Matt Tedino Profile

Matt Tedino is a senior at St. John’s University with dreams of being a high school sports reporter. His dream is in his grasp, as he currently interns at The Daily News. He covers weekly games of football and soccer and loves that they’re almost always outdoors, which he sees as an added benefit of a great opportunity. He is also an avid sports fan when he doesn’t have to write game stories as well, and admits that his favorite NBA team is the Boston Celtics and his favorite player is Paul Pierce. The Celtics isn’t the only connection Matt hopes to have with the city of Boston though.

The 21 year old grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey and loves the town he’s from but is unsure whether he wants to live there as a young adult. “I don’t know where I want to live permanently, but I definitely want to live in Boston for a few years, especially in the city, its gotta be the city because I just love being there, I like the vibe and staying there for a few years would be great.”

He’s got another place he hopes live for a few years before he settles down, which is California. “I’d like to live in San Fran for a few years, you can’t beat the weather and I love the community aspect of it,” he said.

Even though he wants to live somewhere other than his hometown New Jersey, he can’t deny the influence it has had on him, and credits his father for it. “My father went to St. John’s too, he majored in Pharmacy and I can’t remember what year he graduated, even though he’s mentioned it several times,” said Tedino as he laughed.

However he does vividly remember the first time he father mentioned that he was an alumni of St John’s and he knew right then that that’s where he wanted to go, however his subject of study wouldn’t be chosen until much later.

It wasn’t until senior year of high school when he decided that he wanted to be a journalist. He explains that he didn’t choose it because it was the only subject he wasn’t lacking  it, but as the only one he didn’t have to try, instead it just came to him. “I was good at most subjects because I studied them, writing was different, because it just worked,” said Tedino.

Aside from sports, his favorite hobby is listening to music. After claiming that he “dabbles in the rap game,” he named his favorite rapper of the moment, the Brooklyn native known as Joey Bada$$. His favorite thing about the up and coming rapper is that he brings back the old hip-hop sound, and recommends that an skeptic should listen to the mix tape titled “1991” and dare say different.

As of late, Matt hasn’t been listening to much rap/hip-hop, instead he’s been getting into a lot of house music, namely Morgan Page an electro house DJ based in LA.

After explaining why he likes house music and hip-hop he admits that its not is favorite thing to blast through his headphones. That special privilege is reserved for the smooth sounds of the saxophone of course.

There is no word on whether or not this may lead to a career change, though.

Wearable Tech

The time for technology has come.

By technology I mean Samsung, and by time I mean watch. Samsung has been the top tier company to release a next generation watch, that attempts to bridge the gap between you cell phone and your wrist.

It’s a simple and intuitive idea, in that the watch is something that most people already have, and it’s so small form factor and placement make it easy to look at and quickly draw information from.

With something that most people already own, it seems brainless to not add more features to it. The ad that accompanies the Galaxy Gear watch, is a testament that the idea of a techie watch is nothing new, but it coming to fruition is still fresh on the minds of possible consumers.

“That’s sick. I’ve heard of some other less known companies making some smart watches, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I want one of the real big companies to see what they could do with. But Samsung? I really have to look into this watch. It’s really futuristic looking,” said Michael Sawyer, a senior at Cardozo High School.

That’s what Samsung is banking on too. One of the most successful ways that this watch has gained momentum is the commercial that has only been running since early October. The ad features a package of old shows ran together giving their interpretation of what a watch would look like and the features it would have in the new millennium  It has clips from shows such as The Jetsons, The Power Rangers and even Star Trek. With 3.5 million views on Youtube and nothing but nostalgic and encouraging compliments, its hard to deny the hit the commercial has become.

But has the watch had the same impact?

The answer is subjective in that it’s hard to determine the impact a product has or what it should offer with the product category being so young. First it is important to understand the watch itself, with its 1.63 inch screen. The watch features a full-color Super AMOLED display, a built-in camera. The coolest and most futuristic feature of the watch is the S Voice feature. It can most closely be compared to Apples’ Siri, somewhat of a personal assistant, now on your wrist. The most important feature, aside from telling the time, is the watches ability to deliver notifications.

The Galaxy gear does a pretty good job of that by delivering text messages and emails with no hiccups and even allowing you to respond to your text messages with S Voice. You can delete emails with ease too. This is the quintessential point to the device, to be able to use the limited functionality of the device to utilize the overwhelming technology of your mobile device. To be able to answer a text message without have to type, or much less take out your phone, already seems to be a huge help. The app store at this point is still pretty lacking, which is to be expected. However you can make and receive calls with the watch, and the camera gets the job done. The device itself doesn’t look gimmicky or flashy at all, instead it looks very mature, with its rubber wristband and stainless steel face, which will wake up to reveal the time and notifications with just the flick of the wrist. Upon the device waking up, it is very simple to use with basic navigations. For instance, if you ask the forecast, it will simply tell you the forecast.

Perhaps the most striking about the watch is how it liberates you from the practice of constantly pulling your phone from your pocket or leaving it in clear view to see your most recent alerts. It's all right there on your wrist.

But with its $299 price tag, many have purchased the device and saw that the time for such a device had not yet arrived.

Geek.com has obtained leaked documents that state that the Galaxy Gear has a 30% return rate, much higher than normal. Samsung has found that more than 30% of Galaxy Gear purchases are returned in Best Buy locations, and they have asked that Samsung employees on site help try to figure out why this is.

While the product is conceptually interesting, it gives us more of us an idea of what smart watches could be like in the future instead of what we should expect today.

Learning Curve

The face of technology has changed as we know it, or at least when it comes to cell phones.

LG and Samsung are each releasing smartphones with curved displays. The Samsung phone is the lesser of the two evils, as it curves horizontally, which will make for a more natural grasp of the phone while holding it. Deemed the Samsung Galaxy round, it takes advantage of this gently curved 1080p 5.7-inch OLED screen.

As a result of its unique curved design, users can take advantage of round integration experiences like the Roll Effect that enables user to check information such as date, time, missed call and battery easily when home screen is off, and the Gravity Effect for creating visual interaction with the screen by tilting the device. For music, the Bounce UX enables users to control their music. When the phones display is off while the music player is running, a short press to the left of the device will play the previous track while a short press to the right will play the next track. For pictures and videos, the Side Mirror feature enables users to gain access to list of the album content with a left and right tilt.

Though it looks very different from the phone Samsung demoed at CES this past year, it’s hard to deny that its still groundbreaking. However it won’t be breaking ground in the US, as it is currently only available in South Korea. If sales are a success it may then see an international launch. The current price converts to around $1000, which would be much lower if it saw a general release.

But the question remains, would its presence be appreciated enough in today’s ever moving technology world? Many people just can’t seem to get past the curved screen.

“What do you mean its curved?” said Quentin Stevens, upon viewing a press shot of the new phone, after raising his eyebrows a few times he still wasn’t sure what to make of the odd device.

One question. Why?

“Definitely not to increase productivity, that’s stupid. It’s hard enough to type on these things, and now it will be worse since its curved. I actually like it, not going to buy it, but it seems a bit cool,” said Stevens.

It already seems as if a new phone is released every few weeks, making companies rack their brains even harder to keep themselves even a few steps in front of the competition.

“ Too little too soon. But I do understand their point of view; to be the first so others cant claim it as theirs, something that happened when LG had the first full touch phone. Of course Apple got credit for it,” said Russell Kent.

It’s as if Samsung is on a vengeance, to patent first anything that Apple has in mind. Therefore Apple with have to come to them for patent usage. As per usual, it’s all about the money

With South Korea being used as somewhat of a testing site, the phones real value will be determined, and some people here in the states wouldn’t mind being a guinea pig either.

This may not be the only reason, but when it's in your pocket, it would follow the curvature of your leg. It would allow for larger screens to be made without that awkward space between the tangent line and the rest of the curvature of a cross-section of the thigh, with the phone being the tangent line.

With phone screens seeming to get larger and larger each year, Samsung has attempted to aid the biggest issue that comes with having such a large phone-carrying it.

The large screen size of the Galaxy Round provides additional benefits to users. One-hand operation features bring a user's most desired controls closer to a preferred side of the screen. The device has enhanced multitasking capabilities that allow users to fully utilize the large screen through multiple windows, a feature that enables users to open more than one application on the screen, run simultaneous multiple instances of the same application or to easily share content between applications.

LG is another companies that has decided to jump on the curve but they didn’t decide to take the route of a small release at first, instead their phone is already in production

Though LG has yet to officially announce the phone, the tech news site Engadget, got its hands on a few leaked photos. The phone has a codename of LG G Flex, which is expected to be its official name at the time of launch. The major difference between the two phones is that the LG phone curves from top to bottom, making for a odd design.

If LG can release its phone in the U.S. and Europe, it could reap the rewards from the coverage given to the Round being that Samsung’s phone can’t be purchased anywhere except Korea,. It would also fit in with LG’s plans to give its hardware a wider release, something it has done with the LG G2. This oddly shaped phone is said to give the impression of watching TV when the phone is held in landscape.

 For a phone that has not seen the most positive comments from potential customers, its safe to say that it can be used as an expensive shoe horn

The Impact Of Breaking Bad

It’s hard to deny the impact a show like Breaking Bad had on TV Culture and the millions of fans that enjoyed watching it every Sunday night.

That’s 10.3 million people who sat down to watch the heart pumping finale, to be exact. An amazing feat because the viewership had previously never gone above 6.6 million.

Its hard to understand just how crazy that is until it is put into context. Two years ago during the season finale, when Walt “Faced Off” with Gus Fring, the enemy of that season, it only had 1.9 million viewers. This was actually considered a good thing because it was more than 20 percent higher from the previous season.

This didn’t only affect the fans, but AMC as well who was able to make quite a bit more money from their ads. AMC charged as high as $400,000 for 30-second ads during the finale, competing with a similar price for shows like Modern Family and even American Idol.

One of the biggest issues fans have with some of their favorite shoes is that they don’t quite know when to quit. Shows such as The Office and Dexter ran dry after awhile, and affect the viewers’ view of the show as a whole.

However the writers and Vince Gilligan, the creator, are happy with the way it ended and were grateful enough to have those five seasons to keep viewers on their seat.

 “I can’t even believe that the ratings have increased with each episode — I just think it’s wonderful. People have asked me, ‘Does it make you want to go on and do a bunch more episodes now?’ Just the opposite. It makes me think; through quite a bit of good luck being involved, we really did pick the right moment to exit the stage,” said Vince Gilligan.

Vince credited Netflix for the success of the show at the Emmys recently, because it allowed people to watch the show at their own pace, and catch up quick enough to be able to watch the finale with everyone else.

Breaking Bad withstood the test of time, and commuted from the Internet age, to the social media age, and did so gracefully.

Upon its premier in 2008, Facebook was social media, and in 2013 things have progressed so rapidly and people are so uses to getting information at an instant with Twitter.

This has produced a generation that is lacking patience, as they are used to getting what they want, when they want it. Many TV shoes can be blamed for that, with conflict resolutions appearing within the 30 minute span of the show, and quips that are easy to understand.

A show like Breaking Bad didn’t offer that, but was still able to tie up all loose ends in the season finale. One thing that contributed to Breaking Bad being such a success was its character progression within the show. They seemed natural, and coincided with the happenings of the show, like a chemical reaction if you will.

During the show, Walt was the only one who actually broke bad, and Jessie did the opposite.

As the show goes on, Jesse becomes a nicer, better guy. He becomes more humane, responsible, etc.  He ends up taking care of his work area which touches Walt in the final episode when he goes into the lab, a complete opposite to how he was during the first season. He grows to almost resent Walter for doing exactly what Jesse originally started off doing himself. Jesse ends up literally breaking away from his bad.

He even finds himself in rehab, in an effort to better himself. Even the way he kills people changes. When he kills Gale, you can see the sorrow in eyes as his handshakes when he pulls the trigger.

Even in the finale when he kills Todd, it is done out of total anger and despair, not out of greed and revenge.  In the final episode he finally gets free off that ball and chain that has been holding him; there’s no loose end to chase him after he hears Walt has dealt with Lydia. And him crashing through the fence or breaking through it, literally shoes him breaking away from the business. He's free.

This is in contrast to Walt who ends up growing to love the whole process behind meth (all the chemistry etc.) so he chooses to die in that environment. In doing so it shows that he is the #1 meth cook, and his legacy will live on. He even has an ego after death. A true transformation from the wimp of a man he was in season 1.

During this final episode, Walt said to Skylar that he felt 'alive' while he was on top and making meth.  Ironically that it’s the meth trade that kills him, as well as the bullet that came from his own gun.

The only time he looked genuinely happy was at the end when he touched metal vats in the cook room, which he eerily had the same look when he said goodbye to his daughter.

The entire show displays 2 people Breaking Bad at the same pace, same time and similar settings, but in two opposite ways. Sort of like chemistry.