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Tuesday 28 May 2013
Boeing's Phantom Badger Combat Jeep Fits in a Small Plane
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/GYdHhSW1d_c/
Singapore to require operating licenses for Yahoo, other select news sites starting June 1st
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Fandalism's Philip Kaplan Launches DistroKid, An Affordable Way To Upload Music To Stores Like iTunes
Earlier this year, Philip Kaplan expanded Fandalism, his social network for musicians, with a service called Fandalism Distro, allowing musicians to bring their songs and albums to iTunes and elsewhere. Today he’s spinning out the distribution service as a separate site, which he’s calling DistroKid.
Kaplan, who previously founded or co-founded the blog FuckedCompany, the ad network AdBrite, and social shopping startup Blippy, said he wants DistroKid to change the way people think about distributing their music. In the same way that Gmail taught people that they didn’t have to delete their email, Kaplan said DistroKid should convince musicians that they can always bring their music to online stores such as iTunes: “You shouldn’t have to think about it.”
Tools like GarageBand have made it easy for users (including many who wouldn’t consider themselves musicians) to produce their own music. However, Kaplan said it’s still “a big decision if you’re going to upload your album,” because other services can charge around $40 per upload (TuneCore, for example, charges $29.99 per album for the first year, and $49.99 per album per year thereafter) — maybe not an enormous cost if you’re a professional musician, but enough to give you pause if you’re a hobbyist who just created something for fun. As a result, a lot of music ends up sitting on hard drives.
With DistroKid, users just pay an annual fee of $19.99, and they get unlimited uploads. (You can upload one song for free, before you even enter any credit card information.) The service includes uploading to iTunes, Spotify, and Google Play, with plans to add Amazon soon. Kaplan said it’s also much faster than competing services, which normally take three days to upload an album. With DistroKid, an album should be on iTunes within two to four hours, and users get emails updating them throughout the process.
When Kaplan discussed the service with me back in January, he described it as a way to drive users to Fandalism, rather than a major business on its own. Until today, he’s been running it as an invite-only service, and users have already uploaded more than 1,100 albums. However, Kaplan told me that his view on how people will use Fandalism Distro/DistroKid has evolved, as he saw that some users were only interested in the distribution, not the social network.
“I just sort of bit the bullet and said, ‘If I want this to be truly the best system in the world for uploading music to stores, it should be its own thing,’” Kaplan said. Hence the launch of DistroKid as a standalone site — Kaplan is demonstrating the service today at the SF MusicTech Summit.
That does mean Kaplan is now working alone to build and maintain two separate services — Fandalism and DistroKid. He said he still doesn’t plan to hire anyone else: “I have been building these companies that can be run by one person.” The key to making that approach work?
“I’ve automated absolutely everything,” Kaplan said. “Every now and then there will be a problem, and rather than just fixing a problem, I have to build a system to fix the problem.”
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/Pd8HFx00Da4/
Google+ update for iOS adds photo enhancements, standalone Hangouts app
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LG Won't Make Another Google Phone, VP Says
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Google Brings Skeeball to Your Browser
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Google's Roll It Chrome Experiment brings skee ball to your phone and browser
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Do you live in San Francisco? Do you want to write for Engadget?
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Connected Data to merge with Drobo, bring Transporter features to Drobo products
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Honda leasing Walking Assist devices to hospitals for rehabilitation
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Olloclip brings distortion-correcting camera app to its three-in-one iPhone lens
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German railways hope to fight graffiti with thermal imaging drones
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Engadget Giveaway: win a pair of V-Moda CrossFade M-100 headphones!
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Conversocial CRM Social Media Tool Raises $4.4M Led By Octopus Investments
Conversocial has been around since 2009, but only recently has the team decided to infiltrate the U.S. market with its social customer service software, which brings the social media response team into the call center.
The company has just secured a $4.4 million A2 round led by Octopus Investments, including a $3.2 million investment alongside a previous $1.2 million convertible note. The investment is aimed toward powering the UK-based company’s expansion into the U.S., as well as further product development and hiring.
This latest A2 round comes on the heels of a $2.4 million Series A round in May of 2011, bringing the company’s total funding to just under $7 million.
Conversocial is a social media management software that is pioneering in the third wave of CRM social tools. Founder Joshua March explained that the first wave of big brands and social media was the act of monitoring what was being said. Very soon, that monitoring turned into ways to push information out to customers, in the form of deals, contests, or promotions.
Now, however, the focus is on customer service powered by the immediacy of social networks. “Users have learned that tweeting a complaint or question, or posting it on Facebook, is a lot faster and easier than calling a customer service line or sending an email,” said March. “Plus, it adds a level of transparency to the conversation because everything is public.”
Conversocial is trying to capitalize on the social media conversations happening all over, by offering software that works inside a company’s call center to help employees prioritize complaints and questions, and answer with speed and care.
The company is now adding two new platform upgrades to its system, a real time management dashboard (which lets users see incoming social complaints and questions, and a Conversations workflow, which will prioritize incoming inquires.
Though Conversocial’s presence is mostly focused in the UK, it has some impressive clients including Barclaycard, GoDaddy, Hertz, JackThreads, and Sephora. In fact, the company has tripled revenue over the past twelve months, and internal projections say this growth rate will continue on.
See, whenever a new customer service tool is made available, it usually results in more overall customer service inquiries, as opposed to a migration from one mode of communication to the next. For example, when the phone was introduced as a way to contact companies, people didn’t stop writing letters. There was just a truckload of new people who felt their problem warranted a phone call, whereas it maybe wasn’t worth the inconvenience of sending a letter.
The same has been true for the introduction of email, and now social media, meaning that Conversocial is fielding more and more CRM inquiries every day.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/lbMyHJdAzls/
Qualcomm's BatteryGuru App Improves Android Battery Life
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Pentagon's Cybersecurity Woes and Other News You Need to Know
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Blockbuster 2.0 for iOS arrives, manages the disc rentals we no longer use
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El origen de los animales en las portadas de los libros de O’Reilly
Quien más quien menos haya trabajado en el campo de la programación se habrá cruzado sin duda alguna vez con algún ejemplar de los libros de animales de O’Reilly . Las portadas de la famosa editorial son una especie de gigantesco zoológico, a veces incluso de animales raros; una idea tan simple como efectiva. Tanto que muchas de los títulos son más conocidos en las oficinas y centros de estudios por los propios animales; en parte abreviar, en parte para no perderse con la pronunciación: «el del camello» (Perl); «el del rinoceronte» (JavaScript), etcétera.
El origen de esta simpática idea lo relata Edie Freedman en A Short History of the O’Reilly Animals . La elección temática a raíz de la petición de encontrar un nexo común para toda la colección fue en parte azarosa, en parte con cierto significado:
Mientras buscaba algunas imágenes como ideas para las portadas me crucé con unos grabados del siglo XIX sobre animales raros. Parecían una buena elección para ilustrar todos esos comandos de UNIX con nombres extraños. Lo curioso es que a medida que investigaba los atributos de dichos animales descubría también que existía una intrigante correspondencia entre algunas tecnologías y la forma de ser de ciertos animales.
La anotación, procedente del blog de la propia editorial, resulta también interesante como repaso rápido a cómo O’Reilly comenzó vendiendo por correo sus libros a modo de pequeños manuales «acerca de temas relacionados con UNIX» impresos de forma un tanto tosca, grapados y encuadernados de cualquier manera – hasta llegar al imperio que es hoy en día.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ordenadores/origen-animales-libros-o-reilly.html
BBC iPlayer should support radio show downloads sometime next year
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Google's Nexus 4 Now Available in White
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Canon 50D gains video recording through Magic Lantern RAW hack
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¿Es peligroso Google Glass?
En The New York Times, Is Google Glass Dangerous?
Es una limitación evidente del cerebro humano: no podemos mirar hacia otro sitio al que nos estamos dirigiendo durante más de unos pocos segundos sin desviarnos. Y el tiempo que dedicamos a mirar en el teléfono móvil es tiempo que estamos distraídos del resto del mundo, como se muestra en los videos virales de usuarios que caminan distraídos con sus móviles y tropiezan en las fuentes de los centros comerciales.[...]
Google Glass puede permitir a los usuarios hacer cosas asombrosas, pero no puede erradicar los límites de la capacidad humana para prestar atención. La intución sobre la atención lleva a suposiciones erróneas acerca de lo que es probable que veamos; somos especialmente desconocedores de lo mucho que nuestra atención puede verse distraída por la disponibilidad continua de información útil y absorbente. Sólo comprendiendo la ciencia de la atención y los límites de la mente humana y del cerebro podremos diseñar nuevas interfaces que sean revolucionarias y además seguras.
Bonus: Es imposible conducir y atender mensajes con el móvil (vídeo).
Relacionada: Conducir y chatear: Muerte por Siri = Muerte por Whatsapp / SMS / Facebook.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/tecnologia/nyt-es-peligroso-google-glass.html
Earth, as seen by Raspberry Pi camera attached to weather balloon
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Drones Aren't For Delivering Tacos: UVS Avia Builds Quadcopters For Nuclear Sites, Search-And-Rescue
A wellspring of interest in quadcopters for commercial applications is advancing globally. From Airware’s recent $10.7 million round from Andreessen Horowitz to the launch of AngelPad’s DroneDeploy, quadcopters are one of the hot, hardware trends that founders and VCs are latching onto.
This experimentation is also happening on the other side of the world too. Russia’s UVS Avia is building higher-end microdrones to examine nuclear reactors and waste sites, along with doing search-and-rescue in remote areas.
They built a quadcopter that weighs about 1 kilogram, can fly above 100 meters and has at least 1 hour of battery life. It costs a hefty $40,000, but that’s because local Russian taxes effectively double the price and because they target government and military clients. Commercial drones for hobbyists cost a few hundred dollars, but often only have about 15 minutes of battery life. So far, UVS Avia has sold a “few dozen” drones.
It can be equipped with infrared vision, night vision or radiation protection to fly over sites like nuclear reactors or to monitor nuclear waste.
“Civilian versions weigh about 100 grams, while this is a kilo, which is a lot,” said CIO Maxim Shaposhnikov. “Everything is stronger and better.”
While the hardware for these drones is being commoditized, Shaposhnikov says the real advantage in the future will come from software.
“Normally, even for military use, all drones are managed by humans,” he said. “But our idea is to make the drones completely automatic, like maybe they could fly for months and charge automatically.”
The other thing they want to add is the ability for drones to communicate with each other. He said, you could eventually get 100 or more drones to monitor an entire city in a completely automated process.
“We think the whole industry is going in the same direction,” he said. “In five years, it will be really cheap to make drones, but the intelligence should be really advanced. New batteries are being developed that will allow a five hours of battery life. Everything is moving ahead, so software will be the key.”
The company has raised about 3 million euros in funding from private angels.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/TlPYih-RHKo/
This Is NASA's New Solar-Electric Propulsion Engine
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Izar Galaktik III, otra sonda construida por estudiantes de ESO que llega a la estratosfera
Jabi Luengo nos ha escrito para hablarnos del lanzamiento de la sonda estratosférica Izar Galaktik III, que el pasado 24 de abril alcanzaba los 28.000 metros de altura tras su lanzamiento desde la Estación Automática de Radiosondeo de Euskalmet en Gautegiz-Arteaga.
Izar Galaktik es un proyecto de un grupo de alumnos de Tecnología del colegio Hirukide de Tolosa, Guipúzcoa, que arrancó en el curso 2010-2011 inspirado, según nos cuenta Jabi, por leer nuestra anotación sobre el proyecto Meteotek 08, en el que unos alumnos del instituto La Bisbal, en el Bajo Ampurdán, Cataluña, con la ayuda de uno de sus profesores, enviaron una sonda de fabricación casera hasta los 30.677 de altura.
Igual que la Meteotek O8 la Izar Galaktik III, además de las cámaras con las que se grabó el vídeo que se ve arriba, llevaba también un registrador de datos construido con una placa Arduino y unos cuantos sensores.
En este tercer intento todo funcionó a la perfección, pero lo más interesante del proyecto, como nos comenta Jabi, ha sido ver como sus alumnos de Tecnología no se desanimaron ante el fracaso –relativo– de los dos primeros lanzamientos, y en lugar de desanimarse los tomaron como lecciones aprendidas para poder llevar a buen fin el proyecto.
En sus propias palabras: «Lo más importante de este proyecto es lo que hemos aprendido tanto los chavales como yo: la elaboración de un proyecto a largo plazo, la tecnología, un poco de física y química, meteorología y un mucho de trabajo en grupo e inteligencias múltiples.»
Es una verdadera lástima que la asignatura de Tecnología vaya a quedar tan reducida con la nueva reforma educativa.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/tecnologia/iizar-galaktik-iii-otra-sonda-construida-por-estudiantes-eso-llega-estratosfera.html
Bell Labs doubles beams in fiber optic lines to reach 400Gbps on a global scale
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PC Mobile may carry smartphones on June 5th, heat up Canada's mobile space
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Linkbot, una plataforma modular para construir robots
Los Linkbot son pequeños robots programables que pueden funcionar individualmente de forma muy básica, utilizando los motores y sensores internos, o pueden funcionar de combinados entre sí de forma más compleja.
Cada módulo dispone de su propia batería interna que se carga por USB y existen también accesorios para dar distintas funciones a los robots individuales o combinados. Los movimientos se pueden programar de forma básica de manualmente o de forma más precisa y compleja desde un ordenador y opcionalmente los módulos adicionales accesorios se pueden imprimir en casa utilizando una impresora 3D.
Más en Linkbot, Create with Robots , y en Barobo.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/gadgets/linkbot-plataforma-modular-construir-robots.html
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