Apple AirPods to Launch Next Week; Snapchat’s Spectacles Will Sell From Pop Up Vending Machines

Posted: November 10, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple delayed the rollout of its AirPods wireless earphones last month, and some had said we wouldn’t see them until the 1st of the year. Now, macrumors.com says a source at European online retailer Conrad claims they will be available next week. The Conrad website still says 6-8 weeks, but there’s hope they might be in customers’ hands sooner, not later.

Snapchat will apparently sell its Spectacles camera glasses through pop up vending machines. That’s according to businessinsider.com. The camera glasses will run $130 and be available at ‘surprising’ pop up locations for one day only. Snapchat will show the locations on a map on their website 24 hours ahead of time. The first is expected to appear in Venice Beach, CA…snapchat’s home. The Snapbot vending machines will have motion sensors that turn on its circular screen when someone steps into view. The screen will show footage of video recordings from the eyewear, which can record 10-second clips that sync with the Snapchat app. The machines have 3 buttons for the three color selections (coral, black, and teal). They claim the screen lets you virtually try on each color (on the screen) before you pay.

Snapchat Shows Cam Glasses; Galaxy Note 7 New Non-Exploding Battery Issue; Apple Watch Sleep and Heart Rate Apps Coming

Posted: September 26, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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Over the weekend, reports came out that Snapchat was re-branding as Snap, and rolling out connected, camera-equipped sunglasses. Theverge.com reports that they will sell for $130, have a 115 degree lens, which closely follows a person’s field of vision, record circular video, and record at the press of a button. Snap is doing a slow rollout, so don’t expect to see them in the next few days or weeks.

Samsung has already shipped 500,000 Galaxy Note 7’s to the US, and about half the phablets with explodable batteries have been replaced. Now, 9to5google.com reports that some users are having problems with batteries that drain very quickly and are having trouble recharging them. Samsung is looking into it, but says it’s unrelated to the batteries. They just can’t buy a break with the 7…and may end up rolling out the Note 8 a month or so early.

Apple is working on sleep tracking and more advanced heart rate apps for Apple Watch. According to 9to5mac.com, the new heart rate app will be more advanced—measuring a person’s fitness by observing the amount of time it takes for a heartbeat to fall from a peak to resting rate. Cupertino apparently is also looking at other ways to expand HealthKit, making it more of a ‘tool that improves diagnoses’ from doctors. None of that may come for a while, as added medical sensors would not only require new hardware, but probably also approval by the FDA.

Apple Building Video Sharing App Like Snapchat & Facebook; Future iPhones May Grab Photos & Fingerprints of Thieves, Nutonomy Beats Uber in Launching Self-Driving Cabs

Posted: August 25, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple is working on a social networking app along the lines of Snapchat and Facebook. Macrumors.com says Cupertino’s goal is for you to be able to shoot, edit, upload, and share a video in less than a minute…all with one hand! If the stars align in Silicon Valley, Apple will roll out the app in 2017.

Appleinsider.com has uncovered a patent that would allow future iPhones to snag the fingerprints and pictures of thieves. The unauthorized user’s info might be stored locally, or sent to a remote server for more evaluation. It’s not clear that such collection would be legal everywhere, even involving crooks, so it remains to be seen if this will actually be introduced on the handsets.

We reported on Uber’s imminent release of self-driving cabs in Pittsburg to test out their systems. Now, according to thenextweb.com, they’ll be #2 at it. Apparently, a firm called Nutonomy is putting the rubber on the road in Singapore today. As with the Uber test, rides will be free, and there will be a company engineer along to observe the system, and grab the controls if needed. Nutonomy was founded by a couple of robotics and intelligent vehicle tech geniuses from MIT.

Galaxy Note 7 Debuts; Instagram Rolls Out Stories; Poke-Phenom Continues

Posted: August 2, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Samsung has showed off the Galaxy Note 7 at their unpacked event in New York. It looks like a mix of the Note 5 and the S6 edge+…a sleek, attractive phablet. Bgr.com says the 5.7 inch screened handset has the usual improved innards, including 4 gigs of RAM, a 3500 mAh battery, is water and dust resistant, and carries a 12 megapixel Dual Pixel rear cam and 5 mp front selfie cam. (Why aren’t phone makers giving us selfie cams that are as good as back cams?) It has a fingerprint scanner, iris scanner, and improved S Pen stylus. Price will vary by carrier, but the Note 7 will be available August 19th.

Instagram has added Stories to the app on both Android and iOS. According to tech crunch.com it’s pretty much a direct ripoff of Snapchat Stories. letting you to post 24-hour ephemeral photo and video slideshows that disappear. They appear at the top of your feed, so followers won’t miss them…even if they wanted to. In a rare moment of candor, Instagram’s CEO admitted it’s basically a clone of the snapchat feature.

Pokemon Go has hit 100 million downloads now. 9to5mac.com says App Annie is reporting that the still hot game is hauling in $10 million a day for maker Niantic after 3 weeks! Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to be stealing players from other games. This may be a huge break in getting people into augmented reality.

Bitmoji Come to Snapchat; iPhone Pro Looks Unlikely; Nintendo Now Worth More Than Sony-Pokemon Go

Posted: July 19, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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Snapchat snapped up Bitstrips earlier this year for 100 million, and today rolled out the little comic style characters in the main Snapchat app. Businessinsider.com notes that user s will have to download the Bitmoji app separately, the feature isn’t 100% integrated in the main app as yet. Once you do that and link the apps, though, you can drop the Bitmoji stickers into chat or stick them on snaps.

Pictures have surfaced of 3 iPhone 7 models, including a Pro model. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that Evan Blass tweeted out the code names of the iPhone 7 models, and there are only two….Sonora and Dos Palos. Meanwhile, a site has examined the pictures, and the Apple logo on the back is a sticker! They also used a clone detection model to point out where the pictures were cloned and ‘shopped. It appears that the more widely rumored two models…the 7 having a larger camera opening and the Plus having the dual camera are most likely what’s coming in September.

One very hot game, and a company’s value can go through the roof. Nintendo is now more valuable than Sony, thanks to Pokemon Go. According to geekwire.com, Nintendo’s market cap has doubled in less than two weeks to over $42.5 billion. Sony is worth about $39 billion. After originally launching in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, Pokemon Go just arrived in Japan this week!

Bluetooth 5 About to Be Rolled Out; Snapchat Working on Google Glass Type Product

Posted: June 10, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, the group that sets the standards for the low power wireless standard, is going to rollout Bluetooth 5 next week. Theverge.com reports that it will have 4 times the speed and double the range of the best Bluetooth now available. It will also offer much more support for connectionless services…like beacons that can help people navigate around, both in buildings and outside. The added range and speed are particularly aimed at all the Internet of Things devices popping up for your home.

Snapchat is working on a Google Glass style AR headset, according to businessinsider.com. Snapchat has snapped up a couple of hardware specialists from GoPro, and a tech recruiter from Google’s Project Aura, the division that came up with Google Glass. These strengthen rumors of a Glass-type product from March when it leaked out that Snapc had hired an eyewear designer and a man specializing in miniaturized low power electronics. They are now listing jobs for a 3D mobile software engineer and mobile prototype developer, among others. Stay tuned.

Google and Twitter Partnering For Instant News Articles

Posted: September 11, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google and Twitter are partnering on making their own version of instant news articles. Recode.net says they are teaming up with a small group of publishers, and should launch this fall…joining the likes of Facebook, Apple, and Snapchat. The plan is for either Twitter users or people using Google search who click on a link via their smartphones to see the full article pop up on screen nearly instantly, instead of having to wait several seconds. A big difference between the Google-Twitter partnership and the others is that this one is based on open source publishing tools. The articles are also cached from the publishers’ sites, not hosted by Google. An interesting twist is that it will operate without either Google or Twitter branding.

It’s both amazing and a little creepy…we are on the verge of becoming like Wolverine! After a Spanish man lost his sternum and part of his rib cage to cancer, surgeons at Salamanca University installed a 3D printed replacement out of titanium. Gizmodo.com reports the implant was made by Anatomics in Australia. This isn’t the 3D printer the geek next door has in the garage…titanium is tricky…it’s a $1.3 million electron beam Arcam 3D printer. The patient was out of the hospital after 12 days, and is recovering well…and part of him is pretty bulletproof, now!

Snapchat Adds Non-Disappearing Content

Posted: January 25, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Snapchat is readying to start publishing original videos and articles…a feature that was delayed from implementing last fall. Theverge.com says the service, famous for self-deleting pictures that vanish in seconds, will launch its ad supported ‘Discover’ service late this month. In addition to original pieces from their own journalists and video producers, they will have content from CNN, ESPN, and Vice.

One of the great drags on electric car sales is the fear of running out of battery power. Cnet.com reports that BMW and VW have partnered with Chargepoint to create charging corridors. In the deal, Chargepoint will deploy at least 100 chargers along the East and West coasts. These will be able to fast charge, getting an electric vehicle up to 80% charge in less than a half hour. The plan is to have no more than a 50 mile gap between stations, and have them in place by the end of the year.

If proof was needed to show how badly people want to get away from Windows 8 iterations, 170,000 have signed up since Microsoft’s event this week to be Windows Insider beta testers for the upcoming Windows 10. Gigaom.com says that’s a 10% bump since the program started last fall. A lot of people are at least WANTING to love Windows.

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