Hasta La Gadget!

An Army officer being promoted to brigadier general openly acknowledged her homosexuality on Friday by having her wife pin her star to her uniform, thus becoming the first openly gay officer of flag rank in the United States military.

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Dalton Caldwell, the mastermind behind App.net, took to his blog yesterday to announce that the team had reached its funding goal for the project. The App.net alpha project managed to hit its $500,000 goal with two days left to go, and has amassed over $644,000 from around 9,700 backers as of the time of writing. Payment tiers include a $50 option that allows regular users to either reserve a custom username or register their existing Twitter handles, while the $100 option is aimed at developers, providing access to various API tools as well as documentation.

App.net was created as an alternative to Twitter, with Dalton Caldwell believing that the social network was moving in the wrong direction with regards to its API access as well as monetization of users. Caldwell asserts that advertising isn’t the only business model that a social network can be funded by, with App.net created on the premise that users will pay for access to a service with real time feeds and open APIs.

The project was slow to gather momentum at first, but a burst of publicity over the past week helped push the project to its $500,000 goal. Backers of the project have paid for a year of access upfront, but the ultimate goal when the service launches is to have users pay a small fee on a monthly basis. It’s a risky strategy, as most users seem to be content with ad-based serices, but the fact the app.net has managed to reach its goal indicates that there are those out there who are willing to pay for a cleaner experience.

The project still has about a day left to go, so there’s still time to put forward your $50 and secure a username. If you don’t feel like parting with a lump sum of cash upfront, then you’ll be able to register with the service normally when the alpha test is over, but there’s no indication just yet when that will be. An iOS app has been planned for the social network, however, and Caldwell mentions that several third-party applications are already in development thanks to the available API.

Social network App.net reaches $500k funding goal is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Taking long exposure photographs at night and painting within them using an iPad may be old hat, but building your own light painting rig? That could earn you some serious geek cred, and according to Adafruit, it isn’t even all that hard. In a new walkthrough, the team fashioned such a contraption using a Raspberry Pi, a python script with under 60 lines of code, some open source software and a handful of electronic components. Not satisfied with the typical light wand, they decided to spice things up with a circular fixture built from PVC pipes and a hula hoop to hold the ribbon of LEDs. After being attached to a bike and paraded around at night, it created the 3D effect in the masterpiece above. If you’re itching to make your own works of art, check out Adafruit’s tutorial at the source link below.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Adafruit builds Raspberry Pi-powered light painting rig, takes trippy photos originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here is the latest scoop about the iPhone 5, where it deals with an image of the iPhone 5 logic board. After all, we have seen alleged images of its SIM tray, including the back shell and possible front panel already, not to mention talk about a 9-pin dock connector, so why not expand the merry family’s range to touch on something more intimate – like the logic board of the next generation iPhone? According to 9to5Mac, the latest logic board leak is not an exact carbon copy of the iPhone 4S’ logic board, where it comes with a smaller SIM slot this time around in addition to additional wireless antenna connections.

While these new wireless antenna connections do not necessarily indicate 4G LTE connectivity, it does mean that Apple wants to move forward from where the iPhone 4S left off. We do look forward to hear and perhaps, see more of the iPhone 5′s innards in the weeks to come – will there be a major bump in the speed of its processor, or just a minor improvement? One thing’s for sure, Apple cannot really keep things close to their chest anymore these days as they are too reliant on 3rd party suppliers for their parts.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 5 photo leak could be a red herring, iPhone 5: photos of an alleged fully assembled unit [Rumor],

When Google acquired Motorola Mobility, Larry Page said the move would help “supercharge the Android ecosystem,” but first, the firm needs to reorganize. That seems to be starting — the company just announced that it will be closing a third of its 94 offices and laying off 20 percent of its workforce, including 40 percent of its vice presidents. The move will scale back its presence in Asia and India, says the New York Times, and will center its operations in Chicago, Sunnyvale and Beijing. The new, smaller Motorola will be working on less devices too, focusing on releasing a few high quality handsets each year as opposed to several dozen. Less phones means less parts, of course, and the firm says it will be dropping some suppliers and will be buying half as many components as a result. We’re all for the new Moto’s less-is-more approach and the potential it has to breed a new Nexus device, but Google’s already made it clear that it isn’t playing favorites with OEMs. Either way, it’s a start.

Filed under: Cellphones

Motorola to cut its workforce by 20 percent, shutter a third of its offices worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 02:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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