The cubicle is a horrid monster of office design. While they might be functional, it’s never pretty to section off your office into endless false walls, resigning workers into their own little pockets of a giant ice cube tray. The designers at Taylor and Miller Architecture and Urban Design have a beautiful solution that even packs in some extra features. More »
We haven’t seen many changes to Apple’s location-based Find My Friends app since it debuted on iOS 5 more than a year ago. Cupertino must have realized it’s time for an update; the company just overhauled the feature to include a new UI and more accurate location-based alerts. The app will now let you define the distance from a location for receiving notifications — so you can get a ping when a friend arrives at the campus library rather than the dorms, for instance. The redesigned app also simplifies the notification process to fit on one page, with options to receive alerts when your friends arrive at or leave a specific place, along with settings for notifying others based on your location. The update is available now for users running iOS 6.1 or later.
Filed under: GPS, Software, Mobile, Apple
Via: The Next Web
Source: Find My Friends
When the chips are down and it looks like a company is on a one-way trip to shutdown town, you often see a Hail Mary product. It’s the long shot, the one thing that could save the company. Sometimes it …
Hotello gives new meaning to that expression about someone ‘living out of a suitcase.’ This usually refers to people who can’t find the time to unpack, which is why they grab clothes and other essentials straight out of their suitcase after they get home from a trip. Hotello is basically an entire room in a neat and portable package.
The Hotello was designed by Antonio Scarponi and Robert de Luca for Swiss design group Das Konzept. Everything you need is contained in a red trunk with wheels on the bottom so you can take it around with you easily. When you need to set up your room, just open it up and set up the metal structure to hold up the sound-absorbent curtains.
Pull out the bed, set up the stool and table, and put up the rack where you can hang your clothes. When things get too dark, just flip the switch to turn on the lamp that’s attached to a poseable arm.
The only thing the Hotello lacks is a bathroom – but I think that’s asking for way too much.
Sure, there may already be a veritable cornucopia of dictionaries, thesauruses, and other word reference apps out there, but Thesaurus Rex is the thesaurus app to end all thesaurus apps. Packed with more information than you could ever hope to know and fast to boot, this will become the last word reference software you’ll need. More »
The hills are alive.
(Credit: Patrick Jean)
Were you one of those kids who saw the silhouette of creatures in the clouds? You might enjoy director Patrick Jean‘s “Motorville,” in which a California city, loosely based on Los Angeles, comes alive and treks across the world in search of oil.
Why oil? Jean says the city needs “oil in order to feed its body, made of streets, highways, and freeways.” The director originally created the video for a television channel in the U.S., but the unnamed network supposedly declined the piece after seeing it, so Jean put it on Vimeo instead.
In an interview with … [Read more]
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Didn’t get a chance to back the ambitious OUYA Android game console to lock in your pre-order? Considering how much press the thing has gotten, you don’t have much excuse for missing that particular window, but never fear — OUYA intends to sell the $99 pint-sized gaming gadget through retail partners like Amazon, Gamestop, and Best Buy starting on June 4.
The folks at Engadget obtained the full press release, which goes on to note that Android gamers in the U.K. and Canada would be able to pick up an OUYA that same day. Of course by then most (if not all) of the people who shelled out money when the project was in its early stages will have already received their devices. The Verge points out that OUYA began passing shipping notifications to its users earlier today.
While the hardware inches ever closer to its mass-market release, there’s still a question of content to contend with. OUYA hasn’t provided much insight on how many game submissions it’s received since it began accepting them a few weeks back, though quite a few developers have already thrown their weight behind the little console that could.
Of course, there’s a tendency for some gamers to cling to proven hits from years gone by, which is why it comes as no surprise to see some developers taking up the task of making the OUYA a first-rate emulation device. It was revealed earlier this week that NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 emulators would be available in OUYA’s storefront at launch. And emulator developer Robert Broglia confirmed yesterday that he plans to bring his existing Android emulators for consoles like the TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Saturn (!) to the OUYA before too long.
The OUYA’s journey from kooky idea to full-fledged product has been a long one, and it’s not over yet. Getting the device onto store shelves is certainly a milestone for the young company, but the true test lays in how run-of-the-mill consumers will react to it. Granted, its price point may give it a leg up on more prominent rivals like the Xbox 360, Wii U, or PlayStation 3, but we’ll soon see if the gamers of the world wind up warming to it.
Many would call the HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus the only true Nexus of its era. Still, Google is willing to treat the CDMA versions as equals, and it just posted factory images with the latest available Jelly Bean builds for those devices. Anyone with a Verizon model can now flash with Android 4.2.2 if their existing OS install ever goes awry; Sprint users aren’t quite on an equal plane, but do get a 4.2.1 image to work from. Relevant driver binaries are also available. Whether you’re a custom ROM creator looking for a starting point or just want a fallback for any risky experiments, the relevant source links should have what you need.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Google, Verizon, Sprint
Via: Droid-Life
Source: Google Developers (1), (2)
The HTC Droid DNA and Motorola’s Droid RAZR HD/RAZR MAXX HD are all sweet handsets. The DNA of course has an edge in terms of screen and display while the RAZRs’ battery lives are unmatched in the Android ecosystem. Sure the HTC One will be frickin’ awesome when it does eventually show up but “later this spring” is just too long to wait. So, if you had a phone upgrade coming your way this weekend—as I do—and the iOS option is right out, which phone would you choose? More »
So, Amazon has a reading platform called Kindle. Goodreads has a platform that makes fairly excellent suggestions when it comes to reading materials. You probably see where this is going. This evening, Amazon announced that it was acquiring one of the more popular reading recommendation engines, and while the outfit isn’t making clear what it plans to do with the technology, it shouldn’t take a scholar to see how it’d bolster Amazon’s Kindle reader line as well as its array of Kindle apps. (What’ll happen to Shelfari, however, is perhaps a bigger mystery.)
Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice president of Kindle Content noted that “Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world — together, we intend to build many new ways to delight readers and authors alike.” It’s entirely likely that this will add another social angle to the Kindle framework, further establishing an ecosystem where friends could see suggestions based on what they’re independently reading through their own Kindle accounts. The companies are expecting the deal to be finalized in Q2, which suggests that we’ll see a proper integration just as back-to-school season begins. Right, guys?
Filed under: Amazon
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