RockS2V is working hard to build a name for itself when it comes to emergency survival gear. The company’s Provision coat includes a built-in life-saving toolkit if you find yourself stranded somewhere remote, and its new Substratum boots feature a secret compartment inside designed to stash an emergency fire starting kit. More »
It’s safe to say the Android folk account for a pretty good chunk of Foursquare’s hefty user base, so it’s only logical for the social firm to often bring more and more new features to the highly-rated app. As such, today Foursquare announced it has added a few additional tidbits to its Android offering, including a couple which are bound to make it simpler for users of the service to find nearby spots and friends via the application’s main map. What’s more, Foursquare’s moved the “To-Do List” feature over to the app’s left drawer for easier access, while the essential “Check In” button also has a new home on that same side but toward the bottom corner. It’s worth noting that despite the latest version being live right now, Foursquare says these changes will be rolling out “over the next few weeks” — in other words, fret not if you’re not seeing the novelties show up just yet, as they’re sure to be coming very soon.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile
Source: Foursquare Blog, Google Play
Microsoft’s Surface Pro may only have been released last week, but iFixit has already torn it apart. Perhaps unsurprisingly, you don’t wanna think about repairing or upgrading this thing, period. More »
When it comes to viewing video on your phone, quality’s not always the biggest concern, but the Droid DNA puts the screen front and center – with full HD capabilities.
Last September, Wahoo Fitness’ RFLKT iPhone bike computer appeared on our radar poised for a December release, but it’s only just gone up for sale. As of today, the iPhone 4S- and 5-compatible device is available for $130 from Wahoo’s website and is shipping out to door steps. If you’re in need of a refresher, the RFLKT (pronounced reflect, if you’re curious) sits on a bicycle’s handlebars and displays ride information slung to it over Bluetooth 4.0 from cycling apps running on a paired device. RFLKT is expected to support a number of apps in the future, but it currently plays nice with just two: its maker’s own Cyclemeter application and the Wahoo Fitness App, which monitors everything from speed to heart rate, with the help of another peripheral, of course. Cyclists can also push buttons on the contraption’s side to change tracks on their iDevice’s playlist. Ready to infuse your ride with at-a-glance stats? Check out the source link and the video after the break.
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Wahoo Fitness
If I was a betting man, I’d bet that HTC was carefully trying to engineer some buzz around its new flagship Android smartphone for the U.S. market, the HTC One we’ve seen leaked plenty of times before. And now, the company has put together a promo page with a countdown timer for its February 19 event in NYC, which all but gives up the goose ahead of an official unveiling.
The page offers a special bonus whenever the timer ends in a “1″, flashing the number in green, which is itself a pretty solid indication that we’ll see a phone called simply the “HTC One” when it’s unveiled next week, but it also offers glimpses of an actual device every time it hits that count, too. These are ultra-zoomed in looks with a blurred filter effect, but it’s still fairly easy to get an idea of what parts of the phone, including the side edge, rear and front case might look like. It’s not surprise that in general, what HTC is showing off resembles very closely what we’ve seen in the latest leaks, including the rendering of an HTC One with the screen published this week.
So why is HTC showing off so much ahead of time? Basically, because that’s what you do when you need to generate a lot of early hype, and that’s exactly what HTC needs right now. The company has always been among the top Android OEMs in terms of quality, in my opinion, but as its recent financial results prove, that has failed to help it really catch fire in the U.S. market. The HTC corporate slogan of “quietly brilliant” is sadly all too appropriate, but its promotional efforts with this device seem to indicate the company is aware it needs to make a more vocal splash.
Of note in the new, it looks like we might see a handset with more metal involved in its construction than most Android devices, possibly with some chamfered edges like on the iPhone, and there’s also one segment that focuses on what’s clearly a camera lens. If HTC’s rumored “Ultrapixel” camera is also real, the company could be using that as one of its key differentiators. I’d love to see a company deliver something truly exciting on the mobile camera front, because while a lot of OEMs including Nokia and BlackBerry have been talking up cameras as key components of their hardware, I’ve yet to see a recent development that really merits the pre-launch buzz.
Intel’s freshly-revealed Web TV service will use advanced viewer monitoring systems, including a camera integrated into the set-top box to actively watch and identify those in front of the TV, to shape its service, the chip giant has confirmed. While the personalization system will have an optional shutter for those particularly camera-shy, new Intel Media chief Erik Huggers conceded, the on-demand project will nonetheless rely considerably on the viewer-tracking potential, helping advertisers craft more appropriate content and recommending more relevant shows depending on who’s watching what.
Chatter of such a system broke last year, with Intel supposedly looking at categories like age and gender to split up its viewership. Using the same sort of face-identification technology as we’ve seen on ultrabooks as well as smart TVs from Samsung, the Intel system would provide content owners and advertisers with far more useful information as to who, exactly, was consuming their shows and commercials.
As Intel sees it, the current recommendations system services like Netflix use is too blunt to be particularly effective. That’s because it works on a per-screen basis, not a per-viewer basis: everything watched by all users of a single Netflix account is combined to generate the newest suggestions, for instance, even if different members of the household have broadly different niches they individually prefer.
Intel’s system, however, would be more precise in its targeting than that. By using the Web TV STB’s in-built camera to watch the viewer as the viewer watches content, it can ascertain more accurate demographic details and tailor connected media to the right person at the right time.
Although the technology for individual identification exists, previous rumors around Intel’s tracking implementation suggested it would take a broader-strokes approach than that. Rather than logging specific members of the household, the Intel-powered STB will merely look at general demographics – i.e. membership of certain age brackets, gender, etc. – that, though a step away from exact tracking, would still unlock considerably more data than the current viewership methods. However, Huggers did say that viewers would be able to use the camera to log into specific accounts, implying far more accurate identification.
Intel’s eventual hope is that the extra information will encourage content owners to unbundle their collections of channels, something the industry has historically been reluctant to do. That won’t be the case from day one, however. As Huggers said during AllThingsD‘s D: Dive Into Media conference this week, “there are opportunities to create a more flexible environment [but] I don’t believe the industry’s ready for unbundling.”
Huggers also recognizes that Intel will face an uphill challenge trying to reassure viewers that a camera pointed out at them isn’t a privacy issue, though the physical shutter to optionally turn off the feature should go some way to helping with that. The Intel Web TV system is expected to launch sometime in 2013.
[via The Register]
Intel pushes sofa monitoring with Web TV camera plans is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
You know the drill (or is that screwdriver?) by now. New gadget lands at the iFixit labs, and the good folk there give it a teardown. Microsoft’s Surface Pro is this week’s lucky slab of silicon to hit the bench. The good news is that a removable battery and SSD will make swapping those out a charm. That’s pretty much it for the good news though. The less good news is the sheer number of screws you’re going to have to contend with (over 90 by iFixit’s count). The bad news is that screen is a real fiddle to remove, and there are globs of adhesive to navigate (holding that battery and screen in place for example). The worst part? By our tool-weilding friend’s reckoning, you’ll be lucky not to sever a major cable artery just by opening the thing. There’s not much by way of hardware surprises, bar the mAh rating of the battery (5,676). All this earns the Surface Pro a repairability rating of just one out ten (ten being the best). Better treat yours with the love and care it deserves then.
[Thanks, Chris]
Filed under: Tablets, Microsoft
Via: TabTech
Source: iFixit
If you’re a fan of some of the popular shows that A&E as such as Duck Dynasty, Storage Wars and others who happens to own an iPhone you are in luck. A&E has updated its iOS apps this week with new content. The new content brings full-length episodes and movies to iPhone users at no charge.
The updated apps include the A&E app, History, and Lifetime apps. Each the apps now supports streaming of top shows and iCloud sync allowing you to pick your show up from exactly where you left off. The apps also offer exclusive content including behind-the-scenes clips.
If you are a subscriber to Comcast Xfinity, you can also get full access to previous seasons of popular A&E shows. Not everything is perfect about the apps, AirPlay is reportedly not supported so you won’t be streaming these programs to your Apple TV. The good news is that AirPlay support is reportedly in the works.
The updated versions of the apps supporting the new content are available in the App Store right now. The apps are offered at no cost and it seems you don’t have to have a subscription to a cable network to access the basic content. The apps are also available in updated form for the iPad.
[via iDownloadblog]
A&E offers iPhone users some of its most popular shows for free is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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