techblogs

I've noticed an increasing number of ads that no longer send people to the company's sites. Instead, the ads only include a link to the official Facebook page. Sites suddenly look outdated, no longer include the latest information and people stop visiting them. There are still people that visit those outdated sites and many are coming from search engines like Google. Despite Google's efforts to have a comprehensive index, there's a growing subset of the Web it can't properly index and that's Facebook. Sure, Google indexes a lot of Facebook pages, but that's like trying to find your keys in a dark room. Google needs Facebook's map to index all the pages and find the connections between pages and between users, but Facebook is not willing to license this valuable data to the most important competitor. Google tried to make the web social and failed, so now the only option to stay relevant is to build an alternative to Facebook's walled garden and that's Google+. +1s are the new links, authors have profiles, companies have social pages and this new universe will try to coexist with the old Web in Google's search results. Google tried to focus on the users and find ways to make the social Web more open, but now it has to focus on itself and do everything it can to stay alive and maybe even save the Web. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," but that's impossible if it can't access, understand and rank that information. Back in 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin used links to determine the importance of a Web page. Now links and pages are no longer that important and the old rule of trying to send people to other sites as quickly as possible is difficult to apply. Showing personalized results requires understanding users better, encouraging them to share more content and create connections. In many ways, Google+ is the anti-Google and that's why it's difficult to understand some of the new features.

The ability to control a Windows desktop with a simple hand gesture could become reality sooner than we once thought.

The Daily got a sneak peek at two Microsoft-developed Windows 8 notebook prototypes with built-in Kinect sensors. The system would allow for gesture recognition in portable devices for the first time. The prototypes “appear to be Asus netbooks” and “feature an array of small sensors stretching over the top of the screen where the webcam would normally be,” The Daily reported.

3D gesture control on a laptop could offer more interactive, Kinect-style PC gaming, as well as new computer interfaces and ways to control one’s notebook.

Microsoft opened up its Kinect SDK to developers in June, and recently said it would be bringing Kinect to desktop PCs in 2012. The Xbox Kinect console itself is already in 18 million households the world over.

Although Microsoft popularized it, the 3D gesture recognition space is rapidly becoming a hot area of innovation.

Another company, SoftKinetic, is working on similar technology aimed at the notebook market. Using a different technology than what the Kinect currently incorporates, the SoftKinetic system can sense motion as close as 5.9 inches away. And then there’s LG and Samsung, whose upcoming Smart TVs have taken a cue from Microsoft, and will incorporate Kinect-style gesture recognition, along with other forms of interface control like voice control, and touchscreen remotes.

Although Microsoft is demonstrating and testing this technology, finished Kinect-based portable products may not come straight from Redmond, but rather from developers or OEMs.

Windows 8 is set to debut in beta in February. We should start seeing finished Windows 8 products (notebooks and tablets) arriving towards the middle and end of this year.

via The Daily

This is a battery operated cat door that unlocks (going inside) by reading the cat's microchip. Our cat was chipped at our shelter for around $10, but commercial vets are also able to do it for a bit more. No need to worry about lost collar keys, or magnets. Keeps out unprogrammed animals. The door also has the standard four-setting mechanical overide locking feature of: in-out, in only, out only, locked. If your cat is not chipped, you can also use an RFID collar key (not included).

We previously had a magnetically keyed cat door, but you then have the choice of using a safety collar and loosing the (not cheap) key every now and then, or using a non-safety collar and risking the cat strangling itself.

Raccoons eventually defeated our magnetically keyed door. They haven't defeated this one (yet), although the mechanical parts of the latching action are similar.

-- Bruce Bowen

SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap $140

Available from Amazon

ASDA are knocking £50 off a 40-inch Luxor HDTV this weekend, putting it at just £249 and making it the cheapest full HD screen of it's size currently onsale, brand new, in the UK. The set in question is a...

Having Wi-Fi woes indoors? Then you may be considering getting a Powerline Ethernet connection kit. But before you dive into your pockets for a set-up from NetGear or Devolo, take a look at this new solution from a company called...

Motorola have announced that they too (alongside Nintendo and Nokia in the consumer tech world) have seen a loss in profits during Q4 of the 2011 fiscal year. The firm announced they'd experienced an $80 million (£51 million) loss over...

It's coming, and it might be with us sooner than some had thought; the Galaxy S III Android smartphone has seemingly popped up in a listing on an official Samsung website, fuelling speculation that the handset's launch is just over...

The Pelican iPad case does one thing, and it does it very well: It makes your iPad look like a Dell laptop c.1995. Kidding. It also protects the iPad within from pretty much anything you can throw at it.

Pelican is famous for its super-tough camera cases, shockproof, dustproof and waterproof plastic boxes that can protect your gear from a quick swim or even airline baggage handlers. The iPad case is the same, only smaller. It actually holds more than just an iPad. There’s space inside for an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and an iPad power brick (US-only — the non-folding prongs of Euro and British adapters don’t fit).

Once slotted into their custom cutouts, the lid snaps shut and holds everything in place. Almost: The case works with the iPad 1 and the iPad 2, so the slot is a little to big for the thinner iPad. On the plus side, this means that it fits perfectly with the Smart cover in place.

The i1075 case weighs 892 grams (1.8 pounds) empty. It isn’t light, but then it isn’t meant to be. This thing is meant to be bombproof. Once you have clamped it shut, nothing will get inside except for air, via a small purge valve that equalizes pressure.

You iPad will be kept intact during drops of up to three feet, and you can safely float it down the river without worrying. An optional shoulder strap lets you carry it like a purse.

In use, the case is very solid. I had no worries when I took the photos you see here, for example. Everything fits snugly but not so tight you have to pull anything out, and the case can also be used as a mobile office. The iPad slots into an easel and sits up at an angle, and the keyboard can be used with the case on your lap.

I would probably never use it, though. The whole point of an iPad is that it’s portable. But if you work in construction, or are traveling cross-country by motorbike, then it could be ideal. What’s more, it’s a relative steal. The i1075 can be had for as little as $50. This seems impossible in a world where I paid €30 ($40) for a flimsy plastic protector for the rear of my iPad.

Pelican i1075 [Pelican]

As Twitter continue to expand their micro-blogging network globally, they've come into certain difficulties and cultural differences as they launch in new international territories. As a result, Twitter have announced new rules which could effectively mean Tweets in the...

Here’s a bad idea: Take the weakest kind of bike lock — the plastic covered cable — and turn it into a bike rack. That’s the idea behind the Tulip Fun Fun, an “elastic and safe rack resembling a meadow.” Exactly what you need in a bike rack.

The Tulip Fun Fun is actually born of a good idea. It flexes to fit the bike you’re locking to it. Anyone who has spent five minutes trying to wrangle their ride into a tight rack will appreciate this. But security wise the cable-and-rubber-hose design is a disaster, chopp-able by bolt croppers in mere seconds.

Even metal racks aren’t immune to the industrious thief. I saw some fancy-schmancy stainless steel rack sawn clean through just las week (tip: if you live in Barcelona, avoid the racks at the top end of the Parc de la Ciutadella). Standard racks might be ugly, but at least they can be trusted.

Tulip Fun Fun [Keha3 via Bicycle Design]

It’s hard to see why anyone would spend $50 on this small sliver of aluminum, but design-wise, it has to be one of the best-looking iPad stands around. It comes from Ten One design, purveyor of minimal iAccessories to the rich and tasteful, and it’s called the Magnus.

The Magnus is carved from aluminum, stuffed with neodymium magnets and shod with rubber feet. It sits handsomely on your desk until an iPad 2 gets close, whereupon it snatches it from your hand and hugs it tightly, gripping the iPad’s own embedded magnets. Thus embraced, the tablet seems to float above your desk.

Now, if you own an iPad 2 you likely have a Smart Cover already, which perform the same function and more. Then again, there’s something to be said for a purpose-made stand permanently set up on your desk. And if it’s anything like Ten One products I have used in the past, it’s likely to be very well made. Available now, only for the iPad 2.

Magnus [Ten One Design]

HTC's next update to their Sense Android UI re-skinning looks to be a significant one according to a new report from PocketNow. They've got their hands on a "non-final build" of Sense 4.0, which they state now offers 50GB...

Big news for Micro Four Thirds shooters today. Three new companies have signed on to the format. Lens makers Tamron and Tokina are joined by Japanese video camera maker Astrodesign. Astrodesign makes 4K video camera rigs, which won’t be of much use to most of you, but the two lens makers are much more interesting.

Tamron and Tokina have been making lower-cost lenses for SLRs since the days of film. Tamron even used a mounting system that let you put one lens on any 35mm SLR body, although in practice this was of little real use: Who uses more than one brand of camera?

Now they join Sigma in making Micro Four Thirds lenses which, although the product lineups haven’t been specified, means that all the major third-party lens makers are on board.

Hopefully this means more wide-angle lenses. The long end is already well served, seeing as–with an adapter–you can just stick a regular full-frame lens on the camera and have its length doubled. And one request for Tokina and Tamron: don’t just take APS-C lenses and stick a new mount on them [cough]Sigma[/cough].

Tamron and Tokina join Micro Four Thirds [DP Review]

High-end video maker Astrodesign joins Micro Four Thirds [DP Review]

As if the constantly-looming threat of death by execution and imprisonment in hard labour camps wasn't enough, North Koreans have a new strictly punishable rule that must be adhered to. Those caught using a mobile phone will now be branded...

It’s a good time to be a smartphone manufacturer. That is, if your name is Apple.

The company’s financial momentum is, in a word, insane. Apple far surpassed shareholder and Wall Street expectations during its quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, soaring past previous sales records and nearly doubling company profits from the same quarter last year. In one fiscal quarter, Apple managed to sell more than 37 million iPhones, the largest number of units moved in a single quarter in the history of the company.

Yet Apple’s competitors are flailing about, all in search of a viable smartphone strategy to challenge Apple’s momentum.

Once considered the premier competitor to Apple in the mobile market, Motorola Mobility posted an $80 million loss in the fourth quarter, selling only 5.3 million smartphones and another 200,000 tablets. On a hopeful note, Motorola said smartphone sales were buoyed by the relaunch of its iconic Razr brand last year. And to be fair, that 5.3 million figure was up from 4.9 million units a year ago. But Motorola only managed to sell 18.7 millions smartphones throughout all of 2011, only slightly more than half the number Apple sold last quarter alone.

On a similar note, Nokia is bleeding cash in the midst of efforts to reinvent its business with Windows Phones. The Finnish mobile giant posted losses of $1.2 billion last quarter, with smartphone sales of 19.6 million devices. That number sounds high, but it’s a sharp 31 percent drop from the year-ago quarter.

But there is hope yet for mobile hardware companies not named Apple. Samsung currently seems the strongest competitor in the Android world, announcing its best-ever smartphone sales in one quarter on a conference call with analysts on Thursday. The company doesn’t break down sales data into granular bits and pieces, but Samsung told Bloomberg that its Galaxy S series of Android handsets helped boost mobile sales of over 300 million phones in 2011.

It’s important to consider this number accounts for mobile phones both smart and “dumb.” Nonetheless, it still represents a massive number of units shipped. What’s more, Samsung posted a rising net income of 4 trillion won (or $3.6 billion U.S.), up from 3.4 trillion one year ago.

Motorola hopes to build on the success of its Razr brand, continuing to introduce new versions of its legacy device. The Razr Maxx is the most recently revamped Razr-branded device to launch, for example, boasting a bigger battery for a longer talk time. And like it did with the first Razr of the mid-2000s, Motorola will introduce different color variations as 2012 progresses (a white version has already debuted).

To some degree, Nokia’s losses can still be explained as collateral damage in a larger shift in overall strategy. The company is gradually moving away from its long-championed Symbian and Meego OSes, doubling down instead on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. And there’s also a ray of sunshine in Nokia’s quarterly report: The company sold more than 1 million Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphones over the quarter, beating analysts expectations and signaling a promising future for the company’s roadmap.

But for now, it’s Apple’s game to lose. The company is sitting so fat, it’s practically giving away devices to its own employees. All eyes are focused on newly minted CEO Tim Cook to see if Cupertino’s most famous company can combat its mobile rivals successfully — without Steve Jobs at the helm.

RIM's BlackBerry Bold 9790 handset is now on sale through Vodafone. The QWERTY keyboard-packing handset is available free on £31, 24 month price plans, which offer 600 mins, unlimited texts and 500MB of mobile data. Running off a 1GHz processor,...

Google are planning a substantial re-jigging of their Android OS's interface, looking in the future to do away completely with the Menu button in favour of the situation-sensitive Action Bar. "Honeycomb removed the reliance on physical buttons, and introduced...

Valve have announced that their Steam PC gaming platform will soon be accessible through an iOS iPhone and Android app. Though available to download now from Apple's App Store and the Android Market, Steam Mobile's full features are currently only...

As well as revealing the Nintendo Network online community features, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata confirmed new capabilities were being added to the tablet-like controller of the upcoming Wii U console. Top of the list of new features was NFC tech,...

Julia Hu is a bubbly, 26-year-old Stanford alum and CEO of a Bay Area start-up. She’s got the passion and product pitch you’d expect from a practiced entrepreneur, but demonstrates a curious quirk you don’t find in a lot of CEOs: She seems well rested.

One would hope so. Hu is in charge of Lark, a silent alarm clock, sleep monitor, and personal sleep coach, all rolled into one. The device itself looks a bit like a watch ensconced inside a lightweight, breathable, perforated band. The band’s hardware interacts with an iPhone app, sharing your nightly sleep habits with the app via Bluetooth when you wake each day.

The Lark isn’t the first wearable device to track one’s sleep patterns, but the system adds a clever coaching element that other sleep trackers don’t include. It’s an important addition, as competing devices tend to smother the user in sleep data, but don’t provide many tools to make sense of the data in an actionable way.

Hu considers the Lark a member of a growing class of “appcessories,” physical devices that interact with mobile apps to provide useful information or enhanced entertainment. Some of these devices track things like heart health. Other trackers similar to the Lark — such as the Jawbone UP and Fitbit — monitor a user’s activity 24/7, from daytime exercise to nighttime slumber, using motion sensors.

The Lark employs what it calls a “micromotion sleep pattern sensor” and, like the Jawbone UP and Fitbit, uses a data-tracking method called actigraphy to measure one’s sleep stages at about 85 to 95 percent accuracy.

All these activity-monitoring devices can provide helpful data in the quest for a better night’s sleep. The conventional wisdom says that once we begin mapping sleep data against the lifestyle decisions we make during our wakeful hours — for example, how much coffee we consume and how hard we exercise — we can begin adjusting bad habits to improve our sleep.

And the same applies to monitoring one’s daytime activity, like how many potato chips we eat, and how many stairs we climb. Personal data analysis can identify potential problems before they get serious, and hopefully save time and money on doctor’s visits and pharmacy bills in the long run.

“What’s exciting about this new category of appcessories is that the hardware can stay the same, but the software is always innovating,” Hu says. In the past, she says, you “had to be a Sony,” anticipating your audience’s desires and delivering a flawless finished product to consumers from the get-go. However, “by having a mobile-connected product, your product can really solve needs so much better,” Hu says. “You can really listen to what the users want and build it for them as software and upgrade continuously.”

The Lark debuted in late June, but its app has been revised a number of times, adding greater utility to the system as a whole. In addition to tracking your sleep patterns and gently waking you up with a light vibration on your wrist, you can now provide the app with various data points to begin connecting the dots on which environmental factors affect your sleep.

For example, the Lark can enter the noise and brightness levels of your surroundings, or whether you had caffeine or alcohol before hitting the hay. When you wake up in the morning, you launch the app, and define how well rested you are. From there, Lark uses all its information to figure out what stimuli you should try to avoid.

Hu says the Lark system can also provide information as to why you may wake up in the middle of the night.

“A lot of people don’t realize it’s not always stress that infringes on sleep. It’s actually a little bit of a noise that wakes you up, then your brain can’t shut off,” Hu says. Women, in particular, are susceptible to this: High-pitched noises will wake them up, and leave them unable to get back to sleep.

Women also suffer more insomnia than men, Hu says, though men are far more likely to suffer from sleep apnea, waking up more times than they think they do during the night, and then not remembering the disturbances.

The latest version of the Lark app also includes a feature that was once limited to the $60 “pro” version of the software: an assessment to determine what type of sleeper you are based on the data and information you provide (Lu refers to the data as your “sleep hygiene”). The system pinpoints 12 different types of sleepers. Hu, for example, started out as a “rookie-erratic” sleeper when she first used the system.

It may sound like a gimmicky, Meyers-Briggs-esque personality assessment, but it lets the app provide you with personalized recommendations. Unfortunately, the assessment is an ongoing process, and the free app performs just one week of evaluation.

“I used to sleep at different times all throughout the night, and it gave me really fragmented sleep,” Hu says. She also had a hard time falling asleep. But by following the app’s coaching techniques, she says, she’s now progressed to a “rookie night lark.” A lark, like its avian namesake, wants to be early to bed, early to rise.

Hu still has trouble getting to sleep as early as her body would like, but at least she now falls asleep at a regular time each night. And the iPhone helps in this effort: If you try to stay up past your recommended bed time, the app will prompt you through push notifications to begin winding down.

“Until now, no one had a computer within three feet of themselves at all times,” Hu says of smartphones like the iPhone. “You can track real-time behavior and get feedback that happens the moment you’re making a decision. This allows for real behavior change.”

Notwithstanding a simple volume mute, of course.