South by Southwest Interactive is nothing if not a hub for the entire tech community to party, so smartwatch maker Pebble fittingly chose the conference to release its SDK—Signature Drink Kit—to longtime backers. Silly? Yes. But the company is getting ready to release Pebble Time, the next generation of its , and already it’s a smash success. More than 72,000 people have backed the to the tune of $18.5 million, shattering the crowdfunding site’s previous record. So Pebble’s small crew descended on Austin to celebrate, and invited its evangelists to join them at the Pebbjama Jam. While Pebble supporters donned free pajamas emblazoned with Pebble logos and guzzled Smartstrap-ple Ciders and Eric Migibrewskis, I found Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky calmly talking up Pebble Time to excited believers.
Jelly was easily funded, especially because Stone was behind it. Even so, Stone wasn’t exactly surprised when Jelly quickly fizzled out after an explosive number of downloads at launch. And from there, he decided to pivot. Switching gears and not being afraid to fail were the reoccurring themes of Biz Stone’s session at South by Southwest on Saturday, “Biz Stone on Creativity and Redefining Success.” On stage, he openly discussed the story of Jelly, admitting defeat without any shame—because it was that failure that lead to the birth of his new app,
Evernote is an incredibly useful service for storing notes and clipped items from the web, thanks to its powerful search function and helpful tag system that puts all your saved data at your fingertips. But did you know you can also turn it into a read-it-later service by clipping articles on your PC and stashing them in a reader-friendly view in Evernote? Saving articles in Evernote doesn't quite rise to the level of a service like Pocket or Instapaper. But for anyone that wants to keep as much data as possible in one place, Evernote is a great choice. Here's how to set things up. The first thing you'll need to do is add a special Evernote extension to your browser called
BlackBerry is returning to the tablet market—this time with the help of Samsung Electronics, IBM and Secusmart, the German encryption specialist BlackBerry bought last year. This is not the PlayBook 2 that BlackBerry was rumored to be working on last year, but the SecuTablet, developed by Secusmart and IBM for a German government department. The SecuTablet is a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 LTE 16GB bundled with some software from IBM and SecuSmart’s special MicroSD card, which combines a number of cryptographic chips to protect data in motion and at rest. Samsung’s Knox secure boot technology ensures that the OS on the tablet has not been tampered with, while IBM’s contribution to the security chain is to “wrap” certain apps in an additional layer of code that intercepts and encrypts key data flows using the Secusmart hardware.
Meerkat, the new livestream sharing app, has taken the tech world by storm. It’s easy to see why, too, seeing how the app lets you easily share your live video streams with your Twitter followers. It could even import the accounts you follow on Twitter, as well as those who follow you: That way, you’ll be able to see what your Twitter friends are doing on Meerkat, all without having to find them and add them manually. But according to
Facebook has acquired The Find, a nine-year-old company with a search engine that indexes products across thousands of e-commerce sites. The deal, the value of which was not disclosed, was announced in a post on The Find’s website. “Key members of our team are joining the company and will be working hard to integrate our technology to make the ads you see on Facebook every day better and more relevant to you,” the company said. That probably means the ads Facebook users see will be more relevant to products they’ve been browsing and buying online, perhaps highlighting local retailers. One of The Find’s features is that it attempts to mix online and local stores and says its results are based on “your social profile.”
Steam’s love affair with Linux continues, and the infatuation is paying off in spades for Linux gamers. After topping
In the past three days I have lost probably two-thirds my hearing thanks to cranking my speakers past what would qualify as "responsible listening levels," especially in an apartment building. I have half-broken my "R" key from mashing the reset button every time I've died. I have screamed untold numbers of expletives at my screen. I slammed my fist into my desk at least four times. I contemplated punching my monitor once. I rage-quit six times. Those are my When I first took a look at
The new “The only intelligent vision for the future of the notebook is one without wires, where you don’t have to plug up cables to connect to things,” Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said as he introduced the MacBook on Monday. But while he crowed about the IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 built into the laptop, Schiller never mentioned that Apple passed on emerging technologies to make a USB connection over the air or wirelessly link peripherals at 7Gbps (bits per second).
Apple has updated its A new clause states that this type of app must get permission from participants, and if they are minors, from a parent or guardian. Developers must also inform users about the research’s nature, purpose and duration, as well as about procedures, risks and benefits to the participant. Other data that must be provided: information about confidentiality and handling of data, including sharing with third parties, a point of contact for participant questions and a description of how to withdrawal from the study.
These are the latest Android apps and games you need to check out this week.
Antivirus provider Panda Security was left scrambling for a solution on Wednesday after it mistakenly flagged itself as malware. The incident caused Panda to quarantine crucial files, in some cases preventing users from logging into Windows. On Twitter, the company was warning users As of Thursday, Panda had automatically pushed a replacement for the faulty signature file, preventing any further lockouts. Panda also produced
Google just added a new feature to the Chrome beta channel that promises to make the company's browser even more like a standalone operating system. Web developers can now make use of two new application programming interfaces (APIs) that work together to send mobile-style push notifications to the desktop on Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, and Linux. Prior to the release of Google Chrome beta 42, the features were available in Canary Chrome's early adopter test build. Chrome first began displaying