Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Article: Akamai's state of the internet: America gets with faster broadband, IPv6

Good news, everyone! The U.S. has shot up rapidly in its adoption of high-speed broadband, up to 20 percent in some states, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report for the third quarter of 2013. Things seem to be on the up-and-up for American broadband connections, especially af...

http://gigaom.com/2014/01/28/akamais-state-of-the-internet-america-gets-with-faster-broadband-ipv6/

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drag2share: Lenovo's 10-inch Miix 2 convertible tablet goes on sale early, starting at $699

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/27/lenovo-10-inch-miix-2-goes-on-sale-early/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

You won't have to wait until March to get your hands on Lenovo's 10-inch Miix 2; much to our surprise, the budget-friendly convertible tablet is already on sale. Just be prepared to pay extra for early access. The company is offering only higher-end versions of the Windows 8.1 slate, which currently starts at $699 for a WiFi model with 128GB of storage. The promised $499 variant isn't listed on Lenovo's site as of this writing. While it's hard to complain too much about the higher price given the unexpectedly quick launch, those who want the cheapest edition of this mid-size Miix 2 will have to be patient.

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drag2share: Smartphone sales may have topped 1 billion in 2013, depending on who you ask

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/smartphone-sales-may-have-topped-1-billion-in-2013/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

You once had to look to the broader cellphone market to see more than a billion phones ship in one year. Well, times have changed... at least, if you ask the right analysts. IDC now estimates that smartphone shipments topped one billion for the first time in 2013. However, Strategy Analytics begs to differ -- it reckons that shipments fell just short, at 990 million. Whether or not the industry hit its symbolic milestone, the roughly 40 percent increase over 2012 data shows that the smartphone market had plenty of room to grow last year. Samsung led the pack with 31.3 percent of the the market, while Apple dipped to 15.3 percent as both Samsung and Chinese manufacturers (including Huawei and Lenovo) chipped away at its second-place position.

As for what happened in ! the fourth quarter? Both analyst groups say that Samsung was once again the top vendor, although they note that the Korean firm's share was largely flat at 29 percent. Not that Apple fared any better, as its record-setting iPhone shipments weren't enough to prevent a slide to 18 percent share. Huawei, LG and Lenovo were the real victors -- each of them typically gained a point or more of share in the past year. IDC chalks some of this up to the rise of very low-cost smartphones, which are quickly taking over developing markets like China and India. Companies which focus on more expensive handsets, such as Apple and Samsung, have the most to lose in these areas.

IDC smartphone market share for Q4 2013

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, LG, Lenovo

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drag2share: British government reportedly tracking YouTube and Facebook data without permission

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/gchq-squeaky-dolphin-youtube-facebook-snoop/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

While the NSA has been busy scouring the Angry Birds leaderboards, newly leaked documents report that its British counterpart -- the GCHQ -- has been monitoring the flow of social media in real-time. The General Communications Headquarters can apparently keep track of YouTube traffic, which links are liked on Facebook and even which Blogger or Blogspot pages are visited. This all comes via documents taken by Edward Snowden that were obtained by NBC News. NBC's sources also say that the British spies have been able to physically tap the lines carrying global web traffic to extract key data about specific users as well. This initiative, called Squeaky Dolphin, intends to put broad data trends into context with world events and give the intelligence community a heads up for future anti-government happenings -- not for spying on a person-by-person level. What's more, the GCHQ reportedly shares this information with the US.

The GCHQ has issued a statement claiming that all of its work is carried out within the limits of the law, while the NSA says that it's only interested in the communication activities of valid foreign intelligence targets. For their part, Google and Facebook say that the spying on unencrypted information was done with out their respective knowledge, and neither company had given the UK government permission to access the data -- something we've heard before.

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drag2share: Chipotle Is Launching A Satirical Series About The Dark Side Of 'Big Agriculture' On Hulu

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/qKpSBmDeps8/chipotle-launches-satirical-tv-series-on-hulu-2014-1

Chipotle series

Chipotle is launching a satirical TV series on the dark side of industrial agriculture in the U.S.

The four-part series, called "Farmed and Dangerous," will air on Hulu and Hulu Plus beginning Feb. 17.

The show was produced by Chipotle and New York-based studio Piro. It contains no explicit Chipotle marketing, according to the company.

"The show addresses issues that we think are important — albeit in a satirical way — without being explicitly about Chipotle," Mark Crumpacker, chief marketing and development officer at Chipotle, said in a release. "This approach allows us to produce content that communicates our values and entertains people at the same time."

The first season focuses on the introduction of "PetroPellet," a petroleum based animal feed.

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Monday, January 27, 2014

Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested for Money Laundering

Source: http://gizmodo.com/report-bitcoin-exchange-ceo-arrested-for-running-illeg-1509842040

Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested for Money Laundering

The Justice Department has formally charged the CEO of Bitcoin exchange Bitinstant.com with running an illegal wire service, and according to reports by the New York Post's Kaja Whitehouse, he's just been arrested at JFK. Uh oh.

The FBI Seized All of TorMail's Data and Is Using It to Catch Hackers

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-fbi-seized-all-of-tormails-data-and-is-using-it-to-1509838202

The FBI Seized All of TorMail's Data and Is Using It to Catch Hackers

If you had any faith left in anonymous email services, now would be the time to let that go. New court documents show that in chasing down associates of Freedom Hosting, the FBI managed to download the entire email database of TorMail. And now it's using that information to take on the Darknet.

Article: Chartio Raises $2.2M, Updates Its Business Intelligence And Data Visualization Platform

Chartio has raised $2.2 million from Avalon Ventures and added some new features to its data visualization platform that blends data sets and does complex calculations. Chartio had previously raised a $4.4 million Series A round from Avalon in 2011. With the funding, Chartio will continue to deve...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/24/chartio-raises-2-2m-and-adds-new-features-to-business-intelligence-and-data-visualization-platform/

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Stratasys' new 3D printer creates multicolored flexible materials

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/27/stratasys-3d-printer-flexible-color/

Stratasys' has a new $330,000 3D printer, but this one has the potential to do a whole lot more than monochrome figurines. In fact, the company says it's the first machine able to create objects in colored, flexible materials. The Objet500 Connex3 3D printer uses rubber and plastic as base materials, although according to Stratasys (the company which now owns the MakerBot series) material combinations will be able to offer different levels of rigidity, transparency and opacity. Colors, meanwhile, are produced by the same mix of cyan, magenta and yellow you'll find on your inkjet printer at home -- it even comes with six palettes of rubbery "tango" colors, if you're perhaps looking to channel your '90s tastes into some tasteful flexible booties, as seen above.

At the technical level, the printer can go as fine as 16-micron layers, offering a high level of detail and finish, and can pump out around 30kg of resin (that is, base material) per run. Talking to the BBC, a Stratasys spokesperson said the advanced printer could cut down industrial design prototyping times by 50 percent, although he was talking about the time from prototype to market, not printing time itself. The Objet500 Connex3 launches today, although those flexible color printing materials won't be available to buy until Q2 later this year, so hold on to those neo-boot dreams for now.

Filed under: Misc, Wearables, Science, Alt

Saturday, January 25, 2014

drag2share: Tired Of Missing Deliveries? This Startup Is Your Dream Come True

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/4K2SpgCiM78/doorman-san-francisco-deliveries-2014-1

doorman

Zander Adell is founder of Doorman, a logistics startup that aims to solve the famous "last mile" problem for mail and package delivery. By receiving your deliveries for you remotely and delivering them to your door by appointment, Doorman aims to make getting your Amazon packages as easy of a process you could hope for.

Apartment dwellers without doormen in an urban area will readily tell you that to be home at the right time to receive a package from UPS and others is nearly impossible. You almost always have to make an in-person visit to the post office or to UPS to pick it up later.

Doorman aims to turn this asynchronous experience into one that's much more synchronous and takes place on your own terms. All it takes is the use of the Doorman iOS or Android app and a new custom address it provides so Doorman can receive your parcels.

Currently serving San Francisco, the company partners with mailbox rental facilities to receive your mail nearby, then hires background-checked drivers to deliver your stuff to your home by appointment as late as midnight.

Each time they come to your place, regardless of the number of packages, it's a $7 charge but there's an aggressive promotional system at work where you can tweet about the company and receive your delivery for free.

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

Friday, January 24, 2014

drag2share: HTC One will get KitKat certification in the US next week

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/23/htc-one-kitkat-us/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

SONY DSC

Eighty-four days. That's how long it's been since HTC announced its intent to bring Android 4.4 KitKat to all North American versions of the One within 90 days. With just six days left to go on the countdown, HTC just tweeted on its US account that the final software has finally entered the hallowed carrier labs for testing and will be certified (and, we hope, rolled out) sometime next week. Of course, the process is now essentially under the control of individual mobile operators, so let's hope that they don't make liars out of HTC -- we've had Wednesday circled on our Sense calendars for quite some time now.

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

Thursday, January 23, 2014

iRig Mic HD brings a hand-held option to iOS and Mac recording for $99

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/23/irig-mic-hd/

We've seen our fair share of mobile recording gear, and IK Multimedia is certainly no stranger to the fray. For those who prefer a more hand-held approach to tracking with an iOS device, the outfit has outed the iRig Mic HD. The digital condenser microphone is capable of handling your best attempt at Freddie Mercury's vocals, instruments and good, ol' spoken word with a 24-bit digital converter and a shape that will sit cozy in standard mic stands. There's also a built-in preamp and LED status indicator to keep levels in check -- similar to what we've seen on some of the company's previous releases. Of course, the main selling point is the unit's compatibility with the iPhone and iPad via Lightning connector (an improvement over its predecessor), but the device also plays nice with Mac thanks to added USB connectivity. As you might expect, the iRig Mic HD works with IK Multimedia's stable of apps like AmpliTube and iRig Recorder for those mobile captures. If you're still sporting older iOS wares, a 30-pin cable can be purchased separately when the $99.99/€79.99 accessory arr! ives nex t quarter.

Filed under: Peripherals

Source: IK Multimedia

Google's voice search could soon be baked into Chrome, no extension required

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/23/googles-voice-search-chrome-chromium/

Back in November, the folks in Mountain View trotted out the beta version of a Chrome extension that brought "OK Google"-enabled voice search to the desktop, no clicks required. That's all fine and dandy, but what if it said control was a standard option on the desktop, capable of being toggled on or off with a click? Well, the Chromium folks are working on just that, with options for the browser to stop listening after five minutes and working incognito. Items like this that pop up in Chromium have a tendency to turn into standard Chrome features at some point. There's no telling when we'll be able to use spoken word as a standard search tool, but there's always the beta add-on for sorting hands-free queries in the meantime.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

Source: Francois Beaufort (Google+)

Korg Gadget packs 15 synthesizers and drum machines into an iPad app

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/23/korg-gadget-ipad-app/

Fancy feeding your music production hobby with a slate rather than a collection of pricey gadgets? If so, Korg has added to its iPad-based offerings with the Gadget app. The software for Apple tablets bakes in 15 different sythesizers and drum machines (called Gadgets) that can be combined any way you'd like to construct those beats. Ranging from the Kiev digital synth to the Chicago tube bass machine, the app's instrument arsenal (which can be previewed here) covers quite the sonic spectrum with drum and synth sounds a plenty. Keeping the orientation vertical, the UI is divided into two sections that allow for dual control at all times. This is aimed at making both track and instrument adjustments quick and easy. If you're concerned about your lack of musical skill, there's a scale function helps you avoid hitting a wrong note whilst getting your feet wet.

Already splurged for the latest iPad? Korg says you'll be able to run more than 20 of the instruments at the same time, thanks to its beefed up chipset. Once those audio files have been tinkered with enough, options for sharing to Facebook, SoundCloud and Twitter or beaming them to Dropbox for safe keeping are all built in. There's also access to GadgetCloud for showing off projects with fellow users of the software -- complete with its own ranking system. The app is a bit pricey at $38.99, but if you commit before February 23rd, you can snag a $10 discount at that second source link below.

Filed under: Software

Source: Korg, iTunes

Article: Lyst, A Fashion E-Commerce Aggregator, Raises $14M More, Plans Beacon Rollout With PayPal

Lyst, a platform that aggregates different fashion commerce sites in a single place with a "universal shopping cart", is today announcing a $14 million round of funding — money that it will use to ramp up its marketing and to hire more data scientists and other engineers to keep building out its ...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/23/lyst-a-fashion-e-commerce-aggregator-raises-14m-more-plans-beacon-rollout-with-paypal/

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