Has anyone ever wondered about the weather reporting lately? Its gotten to a point in my neck of the woods that if the weatherman says its going to rain, I break out the sunglasses and tanning lotion. My 15 year old knee injury is a much better predictor of the weather than my local news. The weather at my house is quite different than at my parents, who live only 9 miles away, but they live in the valley.
Finally there is something different, MyWeather.com is changing the way folks receive and use weather information with a brand new, free app for iPhone and Android devices and an app for the iPad will be available soon. MyWeather.com is the most precise compilation of weather information for customers anywhere in the world, MyWeather is six times more precise in providing location-specific weather conditions than its competitors and offers users completely personalized weather reports tailored for their lives, locations, and interests, whether they’re online or on the go.
Tech News
Charge your Cell Phone – With Sound
It happened again, I was 50 miles from home with a million things that needed to be done, when I got a flat tire, and my cell phone was dead. I didn’t have a charger, I was in the middle of nowhere, and I had to get to a dentist appointment AND I pick my daughter up at school. Why is it the phone never goes dead while I’m texting nonsense to my best friend in Minnesota?
Someday, days like today could be a distant memory, as electrical engineers in South Korea are currently working on a system that can convert everyday sound into energy, so imagine if you will, a world where cell phones can recharge themselves as people speak into them. The technology would also be able to harness background noise and music, to charge phones while they’re not being used.
GoDigital to Deliver thousands of Hours of Movie & TV Programming to YouTube
GoDigital Media Group, a leading entertainment media distribution and marketing company, recently announced the upcoming delivery of up to 2,000 hours of movie and TV content to YouTube and I just can’t stop thinking about my iPad. This information comes directly after the announcement that YouTube is planning to add a channel based video experience to their site.
GoDigital President, Logan Mulvey says, “We’re thrilled to be a part of YouTube’s new channel based platform for feature length content, the move makes a lot of sense in the evolution of content distribution.”
GoDigital has already distributed thousands of hours of content in the digital space and shows no signs of slowing down. GoDigital uses the ContentBridge suite of digital supply chain management software to internally manage its content and automate its external packaging and deployment to retailers and publishers like YouTube.
Popcornflix.com – 1000‘s of Free Movies Online
Popcornflix.com launched a few days ago and I already had a chance to check it out. Popcornflix is a new online digital platform that allows movie lovers to watch ton of fun movies for free online, anywhere in the U.S. The service will expand internationally in the coming months, and eventually almost everywhere movie viewing platforms are available, including web-enabled TVs, DVD players and set-top boxes.
Popcornflix.com made it easy to browse and select from hundreds of movies, including Comedy, Family, Drama, Horror, Spanish-language films, documentaries and more, all with a pretty easy user interface. Movie lovers can choose a movie by type, the name of an actor or director or simply by selecting a title from the latest in new arrivals, or you can search for all the films featuring your favorite star, but best of all, Popcornflix allows users to share films with friends and family by posting a link instantly to their Facebook or Twitter account. Cool.
Tetris Link – From the Virtual World to Your Tabletop?
Having just left the crazy and chaotic word of the Toy Fair in NYC, I am still reeling from the experience. Not to mention the cost of parking. I would have to say that it was not the high tech world I envisioned, although there were some exceptions, the trend seems to lean toward, shall we say, more grounded play?
Enter Tetris Link, coming to you live from almost every gaming platform known to man, and in this case, when I say “live” I’m not talking the world wide web, or a handheld, I’m talking your dining room table. Thats right, Tetris has taken high tech and brought it back to the box. In an unusual move, we have found a game originally high tech, remember the green screen days? Now decidedly low tech. Not a battery or a plug in site.
Starbucks has interactive touchscreens in front of their stores, for some reason
This is a shot of a front from a Starbucks in either Toronto and Vancouver. For some reason, Starbucks has decided to put some interactive screens on the front of their coffee shops in these cities.
I’m not certain why, but I’m sure that it is related to selling over-priced coffee. Anyway, there is a video after the jump which shows the set-up, which involves a vinyl screen, projector, and gesture controls.
I can’t really see what to do with these touchscreen displays except do some sort of silly game where you mix up some tea.
Teach Parents Tech – Because someone had to do it
I know first hand the pitfalls of trying to teach my parents how to do stuff on the computer. I also know firsthand how frustrating it can be. I won’t even go into how most of this private instruction takes place at 10 pm, over the phone… “Yes Dad, the button IS there, in the upper right hand corner, you’re just not seeing it.”
Well, Google steps in to save the day, or my sanity, whichever. www.teachparentstech.org is a service launched only a few weeks ago with the sole purpose of teaching your *ahem* less tech-savvy parents, family or friends how to handle such death defying tasks as cutting and pasting, or *gasp* changing your screensaver.
Toshiba claims the mantle of world’s fastest SD card
Back in the golden age of ocean going travel, companies like Cunard, White Star and the like were involved in a travel style arms race, each vying for the fastest steam ship. And the winner was usually the one who travelled from London to New York in the fastest time (as signified by the Blue Riband Trophy). Well, tech companies are doing the same thing with SD cards, each vying for both the largest and fastest SD cards on the market. Toshiba is now claiming to have the fastest in the world … let’s take a look.
Man swallows evidence: A Kingston thumb drive
Have you ever seen The Incredible Hulk movie? Not that bad one starring Eric Bana with its strange editing, but the halfway decent one starring Edward Norton.
I bring it up because in the film, Dr. Banner (Norton) is about to become the Hulk, but he has some valuable information on a thumb drive. In order to protect the valuable data from his enemies and himself, he decides to swallow it. After he calms down from becoming the big green monster, he later regurgitates the thumb drive.
I’ve always wondered if someone could swallow a thumb drive, barf it up, and use it later. It would appear that we are going to find out as someone actually did this, in real life. Find out the situation after the jump.
Light Touch takes virtual interfaces to a colorful level
Man, it seems like years ago that a small company in Israel introduced us to a light projected keyboard interface. If you remember it, it displayed a red keyboard template and the projector was able to determine what key the user was pressing and translate it to text on a screen. This enabled the user to completely get rid of a physical QWERTY keyboard and provide extra space on the desk (which I could use considering I’m using two keyboards at the moment). But Light Blue Optics is taking it to a whole new level with Light Touch, a complete keyboard and display interface which brings computing to just about any surface.