Month: March 2015

I know, right?!? Hooray for ubiquitous WiFi! And, solar-powered planes… geek out alert!

Facebook’s solar-powered planes will provide Wi-Fi to the ‘burbs

Ars Technica – By: Casey Johnston – “Facebook revealed a new research lab on Thursday that will develop “aerospace and communication technologies” to bring Internet access to areas that have not yet been networked. One of the Connectivity Lab’s projects includes a plane that can remain in the air for months at a time, broadcasting Wi-Fi to regions below.

The plane technology comes from Ascenta, a UK company that specializes in high-altitude long-range aircraft. On Thursday, Facebook announced its acquisition of the company for $20 million. The planes would be solar-powered and would fly over suburban areas at an altitude of 20 kilometers, above where commercial airlines fly.

For more remote areas, like mountain ranges, Facebook and Connectivity Labs hope to put up satellites that not only cover the area with network access but talk between each other via free-space optical communication using infrared laser beams.

The project bears some similarity to Google’s Project Loon, which uses untethered balloons flying in the stratosphere to broadcast Internet connections. The balloons create a mesh network at the same altitude that Facebook’s solar planes would occupy and provide 3G speeds. Project Loon is still in the experimental stages, but the company anticipates that it could be deployed for use in military communications or in disaster areas.”

They rasied 1 million dollars in 40 minutes, a new record! People must really want this watch!

Pebble Time Set New Kickstarter Records

I4U News – By: Luigi Lugmayr – “A new Pebble Smartwatch has been revealed on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. Pebble offered the new color smartwatch Pebble Time again as a Kickstarter project and it reached the modest funding goal in no time. Now the campaign is over and Pebble raised over $20 million from about 78,000 supporters. Pebble broke the record of fastest project to raise $1 million (49 minutes). Pebble also became the most-funded campaign in Kickstarter’s history after receiving more than $13.3 million in pledges after the first week.

‘We cannot thank the Pebble community enough for their monumental support. We continue to listen to and be inspired by the backers who believed in us and supported our vision from day one,’ said Eric Migicovsky, Pebble CEO according to CNN.

Pebble released a steel version of the Pebble Time soon after the original Pebble Time got unveiled. Pebble will now be spending the coming months hard at work polishing every last detail of Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel, finishing Pebble timeline, and ramping up the production process.

While the numbers sound impressive they are not in the bigger picture. The Apple Watch sales numbers will just make the 78,000 customers for the Pebble Time look like nothing. Apple is expected to sell millions of Apple Watches in the first wave when the first Apple smartwatch goes on sale in April.

About Pebble Time

The new Pebble Time is a color e-paper smartwatch that offers up to 7 days of battery and a new timeline interface that highlights what’s important in the wearer’s day. The new color e-paper display has a high contrast and always-on, perfect for displaying incoming notifications and the watch face. Compared with display technology like LCD or OLED, power consumption is minimized, enabling Pebble Time to achieve a battery life of up to 7 days.

Pebble Time’s new microphone lets users send voice replies to incoming notifications or take short voice notes. Pebble used the latest technology to maintain water resistance so consumers can swim or surf with Pebble Time. It is not water proof to the degree that it can be completely immersed in water.

Sending voice replies works with most major Android apps including SMS, Hangouts, Gmail, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and hundreds more. For iOS users, voice replies are currently limited to Gmail notifications. Pebble is working to enable voice replies for more apps.

Pebble Time is 20% thinner than the original Pebble at just 9.5mm. Its ergonomic, curved design fits comfortably on either wrist and slides easily under dress shirts.

Pebble Time is much better looking than the current Pebble. The lens is crafted from scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass with a bezel made of stainless steel. Like our previous watches, it’s water resistant – perfect for a run in the rain, water-balloon battle or a swim.

Pebble has also evolved the smartwatch user interface. The base concept is a timeline. notifications, news, reminders and events are laid out chronologically instead of being trapped inside separate apps. With one click, see what’s coming up next. Your timeline connects to calendars, alarms, and apps, organizing all kinds of relevant information along with quick actions. Similarly, recall the past.”

Microsoft is like the Borg… you will be assimilated! If you are an interesting, small company!

Microsoft acquires LiveLoop

India Today – “Microsoft has been on a sort of a race to acquire start-ups in the recent past. Its latest acquisition is LiveLoop. LiveLoop is a program which aids in converting PowerPoint presentations into a URL format. With this, anyone can check the URL, and PowerPoint need not be downloaded on the machine. As a result of the acquisition, the program will be closing down on April 24. Microsoft is known to remove traces of the acquired team’s work after acquisition.

Using this technology, Microsoft might be hoping to make it easier to access PowerPoint online in the coming days. Although there is already a PowerPoint client available online, it is not that user-friendly.

Microsoft has not revealed the amount it shelled out to acquire LiveLoop. This move comes after it had acquired the calendar app Sunrise for $100 million and e-mail client Acompli at a price of $200 million recently. Under the new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has become more open to making low-cost acquisitions, and not necessarily big names.”

Would you like a version of LibreOffice that would be available via the web, like Office 365 from Microsoft? Well, it is coming!

SecureDrop 0.3, LibreOffice Online, and more news

Open Source News – By: Scott Nesbitt – “If you’re looking for a free and open source alternative to Google Drive or Microsoft Office Online, you’d have a hard time finding it. While there are services like Framasoft and Sandstorm, they’re collections of disparate applications that don’t work all that well together.

Two companies, IceWarp and Collabora, are coming together to bring the popular open source LibreOffice productivity suite online. The online version, called LibreOffice Online, ‘is intended to guarantee complete document cross-compatibility with the desktop version of LibreOffice,’ according to InfoWorld.

There’s currently no release date for LibreOffice Online. The first releases won’t pack all of the features and functions of the desktop version. According to Collabra, the online edition will only have “a subset of the features available in LibreOffice desktop versions.” But if IceWarp and Collabra succeed, this could be big for LibreOffice.”

Chromebook users get a Google Now update, and, it seems to be popular.

Chromebook Devices Get Google Now update

Voice Chronicle – By: Seth Charlton – “Android users have the access of Google Now for a while now and even though it may have not picked up as anticipated, users are utilizing it. It is being used by those Android users who would probably be searching a program capitalizing on full Android integration as well as all things which Google will bring by connecting the application through one interface.

Chromebook users will be next set of people to have access to the software as Google is planning to roll out the Google Now launcher for the Chrome OS Beta Channel. The update will result in Chromebook users getting access to Google Now app launcher.

Google community manager for Chrome, Ernest Cabrera, stated that the new launcher is amazing to begin fresh activities on Chrome OS such as launching apps or performing Google search.

He added that its simple, fast and aids in getting things done. Cabrera added they have increased search for helping to find what one is searching for in a quick way along with putting the apps being used most often to one’s fingertips as well as bring power of Google Now to the Chromebook.

If one is an Android fan and one does not know Google Now still, one can know that it tracks activity using other Google software and also formulates what one may require for the future. If one puts a location in the calendar for meeting, Google Now would remind a person when its time to go depending on the time it would be taking to drive there. One doesn’t even need to set a calendar reminder.

Google Now can also keep a person updated on many things such as News that one may be interested in especially using an Android-powered device.”