New LG G3 Press Renders Give Us Multiple Angles of the New Flagship
Who is ready for the LG G3? If any of you are like me, every render or photo leak of the LG G3 is catching your eye. Today we get more from our leak king friend, evleaks, and we get multiple angles of the new flagship phone. The three colors the G3 will come in at first will be black, gold, and titanium. That titanium variant is looking the sexiest, but let us know which one you prefer.
Source: @evleaks
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Jobs Biographer Walter Isaacson Suggests Key TV Content Role for Beats’ Jimmy Iovine
Apple is rumored to be purchasing Beats Electronics, with an announcement of the acquisition coming at any moment. The deal is said to include the company’s headphone business, its Beats Music subscription service, and two key executives — Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, aka Andre Young.
Several reports have suggested that Apple’s major motivation behind the purchase might be the acquihire of Jimmy Iovine, who has strong ties to the music industry thanks to his role as chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M and founder of Interscope Records.
Walter Isaacson, the man behind the famous Steve Jobs biography, is also speculating that Iovine is one of the main reasons Apple has decided to purchase Beats. In a discussion with Billboard, Isaacson suggested Cook is aiming to have Iovine head up the company’s content business, securing music and TV deals that will help Apple launch its much-rumored television product.
Isaacson thinks the Apple-Beats deal is not about headphones or streaming music but rather is about video. He speculates that Cook wants Iovine to run Apple’s content business and help Apple launch the TV product that analysts have been gossiping about for years. The product has been held up because Apple can’t get all the content owners on board.
Iovine has a long history of working with Apple to help the company sign key deals. In 2002, he helped Steve Jobs secure deals with music labels for the iTunes Store and in 2004, he helped persuade U2 to sign a deal with Apple to create the popular U2 special edition iPod.
Looking back at notes he took when writing the Jobs biography, Isaacson noted that Iovine had wanted Apple to acquire Universal Music Group back in 2003, and during that year, there were rumors suggesting Apple was in talks to buy the record company. At the time, Iovine was leading Interscope Geffen A&M, a division of Universal.
For years now, Apple has been working on signing deals with major content providers with the aim of revolutionizing the television industry, but content providers have been reluctant to commit to an agreement that could interrupt traditional revenue streams. Iovine’s many connections in the music industry and his history of helping Apple win key deals could be instrumental in a wider content role with the company.
Maybe Iovine has the charisma and connections to round up the networks the way he did the music labels in 2002, although “it’s a lot more complicated” this time around, says Isaacson. His track record of success in marrying content and tech gives that theory some weight.
Recent rumors have suggested that both Iovine and Dr. Dre could make their first appearances as Apple executives during the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, set to kick off on June 2.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Now Available via Boost and Virgin Mobile
We knew it was coming. Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile have both said that they would be launching the Samsung Galaxy S5 with the typical “Coming Soon” tag and landing pages/social shares. Finally, Sprint has made the official announcement that makes the Galaxy S5 officially available for both non-contract carries. The difference between the two won’t be in the price tag for the device, you will be looking at a cool $599.99 to pick one up. Your price differences will come from the plan offerings on the two.
Boost Mobile
Virgin Mobile
Anyone out there looking at heading to Boost or Virgin and dropping some bills for a Galaxy S5?
Source: Sprint Newsroom
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MIT can map the activity of every neuron in an animal’s brain
Scientists have long yearned for a neuron-by-neuron illustration of brain activity; get that and you can see exactly what drives an animal’s thoughts and reflexes. MIT may make those wishes come true, as it just revealed a system that produces a complete 3D neural activity map. The discovery revolves around a light field microscope (which refracts light to create a 3D image) that’s optimized for looking at the electrical pulses of each neuron, right down to the millisecond time level. So far, researchers have created videos showing what’s happening within the entire nervous system of a c. elegans worm, and the brain of a zebrafish larva.
As you might suspect, scaling could be a problem. A c. elegans worm has just 302 neurons, while a human brain has roughly 100 billion; you’d need a much bigger light field to see everything going on inside your own head. At present, the technology is also too low-resolution to see what’s happening in specific parts of neurons, like dendrites. Provided MIT’s technology keeps evolving, though, there’s a real possibility that neuroscientists could pinpoint the nature of brain conditions and produce more effective treatments.
Filed under: Science
Source: MIT News
Whisper app now includes related posts, still keeps your identity anonymous
​Whisper, the anonymous secret-sharing app, now delivers a more personalized experience — but don’t worry; your identity will still be hidden. To show you relevant posts without revealing who you are or using your phone’s address book, the Whisper team redesigned the app to show related content after you submit a new secret. In other words, the app isn’t personalized to display confessions from people you know, but instead it delivers content related to your own anonymous secrets. Additionally, the app now sorts Whispers by location, so you’ll be able to zoom into general (not super-specific) areas to see what users are talking about.
This is admittedly a pretty smart solution for personalizing an app that is identity-free by design, and it has the side benefit of encouraging users to share more. According to Whisper CEO Michael Heyward, only 50 percent of users who post secrets will see related content, and lurkers who are only there to browse will never see any. The update is already available at the App Store (see source the link below), and it will arrive on Android in about two weeks.
Filed under: Software
Via: Re/code
Source: Whisper (iTunes)
Scientists find a way to create matter from light
Scientists have long theorized that you can create matter from light by colliding photons, but proving that theory has been a different story — you need the right high-energy particles to even think of trying. However, it looks like that once-impossible dream is close to becoming reality. Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a technique that should produce electrons and positrons by colliding two sets of super-energetic photons. To create the first batch of photons, you have to first blast electrons with a laser, and then shoot them at a piece of gold; you produce the other batch by firing a laser at the inside of a small gold can to produce a thermal radiation field. If you collide the two photon sources inside the can, you should see electrons and positrons spilling out.
While that sounds like it could be complex, it’s more feasible than you might think. The photon-to-photon collider would use equipment that already exists, and the team is talking to others that can easily make the experiment happen. With that said, a Star Trek-like replicator is still a distant prospect at best — this collision won’t create atoms, let alone full objects. Even if the research doesn’t eventually fulfill our sci-fi fantasies, though, it could still help astrophysicists by recreating conditions from the first 100 seconds after the Big Bang.
[Image credit: CBS / Paramount Network Television]
Filed under: Science
Via: Pocket-lint
Source: Imperial College London, Nature
Twitter eyes SoundCloud to get folks sharing more music
Twitter’s usage stats have shown its growth slowing for quite some time, and now it seems buying a social-minded audio-sharing outfit could be part of the plan for a turnaround. Recode reports that SoundCloud may be part of that strategy, bringing its 250 million users to the 140-character microblogging platform. SoundCloud offers free audio hosting and sharing via its website for socialites to scatter however they see fit — with a paid tier for those who need a extra features. The purchase would carry a steep price tag though, as the site was valued at $700 million after a round of funding back in January. This wouldn’t be Twitter’s first foray into music either, as its failed #Music app sought to bring tunes to users based on their popularity on the social platform. That effort was officially decommissioned last month.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Source: Recode
Android-to-Android Streaming Made Simple With New AllCast Receiver App
A secondary app to AllCast by developer Koushik Dutta, ClockworkMod, has been released to the Play Store today. The new app, AllCast, Receiver is more of a companion app vs a standalone app. You do need to have the original AllCast app installed on your casting device to utilize it. In a nutshell, AllCast Receiver allows you to cast your videos, photos and music from one Android device to another. For instance, share a movie from your phone directly to your tablet for streaming.
As the apps description also points out, it would be a great app to install on your Amazon Fire TV, Ouya, Android Stick or a Google TV. The app is free, but you do need the base AllCast app installed on your casting device in order to ship the content out. The AllCast app is free to try, but has limitations until you get the premium license. Well worth the money of you have a Chromecast and now even more worth the money if you have a tablet, Google TV, Amazon Fire TV or other Android based devices. Pick up the AllCast Receiver app via the Play Store and give it a whirl.
via Phandroid
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Groupon Introduces Gnome, an iPad-Powered Point-of-Sale System [iOS Blog]
Groupon today announced Gnome, a new point-of-sale system that integrates with the company’s network of daily local deals. The iPad-based system provides a payment processing system as well as customer management tools for merchants that offer Groupon deals.
In addition to serving as an all-in-one cash register solution, Gnome allows customers to redeem their purchased Groupon offers either manually through the system or automatically if they have the Groupon app installed on their smartphone. Merchants can then access this customer data and use it to help improve future deals. It also improves the overall experience by minimizing those unfortunate occurrences when a user enters a business to redeem a deal, and the business is not equipped to process the offer.
“When it’s complete, Gnome will serve as an operating system for merchants to run their entire operation and enable them to create real-time promotions that bring customers into their business when they need them the most,” Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky said in a release. “Gnome is an important step towards our long-term mission of creating a world where merchants are constantly connected to the Groupon local commerce platform.”
Extending beyond Groupon vouchers, the POS system also can accept traditional payments, similar to Square’s Square Register. This Gnome system provides emailed receipts, calculates taxes, and helps manage inventory for the retailer. According to Re/Code, Groupon is charging 1.8 percent plus 15 cents for Visa and Mastercard transactions, along with a $10 monthly Gnome fee, for the POS service.
Groupon Gnome is already in use by select retailers with “tens of thousands” of merchants expected adopt the system in the coming months.
Apple In-Store iPad Trade-In Program Now Available in UK, Germany, Spain and France
Apple today is expanding its iPad trade-in program to retail stores in several European countries, including France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. As spotted by Apfelpage.de and iPhoneAddict.fr, the program allows customers to recycle older iPad models at their local Apple retail stores and provides them with credits they can use towards the purchase of new devices.
Apple launched the iPad program last month in the U.S. and Canada on Earth Day as part of a larger green initiative to help consumers recycle old iOS devices. Customers can visit Apple retail stores and trade in their iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4 and iPad mini for store credit. The newer iPad Air and Retina iPad mini are not yet eligible for redemption.
The company has not revealed how much it will pay for these recycled devices in its international stores, but the pricing likely mirrors the existing trade-in program available in the U.S., with reduced prices for older devices and those in poor physical condition. Though not confirmed, Apple also may accept broken and non-working devices for free, providing a way for customers to responsibly recycle these devices.
The iPad program is similar to an existing in-store iPhone recycling program that debuted in the U.S. last August before expanding to the UK a few months later and several more European countries and Canada last month.
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