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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

drag2share: Leap Motion's latest motion tracking tech can see your joints

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/28/leap-motions-beta-tracking-tech-can-see-your-joints/

The Leap Motion controller is a curious little motion sensor, but it isn't always easy to use. The hand-sensing tech has a tendency to lose sight of where your fingers are and almost every application that uses it has its own learning curve. Soon, that might change -- today Leap is launching the public beta for its next generation (V2) tracking software. This free update makes some big promises, including improved resistance to sunlight and infrared interference, better tracking algorithms and, best of all, the ability to track individual joints. We dropped by the company's San Francisco office to try it out and found the update to be a significant improvement.

"V1 is a great experience for early adopters," Leap CEO Michael Buckwald told us. "But what we want to do with V2 is make interacting with the computer the same as interacting with the physical world." Leap's new software helps. The update's predictive software allows the device to track controllers that aren't directly seen by its sensors. Buckwald showed us on a demo machine: a flat hand could easily be seen by a V1-equipped computer, but in a vertical orientation, all but the lowest hanging digit disappeared. V2 accurately tracked all five fingers. It sounds simple, but it's a game changer: developers can now implement more delicate pinch and grab motions. Buckwald pulled up a demo for that too, and asked us to pick up and toss a collection of ragdoll soldiers. It was easy, just as it should be.

The update also encourages developers to include a hand model in their applications. "The vision has always been that using leap should feel just like reaching through the screen and grabbing something," he explains. "That's how it feels with the onscreen hand -- seeing all your joints and fingers and watching it move as your real hand moves." While the onscreen limb isn't quite as flexible as the real deal, it makes the learning curve shallow. " If the actual interaction is a commodity like that, the focus can be on being creative."

The update is available to developers now, but there aren't many applications that use it just yet. Still, it's an encouraging evolution for the Leap Motion controller, and bleeds of the same thing the device always has: potential.

Filed under: Misc

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drag2share: Intel will let you build your own 3D-printed robot later this year

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/28/intel-robot-kit/

Intel CEO brought a robotic companion named Jimmy with him on stage at Code Conference today. Jimmy is a 3D-printed robot capable of walking, talking, moving his arms, dancing and even tweeting, and it's the key to Intel's vision of the future of robotics. Starting later this year, the company will make an open source robot kit with 3D-printed parts available to consumers for $1,600, with a research version for $16,000. The former will run on Intel Edison, the company's computer-on-a-chip, while the latter will be powered by a Core i5 processor.

How is the kit set up? The hardware designs will be available online for anyone to build the basic parts using a 3D printer, but the kit itself will contain all of the other parts which you can't print: The motor, batteries, processor and wires are the primary items you'll need to get started.

It's pretty crazy to think that you may soon be able to get your very own personalized robot for just $100 more than Google Glass. But such a kit is part of Intel's goal to lower the barrier of entry to robotics, hopefully making it possible for more people to grab a Jimmy of their own without taking out a second mortgage.

Since the robot is open source, this opens the door for users to download whatever they want to customize their new creation, and gives developers the opportunity to build apps for the same purpose. The idea is that you'll be able to personalize your robot to perform various functions: The sky's the limit, but possible use cases include grabbing a drink for you, singing along, translating and so on. Eventually, Intel plans to offer an app market to expand the capabilities of your robot.

Filed under: Robots, Intel

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drag2share: Samsung launches a flexible platform of sensors for wearables

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/28/samsung-launches-a-flexible-platform-of-sensors-for-wearables/

At Samsung's "Voice of the Body" event today, the company announced SIMBAND, a modular reference platform for wearable health sensors that it hopes will inspire a new generation of fitness products. This prototype device you see above has a multitude of sensors built right into it, including an optical light sensor that can detect the variation of light absorption through the skin in order to come up with your pulse and other data. There's even an ECG sensor integrated into the watchband so that when you touch the clasp, an electrical route is completed.

Samsung says SIMBAND is completely multimodal -- the optical, electrical and physical components can be swapped out interchangeably, and is entirely built for customization. Another thing that Samsung wanted to drive home was that SIMBAND is designed to be very power efficient (it has a new shuttle battery) while not taking up a lot of space -- the prototype watchface on stage is only about half a size of an SD card. Additionally, it has a 1Ghz 2x ARM A7 28nm chip along with WiFi and Bluetooth technologies.

SIMBAND is designed as an open platform that allows developers to create new applications, and the SDK is slated to be out in the next few months. Through several open APIs that it hopes to release later this year, Samsung hopes to integrate the platform with SAMI (Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions), its internal data collection initiative that attempts to make all that fitness data accessible to other services and devices, such as S-Health, your phone or perhaps your scale.

The potential for the platform goes beyond just fitness trackers. Samsung also says it's working on a partnership with UCSF's Digital Health Innovation Lab to see if these huge data sets can create new predictive models of health and wellness for all of us, and not just on the individual level. This way, it could provide a "truly meaningful impact on health." UCSF has said it's happy to partner with startups to ensure that their application or devices is doing what it's intended to do.

To cap off the event, Samsung announced the Digital Health Challenge, which is essentially a $50 million investment fund aimed at start-ups so that they'll adopt Samsung's open platforms and the latest health technologies.

Source: Businesswire, Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center

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drag2share: How 'Mind Mapping' Can Revamp The Way You Work

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/using-mind-maps-for-productivity-2014-5

The organizational chart known as a "mind map" may remind you of something you drew in elementary school, but it's actually a powerful productivity tool when used correctly.

The British pop psychologist Tony Buzan coined the term in the '70s for an organizational technique that is like a web of to-do lists.

You begin with a central topic like "Tasks" (to use a general example) and then branch off into subtopics like "Work, Family, Volunteer Work, and Home" spaced out evenly. Then each of these topics gets their own subtopics, a process repeated as necessary.

One of the main benefits of using a mind map is that it makes it easier to visualize all of the steps in a project, which helps you see gaps, set goals, and better manage your time throughout the week.

There are plenty of apps and online services you can use to create clean, easily managed mind maps, like Xmind, Mindjet, and MindNode. MindMeister is another great tool, and we'll take a look at an example made using its software.

Here's a closeup of its upper-right quarter:

mind map top right

As you can see, it functions as a way to combine your to-do list with your calendar and additional notes in a visual, easy to comprehend way.

Here's a look at the entire mind map for that project:

mind map full

Mind maps can be adjusted to scale, outlining an entire project or a single day.

Paul Klipp, president of Lunar Log! ic's Pol ish branch, wrote on Quora that he uses a mind map to arrange his weekly schedule. He spent about an hour making his first one with MindMeister and has since spent 15 minutes every Monday updating it.

He explains how he structures his weekly mind map and how it helps him get things done: "Each top-level node is a project. Outcomes are linked to projects. For each outcome, there are linked tasks to accomplish it. This approach lets me focus on one project at a time, and then on one outcome for that project so that I can discover all the tasks required to arrive at the desired outcome."

A mind map's setup also accommodates brainstorming. A project manager can present one to his or her team and have them add branches or adjust details.

Whether you're using it as a weekly planner or a project outline, a mind map can help you group concepts through associations, come up with new ideas, and stay organized.

SEE ALSO: 11 Productivity Hacks From Successful Entrepreneurs

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drag2share: File sharing is alive and well, to the tune of 300 million users a month

source: http://gigaom.com/2014/05/28/file-sharing-is-alive-and-well-to-the-tune-of-300-million-users-a-month/

Surprise: P2P isn't dead, after all. 300 million users swap files via BitTorrent every month, according to new numbers from media intelligence startup Tru Optik, which estimates that every month, more movies and TV shows get downloaded by file sharers than are sold on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon together.

And we're not just talking about users in countries where media would otherwise be inaccessible. Users in the U.S. download more movies, TV shows, music and software than any other country, according to Tru Optik. The only exception to this rule is video games, where users in Brazil are more active than their U.S. counterparts.

Image courtesy of Tru Optik.

<a href="http://truoptik.com/?page=infographics">Image courtesy of Tru Optik.</a>

These numbers run counter to common wisdom, which assumes that file sharing has slowed down significantly, thanks in part to legal pressure and in part to the growing popularity of paid services like Netflix. Traffic management company Sandvine, for example, recently pointed out that Netflix is now responsible for 34.2 percent of all peak downstream traffic, whereas BitTorrent only accounts for 3.4 percent of all peak downstream traffic, a number that has been continuously declining.

Tru Optik CEO Andre Swanston called these numbers misleading when I asked him about it. "There is a false assumption made that there is a correlation between percentage of network bandwidth and active monthly users or numbers of files downloaded," he told me, adding that Sandvine only measured the relative share of all network bandwidth, which naturally declined as Netflix got more popular.

"Whether it's Netflix, Facebook, or the New York Times, size, growth or decline of all types of mass media is measured by the number of subscribers and users," Swanston argued. An estimated share of network traffic simply didn't make sense to judge a medium's popularity.

However, a problem has been that file sharing hasn't been all that easy to quantify. Tru Optik wants to change that, and the company is now launching a P2P data analytics API that promises real-time access to file sharing data. "In the month of March, we connected with over 150 million unique IPs just from the top 7000 torrents on (the) Pirate Bay," Swanston said. That data could power personalized content recommendations and help brands and media companies understand what consumers really want, he told me — which seems to be more than just Netflix.

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drag2share: Broadcom's new chip lets your phone use any wireless charging standard

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/28/broadcom-universal-wireless-charging-chip/

Broadcom BCM59350 wireless charging chip

Wonder why only a handful of mobile devices support wireless charging? It's partly because the standards are horribly fragmented: companies have to choose between technologies like PMA, Rezence and Qi, and it's not clear which of those will last. Broadcom might put the issue to bed with its new (and awkwardly titled) BCM59350 chip, though. The hardware lets gadgets charge using any existing wireless technology -- you won't have to hunt for specific charging pads. It can also handle up to 7.5W of power instead of the usual 5W, so your gear might charge faster than it would using old-fashioned wires.

Broadcom isn't naming customers or estimating release dates, but test samples have already gone out to "select" partners. It's doubtful that the chip will resolve confusion over standards; that's going to require fewer standards or greater compatibility, either of which could take much longer. However, device makers may now be more comfortable including wireless power in their products. It won't be shocking if it's much easier to get cable-free charging in your next phone or smartwatch.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile

Source: Broadcom

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drag2share: Amazon welcomes numismatists with new collectible coin store

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/28/amazon-collectible-coins-store/

Amazon's well known as the one-stop online shop for practically anything you might want, but apparently it has, until now, regretfully underserved numismatists -- that's coin collectors to the uninitiated. According to the company, rare and collectible coinage is one of the most popular product categories people search for on its collectibles and fine art portal. As such, Amazon's thought it necessary to open a dedicated page (in the US, at least) showcasing such items from "highly regarded dealers." The Collectible Coins store is now live for your perusal, through which you can even buy a 1907 Saint Gaudens Ultra High Relief Pattern $20 coin -- provided you have $3.75 million to hand. Not the best exchange rate, but the shipping's free, at least.

Filed under: Internet, Amazon

Source: Amazon (1), (2)

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drag2share: New Details On Apple's iWatch: It Will Have A Round Face, And Apple Is Increasing Its iWatch Orders (AAPL)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/iwatch-will-have-a-round-face-2014-5

Motorola 360 Watch

Apple's iWatch is going to look like ... a watch.

Analyst Brian Blair of Rosenblatt Securities just got back from a big trip to Taiwan, and he has new details on the iWatch.

According to his supply chain sources, the iWatch will have a round face. Many people were expecting it to have a rectangular face, but Blair's sources tell him it's going to be round, like a normal watch.

Motorola has announced plans for its own circular smartwatch that runs on Android. Blair's sources say the iWatch will have a similar look, but a "slimmer profile."

If you've been watching Apple's software design evolution, this would make sense. It's made icons and buttons on the iPhone round. So, we could see it fitting those icons onto a watch.

Blair says the iWatch will go into production around July/August. There will be "models" of the iWatch. (Probably one for women, one for men.)

It sound like Apple is growing confident in the success of the iWatch. Blair says Apple's orders for the iWatch are higher than previously expected. He forecasts Apple makes 18-21 million iWatches for the second half of the year, up from his previous estimate of 15-20 million.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

drag2share: Roll Your Own Malware Detection on Mac with Folder Actions

Source: http://lifehacker.com/roll-your-own-malware-detection-on-mac-with-folder-acti-1582094205

Roll Your Own Malware Detection on Mac with Folder Actions

Malware isn't too crazy on Macs, but it's still out there. If you'd prefer to create your own solution instead of downloading clunky software, blogger Jacob Salmela shows off how to roll your own system using Folder Actions.

Folder Actions is a handy built-in feature of OS X that allows you to run a script when you add an item to a folder. In this case, you can monitor if malware gets into your Mac's folders that manage system processes. You'll want to set up these folder actions in the following folders to monitor for malware:

/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/System/Library/LaunchAgents
/Users/<username>/Library/LaunchAgents

That's it. When it's all set up, you'll get a popup window every time something is added to one of those folders. If you didn't add something on purpose, chances are it's malware or at least worth investigating. Head over to Salmela's site for the full guide.

OS X: Roll Your Own Malware Detection | Jacob Salmela

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drag2share: Younger Americans are open to Google, Apple, PayPal becoming their bankers

Source: http://gigaom.com/2014/05/27/younger-americans-are-open-to-google-apple-paypal-becoming-their-bankers/

Your next bank migt just be Google or Walmart if the younger generation of North American bread earners has anything to say about it. A recent survey conducted by Accenture found that many people between the ages of 18 and 34 were amenable to the idea of doing their banking completely online as well as getting their financial services from non-traditional financial service providers.

PayPal was at the top of the list, with 46 percent of that age group saying they would be “likely” of “very likely” to bank with the eBay-owned company. That shouldn’t be too much of surprise since PayPal is already a dominant player in payment services. But Google, Amazon, Apple and Walmart rounded out the top 5 list of potential alternate banking providers – not the first companies you’d think of when opening a checking account.

"Open to Alternatives: If these companies offered banking services, how likely would you be to bank with them?"

Accenture’s poll of 3,846 bank customers in Canada and the U.S. found that we’re becoming much more comfortable with the idea of “branchless” banking where all transactions, from depositing checks to applying for loans, are conducted in the web browser, on the mobile phone or by telephone. When asked whether they would consider a branchless alternative when they next switched banks, 27 percent of those polled answered in the affirmative. Among the 18-34 demographic that number rose to 39 percent.

Of course, whether many of these companies would ever consider becoming banks is doubtful. They would be joining an industry much more heavily regulated than their own. I’m not sure if Google wants to add the Federal Deposit Insurance Coporation and Federal Reserve to its list of regulators.

"Branchless Banking: If you were to switch banks, would you consider a bank with no branch locations?"

Still for companies that are already getting heavily involved in their customers finances like PayPal, Walmart and even Amazon; banking might be the logical next step. One of the more interesting nuggets from Accenture’s report was about Square. While Square isn’t yet a well-known consumer brand, 50 percent of those polled that were familiar with Square – likely the small business owners that use its services — said they would bank with Square if they could.

Also being a virtual bank doesn’t necessarily require a company to become an actual bank. One of the more popular online banking services Simple doesn’t actually maintain any accounts. Rather it contracts out with Bancorp to and CBW Bank to hold its customers’ money – and deal with regulators – while Simple provides the front-end services.

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

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drag2share: This Breakthrough Power Source Is Thinner Than Paper, Bendable, And Can Charge Your Phone

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/breakthrough-flexible-power-thinner-than-paper-2014-5

What if your Fitbit or FuelBand were more like a slap bracelet? Many electronic components are already small enough to make this achievable, but batteries historically make it downright impossible. They take up the largest spaces within our devices today and are completely inflexible.

Enter James Tour of Rice University. Along with his colleagues, he's developed an electrochemical capacitor that's thinner than paper, bendable, and capable of storing enough electric energy to charge your phone — they say it could power the next generation of electronic devices.

We're still waiting to see if flexible smartphones will ever take hold, but e-paper, bendable touch-sensitive screens, and plenty of wearable gadgets are already here and ready to benefit from such an invention.

Flexible power

The capacitor, recently published in the Journal Of The American Chemical Society, is made out of a thin film of nickel and fluoride, which enables it to store energy in an electric field. It's covered in tiny holes called "nanopores" that enable ions to easily flow through it, which is what enables it to also function as a power source.

Researchers were able to bend and fold the film and recharged it thousands of times, demonstrating "little loss in performance," they write in the paper. Here's what it looks like: Untitled 2 You can see in figure B below that the capacitor is definitely bendable. And figure C shows a closeup of the nanopor! ous laye r, which is where the ions flow and actually disseminate electric energy.

Untitled 3

Ready for the main stage

If the trend is to continue to make our devices as small and unobtrusive as possible, a flexible capacitor is a hugely important development.

We don't know for sure if Tour and company plan to turn this into a business, though the researchers mention that they believe their product "can be easily scaled up for mass production" and implementation in your next gadget.

As for what the immediate future holds, Tour said that he and his team are investigating other special properties of this material, including its potential application in generating energy with a process called "water splitting" in which a molecule of water is broken into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which can be used as fuel.

SEE ALSO: These Incredible Nanosatellites Are Making Old Satellites Obsolete

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drag2share: The LG G3 has a keyboard that grows, shrinks and learns

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/27/lg-g3-smart-keyboard/

Despite an occasionally groan-inducing press conference in London, there's little denying that LG's new G3 has plenty going for it (personal aside: I've never been more smitten by an LG phone). It's usually the little things that make the biggest difference, though, and the G3's thoughtful Smart Keyboard seems to fall right into that category. Why? Because it pays attention.

The keyboard will slowly shift the way it interprets your touches as it learns how you type, though it won't actually look any different. Do you always type S's when you want A's? The G3 will try to discern your meaning and expand the sensing area for the A key if it "thinks" you're having trouble. That'll sound more than a little familiar if you're a BlackBerry buff: a very similar feature is baked into BlackBerry 10's soft keyboard. You can also manually change the size of the G3's keyboard, too, a real boon for those of us suffering with sausage fingers or bum eyes. You'll only be able to stretch and compress the keyboard so much though -- at their largest (see above), the keys are spacious and plenty accommodating for my gorilla thumbs, and the smallest is well-suited for preserving precious screen real estate. Throw in the ability to change the symbol keys that appear on either side of the spacebar and you've got yourself a pretty flexible way to jot down your innermost ruminations. On some level, it seems a little silly to get worked up over a keyboard (especially when LG has spent the better part of our morning/evening lauding other technical achievements), but it's always nice to see companies shape our user experiences in subtle, smart ways.

Filed under: Mobile

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drag2share: Apple Patent Hints at Plans for LiquidMetal and Sapphire iPhone Chassis

Source: http://gizmodo.com/apple-patent-hints-at-plans-for-liquidmetal-and-sapphir-1581960344

Apple Patent Hints at Plans for LiquidMetal and Sapphire iPhone Chassis

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Apple with a patent that finally suggests how the company may have planned (or be planning) to use LiquidMetal : in conjunction with display glass made from sapphire to form a single, integrated chassis for the iPhone.

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drag2share: Unbelievable Display Technology Uses Levitating Particles as Pixels

Source: http://gizmodo.com/unbelievable-display-technology-uses-levitating-particl-1582096744

Unbelievable Display Technology Uses Levitating Particles as Pixels

The Pixie Dust display uses sound waves to create images and animations from real particles that appear to float in mid-air. It probably sounds implausible, but there's video of it in action. And yes, what you're seeing is actually happening, no gimmicks or special effects.

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drag2share: Lenovo's next flagship phone is all about metal, a quad HD screen and a big battery

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/27/lenovo-vibe-z2-pro-leak/

Lenovo's current flagship phone, the Vibe Z (K910), opted for plastic instead of metal like its predecessor, so it's nice to see metal making a comeback on the next model, dubbed the Vibe Z2 Pro. This is according to several photos that have been making the rounds on Sina Weibo, and our sources have since confirmed that these were taken at an internal event, so someone's been a bit naughty. The specs are top notch: 6-inch quad HD display, 16-megapixel OIS camera (with dual LED flash), massive 4,000mAh battery and 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 chip. These are all wrapped inside a 7.7mm-thick metallic body that also supports NFC.

Like the Vivo Xplay 3S which packs the same display, the Vibe Z2 Pro appears to feature a very high screen-to-bezel ratio, which is always welcomed as long as the touchscreen's edges aren't too sensitive. You can also see that this is a dual-SIM device with LTE support, though the international variants may differ. Oddly enough, the usual "Lenovo" logo spot on the back has been taken up by "Vibe," thus suggesting that for some reason, the Chinese company is making a bigger push for its mobile sub-brand.

Given the fact that this was from an internal event, we should be hearing an official announcement very soon. With ex-Nokia vet Colin Giles recently quitting Huawei to run Lenovo's global mobile division, here's hoping he'll do something about that ugly UI before bringing it to our side of the world.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Lenovo

Source: Sina Weibo (1), (2)

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