By Theresa Wallace, Carousel30

In an attempt to find a connection between Halloween and tech updates, I came across many mindless postings. Like the top-tweeted Halloween candy and the pointless but funny Jimmy Kimmel video response to the countless “Frozen” character costumes this year. One blast from the past who is rocking Twitter to his advantage for this spooky season was R.L. Stine. If you’re too old to care or too young to know, R.L. Stine was a hit for us 90s babies. As his twitter profile states, “my job: to terrify kids.” For Halloween, he tweeted a story – all accomplished in 15 consecutive tweets of 140 bone chilling characters. Read the story on Cnet.

As much as we all hate ads popping up on social media and especially our cell phones, it is arguably an effective practice to drive awareness, engagement and sales. Despite being ad-free to date, Instagram, is joining the bandwagon (along with Tumblr and Snapchat) of allowing advertising. The ads will be shown as videos – a strategy which has undergone testing for 6 months. Instagram says they will review all clips to ensure that they contain fresh content and fit the “vibe.” There has already been negative feedback about the ads, but Instagram notes it was an important step forward for the company. Read Adweek’s article on this news.

Remember when the iPhone first released and then a massive wave of similar smart phones with touch capabilities surfaced the phone market? I wonder if LG’s new cell phone design will set a similar trend. LG has released their newest cell phone with only .7 millimeters of bevel. Not sure if it is just me, but I am a stickler when it comes to protecting my cell phone screen. In my book, less bevel means more chances for a cracked, scratched or broken screen. Looks cool, but I’ll save myself the potential heart break. Read about it on DigitalTrends.

A contraception without pills or hormones – score, finally one for the ladies! There are natural alternatives to contraception but never this complex until now. NaturalCycles has developed an app and a thermometer to indicate for couples when your chances of pregnancy are low. It is different than other fertility apps where they specialize in becoming pregnant, NaturalCycles is preventative. Adding hormones to a body can have a laundry list of unwanted side effects, including mood swings, yelling loudly and stomping your feet. No seriously, it is a horrific way to treat your body in the name of not getting pregnant. The Swiss based company has recently released it in the UK market, I imagine it will be a hit once released in the US. Read more on Techcrunch.

And for another update on health, Google is developing a pill to detect cancer and heart attacks. If you’re not already surprised that Google is behind something like this, you will be blown away by this. The pill contains magnetic particles that have antibodies attached to them to detect “biomarker” molecules which indicate disease in the body. Once you swallow them they are released in your body; to discover what the particles found, you simply put on a wristband that shows the results. WOW. The wristband is where Google is developing a platform to read the code once the particles are “called” to the wristband using a magnet. Read The Guardian for more about Google’s proactive health measures.
This post originally appeared on the Carousel30 blog.