With text messaging being at the forefront of communication these days, many of us are familiar with the frustrating circumstance of trying to send a text in an area with bad reception. Startup GoTenna has launched a device that aims to fix this problem by allowing users to send and receive text messages without a Wi-Fi or cell signal. Inspired by downed cell phone towers and utility outages, the company wanted a way to keep smartphones connected even when the grid fails. The resulting prototype is a hardware radio device that pairs with your smartphone over Bluetooth and sends radio text message using old analog radio channels. All messages are encrypted and self-destructing since they are not stored on a central server. GoTenna allows you to save your battery by texting in Airplane mode, is able to broadcasts its signal to send and receive texts up to 160 characters and can connect to other devices up to 50 miles away. However, this varies depending on factors such as location and your elevation. For instance, in urban areas the range is hindered to only a couple of miles. The device also has a potentially lifesaving communication feature that sends “shout” messages to anyone within range. You can preorder a GoTenna today, with shipments scheduled for the fall. Preorder pricing is $150 for two devices, and will go up to $300 a pair after the first units have shipped.
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Have you ever been a little curious about what you do while you’re asleep? You just spent around 8 hours attempting to sleep soundly but you still wake up exhausted. What is that!? Luckily, we live in a day and age where there are fancy sleep trackers that you can strap to your wrist to give you some insight. Unfortunately, that kind of technology will cost you a pretty penny, until now. You guessed it, there’s an app for that. It’s called SleepCycle and without the use of a wearable, it actually tracks and charts your sleep patterns. How? By using the accelerometer – AKA the movement sensor – inside your smartphone. All you have to do is leave the phone on your mattress and every time there’s movement, the app detects and charts it on your sleep tracker. The added bonus is the alarm clock adjustment feature. If you don’t have to be up at an exact time, you can set SleepCycle to only wake you up once you’ve gotten to your lightest sleep phase. This way, you’ll be less groggy and wake up with ease. Download SleepCycle now for iPhone / Android or visit the website for more information. Everyone likes saving money. Everyone enjoys free stuff. Starting today, July 23rd, Savor is combining both! From now until August 22nd, you can enter its sweepstakes for a chance to win a $500 gift card to your favorite Savor retailer! So what’s the catch you might ask? Well, it won’t cost you an arm or a leg – just download Savor! Savor is a coupon app that provides you with savings and deals to all of your favorite retailers. Savor effortlessly provides you with a personalized savings experience by providing coupons based on your interests – saving you time and money. By downloading Savor and joining the sweepstakes, you’re not only saving heaps of cash with all the coupons, but you could also be $50-$500 richer! The grand prizewinner gets a $500 gift card and three additional winners will each receive $50 gift cards as well! It’s a win-win for everyone. You can increase your chances of winning by up to 50 times if you share Savor with your friends and family. For a successful referral, make sure they download Savor too! Download Savor for iPhone or Android today! Ever wondered what life is like under the sea? Now you can catch a glimpse through real-time streaming, accessible via the Internet. The North-East Pacific Time series Underwater Networked Experiment (NEPTUNE), is streaming real-time data from the bottom of the ocean to researchers and public alike. The unique, high-speed optical cabling is stationed at Juan de Fuca, one of the Earth’s smallest tectonic plates. The submerged plate runs along the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia coast with cable networks running across more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) of this diverse environment. The non-profit organization Ocean Networks Canada put together a team of scientists, researchers, and engineers to assemble the intricate network. The subsea infrastructure is a loop of fibre optic cable connected to 130 instruments that provide researchers the unique opportunity to remotely receive data at laboratories located across the globe. As a result, the innovative system allows scientists to study the ocean through high temporal resolution observations not afforded by traditional ship-based exploration. The project aims to collect data on physical, chemical, biological and geological aspects of the ocean over a long period of time. Want a personal assistant for you home? Jibo, coming in 2015, is the robot for you. The Jibo team is currently launching a round of crowdsourced funding to bring Jibo to the market next year.
Jibo is a Cynthia Breazeal project. Breazeal, who directs the Personal Robots group at MIT’s media lab, explains that Jibo differs from other personal assistance technology on the market because he draws from multiple sources of sensory data. Jibo doesn’t just alert you of a text or email, he talks to you like a person would—when there is a notification he wants to tell you about, he says, “excuse me” and then waits for a reply. Jibo also provides next-level video chatting, with touch and audio-sensors that allow him turn to face whoever is talking. Plus he takes pictures and has a reading app, so you can upload books and Jibo will do an interactive reading with cartoon images of characters and events and character-appropriate voices. While Jibo is currently just used for communication, he has huge potential. Jibo’s operating system is cloud-based and Braezeal is interested in getting developers to create applications for Jibo’s linux-based OS, such as an application that would turn on lights when Jibo sees you enter a room. The funding campaign’s goal is to reach $100,000. Contributors can get a Jibo for $499 and developers interested in creating new applications for the Jibo Network can get one for $599. Read the full article on VentureBeat here. Learn more about Jibo or pre-order your own at http://www.myjibo.com. The month of July consists of many things: warm days, crowded beaches, heaps of watermelon and cold, delicious ice cream. In fact, July is national ice cream month and what better way to celebrate than with a new twist on one of summer’s most classic treats. As of recent, 3D printers have been a popular technological advancement creating things such as toys, prosthetics and household cutlery. However, students at MIT have taken a completely different approach using a 3D printer to print ice cream. The students designed a machine with two compartments, a print bed and a Solidoodle printer. One compartment housed liquid nitrogen and the other soft served ice cream. Combine the two with a hacked 3D printer and the students were able to design any shape ice cream they thought up. “We were inspired to design this printer because we wanted to make something fun with this up and coming technology in a way that we could grab the attention of kids,” said Kristine Bunker, one of the three students working on the project. Creating a fun and useful piece of technology combines not only sweet ice cream but also the idea that so much can come out of science and technology. This innovation was designed specifically for a class project and is not available for mass distribution. However, the students hope that this will be a stepping-stone for what’s to come. California Seniors, don’t let us hear you say life’s taking you nowhere – these are your golden years (whop whop whop) the nights are warm and the days are young and there’s a great new app to help you dust off those wings and fly like the social butterfly you are. The Aussie folks at Tapestry – the social networking site for seniors – are onto something new. According to their website, loneliness is now recognized as a bigger health risk than obesity or smoking. 40% of adults over fifty feel are feeling lonely at this very moment, but thankfully there’s an app currently in its trial phase aimed at bringing people together in a meaningful way. Stich is accepting registrations in Australia and California from mature individuals looking to find companionship, dates, and partners for travel and pastimes. Wait; is this Tinder for Grandma? No, she’s too classy for that. This service is for sophisticated adults who have far outgrown the rather shallow and often vulgar nature of Tinder and prefer instead a service that recognizes the unique needs, wants and desires of an older crowd who search for true companionship over a one-time encounter. Stitch knows that companionship can take a variety of forms. Users can chose from options such as Dinner Dates, Travel Companions, Love & Romance, Intimacy, Just Company or Shared Activities. The emphasis here is not on looks, but rather interests as true beauty is more than skin deep. Worried Grannie might get Catfished? Stitch has a 100% authenticity guarantee that ensures a hacker and scammer-free experience for its users. Profile pictures must be taken through the app, so there's no chance to apply a filter or upload a dashing shot of Robert Redford in place of your own mug au natural. To add to that, Stitch has a zero tolerance policy for adulterers and liars *snaps fingers in the Z formation*. This Summer introduce the seasoned adults in your life to a new platform where they can safely engage with others, make new friend and go on new adventures. These helpful dating tips for the over 50 crowd might prove useful as well! Last month Facebook published the details of the controversial mood experiment where social networks secretly manipulated users news feeds. The study involved some 700,000 uniformed users and sought to test how a persons happiness is affected by what they see online. In direct response a Dutch advertising company, Just, started a campaign called 99 Days of Freedom. The counter-experiment challenges Facebook users to quite the social networking site for 99 days and to complete anonymous happiness surveys on days 33, 66 and 99. According to Facebook, the network’s 1.2 billion users spend an average of 17 minutes per day on the site. Just claims that by taking on the challenge for about three months people will save an average of 28 hours. "Our prediction is that the experiment will yield a lot of positive personal experiences and, 99 days from now, we'll know whether that theory has legs," the group wrote in a press release. To join the campaign visit the project website and follow the 3 step instructions. Simply change your profile picture to the 99 Days of Freedom logo, create a countdown, and then log out of Facebook and remove the site from your mobile device. Since the launch of the project 19,133 people are “enjoying freedom.” On June 23, Ian Burkhart, paralyzed from the elbows down, moved his fingers with his mind—with the help of a mind-reading microchip implanted in his brain. The microchip technology is called Neurobridge, developed by researchers with medical nonprofit group Battelle and currently in a clinical trial period at Ohio State University.
How was this possible? The technology works by interpreting brain signals, which would normally be the duties of the spinal cord. The microchip, about the size of a contact lens, was surgically embedded into the back of Burkhart’s skull, where it was able to “read” commands from the part of his brain that controls movement. A wire connected the chip to a port, which synced with a cable to carry the information from the brain chip to a computer, where an algorithm decoded Burkhart’s commands. The computer connected to a sleeve of electrodes on Burkhart’s arm, which was designed to move in sequence to stimulate muscle fibers and trigger whatever movements he thought of, allowing him to move his had. Lead surgeon of the project, Dr. Ali Rezai, says his team is now looking into a wireless method for syncing the chip to the computer. Researchers say this is the start of a movement that could change the lives of paralyzed individuals across the world. Keep up to date with the Neurobridge’s new developments here. Read the full story on Mashable here. Today the iTunes app store turns six years old. Since this launch in 2008, a lot has changed for the app store and Apple in general. Today, the app store offers over 1.2 million apps that have been downloaded 75 billions times. To break it down, consumers are downloading roughly 800 apps per second. When it first started, there were only 500 available, which doubled in three days after opening. Since then the available apps have been steadily climbing. Similarly since 2008, Apple has released eight different iPhones from the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 5s. They have also produced five generations of the iPod Touch, four generations of the iPod Nano, two iPod Shuffles, and a new iPod Classic. On top of all of that, they released seven variations of the iPad. With this many device changes, the app store has been evolving as well. Not only does it have apps for the iPhone and iPod, but also a growing number of apps made specifically for the iPad – a rather new product. In a short six years, the app store has grown immensely. We can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for us in another six years! Happy Birthday, iTunes App Store. |
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