Friday, 6 December 2013
NSA cites executive order to defend its collection of cellphone location data
Google rumored to launch its own TV set-top box under the Nexus brand next year
Beeline Bikes Is Like A Homejoy Or Uber-For-Bike Repair
While there are thousands of small, independently-owned bike shops across the country and in bike-friendly cities like San Francisco, it’s still a pain to bring your bike in for a tune-up. There’s scheduling, and then there’s the hassle of not having a bike for several days.
That’s why Peter Buhl, a former longtime partner at BlueRun Ventures who served on the boards of companies like PayPal, had been thinking about a way to address this problem for the past 15 years.
He started Beeline Bikes, which is kind of like an Uber or Homejoy for bike tune-ups. They have mobile vans, outfitted with all kinds of parts (see below) and trained mechanics that can fix up many bikes over the course of a day.
The nine-person startup has three initial vans and the plan is to cater to startups and tech companies up and down the peninsula and in San Francisco. They’ll also do housecalls to families as well.
The price for a basic tune-up is $80, but they’ll discount it to $65 with multiple bikes. Each tune-up takes about 30 to 45 minutes and they have concierge levels of service for higher-end bikes. They’ll also do other services like bike fittings and overhauls.
“Our goal is to be the virtual bike shop for all the tech companies here,” Buhl said. “This works in cycling dense areas down on the peninsula and in the Bay Area.”
He estimates that the local Bay Area market alone is worth about $6 to 10 million per year, but if you expanded the concept nationally, it could be worth $100 million.
Beeline becomes yet another services or logistics startup like Uber, Homejoy, Exec, Postmates, Instacart and others, that use mobile devices and the web to coordinate large networks of service providers. Unlike some of these other companies, Beeline does not rely on contractors. It wholly owns its vans and the mechanics are full-time employees, although they would be open to exploring a franchising model if they expanded nationally.
The company has raised a half-million dollars in seed funding from 15 angels including IronPort founder Scott Banister, Canaan Partner Deepak Kamra, Like.com founder Munjal Shah, BlueRun Ventures partners Jonathan Ebinger and John Malloy and Brian Nesmith.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/2Dm_INhd40s/
Gift Guide: Five Kitchen Gadgets Your Foodie Will Eat Right Up
More food is consumed during the holiday season than any other time. But that’s the thing with food; you can’t stay full forever. And so these gadgets, services and tools should serve your food-friendly loved ones quite handily. We’ll cover a range of products, including a ingredient delivery service, a magical scale that measures the nutrition of your food, and one very special ice cube.
Everyone from a master chef to a home cook should have a blast with this gift guide, so let’s waste no more time and crack some eggs.
Prep Pad from The Orange Chef ($150)
If you know or love a health nut, the Prep Pad is an easy, thoughtful gift. It’s a bluetooth-equipped scale that measures the weight of your food as well as it’s nutritional value, which is then relayed to the user through an app. Simply input the type of food you’re weighing, or scan the barcode, and see a pie chart of the nutrition you’ll be consuming.
With an aluminum frame and a paper composite surface, which can be hygienically wiped down, the Prep Pad can handle any mess in any kitchen, and is accurate with the weight measurement to boot. It’s got a heavy little price-tag attached, at $150, and it doesn’t ship until February, but it is worth the wait (ha) and the cash for a chef obsessed with health.
You can pick up the Orange Chef Prep Pad here.
Impress Coffee Brewer ($39.95)
Budding caffeine addicts are just one gadget away from a full-blown addiction. Meet the Impress single-cup Coffee Brewer from Gamila. \
Single-cup coffee makers are becoming more popular, but those machines cost a pretty penny and take up a lot of space in the kitchen. But what if you could combine the single cup coffee maker with French press coffee-making techniques and a thermos to transport the coffee in? That would be a pretty amazing, right?
Well, that’s the Impress. It’s kind of a pain to clean, as you need to scoop out the grounds and such, but it manages to keep 14 ounces of coffee warm for hours.
Plated ($15/plate)
Grocery shopping, to some, is the worst part of cooking. Plated takes the guess work and leg work out of grocery shopping and cooking a nice meal. After a visit to the Plated website, you can shop around between various meals, ranging from things like Garlic-Herb Pork Chops with Roasted Sweet Potato Mash, Korean-Style Short Ribs with Asian Slaw and Sushi Rice, or vegetarian classics like Autumn Root Vegetable Chili with Cornbread Croutons.
Users are given everything they need, including ingredients and directions (but not cookware), to make an excellent meal and a fun experience. For $10/month, you can buy a membership that brings the price of a meal down to $12/plate, with a minimum of four plates per week. Otherwise meals are $15/plate with a minimum of four plates in one week.
Pucs ($19 for 3)
This is a design project that first blew up on Kickstarter and is now available for purchase in a number of different packages.
Anyone who enjoys a nice glass of whiskey on the rocks or simply hates a watered down drink should enjoy these stainless steel ice cubes. They stay at the bottom of the glass and hold temperature pretty well, without watering down the drink. They even come with a handsome case you can slip into the freezer.
They’re also able to bring down the temperature of hot beverages more quickly, and then be removed. They’re a nice conversation starter to have around the house, and come at a reasonable price. Worth considering for a boss.
Egg Minder
The Egg Minder is a product out of Quirky and GE that brings a little intelligence into the dairy section of your fridge. Bad Eggs are the worst, but the Egg Minder aims to make sure you never experience them again. The smart tray indicates which egg in the tray is the oldest via LED lights, while a wireless connection to your smartphone keeps you in the loop on expiration dates. If you’re running low, you’ll get a push notification. Even better, you can check how many eggs you have and when they go bad from the grocery store.
The Egg Minder costs $69.99 and is available now.
You can check out our complete Holiday Gift Guide 2013 right here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/dGnAycxbUtM/
Ryan Seacrest's keyboard case turns your iPhone into a BlackBerry (video)
Ryan Seacrest's Typo Keyboard Makes iPhones Look Like BlackBerrys
The best camera deals of the week: 12.6.13
Generadores de electricidad hechos de un «papel» especial
En Phys.org hablaron hace un tiempo acerca de un tipo de papel que está investigando la gente de Disney Research: es capaz de generar electricidad con solo frotarlo un poco. Una aplicación directa son pequeños juguetes en los que un movimiento de la mano sirve para encender las luces de un cohete, realizar una conexión wifi o emitir un pequeño sonido.
A los nuevos materiales que hacen posible este efecto de forma más o menos eficiente los han llamado electrets y con parecidos a los que se utilizan hoy en dÃa en los micrófonos. Hay más detalles en el artÃculo original: Disney researchers harvest energy from rubbing, tapping paper-like material .
(VÃa FayerWayer.)
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/tecnologia/generadores-electricidad-papel.html
Former Square Wallet Lead, Google PM Raise $1.2M For Secret (Which Is A Secret)
David Byttow, the former technical lead for Square Wallet, and Chrys Bader-Wechseler, a former Google product manager at Google+, Photovine and YouTube, are raising $1.2 million for a new stealth startup called Secret.
“Nothing is a secret these days,” Bader-Wechseler said, declining to comment on his startup or the round.
Byttow designed the infrastructure for Square’s partnership with Starbucks, and was a previous technical lead at Google+. Bader-Wechseler was brought into Google after creating a photo app called Treehouse and a video service laced around Twitter called Vidly.
He released Google’s competitive entrant into the photo-sharing space called Photovine, before it got folded and he joined the Google+ effort.
We hear the seed round includes investors like Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Google Ventures and KPCB, but Bader-Wechseler declined to comment or confirm any of that.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/uXtqVMbELU8/
Supreme Court could produce meaningful patent reform in abstract software case
El Antonov An-225, el avión que se traga incluso tranvÃas
El An-225 a punto de engullir un tranvÃa por Yu Ming en RailPictures.net
No es muy habitual ver algo como esto, ya que normalmente es mucha más barato hacer un envÃo de este tipo por superficie y/o en barco, pero a veces el tiempo apremia y hay que subir un tranvÃa a un avión.
Claro que en este caso es el único Antonov 225 del mundo, un cacharro realmente grande.
Giant planes comparison, via Wikipedia
No en vano el An-225 tiene el récord de la carga más pesada transportada en vuelo, un generador eléctrico de 189.980 kilos de peso que transportó en 2009, y el de la más larga desde 2010, dos álabes experimentales para aerogeneradores con una longitud de 42 metros.
(VÃa Ignacio R. en AerolÃnea).
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/aerotrastorno/el-antonov-an-225-el-avion-que-se-traga-tranvias.html
Engadget Eurocast 046 - 12.5.13
SpaceX realiza con éxito su primer lanzamiento a órbita geoestacionaria
Foto de larga exposición del lanzamiento
Tras verse obligados a cancelar dos intentos de lanzamiento anteriores el pasado 3 de diciembre SpaceX conseguÃa llevar a cabo su primer lanzamiento de un satélite a órbita geoestacionaria usando su cohete Falcon 9 v1.1, tal y como ellos mismos cuentan en SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit .
Era el segundo lanzamiento comercial de uno de estos cohetes y el satélite de comunicaciones SES-8 quedó insertado en una órbita de 295×80.000 kilómetros sin ningún problema.
Es lo que se conoce como una órbita de transferencia geoestacionaria desde la que el SES-8 se desplazará a su órbita definitiva usando sus propios impulsores.
El lanzamiento es muy importante para SpaceX porque demuestra que es el Falcon 9 es capaz de llevar a cabo este tipo de misiones y la deja en posición de poder competir con el Ariane 5 y el Protón.
De hecho Space ofrece los lanzamientos del Falcon 9 por 56,5 millones de dólares frente a las 200 del Ariane y los 100 del Protón y ya se está planteando aumentar el ritmo de producción actual de un cohete al mes hasta dos al mes a finales de 2014.
Los 9 motores Merlin 1D de la primera etapa del Falcon 9 v1.1
Es cierto, de todos modos, que SpaceX ha contado con ayuda del gobierno de los Estados Unidos a través de la NASA, que ha financiado en parte el desarrollo del Falcon 9, y ahora queda por ver si la empresa funciona sin este tipo de ayudas, pero es otro pequeño paso adelante más en poner el espacio al alcance de la empresa privada.
Este segundo lanzamiento con éxito de un Falcon 9 v1.1 ha permitido además que SpaceX reciba la certificación de la NASA para usarlos en el lanzamiento de las cápsulas de carga Dragon a la Estación Espacial Internacional, lo que está previsto que suceda el próximo 18 de diciembre.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/spacex-realiza-con-exito-primer-lanzamiento-orbita-geoestacionaria.html
National Geographic brings its custom cartography to Google Maps
Amazon's MP3 Android app gets a makeover, now lets you share to Facebook
LG G Flex review: a promising phone, but not one you should buy right now
Get Your Tickets to MashBash at CES Now
Microsoft and FBI Stamp Out Malware That Steals Ad Dollars
Razer may be making its first iPhone gamepad
Explorando los números primos
Prime Explorer es una herramienta para jugar gráficamente con los 62.500 primeros números primos; 2, 3, 5, 7, 11… todos aquellos que son divisibles únicamente por sà mismos o por la unidad. Estos números aparecen en blanco sobre un fondo gris – que contiene los números compuestos.
Se pueden mover los controles para colocar los números sobre distintas configuraciones y retÃculas: cuadrada, hexagonal, heptagonal… y cambiar muchos otros parámetros, además de hacer zum hacia dentro o hacia fuera para apreciar los detalles.
Lo más curioso es que en muchas de las configuraciones aparecen patrones de esos que en principio no deberÃan aparecer, pues una de las caracterÃsticas de los números primos es su impredecibilidad: no es posible prever cuándo aparecerá uno nuevo en la secuencia de los números enteros, algo que paradójicamente es lo que podrÃa deducirse de la existencia de patrones visuales y geométricos de este tipo.
En el ejemplo que encabeza esta nota los números están dispuestos en una espiral –la llamada espiral de Ulam– pero en una retÃcula hexagonal. Las aparentes lÃneas diagonales blancas son todas de números primos, que han coincidido en esas posiciones debido a la construcción de la espiral. Lo cual viene a significar que hay ciertas fórmulas que «generan» más números primos de lo que cabrÃa esperar, algo un tanto inesperado y sorprendente.
Esta aplicación ha sido diseñada y programada con sumo buen gusto por Mode of Expression.
(VÃa MetaFilter.)
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/explorando-numeros-primos.html