Posted: 13 Nov 2013 06:00 AM PST
Successful Kickstarter company, LIFX is finally shipping its Wi-Fi connected smart lightbulbs. The Australian hardware startup originally promised in its Kickstarter campaign to ship the product earlier than this. In fact it was promising to deliver by March, so they are officially late! However, they have managed to secure major retail partners for a consumer launch later this year and early next year.
LIFX bulbs will go on sale through Best Buy online in January 2014 in the U.S. and some global retail partners including DickSmithin Australia and John Lewis in the UK. These sales are all above the existing $10 million in pre-sales LIFX has done via Kickstarter and its own website. Not including the $4.6 million it has raised from private investors.
Co-founder and Director Andrew Birt says that they acknowledge that they’re behind schedule, but that the smart bulb race “hasn’t been won yet,” referring to the battle that industry giant Philips has set with its Hue series. Philips introduced two new types of Hue bulbs and starter kits recently, effectively tripling its product line up in a single campaign. LIFX will offer screw, bayonet and down light models from the get-go, however, and unlike the Philips Hue, they don’t require a base to connect to Wi-Fi to talk to each other and to your iOS or Android device.
The LIFX team has been working hard to repair some production issues and start shipping devices to pre-order customers, but they have also been working in the background on other efforts while that work was ongoing. “We’ve been building our retail and distribution network in the background while the core team focused on development and production…Lots of cool integrations coming too, with our API / SDK set for release in the coming weeks. “, said Birt.
LIFX may be starting late in the game, but the category is new and Philips may have done them justice by making customers more conscious that this type of product exists. The key to winning the race will be informing people that LIFX is a better bulb that provides a better experience despite the cost factor (individual bulbs cost $30 more per unit than the Philips series). Working independent of a base is a huge advantage though. We will have to wait and see what the customers will want.
[Image via kickstarter]
The post Philips Hue Competitor LIFX Now Available appeared first on TechBeat.
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Posted: 13 Nov 2013 05:00 AM PST
We just heard about the update to Microsoft Web Apps, which gives it a fighting chance against Google and its online suite of tools. Now, from the other end, there is also a new development: Google Apps will no longer support Internet Explorer 9.
Last week, the Google Apps blog made the official announcement regarding the discontinuation of support:
It may sound dire, but it really is not the end of the world. After all, with IE11 being out, who still uses IE9? I know, there are probably still a lot of people who have not upgraded to the latest edition of Internet Explorer, but it’s not like the clock has not been ticking for a while.
Change has been in the air for Windows users. Not too long ago, Microsoft said goodbye to Windows XP, urging their customers to do the same. Many users – individuals and businesses alike – are already migrating to Windows 7, if not Windows 8.
As the announcement states, users who are still on IE9 will receive notifications whenever they access Google Apps. These notifications will point the way to the appropriate upgrades. Needless to say, even those using other browsers such as Mozilla will receive those updates if they are using outdated versions.
The lesson here is simple: update your browser to the latest stable iteration whenever possible. It saves you the hassle and/or time pressure down the road.
Here’s more information on browsers supported by Google Apps.
I wonder – does anyone here still use IE9?
[Image via SNC Computer Repair]
The post Google Apps Doesn’t Support IE9 Anymore appeared first on TechBeat.
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Posted: 13 Nov 2013 04:00 AM PST
On a residential street in San Diego County, Calif., Chula Vista police had just arrested a young woman for possession of narcotics. Prior to taking her away, Officer Rob Halverson paused in the front yard, held a Samsung Galaxy tablet up to the woman’s face and snapped her photo. Halverson then moved his finger a few times, and then without needing to ask the woman’s name or check her identification, her mug shot from a previous arrest, criminal history, her address and other personal information then appeared on the screen.
Officer Halverson had run the woman’s photograph through the Tactical Identification System, a new facial recognition technology being trialled by San Diego law enforcement. Almost instantly the system matches images taken in the field with the databases of about 348,000 San Diego County arrestees. This system has nearly 1.4 million booking photos because different people have multiple mug shots on record.
The program could become one of the largest expansions of facial recognition technology by U.S. law enforcement agencies. In the midst of an international debate over collecting and sharing huge amounts of data on the general public, this pilot program is putting that metadata to use in the field. The technology was rolled out without any notice or public hearings on the subject. This, in turn, has alarmed privacy experts because of the secrecy of the program and has raised questions about whether San Diego is the leading edge of an alarming future. A future in which people are catalogued in a government databases.
A total of twenty five local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, which include U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Border Patrol, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department are participating in the system. The project is coordinated by the San Diego Association of Governments and relies on a massive data-sharing program called the Automated Regional Justice Information System or A.R.J.I.S.
For a long time, technology that was developed on the battlefield has migrated into domestic policing agencies. Since 9/11, America’s involvement in war, have sped up that process. Facial recognition technology, which is widely used by the military, is the next frontier. “What we’re seeing now is much more surveillance oriented, and it’s in the guise of preventative policing…It’s really this aspiration of prevention and social control through the monitoring of everyone’s every action and storage in perpetuity.” said Kevin Keenan, a former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties.
The program, if successful, could expand beyond the county’s borders. The system’s mug shots are pulled from the state wide Cal-Photo law enforcement database, which also has access to over 32 million driver license photos. According to a report by A.R.J.I.S. the county is looking at using mug shots from state wide parole databases, as well as information from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Law enforcement officials said the facial recognition software has built-in privacy safeguards. After an image is taken in the field, it is run through the system and then it is discarded by the central database. They say it does not create a database of photos of people who are stopped by police and questioned. “If you’re not in a criminal database, you have nothing to hide,” Officer Halverson said. That having been said, during field tests with Chula Vista police dept. images taken by field officers were stored on individual tablets. The responsibility is up to police officers themselves to delete those photographs.
Officers who have used the system in San Diego, blether about its precision identification software. But facial recognition technology still remains imperfect. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington non profit, has obtained documents which show that the FBI’s facial recognition program could fail to identify the right person in 1 out of 5 encounters! That could potentially ensnare innocent people into investigations which they have no involvement.
Keenan, the former San Diego ACLU official, pointed to the U.S.’ history of political surveillance after World War II and 9/11 as evidence that the rapid proliferation of biometric technology is part of a narrowing net of social control in the US, “We were given a false bargain,” Keenan said. “We were told that this kind of control is to prevent another 9/11, and in fact, it’s going to be used to fight the drug war, to pursue other policies where we would not have bargained away our privacy back at that time if we knew that was the trade off.”
[Images via secretsofthefed & gizmodo]
SOURCE: http://cironline.org/reports/facial-recognition-once-battlefield-tool-lands-san-diego-county-5502
The post San Diego County Law Enforcement Trials Facial Recognition appeared first on TechBeat.
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Posted: 13 Nov 2013 03:00 AM PST
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that drinking water from disposable plastic bottles is becoming more and more the norm, especially in the USA. Disposable water bottles are cheap, convenient, and they don’t take up a lot of room – unless you’re talking about the room the water bottles take up at a landfill. According to SafeBottles, 1500 plastic bottles find their way to landfills and oceans every second of the day. In case your math skills are as rusty as mine (I had to use the calculator), that is a whopping 90,000 bottles a minute! I’m afraid to calculate how many that adds up to in an entire day. Thank goodness for reusable water bottles. However, not all the water you pour into your reusable bottle is of the best quality or from the best location. Thanks to the Vapur ShakeFilter, though, people might just start using less disposable water bottles in favor of the reusable bottle variety.
A New Way To Filter Your Water
The ShakeFilter looks much like a tea bag, and works much the same way too. You simply take out a filter, put it in your water bottle, shake it a few times, and then enjoy your water. Where the ShakeFilter differs from a normal tea bag, though, is the fact that you can use each one of them up to 50 times before it has to be thrown out. According to its website, The ShakeFilter filters out chlorine as well as other agents that affect the smell and taste of the water.
The cost of the product might just be the best news of all. You can purchase a kit of 3 ShakeFilters for $4.99 from the website. That means for under $5 you can treat up to 150 reusable water bottles. That’s less than it costs to buy 50 disposable plastic water bottles.
[Image via Vapur]
The post Filter Your Reusable Water Bottle With A ShakeFilter appeared first on TechBeat.
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Posted: 13 Nov 2013 02:00 AM PST
Birmingham City Council has been interested in constructing a city-wide wireless network for some considerable time now and having invited different potential suppliers to submit proposals this time two years ago, it looks as though the project has finally got the go ahead. A free and unlimited public Wi-Fi network has gone live in parts of Birmingham City centre and will ultimately provide access to the web for more than one million people in the local area, who can now connect to the ‘_Bham Free WiFi’ hotspot.
The network is powered by Virgin Media Business and is currently available in the Victoria Square and Moore Street areas. It will be extended to Navigation Street, High Street, Broad Street, Bennetts Hill and the area surrounding the city’s Cathedral in the future. The area covered will stretch to 2.5 square miles.
Access points have been mounted onto lampposts and other street furniture, which then bounce the signal to Virgin’s fibre optic network. The company is also deploying 3G and 4G small cells located in the city, planning to allow mobile operators network access, to improve coverage as the demand for mobile data continues to increase.
Duncan Higgins, director of marketing at Virgin Media Business said, “This exciting new technology has the potential to supercharge people’s internet services with a capacity to match the growing number of smart devices…Birmingham is a prototype of the super-powered, connected city, which is not only offering free internet services to all, but also accelerating a revolution in the mobile broadband experience.”
The City Council said the network will stimulate economic growth, boost connectivity and provide social benefits to its residents. Councillor James McKay, cabinet member for a green, safe and smart city, Birmingham City Council, said “We’re delighted to be able to offer this unrivalled connectivity in some the best-loved spaces in the city, particularly as more visitors arrive in the coming weeks to enjoy the Frankfurt Christmas Market and other festive celebrations,” he added, “This announcement builds on our connectivity plans for the city which aim to ensure that our citizens and businesses have access to the highest quality and affordable internet services, and establishes Birmingham as the best connected city in the UK.”
The city’s plans to build a superfast network were frustrated last year after Virgin Media opposed the decision to award the Council £10 million in state funding, but it appears as though the two parties have made up and are now assisting each other in this commercial venture. Virgin Media Business has agreed a similar deal with other major UK cities including, Leeds and Bradford. This is part of the government’s super-connected cities initiative. The idea is to install small cells on street furniture to add greater capacity for mobile operators, whilst also providing a free Wi-Fi network for locals.
[Image via taylormadeacqusitions]
The post Free Birmingham Wi-Fi Network Goes Live appeared first on TechBeat.
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Posted: 13 Nov 2013 01:00 AM PST
Retailers have set a pretty lofty goal with the release of the latest Call of Duty game. Just how lofty? Well, they have been shipped $1 billion worth of Call of Duty: Ghosts to sell. As CNET reports, this doesn’t mean that they’ve actually made that much money from consumers, that number only reflects how much money retailers have invested into the game. What’s impressive for Activision is that they made this much money from retailers on day one. Call of Duty: Ghosts was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and Microsoft Windows on 11/5/13. It will be released on the PlayStation 4 on 11/15/13, as well as the Xbox One on 11/22/13. If sales numbers and popularity from the previous games are taken into account, it might not be too hard for retailers to hit their goal, especially with the Christmas season approaching.
Why’s This Call Of Duty Any Different?
According to the game’s official website, this Call of Duty has a very unique plot:
“Ten years after a devastating mass event, the nation’s borders and the balance of global power have been redrawn forever. As what’s left of the nation’s Special Operations forces, a mysterious group known only as “Ghosts” leads the fight back against a newly emerged, technologically-superior global power.”
As far as the gameplay goes, at least in single player mode, players will spend the majority of time as main character Logan Walker. When it comes to the multiplayer mode, though, there have been several new additions to the game. For starters, you can now create your own soldier from head to toe, there is a new kill system, a new perks system, and changes have also been made to the squad system. Possibly one of the most exciting changes is the fact that environments are now destructible and changeable depending on what happens in the match.
Will all of those changes ensure that retailers sell at least $1 billion worth in sales? Only time will tell.
If you’ve experienced Call of Duty: Ghosts, what do you think of it so far?
[Image via Examiner]
SOURCE: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57611079-235/retailers-enlist-$1b-worth-of-call-of-duty-ghosts/
The post Retailers Pour $1 Billion Into Call Of Duty: Ghosts appeared first on TechBeat.
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Wednesday 13 November 2013
Philips Hue Competitor LIFX Now Available
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