Rapidshare announced Wednesday that it plans to shut down at the end of March.

“We strongly recommend all customers to secure their data,” Rapidshare posted in a message on its website. “After March 31st, 2015 all accounts will no longer be accessible and will be deleted automatically.”

Rapidshare was once one of the dominant players in the cloud storage industry. Back when the service was first launched it only shared a market with MegaUpload, and business was good.

But now the market is crowded, and regulators are much more strict with services that allow users to host and share pirated content. Now Rapidshare has to compete with the likes of Google Drive, Dropbox and the re-launched Mega. In addition, Rapidshare executives added a suite of anti-piracy measures — to avoid the legal assault that was inflicted upon its competitor MegaUpload —  which were unpopular with users leading to a big drop in traffic.

At one time Rapidshare was one of the top 50 visited sites on Alexa, bringing in hundreds of millions of pageviews per month. Advertising from that funded the site’s free service, ensuring a steady supply of new users. Now, in its last year, the site dropped down to the hinterland of a 5000 ranking as users abandoned it for providers more tolerant of piracy.

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Job seekers, Rejoice. While unemployment tries to recover from stagnation, the IT industry has a bright outlook. CompTIA, a professional IT certification company, predicts a worldwide expansion in the industry of around five percent with only Canada and the UK lagging behind.

Companies are understaffed already in the technology department and 70 percent of managers report they expect to have a shortage of IT professionals to draw from to fill the gaps. The CompTIA report pegs unemployment in the IT industry lower than that of other fields nationally. In 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics averaged the unemployment rate for technology professionals at 4.4, about half the national average at that time. The image breaks that down by position. The picture hasn’t changed much.

A shifting environment due to acquisitions and mergers adds to the complexity of staffing. Not surprisingly, top on the list for growth are areas that make headlines: cloud computing, mobile, and as indicated by events such as Anthem Blue Cross’s hack attack, security. Established entities with familiar names have cash flow to entice employees with salaries and uncommon benefits that go beyond such traditional subsidies as health insurance.

If you plan to go job hunting, you might want to arm yourself with some hardware and software skills. That’s what companies continue to search for when interviewing applicants.

The post IT: It’s the Place to be for Job Hunting appeared first on VR World.

For over 25 years ResMed has been providing medical equipment for sleep-disorder breathing. They are clearly not a johnny-come-lately, jumping on the latest hi-tech bandwagon. This fall ResMed introduced the S+, a no-contact sleep tracking device developed for the consumer.  This differs greatly from wearables such as the Basis Peak and the Jawbone UP systems that promise to track sleep as well as steps, calories, and activity.

The ResMed S+ uses a combination of respiratory and biomotion sensors that not only monitor your motion and breathing while you sleep, but the temperature, light and noise in your bedroom as well. In addition to the biomotion sensor device, ResMed S+ has a smartphone app for iOS or Android. The application connects to the ResMed proprietary cloud and your nightly data is compared to hundreds of thousands of recorded nights of sleep from their other medical prescription respiratory devices. The app makes suggestions for a better night’s sleep based on the data it collects.

Getting a good night’s sleep is something all of us need and want. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 60 percent of people report they have problems sleeping almost every night. Continual sleep problems can lead to next-day drowsiness and increases in health related issues like congestive heart failure, obesity, and diabetes. Many people suffer from sleep apnea which is when you stop breathing during the night. Such individuals, usually, wake up with a snort for air, which disrupts a good night’s sleep. As you might guess, sleep apnea can be fatal. Do you have sleep apnea? Take the quiz provided by ResMed.

Now that you understand the importance of the information provided by ResMed S+, let’s take a look at what you get in the ResMed box for $149.95.

The post ResMed S+: High Tech Help for Good Night’s Sleep appeared first on VR World.

Hiku scans, records, categorizes, locates, and marks your favorite items to make shopping a no-brainer. The handheld device scans bar codes on your favorite and incidental items. The item is then listed on a shopping list on your smartphone ready to take to the store.

You can assign an item to any number of user-named lists – Safeway, Petsmart, RiteAid, GNC, and so forth. Head for the store, display your shopping list on your phone and proceed down the aisles. In this review, I’ll show you with pictures how easy it was to install,  learn, and use. I’ll also tell you what I did and didn’t like about Hiku.

You’ll need either an iOS or Android smartphone to download the free Hiku app. I tested the Android version as soon as it was released. The beta packaging still only refers to the original iOS version though.

You can buy the related scanning device direct from Hiku. The same device works with both iOS 6.0+ and Android 4.0+ since it sends the scanned information to a neutral cloud. The device contains a 1D linear scanner, a microphone, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery.

Inside the box you’ll find the device, a micro USB cable for charging the battery, and a tiny three-fold 3”x3” Start Up Guide.

Hiku seems like an odd name for an application that creates a grocery list. When I questioned Matt Beebe, head of product and design, he explained: “The name Hiku comes from the Japanese short-form poetry, meant to be said in a single breath. When done well, a haiku communicates meaning in its simplest form, and is beautiful. That captures the ethos of our brand: to bring simplicity and beauty to people’s lives.”

The product’s instructions themselves are simplicity personified. They start by telling you to download the application from the Apple App Store < https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hiku-mobile/id721935991?ls=1&mt=8 > and follow the on-screen instructions to connect Hiku to your Wi-Fi. It needs to be a 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi network. Because I was beta testing the Android version, I went instead to Google Play  for a copy of the software. The product’s documentation obviously needs to be updated to include the new version. When you search for Hiku on either site be careful of what you choose.

A search for Hiku on iTunes and Google Play displays several misleading, but interesting, choices.

One choice might include the following Haiku poem by the 17^th century Japanese master Matsuo Basho: < http://poemhunter.com/matsuo-basho/ >

A field of cotton –
as if the moon
had flowered.

Take a moment to mentally contemplate the image … Now let’s continue with our study of a more mundane topic: grocery shopping.

INSTALLING HIKU

Installation of the Hiku app on an HTC was easy and automatic. You are asked for your Wi-Fi connection.

You are told when to sync your device to the application by placing the device on the phone’s display.

Make note of the warning that accompanies the placement. It is no B.S. The bright pulsating action that takes place during the synchronization is intense.

You’ll be rewarded with a message of success that displays on the phone below the device.

The process creates an icon on the phone’s home panel.

The Hiku icon appears here in the lower right corner of the phone’s display.

To sign onto Hiku, you’ll need yet another password to keep track of. They do have a way of assisting you if you forget it. After you have started a shopping list, you can share that list because it is stored in the cloud not on your phone. You could send your mate to the store and they could access the list by signing in to their own smartphone with the same email address and password you created during set up.

 USING HIKU

The device itself is made of a study, water resistant, shell designed to resist damage to both exterior and interior even when dropped. It is fitted with a magnet that attaches tightly to your refrigerator and is covered by a soft silicon rubber that keeps it from scratching the appliance. The activating button on the opposite side is of brushed aluminum. A recessed window protected with a rubber framing is what you point towards the bar code for scanning to take place. You also can set the device on this end on a flat surface.

Hiku adheres securely within easy reach on the refrigerator door.

The same device can be used with either an iOS or Android phone. The downloaded app on your phone talks to the cloud to retrieve your stored information. Hiku has an established and growing data base of 17 million bar codes that it draws upon.

The same device can be used with either an iOS or Android phone.

With the oval Hiku device in hand, I began scanning a variety of items and checking how they showed up on the phone.

Most familiar items were quickly categorized by the program.

When you select to display Details, you are able to edit the information. You can change the name in your list that was associated with the bar code, assign the item to another aisle, and enter the quantity you want to purchase. You can mark common items as “Regulars”.

I scanned a variety of shapes and conditions. Flat cardboard boxes of course do well. Yet, I had no problem with the bar codes being recognized on round cans, moist milk cartons, wrinkled labels, irregular tubes, or cellophane covered containers.

Hiku read bar codes of various and sundry shapes and conditions.

Hiku has three audible signals which translate into: It’s Added. Bar Code Not Recognized. Voice Not Recognized. One item Hiku didn’t recognize was a bottle of Port wine. I guess it doesn’t read Portuguese codes. However, referring to the paper Start Guide that came in the box, I found the solution.

Afer I scanned the bottle again, I immediately pushed the silver button, aimed the scanner at my mouth and said “Porto Morgado” using my best accent. Bingo. Hiku can even spell. There it was on the No Aisle category along with the Epson ink cartridge that the system didn’t know what to do with either. Hiku even spelled the brand name correctly from my verbal input.

I assigned my after dinner drink to the Beer/Wine/Liquor aisle.  Now that Hiku has my Port in its data base anyone can access the information immediately because I “taught” Hiku the bar code.

Porto Morgado has been added not only to my shopping list, but to Hiku’s data base for everyone’s benefit.

Alphabetical aisles come already defined, such as Baking/Spices, Dairy, Grains/Pasta, Meats, Produce. You can add a new aisle which I could have done for the ink, but I decided School/Office Supplies would suffice. I also could create a separate Shopping List for, say, Staples, and assign the Epson ink to that list instead to my general Grocery List.

PROS and CONS

To get started, you can name a list, go to that store, walk the aisles scanning bar codes from your common purchases to quickly set up a thorough list in the order in which you will find them in the store.

As you learn how to use Hiku, if you can’t figure something out, you can tap My Hiku and display links to the site’s FAQ’s or send an email to support@hiku.us. For example, although Hiku has an almost flat, easy learning curve, I didn’t intuit how to remove an item completely. I could “Cross It Off” by swiping it, but to get it off that list the FAQ that displayed on my phone told me I needed to hit the Clear button. I could not locate a Clear button, so I will contact Support for a more specific direction or graphic.

The My Hiku also has Tips, which are a reiteration of the compact Start Up Guide, so help is always a tap away on your phone. It is in place to allow language selection for voice recognition with three forms of English, two forms of Spanish, German, French, and Italian. The product currently supports English only. The other choices will be an enhancement.

Finally, the company responds to problems as evidenced by this notation on their website about their first version. “We’ve identified an issue in the hiku mobile app version 1.0 where new item refresh fails for AT&T customers under certain conditions. The issue is now fixed, available in the App Store as version 1.1. You can download it.”

CONCLUSION

This compact, patent pending, shopping assistant could be called a gadget according to Merriam Webster which says: “Gadget: an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty.”

Hiku is something that is new and unusual, as well as practical. Introduced at San Francisco’s Pepcom in November, Hiku saves the user time, provides organization to an often chaotic procedure, and is easy to use. Instead of scurrying from aisle to aisle, backtracking to the canned vegetable aisle because you forgot to get lima beans when there, you can methodically move up one aisle and down the next, checking items off your list.

I did not find a way, however, to mark that I had put the item in my shopping cart. So for now, you’ll need to remember what you selected and what you still need to pick off a shelf and place in your basket. It’s time to request an enhancement.

I was told that another enhancement I wanted had been requested by other users as well: printing. If your neighbor offers to pick up a few things for you when they go to the store, you’d probably prefer to give them a printed list instead of access to your Hiku account.

This scanner is also perfect for someone who has difficulty writing, perhaps due to severe arthritis. Scanning or speech can take the place of painful attempts at maneuvering a pencil.

Hiku is priced at $79, but I think $50 would be a better price if you weren’t sure you’d really use it once you had it. Also, if you were just counting dollars, a smaller price in today’s economy might be more enticing. However, it depends on how you value your time. This device is definitely a time saver, and “time is money”.

Founders Rob Katcher, CEO, and Rajan Bala, VP Engineering, urge you to “Get the App”.

This app is a must for the busy person who has a deadline and an empty refrigerator that needs filling. No fumbling for a list, no forgetting the one special thing you went to the store for. It’s a convenience for every single mom with limited time, any bachelor who hates to shop, and every person who has a large family and a long, varied shopping list.

Hiku is seeking retail partners 9bizdev@hiku.us) and developers (devrel@hiku.us) to pair their product with Hiku. You should contact them on their career page if you are an experienced mobile software engineer or a data scientist looking for a job.

The post Hiku: Add it to Your Shopping Cart appeared first on VR World.

Is your recently updated Nexus 5 or SHIELD tablet feeling slow after the Lollipop update? You probably are going to need to do a factory reset.

Keep in mind that if you do a factory reset you will lose all locally stored data that hasn’t been backed up to the cloud. That usually means music files, photos (if you don’t have Google+ auto backup enabled), app settings and authorizations and other settings. Most of these things will be saved for you if you are using all of Google’s cloud services, but local music and other files will not be backed up so back those up before you do a factory reset.

In order to do a factory reset, all you have to do is go to the settings potion of the phone, find the Backup and Reset option and then hit Factory data reset. Your phone will prompt you to make sure you want that option and then it will restart after you confirm and reset the phone to factory defaults, which are now going to be the Android Lollipop defaults.

Recently, a lot of phones have been getting updates to Android 5.0 Lollipop and the list is only growing. A lot of users that have updated their Android 4.4.4 Kit Kat devices are reporting that their devices are appearing to perform slower and less responsive after the update. I had this happen with both my Nexus 5 and my SHIELD tablet and a factory reset made both devices as fast as before the update.

The great thing about Android Lollipop that a lot of people haven’t really experienced yet (because most people haven’t had to update their device and do a reset) is that you can completely wipe your device and the Android backup actually does backup all of your apps that were previously installed. In the past, this feature partially worked for me and I didn’t entirely trust it as a result. So, when I did a factory reset of the SHIELD tablet, I was prepared to re-install everything but instead I re-installed nothing and the tablet did it all on its own.

A lot of people are speculating that people are experiencing this issue due to the fact that the OTA files on the phone or tablet were not properly wiped from the phone or tablet’s memory and as a result are causing some sort of an interface lagginess and overall system sluggishness. After all, the OTA is a fairly large file for both devices. There are also speculations that the reason may be some applications that are unoptimized for Lollipo but those are fairly unjustified because after a factory reset those apps return and performance is still fast.

The interesting thing is that it doesn’t actually affect overall system performance as much as we thought, as when we had originally gotten the SHIELD tablet it had performance of 4579 in Futuremark’s PCMark Android benchmark. After the Android 5.0 lollipop update, it went up to 5127 points even with the lagginess and after the factory reset it went up to 5322, which means that when the Android 5.0 lollpop update is applied correctly the SHIELD tablet gets  20% performance bump, not the 15% we had seen.

So if your newly updated Android device is feeling sluggish or slow after the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, then you should seriously consider doing a factory reset as one of the first options before you waste too much time on other things.

The post Nexus 5 or SHIELD Tablet Feeling Slow after Lollipop? appeared first on VR World.

Verizon (NYSE:VZ) is trying to get on the softer side of consumers. You could either consider this the more emotional side, or the software side, either would be applicable here. Verizon is deeming the day before Thanksgiving, November 26th, one of the busiest travel days of the year Connection Day. Connection Day is Verizon’s way of saying thanks to their customers and anyone that might need some help while they’re traveling home for the holiday.

The first thing they’re doing is that they’re giving existing Verizon More Everything plan customers a free, one-time gift of 1GB of data and another 1GB of data for the next billing cycle. In addition to Verizon’s own customers anyone and everyone can get in on Verizon’s Connection Day ‘gifts’ or ‘free offers’ by simply heading over to the Connection Day page.

Verizon FIOS is offering free mobile access to their popular movies and TV Shows on November 26th via their FIOS Preview mobile app.

Verizon has partnered with Amazon to offer a selection of 10 free/discounted apps, plus two free Audible.com book downloads (for new members) or $10 in Audible credit (current members). You will also get 10 free songs from Amazon Music and 10 curated playlists with Amazon Prime Music.

Apple has also joined the Connection Day gifting craze by offering a ‘special offer’ which will be revealed on November 26th, Connection Day.

Verizon also partnered with Condé Nast to offer free digital edition downloads of all 17 of the company’s publications which include Wired, Vanity Fair and GQ.

Verizon has also partnered with Boingo and GoGo to offer half an hour of free internet service in airports and planes on November 26th, Connection Day. And if you’re flying on Jet Blue, there will be free in-flight Wi-Fi for all flights between November 26th and December 31st.

Last but not least, Verizon partnered with Pandora to offer a free seven-day trial of Pandora One (Pandora’s premium subscription music service).

The post Verizon Deems Day November 26th Connection Day appeared first on VR World.

TiVo went overboard with a new release. Appropriately named the TiVo Mega, its 24 terabytes can record more than 26,000 hours of television. If you need this product, you need to get a life. The storage space holds three years of programs. It will let you save, and forget to watch, more programs than ever before.

Those mega-thousands of hours are for SD recordings. If you want HD you’ll have to settle for only 4,000 hours. The Mega promises an all-in-one approach to live, recorded, on-demand, streaming services and web-based television. You’ll be able to get what you want anywhere you are with the free application for smartphones and tablets. It provides universal search across cable, video-on-demand and web apps including Netflix and YouTube. A personalized dashboard with recommendations based on your own previous choices could introduce you to programs you’d never considered before.

Sarah Renz shows how TiVo Central is used at Pepcom 2014.

Ira Bahr, TiVo CMO, says: “TiVo Mega offers more than twelve times the storage of any cable or satellite DVR. TiVo Mega is the solution for the power user who wants to record everything.”

The Mega won’t be available until 2015 with an anticipated price of $5,000. I suppose you could put an IOU under the Christmas tree. In the meantime, consider other choices in the Roamio series: TiVo Roamio, TiVo Roamio Plus, and TiVo Roamio Pro.

TiVo Roamio Pro

For less recording time and a smaller price, consider the Roamio Pro also cable enabled and priced at $599. With it, you have 450 hours of HD recordings or 3,000 hours of SD, which can stream to your iOS devices. You can record six shows at once which should keep you entertained or if you find you can’t sleep at night let it suggest what to watch.

If you are not into cable TV yet, why not consider Roamio OTA. Bahr reminds us: “Many top TV shows in America are available with a simple HD antenna.” For only 49.99, you can still record your favorite shows from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, and Univision, check out the two-week program guide, and enjoy streaming apps such as Hulu Plus, Netflix and YouTube.

Roamio OTA can record four HD programs simultaneously and can hold 75 hours of future entertainment. You’ll need a broadband connection and you can add TiVo Stream for mobile streaming. Pick it up at select Best Buy stores

You’ll have to wait until November 25th to see just how well TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO) is doing financially when they announce 3rd quarter results. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock has waived between $11.31-14.29. In case you want a few shares, be aware that individual investors only hold 20 percent of TiVo shares, the majority being in the hands of institutional investors.

The post Need to Record 3 Years of TV? TiVo Now Has Your Back appeared first on VR World.

Today, Jolla, the open source operating system and phone, announced it is now going to have its own tablet as well.

The Jolla Tablet is the company’s first tablet, featuring a 7.85″ screen and an Intel quad Core mobile SoC. This tablet is going to sell for under $200, which may make it one of the best deals in the tablet world next year. While the Jolla tablet runs the open source Sailfish OS, it also has some awesome aspects to it that make it more consumer friendly, like the fact that it has 32 GB of storage as well as an SD card slot. Something that the iPad, Nexus 9 and the newly announced Nokia N1 don’t have.

But there are some compromises here, it has a slower 1.8 GHz Intel chip, 2GB of RAM and a 4300 mAh battery, which is only 30% more than the current crop of smartphones. The Nexus 9 and iPad Mini 3 both have more than 50% more battery capacity than the Jolla Tablet, so I would suspect that battery life will not be this tablet’s strong suit, unfortunately. It also only has 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and no MIMO, which means that battery life will likely be even worse due to weaker Wi-Fi signal. Battery life should be a major concern for this device and isn’t even mentioned once anywhere in Jolla’s documentation. It also sports a measly 5mp main camera and a 2mp front-facing camera. Once again, not a huge fan of tablet photography, but this is probably a way that Jolla is able to get the Jolla Tablet’s cost so far below its competitors while still having that ‘camera’ tick box functionality.

Jolla Tablet Specs

What is awesome about this tablet, however, is that it is completely crowdfunded on Indiegogo and they have only opened up the campaign today and are already over 200% of their goal and are very likely to run out of tablets to sell within the day. So, this tablet is both open source and crowdfunded and not like the project from Canonical where they wanted the public to completely fund the profitability of Canonical through a crowdsourcing campaign.

It also appears as though Intel’s success in the mobile space in 2015 looks to be much better than it was in 2014, even if they are only partnering with emerging brands. If Intel properly ties themselves to upcoming and upstarting projects and products, they may actually find a way into the market and test their capabilities with biggest customers later on. The expected delivery date is May 2015. After that, they will very likely start putting the tablet up for sale for around $200 (they said $189).

There’s almost a certain chance they will sell out, the question will be whether it will be today or not, which is currently looking very likely. Below, you can watch Jolla’s promotional video about the Jolla Tablet.

The post Jolla Announces Open Source Jolla Tablet with Intel Inside appeared first on VR World.

These days, tablets are offered in several sizes and configurations that cost anywhere between $150 and $2,000. With such a wide variety of devices, it is easy to find one that suits your needs. These are the best tablets of 2014:

Nvidia Shield tablet

Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) Shield tablet is its second foray into the world of portable devices after the Shield handheld, and this time around Nvidia is looking to attract a wider audience. The Shield is targeted at users looking to play games on their tablet (a burgeoning segment thanks to the availability of visually striking games on mobile), and the hardware under the hood highlights the tablet’s pedigree: The Shield comes with Nvidia’s Tegra K1 chip with a 192 core GPU that can hold its own against anything in the world of mobile GPUs. The CPU features four Cortex A15 cores clocked at 2.2 GHz.

The 8-inch form factor tablet comes with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200, which means a pixel density of 283 ppi. Also included is 2GB RAM, 5 MP front and back cameras, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac connectivity and Bluetooth 4.0 LE. The frontal stereo speakers look similar to what HTC (TPE:2498) offers in the One M7, and they deliver where it matters; with sound coming out crisp and clear. Also available with the tablet is a DirectStylus 2 stylus that allows you to take notes on the tablet among other things.

This being a gaming-oriented slate, Nvidia is rolling out what it is calling Shield-optimized titles that are tweaked for the tablet. The list of games is continually growing as Nvidia brings more publishers on-board. Nvidia also recently announced its GRID service, which allows Shield users to access 20 blockbuster titles for free. It is clear that Nvidia is looking to build an ecosystem of content around the Shield tablet, which is encouraging. Users with a GeForce GTX card can also utilize Nvidia’s GameStream technology to stream games to the Shield tablet. The tablet is set to receive the latest version of Android this month, which will bring a whole host of new features.

The Shield tablet is available for $299, which is the 16GB Wi-Fi only model. The 32GB version, which also features LTE connectivity, is available for $399. For consumers looking for a more affordable solution to the Shield, Xiaomi’s Mi Pad offers the same hardware in a distinctly iPad-esque design for around $199. While Xiaomi’s offering may be marginally more affordable, it lacks the Nvidia-specific utilities included in the Shield.

HTC Nexus 9

The wait for a larger tablet in the Nexus series is over, with Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) deciding to go with HTC this time around. The motive for doing so was to not give preference to one vendor over others, which is great as consumers get to benefit from different design philosophies. The Nexus 9 is being billed as a premium tablet, and is positioned closer to the high-end segment. The 16GB Wi-Fi only version costs $399, with the 32GB model available for $499. There’s a 32GB variant that offers LTE connectivity, which will retail later this year for $599.

The pricing for the tablet is justified considering the hardware it features. The Nexus 9 comes with an 8.9-inch IPS LCD screen that offers a resolution of 2048 x 1536 in a 4:3 that is more reminiscent of the iPad that an Android tablet. The tablet comes with a coating of Gorilla Glass 3 that offers a layer of resistance to scratches. Under the hood, there’s a 64-bit NVIDIA Tegra K1 chip that features the 64-bit Denver CPU clocked at 2.3 GHz along with a 192 core GPU. At this stage, the inclusion of a 64-bit CPU is more future proofing than anything, and the weird 4:3 ratio means that certain utilities do not scale as well (for good reason). The 2GB of RAM may be a bit of a concern for some, and while the tablet can currently handle anything available in the world of Android with ease, memory may become the bottleneck in the future.

Other specs include an 8 MP camera at the back, 1.6 MP front shooter, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac connectivity, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, A2DP, apt-X and microUSB 2.0. The Nexus 9 comes with a 6,700 mAh battery and is available in three color variants: Indigo Black, Lunar White and Sand. One of the more interesting features of the tablet is the frontal speakers. These are not stereo BoomSound speakers like the ones on the One M8, but they still provide a much better sound that what is considered common in this segment.

In terms of build quality, the Nexus 9 loses points as it just isn’t near the level of what other tablets in this category cost. There is a lot of flex, particularly at the back of the tablet, when you press down on it. There also seem to be issues with build quality as a whole, which is not too dissimilar to what we’ve seen when Asus launched the Nexus 7 2013 last year. These issues were resolved within a month, but if you are buying the Nexus 9 as soon as it launches in your territory, be sure to check the device for build quality issues.

Apple iPad Air

Sure, the new iPad Air 2 comes with the faster A8X SoC, which as it turns out, comes with a semi-custom GPU along with the custom CPU design in the “Cyclone” architecture. The new processor has visible gains when playing games, but that doesn’t mean that last year’s iPad Air is obsolete. Far from it, and aside from the lack of Touch ID, there isn’t much to differentiate between this year’s tablet and last year’s offering. Combine that with the fact that the original iPad Air is now available for a discount, and the tablet from 2013 sounds like a much more enticing prospect.

In terms of the hardware, the iPad Air features the A7 SoC with a dual-core ARM v8-based CPU clocked at 1.2 GHz. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was the first manufacturer to kickstart the 64-bit revolution for mobile devices, mainly due to its ability to control hardware and software. The iPad Air comes with a screen size of 9.7 inches and a resolution of 2048 x 1536, which comes out to a pixel density of 264 ppi. There’s not much to say about the iPad Air, as it is often considered to be the benchmark for judging tablets against. With the discounted price, the iPad Air Wi-Fi only 16GB version is now available for as low as $399, with the 32GB costing $449. The LTE models have also seen discounts, and are now available for $529 for the 16GB version and $579 for the 32GB variant.

Surface Pro 3

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is positioning the Surface Pro 3 against the MacBook Air, touting several benefits like a kickstand, touchscreen and stylus. Clearly, the tablet is intended for work, but it excels at being a portable tablet as well. One of the standout features of the Surface Pro 3 is the hinged kickstand, which allows you to position the tablet at several angles.

Designed for power users, the Surface Pro 3 is available in configurations starting from $799, for which you’ll get a 64GB SSD and an Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC) Core i3 CPU clocked at 1.5 GHz. The Core i5 CPU clocked at 1.9 GHz is available for $999 for a 128GB SSD, and for $1,299 when paired with a 256GB SSD. The 1.7 GHz Core i7 variations are also available for $1,549 and $1,949, which feature a 256GB and 512GB SSD. Judging by the price points targeted by Microsoft, the Surface Pro 3 is more an Ultrabook-style notebook than a mere tablet.

The pricing may seem like a lot for a tablet, but the Surface Pro 3 is unlike anything else that is available in the world of computing today. The touchscreen responsiveness is at par with what you find in other tablets, and the performance figures are in line with that of Ultrabooks that feature Core i5 and Core i7 processors. Microsoft has successfully managed to cram incredibly powerful hardware in a lightweight form factor.

The build quality offered by the tablet is outstanding, the 12-inch screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1440 is one of the best available and the optional keyboard docking stand adds to the functionality of the Surface Pro 3. With a full version of Windows 8.1 Pro, the tablet’s main area of focus is productivity, but that does not mean that it cannot be utilized for multimedia consumption. The kickstand makes it ideal to prop up the tablet in various configurations, and the hinge is built to last.

Other hardware features of the Surface Pro 3 include 5 MP cameras at the front and back, full-size USB 3.0 port, mini DisplayPort, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity along with stereo speakers the feature Dolby Audio-enhanced sound. Also included is a stylus that offers various levels of pressure sensitivity. The ability to run a full-fledged version of Windows enables users to install and run intensive games like League of Legends, Civilization V, and The Elder Scrolls Online. The tablet can also connect with an Xbox 360 controller for Windows.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S

Samsung (KRX:005935) is known to make a lot of tablets on a yearly basis. For those looking for entry-level slates, there’s the Galaxy Tab series. The Galaxy Tab S series is targeted at the mid-tier and high-end markets, with three variants on offer. All three versions are available in Wi-Fi only and LTE editions, with the non-cellular models featuring Samsung’s Exynos 5420 hardware, while the LTE variants come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800.

The design of the tablets in the Galaxy Tab S series are a notch above what you’d find in the Galaxy Tab series, and the screens similarly offer higher resolutions. All three tablets come with a 2560 x 1600 resolution AMOLED display that Samsung claims is the best display on a tablet. The AMOLED panel does make colors stand out, but it does tend to over-saturate. The tablets are available in storage variations of 16 or 32 GB, come with 3 GB RAM as standard, 8 MP camera at the back, 2.1 MP shooter at the front, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac connectivity and microSD slots that can accommodate 128GB cards.

With prices starting as low as $399 for the 8.4-inch variant, the Galaxy Tab S series is a viable contender if you’re looking to buy a tablet that offers a high-resolution screen and high-end hardware.

The post Five Best Tablets of 2014 appeared first on VR World.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has finally started to roll out the Nexus update for Android 5.0 Lollipop, which many Nexus users have been waiting for ever since the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 were announced. Heck, they’ve been waiting for the Android 5.0 Lollipop update ever since it was announced earlier this year during Google I/O.

In an official tweet on Google’s Android twitter feed, Google said, “#Android Lollipop rollout has started and will soon be available on most #Nexus devices. Dessert is served.” There were rumors that it would be rolling out today, and those appear to be correct considering that Google is basically saying that the rollout has begun and people are already getting Android 5.0 updates for their devices.

#AndroidLollipop rollout has started and will soon be available on most #Nexus devices. Dessert is served. pic.twitter.com/XVFX2tEbHv

— Android (@Android) November 12, 2014

However, there’s no official word on exactly which Nexus devices will be getting the Android 5.0 Lollipop update. The expected devices are the Nexus 5, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Nexus 4. But there are rumors that even the much older Galaxy Nexus may also see an update to Android 5.0 Lollipop, which is a bit weird since it didn’t get Android 4.4 Kitkat. That will remain a rumor until someone with a Galaxy Nexus ends up getting the update, because that doesn’t seem very plausible. Even so, Android 5.0 is a massive update over Android 4.4 Kitkat and brings a whole host of UI improvements and speed ups that have never been seen before on Android.

Android 5.0 Lollipop also promises to even more closely unify the install base of Android devices so that within 90 days of an update being available, most of the major devices already out have been updated and all new devices are already launching with it. Unfortunately, the Droid Turbo did not launch with Android 5.0 Kitkat, but considering how quickly the 2014 Motorola Moto X got the Android 5.0 update, there’s a very good chance the Turbo could be coming out soon with an update as well. LG’s G3 also already has the Android 5.0 Lollipop update rolling out to unlocked consumers, but carriers are delaying that release for their own customized versions.

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Remember when we originally reported that Apple had finally admitted that people who had left iOS and iMessage for Android or Windows phone were experiencing issues with getting messages or sending messages? And that Apple had finally owned up to the fact that they were to blame for probably millions of missed phantom messages? Well, after owning up to the problem and realizing what the issue was, Apple has finally introduced a fix.

So, if you’ve left Apple and ditched iMessage for Android or Windows phone, but are having problems getting messages from friends you can now deregister your phone number from Apple’s iMessage database. The process to deregister your iMessage account from your phone number is a simple one. You simply head on over to Apple’s iMessage deregister site and do the following steps:

If you still have your iPhone, you can actually put your SIM card into your iPhone (before you sell it or give it away) and prevent this whole thing from even being a problem before it starts.

If you no longer have your iPhone, you can still deregister from Apple’s iMessage by entering your phone number into the field on the page and then getting a confirmation number from Apple via SMS (yes, Ironic) and using that confirmation number to deregister your phone number from Apple’s iMessage service. This should free 99% of people that were having problems with SMS after leaving Apple.

So, if you plan to ditch Apple, remember to deregister your phone number from iMessage and if you ever had an iPhone with iMessage, its probably a good idea to deregister as well. The real question will be whether Apple will be found liable for anti-competitive behavior as there have been rumors that this was an Apple problem for quite some time and it took the company at least a year or so to own up to it. In fact, many Apple users that left the company for another brand eventually came back due to the high volume of missing messages, not knowing that the reason was squarely because of Apple.

The post Having SMS Problems After Ditching Apple and iMessage? appeared first on VR World.

In a very politically inflammatory statement today, Senator Ted Cruz likened Net Neutrality to Obamacare, which does more harm than good to the internet’s future as the hotly contested issue of Net Neutrality ping pongs around the IT industry and Capitol Hill.

Obviously, Cruz made his statement as a response to Obama’s instruction to the FCC (including Chairman Tom Wheeler) that they need to preserve Net Neutrality by giving the FCC the regulatory powers to oversee the internet by classifying it as a Title II communications service, which would liken it to land line phone service.

The problem with such an analogy is that it likens a multi-faceted piece of legislation that Republicans oppose to a reclassification of a type of telecommunications so that it can be properly regulated (which it technically isn’t right now). The idea was not to regulate the internet in order to allow it to self-regulate, but that does not appear to have worked and now people are calling for a reclassification as a Title II common carrier service. This would require companies to treat all traffic equally and not to be able to pick and choose, which they’re technically already doing. Some may liken Obamacare to this reclassification because Obama now supports it or because it involves government regulation, but the truth is that the FCC has already been regulating internet service for quite some time, but hasn’t had the authority to enforce a truly equal internet.

“Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) November 10, 2014

Following his statement, some well known internet personalities including the creator of The Oatmeal online comic, Matthew Inman, who broke down Net Neutrality to the junior Senator in a comical, yet informed, way.

The real issue with Cruz’s tweet is that it very likely comes from a place where lobbyists are encouraging him to shoot down Net Neutrality, after all, he does take money from large telecom companies for his campaign donations. Additionally, Cruz has been emboldened by the recent election to stand up to Obama even more than he already has and to make Obamacare a central issue around next year’s Congress and to repeal it. Cruz may have gotten the attention of many by likening a conversion of internet service into a Title II telecommunications form, but by likening it to Obamacare, he has immediately turned a bi-partisan issue of Net Neutrality into a partisan issue and will encourage people to be against Net Neutrality even though it is in their best interest.

Even the EFF is behind the reclassification plan that Obama now states that he also backs, because in the past Obama has remained silent on the topic and there’s actually a good chance that with a Republican House and Senate Obama may actually find some common ground with them on Net Neutrality. The problem is that the state of the internet is so horrible with all of the oligopolies that it is virtually impossible to allow the internet to exist in an unregulated manner, there is not enough competition among internet service providers, so there is no way that consumers can simply be the driving force behind innovation and Net Neutrality. We’ve covered this topic many times over the course of the past year, and some of the most recent talks by Tom Wheeler about the lack of competition are possibly the most enlightening. Because of government intervention, these companies have been allowed to become too big and effectively have local monopolies or duopolies with very few to no places having three options for wired broadband.

Optimally, the best thing would be to have multiple internet service providers in each area, including a possible municipal broadband option, which would then compete with each other for consumers’ business and improve in order to compete with those customers. After all, that’s sort of how it used to be until AT&T bought up all of the land line companies and Comcast started gobbling up cable providers (and now wants to absorb TWC).

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In a bizarre twists of events, Motorola’s Moto X (2014) has just started to get the Android 5.0 update, traditionally an update that comes out on Google’s own Nexus line of devices prior to any other manufacturer. Perhaps the Moto X’s status is a result of the fact that Motorola has been a part of Google for the past year, but that doesn’t particularly explain why the Nexus 5, Nexus 7, Nexus 4 and other Nexus devices aren’t getting Android Lollipop yet. There have been rumors that Google pushed back the date of the Nexus Android 5.0 update due to a battery drain bug, but the company hasn’t officially said anything. Some engineers on Google’s message boards did confirm that there were some power bugs associated with Android 5.0 and the Nexus 5.

Yes, the HTC Nexus 9 is already out and does sport Android’s Lollipop 5.0 version, however that is the only device up until today that is running on Android Lollipop. Even the much anticipated Nexus 6 isn’t actually available yet, so nobody can definitively say what the final updated version will run like on the different phones that will be getting Lollipop. There’s already talk about Sony’s and HTC’s updates to Lollipop, which is good and will hopefully mean that they will have updates out before the end of the year.

Thanks to the guys at ARSTechnica we know that there’s even a Motorola official support page for the update, even though the Moto X Lollipop update page appears to have been pulled. Last time, Motorola didn’t beat the Nexus devices to launching KitKat but they were the first to release after Google and somehow, this year they’ve managed to beat Google due to Google’s own bugs in their code. Somehow, you would think that Google might have some sort of Beta testers or QA engineers that would verify that such a build wouldn’t have such a fundamental flaw built into it right before launch. I guess its a good thing that they caught it pre-release, but they barely caught it before launch and as a result Motorola’s Moto X (2014) is now getting Android 5.0 Lollipop before Nexus devices.

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ecoATM, a division of Outerwall who is also the parent company of Redbox and Coinstar (Nasdaq: OUTR), has a nationwide network of 1,510 automated electronics recycling kiosks located in shopping malls and stores. The kiosk will take your old phones, tablets, and MP3 players and turn them into cash on the spot.

Last week at Pepcom-SF, BSN* spoke with Juli Spaventa who demoed a unit for us. The kiosk requires only a few steps to recycle your device.

ecoATM kiosk at Pepcom-SF

You simply follow the on-screen prompts and insert a valid government-issued ID. ecoATM uses a state-of-the-art ID scanner and AssureTec Reader validation software that not only photographs the ID but validates its authenticity by examining the ID for holograms, watermarks, or other specific authentication methods used in all 50 states. Spaventa said they have 29 patents on their one-of-a-kind kiosk. Fake ID’s may get you into the nightclub, but they won’t get you cash for a stolen phone.

After your ID is validated, an ecoATM’s security person checks to see you match the ID by watching you from the web cameras in the kiosk. All this only takes a couple of minutes. If the technician cannot confirm you are the person in the ID you presented, then game over – the transaction is canceled.

Assuming your face matches your ID, the kiosk dispenses a tracking decal to put on your device. After affixing the decal, you put your device into the kiosk and it scans your device’s condition and compares it with a database to make an offer based on the market value and current condition. At that time, you can accept ecoATM’s offer or it will return your device out of the kiosk. If you accept the offer, you must use the thumb print reader which keeps the thumb scan as part of your security information. Then your cash is available just like a bank ATM.

We decided to check out a kiosk at a local mall. While there, we noticed another benefit – no-cost charging station on one side of the kiosk. A man was just starting the process of recycling his older iPhone for cash. We asked him if we could follow along.

Alan inserts his valid California ID

Alan applies decal to his old iPhone

When the man, who simply identified himself as Alan, was finished and had his cash, he said: “This is way better than having it lay around in a drawer”.

Some law enforcement agencies have been quoted in past articles about ecoATM saying it is too easy for a crook to get cash for a stolen phone. So we contacted ecoATM’s HQ about that. They called back and responded to our query. Their spokesperson confirmed that the transaction we watched followed their standard security verification processes. The spokesperson said that less than 1 percent of the phones recycled by ecoATM are proven to be stolen. Many of the stolen recycled phones end up being returned and the crook caught like this story from San Francisco. She also explained another aspect of their kiosk for customers who might be wary of presenting personal information. We were told that only law enforcement can get a print out of any specific transaction with the person’s information and the information about the device that was recycled.

A few law enforcement agencies have acted like they want the kiosks removed because of the potential for fraud. They didn’t react that way to Target, Home Depot, or Walmart when millions of their credit card numbers were compromised. Could it be because ecoATM is a new company, law enforcement is trying to hold them to a double standard when compared to big box stores?

ecoATM can prove there is a second life for 75 percent of all devices collected. For the remaining 25 percent, ecoATM partners with R2 certified e-waste reclamation facilities to ensure that those materials are responsibly reused and recycled. ecoATM holds Responsible Recycling (R2) and ISO14001 certifications, confirming the company’s commitment to maintaining the highest standards of electronics recycling, as well as ISO27001 certification for information and personal data security. ecoATM’s tracking system is much better than using Craigslist or a questionable phone reseller to recycle your devices.

The ecoATM spokesperson told BSN* that a Forrester Research study said 57 percent of American device owners have an idle phone laying around their home, yet only 22 percent of those owners say they have previously recycled cellphones they no longer use. The company has already collected more than three million devices. The collection of all those devices enabled the recovery or reuse of 879,000 pounds of recyclable materials that’s nearly enough plastics, metals and potentially toxic materials to equal the weight of two Boeing 747-400 series airplanes.

ecoATM does recommend that everybody write down the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) or Mobile Equipment Identifier (MEID) number of their device. MEID is a form of ESN (Electronic Serial Number). Normally they are hidden below or under your device’s battery. This location will help you find those numbers.

The post ecoATM Recycles Your Tech for Instant Cash appeared first on VR World.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported fairly mixed numbers across the board for its fiscal Q3 2015 quarter, which is represented mostly by the calendar third quarter of the year.

In the third quarter, Nvidia reported a record $1.23 billion in revenues and profit of $173 million, which translates to an EPS of $0.31. This is compared to the previous quarter, where Nvidia saw $1.103 billion in revenue and $128 million in profit or an EPS of $0.22. Nvidia also improved over the same quarter a year ago even more significantly where that quarter only had $1.054 billion in revenue and $119 million in revenue  or an EPS of $0.20. Nvidia saw both revenue and profitability increase double digits for both quarter over quarter and year over year, which should make any investor in Nvidia very happy. The margins did slip almost a whole percentage point, but they also significantly improved revenue and profitability.

Nvidia’s revenue increase to $1.23 billion can be attributed to growth across the board for the company in multiple business segments. Revenue for its GPU business grew 13% from the previous quarter and notebooks grew 36%, fueled by the release of its new Maxwell GTX GeForce consumer cards and mobile gaming GPUs. Nvidia states that mobile gaming notebooks more than doubled from a year ago, indicating much stronger PC gaming growth than analysts had been dooming and glooming.

Tesla GPU sales increased strongly, representing another record quarter for revenue driven mostly by large project wins in GPU compute with cloud providers and government customers. The company also saw Quadro revenue continue to be strong, also helped along by its launch of the new Quadro line, including the K5200, which is squarely aimed at Adobe users. As a result, the whole business unit saw a 13% increase in revenue due to the Maxwell release and seasonal increase in consumer PCs, which is going to only continue into the next quarter.

Tegra processors grew 51 percent from a year ago, mostly led by automotive infotainment systems, mobile devices, embedded systems and SHIELD tablet sales. Automotive infotainment revenue alone nearly doubled year over year, which can strongly be attributed to Tegra’s renewed strength compared to last year. As a whole the business unit saw revenue go up 11% sequentially. Nvidia has won some seriously significant automotive design wins, including Honda and will create a very good baseline of sales for Nvidia in the Tegra business unit regardless of mobile device seasonality.

Nvidia also saw a $66 million license payment from Intel from their settlement and licensing agreement.

Nvidia guided its revenue to be about $1.2 billion, essentially flat with the last quarter. They also expect margins to stay about the same if not increase a bit from the last quarter and operating expenditures to increase slightly. Overall, next quarter should really be a fantastic one for Nvidia as it is traditionally the strongest quarter for most of their consumer products and they are currently putting the hurting on AMD in consumer GPU sales, they are also in the newly announced HTC Nexus 9, which means that Tegra shipments should be very good in the fourth quarter and should drive up its profitability in the business segment. Overall, Nvidia’s expectations for Q4 are very conservative and there’s a very good chance they will outperform significantly.

The post Nvidia Reports Strong Earnings for Q3 appeared first on VR World.

In preparation for the holiday season, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has launched a new Amazon branded hardware product called Amazon Echo. Amazon Echo is a wireless Bluetooth speaker that also happens to be voice-activated and allows for almost entirely hands-free operation. The Amazon Echo is aiming to be a mixture between a persistent Bluetooth speaker and a home-hub where the whole family can use it to do a whole host of things.

The interesting part is that Amazon Echo does not merely operate as just a speaker like most wireless bluetooth speakers, Amazon is trying to make it the hub of the home with the voice activated commands and searches. With Amazon Echo, you can ask it questions or play back media from your devices but you can also, obviously, add things to your Amazon cart. After all, it wouldn’t be an Amazon product if you didn’t have a way to buy things on Amazon with it.

And in order to hear you clearly from anywhere in the room and to accurately understand what you’ve said to Amazon Echo, the company has put a 7 microphone array on the Amazon Echo in order to maximize sensitivity and noise cancelling. They call this feature their far-field voice recognition, but the reality is that it is really designed to do some serious noise cancelling and through that you can virtually pickup any voice in the room no matter how bad the noise. Additionally, it uses hot words to wake the device so that it only activates when you want it too, much like Google Now. In fact, this really appears to be yet another product of Amazon’s that is squarely a direct competitor to something that Google is already doing and the company doesn’t seem ashamed or scared of it either.

The best part of the Amazon Echo for Prime users is that if you sign up for an invite right now, you can actually get $99 off the price of the Amazon Echo, which is actually the price of Amazon Prime itself, making buying Amazon Prime and one of these a no-brainer. If you’re thinking about buying the Amazon Echo and don’t already have Amazon Prime, just sign up for Amazon Prime and then buy the Amazon Echo, you will have effectively gotten Amazon Prime for free. One of the most pressing questions, however, is what search engine is Amazon using and whether they’ve developed their own search/knowledge engine and whether they plan to compete with Google in that field as well. After all, voice is now becoming one of the primary methods of search after simple text entry.

The post Amazon Announces Amazon Echo appeared first on VR World.

Think of Totspot as eBay with a twist, an on line consignment shop that has added a social aspect specific to parents of young children. No, it isn’t reselling children. It does help moms recycle gently-used children’s clothing so they can recoup some of the cost of replacing outgrown clothes.

This Uniqlo set is just one of the items discounted on Totspot

This free app is impressive. Basically it is a huge database of excellent condition, second hand children’s clothing for sale by owner. Quality images enhance the on-line shopping experience. Totspot makes selection easy by sorting items according to your child’s profile as to size, sex, and style.

Whether buying or selling, Totspot makes the transaction simple. When a sale is made, Totspot emails a prepaid addressed label to the seller to use for sending the purchased item to the buyer. This conveniently eliminates mistakes in addressing the package. Sellers can offer a single item or they can bundle several pieces of clothing together for one price, grouped by size, style, or category. The purchase price is split between seller and Totspot with the original owner earning 80 percent.

The app runs on iOS devices, so you can catch a good deal from your iPhone while on the run. Totspot could be called mom-to-mom mobile retailing, but let’s not forget those single fathers who face the same challenges and could also use an outlet to recycle their rapidly growing children’s clothes.

You can purchase a Totspot deal from your tablet or phone.

Sellers simply take a photo of their items, upload them with a short description, then let Totspot do the work of turning the images into a quality-Pinterest-like posting.

You’ll find top brands at Totspot.  Today, we found an Abercrombie sweater, Nike sneakers, a Gymboree skirt, a pair of Coach slippers, a boys Baby Gap jacket, a pair of Baby Boden overalls, Dr Martens boots, and a Ralph Lauren rain coat. All this fashion at reduced prices for clothing that hasn’t been manhandled by numerous customers in a second-hand retail store.

This is a brand new company that is already going gangbusters. It was founded by two entrepreneurs, Vijay Ramani who has an MBA from Wharton School of Business and CTO Vikrant Ramteke whose degree is from IIT Bombay in electrical engineering. Their Totspot app caught the eye and the money of several investors.

GGV Capital along with Jerry Yang (AME Cloud Ventures), 500 Startups, and QueensBridge Venture Partners put almost $2 million dollars into the company. That was at least enough to provide jars filled with peppermint cookie mix for all the Pepcom attendees and to get the fledgling company off to a great start. Hans Tung, GGC Capital managing partner, an expert in mobile commerce, joined the company as a Board Observer. The GGC Capital’ portfolio also includes Alibaba, Square, Athenahealth, for electronic medical record management, and Hotel Tonight for those last minute reservations.

Totspot gave away jars of peppermint cookie mix at Pepcom

Totspot is a social marketplace where members can share bargains, chat about current events that affect their family or get tips from other mothers – or fathers – on childrearing. You can follow a seller and pick up outgrown clothing as it becomes available from a family whose children are just a few sizes ahead of your own growing child.

It is easy to download the app from iTunes. The recent funding will happily help launch an Android version soon. You can start recouping expenses as suggested by Beth Engelman, founder of Mommy on a Shoestring. She estimates that most children wear about 30 percent of the clothing in their closets each year. To reduce the clutter she suggests getting rid of those unworn clothes. How better than by selling them on Totspot.

The post Totspot App Puts Money Back in Mom’s Pocket appeared first on VR World.

A recently passed law in Russia now requires that if a company wishes to sell a device in Russia that it must keep the cloud data of its users within Russia. This would mean that companies like Google, Apple, Xiaomi, Lenovo and others must keep the cloud data of their customers on servers inside of Russia and that the data must not leave the borders of Russia. This is an obvious move by Russia to stifle competition and to force companies to invest in Russian infrastructure and personnel if they wish to compete in the Russia market.

This is also part of Russia not wanting to have Russian cloud data being transmitted through the US where it can be easily intercepted by the NSA. And at the same time, since the server would be located in Russia, it will give Russian intelligence agencies like the FSB and SVR access to the data of Russians and very likely foreigners visiting Russia as well. There were fears of such activities going on during the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi, but many of those fears were mostly based on fear mongering and conjecture with little evidence.

The website in Russia reporting on this news does mention that Apple is one of the companies that could be hit by this. There’s also a possibility that Google, Samsung or Xiaomi could be hit by this, but some of those companies may have already anticipated this law’s passage and have already taken steps towards compliance. After all, most Android devices utilize Google’s cloud in one way or another and those manufacturers don’t necessarily have power over how Google stores and utilizes the data in the cloud.

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At Intel Capital’s (NASDAQ: INTC) 15th annual Global Summit at the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach, the company announced 16 new additions to the its portfolio adding $62 million in investments to the expected $355 million it plans to invest this year. If one were to look at all 16 of these new investments that Intel Capital has made, they are clearly in sectors where Intel believes that it needs to be more involved or grow itself.

The primary sectors that Intel is investing into are in the new devices/wearables space, the wireless space, processor and SoC development and Big Data and analytics. These four areas represent large potential growth areas for Intel as a company, which makes sense because Intel Capital’s role is to help to facilitate technologies that can help the product development and growth of Intel’s dozen or so different business units. Below we’ve listed a few of the most interesting of the 16 companies that Intel Capital has announced as new portfolio companies.

One of the companies that Intel is investing into is called Avegant, which is the maker of the Glyph head mounted display which is supposed to be a personal theater device that allows you to watch movies personally as if you were watching them in your own personal theater. The Glyph has already raised more than $1.5 million from Kickstarter backers, so Intel’s investment clearly indicates that the people at Avegant have a future beyond Kickstarter.

Braigo labs is yet another exciting startup, that Intel Capital is investing in this year. What makes Braigo so interesting is that it was actually founded by at 13 year old using Intel’s Edison computing platform. One of the things Shubham Banerjee, the founder of Braigo, has created is the Braigo v1.0 which is a Lego Braille printer to assist the blind using printing of braille for things on the web that also reduces the price of a Lego minstorm built printer all the way down to $350 which makes it vastly more accessible to education and home use.

Another company that Intel Capital has announced that will become a portfolio company is Eyefluence. Eyefluence is a Reno, Nevada which has their own eye-tracking technology which is designed to follow where a user is looking and to integrate that into any AR or VR headset so that use of wearables becomes easier and more natural.

Intel Capital has also added Screenovate Technologies which is a company that offers mobile solutions to OEMs and manufacturers for productivity, entertainments and education. Its technology enables smartphone and tablet users to wirelessly ‘beam’ their movies, games, presentations and other content to larger usually stationary displays.

PrecisionHawk is a company that takes aerial data gathered from small UAVs a cloud-based platform in order to more effectively deliver actionable information to clients in civilian industries. It is not a competitor to companies that fly UAVs for the military because it focuses on civilian UAV and civilian data gathered from those UAVs. And by integrating cloud data and aggregation of that data, there are powerful things that can be learned by their customers at likely much lower costs than doing land surveys, the old fashioned way.

Prelert is now a portfolio company that says it packages data science into downloadable applications for every day users. But what it really does is to use machine-learning predictive analytics to learn the behavioral patterns of large populations of individuals users devices and resources. This can help a company to predict when it will need to increase their cloud resources on the fly in order to save money and simultaneously deliver the best experience using the cloud.

Last but not least is Ossia, which is the creator of the Cota, a smart antenna technology that allows for wireless power transmission of up to 30 feet without line of sight, something that will certainly excite any mobile user. This technology isn’t like the currently available inductive or magnetic resonant charging systems, but rather a new and unique proprietary standard. The company makes some pretty significant claims about their technology’s capabilities, but it is still in development and Intel’s investment should help them productize it.

In addition to all of these new and exciting companies and technologies, Intel Capital also had some notable people in attendance at this year’s invite-only event with distinguished speakers including the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Stanford President John L. Hennessy, record-setting polar explorer Ben Saunders and former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt.

The post Intel Capital Announces 16 New Investments appeared first on VR World.

Fitbug (LON:FITB), a wearable activity tracker, just became available at Target stores. This button-sized device can be worn on the wrist, attached to your belt, or discreetly hidden beneath your clothes to keep your fitness attempt a secret until you hit your target.

The little helper can even go into a pocket or purse and still do its job. The app sends motivational information to keep you going with healthy recipes, articles and tips on nutrition.

Habits of daily living can interfere with a good night’s sleep. Even when you are not awake, Fitbug is still monitoring you, checking how much and how good you are sleeping. Fitbug will set personalized weekly goals to help you sleep better as a result of what you eat and how active you are.

It uploads your movement and activities, counting steps, distance, and calories burned to Fitbug.com where the personalized coaching technology calculates goals. You’ll get feedback combined with advice and encouragement that includes text messages, emails, and cell phone alerts. Your personal Fitbug coach can help you exercise.

Originally offered to corporations concerned with the health of their employees or of their customers, Fitbug has been used by companies such as The Vitality Group, Optum, Humana Vitality, and Every Move. The Vitality Group is a fully integrated wellness program designed to engage a company’s employees on the road to better health. Optum is comprised of a global team of professionals who collaborate across the health system to improve care delivery, quality, and cost-effectiveness. Every Move lets you earn rewards for your efforts with discounts from health-conscious brands and praise from your social network.

Fitbug founder and CEO, Paul Landau had his team take the product out into the consumer world. Bluetooth enabled last year, the Orb itself is unobtrusive – only 30mm in diameter, with no screen. Your information is sent to your phone.

At Pepcom, Paul Landau, CEO, showed how the Fitbug Orb can be worn in an interchangeable wrist band.

Good looking wrist bands offset your Orb so you can show off your dedication to fitness. If you want to wear Orb on your wrist, you can choose from white pink or black bands.

Just announced is Fitbug’s KiqPlan – health plans especially geared to your situation. Beer Belly Buster might be just what the doctor orders after the festivities of the upcoming Super Bowl. The KiqPlan called Slim+Trim says it all. For women, there are two unique plans. Healthy Baby Bump for that nine month trip to mommy hood. It’ll help you deliver a healthy child. After the big event, pick up Goodbye Baby Bump to help you get back to your pre-pregnant shape.

In addition to the Orb, the Fitbug series includes Fitbug Go, Fitbug Air, and Fitbug Wow scales. When you stand on the Smart WoW scale, your data is uploaded and syncs with your Fitbug app in real time to update your personal profile using Bluetooth technology.

Fitbug, a London based company, is listed on the FTSE as FITB. Over the past 52 weeks, prices have ranged in British Pounds from £ 0.38 – £ 7.98. Sainsbury in the UK and 1,800 Target stores in the US will be carrying the Orb. This additional exposure for the Orb and the new KiqPlans should help the share price stay at the upper end of that scale.

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