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IN DEMAND: WORKERS WITH MATH BACKGROUNDS

Jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are more difficult to fill than almost any other field. Some jobs don't require a college degree. A study by the Brookings Institution shows that a high school grad with a STEM background is in higher demand than a college grad without such skills. Jobs that require only a high school or associate's degree are advertised for about 40 days compared to just 37 days for jobs requiring a bachelor's degree only.

The study included every job opening advertised by companies on their websites, a total of 52,000 companies in spring of 2013.

Health practitioners were the hardest to find. Ads for doctors, nurses and radiologists took 47 days to fill. Architects and engineering jobs took 41 days.

KIDS SPEND FAMILY MONEY ON BIG MOBILE GAMES

The Federal Trade Commission is going after Apple and Amazon, claiming the companies' confusing billing systems make it too easy for children to make unauthorized purchases. The game titles can often be downloaded for free, but then they entice players to spend real money to purchase access to new levels and prizes.

One consumer told the FTC her daughter spent $2,600 on a single iOS game. The FTC has found that there is a line between real money and virtual money in these games that kids don't understand. Parents were not given information leading to these conflicts which would help them oversee their kids.

Here are three ways to keep your children from making unwanted purchases:

• Screen your kids' games. Titles in the app store tell whether they include in-game purchases. Explore the games to understand when charges might occur.

• Set up a digital allowance. Both Apple and Amazon allow parents to set up allowances for kids in their digital stores. Once a user hits the limit, he/she won't be able to purchase anything else.

• Disable in-app purchases. According to Time, the most foolproof way to void a surprising bill is to disable in-app purchases entirely. To do it, check the Settings screen on your device to toggle the feature on or off.

THE SMARTPHONE CULTURE

The Wall Street Journal's Jason Day sarcastically set out to define rules for using a smartphone at dinner:

Rule number 1 was that no one could look at his/her smartphone. Rules number 2 through 21, were the increasingly expansive exceptions to rule number 1. Hardy har har. If you are in the half of the world with no smartphone, and you find yourself in a social situation with a member of the plugged-in half, you are probably not entertained. While they talk, you listen. While you talk, they check their phones and giggle occasionally but not at anything you are saying. It's probably instagram.

One survey by a tech author revealed that 9 in 10 people feel neglected by loved ones who prefer talking to technology. A 2013 consumer habits survey by Jumio found that 33 percent of adults use their cell phone during a dinner date. Almost 20 percent use it at church and 9 percent use a cellphone during sex.

This all has ramifications for the larger world. One restaurateur was quoted in the Washington Post as saying his service was slowed down by patrons rudely spending extra time before and after lunch selfishly and slavishly checking their phones.

A 2012 study reported in Time Magazine revealed that cellphone use made people more selfish, distracted and stressed. Solution? Maybe it is to go back to Rule Number 1.

TOP 10 COOLEST AND HOTTEST SUMMER CITIES IN THE USA

The new index quoted by USA Today is based on three decades of data:

The 10 coolest by rank:

The hottest are:

according to bestplaces.net.

UTILITIES BEGIN TO UPGRADE THE $876 BILLION POWER GRID

CenterPoint Energy in Houston has common looking gray metal boxes set high on wooden utility poles. What's inside them is far from common.

The state of the art wireless relays, in side collect data, customers' power use every 15 minutes. The system is being refitted for CenterPoint's "intelligent grid." The first phase of the project should be finished by year end at a cost of $138 million.

The grid will have a network of sensors, switches, smart meters and data analysis software that will give CenterPoint more control and insight into its 50,000 miles of power lines. It will pinpoint the source of a power outage immediately during or after a storm. The system also reduces the risk of overload by telling customers when energy costs them the least.

The present U.S. electrical grid consists of about 7,000 power plants that send electricity over 450,000 miles of high voltage transmission lines, and 22.5 million miles of feeder lines. It's managed by 3,300 utilities serving 150 million customers. The grid has been called the biggest machine on earth but it was largely built after World War II from designs that date back to Thomas Edison.

Some utilities are being forced to act quickly, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Power outages are up 285 percent since 1964 and the U.S. ranks last among nine Western industrialized nations in the average length of outages.

In addition to CenterPoint, Columbus, Ohio based American Electric; Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric; and New York's Independent System Operator are upgrading their systems. They hope to avoid problems such as when a Tennessee raccoon invaded a substation and caused a "huge ball of fire" and a power outage.

ACTIVISION'S HIGHLY ANTICIPATED GAME

The top American publisher of video games predicts an upward trend in its stock price after Destiny is released on September 9. The new and original shared world first person shooter game is for Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, as well as the PS3 and Xbox 360. The game is called a new IP (intellectual property).

In the last four years, publishers' stock rose about 20 percent in the months prior to an IP launch. Recent examples given by Piper Jaffray's Michael Olson include Ubisoft's 21 percent stock price increase before Watch Dogs came out in May; and Electronic Arts' 41 percent increase before Titanfall was released in March.

"As a launch is approached, investors become more aware of the potential magnitude of impact on revenue, " says Olson. Activision is also attracted by China's 336 million online PC gamers, according to CEO Eric Hirshberg. Quoted in USA Today Hirshberg says: "You want to ensure that you don't have an unbalanced experience because some players pay to win."

HOW THE 'RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN' WORKS IN EUROPE

In late June, Google started removing results from its search engine under Europe's "right to be forgotten." The landmark May ruling by the European Union's top court gives individuals the right to request removal of results that turn up in Internet searches for their own names.

Before the removals team started working to evaluate each request, Google had more than 41,000 removal requests that came via a Web form it had set up. The ruling also said Google must weigh individuals' rights to privacy against a public interest in having certain information available.

One of the first links removed involved a 1998 newspaper advertisement that mentioned an individual's long resolved debt. The result no longer appeared after the first day of removals. It was that request that led to the European Court of Justice decision establishing the right to be forgotten.

According to The Wall Street Journal, privacy regulators praised Google's fast implementation of the court ruling, but say some elements of the process could still create conflict if the search results indicated that something important had been removed.

Google has added a blanket notification that appears on the bottom of most results for individual name searches on its European search websites. It says, "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe." Yahoo says that it, too, would begin implementing the European decision to remove certain links.

© 2014 TLC Magazine Online, Inc.