FUNKY GREEN: 11/13/13

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Facebook's revamped Messenger app with texting rolls out to more iPhone, Android users

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Google+ for Android updated with improved Locations, Beam support for photos

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La reentrada de la Soyuz TMA-09M fotografiada desde un avión de British Airways

Our pilot Simon Wijker caught this great shot of the Soyuz TMA-09M returning to Earth carrying the Olympic torch @esa pic.twitter.com/u9z2wnnYIP

— British Airways (@British_Airways) November 13, 2013

La NASA y Roscosmos envían siempre a fotógrafos a cubrir los aterrizajes de las Soyuz en Kazajistán a hacer las fotos oficiales, pero no recuerdo haber visto nunca imágenes de la reentrada.

Hasta hoy, que se ha hecho pública una foto de la Soyuz TMA-09M que cazó el pasado lunes un piloto de British Airways minutos antes de que esta aterrizara.

En la Soyuz TMA-09M volvían Fyodor Yurchikhin, Karen Nyberg, Luca Parmitano después de haber pasado casi seis meses en a Estación Espacial Internacional; también se traían de vuelta la antorcha de los juegos de Sochi de 2014 que acababa de participar en un relevo durante un paseo espacial.

Es cierto que la foto no es gran cosa, pero para no haber sido preparada, tampoco es cosa de quejarse.

Por cierto que con esta son dos fotos conseguidas de casualidad de otras tantas reentradas esta semana, ya que en la noche del domingo al lunes Bill Chater conseguía capturar la del satélite GOCE de la ESA desde las Malvinas.

# Enlace Permanente

via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/reentrada-soyuz-tma-09m-desde-un-avion-de-british-airways.html

Back When We Wanted to Weaponize the Weather

Engadget HD Podcast 374 - 11.12.13

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Jolla phone will use Nokia Here map data, get Android apps through Yandex

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Europe to allow gate-to-gate electronics use by the end of November

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Segundo tráiler del remake de Robocop

Dos minutos y medio más para ayudarte a decidir si hay que ver o no el remake de Robocop que se estrena en 2014.

Por si no te aclaras, aquí tienes también el primer tráiler.

# Enlace Permanente

via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/peliculas-tv/segundo-trailer-del-remake-de-robocop.html

Looks like HP and Google are putting the brakes on Chromebook 11 sales due to complaints of overheat

The 10 Fastest-Growing Job Titles Are All in Tech

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HP and Google put sales of Chromebook 11 on hold after reports of overheating chargers

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Lenovo exec on why you're probably not using one of his phones... yet

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Zoomer: The Robotic Dog for People Who Can't Have Pets

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YouTube Capture for iOS update adds clip splicing and iTunes soundtracking

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Google Challenges Apple's Dominance In Schools With Google Play For Education, Now Shipping On New Tablets

Google is no longer the best-kept secret in education - that is, if Google's presence in any market is ever “a secret.” Over the last year or so, the search giant has been quietly expanding its footprint in education and is moving quickly to capture a greater share of the K-12 market.

Thanks to Google Apps for Education sweeping through schools much as it did through the business world, Google's presence in education has been growing fast, but has been mostly limited to its cloud productivity services. However, with the launch of Google Play for Education, Google's march into education has become more pronounced, as it revealed a service today that will eventually combine the best of its hardware, software and marketplace businesses into one.

The company first revealed its plans to extend Play - its app and content marketplace for Android - into the classroom at Google I/O in May. Today, after spending the last give months beta testing the new service with students and teachers at more than 50 schools, the company is finally pulling the trigger.

In practice, Google Play for Education essentially aims to make discovering educational apps a breeze, while helping content providers reach a wider audience of teachers and schools. After surveying teachers and IT admins, Google said today in a blog post, the number one problem they wanted Google's help solving had to do with time. In other words, already overwhelmed with busy schedules, they wanted time savers - both tools to help students learn in the classroom and tools to help them transition those classrooms to new curriculum standards.

To do that, Google is taking this familiar, two-pronged approach, combining hardware and software. This starts by offering schools the ability to choose one of three “classroom ready” Android tablets. First is the Nexus 7, Google's 7-inch Android tablet, which will be available to K-12 schools beginning today at a cost of around $229 (plus a $30 management fee for those who want to get more Google assistance). Beginning next year, Google will be adding to its roster of education-focused tablets with a 10-inch ASUS Transformer Pad and an 8-inch HP Slate 8 Pro, though pricing is not yet clear for the latter two.

But to really lure in schools, Google knows it has to go further. In the K-12 education landscape, the company is not only going up against the familiar duo of Apple and its iPad, but a growing list of education-focused mobile devices as well, like Rupert Murdoch, Joel Klein and Wireless Generation's Amplify and whatever becomes of Intel's acquisition of Kno - to name a few.

To do that, Google is tying in Google Play and a few other things to sweeten the deal, like offering bulk purchasing with purchase orders and instant distribution of educational apps, videos and other content to their Android tablets via the cloud.

With Google Play for Education, teachers can discover apps “approved by teachers for teachers,” the company says, as well as videos and books. Teachers can search for approved apps by grade, subject, by price - and, most importantly - by Common Core standards. In fact, the company will even be paying some teachers to review apps for them, marking those reviews with a yellow badge. As of launch, there will be “thousands” of “edu-approved” apps, through which Google will be offering the standard 30/70 split with developers.

To reduce the time and work needed to get schools up and running, Google's new tablets with Google Play for Education are built on Google Apps for Education, which means that students can use their existing Google accounts to log-in without having to begin the set-up process all over again.

Another key element: When teachers find an app they want to use, they can proceed to check out, where they'll now have the option to make a purchase order rather than having to use their own credit card and get reimbursed by the school.

On the other side, schools and IT administrators can now set up a classroom of tablets in a few simple steps. Once they set up the first device, admins will be able to load a class list from a local spreadsheet, the company said, and provision additional tablets simply by bumping a new device with the administrator's tablet. The idea, Google Play for Education product manager Rick Borovoy told EdSurge today, was to enable classrooms to “provision a class in under 10 minutes.”

While teachers and schools would usually avoid deploying a bunch of tablets during the school year, by using this simple “bumping” provisioning process, schools can circumnavigate this headache and potentially provision thousands of tablets during the school year without missing a beat. Or at least that's the idea.

With its new tablets that come with Google Play for Education built-in (and built on top of Google Apps), schools can now adopt Google's education tools all in one go. This allows Google to have another entrance into the classroom on top of its Chromebooks initiative, which have already seen hundreds of districts adopt the company's web-centric laptops.

So far, Google says that it's been working with startups like ClassDojo, Socrative, Explain Everything, NearPod and thousands more to get their apps up and running on Play for Education. In terms of what this means for K-12 schools in the U.S., Google had this to say in its announcement today:

With more than 30 million people using Google Apps for Education already, tablets with Google Play for Education easily plug into many schools' existing technology. This is an affordable, 1:1 solution that puts greater power in the hands of teachers to find the best tools and content for their classrooms. We're continuing to evolve the Google in Education offering and are happy to bring even more choice in devices and content.

So, stay tuned for more.

For developers looking to learn more, check out the Android Developers blog here and teachers can find Google Play for Education here.

Yahoo's Having a Domain Yard Sale: Who Wants Sandwich.com?

Yahoo frees up a slew of domain names; Sandwich.com could be yours for $100,000

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Founder Stories: The Struggle of Entrepreneurship Is An A/B Test

It's cliché to point out that most overnight successes in technology actually take years of work, yet in the case of Optimizely, we have yet another example of such a phenomenon. Earlier this year, Optimizely - on a tear - finally took a large round of venture financing and further solidified its founders' goal to build a long-term, lasting, sustainable company. While it all may appear rosy now for the company, this was the third company for the Optimizely cofounders since the pair left their jobs at Google a few years ago.

For this discussion, I sat down with with Optimizely co-founder Pete Koomen to discuss how he and his cofounder Dan Siroker left Google and started to build companies together (after Siroker's stint with the Obama campaign in 2008 and thereafter). The duo launched an educational site to teach kids math, but felt disconnected from the target users and weren't confident the service could grow. Later, they got into Y Combinator and, during that incubation period, dropped their initial idea (Company #2) and pivoted into what would become Optimizely. The rest, as they say, is history - for now.

What struck me most about this conversation, as it was unfolding and as I'm watching it again, is that if you listen closely, you can hear the desperation in Koomen's voice when he talks about tasting failure during the first two companies. You can hear the stress about not having a paycheck for a year. You can hear the ambition of someone who wanted to do something on his own, and was struggling to find that one “thing.” There seem to be some tough lessons in this story. Koomen and Siroker were accomplished technical engineers, held great positions in and out of Google, and had some of the best angels in the Valley behind them - and struggled for a while until they got to a point where they were revenue-positive and could focus on building the type of company they wanted to.

Editor's Note: Michael Abbott is a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, previously Twitter's VP of Engineering, and a founder himself. Mike also writes a blog called uncapitalized. You can follow him on Twitter @mabb0tt.

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Dropbox links business and personal accounts, says it's tired of juggling passwords

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Pocket 5.0 wants to make reading what you love even easier

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Snapchat reportedly rebuffed $3 billion offer from Facebook

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iPad Mini 2013 First Impressions: That's More Like It

Zepp's multi-sport sensor arriving November 19th for $150

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Incoming update will let you use Nintendo Network ID and Miiverse on the 3DS

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Engadget's 2013 Holiday Gift Guide: Cameras

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Facebook, Google received redacted government reply to FISA court, respond with new filing

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24 Accidental Scientific Discoveries That Changed the World

Cómo funcionan los coches autónomos del ingenioso juego Anki Drive

AnkiDrive es de juego de slot de coches (como el Scalextric de toda la vida) en versión siglo XXI: los coches no se limitan a seguir los raíles de las pista sino que se mueven libremente por ella.

Y además los coches de Anki Drive pueden conducir solos; es decir, que un sólo jugador puede competir en Anki Drive con otros tres coches autónomos, sin necesidad de que haya más jugadores en la sala.

El control de los coches, tanto cuando se pilotan manualmente como cuando éstos circulan solos por la pista (haciendo maniobras, adelantando y circulando sin chocar ni salirse de ella), se realiza desde dispositivos iOS (iPhone, iPad o iPod Touch), pudiendo controlar simultáneamente hasta cuatro de ellos a la vez a una velocidad a escala que en el MundoReal™ equivale a más de 400 km/h.

Según explican en The Clever Hack That Let A Toymaker Bring Robot Cars To Market 20 Years Early el modo en el que los coches deciden qué trayectorias seguir, qué velocidad llevar y qué maniobras hacer no difiere mucho de la inteligencia artificial detrás de los coches autónomos de Google: un ordenador toma decisiones en función de la posición del coche en la pista y respecto al resto de vehículos.

La parte clave del juego está en la manera en la que el ordenador recibe esos datos: cada coche individualmente escanea la pista para conocer su posición y la de los otros coches. A diferencia de los coches robotizados del Mundo Real™ (que tienen que ver el entorno con costosos equipos de cámaras y sensores láser), los coches de Anki Drive pueden ver con una luz infrarroja (invisible al ojo humano) una serie de marcas y guías que hay debajo de la pista -aunque parezca una simple tira de vinilo negro a simple vista.

Con todos esos datos los coches reciben instrucciones de vuelta desde el iPhone con las órdenes de por dónde ir y a qué velocidad y qué maniobras tienen que hacer para adelantar a otros vehículos sin chocar con ellos. Todos esos cálculos y procesos se repiten 500 veces cada segundo.

# Enlace Permanente

via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/tecnologia/como-funcionan-coches-autonomos-ingenioso-juego-anki-drive.html

Apple II's 35-year-old operating system is now open to the public

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Amazon Brings Kindle Store, Kindle Fire HD and HDX to Australia

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Sony's Mark Cerny: game developers have been calling for the PS4 since 2008 (video)

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Execs Watching Porn a Leading Cause of Malware Problems

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La enciclopedia mecánica de Ángela Ruíz Robles

A estas alturas tenemos muy asumido lo de los libros electrónicos y los tablets, pero que a una maestra española se le ocurriera a finales de la década de los 40 del siglo XX la idea de crear un libro mecánico cuyos contenidos se podían cambiar mediante unos carretes no deja de ser sorprendente.

Doña Angelita llegó a patentar su enciclopedia mecánica , y el ministerio de educación a dar su aprobación para su eventual uso en las aulas, sólo que nunca consiguió financiación para llegar a fabricarla.

El prototipo de esta enciclopedia mecánica es una de las piezas que pueden verse en la sede en A Coruña del Muncyt.

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