Friday, March 07, 2014

drag2share: The Best Smartwatch On The Planet Just Got Better For Android Users

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/pebble-smartwatch-for-android-2014-3

Pebble Steel

Pebble has announced new official partner apps for its smartwatch and is opening the Android arm of its app store.

This news comes just one month after the company launched its app store for iOS devices.

The new app partners are eBay, Evernote, and Time Warner Cable.

Pebble's app store runs on your iOS or Android phone as an app unto itself. A few of our favorite app offerings so far are Tiny Bird for getting a quick Flappy Bird fix on your watch, and 7-Minute Workout for breaking a sweat.

When not running apps, the Pebble lets you view incoming tweets, emails and text messages right from your wrist.

Pebble first gained attention back in 2012 when it raised more than $10.2 million on Kickstarter from almost 69,000 people. Last May, Pebble raised a $15 million Series A round led by Charles River Ventures.

SEE ALSO: REVIEW: The best smartwatch in the world

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drag2share: Punching virtual sharks for points with the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/07/punching-virtual-sharks-for-points-oculus-rift-leap-motion/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

"This could be a science lesson on the innards of sharks."

Chance Ivey, game design lead for Chaotic Moon's whimsical Oculus Rift demo SharkPunch, was only half-joking when he made that comment to me as I exploded a megalodon with my fist in virtual space. That's because the minigame, which incorporates a visor-mounted Leap Motion controller to let users punch sharks in 3D, actually has firm roots in an educational simulator the Austin, Texas-based company's been developing for prospective clients. Yes, that connection may be hard to swallow at first -- after all, how does a frenzied, and fun, game of shark carnage assist players with learning? The simple answer is that it doesn't, but by no means does that lessen SharkPunch's educational origins in the slightest.

Chaotic Moon's proper Oculus Rift education demo begins by placing a user within a virtual classroom. At the front of this room is an interactive periodic table that the "student," acting on instructions from a nearby teacher, uses to pull elements together and create a molecule of H2O, also known as water. Once that goal's been achieved, the molecules begin to multiply in a chain filling the room and, eventually, transforming into water; water which then floods the classroom. It's at this point the student finds him/herself immersed in an undersea environment populated by swimming fish. Chance told us that it was this tempting virtual environment that prompted a multitude of users to wonder aloud, "Can I punch those fish?" If you've ever submerged yourself in the Oculus Rift's VR world, you'd understand the impulse.

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drag2share: Samsung Just Launched An Ad-Free, Free Music Service

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/AukMgXgWEAA/samsung-launches-milk-2014-3

Milk Music in Note 3 Fine Tune Lorde

Samsung is diving into the music space with its launch of Milk, an ad-free radio service available exclusively for its flagship Galaxy devices.

Milk has 200 genre-based radio stations and 13 million songs. It's powered by Slacker – a radio app pre-programmed onto some Android phones. Galaxy users can download Milk for free. 

Samsung says that its trying to make new music discovery simple and organic. You don't have to sign up or log in when you use Milk: Music just starts playing. 

The user interface revolves around a dial that displays up to nine genres at once, ranging from rap to classical. But you can also create your own personal stations based on your favorite song or album, just like you would on Pandora (but without the ads).

When explaining the name of the app to Business Insider, a Samsung representative said that it wanted its music experience to be rich and fresh. It should make you feel a satisfied "warm and fuzzy" feeling like you would with a tall glass of milk.

Presumably, Samsung wants users to ditch Pandora or Spotify to use Milk, as it positions itself more and more as a multimedia giant. 

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Article: Google updates Text-to-Speech engine with new and high-quality voices

Text-to-Speech version 3 brings news languages and higher-quality voices for English US and English UK. If you use the voice synthesis capabilities of your smartphone, for things like reading books aloud or interacting with Google Now, you probably use Google’s Text-to-Speech engine, although Sam...

http://www.androidauthority.com/google-text-to-speech-high-quality-voices-354394/

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Article: Bosch And Hillcrest Make A Bet On Wearable Head-Mounted Computing With New All-In-One Sensor System

Head-mounted computing probably still seems a bit far-fetched to most every day users, but component manufacturers and tech suppliers are already gearing up to provide a future supply chain with the parts it needs to build such devices affordably and easily. Bosch Sensortec and Hillcrest Labs are...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/bosch-and-hillcrest-make-a-bet-on-wearable-head-mounted-computing-with-new-all-in-one-sensor-system/

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Article: Two college students invented an adapter that allows 3D printers to print in full color for less than $100

3D printing is generally a monochrome affair. Full-color printers are expensive, so the more casual user is likely stuck printing in one or two colors. Cédric Kovacs-Johnson and Charles Haider, both chemical engineering undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, say they have come up ...

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/06/two-college-students-invented-an-adapter-that-allow-3d-printers-to-print-in-full-color-for-less-than-100/

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Article: Beats Music opens up, making its API public

The music streamer gives outside developers access to programming that will let other applications integrate the new subscription-only music service, hoping to get Beats Music in your car, your home, everywhere. Streaming-music service Beats Music is opening up some of its programming to outsider...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57620039-93/beats-music-opens-up-making-its-api-public/?subj=cnet&tag=title

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drag2share: Scientists unlock mystery of out-of-body experiences (aka astral trips)

Source: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-unlock-mystery-of-woman-who-sees-herself-out-1538196076/@jesusdiaz

Scientists unlock mystery of out-of-body experiences (aka astral trips)

Some people claim that they have experienced out-of-body experiences—aka "astral trips"—floating outside of their bodies and watching themselves from the outside. A team of scientists found someone who says she can do this at will and put her into a brain scanner. What they discovered was surprisingly strange.

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drag2share: EdX expands range of institutions that can offer free online courses

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/edx-expands-range-of-institutions/

Students participating in online education

EdX's open online education system has drawn a lot of interest -- enough interest that the non-profit has just loosened up its membership structure to allow for more participants. The revamp lets 12 additional organizations offer free internet-based courses, including schools as well as non-academic outlets like the International Monetary Fund, the Linux Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. Details of the new programs aren't available beyond the Linux Foundation's plans for an introductory Linux course, but edX's move is bound to improve the diversity of things you can learn without spending a dime on tuition.

[Image credit: TU Delft, Flickr]

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Source: EdX

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drag2share: Sharp's near-4K TVs are now available, starting at $2,500

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/sharp-aquos-near-4k-tvs/

Even though CES 2014 is long gone, some of the stuff announced there is just now starting to become available for purchase. Case in point: Sharp's Quattron+ lineup, a series of 2014 AQUOS televisions featuring the latest and greatest, including a revamped SmartCentral platform. But that's not what's interesting here. Instead, it's the Quattron+ technology, one that Sharp describes as being able to "accept a 4K signal and play it back at near-4K resolution, with an effective resolution of 3,840 x 2,160."

The company says this is possible thanks to its Revelation Upscaler, which takes HD content and "optimizes it for the higher resolution screen, so that it's sharper and more vivid." By building Q+ TVs on 1080p panels, Sharp claims it's then capable of pricing these lower than some of its would-be competitors. Now, is that enough to get you to buy into it? If so, you'll have quite a few options to choose from -- they're up for grabs now in 60-, 70- and 80-inch flavors, with prices ranging from $2,500 all the way to a cool $6,000.

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Source: Sharp

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drag2share: HP quietly launches an 8-inch Android tablet for $170

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/07/hp8-8-inch-android-tablet/

HP 8 tablet

Hewlett Packard is trying to pull off a flanking maneuver on the Android market, through low-profile launches of low-cost devices. We recently came across the company's VoiceTab phablets during a side-show at Mobile World Congress, and now we're looking at a more traditional 7.85-inch tablet called the HP 8. In return for $170, you'll get a plain-looking device that, aesthetically, has more in common with last year's Slate 7 than with the faux-metal VoiceTabs. However, since we're making comparisons, we should also point out that the HP 8 has a worse display than both the Slate 7 and Dell's rival Venue 8, with fewer pixels (1,024 x 768) spread out over a larger area. The software and internals seem functional enough, though: Android 4.2.2 running on a quad-core ARM chip made by the Chinese company Allwinner, with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, stereo speakers, and a just-about-okay 3,800mAh battery that promises up to seven hours of use.

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Via: PhoneArena

Source: HP

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drag2share: Preschoolers Figure Out How New Things Work Faster Than College Students

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/preschoolers-learn-gadgets-faster-than-college-students-2014-3

In a new study, preschoolers outperformed college students in figuring out how to make an novel and unusual gadget operate.

The researchers say that the kids get the advantage because adults — with all their age and wisdom — have amassed biases and prior assumptions that make them less willing to consider unconventional options when dealing with a new problem.

Here's how the study worked: researchers gave preschoolers a gadget that lights up and plays music when you place a certain combination of "blickets" (clay pieces formed into various shapes) on top of it.

Unusual combinations of the "blickets" could make the gadget work. Children caught on to that pattern, but adults took much longer to figure it out.

"These children unconsciously are making inferences, drawing conclusions, solving problems, the same way in many ways that a very intelligent scientist would. But they aren't self conscious about it. They couldn't tell you that that was what they were doing," study researcher Alison Gopnik, from UC Berkeley, says in the video below.

The adults, on the other hand, ignored the training that didn't match what they'd previously experienced about the world. That led them to make mistakes and have a harder time developing the new skills.

The study notes: "The very fact that children know less to begin with may, paradoxically, make them better, or at least more open-minded, learners. The plasticity of early beliefs may help to explain the bold exploration and breathtaking innovation that characterizes children’s learning."

The study will be published in the May issue of the journal Cognition. This video from UC Berkeley shows some of the experiments (and adorable kids) that went into the paper:

SEE ALSO: New Marshmallow Study Challenges Conventional Thinking About Willpower

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Thursday, March 06, 2014

drag2share: Emotient's Google Glass app tells you how others are feeling

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/emotient-google-glass-app/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Emotient face tracking on Google Glass

It's not always easy to read someone's emotions -- and that's a problem for retailers, which can't easily tell if their products intrigue you or simply confuse you. They may not have to guess for much longer, though, as Emotient has launched the private beta for a Google Glass app that identifies feelings using the device's camera. The software scans faces for emotional cues that reflect an overall sentiment, even if it's subtle; the app can tell if you're mildly pleased, for instance. Privacy shouldn't be an issue, since the app is only saving anonymous data, not images.

Emotient is testing its app with just a handful of companies right now, but the finished app should help stores please customers in the future. There's also a chance you'll see the underlying technology in something you can try for yourself. The company tells The Next Web that its emotion detec! tion will reach Intel's RealSense platform, so don't be surprised if your next webcam can tell that you're in a good mood.

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drag2share: Customize Every Detail of These Gorgeous Prefab Houses

Source: http://gizmodo.com/customize-every-detail-of-these-gorgeous-prefab-houses-1528153817

Customize Every Detail of These Gorgeous Prefab Houses

If you fancy yourself a designer of sorts, you're going to love Blu Homes. This California-based company makes beautiful, incredibly customizable prefab houses that also happen to be environmentally friendly. You can design your own without leaving the comfort of your couch.

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drag2share: The Co-Founder Of Flickr Made A New Personalized Version Of Yelp

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/oscofhRCQ-k/how-to-use-findery-app-iphone-2014-3

Caterina Fake, the co founder of photo site Flickr, unveiled a new app today called Findery.

iPhone owners can use this free mobile search engine to discover and share interesting notes about locations they visit.

"It's not about reviews or venues. Its really about the meaning of the place, spirit of the place. We're trying to make technology more human" Fake told to Business Insider over the phone.

Findery identifies your current location and will send you a slew of public or private notes written by other people in the app's network relating to a restaurant or bar.

These notes can range from personal stories or historical information instead of generic restaurant reviews.

It launches today for iPhone. See below to learn how to use it.

Here's the main page of the app.

How To Use Findery

The app will take you through a brief demo before taking you to the account page. Create a username and password but the username has to be comprised of numbers and other characters.

How To Use Findery

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drag2share: Samsung's wearable blitz may not be over: here comes the 'S-Circle'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/samsung-s-circle-fitness-wearable-leak/

Samsung S Band

Compared to the glitz surrounding its latest Gear smartwatches, Samsung's more basic fitness bands have so far failed to garner much attention. The electronics giant doesn't seem to be giving up on this cheaper sort of wearable, however, because an unannounced model called the "S-Circle" has just cropped up at the FCC, having already appeared at the Bluetooth SIG a while back. The FCC paperwork confirms the device's model number (EI-AN900A) and description as an "activity tracker," as well as its inclusion of Bluetooth Low-Energy, and all of this points to it being a member of the same family as the S Band (shown above) and Heart Rate Monitor Band that launched with the Galaxy S4 last year. There's at least some chance that the S-Circle will combine these functions into a single low-cost device, transmitting both movement and heart rate data to Samsung's S-Health app, but that's just optimistic speculation on our part. Either way, it looks like Galaxy S5 owners who care more about muscle tone than Moschino may have the option of another accessory pretty soon.

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Via: Samsung Updates

Source: FCC

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drag2share: Opera's Android browser catches up to rivals with support for webpage video chats

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/opera-android-browser-version-20/

Given Google's Chrome dominance, it's easy to forget that there are other Android browsers. Opera is one of the also-rans, and it's just brought a new version with a nice round number, 20, for your consideration. It's touting WebRTC as the main hook, which lets you do video calls straight from Opera to any recipient with another WebRTC browser. That includes Opera, Chrome or Firefox, since the latter two apps have actually supported WebRTC on Android for quite awhile. Other additions include a new UI layout that you can customize for tablets or phones, an update to the Chromium 33 core (yes, Opera now uses WebKit), search improvements and a new download manager. It still claims to use less data than other browsers thanks to its off-road function, so if you're pushing that hard carrier limit, check the source.

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Source: Opera

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Article: Flipboard Acquires Social Magazine Zite From CNN

Flipbooard today announced that it is acquiring social reading mobile magazine Zite from CNN. In addition, Flipboard has entered into a strategic partnership with the cable news giant, one of the largest TV and news publishers in the world owned by Time Warner. All of CNN's worldwide coverage wil...

http://readwrite.com/2014/03/05/flipboard-acquires-social-magazine-zite-from-cnn

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Article: F-Secure report shows once again why you should stick to the Play Store for app downloads

Finnish security company F-Secure published its Threat Report for the second half of 2013, which includes a section dedicated to mobile security issues. According to the company, threats in the mobile space are almost entirely surfacing within the Android ecosystem, with 97 percent of malware ide...

http://www.androidauthority.com/f-secure-malware-report-353918/

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Article: Kirabook 13-i7s-touch Ultrabook Review

The first generation of Toshiba's Kirabook was an ambitious shot at creating a high-end product with MacBook-like buzz. That slim 13-inch magnesium-alloy laptop was even the first post-Retina PC we'd seen with a better-than-HD screen resolution -- a feature now becoming increasingly common in the...

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/kirabook-13-i7s-touch/4505-3121_7-35835199.html?subj=cnet&tag=title

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Article: Opera for Android 20 brings WebRTC support, configurable layouts, and redesign

0 by Bogdan Petrovan on March 6, 2014 8:33 am Opera for Android is receiving a sizeable update today, bringing support for WebRTC-based video chatting, new UI layouts, a redesigned speed dial page, and a smarter download manager. The new Opera for Android allows you to jump in video chat sessions...

http://www.androidauthority.com/opera-android-webrtc-layouts-354414/

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drag2share: 'Wello' iPhone case can track your blood pressure, temperature and more

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/wello/

Last year, Scanadu caught our attention with Scout, its simple-to-use tricorder-style health monitor. Now a new iPhone case promises to make monitoring your vital signs even easier. Called Wello, the case has sensors built in that can give you a picture of your overall health after holding it a special way for just a few seconds. The slim device measures your heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and blood oxygen levels and displays the ECG waves from your heart -- you can even test your lung function through a small included attachment you blow into.

Designed to be both fast and simple to use, the prototype we tried out this week was ultra-light, and thinner than the Speck case on one of our iPhones. Readings are done with your hands in a comfortable position, and the health tracker was able to return our vital signs as well as a fancy ECG graph of our heart in just a few seconds. Out of the box, you'll be able to pair it with your Wi-Fi scale and fitness tracker, so you can keep an overall picture of your health in the same place. Over time, additional add-ons could become available for the case to test for other things like glucose. Everything you track can be viewed on a daily, weekly, or monthly scale so you can see at a glance if your health starts to change.

Founder and CEO Hamish Patel has been working on the technology behind Wello for two years. He told us that he sees the device not only being useful for people in the US, but even more so for people in developing countries where access to health services are limited. When the $199 device ships this fall (pending FDA approval) it will be available for the iPhone 4S, 5, and 5S in 35 countries. Android users can also use Wello, but as a standalone device rather than a case for their phone. All of the tech for Wello is contained in a removable card roughly the thickness of your average business card. Azio plans to make the card available for other manufacturers to include in cases, so you might ultimately see Wello come to a third-party Android case, or even a different iPhone case.

Wello is open for pre-orders today in United States as well as Canada, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom and across the EU. Early buyers can earn $10 for each person they get to pre-order -- depending on how many people you refer, tracking your health could be not only easy, it could be free.

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Wednesday, March 05, 2014

drag2share: New HTC One dual-lens camera shown off in detailed leak

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/05/htc-dual-lens-camera/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Leaked images and videos of the HTC One's successor are a dime a dozen, so we've already seen every possible nook and cranny of the device. Why, then, are we reporting on the latest find by @evleaks? It gives us the closest and clearest look of HTC's rumored dual-lens camera setup so far, which is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing features on the phone. It features a smaller lens just above HTC's standard lens and dual-LED flash, but the purpose of is still a complete mystery. Plenty of theories exist, and we reported on the most likely possibilities demoed at Mobile World Congress last week. Ideas include the ability to cleanly magnify distant subjects without using digital zoom, enhancing low-light performance (which was an area HTC focused on with the One), quicker autofocus and the ability to change a picture's depth of field. Whether or not these particular benefits show up, it's hard to dispute that a parallel-lens setup is indeed coming to HTC's new flagship smartphone

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drag2share: You can now mirror your Android screen on Chromecast, if you have a Nexus 5

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/05/mirror-for-android-chromecast-support/

Koushik Dutta demos Android screen mirroring on Chromecast

Cyanogen's Koushik Dutta has been teasing the prospect of mirroring your Android screen on Chromecast for a few weeks, and today you can finally try the feature -- if you have the right smartphone, that is. An updated version of the Mirror for Android beta includes early support for mirroring to either a Chrome browser or Chromecast, but only if you have a Nexus 5. Google's phone is the sole device with the hardware video decoder needed for this mirroring technique, Dutta says. You also have to get root-level access to the operating system with the current release, although that won't be necessary in the future. Provided you meet the app's exacting requirements, you can give mirroring a spin at the source link.

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Source: Koushik Dutta (Google+)

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drag2share: A Coloring Book That Puts Kid-Designed Fashions On a Virtual Catwalk

Source: http://gizmodo.com/a-coloring-book-that-puts-kid-designed-fashions-on-a-vi-1536251814

A Coloring Book That Puts Kid-Designed Fashions On a Virtual Catwalk

Right Said Fred knew the appeal of the catwalk, and now kids can get in on the glitz and glamor with this new coloring book from Crayola that lets them design custom clothes and then see their creations virtually modeled. And it goes without saying that an iOS tablet or smartphone is required, but not included.

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drag2share: OnLive reborn: can the cloud gaming company find footing with two new services?

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/05/onlive-cloudlift-onlive-go/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

In early August 2012, OnLive employees told us that the cloud gaming company was close to falling apart. Despite creating an impressive service rooted in a futuristic idea -- playing bleeding edge PC games on the highest settings, remotely, streaming from the cloud to virtually any device -- a cocktail of financial issues all crested at once. The result was mass layoffs ("at least" 50 percent), including lead evangelist and company CEO Steve Perlman. OnLive had a new owner, venture capitalist Gary Lauder, and a renewed directive to become profitable. Then, the company went silent.

"My focus has been on turning this from proof of concept into a real business."- Gary Lauder

Its services continued operating -- business as usual, as it! were -- and as media, we didn't hear a peep. The usual trade show appearances and interview opportunities dried up. Our last post about OnLive before this was in February 2013. Today, that's changing: the company is re-opening the lines of communication, announcing two new initiatives in CloudLift and OnLive Go.

The first, CloudLift, takes the cloud streaming concept of OnLive and applies it to games you already own. By logging in with a Steam account (required, at least for now), games you've got attached will be "unlocked" in the cloud, playable using the OnLive client or Microconsole anywhere else (including save data that syncs between devices). Of course, not all games registered or bought through Steam will work with CloudLift; just 20 games are launching with the service today, with "dozens more planned." Lauder told us OnLive's game onboarding process has been streamlined significantly, specifically with the intent to bring more games, more rapidly to OnLive.

The First 20 Games
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Batman: Arkham City GOTY
Batman: Arkham Origins Darksiders II
Dead Island GOTY Dead Island: Riptide
LEGO The Lord of the Rings Metro 2033
Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition MX vs. ATV Reflex
Painkiller: Hell and Damnation Red Faction: Armageddon
Saints Row IV Scribblenauts Unlimited
Strike Suit Zero The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles
The LEGO Movie Videogame The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
Truck Racer Type: Ri! der


Interested? OnLive's hoping you're interested enough to drop $15 every month for the functionality (there's also a seven-day trial). It goes live today.

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drag2share: How to make a mini crossbow with just a bottle cap and popsicle sticks

Source: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/how-to-make-a-mini-crossbow-with-just-a-bottle-cap-and-1536563253/@caseychan

How to make a mini crossbow with just a bottle cap and popsicle sticks

Here's some fun you can have at home with little to no effort: make a mini crossbow from a bottle cap, two popsicle sticks and a rubber band. You can fire off flaming arrows, toothpicks, skewers, Q-tips and more with just your thumb.

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drag2share: Chrome beta for Android lets you send web videos to your Chromecast

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/05/chrome-34-beta-android/

Chromecast support in Chrome beta for Android

Want to stream any web video from your smartphone to your Chromecast? Grab the beta release of Chrome 34 for Android. The browser includes experimental support for sending embedded clips to Google's media stick, saving you from launching a native app just to watch something on a TV. As you'd expect, there are some compatibility hiccups at this early stage. YouTube works well (surprise!), but other sites are hit and miss -- you're best off sticking to videos from major, HTML5-friendly hosts like Vimeo. If you're willing to live with some inconsistencies, though, you can try the streaming feature today.

[Image credit: WhyYouPaul, Reddit]

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Via: Liliputing

Source: Reddit, Google Chrome Releases

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drag2share: Here's How A 'Bitcoin Bank' Was Robbed Of Every Single Coin It Held Online

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/flexcoin-robbery-2014-3

bitcoin banned graphic

Yesterday we wrote about Flexcoin, the latest Bitcoin site that had to shut down after a massive theft that wiped it clean of every single Bitcoin it held online.

The company has now posted an explanation of how it happened:

During the investigation into stolen funds we have determined that the extent of the theft was enabled by a flaw within the front-end.

The attacker logged into the flexcoin front end from IP address 207.12.89.117 under a newly created username and deposited to address 1DSD3B3uS2wGZjZAwa2dqQ7M9v7Ajw2iLy

The coins were then left to sit until they had reached 6 confirmations.

The attacker then successfully exploited a flaw in the code which allows transfers between flexcoin users. By sending thousands of simultaneous requests, the attacker was able to "move" coins from one user account to another until the sending account was overdrawn, before balances were updated.

This was then repeated through multiple accounts, snowballing the amount, until the attacker withdrew the coins. (Here and Here)

Flexcoin has made every attempt to keep our servers as secure as possible, including regular testing. In our ~3 years of existence we have successfully repelled thousands of attacks. But in the end, this was simply not enough.

Having this be the demise of our small company, after the endless hours of work we've put in, was never our intent. We've failed our customers, our business, and ultimately the Bitcoin community.

Please direct any and all questions to admin(at)flexcoin(dot)com and we will reply to you as soon as possible.

Join the conversation about this story »


    






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Tuesday, March 04, 2014

drag2share: Report: Dish Is Working on a Web-Based TV Offering For $20-$30/Month

Source: http://gizmodo.com/report-dish-is-working-on-a-web-based-tv-offering-for-1536422107

Report: Dish Is Working on a Web-Based TV Offering For $20-$30/Month

A day after Dish announced that it'll carry Disney without skipping through ads, Bloomberg is reporting that Dish is cooking up a web-based TV offering that will only cost you 30 bucks a month, max.

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drag2share: Compact 'Stubilizer' could smooth out your GoPro footage

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/04/stubilizer-go-pro-steadicam/

Though GoPro cameras excel at capturing your insane escapades, the resulting shaky footage is not what we'd call production-ready. Now an inventor named Stuart Smith is looking to smooth things out with his self-named Stubilizer, a kind of mini-Steadicam designed for the GoPro's mount. Thanks to the small size, you can attach it almost anywhere you'd normally put a GoPro -- like on a helmet or vehicle, for instance. Despite the size, it seems to excel at drastically improving shaky video (shown after the break) even when you're running. Smith has launched three versions on Kickstarter, the Solo, Duo and Pro, which run £149, £199 and £299 (about $250, $340 and $500), respectively. All three use gyroscopes and motors to steady footage, with the Solo helping roll only, the Duo adding the pitch axis and the Pro stabilizing all three: pitch, roll and yaw. If you're interested in pledging, you can hit the source -- just keep in mind the extra risk to your neck with such helmet-attached devices.

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Source: Kickstarter

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drag2share: When to Buy Your Plane Ticket, Based on Data from Four Million Trips

Source: http://lifehacker.com/when-to-buy-your-plane-ticket-based-on-data-from-four-1536163030

When to Buy Your Plane Ticket, Based on Data from Four Million Trips

When you're booking a flight, you don't want to buy too far in advance—and be the guy who lost out on a price drop; nor do you want to book too late—and pay hundreds more for the convenience. When's the best time to buy? CheapAir crunched the numbers from over four million tickets bought last year to offer some advice.

Those four million tickets add up to a database of 1.3 billion air fares. What they found, at least for domestic airfares, is there's a "prime booking window" of between 29 and 104 days in advance when the average fare is at its lowest (so, roughly a month to three months before the flight). Taken altogether, 54 days in advance is the best time to buy, based on this data.

As you can see from the chart above, the cost of waiting up to 13 days in advance is enormous.

These real-world findings back up one economist's calculation of the cheapest time to book a flight , eight weeks.

CheapAir notes, however, that the exact 54 days in advance number isn't very important. Prices for each trip will rise and fall volatilely depending on the market and when you're flying. As a rule of thumb, you should still keep checking fares frequently and grab a good deal when you see one.

When should you buy your airline ticket? Here's what our data has to say | CheapAir

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drag2share: Cryptocat Creates Private, Encrypted Chatrooms on the iPhone

Source: http://lifehacker.com/cryptocat-creates-private-encrypted-chatrooms-on-the-i-1536166850

Cryptocat Creates Private, Encrypted Chatrooms on the iPhone

iPhone: Cryptocat is one of the easiest to use encrypted chat clients out there, and today it's available on the iPhone so you can keep your conversations private on the go.

Cryptocat for the iPhone works pretty much the same as the desktop counterparts. The process to use Cryptocat is pretty simple: create a private chatroom with a unique name (use something strange and unique if you don't want random people dropping in), share that name with your friend over another form of communication like text message, then they'll create a one-time use username and enter the chat room. From there, you can chat away about whatever you want, and Cryptocat won't save any of it after you exit the app. All the text sent in Cryptocat is encrypted and you can peek at how it works on the Cryptocat blog. Cryptocat works between devices too, so you can chat with people on desktop, in their browser, or in the iPhone app. I had a few random crashes in the app selecting information about usernames, but overall the experience is similar to the desktop versions.

Cryptocat (Free) | iTunes App Store

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Article: F-Secure: Android accounted for 97% of all mobile malware in 2013, but only 0.1% of those were on Google Play

Back in 2012, Android accounted for 79 percent of all mobile malware. Last year, that number has ballooned even further to 97 percent. Both those data points come from security firm F-Secure, which today released its 40-page Threat Report for the second half of 2013. Here is how bad the situation...

http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/03/04/f-secure-android-accounted-97-mobile-malware-2013-0-1-google-play/

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Article: F-Secure: Android accounted for 97% of all mobile malware in 2013, but only 0.1% of those were on Google Play

Back in 2012, Android accounted for 79 percent of all mobile malware. Last year, that number has ballooned even further to 97 percent. Both those data points come from security firm F-Secure, which today released its 40-page Threat Report for the second half of 2013. Here is how bad the situation...

http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/03/04/f-secure-android-accounted-97-mobile-malware-2013-0-1-google-play/

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drag2share: The Quantum D-Wave 2 Is 3,600 Times Faster than a Super Computer

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-quantum-d-wave-2-is-3-600-times-faster-than-a-super-1532199369

The Quantum D-Wave 2 Is 3,600 Times Faster than a Super Computer

Quantum computing is being hailed as the future of data processing, with promises of performing calculations thousands of times faster than modern supercomputers while consuming magnitudes less electricity. And in the span of just two years the only commercially available quantum computer, the D-Wave One , has already doubled its computational power. Kiss your law goodbye, Mr. Moore.

Quantum computing differs from classical computing at its most fundamental level . While traditional computers rely on the alternate bit states of 1 and 0 to store data, quantum computers exploit the fuzzy effects of quantum mechanics, allowing its "qubits" to exist as a 1, 0, or both simultaneously, a.k.a "superposition." So while a traditional computer will sequentially explore the potential solutions to a mathematical optimization problem, the quantum system looks at every potential solution simultaneously, known as quantum annealing, and returns answers—not just the single "best" but nearly 10,000 close alternatives as well—in roughly a second. What's more, unlike traditional computers which rely on logic gates to manipulate bits, the D-Wave system uses an adiabatic, which reads out the ground state of its qubits to find a solution.

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drag2share: PC shipments faced their steepest-ever drop in 2013

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/04/idc-pc-shipments-2013/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Row of HP laptops running Windows 8

We hate to say it, but the era of near-constant PC industry growth might be over. IDC estimates that computer shipments fell by 9.8 percent in 2013, representing the steepest drop ever recorded. There just isn't much momentum in developing markets like China or Latin America, according to researchers. Sluggish economies and the shift toward mobile devices have cooled demand that was once red-hot. More established regions fared slightly better, although they may have been helped by a rush of users upgrading from Windows XP in the fourth quarter. IDC expects a partial recovery in the long run, but it believes that shipments have largely flattened out. If that's the case, PC vendors face much fiercer competition than they have in the past -- they may have to resort to extra-low prices and other extreme measures to keep buyers interested.

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