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Mar

Will Google Glass Push the Limits of Connectedness?

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 4:10 pm

Google Glass The past two decades have been culprit to a monumental shift towards the digital age, in which humans are constantly connected with each other and the outside world.

While radio, television and telephone were the primary methods of communication and connectivity in the past, the twenty-first century has encompassed the rapid adoption of digital products and services in smartphones and text messaging, notebooks and tablets, and social networks and interactive media. (more…)

Mar

Is Apple’s Predictability an Issue?

Posted by Jonathan Kizer at 9:45 am

Rene Ritchie, editor-in-chief of iMore.com, penned a thoughtful piece on Apple’s current “5S” predicament. His argument is that Apple has become too predictable: consumers know just when a new iPhone is coming, and so sales suffer leading up to that product, and competitors have learned to “counter-program” Apple in such a way as to release products far enough away from an iPhone release so as to ensure the success of said products (for example, is it really an accident that Samsung will be releasing the Galaxy S 4 six months after the iPhone 5, and roughly six months away from the iPhone 5S?). (more…)

Mar

Samsung’s Unicorn Apocalypse Exists, Available on Google Play

Posted by Jonathan Kizer at 5:02 pm

unicorn-2

Earlier this year, Samsung highlighted a particularly cliche app in its advertisements for its Android-powered devices. That game, titled “Unicorn Apocalypse,” was thought to simply be a fairly humorous play on the obsession with both unicorns and apocalypses that is common in gamers.

Not so. It exists, and is available for free in Google Play. The game seems simple enough: control a unicorn through an apocalyptic setting, avoiding certain death from various enemies.

Clever marketing move, or the result of a massive marketing budget constrained by a shortage of creativity? You decide — but for the unicorn lovers who also enjoy a side of apocalypse, there’s this game. Yeah, apparently there’s now an app for that.

[Google Play]

Here’s to the Crazy Ones: This Tattoo Could Make Telekinesis a Reality

Posted by Jonathan Kizer at 12:45 pm

This electronic tattoo could one day be used to fly aircraft.

Google Glass. Apple iWatch. Both of these products revolve around the idea of removing barriers, and bringing the computer closer to the user. Literally, wearable computing is about extending both the accessibility and the capabilities of computing to places that simply have been unreachable.

So let’s talk about an electronic tattoo. According to researchers, “temporary electronic tattoos could soon help people fly drones with only thought and talk seemingly telepathically without speech over smartphones.” Such a device would work by detecting electrical signals from the brain, and then transmitting it to a more powerful relay station that could actually decipher what the signals are intended to do. (more…)

The Chromebook Pixel: Weighing It Against Heavy Competition

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 1:42 pm

A gradual shift towards cloud computing over the last number of years, ushered in by services such as Google Drive, iCloud and Microsoft SkyDrive, continues to make the days of physical storage further obsolete. Your immersive music libraries, photo galleries, movie collections and applications are becoming increasingly accessible from the web, rather than stored directly on your computer or other device.

Google, as the curator of several web-based services, is a forerunner in this transition towards the “post-PC era” once coined by the late Steve Jobs. A few years ago, the Mountain View-based corporation went one step further with the Chromebook. At the time, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt claimed that Chromebooks would essentially be inexpensive, throwaway notebooks. That mantra held true, until just days ago. (more…)

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Google Announces I/O Developer Conference Dates

Posted by Jonathan Kizer at 5:27 pm

Google I:O 2013

Google has announced that its annual I/O developer conference will take place from May 15 to May 17, 2013. Registration will open on March 13 at 7:00 AM PDT, or GMT -7.

I/O is comparable to Apple’s WWDC, in that it is a conference for developers. Google typically makes private presentations to developers regarding products and services. In addition, I/O acts as a way for Google to announce new products or services, with various keynotes of varying size scheduled throughout the time of the conference.

Looking for more information? Google has set up a Google+ page for interested developers, and also suggests that developers interested in purchasing tickets should be sure to have both a Google+ and Google Wallet account ready.

[Google]

Google Glass Coming in 2013

Posted by Stephen Hall at 3:42 pm

googleglass

Wearable computers like the much-rumored “iWatch” may be coming sooner than we think; CNET reports this morning that Google Glass will indeed be arriving “by the end of 2013.” Google had originally told Bloomberg that the headset was projected to be coming in 2014, but it appears that may no longer be the case. Even better, sources for CNET say that the device will be coming with the low, low, price tag of less than $1,500. (more…)

Limited Time: Get a Free Nexus 4 On Contract With T-Mobile

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 2:07 pm

Nexus4

This weekend, mobile provider T-Mobile is offering Google’s hot-selling Nexus 4 smartphone for free on a two-year contract. While a subsidized price isn’t really anything to be too excited about, since you will fork over a rather large sum of money by time your contract ends, it still beats the regular $199 price tag that T-Mobile sells the Android-powered handset for. Will you get a free Nexus 4 this weekend?

[The Verge]

Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview Released for Nexus Devices

Posted by Jonathan Kizer at 8:52 am

Ubuntu for Phones

Canonical released their Ubuntu Touch OS developer preview, which includes support for various Nexus devices. Those devices are:

Galaxy Nexus
Nexus 4
Nexus 7
Nexus 10

The preview release is not a finished product: there are rough edges, and almost certainly stability issues and bugs throughout the OS. However, Canonical’s latest attempt to find a niche in a mass market device may work. Nexus devices are very hackable, and attract a large enthusiast community (just check out XDA Developers or Rootzwiki for proof). Those enthusiast hackers are willing to flash new operating systems on to their devices to test, and may also be willing to code applications and such for Ubuntu’s latest OS.

So, Nexus owners of the world, are you interested in Ubuntu for your smartphone? Are you going to flash this on your device?

[Shoutpedia]