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The Best GIFs and Memes From the World Cup So Far
In honor of the U.S. team's big match against Germany today, we decided to collect some of our favorite GIFs and memes from the World Cup so far. Check them out here.
Science Graphic of the Week: A Psychedelic Gravity Map of the Moon’s Surface
If your eyes had the ability to see gravity, this is the view you'd get while flying over the moon. The beautiful image above shows the most detailed gravity field map ever created for any body in the solar system, including the Earth.
These Cute Little Drones Could 3-D Print a House
These clever bots display a very different approach than other massive-scale 3-D printers.
Three Sneaky Ways Google Wins With Android Auto
Android Auto will be good for customers. It will also give Google an edge over automakers and help it develop self-driving cars.
A Visual Tour of the New Android Watches
Google finally showed off Android Wear at Google I/O this week. Here are the wearable platform's seven most exciting features.
Moto 360 design contest yields a possible new face
The Android Wear smartwatches may have already been officially announced, but Motorola seems to be not yet ready to go to market. In fact, it has just announced the winner of its watch face design contest, which could be featured on the smartwatch when it does launch. The contest itself wasn't exactly a high-profile one, but it skyrocketed into the … Continue reading
Nikon D810 DSLR: 36-megapixels and FX-format sensor
Nikon has introduced the D810 DSLR, boasting that its latest offering brings "the sharpest, best image quality" in the camera maker's history. An FX-format CMOS sensor and EXPEED 4 image processor come in tow, as well as a slew of features like improved sound recording and water/dust resistance. According to the camera maker, this is the first DSLR in the … Continue reading
Google and Samsung to bring KNOX security to Android L
Samsung may be seen as the black sheep of the Android OEM family, but this latest partnership shows it is still in Google's graces. The two will be working together to bring Samsung's KNOX security framework to all of Android land by the time the next "Android L" version hits devices. The reasons for such a venture is almost too … Continue reading
Hotel Tonight’s upcoming feature will use smartphone as room key
Hotels have been slowly shifting to accommodate our mobile world -- CitizenM is a prime example -- and with the Hotel Tonight app, Android users are poised to gain two exceptionally handy features: the ability to skip in-person check-ins, and to use one's smartphone as a room key, avoiding those pesky magnetized cards altogether. Hotel Tonight is a mobile service … Continue reading
Google Drive gets massive update and business edition
Google continues to edge out Microsoft it what could be the latter's remaining bastion. With a batch of announcements about Google Drive, the search giant is offering more reasons for users to switch to its cloud and to ditch the once-popular Office suite, whether for personal use or for the enterprise. First up is something for Android users and soon … Continue reading
Tappy Chicken: an open mobile game showcasing Unreal Engine 4
Epic Games has created what turns out to be the first Unreal Engine 4 game released for Android and iOS: Tappy Chicken, a Flappy Bird knock-off. The game is open for anyone interested in the platform to mess around with, with the related code being available on the Unreal Engine website. The game, showcased in a commentary video on Unreal … Continue reading
Jabra Stealth Bluetooth headset is made to be deceptive
A phrase like "small but terrible" comes to mind when looking at the Jabra Stealth. While this Bluetooth headset looks small and frail, the audio equipment maker promises that it can blast your eardrums just as well as larger and more obnoxious ones in the market, including its own older brothers. Mono-ear Bluetooth headsets are on the rise again, in … Continue reading
Nocs NS2 Air Monitors bring AirPlay, Spotify Connect
The folks at Nocs have rolled out the red carpet for a new line of wireless speakers, the NS2 Air Monitors. With this latest audio offering comes, among other things, support for AirPlay and Spotify Connect, as well as options that span a rainbow of colors. The new speakers, introduced today, offers users the ability to stream music using Bluetooth, … Continue reading
Toyota FCV Sedan gets a photo op, launch date and price
Last year, we came across Toyota's "eco-friendly" car, a hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle (FCV) that was set to launch 2014. It's 2014 now, and the car maker is unveiling this FCV's shiny exterior to the public and announcing how much it will cost Japanese buyers to get one when it does really launch next year. Toyota says that it has … Continue reading
Apple updates the iPod Touch lineup, with price cuts across the board and a new 16GB model
There’s a new iPod Touch available for sale on Apple’s online store. Apple announced a new, $199 iPod Touch model with 16GB of internal storage Thursday morning. Previously, the low-end iPod Touch cost $230, and unlike the current (fifth-generation) iPod Touch lineup, the low-end model lacked a rear camera and only came in two colors, black and silver. It was a bit of an odd duck. The new model comes in all five colors and has a rear camera — it is the same as the current generation 32GB and 64GB models, but with less storage space and a little bit cheaper.
The other two iPod Touch models in the fifth-generation lineup also got price cuts: the 32GB model now costs $250, as opposed to $300, and the 64GB model got a full $100 cut down to $300. As 9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub points out, this is the first time that Apple’s broken from its traditional $100 charge to double storage on an iOS device. For instance, on a two-year contract, a 16GB iPhone costs $200, and to bump up to 32GB would be $100 more. This iPod Touch price cut breaks from that model.
Combined with recent rumors that Apple might be planning to use 128GB storage space as a featured differentiator for the larger iPhone supposedly coming out this fall, and that the newest iPhone could start at 32GB of internal storage at minimum, it does appear that Apple might be planning to reevaluate its iOS internal storage pricing.
Although there is no natural Android competitor to the iPod touch, recently, low-end phones like the Moto G and Moto E have started offering similar feature sets at competitive prices, in addition to the capability to add phone service. The iPod Touch last got a redesign in October 2012.
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Foodie video startup Tastemade raises $25M, releases Android app
Los Angeles-based online video startup Tastemade wants to become the digital Food Network, and it just got another major cash injection to make that happen: Tastemade raised a $25 million Series C from Scripps Networks Interactive and Liberty Media, with existing investors Redpoint Ventures, Raine Ventures and Comcast Ventures also chipping in, bringing the total amount raised to date to $40 million. And to reach the other half of the mobile world, Tastemade is also launching its app on Android.
The launch of the Android app, which will exclusively available on Samsung phones for the first three months, comes after Tastemade debuted an iPhone app a little less than a year ago. The company's mobile apps allow food bloggers and other foodies to record brief restaurant video reviews that are spiced up with thematic background music and a basic script that turns rants and raves into professional-looking clips.
Tastemade is also producing professional shows around food in its own studio, which are being distributed on Hulu, YouTube and elsewhere. And it operates what's known to YouTube video publishers as a multi-channel network, helping producers of food-related content to find audiences and monetize their videos on YouTube. With that network, Tastemade now reaches 18 million monthly active users who view 100 million videos a month. "We continue to have a lot of success on YouTube," said Tastemade co-founder Larry Fitzgibbon during an interview earlier this week.
I asked Fitzgibbon if one of those three areas will eventually become Tastemade's core business, but he said that all of them are essential, arguing that if you want to build a modern media company, you need all of it: original content production, distribution and audience engagement.
And with technology advancing, the line between audience and creators is getting increasingly blurry. Fitzgibbon told me that his company has started to mine content produced with Tastemade's apps for talent that could produce longer and more professional content. And even those short clips are starting to look better: "You can now shoot in really high-quality HD," with ordinary camera phones, said Fitzgibbon, adding: "It looks beautiful on a TV."
Buffer’s Daily app is a “Tinder for news” that makes you look smart on Twitter
Buffer’s link suggestion algorithms power its new iOS app, Daily. Marketed as a “Tinder for news,” users can quickly sift through Buffer’s link suggestions, swiping left to trash and right to load into Buffer for Twitter as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. There isn’t much tweeted beyond a link to news — Buffer picks out content in areas like Marketing and Design — and the odd standalone quote, with no opportunity to actually edit the material before it goes out. However, the app’s lightweight interface makes it easy to find raw material to share to social networks quickly, helping you sound smart and relatively well-informed.
It’s hard to tell whether Daily provides a diverse enough set of content from the get-go to really capture people who don’t normally share content in the business, tech, or design world, but it could certainly help Twitter power users surface content and share links when nothing strikes them organically.
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Sponsored post: Secure file sync, share and store in the age of bring your own app
As you may know, the consumerization of IT continues to surge, and IT departments must continue to adapt. According to LogMeIn's recent survey, more than 70 percent of end-user employees use sync, share and store apps at work. However, more than 50 percent of the time, end users do not inform IT of their decision. That means your corporate data may be at risk.
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Want to build beacons into your business? Read this first
Apple’s iBeacons have set off a rush of excitement in the retail and advertising industry with promises of being able to pinpoint the consumer at the exact moment they are in a store contemplating a purchase. You can send someone in the shoe aisle a coupon for shoes! Or socks! You could send a coupon to a shopper as they walk by your store (a trope we’ve seen in location-based advertising since 2004 at least).
However, not only would this irritate most consumers, it’s also ignoring both the benefits and challenges of implementing beacons in business settings. Like any enabling tool, beacons can offer a lot more information that mere coupons and understanding how to deploy them properly is way more complicated than the average person imagines.
Bryan Menell, the CEO of Mahana, an Austin, Texas company building business rules software for Beacons, recently shared some of the lessons he and Mahana’s customers have learned in the last year as part of various trials of beacons.
Beacons are chatty: Beacons work by constantly pinging devices around them and sharing information. It’s the equivalent of someone begging on the street. They ask everyone, but may only carry out a few transactions. Still, even a few beacons can generate a lot of data in the form of each ask, Menell said. For example, a two-day conference with only six beacons generated 8,800 separate transactions.
Beacons are power hogs: There are both wired beacons and those that are battery operated. But so far, Menell said, the battery-operated Beacons aren’t good for anything except temporary installations because it’s a pain to change out batteries ever few months. I’ve spoken to several chip firms that are trying to offer better components and radios to solve this problem, but for now, Menell thinks wired is the way to go for a permanent installation. Light fixtures are a good place.
ByteLight’s light-field communications reader (source: ByteLight)
The notifications aren’t the only value of a beacon: While grabbing data and sending information to a person when they hit a beacon makes sense, businesses can do more. Much like physicists are obsessed with dark matter, businesses should obsess over the information you can glean from a unique individual passing between beacons. “When someone hits a beacon outside your store and later turns up inside the store, understanding how long it took to draw them in or their path to get inside is valuable,” said Menell.
Beacons are vulnerable: Because wireless signals are prone to interference, there’s a learning curve that comes into play when installing beacons. You’ll have to figure out where to place them so you get the best signal strength, but also so they track the right kind of traffic and can’t be interfered with. Many businesses tend to place beacons in ceilings so they can be wired to power and aren’t accessible for employees or passersby to move around or hack.
Qualcomm’s Gimbal beacon.
Beacons need middleware: While many retailers are hot for beacons as a way of offering discounts or advertising to shoppers, Mahana’s customer base in the hospitality industry is more interested in using them to provide a better customer experience. For example, when a known big spender walks into a casino and wanders up to the bar, that could generate a ping on a smart watch or cell phone carried by a floor manager. Then, the manager can pull the customer aside and take them to a VIP area. But to make that possible casinos and hotels have to tie the notifications from beacons into a CRM or business-rules platform.
Mahana has tested beacons in several restaurants and has two big customer trials in the hospitality industry at the moment. The company is promoting using beacons not as some kind of advertisement system, but more as a way to track customers in real time using Bluetooth beacons and opt-in apps. And if businesses want to use beacons like that, there’s a much more complicated path to success. Even alternative real-time people tracking implementations tend to have multiyear deployment schedules, not because the technology is hard, but because understanding how to use a fundamentally new source of information in your business is hard.
Beacons make real-time tracking technology more affordable and accessible to all, but figuring out how to make money or better your operations is still tough. Founded in 2013, Mahana joins the ranks of companies hoping to make that easier.
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