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XOXO: a Kickstartered "disruptive creativity" conference in Portland
Andy Baio and Andy McMillan have announced XOXO, a SXSW-like "disruptive creativity" conference in Portland. They're pre-selling the tickets on Kickstarter, and if they don't sell enough, they're not going to do it. They've made and shot through their targets already -- don't worry!
XOXO Festival (Kickstarter)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 now available for pre-order in Canada
If you happen to be living in Canada and have been interested in picking up the latest Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet — the time has come where you can move forward with a purchase. Though, we should clarify that at this time — these are only pre-orders. The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 has been listed with Future Shop, who have the 16GB model priced at $349.99 and showing an estimated release date of June 22nd. The Galaxy Tab 2 will bring goodies to include a 10.1 inch (1280 x 800) touchscreen display and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich along with a 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor, 1GB of RAM, a microSD card slot, 7000 mAh battery, VGA quality front facing camera and a 3 megapixel rear facing camera with auto-focus and 1280 x 720 (30 fps) video recording. That being said, for the sake of those moving forward with a pre-order — lets hope that the June 22nd release date holds true. Via [FutureShop] and [MobileSyrup] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 3:35 pm Kelora Patent Found Obvious: Are Other “Obvious” Software Patents In Danger? Editor’s note: Leonid (“Lenny”) Kravets is a patent attorney at Panitch, Schwarze, Belisario and Nadel, LLP in Philadelphia, PA. Lenny focuses his practice on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions in computer-related technology areas. He specializes in developing IP strategy for young technology companies and blogs on this topic at StartupsIP. Follow Lenny on Twitter: @lkravets and @startupsIP. As software patent litigation ramped up over the past few years, software patents have come under the microscope within the technical community. Many investors and technologists believe that software patents should be abolished all together, while others take the less extreme position that many software patents are obvious over known prior art (“prior art” being earlier publications that show a patent is obvious or not new). Courts are increasingly cognizant of these criticisms. Though it is unlikely that software patents are going away any time soon, as the recent summary judgment in eBay v PartsRiver (PartsRiver is now known as Kelora) demonstrates, courts are beginning to do a more thorough job of applying the obviousness standard to software patents. Kelora claims to have the patent on faceted (parametric) search. The company is a hybrid between a practicing entity and a “patent troll” in that Kelora offers a search product, but has aggressively pursued a licensing and litigation strategy against a wide range of large and small Internet retailers. Though Kelora has not received as much attention from the press as some non-practicing entities such as Lodsys, the Kelora patents have posed a significant threat to the Internet retailing infrastructure. In Kelora’s largest lawsuit, defendants include Internet giants such as Microsoft, EBay, Target, Amazon and NewEgg. While the named defendants have chosen to fight Kelora, over the past few years, many others have taken licenses under the Kelora patents. Other smaller targets have decided to turn off their parametric search features to avoid being accused of infringement by Kelora. Many targets of Kelora’s patents believe the patents to be invalid over prior art that goes back to as early as the 1960s. Over the past few years, the Kelora defendants have mounted a significant effort to invalidate the Kelora patents, which were filed in the early 1990s. First, the patents were re-examined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) over newly found prior art, but Kelora overcame the new rejections by amending the claims to perform the parametric search through a resubmission to a server. When the lawsuit was allowed to continue with the amended claims, the defendants argued that the resubmission component was obvious over the known prior art because client/server architecture was well-known by the early 1990s. On May 21st, the court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court agreed with the defendants’ position that a server resubmission was obvious in view of other client/server systems of that time. The inventors of the Kelora patent, who still own a stake in the company, argued that when they came up with their parametric search invention in the early 1990s, they did not know of the client/“web” server infrastructure. However, in granting the motion, the judge found that such client/server systems were well-known, and it did not matter that the inventors themselves did not know of such a system. While Kelora will almost certainly appeal this decision to the Federal Circuit, this result is promising for opponents of software patents. The summary judgment shows that courts are becoming increasingly sophisticated in interpreting the claims of software patents, and in applying prior art under the obviousness standard. While the Kelora defendants already expended significant resources in this case, finding that the patents are obvious at the summary judgment stage of the case saved the defendants the significant cost of a full trial. Courts (and the USPTO) doing a better job of applying prior art to the claims of software patents is the best news possible for those who hope for a more economical way of dealing with software patents within the current legal system. Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 3:23 pm UK politician finances scandal of the dayThe BBC reports that top UK politician Baroness Warsi failed to declare substantial rental income from property she owned.
Sure, there's that old chestnut about mistaking stupidity for malice. But it would take a lot of stupid to not notice how much you make from property that you rent out. What is malice but self-aware stupidity? Why I Think Apple Will, Indeed, Launch A TelevisionIf you follow the rumors surrounding Apple, you know that the company is reportedly working on a television. That television, rumors suggest, will come with iCloud support, apps, and perhaps even Siri. More importantly, it’ll deliver the kind of image quality often not found in today’s televisions. However, like so many other Apple products, it’s highly likely that the television will boast a high price tag.
Although Apple hasn’t confirmed that it will, in fact, launch a television, I’m becoming increasingly sure that it will do so. Not only does the timing seem right, but over the last few days, a couple of reports have surfaced seeming to confirm it. It all started earlier this week when Apple’s design guru Jonathan Ive said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that the products he’s working on right now are the “most important” yet. He didn’t say which products he was working on, of course, but the fact that he said that much seems to indicate something major is coming. In addition, a Fortune feature on Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed that he held an event with top employees this year who left impressed by what Apple had coming down the channel in the coming months. Once again, there was no mention of a television, but who really expected there to be one? Also, let’s go back to when Cook announced the iPad earlier this year. He indicated at the time that his company had big plans for the year, and was going to unveil some “revolutionary” products. There might be a chance that the chief executive was talking about the television. "I can’t think of anything Apple could launch that would be all that revolutionary"See, at this point, I can’t think of anything that Apple could launch that would be all that revolutionary. Sure, a new iPhone with a slick design and some key improvements would be nice, but is that really revolutionary? And all of that talk about slimmer MacBook Pros, while appealing, certainly won’t make us jump for joy. For now, as far as I can tell, the only product that might prove to be revolutionary is the Apple television. Now, I’m not one of those folks that’s willing to say exactly when the Apple television might launch. I think there’s a chance that it’ll come out later this year, but it’s far more likely that it’ll launch in 2013. There is, of course, a chance that the television finally hits store shelves in 2014. Regardless of when it happens, Apple will be launching a TV in the next few years. So, perhaps the next question is, should we buy it? Obivously that’s tough to say, considering the television hasn’t even been unveiled yet. But one can bet that Apple’s faithful fans are already saving up cash to pick up the television. And like so many other product launches, whenever Apple unveils the television, many others will follow suit. Why I Think Apple Will, Indeed, Launch A Television is written by Don Reisinger & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 3:02 pm InstaCRT iPhone app gives your picture an old-fashioned TV lookIf you’ve been going around snapping pictures with your iPhone or iPad, and have been unable to shake off the feeling that things would be so much better if your pictures looked like you were viewing them on an outdated black-and-white CRT monitor, then congratulations. You’re the perfect demographic for this latest iOS app. If that doesn’t describe you, then maybe you’ll appreciate the sheer novelty of this creation.
Called InstaCRT, the developers behind the app are referring to it as “the world’s first real camera filter.” What they mean by that is that instead of those fancy software programs that let you apply various filters to change the photo effects, this effect is done via a real-world process. What happens when you take a picture through InstaCRT is that it is actually sent automatically to a machine in Sweden. The machine will place your photo onto a CRT monitor, after which point a digital SLR camera will take a picture of the monitor. All of this happens autonomously and occurs in less than a minue. The DSLR picture is sent directly to your phone so it is a seamless process that works almost as smoothly as using a software-oriented filter. The app costs $1.99. [via PetaPixel] InstaCRT iPhone app gives your picture an old-fashioned TV look is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 2:27 pm Stray dog joins cyclists on 1700km raceFrom the BBC: "A stray dog has completed a 1700km journey across China after joining a cycle race from Sichuan province to Tibet. ... He ran with them for 20 days, covering up to 60km a day, and climbing 12 mountains."
Is Obama Really A 'Twoosh Master'? We Say No
Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 2:05 pm GameStop touts Android tablets at 1,600 storesIt seems as though GameStop’s bold move to begin offering Android tablets alongside its traditional packed shelves of traditional console and handheld video games may be working out in its favor. The retailer has gone from a bunch of test stores to now selling Android devices in no fewer than 1,600 locations. Among the tablets that the #1 US games retailer sells are those from Acer, Asus, Samsung, and Toshiba.
To tailor the offerings to its gamer constituency, GameStop pre-loads each Android tablet it sells with the Sonic CD and Riptide downloadable games, as well as the Kongregate Arcade app. Kongregate is a cloud-based game service that GameStop acquires in its effort to expand its horizons beyond the traditional gaming model. GameStop has also begun selling iPads and iPod Touch devices throughout the country. It’s part of the retailer’s growing realization that the gaming industry is changing, and in order for it to remain profitable it has to adapt its business model as well. For example, the retailer sells downloadable content (DLC) in stores, even though gamers can just as easily purchase the content directly through their console. But this allows consumers to use cash, trade-in credit, or gift cards as opposed to a credit card, giving GameStop a unique position in the digital content market. [via Gamezone] GameStop touts Android tablets at 1,600 stores is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 1:22 pm Kobo for Android gets an update that brings improved tablet support, social sharing and more
While Barnes & Noble and Amazon seem to catch more than a fair amount of the ereading attention, we have to give credit to another player — Kobo. Their apps are available on multiple platforms and they also have some nice hardware. Not to mention, an ebook store that can compete with both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Those bits aside though, it looks like the folks at Kobo have recently rolled-out a updated version of their Android app. The latest version can be found in the app section of Google Play and brings goodies to include improved tablet support, performance enhancements and bug fixes. Some of the other changes in this latest release include the ability to add multiple bookmarks and social sharing on Facebook Timeline as well as with Kobo Pulse. With that, those reading with Kobo on an Android device may want to fire up Google Play (link below) and get to updating. Via [Google Play] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 1:13 pm 10 Reasons To Quit Your Job Right Now! The game is over. That game where they get to hire you for 40 years, pay you far less than you create, and then give you a gold watch, and then you get bored, you get depressed, and you die alone. It wasn’t that fun of a game anyway. When I had a corporate job I would wake up depressed. I couldn’t move out of bed. The sun would be coming in. A cat on the fire escape staring at me through the window. Even it was more excited to be alive than me. And, by the way, I had the best job in the world. I interviewed prostitutes for a living at three in the morning. But they were going to kill me in my cubicle. In 2009 I asked about 10 Fortune 500 CEOs, “did you just use this crisis as an excuse to fire all the people you were afraid to fire before.” Only one said “of course” instantly. The others had to drink more. But then it was admitted: you’re all dead weight and there’s no loyalty. We’ve entered the “Choose Yourself” era. The era without middlemen. Without The Other telling you your bonus, your salary, your movie can be made, your book published, your company funded, your life validated. The era where you have to always be planning your escape. Where you create your platforms on twitter, facebook, quora, pinterest, blogging, vlogging, itunes, and wherever else and every day you Create and you Innovate and you Sell for yourself. You Eat what you Kill. And your rewards are commensurate with how sharp your teeth are. Most people need to begin planning their exit strategy RIGHT NOW: So here’s the 10 reasons you need to quit your job right now. And below that I have the methods for doing it. 1) Safety. In ancient history you would start as the shoeshine boy, move to the mailroom, impress someone with your go-get-it attitude, become an assistant account executive, move up the ranks, move horizontally to another company, get promoted again, move vertically, horizontally, zig zag across corporate America and eventually retire with your IRA savings. The myth was over in 2008. It never really existed but now we know it’s a myth. You were addicted to the stability. The white picket fence. Getting away from home for ten hours a day. I understand. But it was an addiction. And the fix is gone. Your job was never safe. And it’s less safe now than it was yesterday. A billion people in China need a job and they are gunning for your cubicle. 2) Home. Everyone thinks they need a safe job so they can save up to buy a home and also qualify for a mortgage. Mortgage lenders at the banks like people who are like them – other people locked in cubicle prison. They want to see an income statement. A tax return. A credit check. A stability check. A note from your therapist. Everything that proves you are a reliable human just like them. Well now you don’t need to worry about that. Here’s why you should never own a home in the first place. Save yourself the stress. 3) College. Everyone thinks they need to save up to send their kids to college. Depending on how many kids you have and where you want them to go to college it could cost millions. Well now you don’t need to send your kids to college. So you don’t need to stress about that money anymore. 4) Your boss. Most people don’t like their boss. Its like any relationship. Most of the time you get into a relationship for the wrong reasons. You were too young. You didn’t know what you wanted. You really loved the other girl but she rejected you. Eventually you’re unhappy. And if you don’t get out, you become miserable and scarred for life. That’s why 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce. That’s why you need to quit your job. 5) Your coworkers. Look around. Are these the people you were meant to spend the rest of your life with. You will spend more time with them then you will spend with your children. 6) Fear. We have such a high unemployment rate, people are afraid if they leave the job they are miserable at, they won’t be able to get a job. This is true if you just walk into your boss’s office and pee on his desk and get fired. But its not true if you prepare well. note that we’ve just had 26 consecutive months in a row of private sector job growth. Much of that is people working at one or two-person companies (i.e. “startups”). More on that in a bit. 7) The Work. Most people don’t like the work they do. They spend 4 years going to college, another few years in graduate school, and then they think they have to use that law degree, business degree, architecture degree and then guess what? They hate it. They made a bad decision when they were 18. They chose “LAW”. Or “ECON”. But they don’t want to admit it. They feel guilty. They are in debt. A trillion dollars in debt backed by the US government. No problem. Read on. 8) Bad things happen. You start to get depressed and you don’t know why. You start to feel like your life didn’t add up to what it should’ve. SOMETHING WENT WRONG. You start to physically ache. You get nervous about bonuses, promotions, who gave credit to who? You play politics (an ugly game), you fantasize about selling diet pills (Tim Ferris did it!), adults yell at you for irrational reasons, you have sex with another girl at work. Now work is like one big sexually transmitted disease. And it gets worse and worse. You don’t want to look back at your life and say, “man, those were the worst 45 years of my life.” That wouldn’t feel good. 9) The economy is about to boom. I don’t care if you believe this or not. Stop reading the newspaper so much. The newspapers are trying to scare you. Bernanke just printed up a trillion dollars and airlifted it onto the US economy. Who is going to scoop that up. You in your cubicle? Think again. And just what is a “Greece”? Is it that tiny country with the economy the size of Rhode Island that other countries have been supporting since Augustus paid all their bills in 20 BC? Just what are they? 10) Your job has clamped your creativity. You do the same thing every day. You want to be jolted, refreshed, rejuvenated. Note: I will grant some people love their jobs. This is not for them but the 90% who don’t. But, you say: you still need to support yourself, you still need to support your family, you can’t just walk into your boss’s office and quit. Good point. You need to prepare. Its like training for the Olympics if you feel now is the time to move on from your job. You need to be physically ready, emotionally (don’t quit your job and get divorced on the same day for instance), mentally (get your idea muscle in shape) and spirituall all ready. The posts that will help you quit your job. To quit, at least follow the ideas in the first post: - How to be the Luckiest Man Alive in 4 Easy Steps - What to do if you were Fired Today - The 100 Rules for Being an Entrepreneur In the above link, it’s not about starting a business. It’s about finding what your frontier is, how to explore it, how to test the waters and move beyond it. I’m not saying I can do this. I’ve hit my boundary so many times and bounced off that I have six broken noses to show for it. Some notes on this post: Note #0: Why is this on techcrunch? Because all people want to know that they have a choice. That they can eat what they kill. That in the “Choose Yourself” era it’s ok to make the leap into the unknown, in the abyss, do your startup, save the world, deliver value, invent, create, make money, and have fun. You don’t have to do what is expected of you. Note #1: I get a lot of criticisms from anonymous people in the message boards. Claudia begs me, “Don’t look at the message boards unless you talk to me first.” Because she knows I’m an addict. I tell her ‘ok’ but I know I’m going to look. Because that’s what addicts do. I’m not selling anything. If you want any of my books and can’t afford then write me and I’ll send for free. I’m not pushing any agenda. I have nothing to gain by you quitting your job. Note #2: Sometimes people criticize the “list” format in these posts. “10 reasons” for this. “10 reasons” for that. About 20% of my posts are lists. Not so much. Read “Happiness this Second” for a recent non-list post. And Charlton Heston clearly didn’t mind lists when he came down from Mt. Sinai with “The 10 Commandments”, the very first blog post. 3500 years later and still getting clicks. I don’t mind when people critique me when they’ve lost, quit, or have been fired from as many jobs as I have. Or lost a home. Tried to raise two kids with almost nothing. Been as desperately unhappy as sometimes I’ve been. This doesn’t qualify me for anything, of course. Maybe it disqualifies me. Who cares? A lot of people have had much worse than me. And I’ve been very blessed as well. I’ve been able to come back. Sometimes you can build back up. And sometimes you just think, “How the hell did this happen to me again”. My goal in these posts is to help people maybe think for a split second they can reduce some stress in their lives, they don’t have to go through what I went through, they can throw themselves into experience and still come back alive, and at the end of the day, they can use some of these ideas to live a better and more fulfilling life. I’ve had that experience and I like to write about it. Later tonight I’m going to give my two daughters, ten and thirteen years old, two choices and ONLY two choices. Either they watch “Star Wars” with me or they watch “Schindler’s List”. And if they don’t like either choice then maybe I’ll just sit by the TV with some ice cream and watch all by myself. Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 1:00 pm Masonite ad in 2.5D
Masonite
The Mysterious Words You Can’t Tweet The legend goes something like this: as a child, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s father would relentlessly hound him to “Get better”, so Jack eventually banned the phrase from being tweeted. Go ahead and try it, the tweet won’t go through. But the legend? It’s hoax. See, way back when, Twitter wasn’t a popular smart phone app, it was a way to publish up to 140 characters to the Internet via text message. To let people follow and unfollow each other, change their bio, and more straight from SMS, Twitter created a list of commands that when sent wouldn’t be tweeted, but would trigger actions instead. So now when you tweet ”get better”, “get [any single word]“, and several other phrases Twitter interprets them as SMS commands. If you want more to try, there’s “Fav [username]” to favorite someone’s last tweet, and “Suggest” to receive recommendations of who to follow. Some of the commands still work from the web interface and smartphone apps. You can follow someone by tweeting “follow joshconstine” or just “f [username without the @]“. Others like the mysterious “get” command that spawned the rumor on StackExchange Skeptics which was busted by user DMI, don’t work outside of SMS. There’s also no evidence Dorsey’s father ever told him to “get better” or aggressively pushed him to succeed. In fact, Mr. Dorsey senior sounds like a very cool dad who ran a pizza restaurant that inspired Jack’s entrepreneurship, and helped Jack ”build a model of a mass spectrometer out of Legos, ball bearings, and magnets when he was 11″ according to Fast Company. That doesn’t mean the Twitter co-founder and Square CEO doesn’t want you to “get better”, though. When Jack won an award for encouraging others to start their own business, he told the crowd “Don’t just expect the unexpected—BE the unexpected.” [Illustration by Wes Duvall for Fast Company] Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 12:44 pm Devon Steampunk Tread 1 Watch Looks Like Something An Extraordinary Gentleman Would Wear California-based watch maker Devon made a name for themselves a few years ago when they released the Tread 1. The modern looking electro-mechanical timepiece dazzled people with its tread-based system to indicate the time. It was large, highly unorthodox for a high-end timepieces, and a little crazy. A full review of the Devon Tread 1 is here. Now Devon has released images of an upcoming Steampunk version of the Tread 1. It started as a concept but due to customer demand they will build them. The Steampunk Tread 1 is the retro-futuristic rethink of the standard Tread 1. The case will likely be made with pieces of bronze and oxidized steel. Rivets and lots of exposed screws complete the steampunk look. No word on price but expect to pay over $20,000 for this bauble. Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 12:18 pm Devon Steampunk Tread 1 Watch Looks Like Something An Extraordinary Gentleman Would WearCalifornia-based watch maker Devon made a name for themselves a few years ago when they released the Tread 1. The modern looking electro-mechanical timepiece dazzled people with its tread-based system to indicate the time. It was large, highly unorthodox for a high-end timepieces, and a little crazy. A full review of the Devon Tread 1 is here. Now Devon has released images of an upcoming Steampunk version of the Tread 1. It started as a concept but due to customer demand they will build them. The Steampunk Tread 1 is the retro-futuristic rethink of the standard Tread 1. The case will likely be made with pieces of bronze and oxidized steel. Rivets and lots of exposed screws complete the steampunk look. No word on price but expect to pay over $20,000 for this bauble. Source: TechCrunch » Gadgets | 26 May 2012 | 12:18 pm HTC offers up an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich release timeframe
If you happen to be sporting an HTC device with something other than Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich installed, this bit of news may be of interest. Simply put, HTC has recently come forward with Ice Cream Sandwich update details. Those with an upgradeable device should be upgraded sometime in August (at the latest). According to details from HTC;
Of course, HTC also goes on to point out the part that many here in the US will get upset about — the carriers. And on that note, HTC has stated that “because of partner and network testing, and approval processes for device updates, it can take up to 45 days for all carriers and countries to get the update after a rollout has begun.” Needless to say, it looks like you can add a month and a half to the timeline, which will be below…
Via [HTC] and [AndroidGuys] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 12:02 pm Caturday
Benjamin G. Levy Boing Boing reader Benjamin G. Levy shares this image in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool and says,
Microsoft Xbox 720 to use Skype tips job postWhile we obviously still haven’t heard anything official about Microsoft’s next-generation video game console, there has been no shortage of tips and insider leaks to point to rumors about what to expect. The latest comes from a job listing on Microsoft’s official careers website. It suggests that Skype will be an integral part of the next Xbox.
Microsoft purchased Skype last year in one of the biggest technology acquisitions of its kind, and ever since the software giant has worked to integrate the voice-over IP platform into several new products and services. However, the one thing that spectators have been waiting on ever since the ink hit the paper has been some sort of Skype integration into the Xbox 360. We may have to wait until the Xbox 720. The job in question is for a “Skype for Xbox Program Manager.” Sounds pretty obvious, but here are the details: “Skype is working on powering real-time voice and video communications on the Xbox. Xbox is a fundamental lynchpin of Skype’s living-room strategy, and we are focused on enabling amazing new in-game and in-console voice and video experiences for the next generation of Xbox.” [via This is Xbox] Microsoft Xbox 720 to use Skype tips job post is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 11:43 am Gothurday
REUTERS/Thomas Peter Revellers attend the Wave and Goth festival in Leipzig, on May 25, 2012. The annual festival, known in Germany as Wave-Gotik Treffen, features up to 150 bands and musicians playing Gothic rock and other styles of the "dark wave" music subculture attracting a regular audience of up to 20000, according to organizers. The festival runs through May 28. 5 Startups Changing the World With TechIn our social entrepreneurship series, The World at Work, Mashable interviews the faces behind the startups and projects that are working to make a global impact.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 11:39 am SpaceX mission control vs. NASA mission control (photo comparison)
Boing Boing reader Michael Smith-Welch shares this image, and says,
Yup.
Top 10 Tech This Week [PICS]Top 10 Tech is presented by Chivas. Access a world of exclusive insider benefits – private tastings, special events and the chance to win a trip for you and three friends to the Cannes Film Festival. Join the Brotherhood.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 11:21 am Top 10 Tech This Week [PICS]Top 10 Tech is presented by Chivas. Access a world of exclusive insider benefits – private tastings, special events and the chance to win a trip for you and three friends to the Cannes Film Festival. Join the Brotherhood.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 11:21 am Gillmor Gang: Adventures in Medication
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — explodes in opinions about Facebook IPO, Facebook privacy or lack of it, Facebook acquisition frenzy-to-be, and more Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. Surprisingly, this one goes on for a record-breaking hour and thirty-nine minutes, proving once again that size doesn’t matter. Except in electronic condoms. Also discussed; Why G-Tar didn’t win the Techcrunch Disrupt grand prize, why Kevin Marks’ Target knockoff doesn’t come close, and why Keith Teare is a venture communist. No animals or Wall Street traders were harmed in the making of this film. As John Taschek implied, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Did I mention we talked about Facebook. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @kteare, @kevinmarks, @jtaschek Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 11:00 am Mazda CX-5 ReviewCan a mainstream SUV really be fun to drive? Mazda thinks so, and so it tore up the rule book and started from scratch with the new CX-5. The crossover-SUV debuts Mazda’s SKYACTIV technology, a combination of weight reduction, efficiency improvement and design rethinking that, the company promises us, makes it a credible alternative to today’s hybrid and all-electric cars, despite using petrol or diesel powerplants. Too good to be true, and will the CX-5′s aggressive styling grow on us? We put on our finest leatherette driving gloves to find out.
DesignDistinctive is one way to describe the CX-5. Mazda’s traditional beak-lip grill has been enlarged until it’s a gaping maw at the snub-front of the SUV, making for a car that’s certainly noticeable in your rear-view mirror. Sharp hood creases dip down over hawkish headlamps, joined by muscular front arches that cut under driver and front-passenger windows that have an almost teardrop cut to them, bowing down to the wing mirrors.
In profile, that arch line is joined by a more relaxed crease down from the rear of the car, leaving the CX-5 with a high waistline. Combined with the dip of the roof at the back, it gives the Mazda a pinched tail that helps disguise some of its heft. Plastic cladding, around the lower front chin, underneath the doors and at the rear of the CX-5, is kept to a happy minimum, though there’s still enough to probably save you too much damage from a kerb ding or road hump. Darker colors, like navy blue or grey, disguise it even more, but lighter options such as the metallic blue and red, show off the Mazda “Soul of Motion Design”
17-inch alloy wheels with 225/65 R16 tires are standard on the SE-L spec CX-5, stepping up to 19-inch alloys with 225/55 R19 tires on the “Sport” model we tested. Both get tinted glass rear of the B-pillar, front fog lights and daytime running lights, while the Sport throws in Bi-Xenon adaptive headlights. InteriorEven Mazda admits that its interior quality hasn’t been up to scratch in previous models, and so there’s been a distinct and deliberate attempt to improve the CX-5′s accommodation. Thankfully Mazda hasn’t taken the easier route out and simply thrown a bag of gadgets at the same old plastics: instead, you get a decent haul of kit as standard together with dash materials that hold up to more than a casual prod.
The driver’s seat is adjustable in all the usual ways, including for height and lumbar support, and the Sport models make all of those adjustments motorized. Dual-zone air conditioning is standard, automatically turning on if you twiddle the chunky passenger-side dial to a different setting from the driver’s, and with a straightforward “Dual” button to link them back up again. Front and rear windows are electric, as you’d expect, and the Sport models have three-stage heated front seats too, which warm up quickly. Unfortunately there’s no heating option for the leather-clad wheel, which is manually height/reach adjustable. The rear-view mirror is auto-dimming, with an easily-stabbed manual override button, and there’s cruise control – though not the clever speed-adapting system in Mercedes and other cars – as standard too.
There are several advantages inside with the Sport model, not least the leather seats – available in black or stone, with contrasting stitching – replacing the SE-L’s sturdy black cloth trim, the reversing camera complete with useful on-screen guidance lines, and keyless entry. You also get an audio system upgrade, with the standard CD/radio six-speaker setup replaced with a Bose audio system with nine speakers. Both have a 5.8-inch LCD display which, if you opt for the “Nav” variants of either spec model, throws in a touchscreen and TomTom guidance. Usually that would be a £400 upgrade, though for a limited period after launch Mazda will be including TomTom as standard.
Bluetooth connectivity for pairing your phone is included, and we found it far simpler to hook up a phone and sync across our phonebook than with some rival systems. After that, we could dial a number either by tapping it out on the touchscreen (or choosing a contact), scrolling to it with the Multimedia Commander dial down by the parking brake, or hitting the voice-command button on the steering wheel and attempting to navigate by speech. The latter proved a mixed bag, and we had more consistent results using the touchscreen. Audio quality proved surprisingly good, filling the cabin even when driving at speed, and without undue distortion. Our test cars also came fitted with the optional safety pack, a £700 upgrade including rear vehicle monitoring and a lane departure warning system, the latter of which sounds an intrusive and unmissable noise when its lasers spot you’ve wandered over the road lines on either side of the car. It demands decent quality markings, however: on some of the more poorly maintained roads, where the lines were faded, the LDWS system didn’t spot our cavalier lane discipline.
The majority of Mazda’s new focus on quality is successful. The leather trim to the wheel and gearknob mean the controls you touch most often feel premium, while buttons and stalks all press and toggle with a firmness more akin to a premium car than a mid-tier SUV. It’s not a clean sweep – there’s a swathe of plastic wood across the center of the dash which would look better as metal, and the display for the air conditioning looks more like something we’d expect to see on a 90s HiFi than in a 21st century car – but there were no creaks or squeaks to be found. Moving back through the car, the rear seats lose visibility because of waistline, though headroom is good. That could be an issue if you have younger children who want to see where the CX-5 is going, as they could well struggle to see out of the rear windows. The seats themselves support a 40/20/40 split, folding down flat to extend what’s already a capacious rear load space into a frankly vast one.
Storage space isn’t quite on a par with some of the more imaginative cubby holes of rival SUVs, but there’s still plenty of space to accommodate drinks bottles and the like. The center arm-rest opens to reveal a shallow, removable coin tray, with the larger space underneath joined by a second power socket and a USB port. The door pockets will hold a small water bottle, while the glovebox gets its own light and is reasonably deep.
EngineMazda has a choice of three engines for the CX-5, kicking off with a 2-liter petrol mustering 165ps and then two turbocharged 2.2-liter diesels, with either 150ps or 175ps. Both diesels can be paired with either a 6-speed manual gearbox or a new SKACTIV-Drive automatic that pulls in elements of step-auto, CVT and dual-clutch systems for smoother, more responsive shifting and better fuel economy; they also have a choice of 2-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. Petrol cars only get the manual gearbox and 2-wheel drive.
There’s a huge bag of safety and performance technology that’s thrown in too, including ABS, emergency brake assist, traction control, hill-hold assist and a tire pressure monitoring system, but the three stand-outs are Mazda’s freshly-branded SKYACTIV, Smart City Brake Support, and i-Stop. Smart City Brake Support uses the front-mounted lasers to track vehicles and obstacles in front and, as long as you’re traveling at under 18mph, automatically stop the CX-5 if you’re about to crash into the back of it. We tested it out and, though there’s quite a jolt as the ABS-based system kicks in, it worked just as Mazda promised.
i-Stop, meanwhile, automatically shuts down the engine when you draw to a holt, such as when waiting for lights or in stop/start traffic. It’s not a new concept, but Mazda implements it particularly well: it’s so smooth as to be almost unnoticeable in action, and all three of the engines are sufficiently quiet at low speeds that it’s only really the lack of vibration that gives away the transition. Restart is also incredibly slick, with less engine rattle and shake than we’ve found in a Mercedes E-Class. That’s no small achievement. SKYACTIV and PerformanceSKYACTIV is the big news, however, Mazda’s ambitious redesign of its engine technologies along with gearbox, chassis, and suspension. In fact, nothing has been carried over from the previous-gen cars: everything is new. The goal is to create an SUV that shifts, corners and generally performs more akin to Mazda’s MX-5/Miata than a family car. So, the manual gearbox has a truncated throw for more snappy changes, and Mazda has managed to achieve the hitherto impossible: a 14:1 engine compression ratio, the highest of any petrol engine and the lowest of any diesel.
The figures are certainly promising: a 10-percent decrease in engine weight across the range, with the petrol powerplant dropping CO2 emissions and fuel consumption by 15-percent, and the diesel notching that up to 20-percent. Torque is up, too, and the automatic gearbox has seen a 4- to 7-percent boost in fuel efficiency. Does it work? It’s certainly the most enthusiastic and car-like of the mainstream SUVs we’ve driven, belying its near-1.5 tonne kerb weight. We drove the manual, Sport versions of each engine, and though we had high hopes for the petrol model, in actual fact it was the diesels that proved to stand-out. Mazdo quotes 9.0 seconds 0-62mph and a top speed of 124mph from the 2.0 liter petrol Sport CX-5, but you need to work the gearbox hard to squeeze out the sporting potential. With 210Nm of torque, mid-range pull is somewhat absent, and we needed to plan further ahead than we’d expected for overtaking maneuvers to give time for downchanges rather than simply planting our right foot.
In contrast, the 2.2 diesel has 380Nm and 420Nm of torque for the 150ps and 175ps models respectively, and with peak power coming in at around 2,200 rpm. That means less shifting – though Mazda’s foreshortened gearbox is indeed a treat – and, coupled with a chassis that does an excellent job of clinging to twisting roads without wallowing or bouncing, it makes for a far more usable car. Let’s face it, this isn’t an MX-5 and, no matter what Mazda claims, you’re not going to get pocket sports car performance out of an SUV. However, while you could throw power at the situation to partially address that, we’d actually opt for the 2-wheel drive 150ps diesel, rather than its more powerful AWD sibling. Sure, the AWS system is grippy, but the 2-wheel drive does a great job there too, and we’re not sure most CX-5 owners will ever get sufficiently near off-road terrain to make the most of it.
Meanwhile, although the more powerful diesel may reward a more urgent driving style when you’re stretching the top end, the mid-range model is impressively potent thanks to all that torque. The difference between the two was only noticeable when we really pushed the CX-5; at that point, you’d best hope you have no children in the back, else you’ll be cleaning vomit out of the upholstery for days. There’s no small advantage in efficiency if you opt for the 150 diesel, too. Mazda quotes a combined mpg of 61.4 for the 150 (53.3mpg if you opt for an automatic), compared to 54.3mpg for the 175 (51.4mpg for the auto version). The lower CO2 output could make more of a difference, though, at 119g/km for the 150 manual (139g/km for the auto) versus 136g/km for the 175 manual (144g/km for the auto). That’s enough to make the 150 manual UK tax exempt in its first year, something no other SUV can boast. The petrol version comes in at 47.1mpg and 139g/km CO2. Wrap-UpKicking off at £21,395 for the SE-L petrol (from £23,595 for the Sport), from £22,995 for the 2-wheel drive SE-L 150 diesel (from £25,195 for the Sport), from £24,695 for the AWD SE-L 150 and from £27,195 for the AWD Sport 175, the CX-5 is well priced against its SUV rivals. With five seats versus the six or seven of some alternatives, it’s perhaps not the choice for larger families, but its advantage is a more car-like driving experience that is arguably the closest the mainstream SUV has come to pairing an elevated driving position and decent road skills.
We’ve a couple of lingering questions about some dashboard decisions, though they’re minor, and you’ll probably need to give yourself some time to look beyond the snub-nose and learn to appreciate the Mazda’s styling. Just as long as you remember to tick the diesel box – and we’d push you to the 2-wheel drive 2.2 150ps one at that – you should be satisfied, and the saving from not picking the most powerful engine means you can step up to the fancier Sport spec too. So far so good, but the CX-5 promises to be the first of many new models with the SKYACTIV ethos. We’re already salivating at the thought of a lighter, more agile and fuel-efficient MX-5, and of course there’s also the recent news that Mazda is planning to work with Fiat on a new small convertible. SKYACTIV may not have shown all its strengths yet, but it’s off to an excellent start in the CX-5. 
Mazda CX-5 Review is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 11:00 am Samsung Galaxy S III shines as this year’s biggest Android launchIt’s no shocker the Samsung Galaxy S III launch has been the talk of the town this week. Officially hitting stores May 29th, device pre-orders have taken off on Amazon and other retailers. The arrival of the Galaxy S III may have deterred other manufacturers from launching smartphones this week, but the Android PC market is still heating up. VIA has unveiled the APC 8750 with a low price to match its small stature. Even tinier is the MK802 from Rikomagic: a $74 computer hardly bigger than a thumbdrive.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 11:00 am Samsung Galaxy S III shines as this year’s biggest Android launchIt’s no shocker the Samsung Galaxy S III launch has been the talk of the town this week. Officially hitting stores May 29th, device pre-orders have taken off on Amazon and other retailers. The arrival of the Galaxy S III may have deterred other manufacturers from launching smartphones this week, but the Android PC market is still heating up. VIA has unveiled the APC 8750 with a low price to match its small stature. Even tinier is the MK802 from Rikomagic: a $74 computer hardly bigger than a thumbdrive.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 11:00 am Who's Up Late Booking Memorial Day Weekend Hotel Rooms Online? [INFOGRAPHIC]Did you impulsive book a hotel for Memorial Day weekend late at night, tired and groggy eyed? Whether it was because you needed an emergency place to crash for a night or you're a budget-conscious traveler who spotted an excellent last-minute deal, you're not alone. It turns out plenty of hotel patrons are reserving rooms after-hours.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 10:27 am Space Station crew savors “new car smell” of Dragon capsuleSpaceX‘s Dragon capsule revealed its secrets to the crew of the International Space Station earlier today, a cache of food, equipment and “new car smell” as astronauts opened the hatch for the first time. After successfully docking with the ISS yesterday – and setting a new record in the process, as the first private craft to link with the station – after a 3.5 day trip through space, Dragon’s more than 1,000 pounds of cargo will be unloaded over the next four days, before the shelves are packed up again for the return trip.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit opened the hatch this morning, May 26, at 5:53 am EDT as the station flew 253 miles above Auckland, New Zealand. He and the rest of the ISS team wore protective masks and goggles, a standard precaution when any newly-arrived vehicle docks with the station, and Pettit and Station Commander Oleg Kononenko were first to enter Dragon. Inside there’s food, equipment, clothing and more, including scientific kit and parts for the ongoing repair cycle of the orbiting platform. The team will refill it before it detaches midway next week; before then, when the station atmosphere has successfully combined with that of Dragon, they’ll be able to take off their goggles and masks. “There was no sign of any kind of FOD [foreign object debris] floating around in the atmosphere inside,” Pettit told Houston mission control after making his first inspection of Dragon. “It kind of reminds me of the cargo capability that I could put in the back of my pickup truck. And the smell inside smells like a brand new car.” Dragon is scheduled for splashdown several hundred miles west of California, on May 31. SpaceX will then prep for its next trip up to the ISS, as part of a twelve mission contract with NASA to ferry supplies now that the Space Shuttle has been mothballed. SpaceX Dragon capsule hatch opening: Space Station crew savors “new car smell” of Dragon capsule is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 10:14 am Anno NTK: get a fifteen-year-old tech newsletter delivered fresh each week
NTK, Fifteen Years On
12 Fantastic Memorial Day Weekend Instagram Shots [GALLERY]Celebrating Memorial DaySource: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 9:51 am Sprint is giving away free gel covers to those who ordered the HTC EVO 4G LTE [Saying Sorry]
It appears as if Sprint is trying to make up for the delays with the HTC EVO 4G LTE smartphone. And nicely done as the delay was not even caused by them. If you remember back, the EVO 4G LTE ended up getting stuck in customs. Needless to say, Sprint is offering an apology in the form of a free gel cover and with a note stating that;
Via [AndroidCentral] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 9:41 am Would You Use a Viewfinder Add-On for Your iPhone? [VIDEO]Have you ever struggled with taking a picture outdoors on your iPhone because of the oppressive glare of the sun washing out the Retina display? A new Kickstarter project might have the perfect solution for you.Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 9:25 am Kalki's ancestor designed Eiffel Tower*I don't know why that so funny; of course her ancestor designed the Eiffel Tower, somebody had to do it. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp *I really like Tehelka's culture coverage. Even Tehelka's fluffiest, most crowd-pleasing puff-pieces have something nerve-wracking about them. Tehelka's always got this atmosphere of, "Here's cute and clever novelist Arundhati Roy in her denim cutoffs, ...Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2012 | 9:10 am How To Organize A Social Media Day MeetupMashable‘s third annual Social Media Day is on Saturday, June 30, 2012!Source: Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News | 26 May 2012 | 9:00 am Backstage at Disrupt, Greylock’s John Lilly on Building Apps for Phones vs Tablets
Editor’s Note: TechCrunch columnist Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and is based in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @semil If you’re building apps for phones or tablets, here’s a must-see discussion for you. We were able to corral Greylock’s John Lilly (who recently helped lead an investment in Instagram, right before it was acquired) backstage at Disrupt NYC earlier this week for a more casual conversation about the mobile app ecosystem and hardware. In this short talk, Lilly shared his views about the similarities and differences of building applications for mobile devices, taking care to point out that he sees many great entrepreneurs approaching the phone in a similar manner to how they approach the tablet. While the operating systems are similar on iPhone and other iOS devices (like iPad), for instance, the use cases, usage by time of day, and monetization opportunities are entirely different. Lilly encourages entrepreneurs to ask how to get their ideas on the homescreens of users’ phones and tablets. Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 9:00 am Applesauce: All Things AppleMichael Harper for Redorbit.comApple made news across a broad spectrum of headlines this week. They’ve continued their battle in court against Samsung, stubbornly refusing to cede power or control. It’s interesting enough, if you’re the kind of person who is into long, drawn-out legal proceedings with multiple outcomes stemming from pages and pages of documents. So far, this case has played out like a grown-up “He Said, She Said,” as the two tech titans take turns vehemently crossing their arms in stubborn distaste, caring only enough for the other to whine “Nuh-UH!” But this is a fight with their best frenemy; Of course, the arm of Samsung that Apple needs to keep close is the chip and memory maker. It’s an interesting dynamic, and one has to wonder if the two sides ever meet in the common area dining room over at Samsung headquarters. Is the mobile arm of Samsung the black sheep of the family, looked down upon for not keeping the peace? Then, while these school-yard antics carry on, Apple’s got other entities breathing down their neck and lobbing their criticisms Cupertino’s way. Judging by their reaction, Apple will clearly have nothing to do with it, taking down each aspect of their arguments point by point and correcting their sports metaphors while they’re at it. And, all the while, Apple continues to out sell in the mobile PC and tablet markets and prepares themselves for new devices. Grab a chair friends and neighbors. It’s time to get cozy with a chilly bowl of Applesauce. The Trial It wouldn’t be a weekly Apple recap without an update to their battle with Samsung, now would it? For those not following along at home, Apple is suing Samsung for copying their designs. Samsung is returning the favor, suing Apple for using some of their technological patents. This whole process began over a year ago, and in that time, the two companies have been duking it out, building up a number of complaints against one another. As these two warring factions approach their court date, District Judge Lucy Koh told the two companies to try and slim down their complaints against one another in a good-old fashioned court-ordered mediation session. The two companies began this mediation with Honorable Judge Spero acting as the liaison between them on Monday. On Wednesday, we all heard the news we expected to hear: Neither company is willing to budge. After all, what reason does any company have to try and settle in a 2-day court-mandated mediation session? Apple is still convinced Samsung is stealing their designs—it’s becoming pretty obvious at this point - and Samsung wants Apple to pay for using their wireless transmission technology. It might be easier and more pleasant to settle between themselves, but that would require some compromise, and when two companies are fighting to be number one in technology - specifically mobile technology - neither company wants to give the other any chance to dominate. So while nothing came from this mediation, the battle rages on. Apple wants to have Samsung phones and tablets banned from the US now, and Samsung wants sanctions to be placed on Apple for not providing some documents on time. The two companies will head to court the last week of June. Another Brick In the Wall All of this legal action with Samsung has to have Apple’s lawyers a little tightly wound. At this point, they could react and suddenly explode, releasing a massive amount of energy into the tech universe. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll end up snapping at the next organization that starts throwing accusations their way. Who cares if that organization is the US Department of Justice? They just need to let someone know how they really feel! To be fair, the DOJ was asking for it when they filed anti-trust lawsuits against Apple and 6 other book publishers for allegedly price-fixing in order to take down Amazon. Such a claim more than warrants an investigation, but in their original documents they painted Apple and the publishers to be nothing short of mobsters, meeting in dimly lit private dining rooms in Manhattan’s finest restaurants, smoking cigars, drinking gin and sneering whenever the word “Amazon” was uttered. The only thing missing from their accusations were a mention of some back-alley dog-fighting. Apple was not pleased, and let them know about it in a 31-page diatribe. In it, Apple says the DOJ sides “with monopoly, rather than competition,” and calls their complaints with Apple "fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law." Their statement then goes on to mention that Apple did not “conspire” with any other company to change prices, and that their iBookstore has not only given publishers the opportunity to sell their books directly to their customers, but has benefited these customers by offering them a choice and spurring innovation. Then, paragraph by paragraph, Apple refutes the DOJ’s complaints against them. My personal favorite, however, is the mention of the use of the word “akido” in Jobs’ biography. Since the DOJ’s complaint suggests that Apple worked together to fix prices, Apple played the role of the geek being picked on by bullies, taking the time to correct the DOJ’s use of the term “akido move.” For extra fun, try reading this next paragraph in the voice of Sheldon Cooper, TV’s favorite sniveling nerd from popular sitcom Big Bang Theory. “Akido is not a team sport like football with a quarterback directing the plays; it is a defensive martial art practiced one-on-one by individuals, requiring use of little strength or power, based on redirecting an attacker’s own force.” In reading the entire 31 page gripe to the DOJ, one gets the impression that Apple is a little more than annoyed. After all, Apple is currently engaged in another, more meaningful war with Samsung. They don’t have time for some government agency to come snooping around and making up claims that Apple is destroying the book publishing industry. The Show Must Go On Despite these battles, Apple continues to top the charts by producing top-quality products. Research firm NPD DisplaySearch released the results of their latest survey on Mobile, Notebook and Tablet PCs. According to these numbers, Apple sold 17.2 million Mobile PCs last quarter to gain 22.5% of the market. But, this begs the question: “What constitutes a mobile PC?” Not long ago, when other PC makers began to realize the iPad would be more than a passing fad, a debate arose: Is the iPad a PC? It’s likely Apple couldn’t care how you label their iPad, so long as you buy one and love it. In fact, they’ve been throwing the term “Post-PC Device” around an awful lot for about a year now. But, for these other companies, the HPs and Dells and Lenovos of the world, how the iPad is labeled means a lot. Because, if the iPad is labeled as a PC or a Mobile PC, then their numbers begin to suffer. HP’s CEO Meg Whitman even said so herself. When asked if she thought including iPad as a PC would affect HP’s numbers, she said, “Yes. I think it’s possible if you integrate tablets. Apple does a great job. We need to improve our game and our products to take over the leadership position. Apple could go past HP in 2012.” NPD DisplaySearch, by the way, defines the iPad as a mobile PC. Thus, Apple’s lead in marketshare. In the Tablet-only category, Apple did more than take the lead, they dominated. They performed a 10-minute victory dance in the end-zone. They lapped every other racer 6 times over. They went wire-to-wire from opening day to World Series. Pick your sports metaphor. According to these results, Apple’s 13.6 million iPads sold in the last quarter was enough to earn them 62.8% of the tablet market. They sold a full 12 million more tablets than none other than Samsung, number 2 on the list. And as for that 7-inch tablet that was supposed to have Apple shaking in their boots? Amazon was able to sell nearly a million of them last quarter, placing them at number 3 on the list. With numbers like this, it’s hard to argue with Cook and Crew when they start waxing poetic about the Post-PC era. Wish You Were Here When Apple starts throwing around phrases like “Post-PC era,” do they also plan to include televisions? If you’re an analyst, then you probably think they will. Or maybe you don’t. The anticipation, the hype and the rumors of this Apple TV have hit a frequency similar to those of the rumored Apple tablet before its 2010 debut. In fact, upon reaching fever pitch of tablet rumors, beloved Tech Pundit Andy Ihnatko coined the acronym RAT, or Rumored Apple Tablet, and began using this device anytime news was released about the unannounced product. Though I haven’t asked for permission, (we’ve never met) I’d like to employ this acronym once more. Let’s talk about the RAT, the Rumored Apple Television. News was released just yesterday about another analyst throwing his weight behind these RAT claims. Even if this analyst does happen to be reputable Gene Munster, not everyone agrees with him. We’ve all been at the Apple Rumor Party just a little too long now. We’ve been drinking from the RAT punch bowl with reckless abandon, hoping it would never run dry. Some have had so much to drink they’ve begun to see things, stumbling around and telling us tales of things like “prototype units": Aluminum-clad iMac look-alike, except they’re much larger. And they’re able to be controlled with our voices, man, like we don’t need a remote or anything. And, like, if you just want to look at the weather or something, you...you can just wave your hand at the screen and it’ll like, tell you what the weather is and if you need a coat or something. And we’ll be able to like, you know, subscribe to channels by buying apps, man. They’re going to get rid of the cable man, man. They’re going to…they’re going to change everything, man. Like, yeah… Now, Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey has become that one guy at the party who says things like “But what if what we know as life, is like, someone else's death, man? That’s what I’m talking about, man…it’s all relative, you know?” McQuivey revealed in a blog post this week that maybe what we’ve been thinking of as the Apple TV is really an Apple Hub, which isn’t so much a TV as it is a central place to store the family info, calendars and such. Apple could very well release a TV or a Hub or some other large screen housed in aluminum. The fact that we’re sold on the TV aspect of it is a little silly. Sure, Apple is known for revolutionizing and dominating struggling markets, and the TV market seems ripe for taking over. And sure, Steve Jobs said those immortal 4 words, “I finally cracked it.” To assume there will be a TV based largely on these aspects is a bit silly. To further quote analysts as proof of these rumors is even sillier. Analysts rarely know more than we do, and if they did, they wouldn’t announce it. Any Color You Like Speaking of rumors, it’s time for your weekly iPhone rumor round-up! The often accurate, always credible Wall Street Journal announced last week that the new iPhone will likely have a 4-inch screen. Following up on this information, 9to5Mac.com announced this week that, not only will the next iPhone have a 4-inch screen, but that Apple is testing 2 such models in their headquarters as we speak. They said they had “independently” heard these claims, and that Apple is, as usual, taking great pains to hide their new prototype devices from even their own employees. “Right now we know of a few next-generation iPhone candidates in testing. These prototype phones are floating around Apple HQ in thick, locked shells in order to disguise the exterior design to ‘undisclosed” employees.’ We know of two next-generation iPhones in testing with a larger display: the iPhone 5,1 and iPhone 5,2. These phones are in the PreEVT stage of development and are codenamed N41AP (5,1) and N42AP (5,2). Because Apple reserves certain models for internal-only usage (such as the N96 phone we previously reported on), we’re not sure which of the two devices will make its way into the world later this year.” It makes sense for Apple to be testing multiple devices before the release. After all, they didn’t get to be the best by simply choosing one design arbitrarily and fiddling with it till it works. They try all sorts of things. But wait! If the new iPhone will have a 4-inch screen (actually, more like 3.9996 inches, but whatever) what will they do about aspect ratio? According to Gruber, the next iPhone will likely be 1136 x 640, leaving plenty of room for a 16:9 aspect ratio. Developers would have to do a little noodling with their apps to make sure they stretch and shrink to fit the 4-inch display, avoiding the type of fragmentation that plagues the Android OS. 9 to 5 Mac also says these new prototypes do feature the new style of home button and dock connector. If these phones are currently in testing and not recently out of testing, an October release date seems more likely. Another story was released this week about the possibility of FaceTime over 3G as well. According to Romanian website iDevice.com, if you go to toggle FaceTime’s settings during a video chat in iOS 5.1.1, a new option emerges to “enable 3G calling.” Try to flip this switch, and an error box pops up telling you that flipping this switch will end the call. No matter how you flip this switch, the FaceTime call doesn’t end. Is this a slip-up on Apple’s part? My guess is, if this were a true screw-up and Apple really is going to roll out FaceTime over 3G, they would have already released a fix for it or removed the option. Of course, their fixing the bug would also be a glaring admission that they plan to implement the feature soon. What’s a super-secretive company to do? Will Apple prove me wrong and announce a new Television on a very special episode of Modern Family? Will they take some time off from these legal proceedings to focus on making Siri better than she is? Will Sir Jony Ive make the Apple Design Lab’s interns follow him around with a “Banging coconuts” app as he trots around campus? Be sure to tune in next week for all the sauciest Apple news, here on RedOrbit.com! Source: Technology | 26 May 2012 | 8:42 am SlashGear Weekly Wrap-Up: May 26, 2012Happy Saturday, everyone. Are you enjoying your holiday weekend so far? Hopefully you are, but if you want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with what made news this week, this is the place to be. First off, something for Apple fans – Apple’s Ive gets second knighting and a iPhone tease. For something a little more business-oriented, we have HP’s Q2 2012 earnings. And here’s a symbol to how the industry is changing these days - Toshiba discontinuing netbooks in the US.
Featured: Here are some of this week’s featured stories: Other Stuff: Moving on to the other stories of the week. First off, Jury says Google doesn’t infringe on Oracle patents. And onto news about companies bungling their big opportunities, Facebook wants to ditch Nasdaq after IPO fiasco. And next, – Google+ for Android updated, new UI and mobile hangout control. And finally, we always like to end the week with something different and fascinating. This fits the bill pretty well – SpaceX mission makes history, docking successful. SlashGear Weekly Wrap-Up: May 26, 2012 is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 26 May 2012 | 8:37 am Amazon, Publisher Settle Digital Books DisputeA three month long dispute over the sale of digital books between Amazon.com Inc. and a leading independent book distributor has been resolved, both parties said Friday. Amazon in late February stopped selling the e-books of nearly 5,000 titles distributed by the Independent Publishers Group, which represents more than 500 publishers, following a dispute over terms. Publishing terms generally cover such areas as wholesale pricing, advertising, and payment requirements. Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: AllThingsD | 26 May 2012 | 8:31 am WordPress for iOS updated to version 3.0, brings Push Notifications, a swipe-to-moderate toolbar and more
Those using WordPress (and an iOS device) for their blogging needs may want to fire up the iOS App Store as version 3.0 of the app has just recently been released. And in addition to a fancy new version number (3.0), the WordPress for iOS app has gotten some seemingly welcomed features. The goodies include push notifications, a swipe-to-moderate toolbar additional language support and last but certainly not least — a “vastly improved performance, especially for iPad.” That last one sounds pretty good, but breaking the other points down a little further and we have the following;
Otherwise, the WordPress for iOS app requires iOS 4.0 or later for use and will work with all WordPress.com blogs as well as any self-hosted WordPress blog that is running version 2.9.2 or higher. Finally, WordPress for iOS is free to download, free to use and universal with proper support for the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad. Via [iOS App Store] and [WordPress for iOS] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 8:30 am Skinless My Little Pony made from bacon
Bacon Pony
(via Neatorama)
Greatest wedding proposal ever: the lip-dub
Isaac wanted to propose to his girlfriend, so he enlisted over 60 friends to stage a Busby Berkeley street-show lip-dub extravaganza ambush. What follows is five minutes of heart-stoppingly sweet and romantic wedding proposal. I mean: Z. O. M. F.G.
Isaac's Live Lip-Dub Proposal
(via Waxy)
Selling Software That Kills The government of Syria uses made-in-California technology from BlueCoat Systems to censor the Internet and spy on its pro-democracy activists (who are regularly arrested and tortured, not to mention slaughtered wholesale.) McAfee and Nokia Siemens have done the same in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Amesys of France and FinFisher of the UK aided brutal dictators in Egypt and Libya. Sweden’s Teliasonera allegedly took up the same cudgel in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, back in the USSA, Bain Capital recently bought a Chinese video-surveillance company reportedly “used to intimidate and monitor political and religious dissidents,” and Cisco “has marketed its routers to China specifically as a tool of repression.” You can’t help but be impressed by how globalized the oppression-technology industry has become. So what privacy/surveillance story caused an eruption of outrage this week? Yes, you guessed it: SceneTap, a startup that uses facial-recognition software to (anonymously)track demographics at bars and clubs in major American cities in real time. Forget the dissidents risking their lives for democracy: what matters is that the hipsters are creeped out! Needless to say, the companies in question tend to dodge responsibility with bland buck-passing PR patter that knowingly turns a blind eye to oppression and brutality: “Obviously what an individual customer would do with a product once they acquire it is beyond our control.” (Apparently it never crossed their minds that it’s eminently possible to build technical controls into their product, to filter the filters.) “It’s a legal business [...] Ultimately people who use this technology to infringe human rights are responsible for their actions.” This is of course complete bullshit. Whether you’re a company or a person, there’s really no excuse for helping repressive regimes to track and hunt down their dissidents, and “What? Me? Responsible? All I did was give the AK-47 to the psychotic serial killer, how was I supposed to know how he was going to use it?” is almost worse than no defense at all. The EFF has proposed a “know your customer” process similar to that used for the Foreign Corrupt Practices act and export regulations. It has largely been ignored. Not a good sign. There’s a desperate information war going on in Syria right now, between pro-democracy dissidents and their international allies on one side, and a shadowy and remarkably sophisticated group of pro-government hackers on the other. Right now that war’s being fought mostly on the desktop. But wait until Android phones become ubiquitous in oppressed nations. (Not iPhones; too expensive.) Unlike desktops, unless they’re rooted, Androids typically are — or at least can be — essentially controlled from birth by their manufacturers and their national carriers … who will naturally be incredibly susceptible to government pressures to install hidden spyware and malware. Imagine an authoritation nation where everyone has a phone running a government-customized version of Android — indeed, is required to have one, because every phone is an eye and ear of the national surveillance network. (Meanwhile, SceneTap-like software ensures that dissident groups can’t meet in person.) It’s an Evgeny Morozov dystopia, and a disconcertingly plausible one. Right now, carrier bloatware and device control is just an irritation, but look just a little ways into the future, and it’s worryingly easy to envision it actually becoming a serious human rights problem … especially if Western companies keep on selling their oppression technology to all comers. Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2012 | 7:00 am Bigfoot: Beyond Footprints and DNABigfoot samples have long been subjected to scientific testing...and yet science has yet to confirm the sightings.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2012 | 6:46 am T-Mobile release dates for the Galaxy S III, myTouch and Galaxy Note leak [Unconfirmed]
While we have yet to get any official confirmation from T-Mobile, it is looking like some new handsets will be coming in June and July. According to the details, it appears as of the Galaxy S III in metallic blue will be available in the latter part of June and then the myTouch (from Huawei) along with the Galaxy S III in ceramic white and the Galaxy note will be available in mid-July. More specifically;
That being said, it looks like we are now waiting on something further from the carrier. Of course, with these release dates all still some time out, we suspect that we will see more rumors and unconfirmed reports prior to seeing anything official. Lets just hope that next time, we also get some pricing details. Via [TmoNews] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 6:18 am Lawsuits Filed Over Dish Network's Commercial-Skipping ServiceThree US broadcast networks have filed a lawsuit against a Dish Network over their DVR service that allows customers to skip commercials during playback of recorded shows, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Friday.The lawsuit was filed Thursday and revolves around two features included on the second largest American satellite TV provider's Dish Hopper DVR. Those features are called Prime Time Anytime and Auto Hop, and as previously reported here at RedOrbit, the former allows users to automatically record all prime time shows on the ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC networks at the same time and the latter which allows them to automatically skip ad breaks during those programs with the push of a button. According to CNNMoneyTech's David Goldman, CBS claimed that AutoHop would deprive them of "a vital means of payment for their works" and that advertisers would "not pay, or will pay less, to have their advertisements placed within and around" the company's primetime television shows, which they say generates the highest ad revenue figures for the channel. Likewise, NBC called it an "unlawful service," while Fox accused Dish Network of taking advantage of its right to retransmit their programming in order to "advertise to the world that 'Dish created commercial-free TV.'" The lawsuit was filed Thursday in a Los Angeles federal court, AP's Ryan Nakashima said. Dish Network responded with a lawsuit of their own, filed in New York, seeking a ruling that establishes that the Auto Hop service "does not infringe any copyrights that could be claimed by the major networks, and that Dish, while providing the Auto Hop feature, remains in compliance with its agreements with the networks," the company said in a press release, according to Brian Stelter of the New York Times. They included ABC in their lawsuit, but the Disney-owned network has not yet filed any legal action against Dish Network and did not respond to Stelter's request for comment on the matter. "Dish simply does not have the authority to tamper with the ads from broadcast replays on a wholesale basis for its own economic and commercial advantage," NBCUniversal said in a statement, according to the AP. "This service takes existing network content and modifies it in a manner that is unauthorized and illegal. We believe this is a clear violation of copyright law and we intend to stop it," CBS added. "Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control," countered David Shull, Dish's senior vice president of programming. "We are giving them a feature they want and that gives them more control." "Mr. Shull said that Dish had invited the networks to talk in detail about Auto Hop after it was announced in early May. But 'in the background we heard rumors of lawsuits, so we felt we had to act here,' he said," according to Stelter. Source: Technology | 26 May 2012 | 5:57 am Geek Is In!Lee Rannals for RedOrbit.comAre you grabbing your black-rimmed glasses and curling up with an iPad to read about the latest-and-greatest the technology world has to offer? Then you might be able to hold your head a little higher knowing geeks are becoming more socially accepted across the nation. Modis released a national survey it conducted in recognition of Geek Pride Day on Friday, May 25 that offered up some interesting points of how society's perception of geeks is evolving. The survey found that just in the past year, 51 percent of Americans define geeks as professionally successful, which is a 31 percent climb compared to 2011. Modis also showed that 71 percent of survey respondents identified geeks as the go-to people when it comes to getting technology advice, versus 56 percent last year. As geeks become more socially acceptable, some may feel more apt to admit their passion for electronics and super heroes. However, there still may be a few more closet-geeks that are either unaware, or ashamed to wrap themselves up into the geek-chic category. So, seeing as how geeks are climbing up the social ladder, RedOrbit has decided to put together a small questionnaire to help you assess whether you, or a "friend", is a member of the nerdvana state of mind. Would you be more stressed out by losing the files on your computer's hard drive than going through a break up or getting the flu? If you answered yes, you just might be a geek, because according to Modis, 60 percent of your kind agree with you. Would you find it difficult to go a day without using either a smartphone, computer or MP3 player? If you say yes, then you might be normal, because the survey found that 70 percent of both self-professed geeks and geeks-in-denial admitted they would have trouble going at least a day without their electronic device. However, if you said yes with a lisp, regardless if it was caused by a retainer or not, you might be a geek. Were you one of the 1,008 Americans who decided after answering your phone that you would participate in a survey about geeks? Well you just might be a geek. Although only 17 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as geeks to Modis, 83 percent were clearly in denial, because it takes a special someone proudly wearing green lantern undies to think that would be fun. Are you aware that May 25th is not only Geek Pride day, but also coincides with the release of the first Star Wars movie? If so, you would be amazing at trivia, but you’re also a geek. Lastly, have you ever sent in a comment to RedOrbit criticizing the grammar or spelling of a feature or news article? Well, if so, you might just once again be a geek, and for that, we appreciate you! Source: Technology | 26 May 2012 | 5:47 am Apple adds Editor’s Choice and Free App of the Week categories for iOS
Apple just made some minor modifications both to its Mac App Store and iTunes App Store. For the Mac App Store, a new category called “Editor’s Choice” was added and contains selected apps which the editors deemed deserving of the spotlight on the store. Right now, there few apps being featured on the said category, and you see this being rotated on the upper portion of the Mac App Store. Some of these Mac app sinclude Coda 2, MoneyWhiz, Cobook, Deux X and more. The same goes true for the iOS App Store. The “Editor’s Choice” branding was also added and you can see it on top of the Main App Store view. Some of the apps getting the spotlight this week includes Facebook Camera, Sketchbook Ink, Extreme Skater and more. Additionally, the iOS App Store is also running an “app of the week” series with Cut the Rope: Experiments as the free offering for this week. This makes the game as the first paid app that is being offered for free, for a limited time. Obviously, Apple is taking the idea here from other app stores with the obvious one being the Amazon Appstore which regularly offers paid apps for free. Does this mean that Amazon’s strategy is paying off well? Or is Apple feeling the slump in download numbers for both Mac and iOS apps? Via [The Verge] Source: GadgeTell | 26 May 2012 | 5:07 am Crystal Composition Could Predict Volcanic EruptionsBy studying crystals formed in volcanic rock, experts may be able to predict an impending eruption up to a year in advance, researchers from the University of Bristol have discovered.According to a Thursday press release from the university, Dr. Kate Saunders and her colleagues used forensic-style chemical analysis to link seismic observations of a 1980 eruption at Mount St. Helens to the growth of crystals within the large underground pool of liquid rock beneath the volcano known as the magma chamber. Writing in the journal Science, Dr. Saunders and her associates describe how they analyzed zoned crystals, which grow concentrically (similar to tree rings) within the magma body. Different areas have subtle differences in their chemical compositions, which reflect changes in physical conditions within the chamber and serve as a possible indicator over the volcanic processes and the time frames during which they occur. "Chemical analysis of the crystals revealed evidence of pulses of magma into a growing chamber within the volcano. Peaks in crystal growth were found to correlate with increased seismicity and gas emissions in the months prior to the eruption," the Bristol University statement said. "This forensic approach can be applied to other active volcanoes to shed new light upon the nature and timescale of pre-eruptive activity. This will help scientists to evaluate monitoring signals at restless volcanoes and improve forecasting of future eruptions." Charles Q. Choi of OurAmazingPlanet explained that the researchers studied orthopyroxene crystals within rocks taken from nine different eruptions at the Washington volcano between 1980 and 1986. They discovered that the rims of those crystals typically grew within the year leading up to each eruption, and TGDaily writer Kate Taylor noted that they found a correlation between the growth of crystals that were rich in iron and magnesium and increases in seismicity and gas emissions in the months preceding an eruption. "Volcanoes tend to erupt in a similar cycle and have similar trends," Saunders told Elizabeth Lopatto of Bloomberg News during a telephone interview on Thursday. "If we can work out their behavior, it allows us to know what to look for. We can better evaluate the monitoring signals." However, she added, they had "no predictions on what might erupt soon," adding that her team planned to explore how they can link the composition of those crystals to other monitoring techniques in order to better understand volcanoes. Saunders told Bloomberg that they provide scientists with a record of a volcano's activity, and that the more they learn about the crystals, "the better we can predict eruptions." Source: Science | 26 May 2012 | 5:03 am Extinctions Drive Ongoing 'Ecological Retreat' By Surviving SpeciesBrett Smith for Redorbit.comA new study on the extinctions of species suggests that the disappearance of one species does not necessarily allow remaining competitor species to thrive by filling in the vacuum. University of Cincinnati researchers studying lemur extinctions over the past 2,000 years, found that changes in inter-species dynamics via extinction can force that remaining species to go into a so-called “ecological retreat” that may not be suited to the extant animal’s evolution. The study, published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said radiocarbon and isotope analysis from fossils of extinct lemur species showed the type of habitat in which the primates lived, what they ate, when they became extinct and whether other still-extant species vacated their environmental habitats. The UC research team, led by Brooke Crowley, was able to show that prior to extensive human interruption, lemurs inhabited the woody savannah and spiny thicket found in southwestern Madagascar. Today, the island nation’s lemurs exist primarily in protected areas of thick forest. “The reasons behind the increased reliance on densely forested habitats are uncertain, but it’s likely that low hunting and logging pressures in forest reserves are contributing factors,” said Crowley, assistant professor of anthropology and geology at the university. Interestingly, after the larger-sized lemurs that once inhabited those regions went extinct, their smaller counterparts could not fill the empty niches that were left behind. Instead, contemporary lemur species have shown increasing reliance on habitats with dense forest cover. “It’s been assumed that lemurs were in the forests because that’s where the resources that best suited them were,” Crowley said. “Our fossil analysis shows that lemur species once preferred a much wider, more distinctive habitat range, which may mean that modern lemurs prefer the densely forested areas simply because these areas offer greater protection. The forest is more of a refuge.” Crowley noted that while forested areas have had some human disturbance, the unprotected open areas where lemur species once flourished have seen even greater disturbances. In addition to the usual encroachments of civilization, the Madagascar countryside has likely seen the effects of political and military instability with the country on the brink of civil war many times during the past decade. The UC team’s findings could explain why some other researchers previously reported finding inconsistencies between the extant lemur species’ anatomy and their observed behavior in the dense forest environments. These mismatches could be indications that today’s lemurs are in retreat and at greater risk because they are not living in their preferred habitats. “In other words,” explained Crowley, “We now have long-term historical data, a broadened historical perspective indicating that what lemurs are doing today – preferring densely forested areas – is not representative of their ecological niche over past millennia. That’s an indication that we need to rethink our assumptions on their current habitat choices and on our own conservation efforts. And this form of historically informed research can also be applied to other locales and animals to benefit threatened species.” Crowley laid the groundwork for this study with her previous research involving radioactive isotope techniques and applications in the course of primate study. Her findings were published last year in the International Journal of Primatology. Source: Science | 26 May 2012 | 4:51 am 'Trapped Rainbow' Effect Demonstrated By Invisibility Cloak ArrayResearchers from the Towson University and University of Maryland announced on Friday that they had essentially trapped a rainbow, assembling an array consisting of over 25,000 miniature invisibility cloaks to slow light to a near halt.The invisibility cloak array, which lead author Dr. Vera Smolyaninova and colleagues describe in the latest edition of the Institute of Physics' and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, is the first device of its kind and is comprised of cloaks that are just 30 micrometers in diameter and arranged on a 25 millimeter gold sheet, the IOP announced in a May 25 press release. Smolyaninova's team began with a commercially available micro-lens array, coated it with a thin film of gold, and then placed it on a flat, gold-coated sheet of glass, BBC News explained. As the light came in from one side, it went through each of the lenses, forming a small cloaked region in the center of each one -- all but slowing the light to a stop. One of the primary goals of the study, according to what Smolyaninova told the IOP's PhysicsWorld.com website said, was to gauge how numerous invisibility cloaks affected each other, and how the proximity of each alters the path of light across the array. They discovered that the cloaks worked well when light was shone across the microcloak rows, certain angles or flaws in the array's symmetrical design resulted in shadows and imperfections to become noticeable. "An interesting application for this cloak array could be in the field of biosensors that identify materials using fluorescence spectroscopy -- identification based on the amount of light absorbed and then emitted by the material," the IOP said. "Also, as slow light has a stronger interaction with molecules than light travelling at normal speeds, a more detailed analysis is possible. This means that it may, in theory, be possible to use this technology to build a biochip that has numerous sensors that perform tasks simultaneously." "In our array, light is stopped at the boundary of each of the cloaks, meaning we observe the trapped rainbow at the edge of each cloak. This means we could do 'spectroscopy-on-a-chip' and examine fluorescence at thousands of points all in one go," added Smolyaninova. Furthermore, she said that they could use it to "test for multiple genetic conditions in a person's DNA in just one go. You could possibly attach different dyes to different conditions and then look for them together." According to the BBC, researchers from the University of Surrey and the University of Salford first predicted the "trapped rainbow" effect in November 2007 in the journal Nature. Ortwin Hess, one of the authors of that study, told the British news organization that the work was "encouraging and exciting… When coming up with that general concept of the trapped rainbow, it seemed to be a very fundamental effect and have wide application. So taking this forward to the experimental stage is a very nice thing to see." Source: Technology | 26 May 2012 | 4:42 am Programming In GoDerek Walter for RedOrbit.comGoogle’s programming language, Go, reached a major milestone recently, graduating to version 1.0 (the team behind the project has dubbed it Go 1). Those looking to dive into programming in Go have two new books to consider: "Programming in Go: Creating Applications for the 21st Century" by Mark Summerfield, and its companion "The Go Programming Language Phrasebook" by David Chisnall. Both are developers who have authored other books on programming. Go is the work of an internal Google project that began in 2007. Three years ago it went open source, with ongoing development from the original Google team and other contributors. It seeks to be a computer language built for the 21st century, focusing on efficiency for large-scale applications. Given its ambitious mission, author Summerfield has written the book for those with programming experience in other languages that wish to also add Go to their repertoire. Those coming to Go should have some experience with C, C++, Java, Python, or another similar language. This is not one of those books that someone can pick up and expect to start coding with no background. However, those with a strong background will be able to pick it up and get started on a series of projects right away. Given this, the several examples of live code are highly useful. This is the strongest feature of both the main text and phrasebook (although there are less in the latter). Yet in both there are plenty of snippets that will help readers code in their own examples or variations to be sure they have mastered the specific lesson or project they are working on. The phrasebook is a useful supplement, providing with it many hints and tricks for those who may need additional guidance with variables, strings, or arrays and slices. There are also several screen shots of snippets of code to further explain the lessons. In a release, publisher informIT said the book would be useful for: - Quickly getting and installing Go, and building and running Go programs - Exploring Go’s syntax, features, and extensive standard library - Programming Boolean values, expressions, and numeric types - Creating, comparing, indexing, slicing, and formatting strings - Understanding Go’s highly efficient built-in collection types: slices and maps - Using Go as a procedural programming language - Discovering Go’s unusual and flexible approach to object orientation - Mastering Go’s unique, simple, and natural approach to fine-grained concurrency - Reading and writing binary, text, JSON, and XML files - Importing and using standard library packages, custom packages, and third-party packages - Creating, documenting, unit testing, and benchmarking custom packages Programming with Go is for those that want to be on the verge of something new. As a new programming language, it carries the excitement of pioneering a different concept, yet the uncertainty of how it will turn out in the future. Source: Technology | 26 May 2012 | 4:21 am Augmented Reality: T(ether) from MIT*Well, the ergonomics of pads and gloves are gonna need a lot of work... At the very least somebody in the AR biz needs to come up with a rubber clip-on pad-holder you can securely slip your hand through, instead of sweatily holding an expensive fragile windowpane at arm's length. *But look at that! ...Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2012 | 12:43 am GeekWire Radio: Inside the world of pinballWe get to explore one of our favorite activities on this week’s GeekWire radio show and podcast, talking in the studio with a pinball competitor and a pinball collector representing the upcoming Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show in Seattle. Joining us are Dan Halligan, who has been collecting pinball and arcade games for 15 years as a hobby; and Linda Nasfell, who been playing pinball since she was a teenager and is regarded as one of the best in the Northwest. We talk about subjects including the resurgence of pinball, what Dan and Linda love about the game, what to look for if you start collecting, and strategies for getting the high score on the machine at your neighborhood bar or arcade. The conversation starts around 13:00 in the show above. It’s preceded by our weekly news roundup, covering topics including Amazon’s shareholder meeting; a new app that lets you pay for a haircut with PayPal by checking in to the barber shop; another app that turns your marriage into a game; a plan to create an urban garden on top of a Microsoft parking garage, and the state of Facebook’s stock one week after its initial public offering. Our App of the Week is Facebook Camera, a new way of sharing photos on the social network. Also listen for the answer to last week’s Name that Tech Tune challenge, and a new installment. Listen to the show above or directly via this MP3 file. GeekWire airs at 7 a.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday on 97.3 KIRO-FM in Seattle, and runs every weekend on GeekWire.com. Source: GeekWire | 26 May 2012 | 12:39 am Name that Tech Tune: Do you know this pinball machine?
The soundtrack is from a specific pinball game. Your challenge is to name the game. From the pool of correct answers, we’ll pick one person at random to win a pair of tickets to the upcoming Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show, coming up June 8-10 at Seattle Center. Here’s the track. If you know the answer, send it to contest@geekwire.com. Name that Tech Tune is a regular feature of the GeekWire radio show and podcast, airing at 7 a.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday on 97.3 KIRO-FM in Seattle, and running weekends on GeekWire.com. Our guests are two people representing the pinball show — a pinball machine collector and a competitive pinball player. We picked a portion of the soundtrack that doesn’t have a lot of defining characteristics, so you really have to know your pinball to get this one. Send your entry to contest@geekwire.com. Look or listen for the answer next week, and thanks for playing! The answer to last week’s challenge was the incoming message sound on Facebook. We’ve updated last week’s post with the name of the winner. Source: GeekWire | 25 May 2012 | 11:46 pm Sweating The Small Stuff: Sotheby’s Selling Original Steve Jobs Note About Atari Circuit Improvements The auction house Sotheby’s is selling an official memo from Steve Jobs to Atari about improving the World Cup Football game. The pages – stamped and signed by Jobs himself – describe circuit diagrams and paddle layouts. Delightfully, the stamp says “All-One Farm Design” and features a Buddhist mantra, “gate gate paragate parasangate bodhi svahdl.” As you do. If you’re thinking of picking this up you’d best have about $10,000 to $15,000 handy – although bidding could get fierce. Quoth MacWorld: This is the earliest know documentation produced by Steve Jobs and predates the founding of Apple computer by almost two years. No other documents from Steve Jobs time at Atari are known to exist. Sotheby’s sold another Steve Jobs document in December, 2011 for $1.6 million. If you’re really feeling spendy, you can plop down $180,000 on an original Apple I circuit board, presumably in mint condition. Get cracking and don’t forget: Sabbe satta sukhi hontu. Click to view slideshow.Source: TechCrunch | 25 May 2012 | 10:55 pm Sweating The Small Stuff: Sotheby’s Selling Original Steve Jobs Note About Atari Circuit ImprovementsThe auction house Sotheby’s is selling an official memo from Steve Jobs to Atari about improving the World Cup Football game. The pages – stamped and signed by Jobs himself – describe circuit diagrams and paddle layouts. Delightfully, the stamp says “All-One Farm Design” and features a Buddhist mantra, “gate gate paragate parasangate bodhi svahdl.” As you do. If you’re thinking of picking this up you’d best have about $10,000 to $15,000 handy – although bidding could get fierce. Quoth MacWorld: This is the earliest know documentation produced by Steve Jobs and predates the founding of Apple computer by almost two years. No other documents from Steve Jobs time at Atari are known to exist. Sotheby’s sold another Steve Jobs document in December, 2011 for $1.6 million. If you’re really feeling spendy, you can plop down $180,000 on an original Apple I circuit board, presumably in mint condition. Get cracking and don’t forget: Sabbe satta sukhi hontu. Click to view slideshow.Source: TechCrunch » Gadgets | 25 May 2012 | 10:55 pm Netflix says it single-handedly increased Mad Men audience by one millionThe most recent season premiere for the AMC series Mad Men brought in a whopping 3.5 million viewers. That’s not too shabby for a basic cable show, especially when you compare it to last year’s season opener. That episode pulled in around 2.3 million viewers. So what’s the reason behind that explosive growth? If you believe Ted Sarandos, then it’s almost exclusively thanks to Netflix.
Of course, Sarandos happens to be the chief content officer for Netflix so his opinion may be a bit biased. In a presentation at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association convention in Los Angeles, Sarandos told an audience, “We brought maybe a million viewers to AMC.” There’s no doubt that “the Netflix effect” can have an impact on a show’s popularity, but can it be this profound? Mad Men is one of those shows that has managed to generate a lot of word-of-mouth virality. Netflix is the perfect catalyst for that. Netflix is proving that it can be effective not only as a content distributor but as a content creator as well. Its strongest strategy to differentiate itself right now is the addition of original programming like House of Cards and Lillyhammer. [via LA Times] Netflix says it single-handedly increased Mad Men audience by one million is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 25 May 2012 | 10:36 pm A Google-a-Day Puzzle for May 26Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 May 2012 | 10:01 pm 3D printed, pre-assembled robot hand
The underlying hand is printed as a single, assembled piece with all mechanisms in place.
Anthromod (Shapeways)
(Thanks, Chris!)
Atlus Demon’s Souls servers will live after allThe North American servers for Atlus’s game Demon’s Souls will not shut down next week as previously announced. Instead, the company says it will continue to support online play for the niche PS3 game. Atlus is known for publishing games that no other company would dare bring to the US because they are very niche and appeal only to a small base of fans of Japanese RPGs.
“We’re incredibly excited to be able to announce that the Demon’s Souls online experience will persist for a while longer. While it originally seemed as though it would be unfeasible for us to continue to sustain the servers, a number of developments have made it possible for us to continue to invest in and support our fans as they have continued to invest in and support us and Demon’s Souls,” said Atlus VP Tim Pivicny. The company had previously announced that it would shut down its servers in North America at the end of the month, May 31. “For all the gamers who have yet to discover the game’s amazing online experience, we’re happy to say you can still log on and find out why Demon’s Souls is still regarded by many as one of the finest games of all time,” Pivicny said. [via CVG] Atlus Demon’s Souls servers will live after all is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 25 May 2012 | 9:12 pm RepRap 3D printer can print a RepRap 3D printer, sort ofA student at Virginia Commonwealth University wants to bring the reality an idea that 3D printing enthusiasts have so far only dreamed about – printing all the necessary parts for a 3D printer, with a 3D printer. Of course we are not talking about various electronics and hardware needed to actually give the thing its power, but if a few electronic components are the only things you have to buy, 3D printing could be much more accessible.
The student, who only refers to himself as Ken on his Kickstarter page, is looking to buy an open-source printer known as the RepRap for his project. “Anyone that has a Reprap can make the parts for another. Right now only a few dozen people around the world are participating in the project the way it was intended. I seek to help the Reprap project by building my Reprap quickly and begin printing more parts for others to build their own machine,” he writes. 3D printing is making inroads not just in consumer applications but also for business, for medicine, and for third-world countries where resources are much more scarce. Everything from glasses to bikinis to coasters to artifical bones to guitars (need we continue?) has been successfully printed from a 3D printer. It’s fascinating to watch this next evolution in scientific advancement. [via PC World] RepRap 3D printer can print a RepRap 3D printer, sort of is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved. Source: SlashGear | 25 May 2012 | 8:52 pm Apple Responds To DOJ eBook Lawsuit, Calls it “Fundamentally Flawed” and “Absurd” Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Apple and a number of other large U.S. publishers of conspiring to fix eBook prices and filed an antitrust lawsuit. While most of the publishers quickly settled the lawsuit, Apple decided to fight. Earlier this week, as Ars Technica reports today, Apple responded (PDF) to the government’s accusations. Apple doesn’t mince words in its response. The company’s lawyers call the case against Apple “fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law” and say that the idea that Apple tried to reduce competition and fix prices is “absurd.” In its complaint, the U.S. government said Apple and publishers like Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin and Macmillan, who favor the so-called agency model which allows publishers to set their own eBook price, were colluding to fix eBook prices in their fight against Amazon, which favors a wholesale model that gives it the power to set the price of the eBooks it sells. The DoJ alleges that Apple and the other publishers conspired to eliminate competition in the eBook retail market. Apple, however, argues that the government “sides with monopoly, rather than competition, in bringing this case. The Government starts from the false premise that an eBooks ‘market’ was characterized by ‘robust price competition’ prior to Apple’s entry.” Before the iBookstore, Apple says, “there was no real competition, there was only Amazon.” Apple says its entry in the market benefited consumers, as it brought is challenging Amazon and provided consumers with choice and “innovative features, such as color pictures, audio and video, the read and listen feature, and fixed display.” The company also argues that it is giving more power to the publishers and especially to self-publishing and smaller publishing houses. Throughout the document, Apple accuses the government of selectively quoting Steve Jobs from Walter Isaacson’s biography (“The Government’s selective citation to hearsay from a small portion of Apple’s former CEO’s biography is irrelevant and has no place in this litigation.”). . Source: TechCrunch | 25 May 2012 | 5:55 pm Bump can now transport pictures to your computer
The Bump app for iOS and Android received an update today that is so neat, it’s hard to not call it magic. We’ve all gotten used to how Bump can transfer images from one phone to another by simply bumping the two together, but Bump can also send photos to your computer instantly. It’s really impressive once you try it for yourself.The only thing you have to do is download Bump on your phone, visit bu.mp in your web browser, select the photo(s) you want to share and bump your phone against the spacebar on your keyboard. Once you do that, the app will ask for confirmation and display the image on your screen. It works really fast too. The reality is there is no real magic being done here. Bump requires you share your geographical location on your computer and the phone for this to work. That’s how it determines which two devices are linked. You also don’t have to literally bump your phone against the spacebar. You’ll get the same results by flicking your phone and pressing the spacebar at the same time. Revealing the man behind the curtain takes some of the thrill out, but this is still a nice feature to have. Site [Bump] Source: GadgeTell | 25 May 2012 | 5:26 pm Steampunk bicycle from Roger Wood
HP: Our WebOS Team Is NOT Leaving For GoogleHP has confirmed that it has lost some "key members" of the team overseeing Enyo, a framework for developing HTML5 applications that grew up alongside the company's ill-fated webOS mobile operating system. But it also says that a majority of the Enyo engineering and leadership team remains in place, contradicting a story that was splashed across the net on Friday.Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 May 2012 | 4:48 pm Cisco Rebranding Cius Tablet as the Seeya
Cisco today said it is curtailing further investment in Cius, which announced in June of 2010 as an enterprise rival to Apple’s iPad. “Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what’s available today,” OJ Winge, Cisco’s senior vice president of the TelePresence Technology Group, said in a blog post. “However, as we evaluate the market further, we will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases.” Evidently, the Cius didn’t prove to be much of a rival to anything. And with the “consumerization of IT” taking off in enterprise and more companies embracing Bring-Your-Own-Device programs for their employees, the device was just never able to gain any momentum. Realistically, it was probably doomed from the start. By the time Cisco managed to get Cius to market, a large percentage of the Fortune 500 and Global 500 were already testing or deploying the iPad. Effectively, the niche it was intended to address had been filled. And so Cius will now be quietly laid to rest in the company graveyard, next to Umi, Cisco’s ill-starred consumer TelePresence product, and the much-loved Flip pocket video camera. Source: AllThingsD | 25 May 2012 | 4:13 pm Windows 8 Dev Kit Only Does Metro Apps (Unless You Pay)Microsoft has said that the upcoming free version of its new Visual Studio 11 programming kit will only be used to build Windows applications with the new Metro touch interface that debuts with Windows 8. And some developers aren't too happy about it. Those wishing to build traditional desktop apps for Microsoft's Windows operating system will ...Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 May 2012 | 3:59 pm Is Google or PayPal Leading the Charge in Mobile Payments?PayPal made a big splash yesterday, saying that it now has commitments from 16 major retailers to roll out PayPal at the register.
Meanwhile, tomorrow will be exactly a year since Google launched its mobile wallet. So, you ask, which large technology company is winning the race to gain the hearts and wallets of consumers and retailers? Pretty clearly, it’s neither. Google may have gotten off the blocks first, but ever since, it has been plagued by execution issues and management departures. In contrast, PayPal has a lot of institutional advantages, but it still has a long way to go before it is synonymous with Visa or MasterCard. Here’s just a snapshot of the two companies’ advantages and disadvantages: Google: Pros: It has relationships with 25 national retailers, totaling 140,000 locations. Cons: It bet too early on using near field communication technology. Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier, is the only provider so far that is backing it and it’s deployed on only six Android devices. PayPal: Pros: There are 110 million people using PayPal worldwide, who are on track to spend a record $7 billion in mobile payments this year using PayPal on the phone. Cons: The company is expecting to deploy with 20 retailers by year’s end, but based on the 16 retailers announced yesterday, I calculated that it has access to about 16,000 U.S. locations (far fewer than Google Wallet). That does not include the thousands of locations that those 50,000 small- to medium-sized retailers would contribute if they signed up for it. Clearly, it is still early days. And when you look at the broader market opportunity, the race is not just between Google and PayPal. All of the incumbents, including American Express, MasterCard and Visa, have announced digital wallet strategies. And then there are the start-ups, such as Square, which is seeking a $4 billion valuation in its next funding round. There are two points to be made on the debate between PayPal vs. Google Wallet that can’t be stressed enough: PayPal has the user base, and it has the technology with the lowest barriers to entry.
In an interview, PayPal President David Marcus acknowledged there’s a chicken and egg problem: Without a lot of locations, there won’t be a lot of consumers using it. But this year is about learning and testing, he said, and next year, “it will be about iterating and full-on execution.” If you asked the folks at Google, I’m sure they would agree. A Google spokesperson declined to comment for this story, but already, there are signs that Google has learned a lot and has started to pivot. Rick Oglesby, a senior analyst with Aite Group, believes that Google is distancing itself from NFC and from being the merchant of record. “I think they will follow the path of least resistance, because for them, it’s not about payments — it’s about advertising,” he said. “It’s about pay-for-performance marketing. Just like how they get paid for a click-through on the Web, they want to get paid when you walk through the door — but no one is monitoring that.” Last month, Google purchased TxVia, a little-known payments technology company, another sign that it’s changing directions. Tony Felice, a senior digital strategist for Vladimir Jones, who worked with TxVia at his former job at Red Door Interactive, said TxVia and Google Wallet together can be very powerful. He said TxVia has all the banking relationships, which will help enable payments, gift cards and other services, and also has the ability to produce analytics about what consumers are doing and spending money on. “Together, they will be able to get a 360-degree picture from the moment of truth to purchase,” he said. “In order to do that, you have to pull in disparate sources and synthesize it in a single place. The transactional data from TxVia is just one piece of a puzzle.” Oglesby said despite Google’s hiccups, it’s not yet out of the race. “It’s been a slow-growing situation, and there’s been big turnover on the executive team, but they are reassessing the situation and have made an acquisition,” he said. “I wouldn’t say they’ve screwed up because no one has run way ahead of them. They were leading the market, and tried an approach, and now there’s other approaches for them to try.” Source: AllThingsD | 25 May 2012 | 3:30 pm How Dell Moved an Exec Across Texas for Only $9,655 a Mile
Among the items worthy of note:
More at Footnoted.org. Source: AllThingsD | 25 May 2012 | 3:13 pm Suing Facebook? Best of Luck.By Wednesday, after just three days of trading, several lawsuits had been filed against Facebook complaining about the adequacy of its prospectus disclosure. However, at least so far, there is no indication that anything is wrong with that prospectus. It is true that much has been made (including by me) of reported changes made by certain research analysts in their estimates of future performance. Let’s come back to that after we look at the facts on the prospectus. Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: AllThingsD | 25 May 2012 | 2:44 pm Zillow engineer killed by stray bullet in Seattle’s Central DistrictThe victim of a shooting in Seattle’s Central District Thursday has been identified as Justin Ferrari, a father of two who worked for the past three months as a software engineer at Zillow. “We at Zillow were deeply saddened to learn about this tragedy,” the company said in a statement this afternoon. “Justin began working at Zillow on the mobile development team three months ago, and worked at Expedia and Microsoft for many years before that. His passing will be felt deeply by his co-workers and friends. Our hearts go out to his family.” Ferrari also previously worked at Cisco Systems, Pure Networks and ViAir. KIRO TV reports that Ferrari was killed Thursday at about 4:30 p.m. when a bullet entered the minivan he was driving. The bullet was fired as part of a dispute in the neighborhood, and was not intended for the car which just happened to be passing by. Ferrari’s parents and children, aged five and seven, also were in the vehicle, according to KIRO TV. The shooter is still at large, and police are asking for assistance in tracking the suspect down. Those with information about the shooting should call 911. Here’s the report from our media partner KING 5.
Source: GeekWire | 25 May 2012 | 2:30 pm Exclusive: Hands-On With BMW's Most Advanced Infotainment System? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1656904524001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences(); BMW has released details on its refreshed 2013 7 Series flagship before it goes on sale late this summer. But while the new drivetrains, mildly updated exterior and reworked interior are nice, what's more impressive is the latest iteration of BMW iDrive. And we've ...Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 May 2012 | 2:30 pm Van Jacobson Denies Averting Internet Meltdown in 1980sAll Van Jacobson wanted to do was upload a few documents to the internet. Unfortunately, it was 1985.Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 May 2012 | 2:19 pm TinyTap App Lets Kids Create Customized iPad Books & Games TinyTap is a new iPad application designed for kids which introduces a different angle on the “record-your-own-voice” storybooks craze, by offering a playable book or game you and your kids can customize with your own photos, camera shots, music, narration, and more. The resulting creations can then be shared with family and friends. And, for a little inspiration, the built-in TinyTap store offers a collection of pre-made games which kids can customize with their own voice and actions. The app is targeted at 4+ and up, so I couldn’t really enlist my in-house kid app beta tester (aka my 2-year old kid) to give it a rundown. But in testing it myself, I have to admit that I’m not 100% convinced they’ve nailed it on the user interface. For example, some of things you can add to your story, like photos and questions, are centered as thumbnails within the application’s design dashboard. Meanwhile, the add music option is oddly hovering above next to another add photo button, the sharing option and an edit button. It’s a layout that doesn’t quite make sense. That’s too bad because if TinyTap’s workflow was more streamlined and simplified, it would be easier for them to add additional elements to the story/game design process. That being said, TinyTap is still a lot better than much of the kids’ apps crapware out there in the iTunes App Store. And it’s hard not to fall in love with the concept at the very least. Instead of burning up brain cells with the mind-numbing games out there, TinyTap enables kids to become game creators, not just players. The idea immediately reminded me of Kodu, Microsoft’s visual programming language for kids, which allows them to create PC and Xbox games – and more importantly, helps them to start thinking like a programmer. But Kodu is not only for different types of platforms, it’s for a slightly older child, too. The bigger concept with TinyTap is that it could potentially become an entry-level tool for game development, which starts kids young, allowing them to wrap their little minds around the “if/then/else” concepts that go into process of game creation. The building blocks are already there: e.g., if you touch the nose in the picture when asked, you’re right and can go to the next question, but if you get it wrong, the game says “try again.” There are a ton of DIY app building tools for adults, so it’s great to see someone thinking about building a platform for kids, too. TinyTap is an Israeli-based company, co-founded in January 2012 by UX designers Yogev Shelly (formerly of Rounds.com) and another (who can’t disclose his name right now, as he’s still employed elsewhere). The team is based in Tel-Aviv and is currently looking to raise. The app is a free download in iTunes here. Source: TechCrunch | 25 May 2012 | 2:15 pm TinyTap App Lets Kids Create Customized iPad Books & GamesTinyTap is a new iPad application designed for kids which introduces a different angle on the “record-your-own-voice” storybooks craze, by offering a playable book or game you and your kids can customize with your own photos, camera shots, music, narration, and more. The resulting creations can then be shared with family and friends. And, for a little inspiration, the built-in TinyTap store offers a collection of pre-made games which kids can customize with their own voice and actions. The app is targeted at 4+ and up, so I couldn’t really enlist my in-house kid app beta tester (aka my 2-year old kid) to give it a rundown. But in testing it myself, I have to admit that I’m not 100% convinced they’ve nailed it on the user interface. For example, some of things you can add to your story, like photos and questions, are centered as thumbnails within the application’s design dashboard. Meanwhile, the add music option is oddly hovering above next to another add photo button, the sharing option and an edit button. It’s a layout that doesn’t quite make sense. That’s too bad because if TinyTap’s workflow was more streamlined and simplified, it would be easier for them to add additional elements to the story/game design process. That being said, TinyTap is still a lot better than much of the kids’ apps crapware out there in the iTunes App Store. And it’s hard not to fall in love with the concept at the very least. Instead of burning up brain cells with the mind-numbing games out there, TinyTap enables kids to become game creators, not just players. The idea immediately reminded me of Kodu, Microsoft’s visual programming language for kids, which allows them to create PC and Xbox games – and more importantly, helps them to start thinking like a programmer. But Kodu is not only for different types of platforms, it’s for a slightly older child, too. The bigger concept with TinyTap is that it could potentially become an entry-level tool for game development, which starts kids young, allowing them to wrap their little minds around the “if/then/else” concepts that go into process of game creation. The building blocks are already there: e.g., if you touch the nose in the picture when asked, you’re right and can go to the next question, but if you get it wrong, the game says “try again.” There are a ton of DIY app building tools for adults, so it’s great to see someone thinking about building a platform for kids, too. TinyTap is an Israeli-based company, co-founded in January 2012 by UX designers Yogev Shelly (formerly of Rounds.com) and another (who can’t disclose his name right now, as he’s still employed elsewhere). The team is based in Tel-Aviv and is currently looking to raise. The app is a free download in iTunes here. Source: TechCrunch » Mobile | 25 May 2012 | 2:15 pm | ||||
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Additionally, it said it is partnering with four software providers to gain access to 50,000 small- to medium-sized merchants.
In theory, if a consumer has signed up for the service from their PayPal account, they will be able to conduct a transaction using their mobile phone number and PIN – without changing carriers or phones. Likewise, merchants won’t have to upgrade their point-of-sale hardware.