Karla Lant

This week Bloomberg, Pando Daily, Digital Trends and The Verge discussed the likely release of the Apple Smartwatch sometime in 2013. The Smartwatch will likely be running on iOS, and Apple hopes the watch will be able to withstand up to four days of use without charging. To see what the Smartwatch.

DVDs may seem to be past their prime, but Aman Russom and his team of researchers at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute for Technology are repurposing DVD technology for the loading, storing and reading of blood samples and ultimately the low cost testing of blood cells, DNA, RNA, and proteins. Their...

New York City has just launched an electric taxi pilot program partnering with Nissan. This comes along with Nissan's 2014 NV200 "Leaf" and the NYC goal of swapping one-third of the city's taxi fleet for electric cars by 2020. This is ambitious given that the pilot plan for this year puts only...

Traditional tablet PCs have LCD screens that are between about 9.7 inches long (like various Androids) and 10.1 inches long (like an iPad). But tablets are made to be mobile devices, and something that big isn't actually always that easy to carry around. Enter the smaller tablet which fits into a coat pocket and goes with you anywhere you like, without much thought or fuss. That smaller tablet is now on the verge of outselling the standard-size tablet in 2013...

Facebook phone will finally be revealed next week. For years now Facebook has been hinting that its own phone was on the horizon, and this week it finally invited press to a media event to unveil its new baby on April 4th. According to TechCrunch and Digital Trends Daily the Facebook phone will...

The best aspects of fantasy sports leagues are that they're really popular, tons of fun, and serious earners. Downside: they end. Enter TastemakerX to hook into the American music obsession and blend it with fantasy sports gaming, music streaming and money churning. Voila! A new wide release on a...

Google is set to shell out $3.2 billion in cash for the trend-setting Nest Labs and its smart homes products. In terms of the day to day at Nest, the projections are that little will change. CEO Tony Fadell will continue to run the company, for example. Why change a good thing...

This week Roku introduced it's gen 3 set-top box. Roku promises us it's the best in personal streaming TV entertainment out there and based on the specs it could be. You love living in the City by the Bay, but your gadgets like Roku 3 make it a done deal, right? With more than 750 channels...

A patent is an intellectual property right that the United States government grants to an inventor. Its purpose is to promote innovation, and it does this by ensuring that the inventor publicly discloses the invention once he is given a patent "to exclude others from making, using, offering for...

Should You Worry About Your Intellectual Property If It Doesn't Have a Patent? One of the biggest concerns inventors and other innovators have about pitching their ideas is getting their intellectual property stolen. This isn't a baseless fear. Theft of intellectual property including trade...

Starting a family comes with questions you never had to consider before, such as the financial well-being of your loved ones following your death. Life insurance will provide for their needs later, but right now you just can't afford permanent insurance; whole, universal or variable life. Like...

If you're going to open that online store, make sure you're on solid legal ground. There may be a host of legal considerations that haven't occurred to you, and you need to make sure you don't doom yourself to failure before you even start. Protect yourself and your business by following these...

Copyright is part of American intellectual property law that protects "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression." In other words, copyright does not protect mere ideas or facts. It protects the way that ideas, facts and other things are expressed, though, once they...

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is "a word, name, symbol or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others." This means that it is some word, brief slogan, logo, picture...

No matter how wonderful a boss you are or how successful your company is, sooner or later you are going to have to fire employees. Between federal, state and sometimes even local employment laws, navigating through the legal pitfalls of losing bad or sour employees can be tricky. Here are the...

While the excitement of licensing new products or tapping new markets can be palpable, no licensor or licensee should ever fail to exercise due diligence before entering into a new licensing agreement. While the area isn't simple, there are some basic things for both licensors and licensees to...

Have you been considering a life settlement? You need to make sure it's a good idea for you before you jump. What is a Life Settlement? A life settlement consists of the cash sale of an individual's life policy to a third party. This is similar to the 1980s stop gap known as a viatical...

Today I'm going to tell you about the embarrassing and terrifying tale of my very first life policy. I made a major rookie mistake back then; if anything had happened to me, I would have left my daughter a real can of worms. I had just received a new job complete with a salary and great benefits...

In recent years, horror stories about "toxic mold" growth in homes, businesses and schools have become a common theme in the news. These headlines have all got us wondering: just how afraid of mold, fungi and bacteria should we actually be?

The ACA is the first major reform in U.S. healthcare in almost 50 years, and it has met with vitriolic opposition from Americans. One of the most commonly-made arguments against the ACA is that it is similar to the Canadian-style single-payer healthcare system (and, of course, that the Canadian...

Remember how disturbing the idea of X-ray specs used to be when you were a kid-unless you were wearing them? Google is bringing it all back, only this time it's for real. Officials from at least six countries have voiced serious privacy concerns about Google Glass in a joint letter to Google CEO...

Weekly column focused on Phoenix, Arizona.

Did you know that brain-damaging poisons lurk in dozens of everyday so-called "health" foods - with the full consent of the FDA? These not-so-friendly additives are called "excitotoxins," and they play a critical role in the development of serious neurodegenerative damage such as Parkinson's disease

Current weekly column in online magazine

Discusses what excitotoxins are and how the FDA is aware of them; explores where they occur in common foods.

Lifestyle piece discussing types of nose jewelry

In this era of bullying run rampant and teen violence that feels out of control, it's tough not to worry when your child is a loner or different enough to be considered a "geek." As a parent, you want your kid to feel happy and safe at school, to feel valued and accepted just as he is at home...

Current weekly column for online magazine

Let's face it: Kids say the darndest things, and more often than not your child's brutal honesty leaves you red-faced and stammering an apology to his unassuming victim. Before you opt to spend the rest of your kid's adolescence under a rock, check out some strategies for dealing with these...

More moms are in the work force than ever before, and their school-age children are often "latchkey kids," meaning they spend time alone at home after school. About 10 percent of children in grades 4 through 12 spend two to three hours home alone each school day, according to the U.S. Department...

Restaurant review of Baby Kay's Cajun Kitchen, Phoenix, Arizona

Feminist critique of Sleeping Beauty

This is an academic article dealing with law, critical legal theory, feminist theory and reproductive health issues.

Humorous discussion of being a step parent

When you think about expensive, high-end electronics you probably also assume that their owners ought to take care of them. I used to think so too, until I worked at home on what is undoubtedly one of the best laptops for using while raising a toddler. Now, I am here to report that there is a surprising payload of punishment that won’t kill a basic laptop (and I am also here to recommend that you try none of this at home). . .

I wrote the various about us and biographical sections for both the bridal and portrait sections of this website.

Standard sales slick for online/face to face legal discovery company's new service vector

Standard marketing brochure for online/face to face company's new service vector

I wrote the About Us and biographical copy for this page.

Aaron Greenspan, the software entrepreneur who founded Think Computer, is a little like Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th movies: he just keeps coming back. On Monday, May 6, 2013 the arch enemy of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg filed suit against not only that ubiquitous social network but...

FundersClub is now the the first SEC-approved online venture capital platform. The company now has the legal green light as it received its "no-action" letter at the end of March. The online platform's legality came into question based on its identity as either a broker-dealer or advising company...

The White House budget proposal nearly always sees the light of day in February of each year, but this year the release came on April 10. The late release came with good news for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), bad news for big pharma, and a mixed bag for everyone else...

This past Monday the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of taking up debate and amendment on the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bill that would force online retailers to collect Internet sales tax. A final Senate vote is imminent, and it seems that the bill will pass...

As UpCounsel reported on April 16, 2013, the Supreme Court is set to decide the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics case-the gene patent case-in June 2013 based on the oral arguments it heard on April 15. The case was originally fired up in the media and public mind in large...

Not two weeks ago some of today's tech big boys asked the FTC to take action against patent trolls. Blackberry, Earthlink, Google and Red Hat made this demand in the immediate wake of the latest clash between well-known patent troll IP Nav and Rackspace, an open cloud hosting company...

As this article posts we are midway through the latest meeting of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) delegates who are trying to protect "traditional knowledge" as it pertains to intellectual property. The 24th session of WIPO's Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property...

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources was adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2010. Its purpose is to ensure equitable benefit sharing in exchange for genetic resources, and acknowledge and respect the rights indigenous communities have over their...

May 3, 2013 was the Day Against Digital Rights Management (DRM) according to a press release from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Timed to coincide roughly with the 20 year anniversary the open World Wide Web, FSF and more than two dozen other organizations announced the circulation of a...

These are three very different products; any one of them might be right for you depending on your needs. Tempur-Pedic features its own memory foam which is more comfortable, longer-lasting and sleeps cooler than others on the market. This kind of mattress reduces motion significantly and lets you sleep next to an insomniac or restless sleeper without being bothered. Saatva is the first 100% online mattress manufacturer and store. As such it offers comparable quality products for much lower prices than competitors. It is a more traditionally constructed coil product but innovates with its use of organic materials and American workers. Sleep Number is an air bed that gives you an adjustable option for when your softness and firmness preferences change. It also benefits couples who sleep in the same bed since they can each adjust their side independently.

Every day we hear that we should think globally and act locally, live sustainably and cooperate with others. It’s true, those are great goals. They are challenging yet attainable. Why aren’t we more motivated to meet them?

2013 Edelman Trust Barometer Finds a Crisis in Leadership: Less Than One in Five Trust Leaders to Tell the Truth This is disturbing, but is it surprising?

In other words, you have to be able to afford alternatives to oppose them. AllAfrica reported today that Nigeria can’t afford NOT to support biotechnology in agriculture.

In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of discussions of bullying, gun violence and the general problem of why our American culture retains a violent component which is fairly central to the whole. In the past tired arguments about everything from television to video games have tried to pin the blame on media, or modern lifestyles, or anything except a generally pathologically violent culture. I get it; as tough as it would be to ban guns or video games, for example, it would be infinitely more difficult to fix this cultural issue. And I won’t say there’s definitely no correlation. I’m just saying that media isn’t the whole answer. In the most recent spate of discussion of bullying in the United States, experts overwhelmingly agree that teaching empathy and respect for differences between people is the only real answer to the problem.

People love to talk about how statistics are all a horrible, misleading lie. This is, of course, true when no one understands them well enough to use them properly.

I edited this piece for publication in the magazine.