Hasta La Gadget!

When Tyler DeAngelo asked if we’d be interested in checking out his new project, we jumped at the opportunity. After all, we were pretty blown away with Fifth Avenue Frogger, his hacked arcade cabinet that incorporated real-time webcam footage of a busy Manhattan street into gameplay. His latest project, Check ‘N Chew certainly has more apparent commercial applications, offering up a form of immediate gratification for social media users. The concept is fairly simple: check into Foursquare, get a gumball.

DeAngelo (with help from fellow modders Matt Richardson and Ben Light) has hacked an off-the-shelf gumball machine with a stepper motor, Arduino and an XBee radio. There’s also a port on the rear of the machine that plugs into a wall to power it all. The Check ‘N Chew communicates wirelessly with an ethernet-to-wireless gateway device. When someone checks into an authorized location, information is sent from DeAngelo’s server to the gateway, and a gumball is dispensed. The whole process is quite speedy, only taking a couple of seconds from Foursquare check-in to gumball dispensing.

Continue reading Check ‘N Chew Foursquare-enabled gumball machine hands-on (video)

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Check ‘N Chew Foursquare-enabled gumball machine hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve ever been so embroiled in a chat or sharing splurge that you’ve been told to “take it off of Twitter,” you now can — sort of. Twitter co-creators Biz Stone and Ev Williams have launched Branch and Medium, two companion services that (naturally) use a Twitter sign-in but narrow the focus to just a few subjects. As the name suggests, Branch lets especially vocal Twitter users invite others into conversations that don’t clutter everyone’s feeds or cut replies off at the 140-character limit. Medium? Think of it as Pinterest turned publishing platform: members can publish either a static collection of favorite articles and media, for reading and rating, or leave it open for more collaborative efforts. There’s no rush to open the floodgates to the invitation-only portals, though. Stone and Williams see the quietness of their new services as an antidote to the madness of regular social streams, and we can’t help but sympathize.

Filed under: Internet

Twitter founders create Branch and Medium to keep the conversations, collections flowing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of the biggest problems with Google+ is the inability to easily type in a URL to get to a specific person’s profile page. Profiles right now are accessed via string of random numbers, so either you’ll need to have someone in your feed or you’ll have to search for via Google before stumbling across their profile page and feed. The search company has made moves to correct the problem, according to TechCrunch, with the introduction of new vanity URLs.

The feature hasn’t been enabled for everyone, however. Only a handful of companies and celebrities have access to shortened URLs right now. Britney Spears, for example, can be accessed by going to plus.google.com/+britneyspears/posts, and several bramds including Hugo Boss, Delta Airlines, and Toyota have also seen the change.

Google says that the new feature will be available worldwide, but didn’t go into specifics about who has access to vanity URLs or how it intends to dish out the custom URLs in the future. According to the company, this is merely a “first step,” with the vanity URLs available only to “a limited number of verified profiles and pages.”

If you’re jonesing for a custom URL to replace the random numbers, you’ll have to sit tight until Google rolls out the feature on a wide basis. In the meantime, you can check several examples of the shortened URLs in action, which include individuals like David Beckham, Hugh Jackman, as well as games such as Assassin’s Creed.

Google rolls out limited Google+ vanity URLs is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dalton Caldwell, the mastermind behind App.net, took to his blog yesterday to announce that the team had reached its funding goal for the project. The App.net alpha project managed to hit its $500,000 goal with two days left to go, and has amassed over $644,000 from around 9,700 backers as of the time of writing. Payment tiers include a $50 option that allows regular users to either reserve a custom username or register their existing Twitter handles, while the $100 option is aimed at developers, providing access to various API tools as well as documentation.

App.net was created as an alternative to Twitter, with Dalton Caldwell believing that the social network was moving in the wrong direction with regards to its API access as well as monetization of users. Caldwell asserts that advertising isn’t the only business model that a social network can be funded by, with App.net created on the premise that users will pay for access to a service with real time feeds and open APIs.

The project was slow to gather momentum at first, but a burst of publicity over the past week helped push the project to its $500,000 goal. Backers of the project have paid for a year of access upfront, but the ultimate goal when the service launches is to have users pay a small fee on a monthly basis. It’s a risky strategy, as most users seem to be content with ad-based serices, but the fact the app.net has managed to reach its goal indicates that there are those out there who are willing to pay for a cleaner experience.

The project still has about a day left to go, so there’s still time to put forward your $50 and secure a username. If you don’t feel like parting with a lump sum of cash upfront, then you’ll be able to register with the service normally when the alpha test is over, but there’s no indication just yet when that will be. An iOS app has been planned for the social network, however, and Caldwell mentions that several third-party applications are already in development thanks to the available API.

Social network App.net reaches $500k funding goal is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Pinterest, the social network that allows you to “pin” photos and have others comment on them, has opened up registration to all users. Previously the network was available by invite only, but starting from today anyone on the internet will be able to freely sign up for the service. Users can sign up using either their Facebook or Twitter logins, or they can simply use an email address.

The social network has gained some momentum over the past several months, giving users a more visual way to share their finds among friends. The timing of the open registration is interesting given recent rumors that Apple is eyeing up a purchase of The Fancy, a service not too far removed from Pinterest.

Pinterest’s valuation has also soared over the past few months. Earlier this year, the social network was valued at around $1 billion, and more recently Japanese conglomerate Rakuten valued the company at around $1.5 billion after a $100 million round of funding. Rakuten has multiple ecommerce sites scattered around the internet, and the inclusion of the “Pin It” badge on any one of them will be sure to further raise the profile of Pinterest.

Still, if you’re not too fussed about the business side of things and just want to share content with your friends, Pinterest isn’t a bad way to go about it. Head on over to the website to sign up with your Twitter, Facebook, or email if you haven’t done so already.

Pinterest opens up registration for all is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.