Dec 14
You’ve just arrived in Orlando for a holiday with the in-laws, and your bags are on vacation as well—in South Dakota. Here’s how to get your worldly possessions back and get on with your relaxing.
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Nov 19
FreedomPop’s crazy free voice, text, and data plan is awesome
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Oct 18
Need to Send a Special Someone a Gift? Then All You Need is Your iPhone and Bond
Posted in: Today's ChiliTechnology has made it a whole lot easier to keep in touch with friends, family, and other loved ones. Unfortunately, it takes a little of the personal aspect away because this same technology lets people do stuff on their phones, instead of doing it in person. Take birthday greetings, well-wishes, or presents as examples. Instead of a phone call, an actual visit, or a creative present, what you get instead is a text, an email, or an e-gift card.
It’s not that those things are bad, but it would’ve been better if the person made more of an effort to connect with you on a personal basis. Even if they’re hundreds of miles away, it can be possible, with a little bit of effort and a whole lot of help. Eager to extend such help is Bond, which is a service that lets people send curated gifts with a few taps on their iPhone.
Founder and CEO Sonny Caberwal explains: “I always have great intentions to send a gift or write a heartfelt letter, but they tend to get lost in the craziness of my day. Most e-commerce is focused on selling me products, but I needed a place that would help me follow through on those good intentions. So I created BOND to do just that.”
Indeed, that’s what Bond does. It’s a step up from Amazon, since instead of generic gift cards, you’ll be sending presents with handwritten notes. Actually, they’re written by a robot named “Giles,” but he has excellent penmanship. It’s the next best thing to shopping for an actual present and mailing it out yourself.
You can check out what Bond has to offer by downloading their app from the iTunes App Store.
[via Laughing Squid]
Oct 11
Sometimes, bookmarking a website just isn’t enough. A permanent copy is different from a physical copy, so printing the page just isn’t the same as actually saving it. Of course, you could also choose to save the entire page with all the elements on your computer, but if you plan to do that with a lot of pages, then that could turn into a confusing mess of files and folders pretty quickly.
So why don’t you Mummify it instead?
Mummify is a service that lets you save and store complete copies of web pages on their online servers. There won’t be any extra folders to monitor, no files to trace, and no printouts to monitor. Plus, they’re offering the service for free – at least, for the first 10 pages that you choose to Mummify. It’ll cost you $10 to $15 a month for up to 50 mummified pages per month.
All you have to do is enter the URL of the site you want to save to Mummify’s system. It will then give you a shortlink directing to the page or a cache of it, in case the page moves, changes, or no longer exists. Keep in mind that dynamically-generated content which is pushed to the page view JavaScript probably won’t be properly cached by the service.
You can check out and try Mummify here.
[via Red Ferret]
Oct 08
I think people who live in New York City are extremely lucky, because there are so many developers out there who are setting up all sorts of apps and services targeted especially for them. One of the latest of these is TipTop.
It’s described as “a simple way to find the best of NYC.” It’s essentially a search service for those living in the area, but with a twist: it only displays results of the purported “best” of whatever it is you’re looking for.
Be it the best burger, the best pizza, or the best haircut even, just fill out the fields on the TipTop NYC site and click on the magnifying glass icon to start your search. And the bests aren’t just picked by critics – they’re ranked by the community’s votes.
The service was built and recently launched by Betaworks. Let’s hope they add the rest of the major cities in the great US of A to their database soon.
[via Laughing Squid]
Sep 18
BlackBerry’s effort to extend its messaging service beyond its own failed hardware has finally come to fruition. After some awkward false starts, plus a detailed leak, BlackBerry Messenger apps for iOS and Android will soon be available for download at the respective app stores, allowing members of those more popular ecosystems to do… well, chat-related things that they could largely do already, except now through BlackBerry’s BBM servers. The company has confirmed that the Android BBM app will launch at 7AM ET on Saturday, while its iOS equivalent will be available beginning at 12:01AM local time (in each market) on Sunday. More details at the source link below.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Blackberry
Source: BlackBerry
Aug 16
Twitter sets new tweets per second record, explains why 143k simultaneous updates didn’t make it stutter
Posted in: Today's Chili
Remember the last time you saw the infamous Twitter fail whale? With any luck, it’s been a while — the microblogging outfit is boasting that it withstood a one-second peak of 143,199 Tweets earlier this month. This volley of updates stands not only as a new record for tweets per second (the previous record topped out at 33,338), but as a sign for the social network’s stability. Twitter’s Raffi Krikorian took to the company’s engineering blog to elaborate.
Three years ago, the World Cup brought Twitter to its knees — crashing the service with nearly every play. Krikorian says the experience gave the company pause, prompting them reevaluate its approach to managing traffic. “We learned a lot. We changed our engineering organization.” Krikorian goes on to detail the transformation, explaining how the firm tweaked its programming models, architecture, services, applications and storage databases to eliminate bottlenecks and increase stability. “We’re now able to withstand events like Castle in the Sky viewings, the Super Bowl, and the global New Year’s Eve celebration.” All of the above topics are addressed at length, but Twitter promises future blog updates diving into each subject at even greater length. So, curious as to why exactly you haven’t missed out on any of @GeorgeTakei’s quirky banter? Check out the attached source link and find out.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Twitter
Aug 06
Some people are afraid of commitment, and that includes vowing to stick with a carrier for two years. Thankfully, the list of choices keeps on growing for those who’d rather use contract-free devices, and the new TextNow mobile phone service is a fresh option. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because it began its life as a standalone app for making free calls and sending texts via WiFi. Staying true to its roots, the new service piggybacks on Sprint’s 3G and 4G network for an internet connection in the absence of WiFi, so you can use a TextNow-powered Android phone wherever the carrier has coverage. Yes, that’s wireless phone service over IP, and the outfit claims it’s the world’s first all-IP mobile operator. Device choices are limited to a Nexus S for $90 and a Galaxy S II for $120, but as plans begin at $19 per month, it might still be worth checking out, especially if you’re on a budget.
Filed under: Cellphones
Source: TextNow
Jul 12
Okay, we’re pronouncing it “ooh-acki”, because that sounds slightly more classy than “wacky”, but you can call this new Rakuten-owned streaming service whatever you like. You can also choose how to pay for it, because the pricing system gives you the option of a monthly subscription for access to a “regularly-refreshed line-up” of movies and TV shows, or a per-item charge to rent or buy the latest Hollywood releases — or you can pay both types of fee if you want it all. Having already attracted 600,000 subscribers in Spain (hence the idioma in the image above), Wuaki.tv is offering a decent introductory discount to give itself a kickstart in the UK: be among the first 75,000 to sign up during the beta phase (and do so before mid-September) and you’ll get a half-price monthly fee of £2.99 for as long as you stay with the no-contract service. The downside to joining early is that, for the time being, you can only stream to a Mac or PC. Support for mobile devices, smart TVs and consoles is due to be added over the coming months, at which point the decision to sign up quickly (via the Source link below) might start to prove its worth.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: Wuaki.tv
Jun 24
Ultra-high-speed fiber-to-the-home from Gigabit Squared isn’t scheduled to light up Seattle until 2014, but the outfit’s just revealed what it aims to charge for its blisteringly-fast internet service. Folks who are content with the bare minimum can pay a $350 installation fee and net 5Mbps up and 1Mbps down at no charge for 60 months, and just $10 each month afterwards. With a one-year contract, residents of The Emerald City can avoid the setup charge and score 100Mbps down and 100Mbps up for a $45 monthly bill. If pure speed is your prime directive, 1Gbps up and down will be available for $80 per month, and with no cash put towards installation. Aching to hook up to the web at those eye-watering speeds? You’ll have to live in Seattle’s West Campus District, First Hill, Capitol Hill or Central Area neighborhoods, as they’ll be the first connected to Gigabit Squared’s pipes. There’s no sign-up process just yet, but it’s scheduled to go live next month.
[Image credit: Eli Duke, Flickr]
Filed under: Internet
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