Lix reveals a portable, pro-grade 3D printing pen
There’s little doubt that 3Doodler’s 3D printing pen is fun, but it’s not strictly a precision tool; it’s big, and mid-air drawing can get messy. Lix believes that pros need something more accurate, so it’s crowdfunding a 3D pen of its own. The printer is about as slim and comfortable as a technical pen, giving it the kind of accuracy you’d need for air-drawn artwork and even some prototyping for architecture and fashion. It’s easier to carry with you, as well — Lix’s device takes power from a USB port rather than a wall outlet, so you can draw wherever inspiration strikes.
Lix has already met its funding target in just the space of a day, so an £82 ($135) pledge should get you the production 3D pen (plus some starter plastic filament) when it ships in December. That’s decidedly more expensive than the $99 3Doodler, but Lix believes that the sleek design and professional focus merit the premium. You can judge for yourself by checking out the clip below.
Filed under: Peripherals
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Kickstarter
Hulu will bring free TV shows to your phone, and it’s trying to reach your cable box
One advantage Hulu has always had over other streaming services is that it has newer TV shows, and you can watch them for free. What’s frustrated viewers however, is that it only applies if you’re watching on a computer, since phones and TV apps have always required a Plus subscription that opens up a slightly different library of content. Today in New York the streamer announced that this summer it’s going to offer “a selection of ad-supported full TV episodes on mobile devices- for free.” Other news includes that it’s crested six million subscribers to Plus so far — it had five million in December — and that its quest to “lead the industry in ad innovations” has resulted in several new developments. The most notable of them is the “In-Stream Purchase Unit” it’s bringing out later this year that at launch, will let viewers order from Pizza Hut without leaving Hulu. New CEO Mike Hopkins also mentioned that Hulu is talking to cable providers to get the Plus service on set-top boxes — Netflix just launched on a few smaller providers — although there aren’t any deals to announce yet.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile
Source: Hulu
Apple Again Trails Market in Smartphone Growth, but Closes on Nokia in Overall Mobile Phones
As it has for several quarters now, Apple continues to trail the overall smartphone market’s booming growth, with the company’s 16.8 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter registering as the lowest among top five vendors in a market that grew by 28.6 percent as a whole, according to a new report from research firm IDC. Market leader Samsung also trailed the broader market’s growth as Huawei, Lenovo, and LG all jockeyed for position in the closely contested third through fifth spots in the rankings.
Worldwide smartphone shipments in 1Q14 in millions of units (Source: IDC)
Apple reached a new first quarter record, breaching the 40 million unit mark. The company saw double-digit growth in Japan as well as across multiple developing markets, including Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia. Still, this made for the lowest year-over-year improvement among the leading vendors. What remains to be seen is when – not if – Apple’s rumored large-screen models will arrive on the market, filling a gap in the company’s portfolio that has been exploited by the competition.
In the overall mobile phone market, Apple again outperformed most of the competition as feature phone sales continue to dwindle. With Apple’s all-smartphone lineup taking nearly 10 percent of the overall market in the quarter, the company is within striking distance of Nokia, which garnered 11.3 percent of the market as it continues to be hit hard by the decline in feature phone sales and instability as it has shifted from Symbian to Windows Phone. Just days ago, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nokia’s phone unit, officially uniting software and hardware in what has been a close partnership over the last several years.
Worldwide mobile phone shipments in 1Q14 in millions of units (Source: IDC)
Apple last week announced record March quarter earnings on the strength of its 43.7 million iPhones shipped. The iPhone continues to drive Apple’s overall financial performance, representing 57 percent of the company’s revenue for the quarter.
Google’s Nexus 6 is said to be based on the LG G3
The LG G3 may not be released just yet, but it seems that the upcoming flagship device by LG may be forming the basis for the next Nexus 6 by Google if recent reports are anything to go by.
Whilst the Nexus 6 is touted for the second half of 2014, not much else is known about the device, but it seems LG will continue their partnership with Google and the hardware will be based around the LG G3, with the addition of an integrated fingerprint sensor.
If true, the Nexus 6 could follow the design language of the LG G3 with the slimmer bezels, but is likely to only feature a 5.2-inch screen at 1440 x 2560 resolution, as opposed to the rumoured 5.5-inch of the LG G3, which would give sufficient room for a fingerprint sensor placed on the front of the device much like the Galaxy S5, without increasing the size of the device too much.
It’s also thought that the Snapdragon 805 SoC with a quad-core 2.7 GHz 450 CPU and Adreno 420 GPU will power the Nexus 6, as Qualcomm state their chips will be seen powering devices in the second half of 2014.
If all this is true, the Nexus 6 is shaping up to be one mighty device.
SOURCE: AndroidGeeks
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The BRAVEN 710 is now available in Australia and New Zealand, brings with it epic, portable Sound
We’re big fans of BRAVEN here at AndroidSPIN and when we first heard about the BRAVEN 710, we were extremely excited to hear about the latest entry in BRAVEN’s amazing line of premium audio products. Like many of its brethren, the BRAVEN 710 is a portable wireless Bluetooth speaker that is also water resistant and made from aircraft grade aluminium. Thankfully for those of us Down Under, the BRAVEN 710 has finally made its way down south and is available immediately in Australia and New Zealand.
Like its predecessors, the BRAVEN 710 boasts a burgeoning list of features including custom HD audio drivers, an IPX5 water resistant rating, and NFC-enabled Bluetooth connectivity. And like BRAVEN’s other products, the 710 also offers TrueWireless Technology which allows you to wirelessly daisy chain two 710′s to create true stereo sound with one right and one left speaker. And that’s just some of the great features that can be had for $229.99 AUD or $249.99 NZD. If you’re interested in picking one (or more) up, you will be able to get them at selected retailers in both countries:
Australia Retailers: My Byte, Tech2Go Airport stores, Pacific Hi Fi, Beezer.com.au, Macfixit.com.au, Modlifeonline.com.au
New Zealand Retailers: Yoobee, Ballantynes, SouthTec
Have you owned a BRAVEN product before? Share your experiences with us in the comments below.
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Hackers set to release Bitcoin-laundering app ‘Dark Wallet’
Ever since sites like Silk Road showed the dark side of anonymous Bitcoin transactions, governments have been trying to regulate the crypto-currency. But a group of coders — headed by 3D-printed gun creator Cody Wilson and Amir Taaki (above) — want to keep that genie out of the bottle with a new app called Dark Wallet. It was first launched on Indiegogo, where it met its $50,000 funding goal, thanks in part to Bitcoin donations. The software could make it nearly impossible to trace the currency’s flow, thanks to a one-two punch of encryption and “CoinJoin” technology. In brief, the latter code registers multiple transactions as a single movement of funds, masking transfers.
Though such software is questionably legal, the group flat-out admitted that the app’s main purpose is for illicit transactions, like those on the now-defunct Silk Road. But according to Wired, authorities like the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network are “well aware” of the software, and plan to be “vigilant” about activities around it. As for whether it could be used in murder-for-hire or other abhorrent crimes? “Liberty is a dangerous thing,” Wilson said. Whether you agree with that or not, the app is set to arrive tomorrow.
Source: Wired
Sony’s Evolution UI tries to make learning Android fun
Ever get “ghost hands,” where you’re always trying to take the smartphone away from a novice to show them how it’s done? Well, Sony is working on something a little more polite. The company has announced Evolution UI, an intentionally hobbled Android launcher that forces you to perform perfunctory tasks before you can properly use the device. For instance, when you first launch the system, you’ll only be able to access the dialer, SMS app, browser and camera. If you wanted to open the app drawer, however, you’d have to earn it as an achievement by starting and closing five apps in quick succession. The idea is to turn discovering your phone’s features into a series of console-style achievements and unlocks.
At the moment, Evolution UI is just a research project that’s been kicking around Sony’s headquarters. That said, the company has released the launcher to GitHub for others in the open source community to play around with. In practice, it feels as if the system could frustrate anyone but the most green technology users. That’s why if it ever does come to retail hardware, we’d be looking for the off switch — if we had to go through all of these hoops every time we opened a new device, we’d quickly develop a condition far worse than “ghost hands.”
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Sony, Google
Via: Android Beat
Concept smartwatch uses the whole screen as a joystick (video)
It ain’t easy using a smartwatch, especially if you have gigantic fingers. So, a team from Carnegie Mellon University developed a concept smartwatch that turns the whole screen into one relatively big input mechanism. By that, we mean you can pan, twist, zoom, tilt and click the screen by physically moving the watchface — the whole thing (sans the bracelet) is essentially a joystick. As you can see in the video after the break, the team ported a bunch of apps to show how the technology works. Since the device features several ways to interact with software, it’s a lot easier to set the time, scroll down a calendar and navigate a map. And, yes, the technology makes it possible to play Doom quite effectively even on a tiny screen. Now we can only hope that someone with serious design chops comes and transforms this fledgling tech into a smartwatch that actually looks good.
Filed under: Wearables, Mobile
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Gierad Laput (1), (2)
New Tony Hawk Game ‘Shred Session’ Launching on iOS This Summer [iOS Blog]
Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk has been the star of 16 different video games, dating back to 1999. His newest title, which is set to be released later this year, is going to be exclusive to mobile devices and TouchArcade editor-in-chief Eli Hodapp was able to get a hands-on look at the game earlier this week.
Tony Hawk’s Shred Session is described as a lane-based vertical runner similar to Subway Surfers, but set in the Tony Hawk universe. The game is played in portrait mode and uses natural swiping gestures. According to Hodapp, the gameplay is “fluid,” incorporating gestures to complete an array of tricks.
The big difference in Shred Session, compared to everything else out there, is how they took this formula that’s been proven time and time again to work well on mobile, and added all the tricks you’re used to from Tony Hawk games. How fluid it all goes together is actually super cool, as instead of just swiping to avoid objects and other junk in your way, you’re swiping to ollie off ramps, swiping some more to do various tricks, and landing to keep your score going.
Shred Session has two separate game modes: Survival, where players need to continuously string tricks together and Shred Sessions, which asks players to complete a series of objectives. Tony Hawk himself gave Hodapp a demo of the gameplay:
Like many Tony Hawk games, Shred Session incorporates well-known skaters as playable characters, including Riley Hawk, Tony Hawk’s son, and Chris Cole, a professional street skateboarder. Tony Hawk himself is also a playable character, of course.
Shred Session, which will be free to play, will see a release this summer. It will soft launch in a few weeks ahead of a full worldwide roll out later in the year. For more information on the game, including additional details on gameplay and characters, make sure to check out the full post over at TouchArcade.
Transporter Sync Review
As bandwidth availability increases, more focus is being placed on cloud services, with the likes of Dropbox and Google Drive gaining in popularity for users to store their documents, pictures, and music in the cloud. However, whilst a lot of focus is placed on the functionality of these cloud services, how they sync, and how much storage you get, very little focus is placed on the actual privacy of storing such files in the cloud. As convenient as it may be having your files available wherever you go, you still are trusting a 3rd party hosting your data, and in many cases hidden away in the fine-print, actually laying claim of ownership of that file since it resides on their server.
But what about if you had all the convenience and benefits that a cloud service offered, that you controlled? That’s why anyone who appreciates privacy will love the Transporter Sync, and we got one to review.
The team over at Transporter sent us a Transporter Sync device to review which allows you to plug your own storage into and hook your hard drive into their services.
Hardware
If you’ve read my previous reviews, you’ll know I love unique looking hardware and something that stands out. Well the Transporter Sync does just that, and couple that with a sleek light panel that circles the device, and I was in love with this right out of the box. The ports on the Transporter Sync are located at the rear of the device and you have a power, Ethernet, and USB connection, and that’s it. There’s really nothing more to the device, and that’s what makes it incredibly light.
– Height: 2.0 in (50 mm)
– Width: 3.9 in (100 mm)
– Depth: 3.9 in (100 mm)
– Weight: 0.5 lb (0.23 kg)
As for the front of the device, there is nothing to see except a pulsating light which indicates the status of the Transporter Sync. Seeing Blue means everything is up and working, but you’ll be notified instantly if anything is wrong by different colours. Plus it looks pretty cool and futuristic sitting on my TV entertainment unit – again, a device I simply did not want to hide up, and wanted it on show for all to see.
The USB 2.0 connection plugs into your existing storage options, and since it’s your own hard drive, it’ll accept any external drive. There’s also Gigabit Ethernet for your network connection.
Functionality
Turning the focus onto what the Transport Sync actually does, and that’s where this little device really begins to impress. The Transporter Sync takes any external drive that you connect in and turns it into your own personal cloud. That means you enjoy all the benefits of having your files anywhere you go, but on a service that is hosted and controlled by you, meaning your privacy is retained.
The Transporter Sync is managed via a web front end that will report the status of your device as well as available storage and gives you the ability to set up shared folders.
The Transporter Sync comes with a client that you install on the devices you want to be able to access your personal cloud. There is a Mac and PC client that just looks like a standard folder within Explorer or Finder, as well as Android and iOS App.
The Transporter Sync has two distinct folder types which control how the files are shared, and ultimately are differnetiated between given how often you access that file. For example, I have “My Documents” synced which means a copy gets locally copied to each device I have the Transporter Client installed on, whereas “My Pics” are in the Library which means my various devices can still access them whenever they want, but they are stored at home on that external drive and downloaded when called upon, so don’t take up valuable space on my client.
The whole experience is pretty seamless,especially when you get your head around the two different folder types and how they are used for different purposes. A big thank you to the Transporter team and especially Jim who stuck with me when I was asking some probably obvious questions – the support was amazing.
The only way I could see the Transporter Sync being improved would be to allow the files stored on the external drive to be viewed via the web browser, of which the Transporter team said they’re working on. Also, the Android App could do with updating to allow more functionality; when viewing a file it has to be downloaded first as opposed to just being able to edit an “online” version, and it would be nice to see picture files displayed in a gallery view, as opposed to a standard file list, but again the Transporter team said they are working on delivering an enhanced Android app too.
The Transporter Sync isn’t the only option available for those wanting their own private cloud service. Transporter offer additional products with integrated storage options, offering the same cloud and sync experience at various price points.
Overall
The Transporter Sync is a great product with a lot of potential, which the team have assured me they are working on the limited shortcomings I found when using the product, like the Android app and the web GUI. With that said, the device looks great, functions fantastically, and keeps all my files protected under my control with no recurring monthly fees or storage limits.
For more information and to buy one, check out the Transporter site.
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AIVAnet 