Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung has another surefire hit on its hands with its new Galaxy S4 smartphone. The device has only recently launched and IHS has laid their hands on one and ripped it apart to give us an idea of how much it costs to build. This time, this is an actual Galaxy S4 that’s been torn apart unlike the virtual teardown performed by the company in March.

Interestingly, when the company performed the virtual teardown it estimated the bill of materials for the S4 was about $244(USD). Now the company got an actual phone to rip apart, and it says that the 32 GB version costs a little bit more than $237 per unit to build. That means the virtual tear down was impressively close. Not bad.

The teardown also reveals that Samsung and its subsidiaries provide the vast majority of components used to build the phone. One component in the U.S. version that isn’t sourced from Samsung is the processor, which is a QUALCOMM Snapdragon. However, the Korean version of the S4 does use a Samsung processor. The U.S. version of the phone also has a Fujitsu image processor that the Korean version doesn’t offer. Other component suppliers include Corning, Broadcom, Maxim and Triquint Semiconductor.

[via AllthingsD]

A new rover named GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, is being sent to test itself in the polar ice. The robot, which will be tested in May and June is also soon to get a companion made by Dartmouth University during the summe.

As wearable computing technology continues to improve, companies are looking for more and more ways we can use the data received and technology at hand to better products, and ourselves. With Sensoria Socks from Heapsylon, they are using new technology to not only track fitness like the Nike FuelBand and others, but also prevent injury before they happen.

Sensoria Fitness and their new Sensoria Socks is a patent-pending wearing technology that aims to do exactly that. Bring an entire new level to our fitness and daily lives, as well as help with sports athletes and injuries. Products on the market like the Nike FuelBand, FitBit, Jawbone UP and more all track steps, speed, calories, and more, but imagine a product that can track weight distribution on the foot as you stand, walk, and run. Sensoria Socks rely on sensor-equipped textile materials, as well as the accompanying band pictured below.

With more than 25 million runners in the US alone, more than half are prone to some sort of running related injury or pain, and this isn’t even counting other athletes. Instead of dealing with injury we should be looking at ways to prevent it before it happens. This is where Heapsylon come into play. Sensoria Socks can identify poor running types, then using a custom designed app to coach the runner to reduce those tendencies, thus reducing the risk of injury. Then like any other fitness apps runners can benchmark and analyze performance, limits, distance and more.

According to Heapsylon and their demo when an injury or issue does happen, Sensoria can also track patient adherence, progress and much more. The accompanying application will sync the data over Bluetooth to your smartphone, letting users track anything and everything with this new technology. The app as mentioned above will show poor running techniques, but everything else will be available too.

Their anklet tracks activity type and level, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, then relays this to the app dashboard to show how far, how fast you run, calories burnt and more. Even those with good technique can study and learn better habits, reach higher goals, and train harder without strain.

The idea behind wearable computing for more than just fun (read: Google Glass) and really opens the door for many different things such as Sensoria Socks. We’re hearing they’ll be available later this year and will help runners and athletes dodge and prevent injuries, and up their game at the same time.

Sensoria Socks technology aims to prevent injury before it happens is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sick of carrying around a ton of different cables and adapters for charging all your gadgets? This handy accessory lets you plug in five different types of connectors using one compact card.

Kikkerland’s USB 5-in-1 adapter offers Mini USB, Micro USB, 30-pin iPod/iPhone, Nokia and standard USB connections. When not in use, they all snap neatly into a flat card for easy travel, so you can throw it into your bag without wires getting all tangled. The card itself measures 6.46″ (L) x 4.4(W) x 0.75″ (D).

The only thing missing from this thing is an Apple Lightning connector, but if you happen to use something like the Mophie Helium battery case for your iPhone, that has a Micro USB connector, so you’re in luck.

It’s available from Kikkerland for just $15(USD).

Most of us probably know Donald Trump as the orange-skinned, toupee wearing rich guy that likes to fire people on TV. Trump is probably best known for Celebrity Apprentice, but his real focus is in the world of real estate and business. Trump and a partner named Bill Zanker have announced that they intend to launch a Kickstarter competitor with the goal of bringing crowd funding to the masses.

The new crowd-sourced funding site will be called FundAnything. Trump has even gone so far as to promise to fully fund some of the projects himself. Trump also promises to tweet about new projects on a weekly basis.

If you think this is nothing more than a clone of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, you’re right. Zanker says, “What I’m trying to do is bring crowdfunding away from the Brooklyn hipsters and bring it to the masses.” The launch of Trump’s crowd sourced funding initiative was naturally made in New York at the Trump Tower.

One interesting twist for FundAnything is that it will guarantee any backers of a project a return of up to $100 on their investment if a project turns out to be fraudulent. Naturally, FundAnything will charge a 5% administration fee on successful campaigns and a 9% fee on unsuccessful campaigns. Kickstarter and indiegogo both charge similar fees.

[via AllThingsD]

Trump launches Kickstarter clone FundAnything is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.