Friday, November 22, 2013

Google's Getting Serious About Prescription Glass

Source: http://gizmodo.com/googles-getting-serious-about-prescription-glass-1469880397

Google's Getting Serious About Prescription Glass

Google really knocked everybody's socks off when it revealed Glass last year—everybody except glasses-wearers, that is. As the company prepares to bring the device to market, though, Google doesn't want to leave anybody out, and that means creating Google Glass with prescription lenses.

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HOUSE OF THE DAY: U. Of Phoenix Founder Is Selling His San Francisco Mansion With A Secret Bar For $27 Million

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/u-of-phoenix-founder-selling-ca-mansion-2013-11

John Murphy san francisco mansion

John Murphy, one of the founders of  for-profit education company University of Phoenix, is selling his San Francisco mansion for $27 million.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Murphy and his wife Paula Key bought the Pacific Heights nine-bedroom house in 1997 after discovering it came with a secret hidden Prohibition-era bar.

They closed the deal on the 13,000-square-foot mansion for $6.3 million, and are now selling it through listing agent Coldwell Banker Previews International.

The home has gorgeous views of San Francisco, as well as five levels that are all easily accessible with an elevator. In addition to the hidden bar that first attracted Murphy and his wife to the property, it also has an Art Deco ballroom, staff quarters, and a library.

Originally built in 1905 by a member of the Spreckels family (of the Spreckels Sugar Company fortune), the home was sold in 1929 to the prominent San Francisco family the Schwabachers, who then added the Prohibition bar and 1,200-square-foot ballroom.

Welcome to John Murphy's Pacific Heights mansion in San Francisco.

Source: Coldwell Bankers Preview International



The gorgeous home was first built in 1905, and expanded in 1929.

Source: Coldwell Bankers Preview International



There are five levels in the mansion that are accessible either by elevator or by the grand staircase.

Source: Coldwell Bankers Preview International



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Instagram May Be Launching A Private Messaging Feature Soon (FB)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-private-messaging-2013-11

Shocked Text

First came Instagram's video service, 15-second videos that autoplay on your Instagram timeline amidst the hoards of brunch photos and selfies.

Now, sources tell GigaOm that Instagram is getting ready to launch a new private messaging feature inside the visual content sharing platform, which will also include group messaging.

One of the most frustrating things about Instagram is the inability to contact a member privately; you have to say everything publicly. This could be a good addition.

The new features are slated to be included in the next version of Instagram, expected out in December.

"Instagram might have started out as a photographer’s platform, but it has since evolved into something that creates social connections between people and has led to an entirely different kind of social graph," GigaOm reports.

Its timing is also perfect; its competitor, Snapchat, has been making headlines over the last few weeks. It's not a surprise that Instagram wants to get back into the game.

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Google Wants To Write Your Tweets For You

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-automation-patent-2013-11

Google visit 01

In the age of incessant personal branding, a Twitter account is pretty much a must-have. 

But, c'mon, who's actually got time to do all that tweeting?

Google wants to help you save your precious minutes by just writing your tweets—and other types of social media posts and messages—for you. 

The company has patented plans for a software that will craft personalized social media reactions for you based on data from your "emails, SMS, social networks, and other systems."

The software wouldn't be completely automated: You'd have to approve individual messages before they were set live, according to Ars Technica.

"It is often difficult for users to keep up with and reply to all the messages they are receiving," the patent's author Ashish Bhatia writes. The proposed system would be flexible enough to generate responses tailored to different social media networks, so that it wouldn't use the same flippancy to respond to a LinkedIn message as it would for a Facebook post. 

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Google invites devs over for a Chromecast hackathon plus SDK show-and-tell, updates official app

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/21/google-chromecast-sdk-hackathon-app/

Google has slowly trickled out more authorized commercial apps that can stream to its Chromecast dongle since launch (Hulu, Pandora, and most recently HBO Go) but what about homebrew? So far developers have been able to work with a preview Cast SDK (creating a few impressive demonstrations) but restrictions have prevented these apps from being released for widespread use. That will probably change next month, as Google has invited several developers including CyanogenMod / AirCast dev Koushik Dutta and Thomas Kjeldsen to a hackathon on December 7th and 8th in Mountain View. An opportunity to test drive the "upcoming release" of the Cast SDK is promised, plus an opportunity to talk with Google engineers about what it can do.

While we wait to find out what devs will be officially allowed to create for the $35 dongle, the official Android Chromecast control app got an update tonight. The new version brings a lightly refreshed design with the side-tray style seen in many Google apps lately, and adjusted the display of time zone settings and the Chromecast MAC address to ease troubleshooting.

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Source: Koushik Dutta (G+), Thomas Kjuldsen (G+), Android Central Forums

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