Professional Experience
Karla Lant focuses on science, technology, politics, education, and technical writing.
Expertise
- Reporter 8 Years
- Researcher 20 Years
- Writer 20 Years
Specialty
- Business (general) 15 Years
- Science 10 Years
- Technology 10 Years
Industries
- Magazine - Large Consumer/National magazines 4 Years
- Online/new media 7 Years
- Academia Teaching 20 Years
Foreign Language Skills
Working knowledge of written French
Awards
Please see CV
Associations
Editorial Freelancers Association, Society of Professional Journalists, Society of Environmental Journalists, Association of Health Care Journalists
Gadgets and Tech Trends
Cynicism and paranoia vs. Constitutional rights in the digital age
(SF Examiner 6/25/2013)
Windows 8.1 finally gains in popularity
(SF Examiner 1/3/2014)
Apple gains facial recognition patent
(SF Examiner 1/3/2014)
Nest Protect: the best smoke detector you never wanted to kill with a broom
(SF Examiner 10/10/2013)
Google's self-driven robo car still in the works
(SF Examiner 8/26/2013)
Tinder: Find a date or a stalker?
(SF Examiner 7/27/2013)
Google Class Raises Privacy Concerns
(Sf Examiner 6/19/2013)
Apple's actions found illegal in ibook case
(SF Examiner 7/12/2013)
Why smaller tablets will be more popular in 2013
(San Francisco Examiner 3/4/2013)
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...
Google buys Nest for $3.2B, inching closer to thinking home
(SF Examiner 1/14/2014)
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...
Study reveals that your Facebook feed may be hiding a few psychopaths
(SF Examiner 12/3/2013)
The DVD is dead, but it may be a lifesaver
(SF Examiner 5/10/2013)
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...
Electric taxi pilot program slated for New York City
(SF Examiner 4/25/2013)
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...
New Roku 3 lets you stream big in your cozy urban corner
(SF Examiner 3/8/2013)
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...
Apple Smartwatches will be coming soon, but will they be too weird to wear?
(SF Examiner 3/6/2013)
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.
Facebook phone will finally be revealed next week
(SF Examiner 3/29/2013)
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...
Step aside, Fantasy Footballers: It's time for TastemakerX!
(SF Examiner 3/9/2013)
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...
Business and Technical Writing
An American’s Perspective on Health Insurance: Canada versus the United States
(LSM Insurance 1/13/2014)
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...
Life Insurance Guide
(The Simple Dollar 2/11/2013)
Term Life Insurance: How Convertibles and Guaranteed Renewables Work
(The Simple Dollar 3/1/2013)
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...
What Is a Trademark?
(UpCounsel 5/3/2013)
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...
What Is a Copyright?
(UpCounsel 5/3/2013)
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...
How to Legally Open an Online Store
(UpCounsel 5/22/2013)
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...
Google Glass raises privacy concerns
(SF Examiner 6/19/2013)
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...
How to Protect Your Intellectual Property Without a Patent
(UpCounsel 5/15/2013)
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...
Due Diligence When Entering Into Licensing Agreements
(UpCounsel 5/24/2013)
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...
Life Insurance Settlements: Why It's Not Your Best Financial Option
(The Simple Dollar 3/14/2013)
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...
A Rookie Life Insurance Mistake I Made and How You Can Avoid It
(The Simple Dollar 3/25/2013)
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...
What Is a Patent?
(UpCounsel 5/3/2013)
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...
Home Insurance Guidelines: Mold Facts and Coverage
(The Simple Dollar 4/5/2013)
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?
How to Successfully Let Employees Go
(UpCounsel 5/17/2013)
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...
Blogs
Falling Trust Barometers and Truthiness: Re-Learning Leadership
(KarlaLant.com 1/22/2013)
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?
Individuality, Interdependence and Motivation: You Could Learn a Lot From a Chimp
(KarlaLant.com 1/26/2013)
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?
Why Citizens of Murdertown, U.S.A Need to Think Critically to Understand Statistics
(KarlaLant.com 1/24/2013)
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.
Violence and Teaching Empathy
(KarlaLant.com 1/28/2013)
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.
The Socioeconomic Politics of GM Foods
(KarlaLant.com 1/22/2013)
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.
Journalistic Work
Gene Patents: What Will the Myriad Case Really Change?
(UpCounsel 5/3/2013)
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...
Aaron Greenspan Versus Silicon Valley
(UpCounsel 5/10/2013)
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...
Internet Sales Tax Heads for a Vote
(UpCounsel 4/26/2013)
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...
White House Proposes 2014 Budget: USPTO Gets a Boost, Big Pharma Gets a Smackdown
(UpCounsel 4/19/2013)
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...
FundersClub receives "No Action" letter from SEC - It's on!
(UpCounsel 4/12/2013)
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...
Patent Trolls Under Fire
(UpCounsel 4/17/2013)
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...
UN Conference on Trade and Development Set to Publish Handbook on Nagoya Protocol
(UpCounsel 5/1/2013)
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...
WIPO Members Work to Protect Traditional Knowledge
(UpCounsel 4/24/2013)
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...
Day Against DRM Technology Heats Up Debate
(UpCounsel 5/8/2013)
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...
Magazines
Rule 11 For Juveniles in Adult Court
(For the Defense 2/1/2005)
How Should HR Handle Age Discrimination In An Organization?
(AZ Central 10/1/2012)
Easy SEO Fixes Produce Quick Benefits
(Tomorrow's Trends 1/4/2013)
Excitotoxins: The FDA-Approved Way to Damage Your Brain
(Honey Colony 4/9/2013)
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
Karla's Top Ten Hikes in Phoenix
(Phoenix.org)
Current weekly column for online magazine
Latchkey Kid: Make Home-Alone Time Happy and Healthy
(Education.com 4/17/2013)
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...
Embarrassing Mom Moments (and How to Deal)
(Education.com 4/16/2013)
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...
The Different Types of Nose Rings
(Helium.com)
Lifestyle piece discussing types of nose jewelry
Excitotoxins and You: What You Should Know About Brain Damaging Poisons That Lurk in Everyday...
(Honey Colony)
Discusses what excitotoxins are and how the FDA is aware of them; explores where they occur in common foods.
Karla's Top Ten First Dates in Phoenix
(Phoenix.org)
Current weekly column in online magazine
Geek Power! Help Your Unusual Kid Shine
(Education.com 7/22/2013)
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...
Help! My Child Hates School
(Education.com 1/18/2013)
Karla's Top Ten Things to do With Kids in Phoenix
(Phoenix.org)
Weekly column focused on Phoenix, Arizona.
Press Releases
Copywriting
Web copy -- About Us
(Au Lac Gallery 1/16/2013)
I wrote the About Us and biographical copy for this page.
Web copy
(Visualized Arts Photography 1/15/2013)
I wrote the various about us and biographical sections for both the bridal and portrait sections of this website.
Sales Slick
(Advanced Discovery 4/1/2013)
Standard sales slick for online/face to face legal discovery company's new service vector
Marketing Brochure
(Advanced Discovery 4/1/2013)
Standard marketing brochure for online/face to face company's new service vector
Editing Projects
Book Reviews
Book Review
(Socialist Feminist Project)
Book Review
(Political and Legal Anthropology Review)
Book Review
(American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, issue on clinical biomedical ethics)
Review: Recommendations for revisions to the Declaration of Helsinki
(International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, "Commentaries" section)
Consumer Reports and Product Reviews
Luxury Mattresses Compared
(Knoji 1/24/2013)
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.
Stock Photo Services Compared
(Knoji 1/16/2013)
Web Conferencing Tools Compared
(Knoji 1/18/2013)
DIY Legal Sites
(Knoji 1/11/2013)
Humor
I Am a Perfect Parent
(Helium.com)
Humorous discussion of being a step parent
Three Types of Punishment for Laptops
(KarlaLant.com 1/21/2013)
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). . .