Few would doubt that Apple prioritizes its own stores — they’re ambassadors for the brand. However, France’s Competition Authority has just raided Apple and its distributors over complaints that this preference comes at the expense of resellers. Recently bankrupt retailer eBizscuss claims that Apple both stalls on delivering products to third-party stores and denies those outlets any flexibility in pricing. In other words, it’s allegedly impossible to compete fairly when Apple holds all the cards. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, although the Competition Authority is so far willing only to confirm to Les Echos that the raids took place. Whether or not the searches lead to any substantive legal action, Apple may face extra heat in France — the Authority is reportedly investigating accusations that the American firm unfairly hiked the minimum pricing for iBookstore periodicals.
HP continues to work on its re-entry into the smartphone market, but is still yet to commit to a public roadmap after the painful and expensive webOS debacle left the firm with cellular egg on its face. “HP has to be in the game,” Senior Director of Consumer PCs and Tablets for Asia-Pacific, Yam Su
We tend to think of demolition as destructive: dynamite, dust, and plenty of fireworks. But as a New York Times article recently described, demolition in dense cities is, more and more often, a "stealth" operation, where a building is dismantled over a number of weeks.
One thing that I’ve personally experienced from living the always-connected 21st century lifestyle – your gadgets can stress you out. Whether it’s the pressure that you constantly need to check email, or that your boss might text you at three in the morning, it’s become almost impossible to distance yourself from the stressors of work and life if you’re carrying a smartphone. Now, a group of technologists at Stanford are working on a program to help decrease the stress caused by technology – and by life in general.
The Stanford Calming Tech Center is focused on research and development of technologies which can help us better manage our stress, while decreasing the likelihood that gadgets become an added source of stress. I was recently introduced to this budding program while attending Further with Ford, an annual event which shares not only the auto manufacturer’s vision for the future, but provides access to technology and design thought-leaders to share their insights.
The Calming Tech program was founded by Neema Moraveji, who says that the stresses caused by our gadgets can affect your breathing. There’s even evidence that shows that checking your email can cause the same sort of irregular breathing caused by our fight-or-flight mechanism. So how can we decrease our stress levels in the connected world? While you could lock your devices away, that’s not always practical.
What Moraveji proposes is that we leverage our gadgets to help us live more consciously – through practices such as breathing exercises and meditation. His research shows that the introduction of “calmors” such as music, intentional distractions, and moments of mindfulness can make a difference. Among their projects, the Calming Tech team is working on a system called BreathAware, a biofeedback device that pairs with your wireless device to help you manage your breathing throughout the day.
In addition, the team is working on ideas for user interfaces which reduce stress, as well as tools which let users know how frequently they’re performing common tasks like reading emails. The lab also offers a regular course called “d.compress – Designing Calm,” which encourages students to create interactive technologies which reduce, rather than introduce stress.
It’s a very interesting field of study, and one well worth pursuing in my opinion. While I’m all for pervasive technology and connectivity, it is important that we don’t let them add new forms of stress to our lives.
I know that when it comes to summer, most parents would prefer their kids to spend their time outdoors, and if they were indoors even, playing video games is not the best way to occupy one’s holidays. After all, one gets to shed physical energy in the great outdoors, and it also does help with the socializing bit in the long run. If your kids really insist on playing indoors, why not sit them down with a board game of sorts instead? All right, so their attention span is so short, they need something electronic thrown into the mix, and I guess this is where the $29.99 Laser Maze Beam-Bending Logic Game is able to step in.
You could say that the Laser Maze Beam-Bending Logic Game is a sort of solitaire-type game, albeit it has lasers as part of the setup. You basically have to guide the laser beam through a series of mind-busting mazes, and the game ought to last for a fair amount of time as it comes with 60 cards that span different skill levels, ranging from beginner to expert. This is a single-player game which was specially designed by the very same people behind Khet and Rush Hour. [ Laser Maze Beam-Bending Logic Game copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
We hope you’ve had time to say your goodbyes, because Google Reader bows out today, ending its eight-year existence. The search giant gave a two-month warning, with many users incensed that they’d be losing their defacto RSS reader — their favorite way to absorb news and internet goings-on. We’d like to hear why Reader managed to pull in such a devoted following, so leave us your memories in the comments below and let us know which service you’ve moved your feeds to, because some of us haven’tdecidedyet.
Camping outside a store for weeks on end has been done to death now, so what can you do to score some early adopter cred? How about buying a device to use on a service that doesn’t exist… yet? That’s Vodafone’s thinking behind launching its first 4G wireless hotspot, two months before its LTE service begins rolling out. The Vodafone R212 will connect up to 10 devices simultaneously, comes with a 32GB SD card reader, a 2,800mAh battery and will, thankfully, connect to the company’s 3G network as well. It’ll set you back £39 up-front if you sign up for a plan offering you 1GB of monthly data for £10 a month.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has been personally testing Google Glass and expects the chip company’s silicon to show up in wearables before the end of 2013, though the freshly-installed exec is coy on his predecessors Web TV intentions. “We’re being cautious” Kranich said on the IPTV plans Intel said would launch this year, despite his
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