Google offers Fiber to more Provo residents, to expand coverage area throughout 2014
Provo residents who took advantage of Google Fiber’s early registration can no longer claim to be the chosen few. The company has started accepting sign-ups from more folks, so long as they live in select areas along the former iProvo network. Registration is only open in three areas for now, but Google plans to offer the service to a widening pool of eligible residents throughout the year. Not sure if you qualify? Check out Google Fiber’s website to see if registration’s already open in your area or to submit an application if it is. Unfortunate souls living outside of the planned coverage area, however, will have to settle for a consolation prize: Google is giving away mugs to locals who sign up for the Provo mailing list.
Source: Google Fiber
Google’s reasonably priced Street View car tours Top Gear’s test track
Like swerving bends and screaming “powerrr!” as much as you dislike electric vehicles? Imagine your delight, then, when you learn that Google and the BBC have teamed up to send one of the former’s street view cars around Dunsfold Aerodrome — more famously known as Top Gear’s test track. As you zoom around the lap, you’ll notice a Mercedes Benz SLS AMG popping up by your side, ably driven by the show’s tame racing driver. Some say he’s a clone of Justin Bieber gone right, and that he prefers to think of Dunsfold Aerodrome as the place where they shot the Miami Airport sequence of Casino Royale. All we know, is that he’s called The Stig.
Via: BBC
Source: Google Maps
South Korea preparing 5G network for launch in 2020
In the middle of last year, we heard that Samsung had uncovered the technology required to achieve 5G network speeds, alleged to be a hundred times faster than existing 4G LTE networks. While researching the technology is one thing, actually building a mobile network capable of 5G speeds is quite another thing. Naturally then, one of the first countries to attempt building such a network would inevitably be South Korea, home to one of the world’s first LTE-Advanced networks.
To do this, it’s going to require the teaming up of South Korea’s greatest telecommunications giants including Samsung, LG, Korea Telecom and SK Telecom to build the network which is planned to be one thousand times faster than 4G networks. Yes, you read that right: one thousand. This would allow the network to top out at 1Gbps and achieve downloading feats such as downloading a 800MB movie in just a second. It almost sounds too good to be true, or at least, cost a trillion dollars to develop and finish. Actually, it’s a little closer to 1.6 trillion. 1.6 trillion won to be exact, or around $1.4 billion USD, and the planned finish date of the network is in 2020, with a trial service to occur prior to that in 2017.
It’s noteworthy to mention that South Korea isn’t the only country working on a 5G network at the moment either; Huawei is using its network expertise to develop its network in China and NTT Docomo is doing the same in its native Japan. At this point, it looks like a race to the finish, but at the end of the day, when 5G is commonplace, we all win.
Can you wrap your head around how fast 5G mobile internet is going to be? Let us know what you think about 5G.
Source: Yonhap News via CNET Australia
Tizen release hits another snag according to Samsung Official
Tizen has been receiving a reasonable amount of attention lately thanks to several leaks that have given us a very nice look at how its developing. While it is technically being developed as an open-source project under the Linux Foundation, it’s commonly seen as Samsung‘s baby to bring to the smartphone market, one which has had several false starts in recent memory. The latest false start was reportedly confirmed by an anonymous official from Samsung’s Media Solution Center who let loose that Samsung had planned to release Tizen handsets in Korea and Russia in the first half of this year, but that has unfortunately been put on hold.
This is the latest delay that also saw Japan’s NTT DoCoMo can the Tizen launch that was scheduled in March due to lack of demand. Seeing how saturated the smartphone market is getting, particularly the Android market, it’s doubtful that there will be a ‘right’ time to launch Tizen. All the same, Tizen is reportedly going to be shown at MWC 2014 next month so it will be good to see what kind of progress has been made since we saw it last.
Do you think Tizen is going to come out this year? What are your thoughts on how it’s going to perform in today’s smartphone industry? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Tizen Indonesia via Mashable
Coder defeats Snapchat’s anti-bot system in less than an hour
Apparently, Snapchat’s spot-the-ghost human verification tool isn’t all that clever — Steven Hickson has already written software that circumvents the anti-bot feature. His technique simply finds the best matches between Snapchat’s sample pictures and a reference image. It’s not flawless, but it’s still accurate — no mean feat for something that took less than an hour to program. Whether or not there will be a fix isn’t clear. At this stage, the company will only tell us that it’s making “significant progress” in locking down its chat service. While the statement hints that more security measures are on the way, it doesn’t guarantee that Snapchat will defeat Hickson’s code.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile
Source: Steve’s Computer Vision Blog
Independent federal review board calls for NSA to end ‘illegal’ phone call data collection
Following up on what we’ve learned about the NSA’s various spying activities over the last year, the aptly-named Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is apparently ready to issue a report on the mess. Established in 2004 (but only fully operational since November) within the executive branch to serve as an independent source of advice to the president on… privacy and civil liberties, it has arrived somewhat late to the party (President Obama announced reform plans last week, but has said its recommendations will be considered going forward), and delivering a split opinion which leans in favor of ending the NSA’s bulk collection of information about phone calls (phone numbers, call times and duration). The 238-page report will be released later today but reporters for the New York Times and Washington Post got an early peek and have highlighted the key points.
The board has concluded that the NSA’s phone metadata program does not meet the legal standard of the Patriot Act, raises serious privacy threats and is only of limited value at best. It’s also opposed to a tweak proposed by the president’s appointed panel that would see data held by a third party instead. Pointing out specific cases where other methods could have been used, it’s recommending ending the program and making sure any government requests for data are tied to specific investigations. So far the program has continued on even after its existence was revealed and declassified, we’ll see if these and other opinions have any affect the next time it’s up for consideration.
Filed under: Internet
Source: New York Times, Washington Post
[Review] Shine by Misfit Wearables – Fitness Tracking in Style
I got a red Shine.
Today, I present the Shine by Misfit Wearables. It’s a fitness tracker and watch that comes in several colors including Grey, Jet, Topaz, Champagne, and Red. It has interchangeable bands that transform how it looks and how it’s worn, allowing one to adapt the Shine as desired.
Shine is an all-metal, lightweight activity monitor that can be worn anywhere on the body to track activity (steps, calories, distance) and sleep (light, deep). It syncs wirelessly and effortlessly with smartphones and is powered by a coin cell battery for up to 4-6 months, allowing users to forego cables for syncing or charging. Made from diamond-cut, aircraft-grade aluminum, Shine was designed to be timeless and built to last a lifetime.
The Shine was first on sale in early 2013, but was iOS only. In early December though, an Android version of the app was released. At CES 2014, the AndroidSPIN team had the pleasure of trying out a few for several days during the non-stop walk-a-thon.
The Look
A sleek, minimalist design artfully hides this unseemingly, fully-functional fitness tracker. To the passerby, the Shine looks like a fancy bracelet or perhaps a nice watch of some sort. It’s the perfect look for these kinds of things that I love.
Stormy got a jet Shine.
The Shine fits in at both the gym and the office alike. It can be worn in several configurations with options including a waterproof sports band, a necklace, a leather watch band, or simply as a clasp that can attach to pretty much anything ranging from a sport coat to a tennis shoe.
Technical Stuff
The Shine uses a three-motion accelerometer in conjunction with bio-metric algorithms to process data into useful readouts. Data is collected from all daily activities including walking, running, workouts, sleeping, and even swimming (it’s waterproof). It calculates steps, distance, sleep, deep sleep, and calories, and converts this all into a user-friendly point system based on height and weight that defaults at 1,000 points.
A Shine’s insides per their site.
The Shine syncs via Bluetooth Low Energy Support, and requires Android 4.3 or above to work with the Android app. Officially supported devices are the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 & Note 3, and Nexus 4 & 5, though other 4.3 devices may work even though they’re not listed. For instance, it works just fine with Stormy’s Sony Xperia Z.
Function
The App
The Shine comes with an accompanying app for your smartphone that pairs with Android and iOS devices alike. As stated earlier there’s a point system that is based on what activities you’re doing. You can set your daily point goal different than the default 1,000 simply by clicking the up and down arrows in settings under Adjust Goal. Your progress is shown in orange segments around your daily points so far. Below the points the app will show you your daily progress in steps, miles, and calories in orange text. Below this, towards the bottom of the screen in purple text, the app will show sleep patterns as total sleep and deep sleep in hours.
A week in the life of Stormy Beach and then some…
The Device Itself
Double tap the face of the Shine to awaken it, first displaying your daily point progress in the same fashion as the app, but instead of orange bars, it’s shown as a series of 12 lights. Well, 12 lights fit perfectly for what it does next. After double tapping the face and after your point progress is shown, the Shine displays an analog clock with a solid dot denoting the hour and a flashing dot representing minutes rounded to five minute increments. Alternatively, you can reverse this function in the settings to show the time first then you goal progress. Triple tap the face to put the Shine into sleep tracking mode, there’s no need to set it back into daily tracking mode, because the Shine knows when ‘you’ve been sleeping, it knows when you’re awake, it knows when you’ve been bad or good…’ just remember to triple tap its face.
Impressions
At CES, all of our crew were wearing a Shine at one point or another. Rarely do we get to test a product simultaneously, and I’m happy to report that everyone including myself loved it. What’s not to love? It’s functionally simple, has amazingly low power consumption, works as advertised, and let’s just face it—it looks great.
I’ve seen a lot of fitness trackers and this is probably my favorite. Everyone at the office asks me about ‘that new red thingy on my wrist’ and I have nothing but good things to say about it. My offices does a fitness program and I’m more than happy to recommend the Shine as a tracker for the program’s needs.
I must say that the ‘most difficult’ part of using the Shine is remembering to triple tap it before falling asleep. I’m guilty of not doing this for several nights either because I simply forgot or I passed out before I had a chance to. Either way, this is a good habit to get into so you can use the Shine to its full potential. That’s hardly a gripe that’s any reflection on the Shine itself, just something to take note of. Anyway, take a gander at some pics of the Shine in action both at home and at CES:
The Shine by Misfit Wearables starts in price around $100 and goes from there depending on what accessories you buy. If you’re interested in the Shine, check it out:
Android Push Notifications Infringe on SimpleAir Patent
Push notifications are a feature that we often hear, and don’t think twice about. If you happen to be not familiar on what push notifications are, its just those notifications you get on your device as they come in right as they arrive to whatever service you are using. If it weren’t for push notifications, the apps on your device would have to check to see if you have message or what not, has come in an interval that you would have to decide. Some apps still don’t run on push notifications due to battery drains, but Google apps have always ran on the push notification way. Now it looks like Google is going to have to pay for it.
The infringement of push notifications happen to infringe on a patent set in motion by SimpleAir. SimpleAir is seeking a $125 million payment from Google in this case, which Google asked for a mistrial. Sadly, the court determined that 5 claims found Google guilty of infringement, and will have to pay SimpleAir. The court described it as “system and method for transmission of data”, so bad luck for Google. The dollar amount that Google will have to pay SimpleAir is still yet to be determined, but we can all shake our heads in disappoint on how stupid it is. Let us know your thoughts about this.
Source: Phandroid
Quick Video Shows 8 Different Color Options for the Nexus 5
Looks like Google might take the Moto X approach to the Nexus 5, by giving customers the option to choose their colors in a Moto Maker type manner. A quick video showed up today, showing someone’s computer screen where they could pick between 8 different colors for the Nexus 5. It is pretty similar to the Moto Maker, but you only get to choose the back plate color and that is about it.
So possibly we might be getting an announcement from Google about this, if this video is legit. It is super quick, but check it out, and let us know your thoughts about it.
Source: Talk Android
Original Video– More videos at TinyPic
Beats Music putting a hold on new users, but doubles trial Length
Seems everyone is out to at least try Beats Music. It was only yesterday that the new streaming / curation service was announced and unleashed across multiple platforms, but now it seems they weren’t ready for the lime light that it would bring. In a recent blog post put up only 7 hours ago, we find out that there are some issues. CEO Ian C. Rogers lets everyone know what is happening:
Due to the extremely high volume of interest in our service some users are experiencing issues. Most people are unaffected but our priority is to give everyone a great experience. We prepared for issues like these, have a plan, and are going to hold off on letting more people in while we put this plan in action.
The plan of action is this, if you haven’t yet pulled the trigger and registered to use Beats Music, you are out of luck, for now. They will be holding back those new registrations for the time being and ship you an email to let you through the gates when it is time. For all you curious people out there that registered yesterday and in on trying out the new service, you guys will be getting an additional 7 days on top of your 7 day free trial. For the mathematically challenged, that means your trial will be 14 days long before you have to pony up the $10 for a monthly subscription.
That still leaves the users that did a little name claiming prior to launch that haven’t signed up and in yet. You are still fine, Beats Music is holding your name for you, but you will probably get shifted to the waiting list if you jump on board now.
Anyone out there not tried out Beats Music yet? Apparently it is a “thing” that I missed out on.
Source: Beats Blog
Via: TNW
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