eBay is shutting down its on-demand delivery service

It was only a matter of time before eBay Now would be put out to pasture once and for all. But that’s official as of today, eBay revealed in a statement about how it plans to simplify shopping for users. The company introduced its same-day, on-demand delivery service in 2012, but struggled to capture valuable attention from consumers — which led eBay to retire the eBay Now apps and slow down the product’s expansion strategy. Additionally, eBay also revealed it will be killing a few other applications over the coming weeks, with those being Fashion, Motors and Valet. It’s been a busy month for eBay in terms of restructuring; earlier this month it finally let go of PayPal, a process that began back in 2014.

[Image credit: eBay Motors]

Filed under: Internet

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: eBay

Schlage Connect Touchscreen Deadbolt review

We’re halfway through 2015, which means we shouldn’t be messing with things like cables for charging our portable devices. Along those lines, we shouldn’t be worrying about keeping track of keys, either. I mean, we can already start our car without a physical key; why can’t we do the same for our homes?

I recently installed the (Century Style) Schlage Connect Touchscreen Deadbolt Lock on my front door. The timing couldn’t be better as we’re actually in the process of removing the gold and bronze stuff that’s been in my house for ages. Out with the old, in the with brushed or satin nickle finish.

Admittedly, I am not what you’d term a handyman. On the other hand, I’m also not an idiot and can often work myself through installation or building of household devices. Also, I have previous experience with installing a deadbolt lock on my previous house so I knew what to expect — for the most part. Would a connected or touchscreen unit be any different.

Alas, installing the Schlage Connect proved to be just as simple as the standard locks you’d find at a hardware store. There may be a few more pieces included in the box but that certainly did not make for any trouble. All in all, I spent roughly 20 minutes taking out the old deadbolt and replacing with the new one.

As part of the “connected” aspect of the deadbolt, this one features a touch keypad for the outside. Simply press the SCHLAGE button and the door locks itself. To unlock, press that button, followed by the PIN. On the inside you’ll find a traditional knob to lock and unlock the door.

Just above said knob is another button which works with the alarm. See, there are four AA batteries inside the housing that allows for the touchpad to work. And, since it’s got a power source, the door can alert you (user-defined) to tampering, activity, or forced entry.

Schlage Connect

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It’s possible to create up to 30 access codes to the door so feel free to assign one to each member of the family. Indeed, there’s also a keyhole and an accompanying key which can be used the “old fashioned” way, too. Another cool feature – access codes that expire.

Although having a touchscreen is nice, the experience gets even better if you have a Wink Hub ($50) in your house. Should you, you’ll be able to use your smartphone or tablet to connect remotely to your front door. Yep, you can lock and unlock from wherever you are, provided there’s a data connection.

Having recently gone on vacation we gave a few friends some user codes to gain access to our home. This way they can stop by to check on the animals and bring in the mail without a key.

Using the Wink app I was able to to see exactly who stopped by and when. The app not only keeps a log of general activity but there are rules you can create for notifications. The app can also alert you to battery status, too.

In the few weeks that we’ve had the lock in place we’ve yet to run into an issue. Between my wife, son, and myself, we’re all enjoying having our own codes and one less key to carry around.

• Easy to install (screwdriver only)
• Simple to use
• Very flexible and full of options
• Available in a variety of colors and finishes

• Would like to connect to smartphone without additional hardware
• Price might push some away

With a cost of around $175-$200, the Schlage Connect doesn’t come cheaply. Then again, a quick check at Lowe’s tells me the average cost ranges from $250-$100 with plenty of models coming in even higher.

Would I have reached for one of these on the shelf or considered one for our house just yet? At that price, I would have slept on the decision. But, after having it installed, it’s already providing peace of mind.

I’ve come to enjoy the functionality and flexibility that comes with connecting to my mobile devices. When the time comes for our next lock replacement I will certainly scoop one of these up. And, after showing this to my friends and family, I can see the wheels spinning for them, too.

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The post Schlage Connect Touchscreen Deadbolt review appeared first on AndroidGuys.

This electro-optical modulator is smaller than a lightwave

As data travels around the internet, it’s routinely switched from electrical signals to light in order to travel through the network’s fiber optic backbone. To do this, the signal travels through devices called electro-optic modulators. However, these devices are really bulky (usually several centimeters across) and require an inordinate amount of power to operate. However, a team from ETH Zurich recently published research in the journal Nature Photonics that outlines how they built a modulator one hundred times smaller and less power hungry than conventional models.

The team, led by professor of photonics and communications Juerg Leuthold, built the device out of a 150 nm layer of gold seated atop an organic material that changes its refractive index when electricity is applied. They were able make the modulator smaller than the industry standard light wavelength of 1.5 micrometers by first changing the light into surface-plasmon-polaritons. This involves converting the light into an electrical field and electrons which travel along a metal strip. At the end of the strip they convert back into light. It’s roughly akin to folding up a cardboard moving box, slipping it under a door, then unfolding it.

“It’s incredibly small and simple, and on top of that it’s also the cheapest modulator ever built”, Leuthold explains. And using just a few thousandths of a watt to convert 70 Gbs of data per second, it draws one hundredth the power as today’s models. The ETH Zurich team is currently performing long-term performance testing on the new device. There’s no word on when it will be commercially viable.

Filed under: Science, Internet

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Via: Phys.org

Source: NAture Photonics

Shoot food at your pets with the Petzi Treat Cam

A cat usually doesn’t love you the way a dog does. But my cats love me. No really. They greet me at the door meowing and carrying on. Well, one of them does. The other one greets me a few minutes later when it’s feeding time and then when she needs a warm lap for one of her constant naps. Okay, one cat loves me; the other one uses me for food and warmth. Regardless of their feelings, the Petzi Treat Cam is my opportunity to say hi to my cats while at work or traveling with the added bonus of rewarding them with food for at least acknowledging my virtual presence. If only they found it as exciting as I do.

The Petzi Treat Cam lets you spy on your pet with the help of companion iOS and Android apps. While the camera is active you can talk to them like an omnipotent pet-owning god by pressing the mic button. Nothing says you love your pets like sitting at your office desk yelling your pet’s name into your phone over and over until your little rent-free tenant appears. Both cats were constantly confused by the noises coming out of the white box. A dog might have believed that I was trapped in the box; the cats, not so much. After the initial reaction to the noises, they just sort of stopped caring. It’s not that my cats don’t like me (they really, really like me); it’s just that my voice sounds like I’m making calls from a CB radio while trucking down the interstate.

The 720p camera isn’t that great. Its quality is reminiscent of smartphone cameras from four years past. With it, you can take photos of your pets on the livestream and share them to social media or to Petzi’s animal-centric Instagram clone. It does not shoot video, which meant I had to set up other cameras to capture what was happening around the device while I was out of the house. Also, the pictures I was able to take were so pixelated it seemed mean to make my cats look that bad. Plus, because of the latency between hitting the camera button and the Treat Cam taking the photo, a lot of my pictures ended up looking like this.

The real genius of the camera is that it shoots treats at your pets. It doesn’t drop them onto the ground or into a bowl; it actually shoots food at your pets. Which is something the cats were initially not ready for. As stated earlier, the camera does not shoot video which seems insane for a gadget that shoots food. So all the GIFs are from a Nest Cam sitting next to the device.

I was hoping the melodic tones the Petzi emits when it’s placed in viewing mode would eventually have the cats rushing towards the device in anticipation of food, like the sound of their food bowls being filled has them racing to the kitchen. It didn’t work that way in the week testing the Petzi Treat Cam. Instead, after moving the camera so that it shot its load onto the hardwood floor and after realizing that the cats really don’t care if I called them over the loud speaker, I would just eject their food onto the floor and a cat would magically appear.

If I was lucky one of them would happen to be walking by when I turned on the camera so that they could be rewarded with a food assault.

But I would never know what I would see when I turned on the camera. Including the time I turned it on and saw this:

One of the cats had knocked the Treat Cam over to get to the food inside (they were not successful) and the camera was trained on the carpet This is because I just set the camera up on a tiny briefcase so it would be at cat-eye level. If your pets are as mischievous as mine there are other options.

Speaking of the sort, setting up the Treat Cam is pretty straightforward. It can be mounted to the wall with the included screws attached to furniture via included velcro straps, or you can just place it on a table. (I live in a rental apartment and would like my security deposit back, so no new wall holes for me.) The problem is that the power cable is hilariously short. After routing the cable through the back of the device so it sits flush against the wall, there’s about 31 inches of cable left. Either you have to go out and buy an extension cord or place it near a power source. I placed it under my desk and this is what happened.

All told, the biggest problem I had with the Treat Cam was that it didn’t record video. While a cloud DVR option would be ideal, even saving to a local computer for later viewing would be a nice touch. The live feed is a nice way to see what’s happening at that moment, but being able to view a day’s worth of pet shenanigans is why I ended up paring it with the Nest Cam.

The device is made to share treats, but I placed cat food in it because my cats don’t particularly like treats and because the black-and-white cat (Hector) suffers from kidney disease and requires constant feeding to just maintain his weight. The Treat Cam let me feed him while I was away from home and wait and wait and wait and eventually watch him eat his food. Because of that, the $170 price is worth it for me even without video. If the company enables video capture at some point, the cost might seem less extravagant to others, especially if you enjoy shooting food at your pets so they’ll love you even when you’re not at home.

Filed under: Cameras, Misc

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Source: Petzi Treat Cam

NSA won’t look at call metadata collected under the Patriot Act

The National Security Agency is apparently willing to make a clean break from the past now that the USA Freedom Act is forcing it to scale back its large-scale surveillance efforts. The organization now says that it won’t analyze call metadata collected under the Patriot Act from November 29th onward. It’ll hang on to that data for another three months for “integrity purposes” (that is, verifying that new collection techniques are working) and as long as civil lawsuits require, but the goal is to destroy that info “as soon as possible.” This doesn’t put an end to mass surveillance (that’s still practical under the new law), but it will prevent the NSA from digging through historical info that many critics believe it shouldn’t have kept in the first place.

[Image credit: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

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Via: Eric Geller (Twitter)

Source: IC on the Record (Tumblr)