Hasta La Gadget!

Landing a job in the market today is harder than ever but it seems that Nokia is looking to do their part for the community by launching an app called the Internship Lens. The app is built off the company’s earlier efforts called JobLens and basically what it does is that it will help recent college graduates look for a job, or an internship, in the immediate area as well as based on what they have been trained in, meaning that you will not be placed at jobs that are irrelevant to your field or study, hopefully.

This is a joint effort by Nokia and Internships.com, which for those unfamiliar, is the world’s largest database on job opportunities. The app will be made available for download today, although it seems to be limited to just Nokia Lumia Windows Phone owners based in the US, so those living outside of the US will have to find a job without any help from Nokia! When an internship is found, users have the option to choose to Save it for later, Share it with someone who they think might be better suited, or Apply for the internship position themselves. Sounds like a pretty good idea and kudos to Nokia for their efforts.

Nokia Internship Lens App Announced, Will Help College Grads Look For Work original content from Ubergizmo.

App catalogs are flush with titles that allow users to play doctor, but according to the FDA, most of them are harmless and don’t warrant regulatory oversight. Instead, the agency has announced that it’ll take a more reactive, risk-based approach and will only require approval for mobile apps that “present a greater risk to patients if they do not work as intended.” Specifically, the FDA will scrutinize apps that perform the functions of regulated medical devices — such as an ECG monitor — along with those that are used as accessories to regulated medical equipment. As a telling statistic, only 100 mobile apps have received FDA clearance within the past decade, so imagine what would happen to the agency’s workload if it tried to exercise control over the Apple App Store and Google Play Store combined.

Filed under: Science, Software

Comments

Via: The New York Times

Source: FDA

Research firm Gartner has posted some very interesting numbers looking at the overall app market around the world for 2013. According to the company, there will be 102 billion app downloads globally during 2013. That 102 billion downloads will also generate billions and billions of dollars in sales. Gartner says that $26 billion in sales […]

Here are two facts about me. Number 1: I have a roommate. Number 2: Sometimes I notice that there’s no more dish soap in the hall closet. If my roommate and I used a collaborative to-do list app we could stay coordinated for the communal shopping, but we prefer different systems that can’t sync to each other. That’s why I really feel the motivation behind List Weaver.

Read more…

iCracked, the Y Combinator company that has quietly built up an empire on repairing broken iPhones and iPads, is launching a way to call someone up on demand to buy your old phones back.

With the new iPhone 5s and 5c out this week, it’s an opportune moment for the 30-person startup from Redwood City. iCracked basically started out of a dorm room at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where co-founder AJ Forsythe gained a reputation on campus as someone who could fix iPhones on the cheap.

He parlayed that skill into a business that’s on track to do eight figures in revenue this year by selling repair kits and deploying contractors or “iTechs” to fix or buy back devices on the spot. They have more than 400 of these skilled contractors throughout the world.

To date, they’ve had a buyback service where you can mail in your phone. But that business is relatively small with a few thousands devices sent in each month.

But today, they’re launching a way that you can call up someone on-demand in the next few hours to take iPhones or iPads off your hands. Depending on the storage, condition and model of the device, they’ll pay up to a few hundred dollars for the latest iPhones or iPads. It’s available in the San Francisco Bay Area now, but they’ll widen out the reach of the program later on. They’ll expand to Southern California next month, then New York.

The hope is that by lowering barriers, they’ll get many, many more consumers to trade in their phones or tablets for cash.

“The problem with most of the competing buyback programs is the amount of friction it takes to get paid,” said Paul Iliya, the company’s chief commercial officer.

So the way it works is, you go here. You share a little bit about your device — is it an iPhone or iPad? What model is it? How much storage does it have?

Then you fill out your location, and share your contact information. An iTech will later contact you to set up an appointment. They’ll get dispatched in the next few hours, take a few pictures of your device, check the IMEI number (or unique serial number) to make sure it isn’t stolen, then you’ll sign away the device.

The coolest part is that iCracked will hand you a branded debit card carrying the value of the device. The company spent a year working on this because they didn’t want the financial risk of having contractors walk around with hundreds or thousands of dollars in cash. When an iTech accepts a device, they can load the debit card with money on the spot and hand it over.

Then you can use it like a regular debit card from your personal bank by taking out cash at an ATM or buying goods at a store. The whole in-person transaction should take 15 minutes at most.

The new service ties into iCracked’s ambition of being the ‘AAA’ for people’s devices.

“We just want to create this business where no matter you are in the lifecycle of your device, you can call on iCracked for whatever you need, whether that could be repairs, buybacks or warranties,” Iliya said.

iCracked has just taken seed funding from Y Combinator, its affiliated Start Fund, and other angels like Elad Gil and Roger Dickey.