R.L. Adams

Stories By R.L. Adams

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  Buying Guides

  Buying Guides By R.L. Adams

  Top 10 Digital Travel Apps and Websites for 2016

  Escaping from the everyday mundaneness of life is a huge draw for people from all across the world. Couple that with the harsh reality of freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and rain that are very much common occurrences during the winter, and there's an even greater desire to head for those almost-forgotten sun-drenched shores replete with palm-tree-lined white-sandy beaches. Of course, winter isn't the only time we decide to jet off to destinations unbeknown to ourselves; summer is also high season for when people from across the world begin traveling in droves, looking to explore and discover different regions of the earth. From sizzling European destinations such as Italy and Spain, to the more glitzy and glamorous locales like Los Angeles, New York, or Las Vegas, there's a place for just about everyone to explore year-round. While traversing the globe is nothing new, technology has certainly increased our access to a variety of travel channels and products, connecting us with a range of options previously not available before, allowing us to truly discover the world's best kept travel destinations from the comfort of our homes. From sizzling travel apps, to the go-to websites for people looking to book hotels, cars, villas, cruises, and more, there are a number of top sources for booking travel online in 2016. Depending on what you're looking for -- whether you're on a tight budget or money is simply no object -- there's an app or a Website that will help you part ways with your money. Whether you're looking to meander down a palm-lined white-sandy beach in front of your hotel in Miami, or you're looking to jet off to the Swiss Alps and rent a luxurious five-star villa, there's something for just about everyone. Out of all the options available today, there are a few that really stand out for 2016. These are by far the biggest apps and Websites taking the lion's share of the global travel market. Some are known to the masses, while other, less known, digital apps and Websites exist, each of them provide an excellent avenue for booking your online travel, no matter where you're looking to go or what you're looking to do. #1 -- Kayak Certainly for the mass market, the Kayak travel app and Website allow you to search multiple travel options in one consolidated search, comparing and contrasting prices from different providers. It was first founded in 2004 by the same co-founder who started up Orbitz back in 1999. In 2013, the Kayak app was crowned the winner of the Best Apps for Business Travelers list, and in 2015, the app won The People's Voice in the travel category of the Webby awards. Kayak will continue to be one of the most popular go-to apps and Websites on the market for comparing and contrasting travel across multiple channels and providers. One of the features that are really useful on Kayak is the ability to see the pricing trends for things like flights. They can also help estimate whether a particular trip is going to drop in price or go higher in the near future. You can also setup alerts that will email you when deals become available for the particular trip you're looking to take. Definitely a huge benefit when booking travel. #2 -- Orbitz The Orbitz platform launched in 1999, and provides an effective method for booking flights, hotels, car rentals, and even cruises. It's certainly one of the staple providers for booking travel, and should be a part of anyone's digital travel planning arsenal. One of the best parts about Orbitz is also their rewards program. On Orbitz, you can earn one "Orbuck" for every dollar spent. You can earn them instantly and don't have to rack up a certain number of points to spend those "Orbucks" on subsequent travel plans booked on their platform. Definitely a big draw for the frequent traveler, but then again, you'll find reward programs at some other providers as well. #3 -- Skyscanner If you're a budget-minded traveler, and you don't mind making some sacrifices when it comes to no-frills travel, then Skyscanner is definitely one of the best sources for booking travel in 2016. One of the biggest benefits about Skyscanner that I truly love is the fact that you can use your originating destination to search all of the best prices to destinations around the world, without having to select each one individually. This isn't a feature that you'll find on many of the major bellwether providers in booking online travel. However, some of the newcomers, who certainly know that this is a feature many people look for, have answered the call. And Skyscanner is one such app and Website that can do just that by literally scanning the skies for the lowest prices for travel in any given region. #4 -- Expedia Most people are familiar with the Expedia website and app. But, did you know that Expedia, the parent company, owns many of the popular travel portals on the Web today? Orbitz, Travelocity, Venere, and even Homeaway are now part of the Expedia family. And, the app and Website are still amongst one of the most popular and heavily-trafficked ones out there. Originally, Expedia was formed as a division of Microsoft back in 1996 but was spun off just 3 years later in 1999. Whatever type of travel you're looking to conduct, you can definitely source it through Expedia. You can also find a number of deals for air travel, hotels, and car rentals here on a frequent basis. #5 -- FlyerTalk Forums This is one of the lesser-known Websites for booking travel on the Web today, but definitely a place that you can score some deals. The FlyerTalk Forums are a place where frequent flyers and self-proclaimed travel hobbyists converge to share their wide array of knowledge about the travel industry. You can find a number of deals by scouring some of the more popular discussion topics and threads. However, this isn't for the individual that doesn't like to do a deep-mining of data out there. But, if you're persistent enough, you can find some of the best travel deals that you've ever scored before in your life. Some people only swear by sourcing their travel through the FlyerTalk Forums and there's definitely a reason for that. It's worth checking out at least. #6 -- Vacation Rentals For those that are looking for a more home away from home experience, there's always vacation rentals. The vacation rental industry has been on the rise since the late 90's, and the Internet has helped to provide a global reach to home owners looking to rent out their properties. Services like AirBnB, VRBO, and HomeAway have capitalized on that and have aggregated the listing marketplace. However, for those who can afford it, a crop of specialized villa rental companies have sprung up on the Web, promising to deliver a high-class experience to the luxury segment of the marketplace. Luxury Retreats, a villa rental company that's had a strong grip on the marketplace, presently has over 2,700 villas in 50 destinations around the world. But, other startups like eliteLYFE, have taken the experience to a whole new level, offering added services like yachts, jets, and exotic cars with your villa rental. Certainly, for those who can afford it, this is by far the best route to go, especially when traveling with a larger group. If you're used to the high-life, then a luxury vacation rental or villa from the right company is definitely the best way to ensure a luxury experience through-and-through. #7 -- Hotels dot com If you're looking to just book a hotel room, Hotels dot com is another provider that's been around since the dawn of the Web. Launched in 1991, today the company has 85 websites in 34 languages, and also lists approximately 325,000 hotels, according to Wikipedia. With over 19,000 locations, there's sure to be something for just about everyone looking to book a room for a day, week, or even longer. One of the best parts about Hotels dot com is not only the great prices, but also their loyalty program. When you book 10 hotel nights, you get a night for free. This is definitely good for people who travel a lot and enjoy using loyalty programs such as this. Also, their app works smoothly and allows you to easily book through your smartphone or tablet without a hitch, so it's definitely worth checking out. #8 -- Skiplagged Skipplagged is a not-too-well-known travel app and Website that was so successful out of the gate that United Airlines actually sued the founder. Skiplagged works by helping people find low-price plane tickets by using something called hidden city fares, which involves booking a flight that has a connection, but skipping the connection and departing at the stop just before. Hidden city fares, however, involve taking a carry-on bag and not checking your baggage. If you check your bag, it will definitely end up in the final leg of your destination, leaving you without your things during your trip. Also, the one thing to be wary about is that airlines are beginning to crack down on people who attempt to "game" the system like this. But if you're a risk taker, it's worth checking out. #9 -- Adioso Adioso is another alternative to booking travel online. And, many budget-minded travelers swear by the site and frequently use it in their digital arsenal of tools when sourcing travel. One of the best parts about the site is not only the fact that it's aesthetically appealing, but also functional in that it gives you the greatest flexibility in booking your travel. After you pick your originating city, you can choose your destination based on a wide range of factors from cities and airports, to countries, entire continents, and even wanderlists that they've created with some of the best travel ideas in mind around the world. You can also be extremely flexible with your departure and return date, sourcing the best deals out there. #10 -- Priceline Of course, there's always Priceline.com. The name-your-own-price Website has come a long way since its initial online debut back in 1998. Priceline's system has worked by allowing travelers to name their own prices for things like flights, rental cars, and hotel rooms by indicating their exact itinerary and price that they're willing to pay, with the system only disclosing the name of the provider or place once the sale has gone through. Priceline has always made its money through the difference of the price between the traditionally-advertised version and the rate travelers were willing to pay for a certain travel product. This worked well for travel providers by not lowering the visible price on their travel products while also helping to clear some of their perishable inventory that might otherwise go unsold. Recently, Priceline introduced something called "Express Deals" where travelers can pick from a number of prices available immediately for their itinerary, but aren't told the name of the provider or establishment. This is yet another great digital travel app and Website to help source your travel in 2016, no matter where you're looking to go or stay.

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  Computing

  Computing By R.L. Adams

  7 Ways to Declutter Your Digital Life

  As our society continues the shift from analog to digital, the importance of digital organization increases. Most of us are used to the fact that in order to succeed at any endeavor, we need to organize our chaotic lives, including things like our home and office workspace. Without it, focus can be fleeting.It's difficult to accomplish and achieve our goals when our workspaces and homes are filled with clutter. In fact, in a study conducted by researchers at the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute entitled, "Interactions of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex," it was determined that an increase in clutter leads to a decrease in our ability to focus.Specifically, in scientific jargon, they stated that "Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system."Similar to clutter in the physical realm, clutter in the digital realm has the same effect on our lives. When our digital lives are cluttered, meaning that our inboxes are crammed full with unopened or unanswered emails, our desktops are littered with images and documents with little to no relevancy or structure, and our folders and files are unorganized, focusing becomes far more difficult.It goes without saying then, that if you want to achieve anything, whether it's a short-term goal or a long term one, you need to declutter your digital life, and not just your physical one. We spend a lot of time with our devices, so ensuring that we have a system in place will help us stay focused and on track with our daily activities is a crucial factor in our potential for increased productivity.Overall, here are 7 important ways that you can declutter your digital life. It doesn't take too much effort. Just a little bit of conscious thought and action on a daily basis.#1 -- Declutter Your DesktopThe perfect place to start with decluttering your digital life is on your desktop. The desktop is the hub of your digital life. It's where all things begin -- where you keep your apps and other important files you want to access quickly. The same thing applies to the home screen of your smartphone.But, oftentimes, we allow the desktop to become too cluttered. And the perfect way to declutter it is to use one simple strategy. All you have to do is create one folder and move everything from your desktop into that folder. Call the folder "misc," short for miscellaneous, or anything else you want.Then, over time, as you use or access the items in that folder, move them to your desktop. After 3 months, it will be easy to determine which files or apps are accessed often enough to remain on your desktop, and which ones simply don't need to be there. Then, archive or catalog the ones that are left in the misc folder into a cleanly-organized folder structure.If you have images and documents, create folders that would include a structure like this:Year > Category > Subject. So, you might have something like 2016 > Personal Files > Taxes, or 2016 > Work Files > Customers. Create a structure that will help you keep things organized and clean. #2 -- Zero Out Your Inbox Every DayA big part of our digital clutter is our email inboxes. Whatever email service you use, a cluttered inbox will add to the inability to focus. it's similar to having a mailbox at home sitting full with unpaid bills and other unopened items. While you might not realize it, that creates a mental strain, subconsciously limiting your ability to focus on other tasks.The goal? Achieve inbox zero every day. But to get there, you first have to create a system for organization. If you find that you get too many unwanted emails, go through and unsubscribe from email lists that you no longer read anymore. Or, create a system of rules using online email providers such as Gmail to filter certain types of messages into certain folders with automated actions.If you have thousands of messages sitting in your inbox with no particular organization, then it's high-time to use search filters to begin organizing them. Search for emails from certain organizations or people and begin placing them into an organized folder structure. Then, at the end of the day, ensure that you clear out your inbox so that every message is categorized or cataloged away into its respective folder.Building this habit might be tough at the start. But, then again, all habits take time to implement. But, clearing out your inbox each day will take away some of that added mental stress that we don't even know exists in our minds, allowing us to focus more on the tasks at hand.#3 -- Use External-Backup SystemsExternal-backup systems are a great way to help declutter your digital life while also improving the speed of your device. Head out to your nearest electronics retailer and purchase an external-backup device such as an SSD drive or other large external storage device.When you move all of your critical work files to a fast external storage device, you help to speed up your device, and also keep all of your critical files in one place. This way, if your computer were to ever crash and your main hard drive was unrecoverable, you have an optional backup. Plus, you could simply unplug the drive and take it with you anywhere you go, helping to avoid the potential for data loss through theft.To add to this, ensure that you sign-up for a cloud-storage system such as Dropbox or an Amazon or Google Drive where you can keep your external-backup system files synchronized to the cloud. This way, you're double-protected in case of any type of loss. This will help keep your mind at ease while also providing the organization necessary to partially declutter your digital life.#4 -- Organize and Delete Social Media ContactsA big part of our lives are spent on social media. From Facebook to Twitter and every other social media platform in between, we often turn to those avenues for news and information about what's going on in the world and with our friends.However, oftentimes, we tend to have information overload. Either we're following too many people, have too many friends, or are just sifting through too much information. That information is distracting. And, unless we laser-focus our activities online, we'll be more likely to veer off course, moving in one tangent after another, not really taking the time to care about things like digital clutter.To battle that, we need to delete irrelevant contacts and organize our social media lives so that they're more efficient and less cluttered with useless news and updates. Spend the time to go through your contacts and remove or unfollow the ones that you're no longer in touch with or that are cramming up your newsfeed.#5 -- Systemize Your BookmarksIt's easy to allow our bookmarks to spiral out of control by bookmarking pages often, but failing to keep them organized can lend itself to a cluttered digital space. Taking the time to systemize your bookmarks isn't too difficult. Like anything else, it just requires a bit of focus and a small amount of time. All it takes is 15 minutes.Take your smartphone or any other device with a timer and set it to 15 minutes. Once you start the timer, begin systemizing your bookmarks. Create categories, and catalog the ones used less often into folders, leaving the primary ones in the main folder. You could also use the desktop-organizing method of piling them all into one folder, then pulling out the ones you click on often, into the main folder.At the end of the 15 minutes, you can decide whether to keep going or stop. But at least give yourself 15 minutes. Thats all it takes. And if you quickly finish your bookmarks, spend the rest of the 15 minutes organizing files and applications until the time is up.#6 -- Limit Your Open Browser Windows & TabsIf you're anything like the next person, then you're a multitasker. I don't blame you because so am I. But, sometimes I catch myself with 10 or more tabs open, shaking my head in bewilderment and wondering why I tend to do just that. While having 10, or even 20, tabs open isn't the end of the world, it does add to digital clutter, decreasing your ability to focus.If you're using multiple browsers with multiple tabs open in each, then it's even worse. Focus on having a maximum of 3 or 4 tabs open at all times, no more. Close out anything else and make a habit of doing that often.This way, you're focused and not jumping all over the place to sites that might include social media and news, helping lend to the level of noise and distractions that we all tend to face in any given day.#7 -- Create an Image and Video Organization SystemImages and videos are a huge part of our lives. With the prevalence of smartphones and smart-everything devices, our ability to take photos and video at any moment is readily available to us. However, with all that content comes a bit of an organizational nightmare. How are we supposed to keep all of that organized and cataloged?For the most part, we simply dump everything into one folder. But over time, that folder balloons and we really have no way of sifting and organizing through it unless we decide to spend days or weeks at it. Instead, it's important to keep the habit of cataloging your images and videos as they hit your computer. Leverage your external-backup drive or cloud-storage system to keep things organized.In the future, it's likely that we'll have AI-based systems for organizing all of our photos. We're certainly on our way there. But until that day, we need to keep things organized on a daily basis so that we can declutter our digital lives and stay focused on our goals.

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  Robotics

  Robotics By R.L. Adams

  Robot Future: The Inevitable Rise of A.I.

  We're at a turning point in history -- the dawn of machine-based super intelligence is upon us. But what does the future hold for mankind as we prepare to unleash what some might call Pandora's Box? Are we on the brink of something extraordinary that will allow our race to make enormous technological advancements, or are we simply spelling out our ultimate, untimely demise?Some laud the benefits of A.I. while others extoll its potential for disaster. To Elon Musk, the future looks bleak. In 2014, he likened the rise of artificial intelligence to "summoning the daemon," posing the "biggest existential threat" to humanity.But Musk isn't the only one throwing up red flags. Stephen Hawking, one of the leading scientific minds of our time warns that A.I. "could spell the end of the human race."Yet, we continue our technological march forward. There's no slowing the pace of progress, nor scaling back the designs of a future laden with A.I. Machines are quickening their breathtaking evolution. And recent breakthroughs are shaping the future of machine intelligence.Silicon microprocessors will be replaced with carbon nanotubes that can do more in less space, giving continued credence to Moore's Law. All while neural networks and quantum computing are on the verge of exploding onto the scene, marking the biggest evolutionary step forward in machine learning and autonomy.So, what's to stop the inevitable rise of A.I.?Of course, we don't all picture a doom-and-gloom scenario. To most of us, A.I. symbolizes the start of drastically improved lives across many spectrums. We liken A.I. to the voice of Siri, who will one day truly take on the role of personal assistant, allowing us to perform even the most mundane functions by simply uttering the words "Hey, Siri"Amazon's Echo, which is heading in a similar direction, also processes queries through voice input, returning uncannily-accurate results. And of course, even Google's search engine, which is learning how to deep-dive into both verbal and non-verbal questions through the usage of technologies such as Latent Semantic Indexing to get to the heart of what we really want to know, is becoming increasingly accurate and relevant as machine learning improves.The evolution of A.I. is real, and it's unfolding right before our very eyes.So is A.I. really the scary monster described by some of tech's elite, or is it a pathway to an improved life that includes autonomous self-driving vehicles and machine-assistants that can help put so much of life's mundane tasks on autopilot? Once unleashed, can humanity confine these artificially-intelligent machines?Similar to the industrial revolution or the digital revolution, the A.I. revolution is sure to pave the way for some significant changes in our lives, both good and bad. Companies like Uber, Tesla and Ford are racing to deploy autonomous driving vehicles that will mark the beginning of the end of a large sector of the sharing economy, while robots slowly replace all human labor in factories.Machines will continue to improve, slowly replacing tasks that requires repetitious behavior or little necessity for creative thought. But what happens when machines become so smart that they begin replacing everything? When they begin creating and manufacturing, improving on their own designs, what's to stop their progress or from turning on us?Before we answer those questions, let's take a brief look at the evolution of A.I. What is A.I., really?The Turing TestIn a paper published in 1950 entitled, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," Alan Turing, a British researcher working at the University of Manchester at the time, proposed a test that would later become synonymous with A.I.His paper starts with the following: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" But since he knew that thinking can be difficult to describe, he continued with the follow-up question, "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?"Those questions formed the basis for the Turing Test, a test which sets out to determine if a machine is intelligent enough to be passed off as a human. Turing posited a scenario where there are three actors: 1) the machine 2) a person manipulating the machine, and 3) another person who communicates with the machine but doesn't know if he is talking to a machine or a person.In the scenario, Turing's test determines that if the third-party person communicating with the machine can't actually tell that he's communicating with the machine, that it has succeeded in the "imitation game."In 2014, it was widely reported that a machine had beaten the Turing Test for the first time. While the machine used evasive maneuvers, tricking people into thinking it was a 13 year-old Ukrainian teenager with English as a second language, some came to question whether its use of evasive maneuvers to some questions could be considered as passing the Turing Test.Nonetheless, it was the first machine to pass the test and convince 33% of the judges that it was a real human during 5 minutes of keyboard conversation. Since 2014, we've come a long way. With the introduction of neural networks that don't need to process data linearly (think about the neurons in the mind), but rather simultaneously weighing a series of unrelated data all at the same time. And A.I. is now on the verge of breaking out.But what does all of this mean to the average person?Hollywood's Obsession with A.I.Most of us are somewhat familiar with A.I. thanks to Hollywood. There are certainly no shortage of films that invoke the doom-and-gloom scenarios that the likes of Musk and Hawking predict as an inevitable byproduct of the rise of the machines. Particularly, the one movie that comes to mind is James Cameron's 1984-debuted film, The Terminator.In that movie, a human-looking, virtually-indestructible machine is sent back from the year 2029 to 1984 with the directive to destroy John Connor's mother, Sarah Connor.In 1999, the Wachowski brothers' cult-hit classic, The Matrix, took to theaters around the world, chronicling a future with advanced intelligent machines enslaving humans for their energy sources, tricking them into thinking that the perceived reality created by the machines was in fact real. Until of course, they were unplugged.In 2004, Will Smith's portrayal in I-Robot saw a robot-uprising after a Chicago cop suspected a robot servant of pushing its owner to an untimely death of the 50th floor.And, of course, most recently, Ex-Machina, the 2015 hit-movie that chronicles a young coder's journey of discovery to test the human qualities of a robot housed in the body of a beautiful woman, and the ensuing drama left us riveted by the potentials for A.I.The Robot Future: Are We Safe? The questions that beckon now are not whether A.I. will become a reality, it's a question of when will A.I. become commonplace? As we've seen with other disruptive technologies in the past, the utilitarian nature of the technology was part-and-parcel the main driver of the severity of disruption. Railroads, cars, computers, and touch-screen displays are some primary examples.But A.I. holds a future that's far more disruptive. When machines can truly learn on the scale that humans have the capability to do so, our advancements will become exponentially greater. For all its potential dangers, A.I. holds a future that could be far brighter than anyone could possibly imagine.With A.I., machines can learn everything and improve on the lives of humans. They can help to cure diseases and eliminate things like famine, global warming, earthquakes, and more. A.I. will also likely improve our transportation and energy infrastructure by making both faster, safer, and cheaper.We can certainly imagine an incredible place where A.I. is improving the lives of humans and resolving all of humanity's biggest problems and risks. But what happens when A.I. outgrows its human wranglers? What's to stop a future rise of machines?The potential risks are real. From bad actors to hackers looking to control droids and even robot armies, there is a potential for disaster and devastation. With no internal controls, nor checks and balances, machines can, with the influence of bad actors, become the Sky-NET of the future.How will we respond to a machine that can't be turned off or disrupted? What's to stop it from seeking its own survival? From launching an all-out war to ensure an end to its own means? Are we simply beckoning a future where life imitates art, where War Games are played out by machines?Only time will tell...R.L. Adams is a writer, blogger, and entrepreneur. You can find his books on Amazon, his audiobooks on Audible, or follow him on his blog at Wanderlust Worker.

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