Mico Headphones Let Your Brainwaves Choose The Music
According to Frederic Lardinois at TechCrunch, Google Glass is primed to become more compatible with the iPhone. Presently, iPhone users are unable to use SMS or navigation features on Google Glass, whereas Android users have been able to pair Glass with their phones after installing the Glass Companion app.
Earlier today, Google announced that it is about to ship its first Google Glass units and just in time for them to arrive, Google has now also posted the developer guidelines for its Glass Mirror API.
Access to the API itself, it’s worth noting, is still in limited preview and only developers who have access to the Glass hardware will be able to work with the API. Everybody else can also start working on apps based on the documentation but won’t be able to test them.
This first version of the API, which will allow developer to write what Google likes to call “Glassware,” is still relatively limited and the most advanced feature developers get access to is probably the Glass wearer’s location. Because every application communicates with Glass through Google’s servers, the API provides developers with a set of RESTful services and is completely cloud-based and none of the code will actually run on Glass itself.
At its core, the API allows developers to send and receive information from Glass devices. Using the API looks to be relatively straightforward, though also a bit limited. Users will subscribe to new app from the developer’s website (and Google has launched a set of icons developers can use on their sites for this, too).
Google currently offers starter projects for Java and Python developers, as well as client libraries for Go, PHP, .NET, Ruby and Dart.
Glassware
The API will give developers the option to communicate with users through timeline cards, which can include text, rich HTML, images and video. These timeline cards are not unlike Google Now cards on Android and can be bundled into packages – and users can navigate between them – or they can come as stand-alone cards.
The API also provides developers with the ability to add menu items to their apps. These, Google says, can be system commands like “read aloud,” but developers can also write custom commands for their specific apps that users can bring up through the menu system or through voice commands.
As for the user interface, Google gives developers the option to use their own custom HTML, but the Glass team also provides developers with a base CSS file. As Google notes, “crafting your own template gives you the power to control how your content is rendered, but with that power comes responsibility.” Because of this, Google “strongly encourages” developers to use its own template.
Photos and videos (H.264 and H.264 baseline) should have a 16×9 aspect ratio and should have a resolution of about 640x360px (that’s also the maximum resolution of the Glass display). Audio can be delivered in the AAC and MP3 formats.
Best Practices
Given that Glass is a new concept, Google also posted some general guidelines for how apps should interact with Glass, though it’s not clear if the company plans to enforce any of these directly.
Developers, Google says, should make sure they apps are designed with glass in mind and should always test their apps on Glass before releasing them. The glass experience should also never get in the user’s way and apps shouldn’t annoy users with frequent and loud notifications. Apps should also focus on real-time notifications and apps should react to a user’s action as soon as possible. Most importantly, given that Glass is meant to be worn all day, developers should not surprise users with “unexpected functionality.”
Overall, many developers will surely feel as if Google is limiting how much they can do with Glass, but it’s worth remembering that this is only a first release and chances are that Google will make more features available to developers in the future.
Here are a few of the videos Google posted today that explain some of the Mirror API’s features in more detail:
→ Learn moreSeptember 7, 1998
NASDAQ:GOOG
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
iSteve Exclusive Teaser Trailer from iSteveSteve Jobs was a rare CEO in that he inspired myths and legends not just among employees, but also among the general public. An executive whose name is recognizable to people not involved in his industry is a rarity, and believe it or not, Funny or Die’s upcoming iSteve biopic may be the movie that best captures his exaggerated, cartoonish public reputation.
Funny or Die has released a first teaser trailer for the film, which spans between 60 and 75 minutes and yet was shot in just five days, and the first look is basically a montage of every cliché, buzzword and melodramatic (and possibly fictional) turning point in the life of Steve Jobs and the history of Apple. It almost looks like the famous Reality Distortion Field made into a movie, which in many ways might be more appropriate than a belabored, intense, wordy drama like the one we’ll get from Sorkin, or the equally mythical by less fun take from the team behind the Kutcher iJobs flick.
The iSteve movie debuts April 15, and already enters the record books as the longest film project ever produced by Funny or Die. Based on this trailer, it looks like the script, which took three days to write, has a lot going for it, but it’s hard to lampoon something consistently for over an hour, so I’ll reserve judgement until I can finally see how well they’ve actually pulled it off.
→ Learn moreMarch 1, 2007
$18M
Funny Or Die is a comedy video website that combines user generated content with original, exclusive content. Celebrities, up-and-coming comedians and regular users alike can all put up stuff they think is funny. At the same time, the site hopes to eliminate all the junk that people have to pick through to find good videos. Users vote on what videos are funny and what videos deserve to die. The site uses a proprietary player that can be embedded on other...
→ Learn moreSteve Jobs was the co-founder and CEO of Apple and formerly Pixar. Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California to Joanne Simpson and a Syrian father. Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California then adopted him. In 1972, Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. One semester later, he had dropped out, later taking up the study of philosophy and foreign cultures. Steve Jobs had a deep-seated interest in...
In late March, the American Geophysical Union announced that the Voyager I space probe became the first man-made object to leave our solar system. Just a few hours later though, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shot down that claim noting that the tell-tale sign of hitting interstellar space..
Emarketer, the advertising research company has a new estimate of Twitter's revenues: $582.8 million in global sales in 2013 before closing in on $1 billion in 2014. Of that, $308 million will be from mobile ad impressions alone in 2013, the company reckons.
If you've ever been into a sports bar with your friends to watch a big game, you've likely run into the "muting" problem. While the bar may have two dozen TVs, each is playing a different game -- there's either there's too much sound or none at all. At most local rest..
It's been said that there aren't many apps available for Windows 8. I've said that on occasion. But that's not entirely true. According to the MetroStoreScanner.com, there are now more than 50,000 apps available for Windows 8 and Windows RT, effectively making me a liar. The site aggregates applications available to the Windows Store.
Architect Dean Moran came up with a concept hotel where the focus isn't just on accommodation, but the "underlying principle of of local food." Moran imagines The Allotment hotel to be situated in downtown New York City where guests, travelers, and locals can come together over food.
Remember that nasty little iOS 6 lockscreen bug that let hackers access apps on any iPhone with a few smooth moves? Well, fresh on the heels of yesterday’s iOS update that squashed the problem, another security researcher has found a similar issue on Samsung’s Android smartphones.
Terence Eden claims to have found a flaw that lets hackers access a phone’s apps, dialer and widgets even if it’s been locked with a password, PIN, or other security measure.
Just like the iOS flaw, the Samsung security hole seems to involve the emergency dialer. For a brief moment after the emergency dialer is closed, there is a window of opportunity for a hacker to launch apps or place calls. Eden says that he discovered the flaw and contacted Samsung about it in February, but the company declined his offer to hold off publication until they had a fix.
He also discovered an earlier flaw that also involved the Emergency Dialer, in which the user presses a few various parts of the screen at the same time to gain access to the home screen. Both flaws are very similar, but Samsung is aware of both and currently working on a fix for this problem.
The latest security flaw is not present in other Android builds, but seems to only occur on Samsung’s modified version of Android 4.1.2. The flaw has been spotted on both the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III, but could also extend to other devices. We’ve asked Samsung about which devices specifically are affected, but haven’t heard back yet.
For those interested in checking out the hack, Eden posts instructions on how to access a home screen on a locked Android Samsung phone here. He also explains that the only fix is to load a different ROM onto the phone, which can be tricky.
Considering that the Galaxy line is one of Samsung’s top-selling lines, including both the S series and Note series, this security hole is quite possibly in your pocket at this very second, so be safe out there.
[via SlashGear]
Teachers and students have suffered through the same model of educational testing for years. Sure, the SAT has changed -- it's now out of a possible 2,400 points, not 1,600 -- but both standardized testing and good old in-class quizzing are still in the dominion of paper and pencil. Terascore..
Mico Headphones Let Your Brainwaves Choose The Music
We hear about green construction practices all the time, but it's often surrounding facilities such as data centers rather than retail stores. However, Walgreens is determined to go as green as possible, and to that end, the company announced plans for the first net zero energy retail store.
With the cost of U.S. movie tickets rising, one startup is looking to revolutionize the market by allowing theatergoers to buy tickets for 30 to 60 percent off. And theater owners are beginning to buy in.
Dealflicks, a San Francisco-based company, is looking to do for the movie theater market what Hotwire.com and Priceline.com have done for the travel sector. Dealflicks CEO Sena Wycliffe recently told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" that 88 percent of movie theater seats are left vacant — a void Dealflick hopes to fill.
Dealflicks now offers discounted prices for movies and concessions at roughly 1,000 locations nationwide. The startup has yet to strike a deal with larger movie-theater operators such as AMC and Regal theaters, part of the Regal Entertainment Group. Participating movie theaters set the discounted prices, which are available in real-time through their website and smartphone apps.
"Currently, we are letting the movie theaters set the pricing so tickets and concessions can be up to 60 percent off. They get to choose the show times and the movies. Typically, we get evenings, weekends even opening weekends as well," Wycliffe said.
Movie theaters are big business. Consumers shell out more than $40 billion on tickets and concessions annually. The average price of a movie ticket in 2012 was $7.96, hitting an all-time high of $8.12 last August, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. Ticket prices can exceed $10 in major cities including New York City.
Wycliffe got the idea for the company in 2011, when he went to see "The King's Speech" and was surprised that the movie theater was practically empty. The co-founders raised an initial $65,000 from friends and family to launch the company but membership in 500 Startups, an accelerator program for upstarts, helped the company "get into the spotlight in Silicon Valley," according to Wycliffe. Dealflicks officially launched in beta in July 2012.
(Read more: MakerBot: Making Cool Stuff With a Desktop 3-D Printer)
The Wii U only sold around 64,000 consoles in the U.S. during the month of February, according to a new NPD Group report out today. That's a far cry short of how many sales it achieved from the time it launched through the end of last year, Ars Technica reports, and it even looks like it'..
Netflix to feature a Facebook feed, Twitter may have a music app and online retail continues to rise...links to start your day with.
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http://www.flowtown.com/how-to-install-google-analytics-on-your-website This Flowtown Instructional video walks you through the process of installing Google Analytics on your website. Google Analytics is an extremely powerful tool that anyone with a website should be using. More info on Google Analytics here: http://www.flowtown.com/using-google-analytics-to-speed-up-your-site%E2%80%99s-evolution/
Though we still haven't gotten a peek of the LTE-capable Galaxy Note 8.0, it would appear that the 3G version is currently making its way through the FCC for final approval before retail availability. The Galaxy Note 8.0 was announced back at MWC, and Samsung mentioned that the tablet wou..
The shots appear to be taken in a phone unlocking shop somewhere in China, with this GT-i9502 model apparently bound for carrier China Unicom. Interestingly (at least for a flagship), it appears to be a dual-SIM version, with the mono-SIM version apparently picking up model number GT-i9500 -- a number that would Mere days before Samsung unveils its newest phone, a Chinese forum post has offered some purported shots of the Galaxy S IV.
The digital team from Marvel Comics is at South by Southwest Interactive this year to show off some new comics-reading experiences that they’ve created.
At their session today they’re demonstrating a technology that’s currently called Project Gamma. Basically, it’s a way to add music to the experience of reading a digital comic — music that actually adapts to the pace at which you read. As a result, every reader could have a unique experience, said Peter Phillips, the senior vice president and general manager of Marvel’s digital media group.
You can see and (faintly) hear an advance demo of Project Gamma in the video above. The main thing to notice is that the music seems to transition from panel to panel pretty smoothly — if you’re reading the comic, you’re not necessarily going to be aware that the soundtrack is adapting to your speed. Phillips said it works similarly to the music in a video game.
Project Gamma was created in partnership with music company CORD Worldwide. When I asked why his team thought comics were crying out for an experience like this, Phillips said that this is very much an experimental technology, in the vein of Marvel’s efforts with augmented reality: “We’re not afraid to fail. We want to show that we’re looking to be innovative and different and enhance the experience.”
He also said that we can expect to see this technology in some Marvel comics later this year: “If our editor in chief [Axel Alonso] were here, he’d say he’s got specific stories that he’s already thinking about for this.”
In the video, Phillips also offers his thoughts on Marvel’s new subscription comics app, Marvel Unlimited. (TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington wrote earlier this week that he found it pretty disappointing.)
→ Learn more1988
Marvel Entertainment, Inc. engages in the licensing, publishing, toy making, and film production businesses with a proprietary library of approximately 5,000 characters. Its library of characters include Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Ghost Rider, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Blade, Daredevil, The Punisher, Namor, Nick Fury, The Avengers, Silver Surfer, and Ant-Man. The company operates in four segments: Licensing, Publishing, Toys, and Film Production. The Licensing segment licenses its characters for use in various consumer products, including toys,...
Two years ago, GroupMe gained significant traction at one of the world's most popular tech conferences, South by Southwest.
South by Southwest (SXSW) is a gathering of technology, music, and film professionals who fly to Austin, Texas to attend panels, network, and party. It's where Foursquare and Twitter got off the ground.
In 2011, GroupMe won over the conference's 40,000+ attendees by offering free beer, free grilled cheese, and an app that helped people coordinate better with each other during the interactive portion of SXSW. Over the course of the week, 2 million text messages were sent via GroupMe.
GroupMe is a group texting service that was acquired by Skype one year after it was founded for about $80 million.
We met up with co-founder Jared Hecht, who is back with his free grilled cheese stand at SXSW.
Here's his advice on launching an app and getting traction in just a few days, in a sea of early adopters.
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The EdTech space is growing fast -- from every angle -- talent is starting to cross over from consumer-facing companies, schools are looking to go digital, national policy is changing and student debt is out of control. While there's a lot of early-stage capital flowing into the market, the f..
Google’s new Chromebook Pixel is a curious device. While its beautiful, seamless hardware nearly justifies its $1,299 price tag, the Chrome OS (which only offers access to a limited pool of third-party apps and Google products, plus the Internet) does not.
In the specs department, both John and I are impressed. The Pixel has a 12.85-inch 2560 x 1700 touchscreen. To be exact, that’s 4.3 million pixels (not 4.1 billion, like I mentioned in the video). As MG points out in his review, the touchscreen is truly beautiful. I find myself longing for it at this very moment, while I type this out on my MacBook Air.
The Pixel powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, and comes with 1 terabyte of free storage on Google Drive over three years. If you prefer, Google is also coming out with an LTE-capable version of the Pixel soon, which will come with 100MB/month for two years courtesy of Verizon.
And boy is the Pixel a beauty! It’s possible that the Pixel is one of the best looking laptops I’ve ever set eyes on, and John seems to agree (albeit less enthusiastically).
The main obstacle between the Pixel and two flies is how caged-in the user will eventually be. If you use all Google services, exclusively, then please don’t hesitate to pick up the Pixel. However, if you’re fond of Skype or Microsoft Office or TweetDeck, you’ll find yourself quite displeased the moment you realize you can’t download any of that.
Of course, Google has its own answers for those services with Docs, Hangouts, Drive, etc. But we all have our preferences, and no one likes to feel restricted while at the computer.
As we move toward life entirely in the cloud, the Pixel will become increasingly relevant. For now, however, you either need to adore Google products exclusively or be ready to install Linux.
Apple TV might own the rumor-mill in the world of smart TVs, and other major brands are starting to introduce Internet TVs. But Roku, the first to offer a way to stream Netflix on a TV, is still leading the pack with its portfolio of 750 channels.And today the company announced its newest box, Roku 3.
Samsung Samsung's next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S IV, will likely be made out of plastic. Samsung-focused blog SamMobile reported last week that, "the sides are made from aluminium but the back is still plastic." This report was seemingly confirmed by Russian mobile analyst Eldar Murtazin who also says it's going to be a plastic phone.
Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this round-up, we'll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You'll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won't stick around long.
Transformer Pad TF300 buyers may have had to compromise on screen resolution, but the little slab's software support is second to none -- ASUS just announced that its entry level Transformer Pad will be its first to taste Android 4.2.2.
Editor's note: David Teten is a partner with ff Venture Capital and founder and chairman of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York. I recently had an extensive debate with Tom Grossi, partner with New Enterprise Associates, about why and whether small funds (like mine) te..
Adobe mobile Photoshop strategy has so far kept more heavyweight editing to tablets with Photoshop Touch, and left the iPhone with Photoshop Express. But today the company has officially released Photoshop Touch for iPhone and Android smartphones, which inherits virtually all of the functionality of the more powerful tablet app, with an interface tailored to the smaller screens.
Though we're still waiting to see what the PS4 is going to look like, we definitely have a handle on the guts and how the next gen system will work. And that includes downloading PS4 games digitally. According to Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida, every single PS4 game will be available to download online.
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As demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2013, Epic Citadel runs at full frame rate on Intel's Dual-Core Atom Processor Z2580 (Clover Trail+). To learn more about Epic Citadel visit: http://www.unrealengine.com/en/showcase/mobile/epic_citadel/ Download for Android on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicgames.EpicCitadel Download for Android on Amazon Appstore: http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Citadel-Kindle-Tablet-Edition/dp/B00B4E1B8Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=mobile-apps&ie=UTF8&qid=1359748814&sr=1-1&keywords=epic+citadel Download for iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epic-citadel/id388888815
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