they approach a text but also in the ways that they prioritize obligations and commitments, and in the ways that they seek to serve God and the Jewish people,? recommends Moshe. ?Always take advantage of opportunities ? I got the job at GSU Law after I was invited by the Jewish Law Students Association to speak there on a Law and Religion panel. God works in mysterious ways and you never know where your break might come from.?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2013 at 11:32 am and is filed under Alumni Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Source: http://blogs.yu.edu/alumni-news/2013/01/07/technology-and-religion-yu-graduates-and-brothers-chanoch-04yc-and-moshe-07yc-goldfeder-find-different-paths-to-success/

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From Instagram Parodies to Embroidered Phone Cases - Trend Hunter

Published: Jan 4, 13

Phone trends of 2012 prove this was the year the cell phone became more than a communication device, or even an accessory; it became a part of pop culture. For years, people?s phones have deviated further and further from their initial purpose. In 2012, phones became widely recognized as cameras, computers, fashion pieces?by the end of the year, phones stopped being a medium for discussing current news or humor and became the subject of news or humor themselves.

An example of this is seen in the hilarious site ?HeTexted,? which prompts users to share screenshots of text conversations so others can decipher the ?texting language.? Instagram changed the phone industry for good in 2012, with numerous camera-specific phone attachments, such as the Gizmon Clip-On Lense, putting the emphasis on a mobile device?s photo capabilities.

Whether you?re in the industry or not, sifting through these microtrends is sure to spark some ideas. If you?re looking to deep dive into the world of phone trends, check out our Phone Trend Report.

Source: http://www.trendhunter.com/slideshow/phone-trends

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