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Showing posts from December, 2014

Google X’s Astro Teller Says Wearables Still Need A Killer App Back in November

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Back in November, I had a chance to visit Google’s Mountain View headquarters to chat with Astro Teller, the head of Google X’s so-called “moonshot” projects, about the past, present, and future of wearables. I opened the interview with a blunt question: “Which do you want to talk about first, the wrist or glasses?” He immediately called me out: “That presupposes that the only interesting things we’re working on are watches and glasses.” Teller made it clear that just because Android Wear and Google Glass are prominent in Google’s public efforts, they’re not the only thing the search giant is looking at when it thinks of putting gadgets on our bodies. “[Humans] have spent that last several thousand years working on wearbles. We’ve got rings, glasses, we wear things for armor, for protection from the elements, to signal our status to other people. And we’re going to co-opt a lot of those things, where wearables are going to end up being the interface between us in the world,” he...

Google and Motorola planning a new Nexus phone

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If you missed out on getting a new iPad during the Black Friday sales, here’s another chance to bag one with a serious discount. For a limited time only, Best Buy is slashing up to $100 off the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. The more you spend on your new iPad, the more you’ll save. For instance, a 16GB iPad mini 3 with Wi-Fi will cost you $349.99 after a $50 reduction, while a 64GB model will cost you $424.99 after a $75 reduction. The high-end 128GB model is $499.99 after a $100 reduction. The same applies to the iPad Air 2; 16GB models have $50, 64GB models have $75 off, and 128GB models have $100 off — regardless of whether you buy a Wi-Fi only variant or one with 4G LTE connectivity built-in. All models are available with free shipping. It’s unclear how long Best Buy’s discounts will last, so if you’re looking to pick up an iPad for yourself or a loved one, you should probably take advantage of this deal as soon as you can. We’ll surely see more reductions on Apple gadgets as t...

Save Up to $100 on iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 at Best Buy

If you missed out on getting a new iPad during the Black Friday sales, here’s another chance to bag one with a serious discount. For a limited time only, Best Buy is slashing up to $100 off the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. The more you spend on your new iPad, the more you’ll save. For instance, a 16GB iPad mini 3 with Wi-Fi will cost you $349.99 after a $50 reduction, while a 64GB model will cost you $424.99 after a $75 reduction. The high-end 128GB model is $499.99 after a $100 reduction. The same applies to the iPad Air 2; 16GB models have $50, 64GB models have $75 off, and 128GB models have $100 off — regardless of whether you buy a Wi-Fi only variant or one with 4G LTE connectivity built-in. All models are available with free shipping. It’s unclear how long Best Buy’s discounts will last, so if you’re looking to pick up an iPad for yourself or a loved one, you should probably take advantage of this deal as soon as you can. We’ll surely see more reductions on Apple gadgets ...

10 Most Beautifull Infinity Pools With Blue Water You Have To See

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And when we woke up, we had these bodies. They’re like, except I’m having them! Oh, I think we should just stay friends. You’ll have all the Slurm you can drink when you’re partying with Slurms McKenzie Hey, tell me something. You’ve got all this money. How come you always dress like you’re doing your laundry? Yes, if you make it look like an electrical fire. When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all. I just want to talk. It has nothing to do with mating. Fry, that doesn’t make sense. Quite possible. You guys go on without me! I’m going to go… look for more stuff to steal! You guys realize you live in a sewer, right? Hey, tell me something. You’ve got all this money. How come you always dress like you’re doing your laundry? If rubbin’ frozen dirt in your crotch is wrong, hey I don’t wanna be right. Fetal stemcells, aren’t those controversial? You don’t know how to do any of those. What’s with you kids? Every other day it’s food, food, food. Alri...

Instagram Is Getting So Good at News, It Should Scare Twitter

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It’s raining in San Francisco. Hard. Trees have already fallen, and the skeletons of cast-off umbrellas are tumbling down the street. This is the kind of storm that drives a girl to social media to watch the drama unfold. And while Twitter historically has been the best place to unearth real-time updates and descriptions, it’s not nearly as compelling as the stream of images flooding Instagram today. Don’t believe me? Go ahead. Try it. Pull up your app and hit the magnifying glass on the bottom left. That’s the explore tab. Now search for rain in San Francisco, or better yet, try searching for the hashtag #Hellastorm. There’s a photo of cars driving down a road so flooded their wheels are invisible beneath the water. There’s a photo of a sign on the door of Santa Rosa Junior College, announcing it’s closing at noon. And there’s the one I just posted of my friend Carla throwing sandbags into the back of her station wagon to stop the water currently gushing into her garage. Embedded i...

Is Your Photo Being Used On Fake LinkedIn Profiles?

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Spammers may be using your photo for the fake profiles they set up on LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, and other social networks. Here’s how I found out, and what you can do about it. While working on another post on how to avoid connecting with fake LinkedIn profiles, I took a closer look at a connection request I had received through LinkedIn, which I had identified as spam. I knew it was a fake profile and a spammy request because the profile had a small number of connections, had only one company listed under experience, the title “Manager” was mispelled as “mangar,” and the first name on the profile was “Myrtle.” Any one of those items might be understandable by itself, but add them all up and it was easy to spot this as a fake profile. Normally all I would do in this situation would be to click the “X” and ignore the request. But I got curious and did a little more research, and that’s where things got interesting. I knew the photo was of a real person, because I could see the ph...

Twitter to Add Photo Filters to Compete With Instagram

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Image source from wired.com. Twitter is finally learning a lesson from Facebook: If you can’t buy it, build it. In the coming months, Twitter plans to update its mobile applications to introduce filters for photos that will allow people to share altered images on Twitter and bypass Instagram, the popular mobilecentric photo-sharing network, according to people who work at the company but asked not to be named as they are not allowed to discuss unannounced projects. The filters on Instagram make photos look like they were shot with 1960s Kodachrome or with 1890s sepia tone film. Although adding photo filters to Twitter may seem like a trivial addition to a social network that processes nearly a billion 140-character missives every two days, it could prove to be an important part of the company’s business. As most smartphones are now equipped with high-resolution cameras, photography and mobile devices go together like peas and carrots. Flickr, which was once the go-to photo-sharing site...

Tesco Removes Sign Suggesting Superheroes Are 'for boys' After Twitter Backlash

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Tesco has removed a sign next to a superhero alarm clock reading "fun gifts for boys" from its stores after a social media backlash inspired by a seven-year-old girl. Karen Cole tweeted a photo of her daughter Maggie pointing to the sign at the Tower Park branch of the supermarket in Poole, Dorset, which was subsequently retweeted over 10,000 times. In a message on her Twitter page , which is now protected, she wrote: "My superhero loving 7yo daughter not impressed when she spotted this sign in @Tesco today @LetToysBeToys." Maggie had pointed to the sign and said it was "stupid." The retailer has now removed the sign and a spokesperson insists it would "make a great gift for both girls and boys." Mrs Cole explained her thinking behind the tweet in a blog post. "Last year [Maggie] started coming home from school saying some of her friends were suggesting some toys were for girls and some for boys. I explained that they were wrong, if the toy ...

Motorola’s Original Moto G Gets Android 5.0 Lollipop

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Owners of the original Moto G are now receiving their much-anticipated Lollipop upgrade. The release makes Motorola’s most popular smartphone one of just a small few handsets released in 2013 that are already running Google’s latest Android software. Rolling out to users in India first, Lollipop for the 2013 Moto G is essentially the same software that started reaching the newer 2014 Moto G last month. Users get a Material Design makeover the way Google intended it — without any third-party tweaks — as well as lock screen notifications, improved multitasking, and Smart Lock, which automatically disables lock screen security when your Android Wear device is nearby. User can also look forward to Ambient Display, a flashlight toggle in the Quick Settings menu, Motorola Assist, and significant performance and battery life improvements. All of these things make Lollipop the Moto G’s biggest update yet. It also means this is a big download, so you’ll want to get it over Wi-Fi rather than a c...

Twitter Adds Coupons to Its Commerce Plans

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Twitter has long said it works best as a tool for serving  up news on whats happening as it happens. Twitter has long said it works best as a tool for serving up news on what’s happening, as it happens. Now, Twitter hopes that will work with commerce on its network, as well. On Tuesday, the company unveiled a program that introduced deals to tweets on the 284 million-user social network. The program, Twitter Offers, is aimed at marketers who want to drive sales directly through Twitter advertisements and is an attempt to kick-start Twitter’s nascent efforts to build e-commerce into its platform. After buying a Promoted Tweet — a paid ad that appears as content inside a user’s Twitter stream — a marketer can insert a deal, such as a time-sensitive discount, which users can redeem on their smartphone. Twitter says it believes that for advertisers, the program will be a novel way to woo new customers to their stores. “I think new customer acquisition is going to be the primary use cas...

Sony Pictures and F.B.I. Widen Inquiry into Hackers’ Attack

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SONY Pictures Entertainment and FBI were seeking more information about an attack computer system. LOS ANGELES — Sony Pictures Entertainment and the F.B.I. on Wednesday were seeking more information about an attack that crippled Sony’s computer systems — including whether North Korea, or perhaps a former employee, was responsible. “The investigation continues into this very sophisticated cyberattack,” the studio said in a statement. It added that a news report by the technology site Re/code, which said that North Korea had been identified as the source of the attack and that the studio planned an imminent announcement, was “not accurate.” Sony was hit by hackers on Nov. 24, resulting in a companywide computer shutdown and the leak of corporate information, including the multimillion-dollar pre-bonus salaries of executives and the Social Security numbers of rank-and-file employees. A group calling itself the Guardians of Peace has taken credit for the attacks. The studio, wor...

Former Google+ Designer Slams The Service for Being 'Facebook Lite'

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Google+ Plus slams the service for being Facebook Like. He also calls out Google Plus for any meaningful. Google+ is a social network "adrift at sea," representing a big missed opportunity for the company, a former Google employee who worked on the service says. Chris Messina, who worked on Google+ user experience design before leaving the company over a year ago, wrote a long post on Medium , in which he criticizes the service for not delivering on its initial vision of empowering users with the vast amount of data that Google collects about them. He also calls out Google+ for not having any meaningful differentiators over its more successful competitor, Facebook. "Most people would likely describe Google+ as a newsfeed, a kind of Facebook-lite," he wrote. Messina, who is often credited with inventing the hashtag, acknowledges that Google's social network has many devout users, and that it's become a go-to service for a few specific topics (like photography...

Twitter Begins Testing a ‘Buy’ Button for Instant Purchases by Its Users

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Twitter is Already a real time emporium for news. Twitter is already a real-time emporium for news, photos, video clips and 140-character snippets of thought. Now, the real-time social network wants to be a shopping mall for real products, too. The company announced on Monday that it would begin publicly testing a “buy” button that can be embedded in posts to allow users to buy a product with a couple of clicks. The feature — initially limited to mobile versions of Twitter and aimed at selling limited-edition or time-sensitive items like T-shirts and event tickets — could eventually create a new revenue stream for the social network, which currently relies on advertising for virtually all of its income.The test comes as competition in the world of mobile e-commerce intensifies. Still, billions of dollars of online sales are already associated with social networks. Many marketers post messages on services like Twitter and Facebook promoting their products and offering links to external...

Osborne to throw NHS £2bn lifeline

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The money will fund 'frontline' hospital services  and plug an NHS budget hole (Christopher Furlong) GEORGE OSBORNE will announce an extra £2bn to fund the NHS this week in an attempt to neutralise Labour’s attacks on the coalition’s handling of the health service. The chancellor will use his autumn statement on Wednesday to say the government has found the extra money to fund “frontline” hospital services and help plug a looming black hole in the NHS budget. He will take to the airwaves today to argue that only a Conservative-led government that builds a strong economy is capable of properly funding the NHS — a blueprint for the general election campaign he and David Cameron hope will deliver victory next year. The chancellor balanced giveaways for middle-class families and small businesses with a raid on the most expensive properties and banks, as he moved to spike Labour’s guns. The chancellor will use his autumn statement on Wednesday to say the government has found the ext...