You're reading 25 Latinas who work in the tech industry by Sara Inés Calderón featured on Más Wired.

You don’t usually think of Latinas and technology in the same breath. That’s unfortunate, but fortunately for us Latina magazine put together a list of exactly that!

The list starts with one of the founding members of Twitter, Laura I. Gomez, Xeni Jardin who co-founded Boing Boing, as well as women who work at Google, IBM and Cisco.

Did the list leave anyone out?

Check out the entire list here, and leave your own additions to the list in the comments.

[Image Via Search Engine People Blog]

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You're reading UpgradeUSA: rent to own a computer by Elaine Rita Mendus featured on Más Wired.

Americans are practically required to have some sort of computer skills these days. It’s expected. However, for families with lower income, it can be hard to access the Internet to check emails or hunt for jobs – never mind that they have the high tech skillsets some jobs demand.

Latinos often fall into these lower income brackets. While technology keeps getting more and more advanced, it’s easy for people in these lower brackets to fall behind the tech curve and adapt to changing operating systems and programs. With the steep financial step into high tech, though, once one falls behind the curve, it’s often hard to catch up. However, an alternative is growing online in the form of UpgradeUSA , the brainchild of Jon Weisblatt, with the goal of providing easy-to-afford computers to consumers that are not obsolete, while helping boost a user’s credit.

UpgradeUSA is a leasing company for computers. If a customer is looking for a new or refurbished machine, they can go to the website and browse a limited, but modern, serving of computers which they can pay for through each month. The website leases typically end within 17 months, at which point the person who has been leasing the machine owns it. However, this is not all that the company does. They also help the customer build his or her credit score while they pay for their machine.

The way it works is simple. UpgradeUSA reports every monthly payment made during the course of the lease to the three major U.S. credit bureaus. This helps improve the credit score of the buyer, and, an improved credit score allows a person to make larger purchases. Being able to build credit is something which is not only important to those who are down on their financial luck, but it is also something valuable for immigrants — the company has a program specifically for them.

UpgradeUSA writes that their reporting program allows new immigrants to build some sort of credit history  — a doorway into being able to purchase a home or automobile, for example.

UpgradeUSA offers a small, but solid computer lineup for the consumer. Windows 8 is the standard on all of their computers, all of which are built by the major computer manufacturers. The machines offer decent hard drive space, processing power, and resolution. Most of these can be rented for under a $100 a month, including one desktop. UpgradeUSA also has three more pricey offerings, a touch-screen Acer Aspire, a Dell Latitude tablet, and a MacBook air. None of their machines are running on obsolete hardware or operating systems, which means that they’re ideal for the student, stay-at-home mother, or businessperson looking for something for work. But, UpgradeUSA does not ship to every state. 

UpgradeUSA offers access to a growing necessity in our society — the Internet — at a reasonable price without having to use obsolete technology.

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You're reading Cheerios’ multi-racial commercial backlash: are you really shocked? by Elaine Rita Mendus featured on Más Wired.

A cute, innocent commercial is making headlines for all of the wrong reasons. A white woman in a kitchen is asked by her biracial daughter if Cheerios are good for your heart. She tells her daughter that they are, and the next shot shows the father, a black man, sleeping on the couch with a bunch of Cheerios poured out on his chest.

It’s cute, simple, and not even about race. It’s about selling cereal to people:

Yet, it’s managed to piss off a bunch of angry white trolls. It seems that a vocal group of Americans are still horrified by the idea of interracial relationships and mixed race children. It’s still 2013, but the even stranger thing is the fact that this fear surprises people. Cheerios disabled comments on the YouTube video, because of the intensity of the racist comments, but news websites and bloggers seem to be surprised that this kind of vitriol is being barfed up around the ‘net.

The reactions toward these trolls are possibly even more offensive than the garbage they throw up online.

The Internet is a place where the freedom to be a gigantic fool is allowed. There are no tangible repercussions for a lot of these people. People hide behind usernames and email addresses and can say whatever they desire without being identified. Users don’t have to worry about somebody calling them out on their disgusting opinions. They can air their views and dirty laundry in the breeze, without having the responses that kind of rhetoric brings. There is no need, or point, in sugar-coating your views on the Internet when nobody can really harm you. These people aren’t going to suffer the social consequences of using racial slurs or other charming words from behind a keyboard. Nothing can happen to these people, so of course these people are going to be as venomous as they want to be!

The Internet is, sadly, a bastion for this kind of behavior. It’s part of the double-edged sword that complete anonymity allows. You’ll get these kinds of people who want to spew their verbal diarrhea around the rest of the community and try to offend as many other people as they can. They’re part of their own little social groups on the ‘net, where they can then encourage each other about their views. It’s been around for a while. This is not something new. Hate groups on the Internet have been running on full steam since at least the 1990s.

Why are people so surprised that this happened, though? Why is there such a sense of shock and bewilderment over the fact that a bunch of intolerant Internet trolls forced Cheerios to close the comments on an adorable commercial? Did people not know about places like Stormfront, Reddit’s gross sides, or even the fact that the KKK has a web presence?

It sounds like a lot of people are realizing that, guess what, we really aren’t in a post-racial America!

This weird, bizarre fantasy that many people of color generally don’t buy into seems to have been popped for many white people who are suddenly bewildered by why others would troll a YouTube video. Remember back in 2008 when the election was called for Obama, and so many people were estatic? Our first black president! It seemed as though America had come to finally put aside racial differences and hold some big old kumbaya.

That never happened. And now, suddenly, horrified bloggers and journalists are in a tizzy over trolls on a YouTube video. Why? Are you surprised that this country still has deep racial issues that it doesn’t deal with? Did all of America think Obama’s election and re-election somehow fixed racism or something? Or is a huge portion of our country just so out of tune with race that it took this to get some eyebrows raised?

Maybe. Regardless of whatever got people abuzz about this video, the question that needs to be asked is whether or not anything will actually be done by people to try to understand and analyze the issues of race within our society. Probably not. Over the weekend, a lot of people will forget the commercial, Cheerios won’t comment on it, and the bigots will mark this down as a victory.

Racism on the Internet is pretty well established. If it bothers you that much, then do something about it in your community. Stop acting bewildered when it shows it’s ugly head, and stop giving these trolls the attention they crave.

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You're reading LanguageTwin uses tech to teach Spanish by Elaine Rita Mendus featured on Más Wired.

Language teachers commonly say that you should listen to music or television shows in the language for the exposure, but the usefulness of that is debatable at best. The speed and inflection of the singer could easily throw somebody off with pronunciation. Television? Forget it — conversational foreign languages are spoken at a pace intended for native or fluent speakers to understand — not the kid in Spanish 101.  And nevermind the boatload of words they’d never hear in class.

LanguageTwin seeks to offer something that the classroom usually doesn’t: peer-to-peer conversation with native speakers in the language that a student is trying to learn.

The brainchild of Michael Lucia, who thought of the idea after a semester abroad in France, LanguageTwin works differently from turning on Telemundo and hoping to understand something other than “Cómo estás.” LanguageTwin pairs up a student with a “twin” from the country, or countries, that speak the language they are studying in school and allows the two to set schedules to see when they are both free so that they can meet and engage in conversation. Their partner will be someone who is studying English in their home country.

Of course, a common problem among study groups in any course is that a student could neglect to show due to timezones or any other reasons. Seeing that this could hurt the other student, they’re allowed to seek out a new “twin” every time they sign on.

LanguageTwin is not available for anyone to use, only people enrolled in a participating university. Participating universities include those in the United States, as well as ones located in Spain, Mexico, Panama, Chile, Colombia, Boliva, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. Currently, the program is only focused on Spanish and English, but more languages are in development — including French, German, and Mandarin Chinese.

Since LanguageTwin is geared toward the classroom, it also provides components for the teachers who use it. Because all conversations are recorded, teachers can to go back and review them so that they can point out mistakes or areas that need improvement. They can also set a minimum amount of time per week for the students to use the program – forcing them to get their feet wet, and to gain that valuable interpersonal communication that is desperately needed when it comes to learning a second language. Students are also provided with a text-based chat component, icebreaker questions and a translating tool, to make socializing in another language less painful.

Obviously, LanguageTwin is not a perfect replacement for total immersion, and there will always be students who simply can not learn or language, or those who try to squeak by without doing anything. But it’s a little more real than a classroom setting. LanguageTwin puts the students with a native speaker who is learning Engish, giving both students that face-to-face access which can make learning a language more human.

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You're reading Biovideo captures the emotions of life’s first moments by Texans for Economic Progress featured on Más Wired.

Mothers Day 2013 may have passed but one San Antonio-based company is finding a way to celebrate Moms and their newborns every single day of the year.  Biovideo Productions produces movies of a baby’s first day of life. Filming, editing and production is completed generally less than 48 hours after the baby is born so that parents can view and share the video directly from the hospital.

Biovideo delivers more than 1,500 custom videos each month thanks to the ability to manage and control operations through an online interactive enterprise system which allows the start-up to monitor production status every step of the way, from anywhere in the world.  Parents can pre-register on the BioVideo website and upload prenatal images. Once mom arrives at the hospital, she registers in real time on a digital tablet provided by the Biovideo videographer. When the new parents are ready to leave the hospital, they can preview the video, and both the video and still photos can be accessed by mom or dad on a personalized web page and shared via email or social media. What’s even better is that Biovideo provides videos free to both parents and hospitals, thanks to corporate sponsors that want to connect with new moms and dads.

Biovideo is the brainchild of Carlos Villaseñor.  He was a frustrated first-time dad who struggled to capture the first few days of first daughter’s life 8 years ago.  “I was a nervous wreck, worrying about charging the camera, changing memory cards, and trying to preserve every priceless moment on film.” When he got around to editing the movie, he realized that he wasn’t in the film, as he had been behind the camera instead of beside his wife Sylvia during many heartwarming moments.  “I made up my mind then and there that I’d never have to choose between holding my wife’s hand and holding the camera. No Dad should have to make that choice.”

He founded Biovideo in Monterrey the next year, and today the company serves more than 90% of private hospitals in Monterrey, Mexico City and Guadalajara.  Villaseñor decided to move his family to San Antonio and join the community at Geekdom to expand the Biovideo.

“Our business depends on high-speed Internet and wireless. In Mexico, high-speed Internet access is both limited and very expensive, and our operations are much less agile because of it. It also limits a whole host of revenue generation opportunities – such as the ability to sell picture or video downloads, or consumer merchandise.  We’ve produced more than 100,000 movies since Mariana’s birth, and thanks to the technology advances in the U.S., we are now poised to expand rapidly throughout Texas and the rest of the country.”

Healthtech is gaining momentum as an additional valuable service for patients and families in medical centers all across the U.S. and especially in Texas.  Innovation that enables mobile apps that detect disease, powers robot-controlled surgeries and accelerates new developments in biomedicine continues to flourish in places where technology intersects with ideas. And while many of us may have a hard time getting the science behind these incredible advances through our heads, we can all agree that Healthtech’s capture and presentation of our most precious moments has long lasting impact on our hearts.

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You're reading Eva Longoria advocates for Latino biz owners by Elaine Rita Mendus featured on Más Wired.

Eva Longoria is not a name people associate with small business. The fiery Latina role she played on “Desperate Housewives” comes to mind for many, but not only is Longoria is a business owner — but she’s a small business owner advocate as well.

Longoria was recently on Capital Hill to speak at the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepeneurship Committee to discuss expanding business opportunities for minority women, with the goal of helping and encouraging more Latina business owners with incentives to help them grow.

Longoria has teamed up with Howard Buffet (son of Warren Buffet) to kick off a program that will provide $2 million dollars’ worth of macro loans to Latina entrepenuers for the next four years.

The program will begin in Texas before spreading out to California.

During the hearing, Longoria said, “Diversity breeds innovation, and that is what our country needs right now.”

She went on further to argue that Latinas are one of the nation’s greatest resources, and we “have to treat them as such. If we invest in giving Latinas the tools to unlock their potential today, we can create a brighter economic future for our country.” It’s a bit strange to see people viewed as resources, but her point is well made — Latinas and Latinos can help build the economy thanks to their population size.

This is currently not the case, though. 2010 Census data has shown us in the past that Latinos and Latinas are at the bottom of the economic barrel at the moment, but the population is growing; Latinos don’t get out of the economic dumps, it could hamper any U.S. economic growth.

This is not the first time that Longoria has stepped into the business world, nor is it the first time that she has worked with Howard Buffet.

Longoria owns a restaurant in Los Angeles, Beso, and another in Las Vegas called SHe. She also previously opened up a nightclub in Las Vegas (Eve) where SHe is located. Eve went under, and was replaced by SHe, which originally opened up as a restaurant/nightclub. The second nightclub went out of business as well, and now SHe is just a restaurant.

The “Housewives” star also founded the Eva Longoria foundation and is the manager of UnbeliEVAable entertainment. While the successes of Longoria’s nightclubs are dubious, but her successes in the restaurant world, as well as her drive to establish advocacy resources for Latinas, have outshone that.

For example, she’s previously worked with Buffet during a visit to Guatemala in March with the World Food Program to discuss agriculture with the local populace. And most recently she graduated with a Master’s degree in Chicano and Chicana Studies from California State University Northridge.

[Screenshot Via WhoSay]

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You're reading In CA, TX, immigration reform & tech both benefit Latinos by Sara Inés Calderón featured on Más Wired.

Immigration and tech may not seem to be intricately linked on the surface, but the current immigration reform debate in Congress and some recent data show otherwise. States where immigrants are concentrated have strong, and growing, tech sectors, and thus would likely benefit greatly from immigration reform.

California and Texas ranked first and second, respectively, in tech employment, according to a recent Cyberstates report. These states also happen to be places where Latinos, and immigrants, are heavily concentrated. For example, a recent report found that 1 in 10 residents of Los Angeles County was an undocumented immigrant. Another map estimates California’s population of undocumented immigrants is 2.5 million; for Texas this number is 1.65 million.

No other state came close to these numbers of undocumented immigrants. Just like no other states came close to the numbers of tech jobs added. Nationwide the tech industry added 67,400 net jobs, according to the report — and California and Texas alone accounted for 41% of nationwide tech growth.

Immigration reform means not only that talented young people in these states will be able to enter the workforce, but also that talent from other countries can help U.S. businesses continue to prosper.

California ranked first in terms of tech employment, adding 17,700 net jobs to a total of 968,800. And in the Golden State tech workers earned, on average, the highest wage nationwide, $123,900, compared to the $93,800 nationwide average. Emerging industries in the state include computer systems design, as well as R&D and testing labs.

Texas’ numbers were also impressive; the state added 10,000 net jobs to grow the tech employment sector to 485,600 jobs. Workers in this sector earned an average salary of $92,200 and growing in computer systems design and engineering services.

Efforts to promote immigration reform have frequently zeroed-in on economics as a driver for reform. One such effort, iMarch or the March for Innovation, is a nationwide effort to urge Congress to pass immigration reform that has incorporated many different types of technology into its pitch.

The event is taking place on Twitter, as well as physically in locations across the country, and boasts tech and celebrity superstars. In Austin, for example, a live event will be streamed to the Internet,and is being supported by the Austin Technology Incubator, South by Southwest Interactive, Texans for Economic Progress and Texas Instruments.

Another group that’s been pushing specifically from the tech sector for reform is the Mark Zuckerberg-backed FWD.us. The group is using social media to advocate for immigration reform and boasts support from some of the tech world’s biggest names.

For more information about the March for Innovation click here, for FWD.us click here.

[Images Via Júlio Reis and AnonMoos]

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You're reading Latinos flocking to online radio by Sara Inés Calderón featured on Más Wired.

The number of Latinos listening to online radio has almost doubled in the past year, according to a report. The Media Audit just released a report that found that a total of 32.7% of Latinos listened to the top Internet radio stations in March, that’s 4.2 million people, and they are 35% more likely to listen to Internet radio than the rest of the population.

We previously wrote about how Pandora had been targeting the Latino community, whereas Spotify had basically been ignoring them. The results seem to be in:

 A year ago just 13.5 percent of Hispanics listened to Pandora, today 28.7 percent of Hispanics in the top 10 markets reported listening to Pandora in the last month.

And in general, for Latino online radio listeners:

The dramatic 142 percent growth in Hispanic listeners in one year is matched by the 182 percent one year increase in Hispanic listeners who accessed iHeartradio, and 52 percent one year increase in the number of Hispanics who listened to Radio.com.

[Image Via Lisa Padilla]

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You're reading Racism, homophobia, mapped on Twitter by Sara Inés Calderón featured on Más Wired.

Racism and homophobia on Twitter are concentrated pretty much all over the United States, according to a new mapping project that tracked racist tweets against geographic data.

The Geography of Hate is a project from California focusing on the geographic centers of hate speech on Twitter. The map is part of the work by Humboldt State University’s Dr. Monica Stephens and students of her Advanced Cartography course.

Using Google Maps, the researchers pulled geocoded tweets from June 2013 to April 2013 with “hate words” in them (150,000) and students classified them as negative according to a rubric, then these “hateful” tweets were used in the analysis for the map.

The resulting map can be seen here in its entirety. Some interesting points:

• Predictably, urban areas had the biggest concentrations of racist, homophobic and anti-disability tweets
• Georgia and Kansas seem to be centers of really racist tweets
• Racist words describing black people were used across the country
• Racist words describing Latinos were concentrated in Texas, Georgia, Kansas and Kentucky
• Racist words describing Asians were more prominent on the East Coast, Kansas, Georgia and Minnesota
• Homophobic tweets were used all over the country, but for Los Angeles

These results are interesting, considering that whites are a minority of Twitter users; as we wrote previously, only 14% of Twitter users are white, compared to 26% black and 19% Latino. However, as we wrote earlier this year, Twitter is also a vehicle for white nationalist groups to spread their message.

To see the map click here.

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You're reading Seniors adopting tech to better their health by Más Wired featured on Más Wired.

Dr. Yanira Cruz, Executive Director of National Hispanic Council on Aging

For fifty years now, May has been Older Americans Month. It’s a time for celebrating older Americans and for encouraging them to share the wisdom and knowledge accumulated over their lifetimes. In our fast-moving, modern age, we can benefit from the guidance and experience of previous generations.Seniors are not just looking back. They are looking to the future too and, defying all stereotypes, are embracing the high speed broadband tools and technology of the 21st century with enthusiasm and aplomb.

A recent Pew study showed that 53 percent of those 64 and older are online. Many of them are using social networking sites, too. That same study revealed that seniors between the ages of 55–64 use smartphones, and AARP recently reported that 90 percent of people 50 and older own some type of mobile technology.

Technological know-how has increased across every age group, but even as these broadband-enabled devices and capabilities change our methods of communicating and ways to access information, some things remain the same: We all still want opportunities to improve and enhance our quality of life. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our seniors have recognized wireless technologies and broadband-enabled innovations as important tools for achieving these common goals.

As the President and CEO of the National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA) and as an advocate for health equity, I am particularly pleased that our seniors are incorporating new broadband technologies into their daily lives. Advances in telecommunications technologies deliver many essential benefits to seniors, especially to those in minority communities or in rural areas. At the NHCOA, we have recently had some exciting chances to share and learn about the many health care opportunities made possible by these technological innovations.

The recent National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA) annual conference included a panel discussion titled “Using Technology to Serve Hard-to-Reach Populations.” NHCOA participated in that discussion, and we presented information about the obstacles that often prevent access to health care. These “hard to reach” populations include members of minority groups and rural residents, and these seniors often struggle to get quality health care due to location and geographical distance, as well as, sometimes, language and cultural barriers.

For seniors in minority populations that have a disproportionately higher risk of serious diseases and risk factors, including diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, new technological tools can play a vital role in combatting these chronic conditions and eliminating health disparities. Additionally, rural residents also contend with a shortage of primary care physicians. For many of our elderly, minority, and rural communities, these factors lead to declining health, reduced quality of life, and shortened life expectancies.

However, the availability of broadband and broadband-enabled technologies in the form of mHealth and telemedicine offer solutions and hope for a better future. The use of advanced broadband-enabled video teleconferencing, remote monitoring devices, wireless biosensors, and various mobile apps have already made a real difference for many people. Rural clinics can offer video teleconferencing, allowing access to specialists. Wireless in-home monitoring devices can collect health data like heart rate, blood glucose, or respiratory rate and then send that information directly to medical personnel, eliminating the need for some office visits.

A number of health apps, some specifically geared toward minority or senior populations, can help patients with general health concerns as well as those with specific conditions or diseases. Newly developed technologies have presented improved ways for our seniors to live independently. Personal emergency response devices, special shoes that track mobility and predict unsteadiness, and pill bottles that alert patients with sound and light reminders can all play a role in helping our aging and minority populations enjoy enhanced quality of life.

I had the opportunity to learn about some of these cutting-edge solutions last week at a Capitol Hill briefing titled “Technology and Innovation in the Wireless Health Industry.” Wireless innovations are creating a health care revolution filled with opportunities for innovators, doctors, and patients alike, and the briefing highlighted three different stories of innovation at the intersection of health care and wireless technologies. Proteus Digital Health, for example, develops products that enable patients to work with caregivers and medical professionals to create a plan for better health and wellness by analyzing personal health choices. Wearable and even ingestible digital sensors, can reveal the effects of lifestyle and health choices.

Also profiled was Asthmapolis, which uses mobile apps and inhaler sensors to help patients with asthma monitor their condition with physicians and prevent attacks. These and other revolutionary health technologies have the potential to improve health and quality of life for our aging population, in particular. It is my hope that seniors will embrace these innovative solutions, just as they have readily adopted other wireless technologies. However, these innovations depend on the availability of a robust telecommunications infrastructure. If we want to increase the availability of these health care technologies and encourage the creation of new ones, we need to continue to deploy modern broadband networks that can accomplish this vital task. Upgrading and expanding our nation’s networks will ensure access to these and other life-enhancing technologies for all Americans, so our seniors can thrive, and we can celebrate their wisdom for years to come.

[Image Via balleyne]

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