UberEATS Going Live in 10 Cities; More On iOS Nightshift and New Music Memos App; GM Launches Ridesharing Business
Posted: January 21, 2016 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Apple, GarageBand, General Motors, iOS, Lyft, Music Memos, Nightshift, ride-sharing, Sidecar, Uber, UberEats, ZipCar Leave a commentIf you’re really wanting carry out, but don’t want to get out, and don’t want a pizza, there have been limited options. Uber has been testing UberEATS, where they’ve partnered with restaurants to deliver food to your door. According to thenextweb.com, UberEATS will go live in March in LA, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, NY, Austin, Washington, D.C., Houston, San Francisco, and Atlanta. The test service has been lunch only, but in March, you’ll be able to order breakfast, lunch, or dinner delivered.
Nightshift, the new feature coming to iOS that dims the blue portion of screens evenings so users don’t disrupt their sleep so much, may be available on the Control Center pull up. Macrumors.com says it has showed up on Apple Canada’s iOS 9.3 preview page there. It may not fit on the smaller iPhone screens, but there’s room on the Plus models and iPads. Apple also rolled out a nice companion app to GarageBand. Music Memos lets musicians and songwriters record, analyze, and manipulate uncompressed audio on iPhones and iPads. You can also overlay the tracks with added bass and drums…it calculates the correct tempo and chords. GarageBand has added Live Loops, a visual feature to help in loop creation, and gesture controlled DJ type effects.
Just days ago, we reported that General Motors quietly bought defunct ride sharing business Sidecar, and previously had put $500 million into Lyft. Now, detroitnews.com reports that GM has launched Maven, a car sharing brand, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The citywide service-something like Zipcar- features GM vehicles in 21 spots around the city a person can rent for as low as $6 and hour. Although the auto maker sees private car ownership continuing for some time, they note that 5 to 6 million people right now already use transportation sharing services. The cars are equipped with 4G wireless internet, and sync smartphones with Apple Pay and Android Auto while the owner uses the GM shared vehicle. Price includes insurance and fuel.
Apple Investigates Li-Fi for Mobile Devices; GM Quietly Buys Sidecar
Posted: January 19, 2016 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Apple, General Motors, iOS, Li-Fi, Lyft, ride-sharing, Self Driving Cars, Sidecar, Uber Leave a commentNot long ago, we reported on Li-Fi, and how it could use light to replace Wi-Fi, only with much more speed and bandwidth. Now, thenextweb.com has found a reference to Li-Fi compatability in Apple’s iOS 9 code and iOS 9.1 firmware. This, along with an Apple patent dug up from 2013 that appears to be a Li-Fi transmitter point to Cupertino baking it in to iOS devices. Don’t look for it by the iPhone 7, though…the infrastructure doesn’t even exist yet…no one’s built a Li-Fi router, for example.
Recently, General Motors dropped $500 million into Uber rival Lyft. The plot thickens, and now it’s been revealed that they have quietly purchased failed rival Sidecar for $30 million. Most of the employees are moving over to GM. It looks like their plans to build autonomous vehicles specifically for ride sharing are heating up. Ford and Mercedes are also working on similar projects. Uber has lots of valuation and a head start, but it looks like the car makers are getting serious about not going the way of the buggy whip.
Wal~Mart Launches Wal~Mart Pay; Adidas Looks to Robots to Make Shoes
Posted: December 10, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Adidas, Android, CurrentC, iOS, Mobile Wallet, Robots, Shoes, Speedfactory, Walmart, Walmart Pay Leave a commentWal~Mart has rolled out its own mobile wallet called Walmart Pay. It will be available on iOS and Android devices, and allows payment with any major credit, debit, pre-paid, or gift card. According to reuters.com, it should be in stores nationwide by the first half of 2016. The giant retailer says it’s not bailing on the merchant consortium that developed CurrentC, and will consider it as an additional mobile wallet option. CurrentC was beta launched in August.
No longer content to export jobs to people making slave wages in developing countries, Adidas is finishing up a factory in Germany that will be staffed with robots. Right now, there are 10 people helping make it work, but the company is shooting for 100% automated production. Geek.com says they are more concerned with shipping costs than rising wages in Asia, and building so-called ‘Speedfactories’ all around the globe where their customers live will help them move from selling 600 million shoes to a billion in the next 5 years.
Cortana Lands on Android and iOS; A Number of Us Are Rarely Offline
Posted: December 9, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Cortana, Google Now, Internet Use, iOS, Microsoft, Pew, Siri Leave a commentIn what seems like quite a clever move (and a bit of bet-hedging), Microsoft gone live with Cortana for Android and iOS. 9to5google.com notes it’s been a small beta since last month, but now you can check out it’s functionality for real. Since it’s an app, and not baked in, don’t expect it to have the power of Google Now or Siri yet. With Windows Phone still in the basement, Microsoft is smart to be porting over to the two much more widely used mobile systems.
TV and Comedy have had a lot of fun with people being inseparable from their smartphones and computers…everything from chipped people to the Simpsons’ Eye Phone, where the thing replaced an eyeball…so now comes data from Pew research that 21% of Americans go online almost constantly. Drilling down, 73% are online daily, 42% several times a day, 13% several times a week or less. The Luddite contingent of people who never use the internet stands at 13%. They probably still have buggy whips…and I don’t mind insulting them, since they’ll never read this or hear it anyway!
Local TV News for Cord Cutters; Kickstarter Hits Major Milestone
Posted: November 5, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Cord cutting, iOS, Kickstarter, Local TV news, NewsON, Roku, Sherlybox Leave a commentOne downside for some of cutting the cord is you generally lose local TV news…something handy to have access to, since local events may affect you more than national or international ones. According to techrunch.com, that drought ends today. A company called NewsON, which unsurprisingly is backed by TV stations, gets you local news on your iOS and Android devices, as well as Roku. It makes available video content from 118 stations in 90 markets. You choose local news from where you live or where you are with an interactive map, and can even post real time Tweets about news coverage. The interface is a little kludgy, but the app is free now on iTunes, Google Play, and the Roku Channel Store.
Despite the occasional scam or big delays in getting products, Kickstarter’s 9.5 million users have now pledged over 2 billion dollars to projects. So far, there have been 260,000 campaigns since 2009. Engadget.com reports that the crowdfunder is simplifying its rules for submission, too. Gaming projects have raised the most money, $412 million, with tech related ones #2 at $360 million. I’ve backed several, and only been burned once…for less than 50 bucks. Just this week, two new products I backed..including the Sherlybox private cloud and VPN arrived–it worked as pitched. I’m jazzed about it!
Future iPhones Could Be Inductively Charged-WITHOUT Added Parts!
Posted: October 9, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ACLU, Apple, EFF, Inductive Charging, iOS, iPhone, Privacy, Stingray, Warrant Leave a commentA patent application by Apple is all about inductive charging…which several other smartphones have had for a while. Bgr.com reports that this is different because NO additional parts are required…a clever idea from thinness-obsessed Apple. Using software, Apple’s system uses electric coils already in the speakers, microphones, and haptic engines in iOS gadgets. It may even be possible to charge older iOS devices in this manner, using a dock designed for inductive charging. Amazingly, the tiny speakers and microphones would still be able to do their normal duties while charging. Since these coils are tiny, don’t expect rapid charging with them, and no word on when…or if Apple will introduce the feature.
Here’s a biggie for those of us in California that value what little privacy we think we have left…yesterday, Governor Brown signed into law an act that requires police to get a warrant before collecting email, IP addresses, or other electronic information. The new law has been pushed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU, and it should apply to the notorious Stingray, the surveillance gadget that scoops up your info by posing as a cellular tower. Washington state has a similar new law, and the US Department of Justice has vowed to obtain a warrant when they utilize such tech.
Dragon Anywhere Mobile Apps Coming
Posted: August 19, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Apple, Blackphone 2, Cortana, Dragon, iOS, Microsoft, Nuance, Silent Circle, Siri Leave a commentAs Apple does more and more with Siri, and Microsoft does the same with Cortana, a long time player in speech recognition will be dropping mobile apps this fall. Thenextweb.com reports that Dragon Anywhere…the app…will be released for iOS and Android, with the focus on professionals. At least the initial release will be designed for lawyers, social workers, insurance adjusters, and public safety officers, according to Nuance…which envisions such pros using the app to create and edit complete reports and documents, or take detailed notes on the go. It will play nice with Evernote and Dropbox, according to the maker. Updates to the PC desktop app will be out in August, and for the Mac in September.
We previously reported on Silent Circle’s 2.0 product, the Blackphone 2. Now, techcrunch.com says it should be launching in September….a little bit of a slide from a promised summer launch, and still no word on a price. It will sport an all-glass front and rear, plus a larger 5.5 inch full HD display, have a 64-bit processor, and more RAM.
Amazon Cloud Drive Now Mobile
Posted: July 6, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Android, Cloud Drive, Department of Defense, Dropbox, Google Drive, Hypersonic jet, iOS, Mach 5, US Air Force Leave a commentAmazon is now live with dedicated apps on both Android and iOS for Cloud Drive. According to techcrunch.com, the Amazon answer to Dropbox, Google Drive, and the rest just got the iOS app over the weekend. The Android app was out in June. Amazon has done this a bit under the radar, with no formal announcements. The mobile versions complement the desktop versions already available, and are aimed at productivity…where previously Amazon had focused more on saving your pictures and music. Amazon’s Unlimited Everything plan lets you store everything in its cloud for just $60 per year. Its Unlimited Photos service is even cheaper at $11.99 per year. Services like Google Drive and Dropbox are much pricier when you start getting up into the terabytes of storage space. Plus, Dropbox individual accounts are capped at 1 TB.
Over all of recorded history-for better or worse- a lot of tech innovation has come from military wants or needs. Here’s a project that could produced amazing results eventually for civilian use if it comes to fruition. The Department of Defense is working to develop a hypersonic jet that could fly anywhere in the world in 4 hours. Military.com says it would fly at Mach 5. The Concorde only flew slightly above Mach 2! Air Force Chief Scientist Mika Endsley hopes a joint project between the Air Force and DoD will have the blazing fast plane airborne before 2023!
NSA Resumes (or Never Quit) Bulk Data Collection-FISA Court Approves
Posted: June 30, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Apple Pay, Bulk data collection, Buy It, FISA Court, iOS, NSA, Pinterest Leave a commentThanks to the approval of the secret FISA Court, the NSA has restarted bulk data collection. The secret court invalidated the Second Circuit Court of Appeal decision from May, saying it was illegal. According to engadget.com, the FISA Court said the ‘Second Circuit Court rulings are not binding,’ The secret court ruled that the 180 day period Congress carved out in the USA Freedom Act, which was just signed by the president June 2nd allows for the continuation…at least for another 6 months.
The long awaited ‘buy’ buttons have rolled out on Pinterest. Cnet.com reports that buyable pins are now available on iPhone and iPad apps. Now, shoppers can buy items directly from Pinterest by clicking the blue ‘Buy It’ button, and using Apple Pay or a credit card. They expect to launch soon on Android.
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