Device that makes surfaces smart reaches funding in an hour
The Knocki team’s Kickstarter campaign was a huge success: they managed to raise $35,000 in just over an hour. They’ve even reached $136,000 as of this writing. What enticed people to put their faith in Knocki’s creator (Texas-based Swan Solutions) is the promise of a device that can turn any surface into a controller for various gadgets and smart devices in your home. So long as you attach a Knocki onto, say, a table, a countertop or a wall, it can recognize up to 10 unique tapping and knocking patterns.
For instance, three quick knocks on the wall could switch on the lights, while two could activate the thermostat. A couple of slow taps on the bedside table could activate the coffeemaker while you’re still in bed, while a knock on your door could send you a text message that someone’s visiting. The device uses non-acoustic sensor technology, so it doesn’t get confused with random sounds. Plus, its creator says it can differentiate between random vibrations and deliberate knocks.
Knocki works with Nest, Philips Hue, Wemo, Samsung Smartthings and apps like Spotify and Gmail. But if you haven’t transformed your house into a high-tech home yet, it can also control phones and other wifi-connected appliances like speakers and alarm clocks. The campaign is still ongoing, and you can get one sensor for $69. If all goes according to the company’s plan (don’t forget that they sometimes don’t) Kickstarter backers should get their rewards by December.
Source: Knocki
Apple Announces Plans to Establish iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in India
As was rumored earlier this week, Apple today announced plans to establish a new iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bangalore, India. According to Apple, the accelerator is part of an effort to support engineering talent and boost growth in India’s iOS developer community.
“India is home to one of the most vibrant and entrepreneurial iOS development communities in the world,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we’re giving developers access to tools which will help them create innovative apps for customers around the world.”
On a weekly basis, Apple experts plan to lead briefings and offer one-on-one app reviews for developers. The facility will also feature support and guidance to help Indian developers master Swift, Apple’s programming language. Apple plans to open its iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in early 2017.
“This is a huge vote of confidence in India’s developer community and a tremendous opportunity to gain world-class design and development expertise,” said Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal. “Apple’s support will help drive growth and accelerate progress among the country’s vast talent pool.”
News of Apple’s Development Accelerator comes as Apple CEO Tim Cook is making his first official visit to India, where he will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Apple is also planning to open a technology development center in Hyderabad, India, where it will focus on Maps development, and rumors suggest Apple will open its first three retail stores in India over the course of the next 18 months.
Tag: India
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Withings Smart Kid Scale review – CNET
The Good The Withings Smart Kid Scale is precise and well-designed. You can use it for newborns and kids up to 55 pounds.
The Bad The $180 price tag is too high for a product that’s so simple.
The Bottom Line For parents of children with known health concerns, the Smart Kid Scale might offer helpful insight. For most parents, though, the information tracking simply can’t justify the price.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
Tracking your newborn’s growth is one of the best ways to make sure they’re staying healthy. Many people use rough estimates — stepping on the bathroom scale with and without the child and calculating the difference — or frequent trips to the pediatrician. With the hopes of cutting down on parents’ concerns and the medical bills that come with undernutrition, Withings is offering the $180, app-connected Smart Kid Scale.
This smart scale will track your baby’s growth…
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What makes the Kid Scale so smart? It connects via Bluetooth to your phone, so you can track your child’s growth over time. The Withings Baby app not only tracks weight gain and loss, but also feeding patterns. This isn’t as comprehensive an app as, say, Hatch Baby’s. But using it is intuitive, and you can follow the progress of multiple children at once.
Looking for baby tech? Check out these gadgets.
- Hatch Baby Smart Changing Pad
- 4moms Infant Tub
- 4moms MamaRoo
- Withings Home Baby Monitor
The Scale itself, despite a clever design, feels a little less smart. You can remove the attached cradle once your child can stand, so they can just step onto the scale like a grown-up. This flexibility means you can use the device for a few years. It has a 55-pound limit, though, so you’ll get a few years use out of it, but not much more. And that’s about the extent of the device’s smarts.
When you can buy a reliable bathroom scale for $30, it’s hard to justify spending $180 on a scale for young children. The Withings Smart Kid Scale might appeal to parents of children with known health concerns, but most parents will be better off with the periodic pediatric visits they already have written in their calendars.
UTO Drone U960 Hexacopter review – CNET
The Good The UTO U960 Drone is a relatively easy-to-fly hexacopter with a solid feature set including a headless mode with one-key return; one-key flips and rolls; and a Wi-Fi camera and mobile app for FPV flying and photo and video capture using a smartphone. Batteries and replacement parts are easy to find.
The Bad Wi-Fi has problems staying connected and there’s a bit too much lag to use for FPV flying around obstacles.
The Bottom Line The UTO X960 Drone is a good hexacopter that’s also an inexpensive way to test out first-person-view flying. Treat the FPV like a bonus, though, and not the main reason to buy.
If you’re interested in camera or racing drones, flying by first-person view (FPV) — i.e., by looking through a camera mounted on the drone — is a skill you need. That said, it’s better to practice with something like the UTO U960 than a drone costing hundreds.
The hexacopter costs about $90 (around £60 or AU$125) and includes a Wi-Fi-enabled video camera attached to its belly. Download an iOS or Android app to your smartphone and connect to the wireless network created by the camera. Open the app and you’ll have a view from the camera on your screen.
The video downlink range isn’t great, however, and there’s a bit too much lag between the drone and what’s on screen to reliably guide yourself around obstacles. Still if you’re in an open area, it’s a good way to practice piloting by looking at just the screen. The app also lets you snap photos and capture video to your phone (the camera has no microSD card slot or internal storage) and you can switch to a 3D mode that will create side-by-side video to view in a VR headset.
More drone coverage
- The best toy drones you can buy right now
- Best drones of 2016
- Seven things you should know before buying your first drone
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The U960’s controller holds your smartphone for FPV flying.
Sarah Tew/CNET
The U960 is also sold as the MJX X600 for about half the price, but without the camera. I mention this because the ‘copter is pretty good on its own. It has a headless mode, for example, which means you don’t need to worry about what direction the drone is facing as it will always move in the direction you move the stick relative to your position. Plus, in this mode, you can press a controller button to get the U960 to return to you automatically. You can also do flips and rolls easily enough and, for new or experienced pilots, you can set speed and throttle limits.
Battery life is average for a drone this size at about 7 to 9 minutes depending on how hard you fly it, wind if you’re outside and if you have the prop guards and camera attached. It uses a 7.4-volt 700mAh battery that you can find on Amazon for $15, or less if you buy multiples.
The UTO X960 Drone is a good hexacopter that’s also an inexpensive way to test out first-person-view flying. Treat the FPV like a bonus, though, and not the main reason to buy.
Black and Decker’s connected batteries tackle projects for $69
Back at CES, tool company Black and Decker unveiled its Smartech batteries that use an app to keep tabs on power levels and more. Just in time to help with those summer projects, the accessories are ready for use. If you’re looking to give them a go, there are a couple of options for putting them to work. First, you can add the Smartech batteries to any 20V Black and Decker Max power tools and small vacuums that you already own. Each of the Bluetooth-equipped packs will set you back $69.
If you don’t already own one, there’s a $79 Smartech drill that includes both the battery and the tool. The Black and Decker batteries connect to a mobile app that can be used to monitor power levels, locate a lost battery, turn the power pack on/off or switch on the battery’s USB port for changing a phone or tablet. That software also offers a Projects section full of DIY inspiration and tool recommendations, should the need arise. The Smartech batteries and drill are available now from Amazon, Lowes and other Black and Decker retailers.
Source: Black & Decker
Knight Foundation invests $60 million to protect digital free speech
It’s getting tough to be a journalist these days with the First Amendment seemingly encroached from all sides. That’s why the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is granting Columbia University $60 million to create the Knight First Amendment Institute (FAI). The FAI will be tasked with preserving and expanding 1st Amendment protections. It will act as “a primary, durable and influential advocate of free expression in the digital age”, according to a release from the Knight Foundation.
“The First Amendment is not self-executing; only people can make it what it has become, through our attitudes, actions and, more pointedly, through the courts,” Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, said in the statement. “In the past, news organizations pursued and won key court cases defining free expression. But such cases can be enormously expensive and many media – both established and new – are increasingly hard-pressed in the current economic environment to support First Amendment legal action.”
The FAI will provide material support for newsrooms in three ways: research and education, such as the Knight Foundation’s annual Sunshine Week; acting as a network for other like-minded advocacy groups such as the EFF or the Society of Professional Journalists; and a litigation fund to help legal advocates like the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
“As the internet becomes even more integral to our lives, we face significant questions about the evolution of our rights,” Knight Foundation president Alberto Ibargüen concurred. “Threats to free speech are on the rise, and our hope is that the Institute will not just protect but help reinvigorate First Amendment principles for future generations.”
Source: Knight Foundation
Facebook shows its first video from its 360-degree camera rig
Facebook was quick to talk about being at the forefront of 360-degree video when it unveiled its Surround 360 rig, but how good is that massive 14-camera array, really? As of today, you can find out for yourself. Mark Zuckerberg has posted the social network’s first video shot and produced with the Surround 360, and it’s a good hint as to what you can expect from virtual reality movies. The 3.5-minute short is more of a tech demo than a creative work (you sit in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal as visitors walk by), but it showcases both the seamless nature of the video the potential of the format. It feels more like you’re there, not just peeping through a lens.
You can watch the video without using a VR headset. If you do, though, you’ll probably want to use your phone instead of your PC — the mobile experience lets you swing the view around just by tilting your device. However you watch, this bodes well for the aspiring VR auteurs who start building Surround 360 rigs this summer.
Check out this 360 video of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. It’s the first 360 video that we produced and filmed ourselves using our new Surround 360 camera. You can tilt your phone to experience different moments happening around you in the terminal. Turn up the sound to know where to look. It’s a preview of what a full-length virtual reality movie will feel like. Instead of watching the action, you’ll be right in the middle of it.
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Source: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
France’s free coding school is coming to Silicon Valley
For 3 years, Paris residents wanting to learn programming have had access to 42, a school that offers a radical approach to technical education: there are no teachers, no lesson plans… and no tuition fees. As long as you’re between 18 and 30 and thrive in a 4-week coding challenge, you can spend 3 to 5 years mastering software development at no cost and on very flexible terms. Sound good? Well, you won’t have to move to France to give it a shot. The 42 team has announced that it’s opening a 200,000 square foot Silicon Valley-area campus (in Fremont, to be exact), with applications beginning immediately. The first class starts in November.
If you ask the school, this is about fixing a skill imbalance in the US. While the country has taken some steps to improve computer education, 42 believes the American educational system “deprives” companies of the programming-savvy people it needs to innovate. You’d ideally get a steady stream of highly motivated coders ready to cross San Francisco Bay and join startups.
It’s hard to say how well 42’s method works when few if any of its Parisian students have even graduated, but the concept (created by Xavier Niel, who founded the French telecom Free) may not be that far-fetched. As our TechCrunch colleagues point out, some existing students are so determined that they sleep in the hallway — while that’s not exactly healthy, it shows a kind of commitment that you don’t always see in college. If you see a sudden surge in young Bay-area tech talent a few years from now, you’ll know who to thank.
Via: VentureBeat, TechCrunch
Source: 42 (PDF)
NYT: Google’s Echo competitor is called ‘Home’
Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo is named Google Home, according to The New York Times. Google Home, which was developed under the codename “Chirp,” is a voice-powered assistant that can answer basic questions as you bustle around the house. The device should hit stores in the fall and Google is set to unveil the device during its big I/O conference tomorrow, NYT reports.
We heard rumors that Google was building its own Echo-like device earlier this month, though Google had previously denied it was working on a home assistant, citing privacy concerns. Google already has its footing in the connected-home market, most notably with its Nest thermostats, which happen to play nice with the Amazon Echo. For now, at least.
Source: NYT
What’s on your HDTV: season finales, playoffs and ‘Preacher’
We missed out on the series finale of longtime favorite Castle, but there are plenty of finales left this week. As the NBA and NHL playoffs grind on, Fear the Walking Dead, Fresh Off the Boat, NCIS, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Empire, Black-ish, Grey’s Anatomy, The Blacklist, The 100 and Grimm are just some of the shows wrapping up this week, and not all of them will be back next fall. As far as newcomers, Netflix is bringing season one of Maria Bamford in Lady Dynamite, while AMC takes another shot at a big new show with the comic book-inspired Preacher which premieres Sunday night. Gamers can experience Valkyria Chronicles Remastered on the PS4 along with Shadow of the Beast.
Blu-ray & Games & Streaming
- The Witch
- Dirty Grandpa
- Orange is the New Black (S3)
- Mr. Selfridge (S4)
- Dark Passage
- The Naked Island
- Shadow of the Beast (PS4)
- Homefront: The Revolution (Xbox One, PS4, PC)
- Valkyria Chronicles Remastered (PS4)
- My Night Job (PS4)
- Youtubers Life (PC – Early access)
- Fallout 4 – Far Harbor DLC (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Eclipse DLC (PC, Xbox One)
Tuesday
- The Mindy Project, Hulu, 3AM
- Megyn Kelly Presents, Fox News, 8PM
- The Voice, NBC, 8PM
- The Flash, CW, 8PM
- Fresh Off the Boat (season finale), ABC, 8PM
- NCIS (season finale), CBS, 8PM
- Inside the Label, BET, 8 & 9PM
- NBA Eastern Conference Finals: Cavaliers vs. Raptors, ESPN, 8:30PM
- Grandfathered (season finale), Fox, 8:30PM
- Real O’Neals, ABC, 8:30PM
- Coupled (series premiere), Fox, 9PM
- Containment, CW, 9PM
- Deadliest Catch, Discovery, 9PM
- Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season finale), ABC, 9PM
- Chicago Med (season finale), NBC, 9PM
- NCIS: NO (season finale), CBS, 9PM
- America’s Greatest Makers, TBS, 9:30PM
- Person of Interest, CBS, 10PM
- The Night Manager, AMC, 10PM
- Stitchers, Freeform, 10PM
- Awkward, MTV, 10PM
- Chicago Fire (season finale), NBC, 10PM
- First Impressions, USA, 10:30PM
- Faking It (season finale), MTV, 10:30PM
Wednesday
- Chelsea, Netflix 3AM
- The Path, Hulu, 3AM
- Survivor (season finale), CBS, 8PM
- Rosewood, Fox, 8PM
- The Middle (season finale), ABC, 8PM
- Heartbeat, NBC, 8PM
- Arrow, CW, 8PM
- The Goldbergs (season finale), ABC, 8:30PM
- NBA Eastern Conference Finals: Warriors vs. Thunder Game 2, TNT, 9PM
- Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives, Showtime, 9PM
- Maron, IFC, 9PM
- Empire (season finale), Fox, 9PM
- Rogue, DirecTV, 9PM
- Supernatural, CW, 9PM
- Black-ish (season finale), ABC, 9:30PM
- Royal Pains (season premiere), USA, 10PM
- The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV, 10PM
- The Americans, FX, 10PM
- The Last Panthers, Sundance, 10PM
- Nashville, ABC, 10PM
- Chicago PD, NBC, 10PM
- The Dunk King, TNT, 12:30AM
Thursday
- Chelsea, Netflix, 3AM
- Grey’s Anatomy (season finale), ABC, 8PM
- Strong, NBC, 8PM
- Bones, Fox, 8PM
- WWE SmackDown, USA, 8PM
- DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (season finale), CW, 8PM
- NBA Eastern Conference Finals: Cavaliers vs. Raptors Game 2, ESPN, 8:30PM
- The Odd Couple, CBS, 8:30PM
- Live from Daryl’s House, MTV Live, 9PM
- The Blacklist (season finale), NBC, 9PM
- The Catch (season finale), ABC, 9PM
- American Grit, Fox, 9PM
- The Eighties, CNN, 9PM
- Mom (season finale), CBS, 9PM
- The 100 (season finale), CW, 9PM
- Alone, History, 9PM
- The Odd Couple, CBS, 9:30PM
- Archer, FX, 10PM
- Game of Silence, NBC, 10PM
- Rush Hour, CBS, 10PM
- The Real World, MTV, 10PM
- Orphan Black, BBC America, 10PM
Friday
- Lady Dynamite (S1), Netflix, 3AM
- Chelsea, Netflix, 3AM
- I Love Lucy Superstar Special, CBs, 8PM
- Grimm (season finale), NBC, 8PM
- Masters of Illusion (season premiere), CW, 8PM
- Beyond the Tank, ABC, 8PM
- NBA Western Conference Finals: Warriors/Thunder Game 3, TNT, 9PM
- The Originals (season finale), CW, 9PM
- Shark Tank (season finale), ABC, 9PM
- Banshee (series finale), Cinemax, 10PM
- Brad Williams: Daddy Issues, Showtime, 10PM
- Dunk King, TNT, 12:30AM
Saturday
- All The Way, HBO, 8PM
- NBA Eastern Conference Finals Cavaliers/Raptors Game 3, ESPN, 8:30PM
- Outlander, Starz, 9PM
- Party Over Here (season finale), Fox, 11PM
- Dan Soder: Not Special, Comedy Central, 11PM
- Saturday Night Live: Fred Armisen/Courtney Barnett, NBC, 11:30PM
Sunday
- Bordertown (season finale), Fox, 7PM
- The Simpsons (season finale), Fox, 8PM
- Little Big Shots, NBC, 8PM
- Call the Midwife (season finale), PBS, 8PM
- The Girlfriend Experience, Starz, 8PM
- Bob’s Burgers (season finale), Fox, 8:30 & 9:30PM
- Family Guy (season finale), Fox, 9PM
- Game of Thrones, HBO, 9PM
- Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, CNN, 9PM
- House of Lies, Showtime, 9PM
- Fear the Walking Dead (season finale), AMC, 9PM
- The Carmichael Show, NBC, 9PM
- Wallander (series finale), PBS, 9PM
- Undercover Boss, CBS, 9PM
- Crowded (season finale), NBC, 9:30PM
- Preacher (series premiere), AMC, 10PM
- Penny Dreadful, Showtime, 10PM
- Silicon Valley, HBO,10PM
- United Shades of America, CNN, 10PM
- Mr. Selfridge (series finale), PBS, 10:30PM
- Girls, HBO, 10PM
- Veep, HBO, 10:30PM
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM
- Talking Dead, AMC, 11:30PM
(All times listed are ET)
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