Monday, September 16, 2013

Block Ads on All Your Devices with a Raspberry Pi

Source: http://lifehacker.com/block-ads-on-all-your-devices-with-a-raspberry-pi-1325298085

Block Ads on All Your Devices with a Raspberry Pi

Ads can be one of the internet's more annoying things, and there are few things worse than watching a flash animation for deodorant suck up all your bandwidth. While you have plenty of software solutions to block ads, you can also do it on a deeper level with a Raspberry Pi.

This projects turns your Raspberry Pi into a wireless access point, then installs software that makes ads time out. Then, you route your traffic through the Raspberry Pi and that blocks ads on all your devices, from your tablet to your game console. Head over to Adafruit for the full guide.

Raspberry Pi as an Ad Blocking Access Point | Adafruit

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The Best Web Browser for iPhone

Source: http://lifehacker.com/the-best-web-browser-for-iphone-5831636

The Best Web Browser for iPhone

While mobile Safari does most of what you'd need from a smartphone web browser, and there are many alternatives that fill in the gaps, we prefer Chrome. Google's browser offers excellent features, synchronization, and simplicity at no cost.

Google Chrome

Platform: iPhone (and iPad)
Price: Free
Download Page

Features

  • Unlimited browser "tabs"
  • Syncs with your Google account to provide you with Chrome data from other browsers, including passwords, bookmarks, and more
  • Saves sessions so you can access sites on your mobile on the desktop, and vice-versa
  • Instant search
  • Easily navigate with helpful gestures
  • Private browsing mode

Where It Excels

Google Chrome for iPhone inherits the goodness of its desktop counterpart. Chrome's syncing abilities truly make it wonderful, allowing you to take pretty much any data associated with Chrome and your Google account and have it on every single device the browser supports. That means you always have your bookmarks, passwords, history, search shortcuts, and so on. Google really does sync well, and that's where Chrome shines beyond Apple's Safari. That said, its other features pretty much stack up evenly. You might prefer its user interface or that of any other browser. Its feature set doesn't set it above a variety of other third-party options. When you want to know why Chrome is the best, just look at its syncing abilities. That's where it wins.

Where It Falls Short

Chrome doesn't have a lot of features. It doesn't beat out mobile Safari in a variety of areas for this reason. As mentioned in the previous section, we like Chrome because it syncs so well. No other browser—including Safari—does such a great job. If you use Chrome on the desktop, you'll probably want it on your mobile. If you don't, however, you lose its main advantage. When it comes to a mobile browser, you generally want to match yours with your choice on the desktop to keep data in sync. We think Chrome does the best job on the desktop so naturally we feel you ought to make it your browser of choice on your iPhone as well.

The Competition

Atomic, our previous top pick, has just about every feature you could possibly want in a mobile web browser (or a desktop web browser for that matter). You can clear history, cookies, and all sorts of other crap you don't want lying around on your mobile. In fact, Atomic will do it for you on quit so you don't even have to remember. You get proper tabbed browsing, which can be extended into kiosk mode (full screen) to make more room for the web page. Atomic even has advanced features like a download manager that can decompress zip archives, an ad blocker, and the ability to save web pages locally. It's easy to use, endlessly customizable, stable, and only costs $1 for the full version. It's really a fantastic browser with a great balance of all the things you'd really need, but might feel cumbersome to those who don't want a desktop-like experience.

Perfect Web Browser is a common alternative to Atomic, offering many of the same features and a fairly similar interface. It attempts to provide a desktop experience on your iPhone, but it definitely achieves that better on the iPad thanks to the extra screen real estate. It costs the same as Atomic (unless you want the iPad version, too, in which case Perfect will cost you an extra $4) and there's very little different, but we've used both for some time and just prefer Atomic. You may disagree, and at $1 each there's little risk in trying them both out.

360 Browser has an interesting user interface with lots of navigation shortcuts and adds support for Flash. Yes, Flash—that thing Apple basically banned from your iDevice. It also has support for Firefox sync so you can easily grab all your bookmarks, tabs, and passwords. Like the others, it'll only cost you $1.

Previously mentionedMeteoric Download Manager is technically not advertised as a web browser, but it works as one just the same. You won't get a desktop-like browsing experience, but if your focus is downloading and managing files it is an excellent option.


Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

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Flies See the World in Matrix-Style Slow Motion

Source: http://gizmodo.com/flies-see-the-world-in-matrix-style-slow-motion-1325474137

Flies See the World in Matrix-Style Slow Motion

If you've ever sat puzzling over a fly's ability to outmaneuver your swift slap of death almost every. single. time—puzzle no more. According to science, you're just measly Agent Smith to the bug's Neo; new research shows that a creature's perception of time is directly related to its size, meaning flies live in a world where time passes as if in slow motion.

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This Extra Lens Is Like a Megaphone For Your DSLR's Pop-up Flash

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-extra-lens-is-like-a-megaphone-for-your-dslrs-pop-1325596701

This Extra Lens Is Like a Megaphone For Your DSLR's Pop-up Flash

It might occasionally come in handy as a bit of fill light for a shot, but your DSRL's pop-up flash is a poor substitute for a dedicated flash perched atop your camera. It makes sense why it sucks; it's designed to be small and compact enough to fold away. But with Rogue's Safari Flash Booster added to the mix, all of a sudden your DSLR's pop-up flash isn't so crappy any more.

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Virgin Mobile Is Using A Clever Eye-Tracking Trick To Get People To Watch Its Video Ad

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/virgin-mobile-uses-blinkwashing-to-get-attention-2013-9

Virgin Mobile is using a cool webcam technology to make its latest video ad an interactive experience that encourages viewers not to click away.

With help from creative agency Mother NY and digital production lab Rehab Studio, Virgin Mobile produced an advertisement in which the on-screen video changes every time a viewer blinks. The advertisement uses eye-tracking technology and viewers' webcams to change the video scene. The video shifts between a series of goofy scenes made by production company Greencard Studios.

All of the clips feature the same script about Virgin Mobile's $35 monthly phone plan, with the idea being that making an interactive ad would get people to focus on the YouTube video long enough to hear Virgin Mobile's pitch. Here's what the demo video looks like:

Virgin Mobile is calling its interactive eye-tracking experience "Blinkwashing."

The ad is the final piece of Virgin Mobile's "Retrain Your Brain" campaign, which seeks to draw attention to its low-cost data plans and convince people to switch over. If you have a webcam on your computer, you can try it out for yourself here.

SEE ALSO: Why People Need To Stop Obsessing About The Google Glass 'Pay-Per-Gaze' Emotion Tracking Patent

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Pew survey: 21 percent of US cellphone owners get online mostly through their phones

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/16/pew-cell-use-survey-2013/

Pew study finds that 34 percent of Americans primarily use their phones to hop online

There have been signs that Americans are leaning more and more on the smartphone as a primary internet device, and nowhere is that clearer than the latest edition of Pew's Cell Internet Use survey. The research group found that 21 percent of American cellphone owners now get online chiefly through their handset, up from 17 percent last year. Offline users, meanwhile, have been reduced to a minority -- 63 percent of US cell owners have hopped on the internet from their phones at some point. The PC isn't going away anytime soon, but it's clear that the traditional computer is just one internet client among many.

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Source: Pew Internet

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Article: Box launching Notes word processor to close the gap with Google Drive

Box is unveiling an online word processor called Box Notes, in a move that could help to put the cloud storage service's features closer on par with that of Google Drive. Though it's just getting started, it appears that Box Notes should have a fairly mature feature set right out the gate, includ...

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/16/4736228/box-announces-notes-word-processor-beta

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People With 10k Instagram Followers Stay Free In This Hotel

Source: http://gizmodo.com/people-with-10k-instagram-followers-stay-free-in-this-h-1318364597

People With 10k Instagram Followers Stay Free In This Hotel

A picture is worth a thousand words and having 10,000 Instagram followers is apparently worth more than $150. At the recently opened 1888 Hotel in Sydney, Australia guests can stay one night for free if they contact the media department to show their social media mettle and follow the hotel on Instagram, of course.

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Google Glass no longer requires tethering plan for smartphone data sharing

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/15/google-glass-bluetooth-tethering-without-data-plan/

Google Glass no longer requires tethering plan for smartphone data sharing

An Explorer Edition of Glass is already a pricey piece of tech, and smartphone tethering plans required to give it a mobile Internet connection have only made ownership that much more expensive. However, there's good news for Google's guinea pigs: the latest update to the headgear quietly implemented a way around the additional monthly fees. With XE9 loaded onto headsets, the companion Android app pipes data to and from the hardware, bypassing both the smartphone's Bluetooth tethering settings and extra plan previously needed from some carriers. To match the change, the application's notification icon sports two arrows to signify the flow of info. We doubt telcos will be fazed by this development for now, but we don't know if that'll hold once Glass arrives on shelves and hits the streets en masse. We've contacted Google to find out if the feature will make it to retail units.

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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Google Maps updated for Android with sponsored hotel details, better navigation

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/14/google-maps-updated-with-sponsored-hotel-details/

Google Maps updated for Android with sponsored hotel details, better navigation

Now that Google has finished updating its Map app's UI, the company can focus on the finer details: navigation, documentation and monetization. The Android app's latest update tweaks hotel search results by adding sponsored rate and booking links, which places a tiny "ad" icon next to services that paid for exposure. Navigation has been also been improved, with better traffic and route information, and the side menu now has a "tips and tricks" option that inelegantly opens a maps help page in your device's web browser. Check out the official update notes at the Google Play link below.

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Source: Google Play

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SanDisk's CFast 2.0 card is the world's fastest memory card of any kind

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/14/sandisks-cfast-2.0-fastest-memory-card-ever/

SanDisk's first CFast 20 memory card is the world's fastest,

About a year after the CompactFlash Association announced the CFast 2.0 draft spec, SanDisk has revealed its new Extreme Pro CFast 2.0 memory card. The first of its kind, SanDisk says read speeds of up to 450MB/s and write speeds of up to 350MB/s make it the world's fastest memory card, period. Speed isn't the only improvement either, as the cards claim a tougher, pinless design and even unique serial numbers that owners can register with customer support. For now however, its use is going to be quite limited. The only camera ready for it at launch is the just-announced Arri Amira, although the Arri XT and Classic (with the XR module) cameras can also use it with an adapter. For those still using traditional CompactFlash storage for their 4K shooting the company is stretching the limits there too, with a new 256GB card that it says has the highest capacity ever. That extra storage will cost you however, with a price of $1,809 for the new 256GB version. There's no word on a price for the CFast 2.0 cards or their USB 3.0-equipped reader, but pro videographers in the US and Europe should be able to find them soon at specialty shops and Arri-authorized locations.

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Source: SanDisk (1), (2)

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Saturday, September 14, 2013

Adafruit tutorial turns your Raspberry Pi into an ad-blocking WiFi access point

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/13/adafruit-tutorial-raspberry-pi-ad-blocking/

DNP Adafruit tutorial turns your Raspberry Pi into an adblocking WiFi access point

Ads can be a buzzkill, especially when they're so pervasive they become distractions. Luckily, Adafruit has a new tutorial that turns your Raspbery Pi into a WiFi access point that doubles as a mighty ad-blocking machine for any device -- be it an iPad or an Xbox -- that connects to it. All you need is a working internet connection, a Raspberry Pi booting Raspbian, a WiFi adapter, an Ethernet cable and the necessary software (which the tutorial breaks down for you). It should go without saying, but Adafruit also includes a reminder to whitelist the ad-supported sites you frequently visit. Blocking ads might improve your online experience overall, but it's always a good idea to support the people who provide you with free content. To get started, check out the tutorial at the source link below.

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Source: Adafruit

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Visualized: Canon 35mm CMOS sensor captures fireflies in HD (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/13/visualized-canon-35mm-cmos-sensor-fireflies/

Visualized: Canon 35mm CMOS sensor captures fireflies in HD

Canon impressed us back in March when it unveiled its 35mm full frame CMOS sensor, which is capable of recording footage in extremely low-light situations. This time around, the company set its sights on the Yaeyama-hime fireflies on Ishigaki Island off the coast of Japan. Shortly after sundown, the Canon team managed to capture a forest full of lightning bugs in full HD in near-dark settings. To watch the video in all its bioluminescent glory, mosey on past the break.

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: Canon

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Sony BRAVIA Smart Stick revealed, it's Google TV in a Chromecast-looking dongle

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/13/sony-bravia-smart-stick-mhl-google-tv/

Sony BRAVIA Smart Stick MHL dongle revealed with Google TV and Sony apps

The Sony NSZ-GU1 Google TV device we've seen pop up in FCC filings has been at least partially revealed today, and it's called the Sony BRAVIA Smart Stick. The blog post doesn't specifically mention any Chromecast-style features, but it is an MHL dongle that runs both Google TV and Sony's own BRAVIA apps. The features are just like Google TV boxes Sony has released before, with a remote (that the FCC filings showed is at least similar to the previous ones) that has QWERTY and voice search support. Additionally, its "picture-and-picture" feature lets users see a browser in one window and TV in another. Since it's a true Google TV device it can install and run Android apps from the Play Store, but any other details will have to wait until it's officially announced on Sunday (the truly dedicated can dig into the source code, linked after the break). Of course this does leave one other question: Now that app support is available as a simple plug-in dongle, does that mean Sony is going to ship plain-jane HDTVs and leave the "smart" features for add-on accessories like this one?

Update: @CJ_000 points out the web-based instruction manual is up on Sony's site, and should answer most questions about how it works. It also lists the pre-installed apps, and at least so far, Hulu Plus is not among them. We're not seeing any DIAL-related features available to start with, so now we really want to know when it will be available, will it work with TVs other than Sony and how much will it cost?

Update 2: Reader Bryan points out a page in the manual that confirms this accessory is only for 2013 model year (and later) Sony HDTVs.

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Source: Sony Blog

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Friday, September 13, 2013

Intel reportedly acquires Indisys, gets an edge in natural language recognition (update: official)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/13/intel-reportedly-acquires-indisys/

Intel acquires natural language firm Indisys, further embraces natural interface technology

Intel is quickly transforming its dream of perceptual computing into reality: the company will soon ship motion control technology, and it acquired the gesture interface firm Omek back in July. The chip giant may not be done yet, as there are reports from Spain that it has acquired Indisys, a small natural language recognition company. Details of the buyout are scarce, but the move would give Intel its own voice control software; it wouldn't have to license code from third parties like Nuance. We've reached out to Intel to confirm the acquisition. If real, the Indisys takeover might have come at just the right time -- Intel is swinging its attention to wearables, and voice control is now more of a necessity than a luxury.

Update: Intel just confirmed to us that it acquired Indisys on May 31st, and that the deal has already closed.

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: ABCdesevilla.es (translated)

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