TechnologiesExpert Blog

Top Chicago Personal Injury Attorneys

Passen Law Group is Chicago's preeminent law firm for cases involving catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death. We are a boutique law firm that handles a small number of carefully selected cases involving permanent injury or death caused by the carelessness or recklessness of another. Our personal injury attorneys have over 30 years experience representing individuals and families in the Chicagoland area and nationwide.

To speak with a Chicago injury attorney regarding a potential personal injury case, call us at (312) 527-4500 for a free consultation.

The unfortunate reality is that thousands of lives are destroyed each year due to catastrophic, tragic injuries caused by the negligence of other individuals or businesses. Passen Law Group has been trusted for over three decades by hundreds of clients in need of skilled and dedicated representation from experienced personal injury lawyers. Chicago is where our office is located, but we practice nationwide. We pride ourselves on our commitment to personalized legal representation from each Chicago injury lawyer at Passen Law Group with tireless preparation and excellence, both in the courtroom and at the negotiating table.

Our Chicago injury lawyers are extremely selective in the personal injury cases we accept; this allows us to devote our full energy and resources to each case and every client. Because of this, Passen Law Group has an outstanding reputation in the Chicago legal community, and we have achieved record verdicts and settlements for our clients, as reflected in Our Results.

Professional and Personal Approach to Your Personal Injury Case

Our goal with each case and client is twofold: (1) deliver the highest quality representation to secure the highest possible recovery; and (2) ensure that our clients are treated with the respect they deserve, and are kept informed and involved in the progression of their case. The professional, yet personal approach of our Chicago injury lawyer to your case truly sets us apart from other firms.

We have had the privilege and honor to represent hundreds of clients securing substantial awards for them and their families. Because of the personal approach of each Chicago injury lawyer at Passen Law Group, our clients continually refer their family, friends, and co-workers. Our aggressive approach to your case is geared to help our clients recover the compensation they are entitled and the justice they deserve.

We Are Trial Lawyers

Once we accept a personal injury case, we devote our full attention and resources to each stage of every case. This allows our clients and their families to focus their attention on getting the emotional and physical care necessary to aid with their recovery from an accident.

Each Chicago injury lawyer prepares every case the same way: we prepare your case for trial. As evidenced by Stephen Passen's recent $19 million jury verdict on behalf of a 9-year-old boy who sustained a traumatic brain injury in his elementary school, a record in Illinois, we are experienced and seasoned trial lawyers. And we will not hesitate to take your case to trial, if that is the only way for you to receive fair compensation for your injuries.

Still, our reputation as accomplished trial lawyers gives us leverage at the negotiating table, which often results in our clients being able to settle their cases for substantial compensation.
Contact a Top Chicago Injury Lawyer

Passen Law Group is committed to providing personal injury victims and their families with the aggressive advocacy and knowledgeable support they need to get results. Our Chicago personal injury attorneys and staff can provide you with the immediate attention you need to secure the justice you are entitled.

Forex Tester is a professional software simulator of the Foreign Exchange Market. It allows you to gain and improve trading skills without risking your money. You do not need to train in real time, waiting for days and weeks to test your trading ideas and strategies, Forex Tester will pack this time in hours and minutes.

This is an excellent forex training software that will help you to:

• Study trading on the FOREX market in a fast and convenient way.
• Develop and test your own trading strategies without being a programmer.
• Test your trading strategies on years of historical data.
• Save your money and time.

The program has extended drawing tools that allow you to test trading strategies based on technical analysis. It provides some of the most popular technical studies such as: Fibonacci Retracement, Fibonacci Fan, Fibonacci Arcs, Andrews' Pitchfork and others.

Also, we added some of the most popular indicators and oscillators to Forex Tester and continue to increase their number.

For the advanced users and programmers we designed open interfaces with detalied documentation to help you create your own indicators and strategies. Thus, if you have your own ideas, you can implement them using Forex Tester API and significantly expand the program functionality.

We continue working on the forex training program and hope that you enjoy our software. Stay with us!

The creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, has made an odd request: for a kind of rating system to help people distinguish sites that can be trusted to tell the truth, and those that can't.

Berners-Lee was speaking at the launch of the World Wide Web Foundation, which aims to ensure that everyone in the world benefits as the web evolves.

In his speech he referred to the way fears that the LHC could destroy the world spread like wildfire online. As the BBC puts it, he explained that "there needed to be new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources."

He went on to say that he didn't think "a simple number like an IQ rating" is a good idea: "I'd be interested in different organisations labelling websites in different ways". Whatever process is used to hand out the labels, it sounds like a bad idea to me.

Berners-Lee himself directed us towards some of the its biggest problems:

"On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable...A sort of conspiracy theory of sorts and which you can imagine spreading to thousands of people and being deeply damaging."

There are plenty of arguments online already about whether Scientology is a cult. I find it unlikely anyone will be keen to step in and label sites on either side as not to be trusted. Others might reasonably argue that all religions - whether established or not - should come with a warning message.

As for wading in to put a stop to conspiracy theories, I can't image anything their proponents could benefit from more.

Berners-Lee also mentioned the system would help people find out the real science behind, for example, the LHC's risks. You might think handing out rating for sites about science would be easier, with publishers of peer-reviewed science, for example, receiving a top rating without problems.

But there will be papers in the archives of any journal that have been entirely superseded. And a whole lot more that present results that are valid, but can be misleading to some readers. Web licences to ensure that people only read sites they can handle are the next logical step.

Fortunately it's much more likely that the whole idea will quietly be forgotten, which will at least prevent Berners-Lee receiving one of the first "potentially misleading" badges for thinking it up in the first place.

Let's hope the World Wide Web Foundation and its laudable goals have a rosier future.

AMD’s highest-performance chipset is as much an indictment of its competitor’s behavior as it is an example of how AMD serves the gaming community. With 42 lanes of PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 connectivity, the mainstream-priced AMD 890FX already bests Intel’s high-priced X58 (with 36 lanes), and that’s before we even think of adding the SB850 southbridge and its SATA 6Gb/s controller, a feature Intel doesn’t even offer. Comparisons to Intel’s 16-lane LGA 1156 platform are even more brutal.

It's a good thing Intel has CrossFire and SLI support on its side, otherwise we might question the company's dedication to gamers on a budget. AMD, on the other hand, is only able to extend CrossFire compatibility.



One might argue that AMD is using chipset features to win over CPU customers, but even that argument results in a win for gamers. Many of our tests have shown that AMD processors are “only” capable of matching Intel’s in certain applications—applications that include most games.



It appears that anyone who wants the best high-end gaming experience must look to AMD for platform value, but which firm makes the best high-end AMD platform? Let’s take a closer look.

First, the rant: if this is anything like Virtual Boy, it will fail. Fortunately, the Nintendo 3DS, introduced at E3 on Tuesday, does not appear to be anything like that old 3D gaming system.

The 3DS looks like an ordinary Nintendo DS handheld gaming system, but it comes with a 3.5" special 3D top display screen. By using a slider, gamers can adjust the screen so that their eyes can see the images properly, even without stereoscopic glasses (like those used to view the 3D version of "Avatar," for example).

Huddle CollaborationThe Nintendo 3DS also has a motion-sensor, wi-fi, and a gyroscope. It's compatible with the DSi, with one camera on the inside, and two cameras on the outside (for 3D imagery and videos).

The company noted that a fair number of developers will support the 3DS, including Activision Blizzard, Square Enix, THQ, Electronic Arts, Capcom, WB Games, Ubisoft, Namco Bandai, and Konami. Nintendo itself is working on a 3D version of the popular (and cute) Nintendogs, dubbed Nintendogs + Cats.

Speaking of "Avatar," the 3DS will also be able to play movies (if you care to watch a 3D movie on such a small screen). Pricing and availability were not announced.

Foxconn has decided that China is too expensive. We knew it had to happen someday. Seriously, Foxconn has decided its Shenzhen factory, which recently saw raises in the wake of a wave of suicides, is too expensive, except for iPhone manufacturing.

The Shenzhen plant, has comprises 11 business groups and employs 300,000 employees will merge with the Guanlan plant, which employs 100,000 workers, according to a source who works at an R&D department at the Shenzhen plant said.

Interestingly, the Foxconn group will continue building iPhones (and one would presume, iPads) in Shenzhen. Foxconn produces goods for several companies, including Apple, Dell, Nokia, and more.

Furniture ShowroomFoxconn announced on June 1st that wages for workers in Shenzhen would increase to 1,200 yuan ($176) from 900 yuan ($132). The company followed that just a few days later, on June 6th, with a raise to 2,000 yuan ($293) for workers who pass a three-month assessment.

It's true that other locations besides Shenzhen, even outside of Foxconn's own plant, are cheaper. The entire city of Shenzhen plans to raise its minimum monthly wage by 15.8 percent to 1,100 yuan ($161) beginning in July. Meanwhile, the minimum wage in Tianjin and Yantai is 920 yuan ($135), and 900 yuan ($132) in Wuhan.

Aside from the Apple-centric business groups, Foxconn will move workers to the less-expensive Tianjin, Yantai or Wuhan, reported the source. The relocation is planned to be complete within two months.

Oh, the joy of being an AT&T customer. Today, the first day that iPhone 4 pre-ordering was available, the system flamed out, but it wasn't Apple, it was AT&T.

Order straight from AT&T's website, and you'd end up, in some cases, getting into someone else's account. According to an unnamed source speaking to Gizmodo, the problems appear to be from an untested update to AT&T's customer database systems over the weekend.

Why anyone would a) push an update to such a critical system the weekend before such a huge launch, and b) not test it is beyond us. It is, in fact, just another AT&T SNAFU, and coupled with last week's iPad fiasco surely has turned them into the laughing stock of wireless. And these are the guys who have iPhone exclusivity?

That security breach aside (it appears to now be fixed), logging into your AT&T account to check anything can be an exercise in frustration. Whether or not you want to order an iPhone 4, the results you get are usually something like "We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to support this request online. Please call our Customer Care representatives ... for personal assistance."

This also affected iPhone 4 pre-ordering via Apple's site. Why? Because Apple had to connect with AT&T to complete the transaction.

The big panic, of course, is because folks are afraid that pre-orders will run out. Rightly so, too, as by the mid-afternoon, AT&T announced it had already (despite the issues with its servers) run through its iPhone 4 pre-order allotment.

"Because of the incredible interest in iPhone 4, today was the busiest online sales day in AT&T history. As of Tuesday afternoon, customers who preorder iPhone 4 moving forward will receive their device on June 25 or later, depending on when the order is placed. We'll email customers with confirmation once their order is placed, and again when it ships. In addition, we will have devices available on a first-come, first-serve basis in our stores beginning on June 24."

Things were so bad that AT&T brick-and-mortar stores resulted in pen-and-paper to take orders. We kid you not.

Additionally, in case you wanted to try it, the new Apple Store app that Apple emphasized would make a new iPhone 4 pre-order just a few clicks failed as well, obviously because it had to communicate with AT&T's overwhelmed systems.

Those still needing to order can only hope AT&T's systems can handle things from here on in. As noted above, Apple still needs to communicate with them to complete orders.

The next question is: how will Verizon handle things in the future when, not if, that carrier gets the iPhone? It should make for an interesting comparison.

On Wednesday, Swype released its slide keyboard to open beta. Until this point, the software keyboard, which allows users to slide from key to key to "draw" a word, was limited to a closed beta, or to a few WM devices, such as the Samsung Omnia 2 and the HTC HD2. It's also pre-loaded on a few Android devices like the Cliq XT.

The beta page is here. You'll have to sign up, and be given a link via email to download the Swype beta. Nope, the beta form of the app is not in the Android Market, as Swype apparently wants to keep better control on the beta. Additionally, they will leave the beta open only for a few days.

Shop at LogitechThe app makes text entry so much easier than using a standard on-screen keyboard. Unfortunately for iPhone fans, it can't work well on that platform? Why, you might ask? Android allows the on-screen keyboard on the device to be replaced, system-wide. iOS, due to its closed nature, does not.

There are other Swype-type keyboards in the Android, such as SlideIT and Shapewriter. Shapewriter exists on iOS as well, in a crippled form (due to the above). We've tried them all, and Swype beats them all.

This app, as things stand, will never exist on iOS4, integrated into the platform, unless they do it themselves (or buy Swype). This gives Android a clear advantage over iOS, particularly with texters who want to text as quickly as possible. You hear us Google? Buy the company before Apple does, and locks you out.

While still in beta, we'd love it if Swype were released to the Android Market, and we'd even pay for it. There are some rather non-intuitive shortcuts to the usage of Swype, so make sure you visit this page if you want to try it.

Apple announced on Wednesday that despite all the issues with AT&T's servers, they and their carrier partners managed to accept 600,000 pre-orders on the first day of iPhone 4 pre-ordering. That's without any white iPhone 4s, too!

Apple announcement is on top of AT&T's announcement, in which the carrier stated that the first day iPhone 4 pre-orders were 10x last years iPhone 3GS orders:

Click here for the Best Buy Weekly SpecialsiPhone 4 pre-order sales yesterday were 10-times higher than the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone 3G S last year. Consumers are clearly excited about iPhone 4, AT&T's more affordable data plans and our early upgrade pricing.

Given this unprecedented demand and our current expectations for our iPhone 4 inventory levels when the device is available June 24, we're suspending pre-ordering today in order to fulfill the orders we've already received.

The availability of additional inventory will determine if we can resume taking pre-orders.

It's apparent why AT&T's servers melted down, although this does not excuse the data breaches occuring on Tuesday, when customers could login to their AT&T account, only to wind up looking at someone else's.

From their statement, it's possible that AT&T will have more stock and begin taking pre-orders. Assuming that the white iPhone 4 becomes available soon, that could be where the stock would be coming from. There's still no official announcement regarding why the white iPhone 4 was never put up for sale.

It's also arguable whether or not people are clamoring for AT&T's new tiered data plans, in which there is no unlimited option, merely 200MB for $15 or 2GB for $25, with overage charges.

Some analysts have predicted that Apple may sell as many as 2 million iPhone 4s in the first weekend, including walk-up sales as well as pre-orders. Based on these numbers, it's not out of the question.

It was annoying enough when it was announced that the iPad 3G would use a micro-SIM, not a regular SIM, as other GSM devices do. In the wake of the announcement that the iPhone 4 will follow suit, micro-SIM adapters and SIM-to-micro-SIM conversions are springing up on the Web.



A quick Google search brings up this site, which sells an adapter for the low price £5.99 (or $8.88 in U.S. dollars). Shipping is free.

If, rather than starting with a micro-SIM, you have a SIM you want to cut down to micro-SIM size, there are kits for that as well. This one, for $25, provides a method to cut a SIM down to micro-SIM size, along with an adapter if you need to "go back" for some reason.

Realistically, these will both probably start springing up on eBay (and they already are). The lifespan of these things may not be that long, as new devices will eventually all move the to micro-SIM format. For the short term, most carriers will follow AT&T's example and perforate a SIM so that it can easily be converted to a micro-SIM.

It's sort of a niche product, anyway, as most folks don't SIMs between devices, despite what HBO's The Wire might want you to believe. There is still a definite need for these adapters, at least for now, anyway.

As the availability of the iPhone 4 continues to slide out (at the time of this writing, a quick look at the Apple website shows ship date to now be July 14th), those who cannot wait for an extra three weeks or so are looking to eBay. There, a customer can find plenty of iPhone 4's, for a premium.

The highest priced such deal right now appears to be a BuyItNow deal of $5,000. The deal includes the seller flying to any location in the world to hand-deliver the iPhone 4 on June 27th, three days after it is first available.

This appears to be a similar to an earlier deal for the iPad when it was not available internationally. In that case, however, the seller was generous to U.S. buyers: he would cut $2,000 off the price if they were in the U.S., and he also said he would deliver on "launch day." The iPhone 4 seller appears to be from Las Lunas, NM, yet offers no such "promotion" opr guarantee of "launch day" delivery.

It will be interesting to see how anyone outside AT&T's coverage area will use the iPhone 4 as hackers will have to create an jailbreak and unlock for the new device and iOS4.

This is, of course, the high end of the spectrum, and there have been no takers, so far. Meanwhile, there are plenty of completed listings in the $700 - $900 range, for both 16GB and 32GB models.

It's still a week before June 24th, and as the ship date on Apple's site continues to push out, and out, it wouldn't be surprising to see the "average" price of these auctions to surpass $1,000, for those with way too much disposable income, and way too little patience.