Kicksend Signs Mobile Photo Printing Deal With Walmart

Posted: 30 Oct 2013 06:00 AM PDT Photography startup Kicksend has spent the last 12 months building partnerships with retail chains such as Target, CVS andWalgreens.  With these deals the company wishes to bring its promise of dead-simple photo sharing and printing to the mass market. Presently it looks like Kicksend has another gained another notable deal.  They have just announced on their blog that it has secured a deal with Walmart.   This deal will enable users to remotely send print jobs to anyone of 3,800 additional stores across the U.S. This is a great deal for the Kicksend team, especially so, as they are finally starting to make their mark, in terms of monthly generated revenue. CEO Pradeep Elankumaran noted that the startup was seeing revenue in the “very low tens of thousands” over a year ago, back in March 2013, but during the past six month period, they have seen those figures surge considerably.  The CEO added, “We’re generating over $150K/month in revenue…And we’ve been growing 30 percent month-over-month for the past 6 months.” While these figures may be due partially to Kicksend’s expansion into the market via prominent retail chain stores. The rise in revenue is also due to strong mobile performance as a massive 45 percent of Kicksend app users are being converted into paying customers. Kicksend has now locked up deals with notable photo partners, so what’s next on the agenda for the company?  The partnership programs and a drive to go international with its photo delivery services have been the major focus for the startup since last year.  But Elankumaran and the rest of the Kicksend team are looking forward to focusing their work upon on the digital side of the business. Currently users are allowed to privately share hundreds of high res pics with their friends and colleagues.  Who knows, maybe the company will invent a new and innovative way to share their pictures online?  We shall wait and see. [Image via: iwaat & designdiary] SOURCE: http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/28/yc-alum-kicksend-inks-mobile-photo-printing-deal-with-walmart/ The post Kicksend Signs Mobile Photo Printing Deal With Walmart appeared first on TechBeat.

Upgrade Your Smartphone Camera with Sony QX10 Posted: 30 Oct 2013 05:00 AM PDT A smartphone camera lens with a camera on its own; this is what Sony QX10 is all about. Despite being redundant, this accessory makes smartphone photography innovatively new in every sense. It can be somehow related to mirrorless kit lens, only a bit smaller in size and in megapixels. And instead of having its own screen, these lenses use the display of smartphones like a wirelessly connected viewfinder. Users can attach these add-ons using a spring loaded clip or have it detached, as long as it stays within a specific range to adjacent to the smartphone. Tech brand Sony has released this camera lens along with another higher end number, the QX100. There is a big difference in pricing (QX10 comes in $250 while QX100 doubles the price, a whopping $500) as well as in obvious megapixels and sensors. The cheaper of the two, QX10 still promises a photographer-experience using a smartphone camera. QX10 runs on a ½.3 inch CMOs image sensor and possesses a 10x optical zoom lens, which is surprisingly comparable to many $300 range digital point and shoot cameras. This is easily paired with NFC running phones, with its controls available within the mobile app Sony PlayMemories. From the app, users can find the shutter button, zoom, video toggles and three different shooting modes: the intelligent auto, superior auto and the program auto. The images are saved in two locations, in a microSD card that fits into the QX10 slip and the smartphone’s own storage. It promises better low-light shooting and a powerful optical zoom that definitely upgrades a smartphone camera’s weak camera into a better quality. QX10 is a fun and quirky accessory that makes a nice addition to a photo enthusiast who hates carrying bulky SLRs. This provides a marriage between lenses and smartphones. Sony’s QX10 is among the many possibilities of tech giants creating different lens add-ons for mobile gadgets, emphasizing a camera-centric utility. [Image via Mashable] The post Upgrade Your Smartphone Camera with Sony QX10 appeared first on TechBeat.

Qardio ECG Monitor Streams Data To Your IPhone Posted: 30 Oct 2013 04:00 AM PDT The co founder of Qardio Marco Peluso had a career in the finance industry for 14 years. He worked as an investment banker forJPMorgan and then as a partner at a hedge fund. But things changed when his father had a stroke while they were talking on the phone.  “I was lucky enough to understand what was happening,” he said, remembering that he quickly contacted a neighbour to take his father to the hospital.  But doctors could not identify what triggered the minor stroke, known as a Transient Ischemic Attack or TIA. Only six months later, his father found himself struggling to finish his morning jog.  “It was shocking for me to know that even now, we didn’t have a good way of understanding or proving what was happening,” Peluso said. He was compelled to leave his career to start Qardio, which is set to launch the Blood pressure monitor product for consumers next year at a price of $449. They also have a another product, a blood pressure monitor called QardioArm that will retail for $99. The ECG monitoring device, called the QardioCore, will stream data to the owner’s iPhone and can then send the data on to a person’s health care provider through a cloud-based service.  In effect it lets a doctor “see” a patient without really seeing them in person. Peluso says his QardioCore product is less effort-intensive than other sophisticated monitors, which might require skin patches or shaving a person’s chest etc or maybe using adhesive gel.  “It doesn’t require any skin preparation,” he said. “You put it on your chest, it switches itself on when it detects your body, then wirelessly sends signals to your iPhone, which then go to our server.”  He says the two devices correct a major problem in health monitoring because they make ECG and blood pressure data tracking passive.  This means that doctors can collect a stream of data and put it in context instead of taking singular, one-off measurements. Peluso and his co-founder employed a team of engineers and industrial designers to work on designing both the QardioArm and QardioCore over the past year. The manufacturing process is in Southeast Asia and the company plans to retail both devices online and through established physical partnerships early in 2014. [Image via: getqardio and squareball] SOURCE: http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/28/qardio/ The post Qardio ECG Monitor Streams Data To Your IPhone appeared first on TechBeat.

Now You Can Use The Samsung Galaxy Gear With Other Phones Posted: 30 Oct 2013 03:00 AM PDT The smartwatch niche is a booming one, with practically every manufacturer that matters making their own version. One of the most interesting smartwatches to come out this year is the Samsung Galaxy Gear. While Pebble and Cookoo have made it to the scene first, the Galaxy Gear certainly made waves even when all we had were rumors about its specs and features. One of the things that took away from the appeal of the Galaxy Gear was the fact that it was only compatible with the Samsung Note 3. In effect, that meant you had to spend quite a huge sum to use the Gear – counting the cost of the phone, of course. That made it the most expensive smartwatch out there. Good news for Samsung enthusiasts – the company seems to have come to its senses, at least to a certain degree. Last week, Samsung announced that the Galaxy Gear can now be used with other phones. Before you get too excited, though, I feel it’s my duty to quickly bring you back to earth. Sure, the Gear is now compatible with phones aside from the ginormous Note 3, the choices are still rather limited. From the official announcement: Galaxy Gear will be available for use with Galaxy S4, S III, and Note II through the Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) update. The update came first to Galaxy S4 devices in Germany in October. Samsung will also extend Galaxy Gear compatibility to other GALAXY devices – including Galaxy S4 mini, S4 Active, Mega 5.8, Mega 6.3, and S4 zoom – through a separate software update beginning at the end of October. Software update schedules for each device will vary by country and carrier. So, if you have an S4, S III, or Note II, you don’t have to buy a new phone just to use the Gear. And, if you’re not short on patience, you’ll soon be able to use the Samsung smartwatch with other Galaxy devices. If you’re using another phone, and you want the Gear, then you’ll just have to shell out more for one of the devices above. [Image via anandtech] The post Now You Can Use The Samsung Galaxy Gear With Other Phones appeared first on TechBeat.

Google Reveals Modular Smartphone With Project Ara Posted: 30 Oct 2013 02:00 AM PDT Google’s phone firm Motorola has announced a new project that will allow users to build their own modular smartphone. Project Ara will let users buy a plastic phone structure, named an endoskeleton, and then add-on modules such as a keyboard, battery or other sensors, giving them flexibility to customize the phone. Motorola is working with the Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, who has created Phonebloks, a modular phone idea. In a blog postMotorola revealed it had been working on the project for more than a year and added: “We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software – create a vibrant, third-party developer ecosystem.” “To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it’s made of, how much it costs and how long you’ll keep it,” the post continued. The endoskeleton or the frame of the phone will hold all the chosen modules in place. “A module can be anything from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter – or something not yet thought of,” the firm said. A “Gimmick” Although some are viewing Project Ara as a breakthrough, there are also those who feel it is all a bit pointless. Principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group, Chris Green, feels the project is just a “gimmick”. “I don’t see this as being a big deal. It is not responding to any particular demand and there is no real benefit to assembling your own device,” he said. “The days of DIY IT, people building their own desktop PC, are gone due to falling costs of hardware.” Motorola’s next step is to invite developers to create the modules, which will be followed by a module developer’s kit. [Images via Motorola] SOURCE: http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/motorola-project-ara/ The post Google Reveals Modular Smartphone With Project Ara appeared first on TechBeat.