Monday, June 17, 2013

Skype video messaging officially launches on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android -- but not Windows Phone

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/17/skype-video-messaging-launches-free-unlimited/

Sky video messaging officially launches for free on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android

Out of beta and free, Skype today launches its video messaging service across all its major platforms. Previously, video missives were limited to 20 free attempts during early testing, but free on premium subscriptions. You can now send unlimited video messages to your Skype contacts on Windows 8, Windows desktop or Mac, while mobile options encompass iOS, Android and BlackBerry. A Windows Phone version is, however, conspicuously MIA. To remind yourself how it all works, check out our early hands-on here.

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Source: Skype

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Digg's Google Reader replacement beta opens on June 26th, friends and family get access on the 19th

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/17/digg-rss-reader-june-26/

Digg's Google Reader replacement beta access opens on June 25th, friends and family on the 19th

Digg -- yes, that Digg -- has a replacement in the works for Google Reader, and it looks like it'll arrive just ahead of the final days of Google's RSS aggregation service. The service, which uses the same API as Reader, is planning a public beta starting on June 26th; a "friends and family" beta will open this Wednesday, the 19th, with limited access.

During beta, the Digg RSS reader is free. In a survey Digg published last month on its blog, however, the company found that over 40 percent of respondents are "willing to pay for a Google Reader replacement." The company noted alongside the finding that, "Free products on the Internet don't have a great track record. They tend to disappear, leaving users in a lurch. We need to build a product that people can rely on and trust will always be there for them. We're not sure how pricing might work, but we do know that we'd like our users to be our customers, not our product."

That said, Digg's latest blog post seemingly assuages our worry. "We mentioned in a prior post that Digg Reader will ultimately be a 'freemium' product," the post reads. "But we're not going to bait-and-switch. All of the features introduced next week, as well as many others yet to come, will be part of the free experience." Those features include the standard RSS reader experience, "easy migration and onboarding from Google Reader," "useful mobile apps that sync with the web experience" (there's an iOS one pictured, and Android is promised in the 60 days post-launch) and "support for ... subscribing, sharing, saving and organizing."

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Source: Digg Blog

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This Fitness Startup Is Betting 'Wearable Tech' Is A Fad That Won't Catch On

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/moves-tracks-2-billion-steps-per-day-2013-6

lululemon man runner running

Wearable technology has led everyday people and fitness buffs alike to track every aspect of their lives.

It's part of an increasingly growing movement dubbed the "Quantified Self."

But startup Moves is betting that wearable tech won't be the thing to make the Quantified Self movement go mainstream. 

"We think the phone is a great existing platform for activity tracking," Moves CEO and Designer Sampo Karjalainen says. "The fact that so many people are already carrying their phones with them, that helps a lot. If you buy these [wearable fitness] gadgets, you need to remember to charge and carry one more gadget. It's a big behavioral change you have to do."

Moves is a free iPhone app that runs in the background for tracking a variety of activities like walking, running, cycling, and driving. Based on some early stats, it seems like Karjalainen may be right about the smartphone being the optimal tool for activity tracking. 

To date, Moves has been downloaded over 1.9 million times on iOS and tracks 2 billion steps per day. Compare that to the Jawbone Up, which tracks more than 1 billion steps per day, according to data released in April

Moves is geared toward those who aren't that physically active, but want a general understanding of their health and fitness. Karjalaien says there will be use cases for those wearable tech gadgets, but phones are what will make the fitness tracking market go mainstream. 

Earlier this year, Moves raised $1.6 million from PROfounders Capital and Lifeline Ventures. Just last month, Moves released its API for developers to integrate Moves into preexisting apps and services. Moves plans to release its Android app this summer. 

Disclosure: Finnish funding a! gency Te kes and Finnfacts, a non-profit media service organization in Finland, paid for my trip to Helsinki to explore the startup scene.  

SEE ALSO: GARBAGE IS SEXY: It's A $1 Trillion Market That Finnish Startup Enevo Wants To Disrupt

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Wow, a 4K TV For $1080 Is Simply Bonkers

Source: http://gizmodo.com/wow-a-4k-tv-for-1080-is-simply-bonkers-513578198

Wow, a 4K TV For $1080 Is Simply Bonkers

A couple of months ago, Seiki announced a 50-inch 4K TV with a suggested MSRP of $1500—which is still an absurd price point for a 4K TV. The price has continued to drop, and now Amazon's selling it for $1081.

Sure, $1080 for a TV isn't cheap, but other competing televisions sporting 3840 x 2160 resolutions still cost basically the price of a car, so if you wanted to be an early 4K adopter, this is probably the least expensive LED TV that can get you in the game. You might not get perfect color or clarity, like you would with a $6000 Sony, but when Mario was able to gaze on one of these sets he left impressed. There might not be much 4k content out there yet, but this panel would look great as a monitor.

So to summarize: a 50-inch, 4K resolution TV for $1080 with free shipping. Bonkers. Especially since 3D TV seems to be dead, if you wanted to future-proof your home theatre, this might be a television to check out. [Amazon]

Update: Amazon's now listing the television for $969. If you bought it yesterday, you can get the difference refunded.

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Home Lohas brings hydroponic gardening into your room, rabbit guard not included

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/16/home-lohas-hydroponic-gardening-vegetable/

Home Lohas brings hydroponic plantation to your living room

While running between booths at Computex earlier this month, we were momentarily distracted by these vegetable boxes (maybe it was lunch time as well). As it turned out, this product was launched by Taiwan-based Home Lohas around the same time as when the expo started. The company pitches its hydroponic gardening appliance -- so the vegetables rely on nutritious water instead of soil -- as a hassle-free, low-power solution for growing your own greens, plus it's apparently the only solution in the market that doesn't need water circulation. With its full spectrum LED light, air pump and timers, harvest time can apparently be reduced by about 30 percent. It's simply a matter of filling up the water tank, adding the necessary nutrients and placing the seeded sponge on the tray (the package includes three types of organic fertilizers and some seeds).

The only downside is that this system costs NT$15,800 (about US$530) in Taiwan, and for some reason, it'll eventually be priced at US$680 in other markets. If that's too much, then stay tuned for a half-size model that's due Q4 this year.

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Source: Home Lohas (Chinese)

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Spot Global Phone review: a satellite phone for the masses

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/16/spot-global-phone-review/

Spot Global Phone review a satellite phone for the masses

Finally, a phone made in the year 2013 that Zack Morris can approve of. All kidding aside, Spot's aptly titled Global Phone isn't the most -- shall we say, svelte -- of handsets, but it's capable of communicating in places that your iPhone could only dream of. Spot is actually a subsidiary of satellite communications giant Globalstar, who is no stranger to providing satellite-based service to argonauts the world over. The Global Phone is one of the company's first consumer-facing phones, taking the intrigue and mystery out of procuring one of those fancy sat phones -- you know, the ones that can seemingly only be acquired by James Bond's nemeses.

The target market for this handset is obvious: if you're an avid hiker, explorer, boater or adventurer, there's a high likelihood that you'll end up in a locale where traditional cell networks provide no coverage. In fact, it's shockingly easy to find dead zones these days -- just head to your nearest national park and stroll up a marked trail for a bit. At $499 for the device itself and month-to-month plans starting at $25, it's actually a reasonably priced addition to one's off-the-grid arsenal. (Have you seen the prices on subzero sleeping bags these days?)

But, is it a worthwhile addition? I recently traversed 1,600 miles of mostly desolate territory in the US Southwest in order to find out, and the answer lies just after the break.

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Source: Spot Global Phone product page

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Samsung makes first PCIe-based SSD for Ultrabooks, we see one likely customer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/17/samsung-makes-first-pcie-based-ssd-for-ultrabooks/

Samsung starts making first PCIe SSD for Ultrabooks

Solid-state drives are so speedy these days that that even a SATA interface might not have the bandwidth to cope. It's a good thing that Samsung has started mass-producing the first PCI Express-based SSDs for Ultrabooks, then. The new XP941 series uses PCIe's wider data path to read at nearly 1.4GB/s -- that's 2.5 times faster than the quickest SATA SSDs, and nimble enough to move 500GB in six minutes. It also ships in a tinier M.2 format that makes past card-based SSDs look gargantuan, even when there's up to 512GB of storage. Samsung hasn't named laptop makers receiving the XP941, although it doesn't take strong deductive skills to spot one of the (probable) first customers. When Apple is shipping a new 13-inch MacBook Air that just happens to use a very similar PCIe SSD from Samsung, there's likely more than coincidence at work.

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Source: Samsung

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Friday, June 14, 2013

The World's Most Efficient Solar Cell Is a Tiny Little Miracle

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-most-efficient-solar-cell-is-a-tiny-little-513361860

The World's Most Efficient Solar Cell Is a Tiny Little Miracle

While solar power promises a lot, it's only ever going to help satisfy our energy needs if it becomes efficient enough. Fortunately, Sharp has just made the world's most efficient solar cell, which converts a staggering 44.4 percent of incident light into electricity. Take that, fossil fuels.

The cell uses a special lens-based concentrator system, which focuses sunlight onto the cell to help improve the efficiency Once the light's focussed, a stack of three photo-absorption layers convert it into electricity. Even then it's no mean feat to squeeze out an efficiency of 44.4 percent, and the process saw Sharp invest a huge amount of time in tuning the device's dimensions to focus the light properly and reduce losses between layers.

While it's impressive, you probably won't see one strapped to the roof of a house any time soon. Devices this exotic are more likely to end up on a spacecraft in the first instance, where efficiency trumps cost every time. That's not to say it won't ever make it to the domestic market—it might just take a little time. [PhysOrg]

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Zoom's New H6 Audio Recorder Will Make Any DSLR Filmmaker Salivate

Source: http://gizmodo.com/zooms-new-h6-audio-recorder-will-make-any-dslr-filmmak-513200479

Zoom's New H6 Audio Recorder Will Make Any DSLR Filmmaker Salivate

Back in April we learned that Zoom had a successor to the popular H4N audio recorder in the making. Details were slim, but it certainly looked promising. Well now we have the full low-down on the new device.

The recorder looks a great deal more filmmaker-suited than its predecessor, with physical knobs and even a shoe mount on the back for mounting directly atop a DSLR.

Zoom's New H6 Audio Recorder Will Make Any DSLR Filmmaker Salivate

Here are the key specs:

  • Six tracks of simultaneous recording
  • Four interchangeable input capsules: stereo X/Y (included), Mid-Side (included), Shotgun (optional) & combo dual XLR/TRS (optional).
  • Large full-color display for easy viewing of recording and playback levels
  • Records directly to SD, SDHC and SDXC cards up to 128 gigabytes
  • Compatible with MP3 and BWF-compliant WAV file formats, including 24-bit / 96k for ultimate HD audio
  • Four XLR/TRS combo jacks to connect external microphones or line-level devices each with their own gain control, pad switch AND phantom power in three different voltages
  • USB port for data transfer to audio editing software and allows for H6 to serve as multichannel audio interface for computer and tablets
  • Connects to DSLR or digital camcorder
  • Runs on 4 AA batteries for up to 20 hours.

The Zoom H6 will be available in late July. It will be interesting to see if it shares the success of the H4N, since DSLR video is waning a bit with the introduction of dedicated video cameras like the Canon C100/300 and Sony FS100/700. But the H6 looks to be versatile enough to find a place in the gear closets of other types of users.

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Sharp branching into robo-vacs, grow lights, e-whiteboards to offset slow LCD sales (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/14/sharp-branching-into-other-industries/

Sharp branching into robovacs, grow lights, ewhiteboards to offset slow panel sales

Remember the Cocorobo robotic vaccum that could send you pics of your newly-cleaned carpet? Sharp is going to be doing a lot more of that kind of thing soon, if a recent demo at its research center in Nara, Japan is any indication. Since the company has been losing gobs of money on its tepid LCD-panel business, it'll soon be using some of that tech in completely different industries: for instance, converting powerful LED lighting from TV backlights to grow lamps, and touchscreen TV panels to interactive whiteboards. Sharp admitted to PC World that it needed to branch into other businesses since "rivals have been able to catch up from behind" to its LCD TV and mobile phone businesses -- and judging by the drastic actions the company's taken to stave off disaster lately, it'll need to hustle those products to market, stat. Check the video after the jump to see some of the prototypes in action.

[Image credit: PC World]

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Source: PC World

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Google Search Competitor DuckDuckGo Got Record Traffic Following The PRISM Revelations

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/duckduckgo-hit-a-record-high-this-week-2013-6

duckduckgo billboardSearch engine DuckDuckGo saw a record number of searches this week, according to VentureBeat

On Thursday, DuckDuckGo clocked 2.5 million search queries, a 33% increase over last Thursday. On Wednesday, users made 2.35 million search queries. 

With news of the PRISM program, people seem to be becoming more skeptical of the services they use on the Internet, and how secure their information is.

DuckDuckGo doesn't track your clicks across the Web, unlike Google. So if the government were to come knocking on DuckDuckGo's doors, seeking information, they would have no way to tie that information to individual users.

But PRISM may not be totally responsible for DuckDuckGo's traffic spike. DuckDuckGo has recently appeared in major news publications, like the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and CNBC.

DuckDuckGo launched back in 2008 as an alternative to traditional search engines that don't respect your privacy. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg has mostly bootstrapped DuckDuckGo, but he also received $3 million from Union Square Ventures, Scott Banister, Peter Hershberg, Joshua Stylman, Joshua Schachter, Kal Vepuri, and Jim Young.

SEE ALSO: After Making Millions In His 20s, This Guy Got Venture Funding For A Google-Killer

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Article: Intel intros low-cost enterprise SSD for data centers

Intel's latest enterprise solid-state drive, the DC S3500 series, offers high read speed at a cost of just around $1 per gigabyte.

Intel today introduced the DC S3500 series solid-state drive, which brings enterprise performance at a cost that general consumers can afford. The new drive is opti...

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3132_7-57588616-98/intel-intros-low-cost-enterprise-ssd-for-data-centers/?subj=cnet&tag=title

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Article: Intel CloverTrail+ processor mops the floor with its competitors

There's no denying that smartphones are becoming pretty powerful; quad-core processors are now the standard in high-end handsets and clock speeds are creeping up into laptop territory as well. However, the one big problem that mobile technology still faces is the limitations imposed by running pr...

http://www.androidauthority.com/intel-clovertrail-competitors-224786/

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Fujifilm and Panasonic's organic CMOS image sensor boosts dynamic range and sensitivity

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/14/fujifilm-and-panasonics-organic-cmos-image-sensor/

Fujifilm and Panasonic's organic CMOS image sensor boosts dynamic range and sensitivity

We've all been enjoying the benefits of AMOLED displays for several years now -- high contrast ratios, wide viewing angles and vivid colors -- so it was only a matter of time until organic films ended up in image sensors. Fujifilm and Panasonic have been working on organic CMOS image sensors and just showed the results of their collaboration at the 2013 Symposium on VLSI Technology in Kyoto. By replacing the traditional silicon photodiode with an organic photoelectric conversion layer, researchers have created image sensors with a dynamic range of 88dB (the industry's highest), a 1.2-fold increase in sensitivity (compared to traditional designs) and a 60-degree range of incident light (vs. 30-40 degrees, typically). What does this mean in practice? Less clipping in bright scenes, better low-light performance and richer colors and textures. The companies plan to promote these new organic CMOS image sensors for use in a wide range of imaging applications, including next generation cameras and phones. We can't wait!

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Source: Fujifilm

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Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 APS-C zoom lens priced at a surprisingly reasonable $800

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/14/sigma-18-35mm-f-1-8-lens-only-800/

When we came across the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM a couple of months ago, the first thing that popped into our heads was: how much? After all, it's the first-ever zoom lens with a constant sub f/2.0 aperture, and even those with a higher f/2.8 go for thousands of dollars. Well, luckily for camera enthusiasts everywhere, the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM has a street price of $799 -- less than half what we expected. Better yet, it'll be available in "early July" in Sigma and Canon mounts, which means it'll arrive just in time for some of you to shoot creamy bokeh shots of sunflowers in bloom. Nikon, Sony and Pentax mounts will come later in the year.

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