Sep 30
The second annual Architizer A+ Awards are open and awaiting submissions from designers and architects around the world.
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Aug 14
Samsung’s flexible display contest offers cash for device ideas, business plans
Posted in: Today's Chili
Samsung’s been so busy getting its flexible displays (aka “Youm”) consumer-ready, it’s now got no clue what to actually do with them. As such, it’s decided to pay others to be idea-men, launching the “Flexible Future Business Plan Competition” in the US. Starting August 29th and running to October 6th, the contest is calling for nifty gadget concepts that use one to 20 inches of flexible display at up to full HD resolution. They’ll be judged on how important a flexible display is to the device, as well as design, practicality of hardware and business plan. The winner will receive $10k, with second and third place taking $5k and $2.5k, respectively. Samsung hopes you’ll head to the source link for the full lowdown, because there are only so many bendy smartwatches one can sell before you need other gear to put wobbly panels in.
Filed under: Displays, HD, Samsung
Via: Phone Arena, Sammy Hub
Source: Samsung (contest page)
Jul 23
IndieCade teams with Oculus Rift for ‘VR Jam,’ a game dev competition culminating this October
Posted in: Today's Chili
The Oculus Rift sure is super, super neat, but outside of mods to existing games, it’s still a bit light in the custom-made software department. And that’s exactly why Oculus is ponying up $50K in prizes and teaming up with IndieCade this October for a game jam competition specifically meant to bolster that software support. One lucky dev / team will snag the grand prize of $10K and a chance to debut their game at this October’s IndieCade Festival in Los Angeles — they’ll also head out to Orange County to meet with the team at Oculus, including wunderkind Palmer Luckey.
Should you wish to get in on the VR-centric action, you’ve got the following three weeks to get things going (starting August 2nd and ending on August 25th). And if you don’t have one of Oculus’ Rift dev kits just yet, you’ll have access to playtesting at various “playtest hubs” set up worldwide (NYC and LA locations are the only two confirmed thus far, with “more locations to be announced soon”). For the full stipulations on the contest, head below.
Jul 22
The world has changed in countless ways since Buckminster Fuller invented the Dymaxion map in 1943. Wars have come and gone, populations have changed, and entire generations have passed. But Bucky’s map endures, thanks to its endless adaptability—and to prove it, the Buckminster Fuller Institute recently invited the public to help reinvent the map for 2013. Today, we get a glimpse at the best entries.
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Jul 01
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.
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Apple
Via: SlashGear, MarketWatch
Source: Les Echos (translated)
Jun 14
Robotic sports were bound to involve balls in space at some point. Students from the U.S. and Europe can now sign up for what is described as “the ultimate robot game” in which they will navigate floating spheres through the International Space Station for the Zero Robotics programming competition.
The competition was organized by MIT and the European Space Agency. The idea is to use volleyball-sized SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, and Reorient Experimental Satellites) that are equipped with 12 jets of compressed gas to move them in different directions. The teams from secondary schools program algorithms to maneuver the satellites and to complete game objectives by navigating obstacles and accomplishing certain tasks.
Just float some hoops around and I will slam dunk these robots everywhich way to a win! Not really. It sounds like fun though.
Just try not to hit our astronauts in their heads, guys. And no high speed fly-bys of the crew either. You leave that showboating stuff at home.
The first competitions take place in computer simulations online, but the best of the best teams will have their code put to the test on the SPHERES themselves in the finals next January aboard the International Space Station.
[via io9 via Geekosystem]
May 22
Hang around these pages long enough and you’re bound to come across Pantech, the South Korean purveyor of everything from giant 1080p handsets down to… giant 720p handsets. Samsung has noticed this rising star too and, so says Yonhap News, has now made a $50 million investment in the smaller company in return for a 10 percent stake. Implicit in that is that the Korean government has allowed Samsung’s ever-expanding influence to infiltrate a potential rival, since Pantech is now the No. 3 phone maker in that country and only Qualcomm and a state-run bank possess larger stakes than Samsung’s. As a result, the acquisition could have an anti-competitive aura to it — but then, Pantech has actually been struggling of late, not least with large debts, and it has relied on big backers to bail it out.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Via: The Next Web
Source: Yonhap News
Mar 17
NYFi wins NYC’s Reinvent Payphones ‘Popular Choice’ award, would serve free WiFi (update)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Although six designs were awarded in New York City’s Reinvent Payphones competition, it remained to be seen which of the six would be the people’s favorite. After about a week’s worth of voting on NYC’s Facebook page, the people have made their choice: NYFi will serve is their favorite concept for street-side payphone overhauls. It’s not hard to see why, as the proposal would theoretically solve several urban hassles at once. Each NYFi hub would dish out free WiFi, taking the load off of the cellular network. It would also use open, smartphone-like software and easily adaptable touchscreen hardware to consolidate many of the boxes that clutter the sidewalks, such as ticket machines and bike sharing stations. We’ll admit that most of the concepts sound a little optimistic to us — we wouldn’t be surprised if any finished city project fell short of the ideas. Even if we don’t get a WiFi hotspot on every corner, though, the reinvented payphone will likely be a welcome replacement for landline phones that have mostly collected dust in recent years.
Update: We’ve adjusted the post to clarify that NYfi is not, per se, the overall winner. During the initial demo event five awards were up for grabs from the city, and a sixth award, Popular Choice, was to be chosen by the public. Whether NYC ends up using one of these designs as a direct inspiration will remain to be seen. The awards are more or less a way for the city to see what the public would propose and potentially use those ideas when it comes time to request for designs within a mandated set of specifications. Check out our post about the event for more details.
Filed under: Misc, Networking
Via: The Next Web
Source: NYC (Tumblr)
Mar 14
Netflix Cloud Prize offers over $100,000 in rewards to cloud computing gurus
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Netflix has a vested interest in fostering cloud computing — after all, that’s increasingly the company’s core business. Accordingly, it’s not going to just sit around and wait for a breakthrough. The subscription service is kicking off its Netflix Cloud Prize competition in the hopes that developers can move technology a little faster. Programmers who build upon Netflix’s open-source code before September 15th can win from a pool of $100,000 spread equally among 10 categories, ranging from performance improvements to what has to be our automatic favorite: “best new monkey.” Each winner also gets $5,000 in Amazon Web Services credit, flights to Las Vegas and a spot at Amazon’s user conference this November. The challenge won’t completely make up for the end to Netflix’s public API, but it does show that at least some tinkerers are welcome in the streaming video giant’s world.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: Netflix (GitHub)
Mar 12
I’m sure that this is just a small taste of what we can expect from future robot competitions, just with less killing of humans. This competition is designed to attract more young students to the field of robotics and for today at least, it looks pretty fun. Let’s all enjoy it while we’re still alive.
The annual First Robotics Competition is being held at San Diego’s Valley View Casino Center aka Sports Arena. The seventh annual competition will have 60 teams. They will compete using 100+ pound robots in a game where they score points by throwing frisbees into a slot in the wall and then climb metal pyramids.
The match starts with a 15-second period where robots operate independently. Each frisbee scored is worth additional points. For the remainder of the two-minute match, drivers control the robots remotely and try to score as many points as possible. Then they try to climb a pyramid. The higher up they get, the more points they get.
The championship will be held in St. Louis on April 24 to 27 and there are $16 million(USD) in scholarships for competitors to win.
[via kpbs]
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