Humans have a lot in common with magpies. We gravitate toward shiny things.
It’s easy, then, to see why the Glowing Plants project on Kickstarter has more than doubled its goal and still has 38 days to go. It’s a fascinating mix of botany, science, and unexpected glowing things.
An $80 pledge gets you a vase and seeds. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: Glowing Plants)
Some people can boast a green thumb, but very few people can boast a glowing green thumb. For a pledge of $40, Glowing Plants will send you 50 to 100 seeds to let you raise your own glowing plant at home. The project’s creators say that this is a one-off opportunity and the seeds will not be available commercially later on.
If you’re not the gardening type, then a $150 pledge gets you a young glowing plant that already has had a good start to life. It’s up to you to take care of it, feed it, and keep your cats from eating it.
Creating a glowing plant is not a simple process. First, the Glowing Plants team had to design DNA sequences using th… [Read more]
Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 has already been available at AT&T since April 27th, and now those wanting to get on T-Mobile’s new “uncarrier” plans with the new device can do so right now through T-Mobiles online store. The GALAXY S 4 is available now on the carrier, leaving only Verizon as the only wireless carrier to not yet have the phone available.
T-Mobile is selling the phone for a down payment of $149, but you’ll eventually be paying full price for it, as you’ll be paying 24 payments of $20 per month. This is for the 16GB model in either black or white, and there’s no word on a 32GB model just yet, although it may just be a matter of time before we see it appear.
If you’re looking to get the new phone in-store, you’ll have to wait just a few more days, as T-Mobile won’t have the GALAXY S 4 in physical stores until May 1. Then again you probably won’t see your newly-ordered GALAXY S 4 unit arrive on your doorstep until that time, so either method won’t have you owning the device sooner.
The GALAXY S 4 is Samsung’s successor to the Galaxy S III, and it boasts a 5-inch 1080p display and rocks a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor clocked at 1.9GHz in the US version. It also sports 2GB of RAM and has a 13MP camera. It’s arguably the company’s best phone yet, and you can learn more about it in our full review.
We’ve talked about Flash Rods flash drives that look like toy cars several times over the years. My favorite continues to be the Back to the Future DeLorean. The company has offered several other versions of its vehicular flash drives over the years and they’ve all had USB storage of one sort or another stuffed inside. The company has just announced its new mid-size Flash Rod line.
Like all of the drives in the Flash Rods family, these are storage products with a storage device crammed inside of a toy car. The biggest difference in the new mid-size range from the company and some of the other products offered is that the storage hardware itself uses USB 3.0 connectivity.
All of the other drives from the company have used USB 2.0. Moving to USB 3.0 storage devices means that transferring files to and from the Flash Rods will be faster than ever before.
The drives are compatible with both Windows and Mac computers. You can choose from several different card types including a Shelby Cobra, a 67 Mustang, and several others. The 32 GB version sells for $110(USD), while the 64 GB version costs $130. They’re available now over at Flash Rods.
Wikimedia Commons, which acts as Wikipedia’s media repository, has pushed its Android and iOS app out of the beta phase, giving photo collecting for the digital encyclopedia a workflow that isn’t chained to a browser. By registering an account online and wielding the software, users can upload photographs taken with the application — or within their device’s library — straight to the organization’s database, and endow them with titles and descriptions. With the Android flavor, multiple photos can be uploaded at once, images can be assigned categories and those torn between snapping pictures for the open source book of knowledge and their social circles can share their contributions through the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other services. Ready to start pitching in? Hit the source links below to grab the apps.
This week the Samsung GALAXY S 4 has appeared in two separate drop test examinations in which its ability to withstand day-to-day accidents has been called into question. While the Samsung lineup of Galaxy-branded smartphones and tablets has never really been known for its ruggedness specifically, this particular release appears to finding a special place in the books of groups like SquareTrade and TechSmartt, both of them known for their fragility tests of smart devices.
While the Samsung GALAXY S 4 brings a reinforced glass face with rounded corners and a flat face, its back casing and rim are made of hard plastic. In the feature video you’re about to see coming from TechSmartt, the GALAXY S 4 is compared to the iPhone 5 for it’s ability to withstand basic drops. You’ll see the GALAXY S 4′s corner suffering some damage through both plastic and glass from a drop a bit higher than 7 feet.
Meanwhile a much more involved set of tests was run by SquareTrade, a company that considers a variety of factors in their breakability tests. Front and back panel design, materials, size, weight, friction quotient, edge construction, and more are considered in SquareTrade’s rankings for device breakability. SquareTrade did series of tests and comparisons between the GALAXY S 4, the Galaxy S III, and the iPhone 5, noting the iPhone to have the least breakable hardware of the bunch.
“Our research and experience shows that even the smallest device characteristics can dramatically affect its breakability: the weight balance of a device can affect the way it spins in free-fall, making it more likely to land on its screen; devices with rubber backs are less likely to slide, and device dimensions can effect how snugly smartphones fit in pant and jeans pockets. The likelihood of damage due to these common scenarios has never been higher.” – Ty Shay, SquareTrade CMO
According to SquareTrade, the iPhone 5 ranked a 5 (halfway between least breakable at 1 and most breakable at 10) due mostly to its palm-sized body, able to be gripped easier than either Samsung device. The GALAXY S 4 ranked a 7, SquareTrade mentioning its larger body and slippery back panel reducing grip-ability significantly. One must remember also that the Samsung Galaxy Note is larger than the GALAXY S 4, and the Galaxy Note II is larger yet.
The Syrian Electronic Army has struck again, and this time they decided to hack into several accounts belonging to The Guardian. A couple of the accounts hacked were @GuardianBusiness and @GuardianFilm, and they were used to send out tweets promoting the Syrian Electronic Army. This is the latest attack coming from the SEA, and is most likely not their last. This recent hit should speed up Twitter’s process of implementing a two-factor authentication system.
Twitter and the Syrian Electronic Army have launching blows against each other these past few weeks, but it seems like the SEA is in the lead. Twitter shut down the SEA’s official Twitter account, but that did nothing to stop the group from making a new one. It seems as though the group is up to their 12th “official account”. In the time that Twitter began banning the SEA’s accounts, the SEA has managed to hack into both The Guardian’s accounts as well as the Associated Press’s.
With the Associated Press’s Twitter account, the Syrian Electronic Army tweeted, “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” Not only did that false tweet cause fear among the Associated Press’s followers, it dropped the DOW by 150 points as well. Luckily the Associated Press was able to handle the situation within only a few minutes.
Before the Associated Press attack, the Syrian Electronic Army also hacked into several of CBS’s accounts, BBC’s accounts, FIFA’s accounts, NPR’s accounts, and the Human Rights Watch’s accounts. The Guardian is currently working on restoring their accounts and changing their security credentials. But many are wondering who will be the next target in the Syrian Electronic Army’s consecutive attacks.
The Toledo Mud Hens, a minor league baseball team in Ohio, are about to become the Toledo Wookiees for a weekend. Unfortunately, the team isn’t going so far as to all dress up in big, brown fur suits, but they will be wearing some pretty special duds. The uniforms have an exaggerated Chewbacca-hair pattern all over them. Talk about sci-fi stylin’.
The “Star Wars” outfits are just the beginning for May the 4th celebrations at Fifth Third Field. The first 3,000 fans will get a free kazoo to participate in a massive post-game kazoo band version of the “Star Wars” theme song. There will be “Star Wars” face painting for the kids, too.
Plenty of costumed “Star Wars” characters will be in attendance, including Princess Leia, Darth Vader, a selection of Stormtroopers, and someone dressed up as Chewbacca in full fur. The Mud Hens are affiliated with the Detroit Tigers, so they are no stranger to hirsute mascots.
Angry Birds is one of the most popular mobile gaming franchises out there. It was originally launched on iOS, now its available on a host of different platforms and is played by millions of people around the world. The game is fun and addictive in its own unique way. Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds, often releases updates and new titles to keep users hooked to this franchise. Today they’ve announced that Angry Birds Friends will be available for both Android and iOS devices later this week, on the 2nd of May to be precise.
The game itself offers a classic Angry Birds experience that we all know and love. The unique thing about this particular title is that it offers a host of social features that are integrated with Facebook. Rewards can be sent and received through the app, players can challenge their friends on Facebook and also take part in tournaments held weekly. Rovio hasn’t said anything about the price tag, but it can be expected that Angry Birds Friends will carry the same $0.99 price tag as other titles in this franchise.
Disrupt NY 2013′s Startup Battlefield competition is underway, and now New York native Keen Home is taking the stage to present its first-round pitch. Keen Home is a home automation startup, which aims to follow in Nest’s footsteps by building remote vents for your central air conditioning and heating systems that can be controlled from your smartphone to optimally direct air where you actually need it — and away from places you don’t. Keen just launched its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.
Keen Home is the brainchild of Ryan Fant and Nayeem Hussain, both of whom have experience founding companies in the home real estate and property-management space. The two believe their startup can appeal to consumers who want both more convenience in managing their home’s HVAC systems, and who want to save money and conserve energy. Keen Home’s debut product, the Keen Vent, accomplishes both.
The idea came from Fant noticing that when vents were closed in other rooms, heating and cooling the one he was currently in became much easier. The problem is that those vents generally operate separately, and manually, in most homes. Even with some systems that provide a remote, like Activent, they aren’t centrally controlled in a way that makes them individually manageable from an existing device like a smartphone.
“We found that just by closing four vents in an average-sized home, we’ve reduced the run time of the furnace by about 30 percent,” Fant explained in an interview. “So not only were we redirecting air to rooms that were actually in use by intelligently closing vents, we were increasing efficiency, as well.”
Keen believes that the focus is always on the thermostat when it comes to home heating and cooling efficiency solutions, which is good but it ignores other parts of the problem. The Keen Vent solves that, by providing both a user-guided and automated way of opening and closing vents to change how air flows through a home. A homeowner can set a schedule for individual vents, too, and it can plug into weather data to respond intelligently to changing conditions.
Fant says the Keen Vent can provide up to 32 percent reduction in run time for HVAC systems, which means lower monthly bills and less toll on the environment. Most heating and cooling vents in households are around 60 years old, Keen Home said on stage during their Disrupt Battlefield presentation on Monday.
Individual vent covers will cost around $40 per vent, Keen predicts, with a $150 one-time charge for the system in total. There’s also another option, with a recurring fee of $4 per month for access to the cloud-based management platform, which also provides monthly reports, plus a $25 sign up payment. But Fant and Hussain plan to partner with utility companies and homebuilders to try to offer the tech initially at a discount price, perhaps with, say, six months of service rolled into a new construction. It’s the same model that satellite radio provider Sirius/XM uses to sell subscriptions with new cars.
Keen Home is launching its Keen Vent product on Indiegogo today, and believes that seeking crowdfunding, as well as traditional investment, will help it get the word out and prove product viability. Its biggest challenges will be proving to users that a recurring subscription around centralized vent control is worth the cost, and in making sure that legacy players like Honeywell don’t swoop in and simply build their own similar systems. The team says that being aggressive with partnerships with big utility companies, the way others like Nest and thinkeco have done in the past, will be the key to making sure it can overcome both.
Keen said on stage that the majority of its audience would be people who don’t know what a smart home is, so they tried to make sure it was as easy to install as possible. That’s why they’ve made the install process as simple as possible, and setting up the online dashboard involves only entering a code and then doing a roughly 15 question survey. In addition, they’re planning to partner with HVAC contractors to take care of more complicated installs. Battery life is expected to be around a year for the vents, so it’d be roughly equivalent to changing the power source on devices like smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Despite the fact that iPhone has a clear lead in U.S. smartphone market, Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research says that the iPhone’s market share is likely to decline if the company delays next generation iPhone release. Since the first iPhone came out in 2007, Apple has traditionally released an updated model every calendar year. In the quarter prior to launch of a new model customers buy the least number of iPhones, as everyone anticipates a new model to come out soon. Toni believes that iPhone market share may decline to 12% from the current 17% this quarter and it may continue to decline if a new smartphone isn’t released.
Apple’s rival Samsung has seen its market share grown substantially in Q1 2013, partly because it offers a host of Android powered smartphones as opposed to one single iPhone that Apple releases each year. This has led to widespread rumors that Apple is developing a low cost iPhone that will help regain some of the market share lost to Samsung. Rumor has it that Apple will release two iPhones this year, a low cost model followed by a moderately revamped iPhone 5S.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
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