Cota by Ossia hopes to charge your phone wirelessly, no contact required

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/cota-by-ossia-wireless-power/

We've all heard of wireless charging before, but most solutions still require your phone to come in touch with a base station. Well, Cota is a technology that aims to power your mobile device completely wirelessly -- without any physical contact at all. Hatem Zeine, a physicist and CEO of Ossia Inc, demonstrated the technology on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt when he successfully charged his iPhone when plugged with a Cota prototype, seen above, while holding it several feet away from a charging station.

It all seems like voodoo, but the secret lies in sending a magnetic charge over the same 2.4GHz spectrum that WiFi and Bluetooth already use. If you're concerned about safety, Zeine assures us that only one watt of power is transmitted -- that's a third of what cell phones already transmit. Line of sight isn't required, and Zeine claims that one station can power multiple devices at once. Just like a WiFi hotspot, you can set it so that it only works with certain devices or simply open it up so that power is available to all Cota-enabled handsets within range, which is around 30 feet.

Filed under: Cellphones, Science, Mobile

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Cota by Ossia

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PPL Connect is a virtualized smartphone that lets you make and take calls from a web browser

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/ppl-connect-is-a-virtualized-smartphone-that-lets-you-make-and-t/

Sure, you've heard of virtualized computing environments before, but a start-up here at TechCrunch Disrupt called PPL Connect is a platform that virtualizes your phone's capabilities in real-time. That means you can make and receive calls and texts and access the photos and videos on your phone from any device with a web browser. It's kind of like AirDroid, only you don't need to have your phone with you or even have it turned on to make calls or receive texts once you've signed up. It's a platform agnostic solution for a fragmented mobile world.

The magic happens via a localized app on your phone and Amazon cloud service to dish out your data where you need it. That cloud component both serves as cloud storage for your data and as a back-end VoIP relay station for calls and texts. Currently, photos, videos, contacts, calls and texts are what's handled by the service, but the plan is to eventually fully replicate your phone's capabilities. For folks who are concerned about putting your digital life in the hands of PPL connect, all transmissions to and from its servers are encrypted. And, the company is currently devising a fully encrypted system whereby the data's only accessible with a single, user-owned key.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software, Mobile

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Source: PPL Connect

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Epic Privacy Browser Blocks Tracking, Ads, and More

Source: http://lifehacker.com/epic-privacy-browser-blocks-tracking-ads-and-more-1278427701

Windows/Mac: Keeping your data private on the web is no easy task. Epic Privacy Browser is a Chromium-based browser that seeks to give you a private browsing experience without slowing down your browsing speed.

Out of the box Epic Privacy Browser blocks web sites that track you, ads, and more. It doesn't store cookies, your history, cache, autofill, or anything else. When you close the browser, everything you did is deleted. Epic Privacy Browser also offers one-click proxy servers and encrypted data protection for Wi-Fi networks. It's not as comprehensive as something like Tails, but as a souped-up Incognito mode, Epic Privacy Browser works well.

Epic Privacy Browser | via One Thing Well

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Flowers Shatter Like Glass Thanks to Liquid Nitrogen and an Air Gun

Source: http://gizmodo.com/flowers-shatter-like-glass-thanks-to-liquid-nitrogen-an-1279365378

There are some science class staples that will never cease to be amazing, no matter how often you see them—among them, liquid nitrogen. To wit: these beautiful images of flower blooms, flash-frozen using liquid-state nitrogen and shattered in front of a camera lens for our amusement.

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Snapchat Micro will bring disappearing messages to Samsung's Galaxy Gear

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/snapchat-galaxy-gear/

There seems little doubt that much of the Galaxy Gear's success or failure will hinge on the selection of apps that arrive on smartwatch. Samsung is making a strong push for third-party software (even in the face of limited device storage), courting a big cross section of developers at places like Path and eBay for its wearable. Popular messaging app Snapchat will also be hitting the device in the form of Snapchat Micro. As you'd expect, the app harnesses the Gear's 1.9-megapixel camera to send self-destructing images. The company's founder told Techcrunch, "Our team is constantly looking at ways to reduce the time between our experience of a moment and our ability to share it." Walking around with a camera on your wrist is certainly one way to go about it.

Filed under: Wearables, Software, Samsung

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Via: Techcrunch

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Google Glass update adds 'vignettes,' sound search and more

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/google-glass-update-adds-vignettes/

Glass still isn't quite ready for the consumer, but Google's wearable platform just keep getting better and more powerful thanks to frequent software updates. Today's version bump brings YouTube to your search results and also grants access to those with Google Apps accounts. It also brings the Shazam-like Sound Search from Android to your head-mounted display. Most interesting though, is Vignettes, which allows you to lay your current Glass display over a photo to produce an image like the one you see above. Think of it like a screenshot tool for your real, very nerdy life. One can only imagine that eventually Vignettes will get a video mode, but for now its still photos only. If you're one of the lucky Explorers you can download the update now. The rest of you will have to live vicariously through the photos at the source.

Filed under: Wearables, Google

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Source: Google Glass (Google+)

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drag2share: The NSA's Biggest Strength Is Also Its Biggest Weakness

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/adqd1gDa-no/the-nsas-strength-may-be-biggest-weakness-2013-9

The bread and butter of NSA chief Keith Alexander's reign is the push to collect more and more data, saving essentially everything passing through the Internet, encrypted or not, according to recent reporting from Foreign Policy's Shane Harris.

In Alexander's stint, not only has the NSA's budget blown up, but the agency has saved so much data that it has filled servers at the headquarters in Ft. Meade and built a new installation in Utah — all to save Internet and communications traffic.

There's one big problem though: more data doesn't necessarily translate into more security for the American people.

In fact, a flood of "intelligence" can make an analyst more confused, not less.

"Analysts routinely drown in data they can't parse effectively," said Joshua Foust, a former government intelligence analyst turned freelance defense journalist. 

Foreign Policy some of the blunders of the new system:

"He had all these diagrams showing how this guy was connected to that guy and to that guy," says! a forme r NSA official who heard Alexander give briefings on the floor of the Information Dominance Center. "Some of my colleagues and I were skeptical. Later, we had a chance to review the information. It turns out that all [that] those guys were connected to were pizza shops."

A retired military officer who worked with Alexander also describes a "massive network chart" that was purportedly about al Qaeda and its connections in Afghanistan. Upon closer examination, the retired officer says, "We found there was no data behind the links. No verifiable sources. We later found out that a quarter of the guys named on the chart had already been killed in Afghanistan."

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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A New App Called Ping May Have Finally Made Email Less Of A Pain

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/ping-email-app-2013-9

Ping is a new email app that wants to change your entire view of mobile email. Ping does this by turning messages into conversations. Yhe app focuses on people first.

Email, as you know, can sometimes be daunting, annoying, and even worse: distracting. 

Ping's creator and CEO Erez Pilosof told Business Insider that he created Ping as a way to re-think the way we deal with email and make it more conversational. "Email should adapt to us no the other way around," Pilosof said.

Any email that deals directly with a person is tossed into one category and messages like newsletters, subscriptions, and offers are tossed into another column, out of view.

Ping's biggest draws are an excellent design, ease of use, and it's ability to de-clutter your inbox without overwhelming you. 

Pilosof built Ping by identifying two core issues with electronic messages: email today is a bunch of folders and filters.

"Popular mobile email apps like Mailbox only complicate the process," Pilosof said. He felt that most email apps don't reflect the different ways that email has evolved. 

Ping organizes your email in a more modern way. You see all of your conversations in one simple stream. The app sorts the messages into people, groups, and sources and the result looks more like a instant message or text than the way we see email now. The result looks more like a social network. 

Besides just making your emails look different, Ping also integrates services like video chat and voice calls. You can assign colors and sounds to specific senders so you'll know whether or not you should pull out your phone when a new message arrives.

Some other features include: real-time responses, meaning you can see when another Ping user is typing or online. There's instant access to shared media like attachments, documents, and pictures, and you can s! nooze me ssages to save them for later.

Ping can't handle multiple email addresses yet. There's also a desktop client being built so you can check your email Ping style while on your computer. We're told an Android app isn't too far out either.

Ping will launch full time, Sept. 18 but you can sign up for the waiting list now over at the Ping site. The app will be free at launch and available for iPhone.

Also take a look at this video the company put together. It gives you a better idea of just how the app works:

SEE ALSO: Pure Takes The 'Dating' Out Of Dating Apps And Just Helps You Get Sex On Demand

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CHART OF THE DAY: What Happens To Apple's Stock After It Announces A New iPhone (AAPL)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-what-happens-to-apples-stock-after-it-announces-a-new-iphone-2013-9

Here's a fun chart, via Philip Elmer DeWitt of Fortune, looking at how Apple's stock trades before and after the announcement of a new iPhone. 

Only twice has the stock dropped in the six months following a new iPhone launch — In 2008, when the economy fell apart, and Apple coincidentally released the iPhone 3G, and in 2012 when it released the iPhone 5. 

What does it mean for tomorrow? We have no idea! Past performance does not guarantee future results. Still, fun to look at it. 

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LG OLED TV Display Shootout: Absolutely Stunning

Source: http://gizmodo.com/lg-oled-tv-display-shootout-absolutely-stunning-1277493320

Just how good is OLED TV technology? DisplayMate's Dr. Raymond Soneira put LG's latest OLED offering through its paces. You may never watch TV the same way again.

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Build Exactly the Card Reader You Need With This Modular Hub

Source: http://gizmodo.com/build-exactly-the-card-reader-you-need-with-this-modula-1277563423

Most card readers boast compatibility with almost every memory card format on the planet, but odds are you only ever use a couple of them at most. So Lexar has created a modular alternative it's calling the Professional Workflow HR1, with four bays that can be customized with your choice of compact flash, SD, or XQD card readers.

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LG develops 'world's first' WiDi-enabled LCD panel for easy media streaming

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/lg-worlds-first-widi-lcd-monitor-panel/

If you like to stream content but you already have too many set-top boxes in your house, LG wants to help. Having already committed to implementing 5G WiFi chips in its upcoming HDTVs earlier in the year, LG Display has developed a PC monitor that, it claims, is the first to integrate Intel's Wireless Display (WiDi) tech directly into the LCD component. It's not the biggest panel out there, at 23.8 inches, but it does mean you'll be able to stream anything you like from your WiDi-enabled laptop without additional gear. And while the market for WiDi-enabled displays is pretty thin right now, LG has said it will offer up its integrated panel tech to OEMs and other monitor makers, suggesting that you'll soon have a multiplicity of options for your streaming needs.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, LG

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Source: LG Display Newsroom

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LG G2 review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/lg-g2-review/

There are a lot of smartphones out there now. You know this. To add to the confusion, many companies are now parading out multiple top-drawer phones: think Samsung's Galaxy S and Note series, or the Xperia Z and Z Ultra from Sony. Even LG, whose new G2 flagship I'm poring over this time around, has both the G and G Pro to tempt buyers. It's getting increasingly difficult to launch a smartphone with some standout feature, something more than just bigger screens and faster processors.

For the G2, LG's decided to make a major change to the phone's physical layout -- in a bullet-point summary, it has buttons on the back. Three, in fact. LG reckons that as the size of smartphones has increased, at this point, the viability of buttons around the edges is now questionable. The new G model lands between last year's Optimus G and the Pro size-wise, breaking through the 5-inch screen barrier with a bright 5.2-inch, 1080p IPS screen. The rest of the feature set will seem familiar to anyone who's read a flagship Android phone review in the last 12 months. Optical image stabilization, remote control blaster, a mixed bag of proprietary software features and Android 4.2.2. There's also some new stuff, including 24-bit / 192kHz audio recording and playback, and it could well be the first Snapdragon 800-powered smartphone to reach US stores -- that's Qualcomm's most potent mobile processor yet. But with IFA just finished and the Galaxy Note 3 now official, is a button transplant going to be enough? In fact, that's a red herring, because there's actually a far better reason to buy the G2 -- and it's none of the above. %Gallery-slideshow79381%

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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Samsung's 38 million Galaxy Note sales show that large phones are here to stay

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/samsung-reports-38-million-galaxy-notes-sold/

Remember when Samsung's big-screened Galaxy Note line was considered niche? Those days are long gone. JK Shin now says that the company has sold more than 38 million Note smartphones since the original launched in late 2011. That's 28 million more than Samsung reported a year ago; for context, Nokia has sold a total of 27.3 million Lumia smartphones as of its latest earnings report. Not surprisingly, Shin sees a bright future ahead for the Galaxy Note 3. He expects Samsung to sell over 10 million units of the third-generation handset, and history suggests that the tech giant could easily reach that goal despite an abundance of competition.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: ETNews

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Sprint to start LG G2 pre-orders on October 11th

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/sprint-to-start-lg-g2-pre-orders-on-october-11th/

We've seen AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon commit to releasing the LG G2 this fall... but where's Sprint's version? Don't worry, fans, the carrier hasn't forgotten you. Sprint now says it will take pre-orders for the $200 Android flagship starting on October 11th, with a release "in time for the holidays." In return for the wait, the provider is giving out free QuickWindow covers to everyone who pre-orders a G2 through its website. We doubt that the gift will quell the jealousy of Sprint customers whose friends get a G2 weeks in advance, but the more patient among those subscribers can register their interest at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sprint, LG

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Source: Sprint

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