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Mar 25

Yahoo buys Summly news app for $30m

Yahoo has just purchased the mobile news reader app, Summly, in an attempt to make Yahoo a more mobile-centric service. Sources have told All Things D that Yahoo paid $30 million to buy out the iOS app. They paid 90% in cash, and the other 10% in stock. They have also enlisted Nick D’Aloisio, the 17-year old who developed the app, to work with the company for at least 18 months.

Summly is a news reading app that takes a news article and summarizes its main points in only 400 characters. That way users can quickly decide whether or not they want to read the article. While the Summly app was getting popular, Yahoo doesn’t plan on continuing it. The company plans on shutting down the app and using the app’s technology and coding for its own products.

While the Summly app technology would be beneficial for Yahoo’s products, its believed that Yahoo’s real acquisition is Nick D’Aloisio. Sources told All Things D that Yahoo plans on using D’Aloisio to represent its brand in front of both the media and consumers. The company hopes that D’Aloisio’s presence will help make Yahoo seem like a place that “loves both entrepreneurs and mobile experiences, which in turn will presumably attract others like him”.

D’Aloisio is excited about starting his new chapter with Yahoo. Being only 17-years old and having his first entrepreneurial project being bought out for $30 million is a dream come true. He believes that being acquired by Yahoo was a perfect fit for both the company and his app. He stated, “Yahoo has an inspirational goal to make people’s daily routines entertaining and meaningful, and mobile will be a central part of that vision. For us, it’s the perfect fit.” Hopefully D’Aloisio’s venture with Yahoo goes much better than Michael Katz venture with Yahoo.

[via All Things D]

Yahoo buys Summly news app for $30m is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Mar 25

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag gameplay trailer released

Posted in: Today's Chili

We heard back in February that the next Assassin’s Creed title would be arriving sometime in the future, and earlier this month developer Ubisoft confirmed that Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag would be the next installment in the series. Finally, the first gameplay trailer for the game has been released, and it gives gamers an idea of what they’ll be in for.

We saw the official launch trailer earlier when the game was confirmed, but that specific trailer was nothing more than cutscenes. This time around, we get to see actual in-game footage. The trailer features our new assassin, Edward, and his adventures on the high seas. We get to see a lot of action, including some underwater scenes, as well as the expected cannon shootouts with enemy ships.

Of course, we saw some leaked screenshots earlier this month that hint at what to expect from the game, but it’s nice to finally see the game in action. The graphics look pretty great, and the detail is quite outstanding. The underwater scenes look especially good, and we’re guessing those will be a huge hit when the game eventually releases.

The game will launch on the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and the Nintendo Wii U on October 29 in the US, with the UK getting it on November 1, and the rest of Europe getting access on October 31. The game will also launch on PS4, but no release date has been determined for that version. Furthermore, if Microsoft ends up announcing its next-generation gaming console at some point this year, we should expect the new Assassin’s Creed installment to be available on that console as well.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag gameplay trailer released is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Mar 25

Smartphones Can Now Monitor Your Blood Courtesy Of New Implant

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Smartphones Can Now Monitor Your Blood Courtesy Of New Implant

We use our smartphones for doing a number of things. Making calls, checking up on emails and social networks are some of the major uses of such a device. They’re now able to monitor our blood and warn us if we’re about to have an heart attack, all thanks to a new implant. A team based at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed this new 14mm implant, the smallest in the world, and it monitors crucial things in blood such as ATP, glucose levels, proteins, and lactate during periods of rest as well as activity.

The implant will transmit data to the smartphone by using Bluetooth. It obviously needs power to work. This is taken care of through a battery patch that will provide 100 milliwatts of power through the skin, using inductive charging. Heart attacks are usually preceeded by dumping of troponin, a protein, into the blood. Having the ability to monitor blood through the smartphone means having enough time to take precautionary measures against an oncoming heartattack, as the implant would warn about the presence of troponin in the blood.

[image credit: Extremetech]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Implant Allows Smartphone To Monitor Your Blood, Study Finds Action-Packed Video Games Helps Dyslexic Children With Their Reading Abilities,

Mar 25

Motorola X Phone render “leaked”: 5 specifications to make you freak

Posted in: Today's Chili

As we draw ever nearer the developer conference known as Google I/O 2013, tips and rumors (and today a 3D rendering) of a Motorola-made “X Phone” have made their way to the public. What we’re seeing here is an illustrated version of what a tipster has suggested will be what the upcoming Google Nexus device will bring to the market this spring, with a possible reveal hitting in early May as Google’s convention takes place. Along with the rendering from GSMArena has come a set of specifications that are sometimes fabulous, sometimes bafflingly low-grade.

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Qualcomm Processor

Along with the one ZTE device we’ve seen in Barcelona this past month, this device will – if these tipped specifications hold true – be amongst the first to come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. This is a step above the Snapdragon 600 processor you’ll be seeing in the HTC One and the Samsung GALAXY S 4, mind you.

snapdragon-1

What’s odd here is that this device’s tipped specifications also include a display that’s not quite as impressive as those attached to the HTC One and GALAXY S 4. This would only make sense if Google wanted to show the power of the newest version of Android (whatever that may be) or the power of the Snapdragon chipset – but developing for higher definition displays should, by all means, be more important than those bits.

Massive 4000mAh battery

Inside it’s said that you’ll be seeing a battery that’ll bust up the rest of the market, 4000mAh large so you’ll be working all day and night long without need for a charge. That’s rather similar to what we’ve seen in several of the most recent Motorola smartphone releases, and right on top of the device we brought to Mobile World Congress 2013 for its excellent battery capacity and long-lasting life: the Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX HD.

Android 4.2

Wait a second – wasn’t this device supposed to be a Nexus phone? Wasn’t the rumor that this Motorola release was supposed to be the first vanilla Google phone, complete with the next-generation operating system build? Perhaps here we see how the Motorola smartphone at hand is not going to be all it’s cracked up to be tipped.

jellybeanplus

Or we see another massive flaw in the tipster. Between this device running with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, nothing newer, and the fact that they’ve reported just 768 x 1280 as the resolution of the display, it’s going to be really difficult to convince anyone that this tipster is one to be trusted.

IP57 certified with Gorilla Glass III

Back in the much more realistic realm of specifications comes a tip that this device will be water resistant up to a meter and will be somewhat damage resistant in a variety of other ways. Up front it’s said that the third generation of Gorilla Glass, made great enough to resist even the toughest of scratches.

Unique New Industrial Design

With the rendering you’re seeing above, you’ll notice that this device looks quite different from the rest of the Motorola smartphones we’ve seen released over the past several years. It looks a lot more like an Xperia phone, when it comes down to it. Whether you’re all about this new design or you’d rather stick with the RAZR family, it’s nice to see Motorola change things up a bit – if, in fact, they really are making this device.

Motorola X Phone render “leaked”: 5 specifications to make you freak is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Mar 25

Samsung NX300 SMART Camera Announced

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Samsung NX300 SMART Camera Announced There are cameras, and then there are digital cameras, and the Samsung NX300 SMART camera would be one that fall under the latter category. Sporting a 45mm 2D/3D lens, it will also arrive with a new partnership between the South Korean company, Samsung, alongside the world’s fastest man, Olympian Usain Bolt who picked up gold in London sometime in the middle of last year.

Bolt has appeared in global initiatives for the camera and the ‘NX Junior Photographer’ campaign will see both Samsung as well as Usain Bolt work in partnership, helping to continue build on Bolt’s natural love of being behind the camera, as a way to ignite the love of photography with this 20.3-megapixel shooter. It is always nice to see something in the hand which was once just a prototype, or being previewed by a select few before being released commercially across the board. The Samsung NX300 SMART camera will be accompanied by a $749.99 price tag, while its 45mm 2D/3D lens will cost another $499.95 if you are interested in picking one of these bad boys up.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Fuel The Smallest Cellphone Charger In The World, LTE Chromebook Pixel Shipping To Begin By 8th April,

Mar 25

Space spinach: Getting your greens on the ISS

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Eat your greens.

(Credit: Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET)

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been giving us Earthlings behind-the-scenes peeks into life on the space station. He already showed us how he makes a peanut butter sandwich and how he clips his fingernails without inhaling them.

Now, he turns his attention to the sometimes controversial subject of spinach. Love it or hate it, it’s packed with healthy vitamins and minerals. Hadfield posted a video demonstrating how to eat spinach in space.

When you’re on the ISS, you can’t just pop down to the local space grocery and pick up a nice bag of fresh baby spinach. It first has to be processed into a form that can handle traveling 220 miles from Earth to the International Space Station and not end up flying all over the place in zero gravity once it gets there.

Borderlands 2 Diamond Plate Loot Chest Has Both Real and Virtual Rare Drops

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The Ultimate Loot Chest pre-order bundle for Borderlands 2 has become a sought after items among fans of the franchise because of the titular container. The remaining units of the bundle are selling for way higher than its original price of $150. Luckily for fans Gearbox has stepped in with another bundle that includes a loot chest.

borderlands 2 diamond plate loot chest

The new Borderlands 2 Diamond Plate Loot Chest doesn’t come with a copy of the game, but it makes up for it with a ton of other goodies, including a replica of the Goliath mask, a code for an in-game Goliath head so your characters can match your new gear, 20 cards with codes for Legendary items, four Wanted posters featuring the playable characters, window decals featuring the weapon manufacturers and of course the sweet loot chest itself.

borderlands 2 diamond plate loot chest 2

The bundle will be sold at ThinkGeek, at the Gearbox shop and at Forbidden Planet for $100 (USD) starting June 2013. It’s limited to just 5,000 copies so make sure to keep an eye out for it if you want one. It would’ve been more considerate of Gearbox if they just mass produced the loot chest, but I guess this is better than nothing. As Travis B mentioned in the comments, Gearbox will mass produce this bundle. The only thing that’s unique to the first 5,000 units will be the certificate of authenticity. Thanks for the heads up Travis B!

[via Polygon]

Mar 25

The Next iOS Needs to Look Like This

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It’s not a good sign when the best iOS features are imaginary ones designed by people who aren’t getting paid to do it instead of, you know, Apple. Like this revamped vision for iPhone multitasking. Apple, steal this now. More »

Mar 25

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Rumored To Have Unbreakable Display

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Back in December last year there were rumors floating around that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will come with an “unbreakable display”. Well the S4 was announced a fortnight ago and it has been confirmed that Samsung’s latest flagship Android smartphone does *not* have such a display. Nevermind, now there’s a rumor that the upcoming Galaxy Note 3 may have an unbreakable display, and it will be one of the most important feature of the device. It’s quite a bold claim, but while in theory OLED displays can be made to be much more resistant than their LCD counterpart (they can even be flexible), there is still a need for a glass surface for the touch sensor. Solutions exists, and Samsung has demonstrated such a flexible display at CES. Will that become a product?

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is also rumored to have an Exynos 5 Octa core processor coupled with 2GB of RAM, more on board storage, a bigger battery and a back camera of at least 8 megapixels. At this point in time it is not known what the design of Note 3 will actually be, though it is largely believed to be along the same lines of the Note II’s design. In the software department, it is expected to run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean at the very least. Previous rumors suggest that the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 may be released at IFA 2013 in Berlin, which takes place in September.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Rumored Upcoming Huawei Smartphone To Sport 4.9″ Full HD Display And Quad-Core Processor, Alleged iPhone 5S Components Surface,

Mar 25

Google+ update for Android and iOS adds Snapseed editing, always-on location option

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Snapseed quickly took on Google+ integration after it was acquired by Google. It’s now Snapseed’s time to return the favor. An update to the Google+ apps is introducing basic image editing (currently for iOS only) and, yes, those seemingly inescapable retro filters to get just the right effect before an image goes into a post. The pseudo-Instagram layer is far from the only addition, however. Android and desktop users can optionally tell Google+ to always share their closest available location in their profile; posts in the stream now include more text and make it easier to see photos and videos; Community participants can also invite people, share posts and manage activity away from their computers. If you’ve ever wanted to fix a Google+ photo — or break it, some would argue — the Android and iOS updates are rolling out today.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile, Google

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Hasta La Gadget!

Yahoo buys Summly news app for $30m

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag gameplay trailer released

Smartphones Can Now Monitor Your Blood Courtesy Of New Implant