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Monday, 3 February 2014
White House will host its first Maker Faire later this year
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Rescate de un paracaidista en pleno salto
Justo después de saltar del avión James Lee fue alcanzado por otro paracaidista y quedó inconsciente, dando tumbos sin control en el aire.
Otros dos compañeros se dieron cuenta de que algo le pasaba y se acercaron para indicarle por señas que estabilizara su caída.
Al ver que no les hacía caso se aproximaron para sujetarlo y estabilizarlo entre los dos de tal forma que pudieron desplegar su paracaídas sin peligro de que se enrollara.
James recuperó el conocimiento ya con el paracaídas desplegado y pudo aterrizar sin mayor problema, aunque tampoco tenía ni idea de lo que le había pasado hasta que se lo contaron.
(Vía Neatorama).
- Vesna Vulović, récord absoluto de supervivencia a una caída libre, aunque no lo consiguió a propósito.
- El hombre que cayó desde 15.000 metros al interior de una nube, permaneció volando en una tormenta 40 minutos y vivió para contarlo, otra historia bien curiosa.
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Paper news-reading app makes Facebook prettier, a bit less functional (hands-on)
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The NFL's new digital network is a step forward, but still not what cord-cutters want
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Vuelve Jack Bauer con su décimo día de perros
Reconozco que le tengo perdida la pista a Jack Bauer, el duro más duro de la televisión con permiso de Chuck Norris, pero para los que aún seguís sus aventuras, aquí está el teaser de la décima temporada, que se estrena el próximo 5 de mayo.
Las 24 frenéticas horas de 24: Live another day transcurren en en Londres, donde Jack, para variar, tendrá que salvar el mundo y tal mientras lo persiguen malos y buenos.
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Anonymity’s Moment: Secret Is Like Facebook For What You’re Really Thinking
In the mid-90s, it was all about a/s/l. Then a decade later, Facebook conquered the web, becoming the dominant identity provider on the web. Mark Zuckerberg himself once said that having two identities for yourself was a lack of integrity.
But perhaps the pendulum swung a little too far. Not only did Zuckerberg recently concede on his original point, apps centered on ephemerality and anonymity are now the rage.
It’s an app that lets you share thoughts with friends without revealing who you are. It’s like a riff on Frank Warren’s PostSecret project and it shares similarities with Sequoia-backed Whisper, but what makes Secret stand out is that you’re communicating primarily with friends.
So even though you don’t know who is saying what, you have a higher level of curiosity or empathy because they’re likely to be people you know.
“Secret feels like a masquerade ball,” said co-founder David Mark Byttow, who was the lead on Square Wallet before starting the company. “You know who’s on the guest list, but you don’t know who is saying what.”
He said that the point was to share things you wouldn’t otherwise attach to your name. The kinds of things people share on Secret are a little bit more vulnerable, insecure, emotional, sad, goofy or angry than what you might see on Facebook or Instagram, where people are trying to groom images of picture-perfect lives.
When you think about it, yes, it is kind of absurd that people would need a mobile app to be more vulnerable or self-aware with their friends. But Byttow says that Secret creates a very different space for sharing feelings or thoughts than currently exists through other social networks.
“This isn’t necessarily about sharing secrets. It’s about sharing secretly,” Byttow said. “People feel a sense of belonging or validation when we’re all feeling the same things. I hear people’s internal dialogues and they resonate with me.”
A secret can spread to a friends of a friend or a stranger if they attract ‘likes.’ In the app, I’ll see half of the updates come from friends or friends of friends, while others have arrived from Colombia, New York or Wisconsin if one of my friends has liked them.
Byttow and his co-founder Chrys Bader-Wechseler say that the community is surprisingly non-trollish.
“People give each other advice and there’s this camaraderie,” Byttow said. “It touches on this fundamental basic human need to relate to others or help them. And you don’t need to have identity to get that fulfillment.”
Each secret is also its own unit. You can’t see a record or history of secrets from any single user, to keep user privacy safe. The company explains more of its privacy safeguards here. Contacts are hashed, so no raw phone numbers or personal details are sent to Secret to match friends to different friends. Metadata for each secret is also stored without referencing any single user.
The company has raised $1.4 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan through their Initialized Capital vehicle, Index Ventures, Matrix Partners, SV Angel and Fuel Capital.
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Adobe's Photoshop guru John Nack is heading to Google's photography team
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Google Calendar now helps you remember holidays in 30 more countries
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Facebook, Google and Yahoo now say when the US government requests user content
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Samsung's Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 ships in the US February 13th for $850, up for pre-order now
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Mobile carrier Ting turns two, celebrates by lowering data prices
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Google finally opens Chromecast SDK, invites developers to get hackin'
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With $1.8M From Angels, Xola Launches A Booking And Marketing Engine For Local Activity Providers
While software is improving the efficiency and day-to-day operations of many businesses, those that offer bookable experiences — from back-country outfitters and urban tour guides and helicopter tour companies — have largely lived without that benefit. Because the world does not need another failed consumer-facing marketplace for “amazing experiences,” Xola is taking the business-to-business route.
The San Francisco-based startup is launching today with a unified, online solution to allow service providers to manage reservations, payments, calendaring and scheduling. The idea, says founder Scott Zimmerman, is to create a solution that offers these providers the ability to add online reservations capability to any website in three steps, giving small businesses and merchants the same access that’s traditionally been reserved for larger companies.
Like any other type of productivity and business management software, Xola wants to give small providers the ability to save time, stay organized and get out of the office and into the field. In other words, to leave the back-office management to Xola so that they can get out in the field and focus on what they do best: Making sure I don’t crash and burn on my next helicopter tour.
To do so, Xola allows tour operators to accept online reservations directly through their existing websites, giving guests the ability to view realtime availability, book excursions and pay for the trip without ever leaving the tour operator’s website. The company’s integrated back office also enables operators to enter bookings that come in via the phone, as well as in person or by email, allowing businesses to maintain a single, master schedule for trips, guests guides and gear — with realtime sync of scheduling, guest details and inventory.
Online reservation systems have transformed the travel industry — look no further than Expedia and Kayak, for example — and travelers expect the convenience of being able to book online, even when it comes to small operators. What’s more, over 80 percent of consumers use the Web to search for tours and activities, Zimmerman says, but less than 30 percent of tour providers in the U.S. offer this basic capability.
That’s really the crux of it for Xola. Consumers can book flights, hotels, car rentals and cruises from thousands of sites, because they all have end-to-end booking and distribution systems that connect the point-of-sale with consumer distribution. But not small tour operators. Small providers traditionally haven’t had access to this kind of affordable platform or software, the Xola founder says.
So Xola aims to give small to medium-sized businesses that integrated platform for booking, marketing and distribution that has eluded them over the years. And, to cater better to its audience, Zimmerman says that Xola’s system lives entirely in the cloud, meaning there’s no software to install or maintain, and no downstream IT cost.
By bringing flexible pricing to tour guides of any size and allowing them to start accepting online reservations in a few minutes, Xola wants to help bring these businesses into the 21st century — and it thinks there’s a pretty big market out there for the provider that does it best.
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Google Now comes to the desktop in Chrome and Chrome OS betas
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Pebble Launches Its Appstore For iOS, Android Version Coming Soon
Pebble started shipping its new Pebble Steel hardware last week, but until today, the version of the companion app available to the general public didn’t contain any of the version 2.0 goodness that granted access to the Pebble appstore. The new appstore is being billed as the “first open platform for sharing apps optimized for wearables” by Pebble, and as of today, it’s available to the general Pebble-wearing public, so long as you’ve got an iOS device.
The Pebble appstore works with any Pebble running OS version 2.0, which you’ll be prompted to install on your device when you download and install the updated Pebble app. You’ll also get a completely new interface for managing your Pebble and the new apps you can install on it from within the software. As you can see in our review, the update introduces an app and watchface management tray that lets you see what’s already on your Pebble (each smartwatch supports a maximum of 8 third-party apps and faces).
Pebble’s new appstore features apps updated to work with SDK 2.0, and is divided into either apps or watchfaces, with subdivisions within each. The apps section features categories, including fitness apps and remotes, for example, and the watchface category can be organized by popularity, recency or staff picks. In my review, I noted that it struck me as a bit rudimentary, but it’s perfectly functional for a version 1 release, and sort of resembles the early days of Apple’s iOS App Store.
I’ve already got some favourites picked out from the inaugural batch of Pebble apps: Both Yelp and Foursquare’s official software never leave my wrist, and the third-party Huebble app is arguably a better Philips Hue remote than the iOS app itself in many ways. The PipBoy 100 Pebble watchface also provides some great utility, including battery indicator, connectivity loss alarm when you venture too far from your phone, and what amounts to a loose step counter via an XP display and level up system. And if my life was exciting enough that I owned a GoPro, I’d definitely use the remote app for that gadget.
Already, Pebble’s app ecosystem offers up a number of software titles that can replace entire gadgets, with software for tracking daily activity and progress towards a goal, as well as stuff that turns your Pebble into a hardware remote for controlling your smartphone camera’s shutter.
Grab the updated Pebble app now if you want access to all that appstore goodness. Even if you aren’t one of the few pre-orderers lucky enough to have a Pebble Steel, you’re going to feel like you’ve got a brand new device with this update. Android users, Pebble promises you don’t have to wait long – they haven’t put a specific timeline on when the appstore makes it to Google’s mobile OS, but it should arrive “very, very soon” according to the company.
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The 7th Annual Crunchies Awards Are In 7 Days And Tickets Are Almost Sold Out
Tickets for this year’s Crunchies are almost gone. The show is next week. A few tickets can still be had, but sections are selling out quickly. This is the biggest night of the year for Silicon Valley. Get dressed up and come celebrate technology with us.
Next Monday, starting at 7:30, we’ll take over the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco to recognize the best startups, founders, engineers and venture capitalists from last year. Along with Gigaom and VentureBeat, we’ll award 20 Crunchies in total ranging from Best Technology Achievement to Best Mobile Application to Founder of the Year.
John Oliver is hosting again this year. That alone is worth the price of admission.
The after party begins immediately following the ceremony at 9:00 pm until 11:30 pm. Admission to the party is included with a purchase of an Awards Ceremony ticket. As always there will be a hosted bar, music, and other fun surprises.
See you next week!
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PlayStation 4 update supports Sony's pricey headsets, including a new model
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Apple says Happy Birthday Mac with a video shot solely on iPhones
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A Virtual Reality Headset Takes You to the Movies, But Tickets are $499
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Kentucky law could let kids swap foreign language classes for coding lessons
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Bloop It Takes Cutting And Curating YouTube Videos To Mobile
When you’re at work, sitting in front of a computer screen, there’s really nothing better than the moment a friend sends you a YouTube video. For a few minutes, life is good again. Charlie’s biting fingers again. Double rainbows still exist. Harlem shakers are shaking.
But on a smartphone, when you’re on the go and perhaps on a less powerful network, the YouTube experience isn’t always so seamless. That’s why Bloop It has launched in the App Store.
Banking on growing interest in mobile video sharing and creation, Bloop It wants to tailor the YouTube video sharing experience for mobile devices, starting with the length of the video.
Rather than sharing full-length videos, Bloop It lets you cut your favorite twenty-second clip from videos to send to friends and followers.
When you first download the app, you have the option to sign in with Facebook or create a username. Then, you’re thrown directly into the main feed of public bloops. Once you’ve followed a few people, you have access to your own curated feed. There’s also a Newest tab, for recently posted bloops.
To create a Bloop, you simply search YouTube from within the app and designate the start and end time of the clip.
To make money, Bloop It will eventually open up a sponsored bloops section, letting record labels and sports teams promote various bloops. But for now, the company has an affiliate program with Apple allowing users to “Buy It Now” from the iTunes store when they watch a clip from a movie or TV show.
The design and flow of the app could use a few improvements, but the core idea is strong. While Vine and Instagram have the mobile video creation space tackled, a quick and easy way to share our YouTube gems hasn’t conquered the market yet.
Perhaps Bloop It will be the app to do it.
Download the Bloop It app here.
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Austin’s Capital Factory Gets Matching Investment Commitments From Silverton And Floodgate
Capital Factory, the startup incubator based in Austin, Texas, is announcing a new initiative in which companies can receive $25,000 each from venture firms Silverton Partners and Floodgate, bringing their initial funding to $150,000 total.
In some ways, the program sounds like it was inspired by YC VC fund (which replaced the earlier Start Fund) offering investment to all graduating Y Combinator startups. But although Capital Factory co-founder Joshua Baer acknowledged that in its early days, the Austin incubator looked at YC as a model, he said it has evolved in a different direction, and that includes differences in how its startups get funded.
On a broad level, Capital Factory is no longer a three-month program. Instead, startups participate for an extended period of time, perhaps years.
“The goal is not to get them funded, it’s to get them to a sustainable business,” Baer said.
More specifically, when it comes to funding, startups are supposed to convince at least two mentors to invest $25,000 each. Once they’ve crossed that threshold, Capital Factory’s partners will invest another $50,000 — and with the new program, Silverton and Floodgate will each put in $25,000 as well, bringing that initial funding, as I mentioned, to a total of $150,000. (These investments usually take the form of a convertible note.)
Baer acknowledged that many startups will need to raise more money than that to get to a “sustainable” point, but he noted that “almost inevitably,” companies that can get two mentors to invest will be able raise money from other mentors too. He also said that beyond the money, the main reason to get the VC firms involved is to give the startups a connection to Silicon Valley.
The program will be available to all of Capital Factory’s startups this year — it’s targeting about 20 to 30 companies. It doesn’t apply retroactively to companies that have already raised money from Capital Factory’s mentors and partners, though of course they can still pitch Silverton and Floodgate for backing.
One thing that Baer said hasn’t changed is Capital Factory’s focus on Austin startups specifically. No one’s contractually committed to stay in Austin, of course, but he added, “We only invest in Austin companies — we’re not a three-month program that people move for. … We have this unique advantage that Austin is on fire.”
You can read more details about the new initiative here.
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