Mio’s Alpha Kickstarter Project Is A Very Cool, Touch-Free Heart-Rate Monitor Watch

Mio made some fairly cool heart-rate watches a few years ago but they required you to place a finger on two little pads while running in order to take the measurements. It was interesting, and when you consider that most other heart-rate watches require a chest strap, fairly unique. However, nobody wanted to touch a little thinger just to get their heart rate. Enter the Mio Alpha. This new product uses a precise light sensor to sense your heart rate on the go. No straps, no muss, no fuss. It's pretty ingenious.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/29/mio-alpha/

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Evernote Web gets a new interface, Facebook sharing, and more

Evernote, the popular multi-platform 'digital memory' app, has done some serious re-tooling of its Web interface. In addition to a more polished UI that more closely mirrors the look of Evernote on the desktop, the update brings features like notebook stacks and snippet view to the Web.

Auto-saving is now enabled as well, and you can select multiple items by holding down the Cmd or Ctrl key on your Mac or Windows keyboard. If you've got items stored in your notebooks that you want to share with friends or co-workers, Evernote has improved that process, too. You can quickly post an item to Facebook, share it via email, or generate a Web sharing link to paste into an IM conversation or status update.

Head over to the Evernote Web login page to try out the new interface.

Evernote Web gets a new interface, Facebook sharing, and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/29/evernote-web-gets-a-new-interface-facebook-sharing-and-more/

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Ren Ng Steps Down As Lytro CEO, Will Take Over As Executive Chairman; Charles Chi Named Interim CEO

Lytro Founder Ren Ng has announced that he's stepping down as CEO and will be transitioning into the company's Executive Chairman effective immediately. Charles Chi, the current Executive Chairman, has been named interim CEO until a more permanent CEO has been found.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/29/ren-ng-steps-down-as-lytro-ceo-will-take-over-as-executive-chairman-charles-chi-named-interim-ceo/

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Algorithms/Data vs. Analysts/Reports: Fight!

Quick, what's the second most traded commodity in the world, after oil? Sorry, no: it's not coffee. In fact, while hard data is scant, it may well be -- of all things -- carbon. No, really. According to the World Bank (PDF) , the global carbon market was worth a whopping 1.42 Facebooks US$142 billion in 2010. Mind you, it's not like container ships weighed down to the gills with graphite are crossing and recrossing the Pacific every week. What we're actually talking about here is the trade in carbon offsets, ie, the absence of carbon. Very Zen, no? Anyway, techies should be comfortable with this notion; I seem to recall spending less time studying electrons than I did "holes," ie their absence, while acquiring my EE degree. Anyway, where there's a $twelve-figures market, there are startups fighting for a share. In particular, there's a bit of a war on to see who will be the primary aggregator of carbon-market data. On one side, dominating the market, I give you the Goliaths Point Carbon, a tentacle of the Thomson Reuters kraken, providing "independent news, analysis and consulting services for European and global power, gas and carbon markets," and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, doing much the same. On the other, I give you plucky little David eCO2Market, a Paris-based startup with an algorithmic sling.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/04/algorithmsdata-vs-analystsreports-fight/

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Help Bob make money in Sticks, a fun physics game

Sticks is another one of those rare games where the intro is actually worth watching. It introduces you to office worker Bob, who is basically a wage slave fantasizing about a better existence.

Then, on his way back home from another grueling day at the office, he passes a huge sign which says "Sticks." This is where the game starts.

Each level has a number of coins hovering in mid-air, and your goal is to place sticks that lead those coins to Bob -- but you only have a limited amount of wood to play with. As soon as you're done placing your sticks strategically, hit the big Play button and let nature, or rather gravity, run its course. The coins will drop down, and if you place your sticks correctly, they will roll all the way to Bob.

The soundtrack is soothing and playful, and didn't get on my nerves even after playing for quite a while. All in all, a very cute game, especially for a day at the office.

Help Bob make money in Sticks, a fun physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/18/help-bob-make-money-in-sticks-a-fun-physics-game/

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Google I/O debrief from Android HQ

Google I/O 2012 is winding down and what a developer conference it was. If you missed any of Android Central's coverage, you'll want to grab yourself a cool bevvie, kick back and catch up on a ton of reading. Or, if you have only 3m47s to spare, you can watch the video above for Phil and Alex's quick recap on the big news of the week. 

We figured there could be no better setting for an I/O debrief than from the home of Android, so this one is coming at you straight from Android HQ, also known as Building 44 at Google's Mountain View Campus. And if you're wondering where Jerry is, well, he skipped the road trip to hang back in SF and take in more I/O sessions. That guy is hardcore.

Why are you still reading this? Hit play!!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/sqAt0ahq7tQ/story01.htm

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Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Google, in an interesting but not entirely unexpected twist, will not be open-sourcing Android 3.0 Honeycomb for the foreseeable future.

Historically, Android is usually open-sourced via the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) a few days or weeks after the code is finalized. While this departure from the norm won't affect OEMs like HTC and Motorola that have access to internal builds of Android, small-time developers will likely have to wait months before rolling their own distributions.

As to why Google is holding back Honeycomb, its reasons are actually rather rational. Honeycomb, while originally intended to run on all mobile form factors, is only ready for deployment on tablets. "To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."

In other words, Google wants to prevent OEMs and homebrew developers like Cyanogen from rolling their own smartphone versions of Honeycomb -- it doesn't want to see the same bitter-tasting tabletified bastardization that occurred with Android 2.1 and 2.2 last year.

Continue reading Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/google-holds-back-on-open-sourcing-honeycomb-heralds-shift-android/

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Google Analytics Goes Mobile With App Analytics And An Android App

Google is announcing a big addition to Google Analytics today — Mobile App Analytics. As with the social media-focused reports launched earlier this year, the interest in mobile analytics is obvious — if anything, it may seem that Google is a little late in chasing these trends. In this case, Product Manager JiaJing Wang says the goal was to create a "holistic app analytics." While there are other mobile analytics services out there, Wang says none of them really tracks all of the data that's relevant to an app developer, so they end up stitching different services together into a "disparate and taxing experience."

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/29/google-mobile-app-analytics/

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Retroficiency Identifies Building Energy Inefficiencies Without Ever Stepping Inside

Buildings are blamed for as much as 40% of U.S. energy consumption, and while green construction is on the rise, identifying the best ways to make and older building more efficient can be a tedious manual endeavor. Retroficiency, whose aim is to disrupt the energy efficiency market, eases the process with the help of extensive data sets and predictive analytics.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/20/retroficiency-building-energy/

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Skype 5.3 for Windows released, improves mobile video call quality

Version 5.3 of Skype for Windows has just been released, with the main emphasis of the new release being improved call quality, and the quality of video received by mobile Skype users. Presumably one party of the video call must be using Skype for Windows 5.3, though.

Beyond improved call quality, not much has changed. You can now see your friends' presence icons when contact cards are collapsed, and the topic editing button is now always visible on the conversation header. For a complete list of changes, hit up the Skype Garage blog.

Download Skype 5.3 for Windows

Skype 5.3 for Windows released, improves mobile video call quality originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/skype-5-3-for-windows-released-improves-mobile-video-call-quali/

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Interlocked is a three-dimensional brain teaser

Back when I was a kid, I used to love crafting ornate puzzle boxes out of Lego. There would be just one way to open the box, by carefully shifting and rotating a bunch of pieces. Well, either that, or breaking the box in frustration.

Interlocked takes that spirit and turns it into a beautiful Flash game. It's a good thing the soundtrack is soothing, because the game itself can get pretty frustrating.

At the start of each level, you're presented with a box built out of blocks in different colors. You can click and drag the mouse to rotate the box any which way. Once you decide you want to shift a part of the box, hit SPACE to switch into "move" mode. You can then click any part of the box and drag it. Of course, you can only move a part as long as nothing is in its way. So it becomes a matter of understanding how the box is built, and what parts you need to move around so you could eventually take the box apart.

It's a tricky, difficult game, but it's a great brain teaser -- and definitely a keeper.

Interlocked is a three-dimensional brain teaser originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/29/interlocked-is-a-three-dimensional-brain-teaser/

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Yodo1 Raises $2 Million To Help Game Developers Enter China

Beijing-based Yodo1, a service that helps game developers enter the Chinese market, is today announcing it has closed $2 million in seed funding from Chang You Fund. The round was led by Chang You Fund's Managing Partner and former Focus Media CEO Zhi Tan. In addition to the funding, the company also noted that its developer partner Robot Entertainment will bring its "Hero Academy" game to the Chinese market.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/28/yodo1-raises-2-million-to-help-game-developers-enter-china/

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iOS 6 Includes Gay And Lesbian Couple Emoji

Now this is nice: Apple has updated their Emoji collection to reflect reality. They've added a lesbian and homosexual couple to the usual collection of goofy faces, monkeys, and weird skulls. The new Emoji will appear in iOS 6 but to access the keyboard now in iOS 5 just pop into "Settings>General>Keyboard" and click International Keyboards. Add a new keyboard and select Emoji. Now, when you type, press the globe button near the keyboard and you'll see a selection of icons for your perusal.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/apple/~3/PxAuAV_z5BE/

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Gigapixel Photography: It's All in the Details

To test the 1-gigapixel AWARE-2 camera his team developed, David Brady, a professor at Duke, took a few snapshots of tundra swans. "Normally, with bird photography you're rushing to point the camera in the right direction," he said. "Here we just took a bunch of pictures and then went back later to see what we had.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/20ba089b/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C754660Bhtml/story01.htm

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Hands-On With Sergey Brin’s Personal Set Of Google Glass

Outside of approved Googlers, a handful of folks have just been given a canned demo of Google Glass, including myself. I'm living in the future and the future is now!

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/27/hands-on-with-google-glass/

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Google Chrome and Chromium add protection against malicious downloads

Google Chrome already sports a number of security-minded features, from Incognito mode to a software sandbox which makes exploiting the browser a Herculean task. Now, Google has announced additional protection for Chromium and Chrome users.

Built upon the Safe Browsing API, the new feature introduces protection against malicious downloads. If a download link appears in the Safe Browsing blacklist, Chrome and Chromium will warn users against downloading -- a save button is still presented, of course, in case you're convinced a file is perfectly safe to download.

We'd like to see something a bit more eye-catching than the red warning icon -- like perhaps painting the entire bar red. Many of the people a feature like this aims to protect probably won't notice the icon or change in wording as they'll be focused on clicking the save button.

Google is initially making download protection available to Chrome dev channel users, and you'll likely see it in Canary and Chromium snapshot builds as well. After thorough testing, beta and stable users will be next in line.

Google Chrome and Chromium add protection against malicious downloads originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/google-chrome-and-chromium-add-protection-against-malicious-down/

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Windows 8 getting a built-in PDF reader, Metro-style

For what seems like an eternity, Download Squad readers have reacted to news of security exploits targeting Adobe Reader with a common sentiment: why doesn't Microsoft build its own secure PDF reader into Windows? Apparently the Windows 8 team agrees, and they're working away at an application called Modern Reader which is exactly that.

From the handful of screenshots Paul Thurrott has shared, it's clear that Modern Reader has been built with Metro in mind. You can see the Reader back button in the top-left corner of the yellow image and the minimal page navigation bar on the right. We've posted some larger images we managed to scrape from Google's cache after the break.

Thurrott also mentions that Modern Reader is the first program spotted which is built using AppX -- a packaging technology that may allow developers to roll a single build to both Windows 8 desktops and Windows Phone 8 mobile devices.

Continue reading Windows 8 getting a built-in PDF reader, Metro-style

Windows 8 getting a built-in PDF reader, Metro-style originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/windows-8-getting-a-built-in-pdf-reader-finally/

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Google Glass Explorer Edition Available For Pre-Order At Google I/O, $1,500 And Shipping Next Year

Google Glass is real and will soon be shipping. Sergey Brin just took the stage at Google I/O, won the Internet with an amazing skydiving demo of the device and then announced that Google Glass is available for pre-ordering. Named Glass Explorer Edition, it's available to those at Google I/O and costs a whopping $1500. Plus, the device will not ship until next year. But Google Glass is real. This is big.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/27/google-glass-dev-build-available-for-pre-order-at-google-io-1500-and-shipping-next-year/

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Bellowing Ads Have No Place in iTunes

As an Apple product-lovin' enthusiast, my default gut reaction is to defend Apple, just like my gut reaction to defend my family and friends. When Apple does something silly, or more likely doesn't do something it ought to do -- or consumers wish it would do -- I tend to think about it from the perspective of Apple's business interests. And I rationalize it.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/20ce552b/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C7550A0A0Bhtml/story01.htm

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Video: Giant Nexus Q robot stalks the halls of Google I/O

Last year it was an oversized Android-powered labyrinth, and this year the centerpiece of the Google I/O second-floor display was a giant robotic Google Nexus Q. Attached to a robot arm and adorned with glowing, rhythmic LEDs, the 'bot played music to attendees passing through I/O.

Announced yesterday, the Nexus Q is a miniature Android-powered computer and media center for your living room. It's due out in July, and I/O attendees were given preview units yesterday. We'll be bringing you more on Google's latest foray into home entertainment over the next day, but for now you can find footage of its oversized robotic cousin after the break.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/M4oXKq2MAbA/story01.htm

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NPD: 70% Of Consumers Now Watch TV On Non-TV Devices; PCs Reign Supreme

Some well-timed research out from NPD, just in time for Google gearing up for its I/O event, where it is announcing news about Google TV, new wireless devices and Android. The researchers say that TV consumption on tablets has more than doubled in the last year in the 14 markets that it surveys, and 70 percent of consumers now say they watch video on devices other than TVs. The device leading the charge -- or change, as the case may be? PCs; tablets still accounting for less than 15 percent of TV consumption. TV, meanwhile, still ranks as the single most-used device for watching television, accounting for the other 30 percent of TV viewing.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/27/npd-70-of-consumers-now-watch-tv-on-non-tv-devices-pcs-reign-supreme/

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PSX games now available in the Android Market, if you own an Xperia Play

If you're lucky enough to own an Xperia Play -- Sony Ericsson's new Gingerbread-powered smartphone-cum-gamepad -- you can now buy PlayStation (PSX) titles from the Android Market.

There are five titles currently available, all priced at £3.99: Syphon Filter, MediEvil, Cool Boarders 2, Destruction Derby, and Jumping Flash. They don't have an American price yet, but that will surely change once the Xperia Play launches in the States.

Two important questions remain unanswered: How big are these games? The Market descriptions say the games are only 5MB, but that sounds incredibly unlikely -- and more importantly, will it be possible to 'spoof' the Xperia Play and download PSX games onto other Gingerbread-powered phones, like the Nexus S?

In other news, the PlayStation emulator PSX4droid was recently removed from the Android Market. This obviously has nothing to do with today's release of first-party PlayStation games.

PSX games now available in the Android Market, if you own an Xperia Play originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/psx-games-now-available-in-the-android-market/

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Today’s Google Doodle Is An Actual Turing Machine

Today's Google Doodle is a working Turing machine that contains six puzzles. Sophia Foster-Dimino on Google's Doodle team built the app in honor of Alan Turing's 100th birthday. What's a Turing machine? It's not an actual machine, per se, but a thought experiment that allowed for the advent of digital computing.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/23/todays-google-doodle-is-an-actual-turing-machine/

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Google Earth for Android improves 3D buildings, adds Tour Guide

 

Google Earth was another one of the many apps updated for Android Jelly Bean, and includes a new Tour Guide mode to help you find the important sights in a new city. Collections of thousands of notable points of interest will pop up in Tour Guide, and with a quick tap, Maps will fly over to it and provide information from Wikipedia on the spot. The updated Google Earth for Android will also include improved 3D imagery created using 45-degree satellite photography. You can take a look at the new automatically-generated models in the video below. 

You can download Google Earth in the Play store here if you don't have it already. The iOS version will be updated shortly, if you're into that kind of thing. 

Anyone excited for the update? Do you tend to use Google Earth that often even with Maps around?

Source: Google Lat-Long

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/pFpW0_NjhLc/story01.htm

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Strategy Analytics: Apple Has Shipped 250M iPhones, Made $150B In Revenues In The Past 5 Years

We know that Apple has been making a killing from the iPhone, with the device reigning as the single-most popular smartphone in a number of markets -- despite Android-based handsets collectively having a bigger lead. Now, with the fifth anniversary of the iPhone fast approaching -- it's June 29 -- Strategy Analytics has calculated just how big that killing is: Apple has shipped 250 million iPhones worldwide, and the iPhone has generated $150 billion in cumulative revenues, it estimates. The figures cover the entire family of iPhone devices -- from the first model released in 2007 through to the most recent iPhone 4S. Of them, Strategy Analytics tells me that the device that has topped the list has been the iPhone 4 -- both in terms of price and volume. However, there is a dark shadow around today's news, too. Strategy Analytics believes that if the first five years were awesome, the next five will be a lot more challenging, for several reasons:

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/27/strategy-analytics-apple-has-shipped-250m-iphones-made-150b-in-revenues-in-the-past-5-years/

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