Any Statements

How 6 Tech Underdogs Became The Industry's Most Respected Founders

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 13:53:00 -0700

BY TRACEY WALLACE

We're finishing the last chapters of our October #MashReads non-fiction book club pick, Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, and really hoping you are, too.

If you aren't caught up on the premise of David & Goliath, then you should know that Gladwell goes into some serious detail and makes a very compelling argument that many disadvantages in our lives are not really disadvantageous at all. Certainly no one would wish dyslexia or an over-populated school on anyone, but it turns out that, despite common beliefs and stigmas, situations like those can in fact benefit those who lived through them, and managed to persevere, much more than those who didn't have to face them at all.

Originally published on Mashable

That concept certainly rings true in the tech industry, where many of the most well-known entrepreneurs started in schools, neighborhoods, family situations and hospital beds that we all actively try to avoid. Yet, these five founders — plus one CEO — are proof that the situations we most dread can be the best teachers when it comes to letting nothing stand in your way.

1. Joe Fernandez - Founder Of Klout

Image: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Joe Fernandez faced an uncomfortable dilemma that turned out to be his light bulb moment: he had his jaw wired shut for three months to allow it to heal after a surgery. Not necessarily the ideal scenario for conducting business, but it was at this time that Fernandez realized something he had missed before — if you can't talk, social media is absolutely essential for easy communication.

"It was amazing to me that the people I trusted the most, I could tell them anything instantly from my phone [on Facebook or Twitter] and it would have an impact on them. And... what they were saying would have an impact on me," Fernandez told Mashable in an early interview. "I don't know if it was the pain relievers but I got really obsessed with the idea that, for the first time, word of mouth was scaleable and the data was there to measure it."

From there, his idea for Klout, a site that measures your influence on social media, grew, leading him to create a 9-figure startup and eventually pull data for half a billion people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.

In Fernandez's own words, found on his about.me page: "I am really good at falling on my face but even better at getting up swinging."

2. Alexis Ohanian — Founder Of Reddit

Image: Heather Kennedy/Getty Images for SXSW

Alexis Ohanian was only a month into his Y Combinator summer in which he and co-founder Steve Huffman built Reddit when he received the first of three disheartening phone calls.

First, it was a call from his then girlfriend's mother. Her daughter, who was studying abroad in Germany at the time, had fallen out of a five-story window and was in a coma.

Next, it was a call from his own mother. Max, his family dog, had died after having suffered from Cushing's Syndrome for quite some time.

And finally, it was a call from his father. His mother had been diagnosed with class IV Glioblastoma multiforme — terminal brain cancer.

The story of how Reddit was founded and the long hours, fueled by pizza and beer, that Ohanian and Huffman put into the site are well documented and extraordinary on their own. But it is these words, written on Ohanian's blog in 2010, that really shine light on his unfaltering determination:

"And you'd better believe that when you come home to a mother battling brain cancer and a father spending every waking hour taking care of her and running his own business, you don't complain, you don't cower, and you most certainly don't quit."

3. Larry Ellison — Founder Of Oracle

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

People will say that Larry Ellison, Silicon Valley's most infamous bad boy, has a big ego — but it is exactly that ego which has gotten him, and Oracle, to where he is today. And, that ego is seemingly impossible to break down, even against bad news, blunders or situations that would mentally exhaust any entrepreneur. Then again, Ellison isn't just any entrepreneur.

At 9-months-old, Ellison's 19-year-old mother gave him to her aunt and uncle to adopt in Chicago's South Side. It would be 12 years until he learned that he was adopted, and 36 more until he would actually meet his birth mother. His has never met his birth father.

He later dropped out of the University of Chicago after his adoptive mother died, never earning a degree, moved to California and bounced around odd jobs for eight years. But, he had learned to code back at school and that won him a contract with the CIA to build a special project code-named "Oracle." He and his co-workers finished that project a year early, leaving them time to build a commercial-facing version.

"I don't think my personality has changed much since I was 5-years-old. The most important aspect of my personality, as far as determining my success goes, has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting the experts and questioning authority," Ellison said in an interview with the Academy of Achievement. "While that can be very painful in relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life."

4. Don Charlton — Founder Of Resumator

Image: Flickr, Alphalab

Don Charlton lived in poverty until he was 18-years-old and cites paying for his $75 bus ticket to college as the biggest personal obstacle he has overcome. Despite his poverty, he managed to earn and subsequently save that $75 by painting classrooms from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then working at McDonalds from 7:30 p.m. to close. He worked 80 hours a week at minimum wage in the late 90s to save $150.

Half of that went to his bus ticket.

Over the next decade, he combined his art passion with computer programming, won awards for his interactive designs, developed software and then, in 2009, launched Resumator, the company that hires for the likes of Instagram, Hootsuite, Klout, Bitly and even Mashable.

When asked what inspires him in an interview with Idea Mensch, Charlton said:

"People overcoming obstacles. That is the story of my life. I went to college with $75 and my bus ticket. I did okay. Jay Z grew up in the Marcy housing projects. He’s worth half a billion. I will always root for the kid who comes from nothing and does something before the kid who came from something and is simply following someone else’s Blueprint (Jay Z reference intended)."

5. Steve Jobs — Founder of Apple

Image: Flickr, acaben

It'd be hard to make a list about insanely successful entrepreneurs who faced circumstances that society deems "disadvantageous" without mentioning Steve Jobs.

Jobs was born to a single mother in the 1950s and given up for adoption to Paul and Clara Jobs, under the condition that they would send him to college. However, Jobs was extensively bullied in school, particularly in middle school, where he had advanced a grade and was smaller than most of his classmates. Eventually, he refused to go to school unless his parents sent him elsewhere.

They did, and the rest is history.

Moving the family to Palo Alto meant better schools, despite many financial sacrifices, and though Jobs remained somewhat of a loner, a math teacher nurtured his love of technology and he eventually joined the math club where he met other like-minded students.

And now, that house on 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, where Jobs built the first Apple computer, may soon be a historical site.

“You can’t connect the dot looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards,” Jobs said in his Stanford commencement address in 2005. “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

6. Plus: Ursula Burns - CEO At Xerox

Image: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Ursula Burns might not be the founder of Xerox, but as the CEO who has managed to shake off the company's carbon copy reputation, she certainly is has built a brand new company.

Raised by a single mother living in public housing in Manhattan's Lower East Side, it was Burns' love for math, and her mother's inspiring outlook on life, that got her to where she is now.

"Many people told me I had three strikes against me. I was black. I was a girl. And I was poor," wrote Burns in her LeanIn story. "Mom didn't see it that way. She constantly reminded me 'where I was didn't define who I was.' She knew that education was my way up and out."

Did we miss any of your favorite tech entrepreneurs and CEOs who have overcome the odds? Tell us their story in the comments!

Hulu Plus iPhone App Adds Support For Google Chromecast

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 13:29:00 -0700

BY SAMANTHA MURPHY KELLY

Image: AFP/Getty Images

Hulu Plus has added iOS support for Google's popular Chromecast device, which plugs into any HDTV to let you watch online videos from your tablet, smartphone or computer, the company announced on its official blog on Monday.

Hulu Plus first came to Chromecast on iPad and Android earlier this month.

Rumors have long circulated that the $35 HDMI dongle, which debuted this summer, would bring Hulu Plus content to users. The device already supports Vimeo, Redbox Instant, Netflix and YouTube, and compatibility with HBO is also said to be in the works.

Originally published on Mashable

The Hulu Plus app also allows users to browse content, pause shows and add episodes to a queue, while simultaneously "casting" it to a TV.

"The Hulu Plus integration with Chromecast will convert your app into a custom remote letting you control video on your Chromecast connected TVs, while allowing you to browse the Hulu Plus app directly from your iPhone," Karan Nischol, Hulu's senior product manager, wrote in the statement.

But this might not be the first time Chromecast users are accessing Hulu content. A study from Parks Associates revealed about 33% of Chromecast users are are bypassing Hulu Plus' $8 monthly subscription cost by accessing the free PC version online and streaming it to the device.

Although Chromecast is only available in the United States right now, international users have reportedly been able to access the Android app in the Google Play store. The news could hint to a possible launch of the Chromecast in other markets.

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Google Launches 'Project Shield' To Defend Against Cyberattacks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 13:05:00 -0700

BY LORENZO FRANCESCHI BICCHIERAI

Image: KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/GettyImages

Websites run by dissidents and human rights activists around the world have a new ally in the fight against oppressive regimes: Google.

To defend against the growing threat of cyberattacks, and specifically Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS), which can take down a site with a massive stream of malicious traffic, Google has launched Project Shield. The new tool protects sites from being taken offline, allowing them to serve their content through Google's infrastructure.

Originally published on Mashable

The tool, unveiled on Monday at the Google Ideas Summit in New York, N.Y., is designed specifically for websites that operate in high-risk conflict zones, where governments might try to take down websites that broadcast anti-government information, or help dissidents organize. In other words, Project Shield could serve to protect online activists in Syria, Egypt and other countries where the Internet is under government control.

"DDoS attacks allow anyone to purchase someone else's silence," C.J. Adams, an associate at the Google Ideas think tank, said during the launch of the tool. "That hurts the Internet and it hurts free expression online."

Adams used the example of Aymta, a site that alerts Syrians when a scud missile is launched, calculating the area where it could land. The website, developed by Dlshad Othman, a hacker and Syrian activist, was targeted and taken down by the Syrian government with a DDoS attack in July.

"Government malicious actors know that that's how this works so they design attacks specifically to take away information at the points were it's needed the most," Adams said.

Often, those access points are in the hands of small organizations with very limited means.

"There are so many organizations that need this sort of protection," said Scott Carpenter, the deputy director of Google Ideas, in an interview with Mashable. "And they are very small, they are very easy to knock offline."

Project Shield combines Google's own internal anti-DDoS mitigation technologies and its Page Speed Service (PSS), a paid service that allows websites to serve content through Google.

Google is now inviting webmasters involved in sensitive websites, like those run by human rights organizations, or independent news sites in conflict zones, to apply to become the project's first round of "trusted testers." They will be able to use the tool free of charge, although Google may start charging in the future.

At the summit, Google also unveiled an interactive digital map of DDoS attacks around the world. The map, developed in collaboration with security firm Arbor Networks, shows current attacks as well as past ones dating back to June 1, 2013. The site allows visitors to see where the attacks are purportedly coming from, how intense they are, and it also aggregates news articles related to the attacks.

Facebook Average Referral Traffic To Media Sites Up 170% This Year

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 12:54:00 -0700

BY TODD WASSERMAN

Image: Getty/KIMIHIRO HOSHINO

Flexing its muscles as a public-facing forum, Facebook reported Monday that the average referral track from Facebook to media sites jumped 170% last year.

Facebook also disclosed that from September 2012 to September 2013, Time's referral traffic rose 208%, BuzzFeed's increased by 855% and Bleacher Report experienced a boost of 1,081%. Facebook also announced a feature called Stories to Share for page managers of media firms that recommends which stories to share on Facebook.

Andy Mitchell, director of partnerships for Facebook, attributes much of the growth in referrals to improvements in Facebook's News Feed algorithm. "We're getting better at showing the right story at people who are interested in it," he says. In addition, Facebook has shared best practices with media firms, which help them post more effectively, he says.

New research from SimpleReach bolsters the claim. SimpleReach found that Facebook drives more traffic to media sites than any other social media platform.

Originally published on Mashable

Meanwhile, Facebook had some advice to media firms: Post more. Facebook worked with 29 media sites over a seven-day period recently and found a greater number of posts "frequently" increases referral traffic by more than 80%. During that test period the site posted 57% more articles, which netted an 89% increase in outbound clicks to their domains plus 10% more Likes on average. The number of net fans per page rose 49%.

That said, Mitchell does acknowledge that the law of diminishing returns applies: At some point, you can overload fans with too many posts. Facebook doesn't have a recommended number of posts. Mitchell says media properties have to determine a figure on their own.

Along the same lines, Stories to Share helps those media firms figure out which stories to post next. The recommendation widget is pretty straightforward: It analyzes your homepage to see which stories people are sharing the most on Facebook even though the media property hasn't yet shared it through its Facebook account. That feature is going live on Monday with 1,5000 news organizations. Stories to Share had been in beta with a handful of news organizations (the company declined to identify which ones) over the past few weeks.

The emphasis on media partners comes as Facebook has recently revved competition with the much-smaller Twitter for ad-spending opportunities related to real-time marketing like second-screen conversations and trending news items. Encouraging news organizations to post more often will aid a Trending Articles feature that seems to be a likely next move for the company.

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Apple iPad Event: The Ultimate Wish List

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 12:46:00 -0700

BY CHRISTINA WARREN

At Apple's iPad event Tuesday, the company is expected to unveil a redesigned 9.7-inch iPad and a new iPad mini.

We've already assessed the probability of the biggest Apple rumors and asked our community for your wish list, now it's our turn to share what we would most like to see the Cupertino giant.

Originally published on Mashable

Aside from a retina iPad mini, many of the items on our wish list are actually on the Mac side of the equation — not the iOS side. That's probably because with all the new stuff in iOS 7, it's easier to reach for the stars when it comes to Mac hardware.

Check out our wish list, and be sure to let us know what you want to see in the comments!

Retina iPad Mini

It's pretty much a given that Apple will unveil an updated iPad mini during Tuesday's iPad event. What's less clear (no pun intended) is what resolution that new tablet will have.

Conflicting reports of the retina-nature of the iPad mini have persisted since the summer. Still, it's our number one request from this event.

When Apple launched the iPad mini without a retina display last year, it was acceptable -- if only because with the smaller form factor, the lower resolution wasn't as much of a detriment. Moreover, when given the choice between a battery/screen trade-off, we think Apple made the right call.

This year, things are different. Most tablet manufacturers have a small-screen device with a high-resolution screen -- in addition to a lower price. And as we've seen from the latest Nexus 7 and Amazon's new 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX, it's possible to get both battery life and high resolution these days.

Come on Apple, mama wants a retina iPad mini for her birthday!

New Mac Pro With 4K (Retina) Cinema Display

When Apple unveiled a preview of the new Mac Pro back at WWDC, we all had a good laugh at its new futuristic industrial design, but we were also awed by its power and forward-thinking potential. As Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff wrote, "there is truly a method to the design madness."

Mac Pro users have been waiting for a truly modern, updated Mac Pro for years. The new Mac Pro, teamed with Thunderbolt 2, promises to be the ultimate machine for professional users.

At NAB Show back in April, Intel first unveiled Thunderbolt 2, which has a big focus on 4K. Apple confirmed at WWDC that the Mac Pro will be the first machine to ship with Thunderbolt 2.

Which means, that we should be seeing an updated Apple Thunderbolt Display, hopefully running at 4K (3,840 x 2,160). Now, 4K isn't "retina" by Apple's typical double-resolution standards (which would put the current 27-inch Thunderbolt Display at 5,120 x 2,880), but we think it's close enough that the company could call it retina while delivering the 4K resolution that many video professionals crave.

I'll be honest, I'm almost more excited about a 4K Apple Thunderbolt 2 Display than I am about the Mac Pro -- if only because that's something I can probably afford.

Update Haswell Macbook Pro With Retina

Speaking of 4K -- let's talk about the MacBook Pro with Retina line. Back in June, Apple updated the MacBook Air with Intel's new Haswell chipset. Since then, MacBook Pro owners have been waiting to see the update hit the high-resolution notebooks.

In our dream world, Apple will update the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina notebooks with Haswell chips (for better battery life and improved integrated graphics with 4K support) and also include Thunderbolt 2.

Updated Haswell Mac Mini

If we're getting a new Mac Pro and new MacBook Pro with Retina devices, why not get a new Mac mini? We'd love to see a Haswell-based Mac mini with better integrated graphics to support connecting to a 4K display.

Game Controllers For iOS/Apple TV

At WWDC, Apple announced that iOS 7 would have support for third-party controllers. We've discussed what users can expect to see from these controllers and iOS 7 gaming in general, but we haven't seen the controllers hit the market. What better time than now to show stuff off?

I know I can't wait to play Infinity Blade on my HDTV using an Apple TV and a dual-joystick controller.

Retina MacBook Air

The most beloved Mac notebook of all time might just be the 12-inch Aluminum PowerBook G4 and plenty of vocal users still lament the lack of a small form-factor "Pro" designated Apple laptop.

That's why the recent rumors of a 12-inch retina MacBook Pro are so compelling. Now, those rumors suggested a 2014 release date, but this is our wish list, so datelines be damned! If we can't have a retina MacBook Air, we'll take a 12-inch MacBook Pro with Retina.

The iWatch

Could there be a better "one more thing" moment than a new Apple wearable device? It's a long shot -- and we certainly don't expect to see Apple unveil the mythical iWatch at Tuesday's event -- but we can dream, can't we.

In our perfect world, the iWatch would not only be beautifully designed, it would have amazing battery life, a great interface and work seamlessly with our favorite apps. Oh, and it would look good on a woman's wrist.

Adblock Plus Now Blocks Facebook's Biggest Annoyances

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 12:19:00 -0700

BY THORIN KLOSOWSKI

Adblock Plus has updated with a new set of features to hide a bunch of Facebook's biggest annoyances, including cleaning up your news feed and sidebar.

Ortiginally published on LifeHacker

The update isn't really about ads. Adblock Plus already blocks out ads, sponsored stories, and promoted posts, but this update adds a bunch more options. You can set it up to block news feed annoyances like "entertainment pages you may like," sidebar annoyances like "nearby places" or "rate movies," or everything. The everything option includes:

Music Pages You May Like

Entertainment Pages You May Like

Add to Movies

Add to TV Shows

People You May Know

Rate To Add To Your Movies

Rate To Add To Your TV Shows

Rate Books You’ve Read

Rate These Places

Get Important News

Recommended Pages

Rate Movies You’ve Watched

Rate TV Shows You’ve Watched

Suggested Groups

Friend Finder/Find More Friends

Games You May Like

Play It Again

Suggest Friends

Nearby Places

With Adblock Plus installed, just head to this page and pick the options you want to block.

Adblock Plus | via The Next Web

Killer Robots With Automatic Rifles Could Be On The Battlefield In 5 Years

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 02:11:00 -0700

SWORDS, a previous generation of weaponized robots, had its combat duties curtailed when it made movements without being given a command. (Photo: QinetiQ)

Robots armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and even grenade launchers are marching, er, rolling ever closer to the battlefield now that they’ve shown they can actually hit what they’re supposed to.

Four robotics companies — HDT Robotics, iRobot, Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ — recently ran their M240 machine gun-armed robots through a live-fire demo at Fort Benning in what has been dubbed the “Robotic Rodeo.” The point was to give the brass a chance to see just how viable such systems are.

Originally published on Wired Top Stories

The Army, which issued a favorable assessment of the technology last week, doesn’t see our armed robotic overlords as weapons taking the place of boots on the ground, but rather as combatants working alongside troops in the field.

“They’re not just tools, but members of the squad. That’s the goal,” Lt. Col. Willie Smith, chief of Unmanned Ground Vehicles at Fort Benning told Computerworld. “A robot becoming a member of the squad, we see that as a matter of training.”

Senior Army officers attending the rodeo appeared satisfied with the robots after seeing them accurately hit targets 500 feet away, and they hope to see battle ‘bots in action within five years.

“We were hoping to see how they remotely control lethal weapons,” said Smith. “We were pleased with what we saw here. The technology is getting to be where it needs to be.”

This isn’t the first time the Pentagon has played with weaponized robots, but earlier experiments proved such machines weren’t ready for primetime after some of them moved without commands.

Northrop Grumman’s CaMEL (Carry-all Mechanized Equipment Landrover), among the armed robots at the rodeo, can be fitted with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and grenade launchers. It can run for more than 20 hours on 3.5 gallons of fuel, according to the company, and carry a load of 1,000 pounds. It also can produce power to charge batteries or power other systems.

“CaMEL is a multifunction platform that can quickly transform from supporting troops to protecting troops as an armed wingman, increasing the firepower of dismounted platoon and company maneuver units,” said Phil Coker, director of the Integrated Platform Solutions business at Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector, in a statement. “Its hybrid engine allows the armed CaMEL to operate very quietly – a real plus on the battlefield – and travel farther to provide firepower where it’s needed.”

To see this baby in action, check out this video:

Microsoft Surface 2 And Surface Pro 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 01:52:00 -0700

After Problem-Plagued Year, Microsoft Re-Surfaces

Microsoft’s Surface devices are the physical embodiments of its operating system. That was true of last year’s devices, which, like Windows 8 itself, many people found perplexing. And the new Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, much like the new Windows 8.1, reflect iterative refinements based on what Microsoft learned after releasing its products in the wild.

These devices feel more refined. The keyboards are more responsive, the battery life, cameras and displays are all better. There are no dramatic changes, but everything is a little bit nicer. I liked the Surface devices Microsoft released last year, and I like these even better. But they aren’t without problems, some of which are significant.

Originally published on Wired Top Stories

There are two devices, both of which come in multiple configurations. There is the ARM-based Surface 2, which runs Windows 8.1 RT–a bare-bones version of Windows that can only run applications from the Windows Store. It won’t handle your longtime x86 apps. And then there is the Surface Pro 2, which has an Intel Core i5 processor, runs Windows 8.1, and can do anything and everything a regular Windows machine can. Both are essentially tablets with detachable keyboards. Both are designed to be touched. The Pro comes with a pen input too, so you can scribble away.

Some of the upgrades are really noticeable. Take the kickstand that props the device upright. Its hinges now stop at two different angles: one designed for a desktop, the other for your lap. Battery life really is great. With casual on and off use, you should be able to run all day on both. My tests found almost five hours of video playback on the Surface Pro 2, and almost seven and a half hours on the Surface 2. Did I mention both come with 200 GB of SkyDrive storage?

Overall, these are just really well-built devices. Solid. Light. Responsive. Here’s an anecdote that I think speaks to build quality. While testing these, I had both set up on a ledge in our home that overlooks a stairwell. A friend, looking at them, picked one up by its keyboard, not realizing it is connected by mere magnets. It popped off, and the Surface fell about 12 feet, tumbled down a couple of steps, and smacked and skittered across the hardwood floor below. I cursed. But not only was the Surface unblemished, the movie it was playing never even stuttered. It was as if nothing had happened.

Speaking of the keyboards, these too have gotten upgrades. I had gotten used to typing on a Touch Cover and can hit it quickly enough and without making a sea of errors, but the new 2.75-millimeter-thin Touch Cover 2 is far more responsive than its predecessor. The keys are illuminated so you can use it in the dark. It’s more sensitive. It’s easier. Similarly, the 5.4-millimeter-thick Type Cover 2 has been improved in subtle ways (it’s also backlit and hey you can get it in a few different colors). But while both are responsive, both still feel small. If this were your only computer, my guess is that you’d find the keyboard cramped.

That cramping also exists on the desktop environment. Windows 8.1 made it clear that, despite complaints, Microsoft isn’t retreating from its touch-first operating system philosophy. (Nor should it; the world is changing.) It pushes you to use programs from the Start screen and the Windows Store, where you’ll find apps optimized for gestures over mousing. And when you do use the Desktop mode on either device, the interface elements feel very, very small. Almost unnavigably so. It’s hard to operate menus or hit buttons, which is exacerbated by the very small trackpad on both style keyboards.

This is true both not only of the Surface 2, which runs a stripped-down version of Windows, but also Surface Pro 2, which runs a full version of Windows 8.1 capable of fielding all those traditional desktop apps you’ve been using for years. While you won’t spend much time in the desktop environment with the former, it’s certainly one of the latter’s selling points. But trying to accomplish things with the tiny trackpad, or using your fingers to poke at the screen, is difficult.

Which means that the Windows Store apps, the ones that can run both on ARM and x86 machines, are an essential part of the user experience. A year ago, reviewing the Surface RT, I wrote that “overall it’s quite good; certainly better than any full-size Android tablet on the market. And once the application ecosystem fleshes out, it’s a viable alternative to the iPad as well.”

That fleshing out still has not happened. Honestly, I expected the Windows Store to come alive with apps over the past year. Microsoft, after all, is a company with a massive, well-established developer network. It seemed likely to me that developers would dive in. I was wrong.

The Windows Store does have lots of apps. But too many are crappy little parasites that prop up the store’s numbers without actually adding any value. Worse, many of the applications from major developers are half-assed. Dropbox and Evernote, for example, are hobbled compared to the versions you’ll find on other platforms. The Windows Store version of Evernote, for example, will not even record audio notes.

If you only want to use a Surface for web browsing, email, and office applications, you’ll do fine (especially thanks to the needed overhaul of its mail application). Microsoft has you covered on all that. But look for many of the applications that have made tablets not just useful, but delightful–like Flipboard, or Instapaper, or Pocket, or even a legit YouTube app–and you come up empty.

The bottom line is that once you venture beyond the Windows Store applications Microsoft itself makes, and a very small handful of others, there is not a lot to love. Will you love the Surface as a tablet? I don’t know. How much do you love Microsoft Office?

The Surface line is still great hardware–even better than the original, which I liked quite a lot. But it has a real software problem that doesn’t appear to be getting much better and may even be locked in a downward spiral. Not many people are buying Windows RT devices, so developers aren’t writing apps, which gives people little reason to buy it. Chickens and eggs.

This is, of course, less of a problem on the Surface Pro 2, which has the full arsenal of Windows desktop apps to fall back on. Dropbox is Dropbox; Evernote is the full elephant. But if you are just using Surface Pro 2 as a desktop machine, you would do likely do better for your money to go with a touch-capable ultrabook.

I’m still bullish on Surface, and Windows 8.1. Both show an immense amount of promise. But both are hobbled by the application situation in the Windows Store. This is a problem that Microsoft has to solve. Without more third party programs designed to run as touch-first (dare I say Metro) experiences, Surface risks becoming little more than a curiosity.

Here we have some picture about Microsoft Surface Pro:

All photos by Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

Surface Pro 2: $900 for 64GB, $1,000 for 128GB, $1,300 for 256GB, $1,800 for 512GB, Surface 2: $450 for 32GB, $550 for 64GB, Touch Cover 2: $120, Type Cover 2: $130

· More info from Microsoft

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Nokia Lumia Sales Reportedly Hit Record-High Numbers Last Quarter

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 01:32:00 -0700

In the lead-up to Nokia's big event tomorrow, the Wall Street Journal reports Lumia sales have hit a record high for the fourth consecutive quarter. Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ says Nokia sold "at least eight million" Windows Phones between July and September. That's close to triple the 2.9 million sales it managed in the same period last year and also more than the 7.4 million it sold last quarter. Of course, those numbers are very low when compared to big players like Samsung and Apple, but Nokia is at least continuing to prove it — and the Windows Phone platform — has a place in the market.

As reported last month, Nokia is gearing up to announce six devices tomorrow at its Nokia World event in Abu Dhabi. Among the new products will be the company's first tablet, thought to be called the Lumia 2520, and a large-screened phone, thought to be the 6-inch Lumia 1520. The Wall Street Journal doesn't elaborate further on Nokia's plans for tomorrow.

Image : eleconomista

We don't have long to wait before Nokia reveals its fall / winter lineup; Nokia World kicks off in just 24 hours. Nokia will also give us precise figures on Lumia sales — including whether or not things are improving in the US — when it announces its third quarter earnings later this month. We'll be covering both Nokia World and the company's earnings live, so stay tuned for more details.

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Five Language Learning Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 01:09:00 -0700

Learning a new language is difficult, which is why there's a huge market for tools and apps to help you do it. Some of them are really helpful and help you get up to speed quickly, others are a money sink. This week we're looking at five of the best, based on your nominations.

Originally published on LifeHacker

Earlier in the week we asked you to tell us which language learning tools you thought were the best. Which ones helped you learn most efficiently, and most effectively, and which ones were worth the money? You responded with more than we could highlight, but here's a look at the top five, in no particular order:

Anki

Anki, Japanese for "memorizing," is a flashcard program that's been around for years (as early as 2006, although it could very well have been initially developed before that). Because it's a flashcard style program, its focus is on memorization. It'll display you a word, phrase, image, or even play a sound, and then leave it to you to make the connection, repeat it, interpret it, and commit it to memory. Anki is great for languages, but it's also useful for studying equations, diagrams, names and faces, and more—its strength is in the fact that you can load it up with custom card sets depending on what it is you want to memorize. There are tons of shared decks available in the app that you can download and start memorizing right away.

Anki is free (although donations to support the developer are accepted) and cross-platform (available for Windows, OS X, Linux/BSD, iOS, Android, and there's even a web client). If Anki seems familiar to you, it should: We've featured it before, in Gabriel Wyner's guide to how she learned four languages in a few years. It worked for her, and she shows you how she made it work so you can try it yourself.

Memrise

Memrise is a language learning program that extends beyond vocabulary and language to things like history and science, but at its core it's a flashcard-style program that's augmented with memory tricks, images, and other useful tools to make learning a new language easier. Its focus is largely on memorization, but it's also designed to help you have fun learning the language you're trying to pick up. Memrise gamifies the process a bit, awarding you points and reputation as you learn, and the opportunity to compete against other users while you learn and complete activities. If you're interested in seeing what you can learn before you sign up, you can browse some of their courses before you give it a try.

Memrise is free, web-based, and has iOS and Android apps so you can take your lessons on the go. Those of you who praised Memrise pointed out that it's free, fun, and even though it too has a focus on memorization and repetition, the courses are numerous and there are some really great ones to sign up for that will help you pick up a new language quickly. However, since the courses are largely crowdsourced, you have to make sure you find a great one.

Duolingo

Duolingo takes a different approach to learning a new language than just memorizing words and phrases. Duolingo allows you to essentially learn a new language while translating sites on the web. Duolingo has language learning programs and lessons for its users, and as you take the lessons, you'll find yourself translating the web as you browse—effectively learning to read and speak the language you're interested in by looking at and hearing what native speakers are writing and saying. Of course, as with most programs you'll spend most of your time translating, seeing the language visually, and dictating. There are some speech exercises too though, although they're not the primary focus. Duolingo has courses in a handful of languages right now, which is a bit smaller than some of the other contenders, but the courses in those languages are incredibly complete. The courses are structured in a way like games as well—you earn skill points as you complete lessons, and if you make mistakes you lose "lives." If you lose too many, you'll have to re-take the lesson.

One of the coolest features about Duolingo is that it checks your progress as you go forward. It learns from where you make mistakes and which types of questions you have trouble with, and goes from there. It's completely free, available on the web, Android, and iOS, and it's earned a lot of praise. We've mentioned it before, and again when its mobile apps came out.

Pimsleur Method

The Pimsleur Method is an audio-based method that focuses on participation in speaking and sound exercises than strict memorization and flashcards. If you've ever seen a parody of someone learning a new language by listening to a tape that encourages them to parrot back phrases and words after a native speaker says them aloud, you're familiar with the Pimsleur Method. The method definitely has reading and vocabulary exercises, but it also focuses on speaking exercises and learning to speak a language aloud as well as learning to read one. Each exercise is about 30 minutes, where you speak phrases in the target language and your own language, and as new phrases and words are introduced, your memory is reinforced with older ones. Pimsleur is available in over 50 languages, has a massively long track record (going back to the 1960s), and has been used by individuals and large organizations to train people in new languages.

Pimsleur is a commercial product, so you should expect to pay for it. How much varies on the type of program you want to take, whether it's conversational or not, any added features, and so on. There are webapps and mobile apps designed to complement your lessons, too. You can grab a 30-minute lesson for free to see if it's the kind of thing that would work for you, and after that you have to pick a language and pay up. Even used in concert with some of the other methods in the roundup for vocabulary and reading, Pimsleur does well at teaching you to speak.

Livemocha

Livemocha is an extremely comprehensive language learning community and program, packed with native speakers (over 12 million people from close to 200 countries) and offering instruction in over 38 languages. It's relatively new, having launched in 2007, and much of its content is completely free. The approach is almost entirely web based, with live classes, conversations with native speakers, tutorial videos, and more all available right at your computer. You can even get private tutoring through Livemocha. Part of Livemocha's charm is that it encourages you to use the internet in the language you want to learn. The service also harnesses the power of social media to help you learn your target language as well. You learn from native speakers, are graded by other students who are fluent in the language you want to learn, and you can give back as much as you get.

Livemocha was recently acquired by Rosetta Stone, but that hasn't slowed it down. While the courses are incredibly complete, with dozens of hours of coursework available for each language, you can sign up for free and take a handful of lessons without paying anything. Eventually you'll hit a point where if you want to continue your lessons you'll have to open your wallet. Paying members shell out $99 per year, or $9.95 per month to unlock everything available. Individual courses can set you back $25 each, and if you use Livemocha's built-in credit system and help other people learn your language, you can unlock courses to take.

Tiny Solar-Powered GPS Device Lets You Track Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 00:23:00 -0700

Imagine a world in which everything you care about could be tracked. You'd never misplace your shoes, keys and bags, or lose track of your loved ones.

Thanks to a tiny, solar-powered GPS tracker that can attach to virtually anything, that future may be possible. Retrievor is a tiny disk that's around the size of a U.S. quarter, and as thick as four stacked quarters, according to the project's Indiegogo campaign.

As its name suggests, the device aims to help users find all kinds of things. After placing Retrievor in a bag or attaching it to a keychain, users can track the device using a web browser, or via an Android or iPhone app.

What's more, the GPS receiver can also be used to track pets, children and hikers, according to a video by its creators. It is accurate within 4 to 10 feet.

Retrievor regularly costs $299, but users must shell out an additional $1.79 monthly subscription fee because "using satellites orbiting the earth and GSM networks to keep track of your Retrievor is an expensive business," according to its Indiegogo page.

Retrievor is not the first device of its kind, but its creators claim the device is the smallest around.

So far, the campaign has raised just over $25,000 toward its $80,000 goal. Watch the video, above, for more.

See video below:

Twitter Music App May Soon Be Silenced

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 14:16:00 -0700

BY CHRISTINA WARREN

Image: Mashable composite, iStockphoto, yewkeo

Twitter may be preparing to shutter its Twitter #Music mobile app, just six months after its high-profile launch.

News of the potential shutdown was reported by AllThingsD, which cited multiple sources familiar with the matter. Mashable has heard similar rumors of Twitter's general unhappiness with the product over the last few months.

Originally published on Mashable

For the uninitiated, Twitter #Music is a service that helps users discover and find new music based on the microblogging network's activity, the artists users follow and songs that are trending. In addition to its iPhone app, there is also a web version of Twitter #Music.

Despite lots of press and generally good reviews, Twitter #Music failed to take off with mobile-app users. Just nine days after its launch, Twitter #Music dropped from the list of top 100 free app on iTunes.

The last time Twitter #Music was in the top 1500 for overall app rank was on May 10, 2013, when it ranked 1486, according to App Annie.

As of this writing, Twitter #Music is ranked 170 in the App Store music vertical for the United States. That's up from 253, its ranking in the music category on Oct. 19.

Screenshot: App Annie

App ranks aren't everything, of course, but when a high-profile branded app can't remain in the top 100 of its main category, that's a good sign that users just aren't interested in it.

In contrast, Twitter's video-sharing app Vine currently ranks #15 out of all free apps in the App Store, and is #2 in the social-networking category — even ahead of the official Twitter iPhone app.

It's worth nothing that

Twitter #Music hasn't received a UI update for iOS 7. Twitter and Vine were both updated with iOS 7 support to coincide with the launch of Apple's latest operating system. Twitter #Music is still built for iOS 6, even though iOS 7's iTunes Radio has Twitter #Music-powered stations.

AllThingsD reported that Twitter is currently in the process of revamping its music team, and that its future focus will likely be on partnering with existing outlets, such as iTunes, Rdio or Spotify, rather than building a separate experience in-house. This makes sense because even if Twitter #Music as a mobile app is a failure, music still has lots of business potential, especially as the company prepares to go public.

Twitter #Music Was a Feature, Not a Whole New App

In my opinion, Twitter #Music has failed to take off with users in part because it should be a feature built into the main Twitter experience, not a separate app and interface. I don't want to use a separate app to discover new songs on Twitter, I'd much rather have Twitter #Music exist as a separate tab within the app itself.

This is reminiscent of Facebook's failed Instagram clone, Facebook Camera. The app was no match for Instagram, but it was still an upgrade to the default camera experience inside Facebook; that's why it was so confusing to see the app exist as a separate entity. Eventually, Facebook smartly integrated Facebook Camera into its core iOS app.

If Twitter #Music is to survive in its current form, that would certainly be a better engagement strategy. A separate app makes sense for a service such as Vine, which has a separate social graph and different type of content-discovery purpose. With Twitter #Music, however, the separate experience just makes it less likely that anyone will use the app.

Of course, the bigger question is whether the way Twitter #Music works actually aligns with the way users want to discover new music. I would argue that trending songs and recommendations based on the artists I follow are good data points as part of a broader recommendation strategy, but they they don't work by themselves.

First, the recommendations only really work provided the user follows all the artist they love. In my case, there are plenty of artists I enjoy, but who I don't necessarily want to follow on Twitter. There are also artists I follow because of their tweets, but who I don't enjoy sonically.

What's more, my biggest problem with Twitter #Music is that the graph data only goes one way. Why not also collect my Last.fm data, Spotify follows, Facebook likes and Rdio data? If this is really about music discovery, Twitter is one data point and unlike television, it's probably not the most representative of my actual musical interests.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Bully Apologizes After Aunt Asks Facebook Group To Support Nephew

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 14:02:00 -0700

BY FRAN BERKMAN

A parade of 50 cars carrying 100 people showed up at an Oregon high school to support a bullied teen after his aunt made a plea for help on Facebook.

Halsey Parkerson's aunt witnessed her nephew being bullied while eating lunch with him at South Salem High School on Thursday. She asked a Facebook group of car fans for assistance, and on Friday, they came out in force to support Parkerson. Parkerson's aunt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Local television station KATU captured the rally on camera, and reported that people came from as far as Vancouver, Canada to attend.

"I will now know that whenever I get bullied, I'll just raise my head up and say, 'Sorry, I have too many friends to think I'm being bullied,'" Parkerson said on the KATU report. "This is one glorious day."

Supporters hugged Parkerson, and cheered for him. With the support of his new friends, Parkerson confronted the bully on camera. The two shared a high-five as the bully said, "I apologize, I take it back," The bully reportedly insulted Parkerson by saying that he had no friends.

The encounter came at an appropriate time since October is National Bullying Prevention Monthin the U.S. Parkerson has since started his own car club on Facebook called, The Nuthin' But Love (NBL) Crew.

Check out the KATU video, below, for more:

http://www.katu.com/news/local/Facebook-used-to-rally-100-to-stand-behind-boy-being-bullied-228424401.html?tab=video&c=y

What People Did For Fun Before The Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 13:47:00 -0700

BY NEHA PRAKASH

It's a sad truth, but the Internet consumes our lives. A day without Netflix, a moment without email or a second without Google is beyond imagination.

But there once was a time — many, many years ago (but not really that long) — when humans had to find a non-web-based form of entertainment.

Originally published on Mashable

In this Sunday comic, Nitrozac and Snaggy of The Joy of Tech imagine how our prehistoric ancestors wasted time without the luxury of social media.

Comic illustration provided by The Joy of Tech

First Evidence Found Of A Comet Strike On Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 13:30:00 -0700

Comet exploded 28 million years ago over Egypt, new study suggests.

By Andrew Fazekas

Image : Gustav Verderber/Visuals Unlimit

Saharan glass and a brooch belonging to King Tut provide the first evidence of a comet directly impacting Earth, a new study claims. The finding may help unlock some of the mysteries surrounding the birth of our solar system.

About 28 million years ago a comet exploded over Egypt, creating a 3600°F (2000°C) blast wave that spread out over the desert below. The fiery shockwave melted the sand, forming copious amounts of yellow silica glass scattered over 2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers) of the Sahara.

Polished into the shape of a scarab beetle, a large piece of this glass found its way into a brooch owned by the famed Egyptian boy king Tutankhamen.

"Because there is no sign of an impact crater, it has been a mystery as to what kind of celestial event actually could have caused this debris field, but a small, black stone found lying in the middle of the glass area caught our attention," said study co-author David Block, an astronomer at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Originally published on National Geographic

Saharan Surprise

A tiny slice of the black pebble was put through isotopic analysis, which definitely ruled out that it came from a meteor. Instead, the analysis showed that the pebble possessed the unique chemical signature of a comet, measured in terms of elements such as argon and carbon.

"It was then basically a matter of running the movie backwards in time and predicting what temperatures were needed to create the conditions we find that make up the fragment today," Block says. "So when I saw the result of the analyses, I was completely ecstatic to realize that such a piece of cosmic history has been found for the first time right on our doorstep."

While meteors are known to enter the Earth's atmosphere frequently—one can be seen as a shooting star every 15 minutes or so on any random night—not so with comets.

The implosions of comets in planetary atmospheres are exceedingly rare events—the only other definitive case of a comet hitting a planet was back in 1994 when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter's atmosphere.

Astronomical Odds Inspire Caution

And it's because of this rarity that Earth scientist Andrew Glikson of the Australian National University in Canberra, who was not involved in this study, questions if these yellow glass objects, called tektites, might instead have been created through much more common meteoric events, as seen at many impact sites around the world.

"Why can't the material represent a large tektite formed by heating and melting of sand at the Earth's surface by an asteroid impact, such as, for example, the Australite tektites?" asks Glikson.

While this extraterrestrial glass is considered common around many impact sites, geologist Gerald Johnson, who was not involved in the study, says that beyond the compelling evidence the team presents in their chemical workup of the black pebble, it's not surprising that the research community may be wary of these results.

"A comet, mostly water, vaporizes in the atmosphere and leaves little for the geologic record, while the 'dirt' incorporated in the comet also is disseminated widely and is unlikely to be found because of impact dispersal, surface weathering, and erosion," said Johnson, a meteor impact researcher at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

"Undoubtedly, the Earth has been hit numerous times by comets, but our knowledge of these is lacking because comets leave such a poor record ... so this discovery is amazing."

Solar System Origins

Microscopic dust particles from these icy interlopers have been collected from the upper atmosphere and from Antarctic ice, and have been scooped up by space probes.

But having a chance to study sizable comet material firsthand would be exceptional, and Block and his team believe it can offer a unique chance to study the birth of our solar system.

Cosmic particles called presolar grains formed in the stellar cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to our solar system, and are thought to have remained within comets and meteors.

"My bet is that this little rock will unlock some unique secrets in time to come, specifically because it appears packed with presolar grains," said Block.

The comet study will be published in an upcoming issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

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Money 3.0: How Bitcoins May Change The Global Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 13:10:00 -0700

By Timothy Carmody

Image : Vicki Behringer/AP

After the feds seized and shuttered Silk Road, an online marketplace for illegal drugs, earlier this month, some technology experts started sounding the death knell for Bitcoin, Silk Road's international currency of choice. Instead, we may soon see Bitcoin's real value.

Invented in 2008, Bitcoin is not the first attempt at an all-digital, cryptographically based currency. Others have existed in one form or another for nearly fifty years, but have either failed to take off or dramatically crashed and burned. Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency with the deep structure, wide adoption, and trading momentum to achieve escape velocity.

Originally published on National Geographic

In practice, Bitcoin blends credit cards' ease of digital transfer with the relative anonymity of a cash handoff. Like all currencies, the problems it poses are both practical and metaphysical; like cash or credit, Bitcoin is somehow both more and less real than the goods it is traded for.

Until now, the most well-known of these goods have been illegal drugs, like those on Silk Road. But the drug marketplace's shutdown gives Bitcoin a chance to gain some much-needed legitimacy. "It's a watershed moment for Bitcoin," Marco Santori, the chairman of the regulatory-affairs committee of the Bitcoin Foundation, told The New Yorker. "Bitcoin's PR problem, with which it has struggled for the last year or so, is being addressed in a very direct way."

Bitcoin's future potential was a hot topic this week at emTech, an MIT conference on emerging technologies. In a panel hosted by MIT Technology Review's Tom Simonite, MIT economist David Johnson and BitPay CEO Stephen Pair discussed Bitcoin's complex relationship with paper currencies, credit, and state authority.

Johnson noted that buyers and sellers, banks and governments all care deeply about what money is used for. Money's use carries associations of value, which in turn helps establish whether a currency, a payment form, and a social model for transactions are legitimate. "It's hard to bring any of them on board if the money is associated with behaviors consumers are troubled by," Johnson said at emTech.

"The key to the legitimacy of the system for all of these parties is to establish that people using the system are acting legally and responsibly."

In turn, Pair denied that Silk Road's association with Bitcoin would prove fatal to the cryptocurrency. "Silk Road used a lot of technologies. First, it used the Internet. It also used Tor [a network using "onion routing" relays to conceal a user's location identity] for anonymity. And then it used Bitcoin for payments," said Pair. Silk Road's shutdown "shows that just because you use Bitcoin doesn't mean you can evade law enforcement."

If until now, Bitcoin has been a notorious outlier, this is its chance to redefine itself as a mainstream contender.

What is Bitcoin For?

If it's not to move drugs or launder money, what is Bitcoin for?

Let's assume that the Silk Road arrests halt or at least slow Bitcoin's use at the fringes of the law, at least until those actors tighten up and regroup (and law enforcement does the same). Let's further stipulate that the number of people interested in Bitcoin as an academic exercise or as an ideological argument about fiat currencies has (like the total number of Bitcoins itself) a hard upper limit.

Pair and Johnson both argue that Bitcoin still has tremendous potential doing what it was built to do: transfer money from person to person without stopping for national borders or rent-seeking middlemen. Those people can be investors, merchants, and even migrant workers, all participating in one of the largest, strangest, but most elegant exchanges the world has ever seen.

Bitcoin's Origins

Bitcoin's invention is attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for a person or group who, apart from a 2008 paper introducing Bitcoin, have remained anonymous and absent, a virtual author.

Bitcoin is backed by no government, and its value isn't rooted in precious metals. Instead, it's distributed across the entire network of users, its roots in complex digital mathematics. Bitcoin supporters say that this makes the currency immune to manipulation by politicians or oligarchs seeking to move its value up or down for politics or profit.

"Bitcoin's integrity is guaranteed by the rules of math and the laws of physics," Pair says. Such rhetoric is common in the world of digital currency, where reverence for Bitcoin has succeeded gold for many hard-money enthusiasts. They've entered into an uneasy and unusual alliance with anarcho-technologists who distrust government authority and believe in the power of distributed networks and open-source software.

With governments' financial and credit troubles in turn causing major problems for their currencies, global investors are looking for something firmer than the promise of a central bank. In September, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss—Facebook bridesmaids turned Bitcoin entrepreneurs— touted the digital currency as a solution to the world's troubled currency markets. "It's Gold 2.0," Tyler Winklevoss said.

Like gold or other precious metals used as specie, Bitcoins are scarce. But their scarcity is algorithmic, as opposed to natural or accidental.

New Bitcoins are added only by being "mined," in the high-tech equivalent of a land rush. Computers on the Bitcoin network race to solve increasingly complicated mathematical problems. The first to do so has its solution verified by the other nodes on the network. Once verified, the Bitcoin can be traded using Bitcoin's wallet software.

Bitcoin mining guarantees a fixed rate of inflation (relative to itself). It roots the value of Bitcoins in the work needed to solve the puzzle. And the decentralized proof-of-work consensus protocol guards against fraud and counterfeit.

In Pair's words, Bitcoin "commoditized the process of securing the network." All the work done by financial centers and payment systems to detect fraud or counterfeit for traditional currency and credit markets is done all along the network according to the peer-to-peer protocols for Bitcoin. And the costs of that work are likewise distributed throughout the system, paid for through Bitcoin mining. This is what lets Bitcoins be traded and exchanged without huge fees.

There are a little over 11.78 million bitcoins in circulation, with a total capitalization of 1.6 billion USD, and typically somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 bitcoin transactions each day. As more and more computers participate in bitcoin mining—daily unique bitcoin addresses reached a high of over 100,000 this summer—and the mathematical problems needed to earn new bitcoins have grown more complicated, the average operating margin for miners has plummeted. Mining has switched from being a frontier gold rush to a relatively mainstream, industrial-grade operation.

Digital Currency's Future

Today, essentially every digital transaction and every international transaction involves a use of one form or another of virtual currency or credit.

Transaction and exchange fees, taxes, and payment delays exist to provide short-term credit, guard against counterfeit, excessive withdrawals and other kinds of fraud, and to extract income. Bitcoin is designed to provide the same security guarantees and convenience of credit, while foregoing its extra processing times and fees.

You settle with Bitcoin immediately, just like cash. Unlike a credit card exchange, where your credit card number and security information are handed over completely for any transaction, a transfer is authorized only to pay a specific amount.

In principle, Bitcoin's independence makes it more stable than traditional currencies like dollars or euros. In reality, its value has fluctuated wildly over its four-year-existence.

Today, the price of one Bitcoin has stabilized at about $140 US; it briefly dipped down to $121 USD after Silk Road's shutdown, but quickly rallied back. But just a year ago, the price of a Bitcoin seemed stable at about $12 USD. Those are some wild swings.

The exchange values matter, both to people who mine or invest in Bitcoins and to users who want to use them for everyday goods and services, which are usually denominated in local currency. (Local currency is also used to pay taxes, which Bitcoin transactions sometimes try to avoid.)

But what Bitcoin also does is make digital payments possible for people who not only don't have PayPal, but don't have a functioning credit system. In many parts of Africa, Latin America, and south Asia, most people have no access to credit or digital payments; with Bitcoin, that infrastructure comes for free.

Pair's company, BitPay, converts Bitcoins back and forth into various local currencies without charging a transaction fee. (Instead, it charges a flat monthly rate.) Its clients include hosting companies, computer and electronic equipment companies, and companies that sell internationally.

"With Bitcoin, you can take an international payment with no risk of credit card fraud," says Pair. "We sometimes forget that there are many countries where you can't take a credit card payment. Those countries become isolated from the rest of the Internet economy... For many of these countries, if this payment system works, if the U.S. and Congress can support and tolerate a reputable, well-paid industry, this will be a big connector to the world economy."

The area with the biggest potential for Bitcoin worldwide is probably international remittances: money sent home by workers living abroad. Currently, this money has to be handled by several intermediaries: banks, wire services, and currency exchanges all take their cut. A recent report by Businessweek noted that the average fee for remittances was 9 percent of the money transferred, with conversion to cash often costing an extra 5 percent. Western Union's profit margins are enormous for an intermediary, nearly 16 percent, and most of its costs are devoted to the technologies moving money from one place to another, guaranteeing the legitimacy of the transfer. In short, Western Union spends and earns billions to do what Bitcoin does for free.

Instead of Western Union, migrant workers (or businesses operating on their behalf) could use Bitcoin to send payments from one country to another through email, without worry of fraud or needing to support an elaborate exchange or credit market.

It would be real-time, immediate settlement at a fraction of the cost. In ten years, instead of international drugs, Bitcoin could act as a genuine lingua franca for international work.

"The vast majority of the planet don't even own a bank account," Bitcoin evangelist Jonathan Mohan tells PBS Newshour. "And it's my contention that—and a lot of people think this—that, just as in Africa, they didn't go to phones. They went directly to cell phones, that, in the same sort of adoption curve, in these developing nations, you're not going to see them start getting bank accounts. You're going to see them just going straight to Bitcoins, because if you own a Bitcoin address, you have a bank account on your phone that you can interact on the global stage with."

There are still real problems. Johnson thinks that Bitcoin has yet to suffer its first genuine crisis of legitimacy, and its proponents haven't developed a political strategy to reassure wary states and investors that the currency can play nice. And the rhetoric of many Bitcoin proponents assumes a sophisticated understanding of its underlying technology that is far from widespread, especially among the world's poor.

Investors and miners can debate the nuances of different cryptographic schema, but for most of us, money is ultimately an article of faith.

Money 3.0

It seems inevitable that money, already virtual, will only become more so as we shift into a digital economy.

"Money has become data," Ben Milne, founder of Dwolla, a real-time payments company, said at emTech. "There needs to be an infrastructure that allows people to exchange whatever they have for whatever they want, that confirms who they are, and confirms that the transaction is legitimate."

He notes that while today, credit cards handle trillions of dollars in transactions, ACH's virtual transfers where no physical money changes hands handle tens of trillions. If digital companies or currencies can make these transactions more secure, more efficient, and more immediate, that can unlock value for everyone, even some of the companies that currently benefit from the high barrier of entry to traditional banking.

And Bitcoin can still affect the world economy even if it does not become a currency that everyone uses or understands. "If Bitcoin becomes widespread, respected, and legitimate, that pressures everyone—all the central banks and banking companies—to bring down those costs in order to stay competitive," Johnson says. "Or everyone could just use Bitcoin," adds Pair.

Li-Fi Turns Every Lightbulb Into An Ultra-Fast Wireless Network

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:50:00 -0700

BY CHRISTOPHER MIMS

Current wireless networks have a problem: The more popular they become, the slower they are. Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai have just become the latest to demonstrate a technology that transmits data as light instead of radio waves, which gets around the congestion issue and could be 10 times faster than traditional Wi-Fi.

Originally published on Quartz

In dense urban areas, the range within which Wi-Fi signals are transmitted is increasingly crowded with noise — mostly, other Wi-Fi signals. What’s more, the physics of electromagnetic waves sets an upper limit to the bandwidth of traditional Wi-Fi. The short version: you can only transmit so much data at a given frequency. The lower the frequency of the wave, the less it can transmit.

10x Faster Connections Than Wi-Fi, Through the Nearest Lamp

But what if you could transmit data using waves of much higher frequencies and without needing a spectrum license from your country’s telecoms regulator?

Light, like radio, is an electromagnetic wave, but it has about 100,000 times the frequency of a Wi-Fi signal, and nobody needs a license to make a light bulb. All you need is a way to make its brightness flicker very rapidly and accurately so it can carry a signal.

The idea sounds daft: Who would want to sit under a flickering bulb? But Li-Fi, a standard proposed just two years ago, is seeing rapid technological progress.

First, data are transmitted to an LED light bulb — it could be the one illuminating the room in which you’re sitting now. Then the lightbulb is flicked on and off very quickly, up to billions of times per second. That flicker is so fast that the human eye cannot perceive it. (For comparison, the average energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb already flickers between 10,000 and 40,000 times per second.) Then a receiver on a computer or mobile device — basically, a little camera that can see visible light — decodes that flickering into data. LED bulbs can be flicked on and off quickly enough to transmit data around 10 times as fast as the fastest Wi-Fi networks. (If they could be manipulated faster, the bandwidth would be even higher.)

Li-Fi’s Limitations Are Similar to Next-Generation Wi-Fi

Li-Fi has one big drawback compared with Wi-Fi: you, or rather your device, need to be within sight of the bulb. It wouldn’t necessarily need to be a special bulb; in principle, overhead lights at work or at home could be wired to the Internet. But it would mean that, unlike with Wi-Fi, you couldn’t go into the next room unless there were wired bulbs there too.

However, a new generation of ultra-fast Wi-Fi devices that we’re likely to start using soon face a similar limitation. They use a higher range of radio frequencies, which aren’t as crowded with other signals (at least for now) and have a higher bandwidth, but, like visible light, cannot penetrate walls.

Engineers and a handful of startups, like Oledcomm, have been experimenting with Li-Fi technology. The Fudan University team unveiled an experimental Li-Fi network in which four PCs were all connected to the same light bulb. Other researchers are working on transmitting data via different colors of LED lights — imagine, for example, transmitting different signals through each of the the red, green and blue LEDs inside a multi-colored LED light bulb.

Because of its limitations, Li-Fi won’t do away with other wireless networks. But it could supplement them in congested areas and replace them in places where radio signals need to be kept to a minimum, like hospitals, or where they don’t work, such as underwater.

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Gmail Login Page Redesign Showing up for International Users

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:12:00 -0700

BY ADARIO STRANGE

Images: Flickr

Google constantly looks to improve its various services through software updates and design tweaks, and the latest revamp may be coming to your Gmail account.

Originally published on Mashable

In a blog post, discovered by TheNextWeb, one user reports that the login page for Gmail has been dramatically redesigned, placing the login at the center of the page; this is similar to its mobile app.

I attempted to duplicate the results, using three different computers and several different U.S.-based Gmail accounts, but the Gmail login page remained unchanged. However, the new login page showed up for Mashable Contributing Editor Anita Li, who is based in Toronto, Canada. Here's how it looks:

Comments by Gmail users on Twitter suggest that the change may be hitting international users outside the U.S. first.

I'm liking the new Gmail login screen. Finally, Google made a change which works
— Dan Jake Neal (@Frolacosta) October 17, 2013

I am not liking the new @gmail login or compose, why change
— Tim (@tchawthorne) October 17, 2013

New gmail login screen is confusing me. It doesn't take much these days.
— Shannon (@srobalino) October 17, 2013

If these reported changes turn out to be accurate, then it would point toward an interface standardization between Google’s desktop and mobile services that observers have been expecting for some time.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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How To Overcome Your Shyness : Set Yourself Small Challenges

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 11:53:00 -0700

There's nothing wrong with being shy, but sometimes you can benefit from putting yourself out there—like at a professional function that can further your career. Phil Kirkham of Atomic Object likes to gamify these interactions with small challenges.

For example, the ‘Breakfast Challenge’ is about approaching and talking to someone new at breakfast, and the ‘Question Challenge’ is to ask a question to the speaker at the end of every session. And then it’s time to test yourself, according to Kirkham.

"Follow these tips and then take The Restroom Test: take a walk to the restroom and back and see how many people that you did not know previously nod in recognition or say Hi. By the second day of the conference, I could count on getting at least 5 nods of recognition during my walk."

It’s a neat and fun way of implementing the time-tested technique of expanding your comfort zone a little at a time.

How do you overcome your shyness? Share with us?

Inventory Levels Suggest New iPad And Retina MacBook Pro On The Way

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 11:24:00 -0700

BY CHRISTINA WARREN

Image: Mashable, Nina Frazier

Purported inventory data from Apple resellers gives us some insight into the products that the Cupertino, Calif. company may announce at its new product event on Tuesday.

Apple Insider put together a chart of inventory levels for current Apple products (at least as it relates to Apple resellers and big-box stores), and the data matches up with recent rumors about new devices.

Originally published on Mashable

For instance, MacBook Pro with Retina inventory levels are nearly nonexistent for both the 13-inch and 15-inch varieties. This jibes with our prediction that new Haswell-based MacBook Pro with Retina laptops will appear at Tuesday's event.

Also likely: a new 9.7-inch iPad. The redesigned full-sized tablet seems like a sure thing; over the last six months, we've seen many leaks of the supposed new fifth-generation iPad, complete with a slimmer body that's similar to the iPad mini's design.

Speaking of the iPad mini — this is where things get interesting. Although Apple Insider's sources note that inventory levels for the Wi-Fi and LTE iPad mini is "average to low," the 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi-only iPad mini has a "high" inventory level.

This could mean that Apple will release a new iPad mini — likely with a retina screen — but continue to sell the non-retina, Wi-Fi only iPad mini at a lower price. Apple has continued to sell the iPad 2 (which incidentally, is almost exactly the same as the iPad mini on a technical level), even after the third- and fourth-generation retina iPads hit the market.

Inventory Table: AppleInsider

I predicted the continued existence of the original iPad mini in our most recent #MashTalk, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Reseller inventory of the Mac Pro is basically sold out, indicating that we'll at least get a date — if not more specific information — about Apple's highly anticipated and wholly redesigned workstations.

What won't we get? If inventory levels are any indication, an updated version of the Apple TV.Apple Insider's sources said that Apple TV inventory levels are "the highest [it's] been in months."

That corresponds with my expectations for the Apple TV: more software updates, but not actual hardware changes. For instance, iOS 7 specifically includes support for game controllers, and it would make sense for those controllers to work when paired with the Apple TV via AirPlay. What's more, OS X Mavericks, which we also expect to see next week, includes support to use your television as a full second monitor via Apple TV and AirPlay. In other words, Apple is giving customers more incentive to buy the $99 Apple TV this fall.

Rumors aside, we'll have to wait until Tuesday to see what Apple plans to release.

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How to Job Hunt While Still Employed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 03:26:00 -0700

BY JENNIFER PARRIS

Image: flickr, Victor1558

It obviously makes more sense to look for a job while you still have one. After all, you won’t feel the pressure to pick any old job that you’re offered because you have to pay your mortgage, car loan, credit card bills or because the gap between jobs on your resume is growing wider and wider. That said, job hunting while you’re still working can present its own set of prickly problems. Here’s how to safely look for a new job — without risking the one you currently have.

Don’t be obvious. The last thing you want to do is alert your current boss that you are job hunting. Even if you already have one foot out the door, don’t be too obvious about your job searching efforts. Schedule your interviews before or after work, or if you have to, take a day off and try to bundle them together. After all, if you show up to work in a three-piece suit (and your normal attire is jeans and a tee shirt), you’re going to attract some very unnecessary attention at the office.

Don’t tell your coworkers. You might be tempted to tell your colleagues and work bestie about your job search. But sharing the news, even with a couple of close office friends, could potentially result in your boss finding out about your plans a lot sooner than you’d like. Some companies can even let you go if they find out that you’re seeking employment elsewhere. And at the very least, your boss can make your life miserable while you’re still there, forcing you to quit before you’re ready.

Don’t use office equipment. After a brutal meeting with your boss, you might be tempted to storm back to your cubicle and openly — and passive aggressively — troll job boards. Not a good idea. Your company most likely has tracking programs built into your computer or can search your history to see the sites you’ve been on. So save your job searching — and applying — for after work.

Review your references. It’s important to tell the hiring managers at the beginning of your job interviews that you’re currently employed. You definitely don’t want them to reach out to your boss for a reference, so find a few previous bosses or colleagues who are not directly connected to your company to provide references for you. Above all else, be sure that your prospective employer knows that you would like to keep your job search confidential.

Excel in your current job. Between searching through job ads, constructing meaningful cover letters and interviewing, your full focus is on finding a job. Don’t let your job performance suffer as a result, though. If you’ve been an exemplary employee in your current job, you don’t want the last few weeks before you resign to reflect poorly on your overall performance with the company. Even though job hunting can be a second job in and of itself, you want to make sure that you give your job 100% each day. That way, you can use the job as a reference in the future.

Job hunting while you have a current job can be tricky, but if you are cautious, careful, and above all, respectful, you’ll be successful — and not burn any bridges in the process.

Apple Issues MacBook Air Recall To Replace Failing Flash Drives

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 02:56:00 -0700

BY ADARIO STRANGE

With all the excitement surrounding Apple's upcoming event on Oct. 22, you may have missed a rather important recall that the Cupertino, Calif. company issued this week concerning its MacBook Air laptops.

Originally appeared on Mashable

In a note published on Apple's website Thursday, the company announced that certain MacBook Air laptops sold between June 2012 and June 2013 contain 64GB and 128GB flash-storage drives that may fail.

Apple’s MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program will replace the affected flash-storage drives for free.

The note also includes the following warning:

"If your drive is affected, we strongly recommend that you do not install any operating system updates or new applications. We also recommend backing up your data on a regular basis until you receive a replacement drive."

Recent MacBook Air owners can check to see if their device is affected by opening the "About This Mac" menu located under the Apple logo on the computer’s top menu; then, click the "More Info" button to see when your MacBook Air was made.

If it says “Mid 2013" — putting the device within the cited June 2012 to 2013 period — then you may want to run the firmware update Apple released, which can be accessed via the Software Updates panel.

10 Countries With The Most Digital Natives

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 02:45:00 -0700

BY ZOE FOX

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

China is home to the world's largest population of digital natives, totaling more than 75 million people — that's almost twice as many as the U.S., which has more than 41 million.

India and Brazil clock in at third and fourth place, respectively.

Appeared on Mashable

Statista created the following chart, which lists the 10 countries that boast the most digital natives. Check it out, below, for the full results.

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MIT's 'Kinect Of The Future' Device Tracks People Through Walls

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 02:36:00 -0700

BY LORENZO FRANCESCHI-BICCHIERAI

Perhaps, one day, your Kinect will be able to follow you through the walls of your house.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a motion-tracking device, which they call the "Kinect of the future." It can follow a person even when in another room, pinpointing his or her location with extreme accuracy, using only radio waves. (Kinect is the Xbox 360's motion sensor.)

The device tracks a single person with an accuracy of plus or minus 10 centimeters — about the size of an adult hand. Apart from the ability to "see" through a wall, its main advantage is that the person being tracked isn't required to wear a transmitter. While other location systems depend on Wi-Fi, this device can track a person's movements within the radius of its radio waves.

"What we're doing here is localization through a wall without requiring you to hold any transmitter or receiver [and] simply by using reflections off a human body," MIT researcher Fadel Adib told IDG News Service. "What is impressive is that our accuracy is higher than even state of the art Wi-Fi localization."

MIT researchers have a patent pending for the technology, which could have multiple applications. In addition to gaming, such a device could be used to turn lights on and off as somebody approaches a room, or track patients in need of supervision. However, it could also lend itself to more invasive applications, such as tracking people in a mall.

For now, the device as several limitations: It takes up a lot of space, is only able to detect the movement of one person, and can't distinguish between people or objects moving in its radius.

To find out more about MIT's futuristic device, watch the video.

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Top 10 Tech This Week

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 02:29:00 -0700

1. Sonos' Play:1 Is Its Smallest and Most Affordable Speaker Yet

Image : Sonos

This unassuming pint-sized speaker can fill a room with sound and stream music from Pandora, Spotify, Radio or any Wi-Fi enabled device.

2. The U.S. Army Is Building an 'Iron Man' Suit for Soldiers

Image : Angelo Desantis

No, it can't fly but the army's newest design project, TALOS is a suit that will make soldiers faster, sharper and bullet-proof.

3. Lenovo Unveils Its First 8-Inch Windows 8.1 Tablet

Image : Lenovo

The Miix2, Lenovo's first tablet, includes front and rear-facing cameras, 64GB of storage and an Intel Bay Trail-T Quad Core processor.

4. HP Chromebook 11 Is a Laptop With Focus

Image : Mashable

While the new Chromebook has a sleek and powerful design, its capabilities and limited functionality when not connected to the Internet diminish its appeal.

5. Dock Charges Any Apple or Samsung Device — Even in Bulky Cases

Image : Sarvi Design

This specially engineered dock allows smartphones of any brand to charge securely without the removal of the protective case.

6. Battroborg Pits Remote-Control Robots in Brutally Fun Battle

Image : Mashable

This mini robot battle game incorporates motion control remotes, health indicators in the form of tiny lights and an auto-pilot mode in case you just want to watch the action without playing.

7. Sony Unveils World's First Full-Frame Mirrorless Cameras

Image : Sony

Sony's new magnesium alloy cameras, the α7 and α7R, include BIONZ X processors, auto-focus and Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity and are built to endure harsh conditions.

8. Edible Boat Powered by Your Cocktail

Image : David Leong

Drink garnishes are on a whole new level now that an edible tiny boat can cruise around your alcoholic beverage thanks to fluid and food engineering.

9. These Glasses Let You Play in 3D Virtual Worlds

Image : Technical Illusion

If you've ever wanted to play a hologram game, the wait is over -- these glasses can project images onto a flat surface and use special wands to register motion to make moves in the games.

10. This Smart Wheel Makes Cycling in the City a Breeze

Image : Flykly

Bike aficionados now have a smart wheel that can make their rides easier and locate their stolen two-wheeled vehicles, all controlled by a smartphone application.

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