Friday, 28 February 2014

Sailfish OS Maker, Jolla, On Questing For Scale In The Age Of Android

"It's not every day that a new mobile operating system is born," says Jolla's Marc Dillon preaching to a congregation of the curious from atop a stool at Jolla's booth at the 2014 Mobile World Congress. This is the world's largest mobile device-focused gathering. The show which annually transforms Barcelona into a city of suits and queues and shiny things. Read More

Sailfish OS Maker, Jolla, On Questing For Scale In The Age Of Android

"It's not every day that a new mobile operating system is born," says Jolla's Marc Dillon preaching to a congregation of the curious from atop a stool at Jolla's booth at the 2014 Mobile World Congress. This is the world's largest mobile device-focused gathering. The show which annually transforms Barcelona into a city of suits and queues and shiny things. Read More

If You’re Going To Watch One Video Of A 3D-Printed Clock That Writes The Time, Make It This One

The machines. They are learning. The Plotclock is a small, 3D-printed clock that forgoes the traditional gears and springs for servos and an Arduino microcontroller. It writes the time. And then erases it. Then writes the time again, continuing forever even though the white board will quickly descend into a smudgy mess of partially erased ink. It’s a simple device: One servo lifts the pen… Read More

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: All MWC Everything

Reporters are drunkenly finding their way home from a long week in Barcelona, where the Mobile World Congress conference yielded a number of exciting new phones and tablets. Most notably, Samsung launched the Galaxy s5, Nokia launched a new Nokia X line of Android/Windows Phone hybrid devices, and we finally got up close and personal with the BlackPhone. We discuss all this and more on this… Read More

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: All MWC Everything

Reporters are drunkenly finding their way home from a long week in Barcelona, where the Mobile World Congress conference yielded a number of exciting new phones and tablets. Most notably, Samsung launched the Galaxy s5, Nokia launched a new Nokia X line of Android/Windows Phone hybrid devices, and we finally got up close and personal with the BlackPhone. We discuss all this and more on this… Read More

The Ring Input Device Puts Gesture Control And Home Automation On Your Finger

There was once a rumor that Apple would actually use a ring device for input to an Apple television. Neither of those gadgets exist yet, of course, but Ring is a Kickstarter project trying to fund a finger-based wearable that could enable the kind of controls envisioned in that Apple flight of fancy. The Ring is a hardware device that resembles an ordinary (if slightly chunky) ring, filled with… Read More

Apple Made Over $1B On The Sale Of Around 10M Apple TV Units In 2013

Apple’s TV business still consists only of an over-the-top streaming media box, and not a proper TV set despite longstanding rumors that kind of hardware was on the way – but it’s showing impressive growth nonetheless. The company sold approximately 10 million Apple TV units last year, according to estimates based on figures Apple CEO Tim Cook offered up at the annual Apple… Read More

Apple Made Over $1B On The Sale Of Around 10M Apple TV Units In 2013

Apple’s TV business still consists only of an over-the-top streaming media box, and not a proper TV set despite longstanding rumors that kind of hardware was on the way – but it’s showing impressive growth nonetheless. The company sold approximately 10 million Apple TV units last year, according to estimates based on figures Apple CEO Tim Cook offered up at the annual Apple… Read More

Uber Wants To Take Over The French Market By Using ‘Dumping Tactics’

Urban transportation company Uber is fighting very hard to conquer France. It doesn’t hesitate to redistribute bonuses of up to $1,100 a week to its drivers — these bonuses are higher than Uber’s revenue from these drivers. In other words, Uber is willing to operate at a loss to lure drivers. Under-funded French startups can’t compete financially with Uber’s offering… Read More

Moov Fitness Tracker Passes Its $40K Crowdfunding Goal In 90 Minutes

Yesterday, ex-Apple engineer Nikola Hu and friends launched a crowdfunding campaign around Moov, the next generation in wearable fitness tracking. The device, which lets you accurately measure your form during different sporting activities like running, swimming, and cardio boxing, has already picked up some steam with backers. According to the team, Moov reached its $40k crowdfunding goal in… Read More

Backed By $10 Million, Flyby Messenger Is The First Consumer App To Use Image Recognition Tech From Google’s “Project Tango”

Flyby, a new messaging application that lets you share text and recorded videos attached to objects in the real world, is the first consumer-facing app to use the image recognition capabilities found in Google’s “Project Tango.” That project, for those unfamiliar, involves an Android-based phone with advanced 3D sensors that’s capable of building visual maps of the world… Read More

Parrot’s Flower Power Plant Sensor Gives You A Mobile Green Thumb

So I bought a plant. I named it Stan. I’ve never really been a plant guy. But maybe Parrot’s new wireless plant monitor can help. Stan’s life depends on it. The Flower Power is a small Bluetooth-capable sensor. It runs on a AAA battery and simply sticks in the plant’s dirt. It’s cute and hardly noticeable. The device measures and tracks light intensity, air… Read More

Apple Adds New “Designing Great Apps” Micro Site For iOS 7 Developers

Apple has offered up a central location that houses a number of resources around designing software for iOS 7. The collection of videos, documents and whitepapers seems aimed at making it easier for developers to not only accommodate their existing designs for the new, pared down graphical look of iOS 7, but also to help them start thinking about how to push the envelope with the UI of their app… Read More

Save $224 With This 3D-Printed Adapter To Affix Google Glass To Standard Frames

Google is now selling its own Glass-compatible frames for prescription lenses, but they’ll set you back $225 a pair, lenses not included. That’s a bit steep, especially when you’ve already forked over $1,500 for Glass itself. A DIY project from design studio Pixil 3D can modify Glass to work with your existing prescription glasses for under $1 in material costs, provided you… Read More

Sony To Sell Former Tokyo Headquarters

The sell-off continues. The WSJ is reporting today that Sony is looking to sell its former headquarters in central Tokyo. This comes just weeks after the struggling consumer electronic maker sold its PC division and watched its credit rating cut to junk status by bond credit rating agency Moody’s. This is the birthplace of the Trintron TV and Sony Walkman. Clearly nothing is save from being… Read More

How Capitaine Train Is Disrupting Train Ticket Booking Through Engineering

French startup Capitaine Train wants to improve the cumbersome process of booking train tickets online and on your phone. It’s not yet another travel agency, it’s an alternative to popular European ticket booking services with an emphasis on efficiency. “We want our clients to leave the site as soon as possible,” co-founder and CEO Jean-Daniel Guyot told me in an interview.… Read More

Prezi And Adobe Join Obama’s ConnectED Tech Initiative For US Classrooms

Prezi, the cloud-based startup which competes with Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote, and Adobe are the latest technology companies to join President Obama’s ConnectED Initiative to help the US education system move forward into a more technology-centred world. Read More

What if Netflix auto-paused when you fell asleep during Citizen Kane?

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Looking To Make Fantasy Sports More Accessible, IAC’s Skyllzone Launches Fantasy App That Lets You Play “The Machine”

Spurred on by its entry into the digital and mobile age, the fantasy sports world is booming. From the fact that a hilarious and increasingly popular show based on fantasy sports is about to enter its sixth season to Yahoo’s increasing investment in fantasy sports products as part of a new mobile strategy that comes all the way from the top, the signs are everywhere that fantasy sports is… Read More

Looking To Make Fantasy Sports More Accessible, IAC’s Skyllzone Launches Fantasy App That Lets You Play “The Machine”

Spurred on by its entry into the digital and mobile age, the fantasy sports world is booming. From the fact that a hilarious and increasingly popular show based on fantasy sports is about to enter its sixth season to Yahoo’s increasing investment in fantasy sports products as part of a new mobile strategy that comes all the way from the top, the signs are everywhere that fantasy sports is… Read More

Gaming Veterans Start Midverse To Bolster App Marketing, Engagement on Android

Riz Virk and Mitch Liu have been through pretty much every wave of the shift to free-to-play mobile and social gaming. They had an early mobile gaming hit called Tap Fish (which even had its own silly moment on The Daily Show). They sold their company Gameview Studios to Japanese gaming giant DeNA. Virk was also an early investor in Tapjoy, which became one of the better-known players in app… Read More

Gaming Veterans Start Midverse To Bolster App Marketing, Engagement on Android

Riz Virk and Mitch Liu have been through pretty much every wave of the shift to free-to-play mobile and social gaming. They had an early mobile gaming hit called Tap Fish (which even had its own silly moment on The Daily Show). They sold their company Gameview Studios to Japanese gaming giant DeNA. Virk was also an early investor in Tapjoy, which became one of the better-known players in app… Read More

Mojang In Talks With Warner Bros. To Make A Minecraft Movie

Mojang game studio founder Markus Persson, who was the main creative force behind worldwide indie game hit Minecraft, revealed via his Twitter account today that his company has been in discussions with Warner Bros. Studios to make a movie based on the popular world-building sim. Someone is trying leak the fact that we're working with Warner Brothers on a potential Minecraft Movie. I wanted… Read More

Cool People Play Their Music With An Electric Plasma Spark, Not A Normal Speaker

How do you listen to your music? Headphones you say? Sometimes on an Airplay or Bluetooth speaker? Oh. That’s pretty cool. I just listen to mine on plasma. Dancing electrical sparks that leap between two electrodes and produce a small amount of ozone. No big deal. Just, you know, how cool people do. Actually that’s not how I listen to music, but it could be if I back the ARC Plasma… Read More