Cash-rich Nokia invests $100 million to boost connected car tech
Despite a huge influx of Microsoft dollars, Nokia still has to make a living in its new handset-free order and it looks set to expand one of its most profitable apps: Here. It just launched a $100 million connected car endeavor through the Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) fund to invest in technological innovations around travel and mapping. The purpose is to “grow the ecosystem around Here’s mapping and location products” for cars by investing in companies developing such tech. Now that it’s no longer wedded to Windows Phone, it’s also pushing for native Android and iOS apps, judging by some LinkedIn ads sniffed out by NPU. One seeks iOS and Android developers to produce “industry leading mobile SDKs,” while the other is looking for Here Android developers for crowd mapping. We imagine Microsoft will remain a steady customer for Here and other Nokia apps, which are some of the best on WP8. And giving Android and iOS users a solid mapping alternative can’t hurt either.
Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Software, Mobile, Nokia
Via: PhoneArena
Source: Nokia, Nokia (Linkedin) (1), (2)
Laptop mode finally returning to the ASUS PadFone line
When we last hung out with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, the exec expressed his support for bringing back the keyboard dock to the PadFones, which would mean you’d get three form factors with one product: a phone, a tablet and a laptop. Now, we have a leak confirming that this is definitely in the works. Courtesy of an FCC document dug up by our friends at Mobile Geeks, we’re looking at an “ASUS Mobile Dock Keyboard” (PF-06 or “TransBoard”) which, for a change, uses Bluetooth instead of a physical docking interface.
Judging by the above blurry photo plus its matching 25cm width, the dock appears to be designed for (and lab-tested with) the upcoming PadFone X for AT&T. However, the lack of locking mechanism suggests it might accommodate other similarly-sized PadFone Station tablets as well, though there’s no telling how secure the fit would be.
More interestingly, it appears that for the sake of keeping the dock lightweight, ASUS has opted to leave the bulky battery out, meaning you won’t be able to charge up the phone and tablet with the dock. Instead, you’ll only find a tiny 450mAh cell that powers the Bluetooth radio plus the multi-touch trackpad, and you’ll need to charge it up separately via the dock’s micro-USB port. And of course, there’s no SD slot here, so you’ll need to rely on USB OTG to plug in a memory card.
Despite some missing features compared to the original keyboard dock, we’re certain that this is still music to the ears of PadFone fans. We should hear more at Computex early next month, so stay tuned.
Filed under: Tablets, Mobile, ASUS
Via: Mobile Geeks
Source: FCC
Oculus fires back at IP theft claims: ‘Zenimax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus,’ never made claims pre-Facebook purchase
When word came out last week that Oculus VR chief technology officer John Carmack was being accused by his former employer of stealing intellectual property for use in his new gig, the nascent Facebook subsidiary only issue a cursory statement: “It’s unfortunate, but when there’s this type of transaction, people come out of the woodwork with ridiculous and absurd claims. We intend to vigorously defend Oculus and its investors to the fullest extent.” The company’s expanding on that statement today, and pushing back on the claims made by Zenimax.
“We are disappointed but not surprised by Zenimax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false,” the statement from Oculus reads. The company then lays out a list of refutations to Zenimax’s claims. Some highlights:
- There is not a line of Zenimax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.
- Zenimax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology, Zenimax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus, and only after the Facebook deal was announced has Zenimax now made these claims through its lawyers.
Further, Oculus’ statements outs some interesting details about the history of Zenimax working with Palmer Luckey on VR in the past few years. For instance, Oculus claims that, “A key reason that John permanently left Zenimax in August of 2013 was that Zenimax prevented John from working on VR, and stopped investing in VR games across the company.” Interestingly, though Carmack’s departure from id Software (a development studio he co-founded, now owned by Zenimax Media) was announced in August 2013, both Oculus and Zenimax danced around the terms of the arrangement. It wasn’t until November of last year that Carmack supposedly joined Oculus full-time/left id Software completely.
Folks who’ve been following the Oculus story from the beginning will remember a promised Doom 3 BFG version that was set to ship with the original Kickstarter Oculus Rift. That bonus was eventually canned, and replaced with credit on Valve’s Steam game store. According to today’s statement from Oculus, “Zenimax canceled VR support for Doom 3 BFG when Oculus refused Zenimax’s demands for a non-dilutable equity stake in Oculus.”
That last bit means, “Oculus didn’t want to give Zenimax as much of an ownership stake in Oculus as Zenimax wanted, so Zenimax pulled support for a Rift-related product.” So, arguments over money then.
One last bit that Oculus points out is that the full Oculus SDK is online (available here), and “Zenimax has never identified any ‘stolen’ code or technology” in that source. That sounds like a job for the internet! Do you folks see any code in there that stands out? Feel free to let us know!
Add items to your #AmazonCart directly from Twitter
As if you need more temptation to spend, Amazon has now made it possible to put items aside for purchase using Twitter. To start with, you need to connect your Twitter and Amazon accounts from your social settings page (you can also opt out if you’ve already done so). After that, it’s almost too easy: when Amazon tweets out a product link like the “Banana Slicer” pictured above, all you have to do is reply with #AmazonCart (#AmazonBasket in the UK) and the product will be placed into your shopping cart/basket. We presume you can add as many items as you want, but you will need to enter your Amazon account to complete the purchase. So far, we’ve confirmed that the service will be tempting you in the US and UK, but there’s no word yet of other regions. Meanwhile, check the video below for more info.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Amazon
Source: Amazon
May The 4th Be With You: Our favourite tweets from phone manufacturers on Star Wars Day
Happy Star Wars Day one and all! We hope you all had a pleasant May 4th even if you don’t see the novelty of naming a day after one of the greatest film franchises of all time. As it turns out, the Star Wars themed day is a prime catalyst for the social media teams at the largest phone manufacturers to take to Twitter and plug their devices. So we thought it would be a nice opportunity to share a few of our favourite tweets from the day.
Use the Touchless Control, Luke. #StarWarsDay #MotoX pic.twitter.com/XHgptFs1T3
— Motorola Mobility (@Motorola) May 4, 2014
We start off with good old Motorola Mobility who appears to be still going strong after being purchased from Google by Lenovo. No content to give anything away about the subject matter of the May 13th event happening in London in a week, Motorola instead chose to plug its Moto X and its very innovative Touchless Control. Want to see the Moto X successor, we do…
May the fourth be with you this #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/sRqdRjgZYM — HTC (@htc) May 4, 2014
Next up, we have HTC, who invoked the introductory blurb at the start of each Star Wars film. While complementing the design of their HTC One M8, HTC also cleverly refers to the onslaught of the Samsung devices as the “Galaxy Empire”. That makes the Galaxy S-line phones Stormtroopers right?
RT if the LG Force is with you #MayThe4th #GFlex pic.twitter.com/drU6SXnNNh
— LG Electronics (@LGUS) May 4, 2014
Instead of electing to advertise their big name devices like the LG G2 or LG G Pro 2, LG instead opted to return to marketing its flexible display device, the LG G Flex, in classic, broken, Yoda English. While it may be the shape of the future, the influence of the G Flex is yet to be felt in most corners of world.
Search on and see what you find—the Force is strong today. #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/eFi7chAXXN
— A Googler (@google) May 4, 2014
Unlike the decidedly forced advertising of many of the manufacturers, Google instead opted to simply share a still from the iconic Star Wars lore, one that essentially sums up the entire original trilogy. There’s probably a message somewhere in Google’s tweet, but we’re content with appreciating what is probably our favourite tweet of this Star Wars Day.
What was your favourite Star Wars Day tweet/post? Let us know your opinion in the comments below. And may the Fourth be with you all.
Source: Twitter (1), (2), (3), (4)
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Apple Donates $500,000 to ‘SF Gives’ Anti-Poverty Initiative [Mac Blog]
Apple has donated $500,000 to SF Gives, an anti-poverty initiative formed by Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and Tipping Point CEO Daniel Lurie, reports Fortune. Apple’s contribution comes ahead of the SF Gives’ Wednesday deadline, which looks to get 20 companies to contribute $500,000 each, or $10 million in total to fund charitable programs in the Bay Area.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant joins a list of 15 corporate contributors that includes Google, LinkedIn, and Zynga. Launched in early March, SF Gives is the brainchild of Salesforce.com (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff and Daniel Lurie, CEO of the nonprofit Tipping Point.
The donation also follows a number of charitable moves made directly by Apple in the past few years, including the establishment of a donation matching program for employees which generated $2.6 million in less than a year. Since 2006, Apple has also partnered with (Product) RED to contribute a total of $70 million towards HIV/AIDS programs in Africa. Through the collaboration, Apple has sold special (RED) products, including iPhone 5s cases, iPod nanos and shuffles, iPad Smart Covers, and iPhone Bumpers.
Scientists can trace your ancestors to within 30 miles using DNA
You might know where your forebears lived a few generations prior, but how about the exact village they came from — 1,000 years ago? Thanks to DNA sequencing, it’s now possible to find that out in many cases according to researchers from the University of Sheffield in the UK. The aptly-named GPS or Geographic Population Structure tool was modeled using more than 100,000 DNA signatures called AIMs (ancestry-informative markers). Since those are often typical to geographic regions, the researchers were able to pinpoint where subjects came from, even if they moved around later (see the video below). During a Sardinian study, for instance, a quarter of the test subject were located to their exact villages and the remainder to within 31 miles. You can even try it for yourself by getting a simple DNA test from 23andme or ancestry.com (for $100-200), then uploading the results to the GPS tool.
Via: Gizmag
Source: The University of Sheffield, Nature, Prosapia Genetics
HTC One Mini 2 leak reveals no depth-sensing camera
When a Swedish carrier leaked the existence of an HTC One Mini 2, we weren’t exactly shocked, given the timing of the original One Mini’s arrival. We now have alleged pictures of said device courtesy of @evleaks and it fails to surprise in appearance either, looking nearly like its bigger sibling. However, judging by the render, the One Mini 2 (yes, that’s apparently the name) lacks the HTC One M8′s depth-sensing Duo Camera — meaning it’ll lack selective focus and other fancy effects. While there are three color choices (white, gray and champagne), no other features or specs are mentioned. However, prior leaks suggest a 4.5-inch, 720p screen, microSD slot and quad-core Snapdragon 400 CPU. Oddly, this image leak doesn’t line up with another supposed press render from a few days ago, so we’d counsel skepticism until it’s officially launched.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC
Source: @evleaks
Scientists reverse aging in mice by giving them young blood
Plots from The Simpsons are rarely prophetic, but it appears as if, just as it did for Mr. Burns, the blood of the young could help to stave off the signs of aging. Competing teams at Harvard, Cambridge and the University of California have found that pumping the blood of juvenile mice into elderly rodents saw the latter suddenly able to run much faster, had more blood vessels in the brain and had much clearer thinking. Harvard researchers subsequently isolated a protein called GDF11, which helped both the operation of hearts and brains. Given the limits of the study, the teams are cautious about what this could mean for human biology, and there’s plenty of trials still to be done, but maybe it’d be wise to start being nice to any juvenile relatives you’ve got — you never know when you might be asking them for a transfusion.
Iran censors move to block WhatsApp because it’s run by ‘zionist’ Zuckerberg
There’s a tug of war going on between political factions in Iran, and once again it’s internet users who are likely to bear the brunt of it. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Iranian censors have suddenly decided to ban citizens from using WhatsApp, in direct defiance of more progressive government ministers who say they’re against such a move. There’s no concrete evidence that any block or filtering is in place yet, and even President Hassan Rouhani has tweeted his objection to it, but Iran’s “Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content” has reportedly called for the popular messaging service to be prohibited on the basis that it’s now “owned” [sic] by the “American zionist” Mark Zuckerberg (who’s background is Jewish).
Aside from the well-worn premise of anti-zionism (whatever that means, exactly), a simpler explanation might be that WhatsApp is considered a threat to Iran’s conservative establishment, in much the same way as its parent company is. After all, both Twitter and Facebook were banned in 2009 after being used to organize mass protests against the hardline former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A rival messaging service, WeChat, was also recently banned in Iran, despite having no obvious connection to Jews, Israel or zionism.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile
Source: Haaretz
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