Here’s a good deed you can do without parting with a single thing. Synthetic voices for people who have lost the ability to speak only come in generic types—think of Stephen Hawking’s voice—but one fascinating project wants to build custom voices for each person. To do that they need your help: specifically, a recording of your voice.
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Pebble today revealed a new project aimed at education in which it will donate over 4,000 smartwatches to higher ed schools including Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford, Virginia Tech and many more. The donation is worth over $600,000, according to Pebble’s own estimates, but it’s clearly designed to make sure Pebble and the Pebble SDK are in the hands of the next generation of top-tier developers before they ever even hit the job market.
Now that Pebble has released its official app creation SDK, and unlocked many of the dormant features of the platform, it needs developers to get on board and start pumping out creations that really show off the potential of wrist-worn computing to push the Pebble’s appeal beyond the early adopter and gadget loving crowd who’ve already purchased one, and into the mainstream. Software sells hardware, and developers build software. In school, they’re often more willing and able to experiment with platforms that don’t necessarily have a proven ability to pay the bills, hence why it’s a good idea to give these things away to engineering students as development hardware.
Pebble only recently hit the tipping point in terms of having stock on hand in stores and online, but current inventory levels seems strong, and there’s also a sale on right now offering a $10 discount on new units. As 9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub noted on Twitter, this sale and education donation could be taken as evidence that the company is looking to offload stock ahead of some kind of refresh.
Pebble donating watches blog.getpebble.com/2013/12/16/peb… + Big $90 Sale 9to5toys.com/2013/12/15/peb… +CES = Update coming soon—
Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) December 16, 2013
Pebble is also offering a special discount through its institutional partners to anyone who wants to order a personal device through them, it notes in its announcement today, which could also be taken as an indication that it’s offloading on-hand stock. This is a key time to watch the wearable computing manufacturer, since at the very least it’s clear it’s through the frenzy and supply catch-up process that it faced while Kickstarting the project and quenching initial demand.
Right around a month ago, Google opened up the flood gates and let any US-based Android user download its One Today app — a program that makes it wildly simple to donate a dollar (or more, of course) to a different charity each day. Now, Google is officially releasing the entire project from pilot mode, inviting the masses to both download the app (still US-only, unfortunately) and get their charities into the ‘Google for Nonprofits’ database.
Signing up for One Today is completely free, and Google has provided resources for those looking to get their charity authorized for inclusion. Be aware, however, that Google charges a 1.9 percent processing fee when taking in payments; in other words, each $10 donated translates to $9.81 in usable funds for charities. The real kicker, we’re surmising, is the social tie-in. The more people who donate and then share to various social networks, the more likely their friends and peers are to follow suit. And, ideally, we all join to solve all of the world’s problems.
Filed under: Software, Mobile, Google
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Google Nonprofits Blog, Google One Today, Google Play Store
“Do a little. Change a lot.” That’s the motto behind One Today — a Google-built app that launched a few months ago to those who requested an invite. Now, however, it’s free to download for all Android users in the United States, enabling those who do to donate a dollar per day (or more, of course) to an ever-changing list of nonprofit organizations. Each day a new project will be showcased, replete with details on what it’s about, who it’s helping and how it’s operated. Naturally, you’ll be able to make your donations public on Google+, and you can keep a log of your charitable givings within the app itself — ideal for tax writeoffs. There’s still no word on when it’ll go global, but statesiders can hit the source link to begin their download.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google
Via: Android Police
Source: Google Play Store
If you love reading stuff on the Internet, you know that most independent publishers earn their living by selling advertising space on their websites. While this is definitely an important part of keeping small online businesses up and running, publishers and content creators are always looking for new ways keep the lights on and cover their operating costs.
Now, there’s a new startup called CentUp which aims to put a little spare change in the pockets of publishers, while giving readers the satisfaction that roughly half of their money is going to a charity of their choice.
CentUp works similarly to the Facebook “Like” button, but when you click it, you can show your support for your favorite websites and blogs by paying them a small amount of money. Keep in mind that CentUp doesn’t block content in any way. You only contribute if you like the site and got value out of the content. In fact, it’s recommend that publishers place the CentUp button at the bottom of their content.
In addition to your pennies going to your favorite sites, your money will be split with one of several diverse small charities. When you first sign up for the service you select a charity of choice, and charge a preloaded donation amount on your credit card. This amount can be set to automatically reload if and when you use it up.
Donation amounts are paid in “CentUp credits” – which each represent one cent of your cash balance, and can be increased beyond your default amount at the time you decide to contribute to a specific piece of content. CentUp automatically splits each credit into three pieces and distributes them – 45% to the publisher, 45% to the charity, and a 10% fee for operating the platform and covering credit card fees.
At any time you can log into your CentUp profile to see who you have contributed to, view a list of publishers, and edit your preferences.
To date, there are just a handful of publishers and six charities participating in CentUp, but its founders expect that to grow substantially in time.
If you like what CentUp stands for, you can sign up for the service by simply clicking the CentUp button at the bottom of this post, or by visiting their website.
Trying to launch a concerted nonprofit video campaign can feel like tilting at windmills: you might have one moment of undivided attention from viewers before they’re off to watch cats and Nigerian pygmy goats. Google wants to make the most of that time through its YouTube Campaigns initiative. The strategy brings on-video overlays and channel sections that show viewers both a progress meter for the campaign as well as a handy links to explore and share what they’ve found. If all goes well, charities and like-minded organizations get more donations and YouTube views, while we in the general public are reminded that there’s more to life than K-pop videos. It certainly beats manning the phones for a celebrity fundraiser.
Filed under: Internet, Alt, Google
YouTube Campaigns lets nonprofits draw our interest without the telethons originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Oct 2012 06:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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