Hasta La Gadget!

In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you’d like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with “Insert Coin” as the subject line.

Staying connected to the internet can be a challenge at times, especially for Kenya-based Ushahidi, a non-profit tech organization that battles with power outages and flaky ISPs in Africa. Though the outfit typically makes software used in situations ranging from natural disasters to election monitoring, it’s taking a hardware project to Kickstarter that aims to ease connectivity woes for itself and others. Dubbed BRCK, the solution is a rugged wireless router that connects to the internet via Ethernet, WiFi, 3G and 4G, and can switch its source on the fly if a connection dies. For example, if your home service goes out, it can start using a cellular signal instantly — if you’ve slotted in a sim card, that is. During power outages, the brick can stay online for up to 8 hours thanks to an internal battery. The package can support up to 20 devices on WiFi and has 16GB of built-in storage, which can hold data synced directly from Dropbox, connected devices or other apps.

Filed under: Wireless, Internet

Comments

Source: Kickstarter

While there’s an abundance of cloud storage services, few of them have dedicated conferences to help developers exploit that online space. Dropbox could well be a vanguard on that front, then — it just announced its inaugural developer conference, DBX. The initial event takes place on July 9th at San Francisco’s very familiar-sounding Fort Mason Center. Along with providing help straight from the source for the Sync API and other coding tools, DBX will serve as the launch platform for “new products.” There aren’t any clues as to what that entails, but we suspect that’s enough of a tease to have some Dropbox diehards booking their flights.

Filed under: Storage, Internet, Software

Comments

Via: Dropbox

Source: DBX

Nothing locks down data better than a laser-based quantum-encrypted network, where the mere act of looking at your data causes it to irrevocably change. Although such systems already exist, they’re limited to point-to-point data transfers since a router would kill the message it’s trying to pass along just by reading it. However, Los Alamos National Labs has been testing an in-house quantum network, complete with a hub and spoke system that gets around the problem thanks to a type of quantum router at each node. Messages are converted at those junctures to conventional bits, then reconverted into a new encrypted message, which can be securely sent to the next node, and so on.

The researchers say it’s been running in the lab for the last two and a half years with few issues, though there’s still a security hole — it lacks quantum integrity at the central hub where the data’s reconverted, unlike a pure quantum network. However, the hardware would be relatively simple to integrate into any fiber-connected device, like a TV set-top box, and is still more secure than any current system — and infinitely better than the 8-character WiFi code you’re using now.

Filed under: Science, Internet, Alt

Comments

Source: Cornell University Library

One of the biggest highlights of Android’s jump to 4.2 was the addition of Photo Sphere, a 360-degree panoramic shooting mode that pans vertically as well as horizontally. It’s a neat trick, but the only way to share it was on Google+ or on a device running Android 4.2 or higher. Now, thanks to a new widget that utilizes the Google+ Platform API, you can embed an interactive 360-degree slideshow on any website you choose — so long as your photos are stored on G+ and PicasaWeb. If you’re willing to play around with a bit of code, have a peek at the source to get started.

[Image credit: Colby Brown]

Filed under: Internet, Google

Comments

Via: Colby Brown Photography, Google+

Source: Google Developers

Square collects a lot of store info by virtue of its payment business, so you’d think it would be great at recommending where to shop. And you may soon be right, according to the company’s Ajit Varma. While he doesn’t have a schedule, he tells The Verge that Square will eventually customize its directory to suggest hot or newly opened stores based on our spending habits. Varma even believes that his company could beat Foursquare in the local recommendations field, and it’s easy to see why when Square knows that we’re willing to buy, not just that we’ve entered a given store. Of course, this is all contingent on both a ubiquitous Square presence and consumerist intentions. Foursquare is entirely willing to point us to both free landmarks as well as stores without Square readers, so it’s doubtful that the two services will ever completely overlap.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet

Comments

Source: The Verge