Speaking of safety, UberPOOL is getting safer and smarter by asking passengers to get out at better destinations — even if that means walking a few more feet to their destination — rather than in high-traffic zones.  We’re talking about distances of less than half a block, but it can cut major time off everyone else’s commute and ensure passengers aren’t stepping out into dangerous traffic.

Despite their utility, orange life jackets are the opposite of cool.  And when you factor in the human invincibility complex, you get a bad situation: people out on the water without adequate flotation devices.  According to DigitalTrends, water safety company Ploota wants to change that with their inflatable necklace.

There’s always a chance that IT security will be breached, and one way to make a bad situation worse is not knowing the standard operating procedure when it happens.  First, contact your IT personnel.  The faster they can address the hack and figure out its extent, the better served you’ll be.

Turning Your Job Into a Business By Andy Bailey

To put it simply, if you can’t take a month off to travel to Italy (or to write the great American novel or do some other time-intensive activity), you’ve got a job.

When I started my first company, I thought I was out of the grind of a job.

If you always find yourself forking out for excess baggage every time you take a flight, then an Aussie-based startup has come up with an ingenious solution that’ll have you confidently packing the kitchen sink for your next trip.  The “Airport Jacket” is, for all intents and purposes, a wearable suitcase.

One of the great things about apps is that you don’t need to be a big developer or company to build one.  In fact, according to www.smallbusinesscomputing.com, 42 percent of small businesses in the United States have their own mobile app.  By the end of the year, that figure is expected to hit 67 percent! Somewhat unsurprisingly, the most cited reason SMBs said they decided to build mobile apps is to increase sales (39 percent), followed by improving customers service (30 percent).  Others turn to mobile apps as a competitive advantage in specific markets (22 percent) while for some organizations, their parent company suggested an app (10 percent).  But with apps becoming more affordable than ever, there are lots of reasons to invest in your own app and lots of ways to recoup that investment.

Remember when they said tablets would outsell desktop and laptop computers?  That now seems a tad optimistic.  In March, Techcrunch.com reported that tablet sales are going down.  But why?  It turns out that folks treat tablets like computers — meaning they don’t upgrade them nearly as often as smartphones.

The open road is full of jerks and road rages, and a new app is taking them on. Nexar asks you to mount your phone to your dashboard, and it will monitor surrounding traffic.  If someone starts driving dangerously, it will ask if you want to record what’s going on with a 30-second video.