Friday, January 11, 2013

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Sony Exec Explains How 4K TV Owners Will Get Content”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Sony Exec Explains How 4K TV Owners Will Get Content”


Sony Exec Explains How 4K TV Owners Will Get Content

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 03:55 AM PST


LAS VEGAS -- If there was a trend at CES 2013, it was 4K. Every major TV manufacturer announced at least one TV with 4K resolution, and some unveiled several. Not many addressed the main issue with the new "Ultra HD" format, however: the lack of content.

Sony was one of the few who did, and the company's chief operating officer, Phil Molyneux, told Mashable in an interview how customers of its 4K TVs will be able to get content in native 4K.

"We wanted to deliver a native 4K experience," Molyneux says, "so we put together a media server, and we worked with Sony Pictures, and we remastered 10 titles into 4K. We loaded them onto the server, and we loan that server to the customer so they…
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More About: 4k, CES, CES 2013, sony, Ultra HD

iHome Bluetooth Speakers and Docks Are Geek Treats

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 12:44 AM PST


Rechargeable Portable Bluetooth Speaker




Lovely colors in these mono speakers, $59.99

Click here to view this gallery.


iHome's latest collection of Bluetooth speakers, Lightning docks and accessories are a vibrant treat for the eyes as much as the ears.

More About: 2013 CES, accessories, CES, ihome, Mobile

Hands On With Project Shield, Nvidia’s Powerhouse Game Controller

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 11:41 PM PST


Nvidia Project Shield




Project Shield will be one of the first devices to pack Nvidia's Tegra 4 processor. Designed to be both a standalone Android gaming device as well as a bridge for your PC games, the Shield is due to launch in the spring.

Click here to view this gallery.


LAS VEGAS -- One of the big surprises of CES 2013 was Project Shield, a handheld game controller that Nvidia unveiled in dramatic fashion earlier this week. We got a little hands-on time with a pre-production model of the device, which the company hopes to transform into a full-fledged gaming platform, while at the show.

The Shield certainly seems to have the goods to do what Nvidia promises. Powered by the just-officially-unveiled Tegra 4 processor, it ably handled some taxing Android games and relayed graphics-intensive PC games to an HDTV with just a couple of button pushes.

Picking it up for the first time, I could tell Project Shield was something special. It feels solid in the ha…
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More About: android, CES, CES 2013, NVIDIA, Project Shield

Facebook Charging $100 to Message Mark Zuckerberg

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 09:06 PM PST


We knew Facebook was eager for new revenue streams. We just didn't know they were this eager.

If you try to send founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a message on Facebook, Mashable discovered Thursday, the social network may offer to keep the message out of his "Other" Inbox -- for a cool $100.

In our tests from multiple accounts, it appeared to be the case that users only get this message if they're not one of Zuck's 16 million followers. That, however, could still be coincidental.

Keen Facebook observers will recognize this as a variant on the $1 pay-to-message plan that the social network has been experimenting with for months. The company indicated at the time that it would be expe…
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More About: Facebook, mark zuckerberg

Control Your Lights From Anywhere With WeMo Light Switch

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 08:38 PM PST


LAS VEGAS -- It seems iPhone owners aren't the only ones who forget to turn off light switches now and then.

WeMo announced the launch of a new product that now gives Android smartphone owners the ability to turn off their lights when they're gone -- or just too relaxed to get up from a chair, like their iOS-using counterparts.

The Wi-Fi Light Switch (which is different than WeMo's product for iOS, called Switch) will let you Android-users control an entire bank of lights from the app. The WeMo Light Switch was demoed to Mashable at International CES 2013 in Las Vegas.

SEE ALSO: 8 Hot Gadgets for Your High-Tech Home

It works a lot like the WeMo Switch, but you install it li…
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More About: apps, CES, CES 2013, WeMo

Trip Tern Will Create Your Travel Itinerary

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:59 PM PST


Trip Tern's goal is to make travel planning easier by automatically creating an itinerary that includes information about your city, hotel and interests.

More About: startup, The Launchpad, travel

Attention Men: This Is Why You Have Nipples

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:20 PM PST


Sorry to break it to all you bros out there, but back in the day you were just one of the ladies.

And while we're sure you'll be happy to finally release the goddess within, take a moment to learn how you grew up to be oh so manly.

It has something to do with chromosomes and skin overlapping ... and all that other stuff they taught you in 7th grade science class, but you were too busy making paper airplanes to listen to.

SEE ALSO: 4.5 Billion Years of Earth's Evolution Boiled Down to 2 Minutes

That's why this video from ASAP Science reveals the answer to the most asked question of history -- Why do men have nipples? Just watch and learn.

What was the most surprising th…
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More About: Science, viral videos

This Robotic Spider Dress Will Make Your Skin Crawl

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 06:41 PM PST


As if spiders weren't creepy enough on their own, now you can wear one. High-tech fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht created an unsettling robotic spider dress, complete with animatronic arachnid limbs that jerk and twitch.

Teaming up with Austrian software developer and hacker, Daniel Schatzmayr, Wipprecht makes hexapods haute. The dress has six robotic legs on its shoulder pads which respond to nearby movement.

If anyone gets too close, the limbs move in closer to protect the wearer and keep strangers at bay (because everyone wants to snuggle up to someone decked out like an insect). Check out the video, above, for more.

The Dutch-based designer showcased her dress at Cafe Neu R
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More About: fashion, robotics, robots, spiders

Mobile Is Changing the PC Culture at Federal Agencies

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:44 PM PST


Federal agencies are facing substantial outlays to manage mobile computing devices as they shift from a culture of PCs and laptops to smartphones and tablets. But there is a silver lining. Agencies are likely to save money if they don't have to maintain their own systems to secure and support employee mobile devices. And vendors offer discounts for volume purchases of their software and services.

Providers of mobile device management tools—including Atlanta-based AirWatch, MobileIron of Mountain View, Calif., and Zenprise of Redwood City, Calif.—charge between $3 and $4 per month for client software installed on an employee's mobile phone or tablet. AirWatch is…
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More About: desktop computer, mobile computing, US Government

‘Cats in Pajamas’ Music Video Will Haunt Your Nightmeows

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:24 PM PST


Oakland, Calf.-based band GnarBoots hacked up a hairball of bizarre to create the music video for their tune, "Cats in Pajamas." Cats, pajamas -- what could go wrong? So much.

The peculiar video looks like a scene out of a child's nightmare, or possibly a scene cut from Donnie Darko. Either way, it's something you won't forget.

SEE ALSO: Cats Get Their Own Social Network

To bleach your mind of that creepiness, here's an actual cat in pajamas:

Image courtesy of Etsy,RockinDogs

BONUS: 20 Entertaining YouTube Videos Under 20 Seconds

[H/T Laughing Squid]

More About: cats, viral video, Watercooler

Fitbug Launches New Suite of Health Trackers

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:06 PM PST


LAS VEGAS -- You may not have heard of Fitbug before, but the wearable fitness tracking device maker was one of the first companies in the now booming fit-tech space.

Launched in 2005, the UK company moved to the U.S. in 2010. Fitbug originally sold its product to companies and healthcare providers but now it's reaching out to the consumer market.

At International CES 2013 Fitbug announced three new products -- the Fitbug Orb (activity tracker), Fitbug Wow (scale), and Fitbug Luv (blood pressure monitor). All of the devices are Bluetooth 4.0 enabled so you can receive all the data on one app.

Your personal data is also uploaded to the Fitbug cloud and accessible on your personal…
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More About: CES, CES 2013, fitbit, fitness, Gadgets, pedometer

This Picture Shows Everything Wrong With ‘Booth Babes’ at CES

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:45 PM PST


'Booth babes' have been one of the more unfortunate features of tech trade shows for years. Women (we've never seen any male booth babes) chosen for their looks are paid to hang around a company's booth and attract the mostly male, mostly older attendees.

Sometimes the women are well paid, sometimes they get minimum wage, but their relationship to the product in question is usually gossamer-thin.

We've seen some fairly egregious examples over the years, but none more so than the one our tech reporter Emily Price stumbled upon at CES in Las Vegas Thursday. Four women dressed in body paint and little else were displayed at a company's booth, like sculptures.

The women looked straig…
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More About: CES 2013

Europe Will Likely Force Google to Change Search Practices

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:41 PM PST


Google may have gotten off with a slap on the wrist in the United States for its search practices, but it doesn't look like it will get off so easily in Europe.

Joaquín Almunia, the European Union's competition chief, told the Financial Times Thursday he believes European regulators will demand Google change the way its own products are displayed in search or else face hefty fines for "diverting traffic" away from competitors' products.

"We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google] are diverting traffic," Almunia told the Financial Times.

European regulators have been investigating for two years whether Google is taking advantage of its dominant position in online sear…
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More About: Business, europe, European Union, Google, World

Mashable’s Favorite Tech From CES 2013

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:33 PM PST


Lego Mindstorms EV3




Powerful yet fun DIY robotics for adults and children. This update moves the control/interactions to your favorite mobile devices. -- Lance Ulanoff, Mashable Editor-in-Chief Read more about the Lego Mindstorms EV3 here.

Click here to view this gallery.


As International CES 2013 draws to a close, Mashable's CES team members have racked our tired, sleep-deprived, Red-Bull-fueled brains to come up with a list of our favorite tech items from the event.

Whittling the list down wasn't easy. We saw smartphones, humongous Ultra HDTVs, smartphone cases, Bluetooth speaker systems, advanced gaming systems and accessories, 3D sensors and more.

Peruse the list in the gallery above and let us know what you think of our CES favorites.

More About: 4k, CES, CES 2013

Easily the Grossest Thing You’ll See Today

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:15 PM PST


Man kills spider. Gigantic, slimy worm crawls out of spider. This video is the nastiest thing you'll see today, if not the grossest thing ever.

More About: Watercooler

Try on Your Next Pair of Glasses Online, Get Them in 4 Days

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 03:50 PM PST


Kate Endress' technology takes the pain out of trying on glasses. Ditto lets you sample your specs online using a credit card as a measuring stick.

More About: Ditto, glasses, online shopping, valleygirltv

Training for a 10K? Try CES 2013

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 03:46 PM PST


A team of Mashable writers, editors and photographers have spent the week barreling through the Las Vegas Convention Center that houses CES 2013. With new tech and gadgets being unveiled every minute, our staff has been racing against the clock to see as many products as they can. They have also been racing against each other as part of Mashable's CES Challenge.

All of our team members at CES are wearing Nike+ Fuelbands, allowing us to track their activity throughout the show. Here's how they stood at the end of Wednesday, the fourth day of the challenge:

Reporter Samantha Murphy clobbered the competition, racking up a formidable total of 8.01 miles over 16 active hours. If she ma…
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More About: CES, CES 2013, CES Challenge, fitness, Nike+ FuelBand

Hands On With a Window-Cleaning Robot

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 03:15 PM PST


Ecovac's Winbot robot window-cleaner does a pretty good job of cleaning up the mess I made at CES 2013.

More About: robots

3 Kickstarter-Backed Films Earn Oscar Nods

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 03:03 PM PST


Sprinkled among the high-budget films nominated for Oscars are three films with humble financial beginnings. They all got monetary boosts on Kickstarter.

More About: academy awards, Entertainment, films, kickstarter, Movies, Oscars, Oscars 2013

Make Your 2013 Oscar Predictions Here

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:56 PM PST


One of the best parts of Academy Awards season is making your own predictions for who will win. Make your 2013 Oscar predictions here.

More About: 85th Academy Awards, academy awards, Movies, Oscars, Oscars 2013

Watch Water Balloons Smash Into a Shirtless Dude in Slo-Mo

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:55 PM PST


Photographer Pablo Vicente filmed a -- ahem -- ridiculously attractive, shirtless guy having water balloons thrown at him. And he put it on YouTube in slow motion.

SEE ALSO: Scramble to Watch This Slo-Mo Egg Destruction

Feel free to play this on repeat for the next few hours. No judgement here, just tell everyone you enjoy the "cinematography."

Photo via YouTube, Pablo Vicente.

More About: slow-mo, water balloons

Bookacoach Helps You Find a Sports Coach You Can Trust

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:41 PM PST


The startup bookacoach connects parents and kids with sports coaches who have undergone background checks and been verified for expertise.

More About: parenting, Sports

How Wireless Gadgets Are Breaking the Internet

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:38 PM PST


Behind all the dazzling mobile-ready electronics products on display at the International CES in Las Vegas this week is a looming problem: how to make the networks that support all these wireless devices function robustly and efficiently.

With less fanfare than you’d see in Vegas, potential solutions are arising in labs in like Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and New Brunswick, New Jersey. The grand challenge is to overhaul the Internet to better serve an expected flood of 15 billion network-connected devices by 2015—many of them mobile—up from five billion today, according to Intel estimates.

The Internet was designed in the 1960s to dispatch data to fixed addresses of sta…
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More About: networks, Wireless

‘West Wing’ Star Will Follow You on Twitter if You Donate Money

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:36 PM PST


Do you have any celebrity followers on Twitter? Would you like to get one?

West Wing alum and current Scandal star Joshua Malina will follow you on Twitter for a year if you'll donate $10 to Mazon, a Jewish hunger-fighting charity, in honor of his 47th birthday Jan. 17.

"A minimal kick-in gets you a heartfelt thank-you and a year's worth of being followed by me on Twitter," he says. "At least once a week, I will check in to your feed, and laugh gently to myself at something you've posted. Promise!"

He made the video above for his campaign on Causes.com, showing some gifts for the highest bidders, including a Scandal backpack given to the show's cast and crew for the holidays an…
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More About: charity, Social Good, Twitter

WikiVoyages Might Be Your New Destination Guidebook

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:24 PM PST


Wikipedia, the site you have probably used countless times to find out information on literally everything, is launching Wikivoyage tentatively sometime next week, reports Skift.

The free worldwide travel guide is currently in beta and made waves when it was first made official in September.

The main page acts like a guidebook and features links to articles titled, "Destination of the month," "Off the beaten path," and "Featured travel topic." Each section is clickable. There is also a discover section, which links to its own page. Here you can read about "strange but true trivia about destinations around the world."

When it launches, Wikivoyage will be accessible to everyone…
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More About: guidebook, travel, vacation

Why Are People Still Buying CDs?

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:08 PM PST


Amazon announced AutoRip on Thursday, a free service that gives consumers a cloud-based backup for every CD they've bought from the company since 1998.

For Amazon, it's another move towards ensuring that consumers consider the company their primary stream of content, whatever the format. However, the introduction of the service raises another question: Why are people still buying CDs in 2013? After all, most music is available online in a format that's usually cheaper than CDs and doesn't take up shelf space.

Yet, the CD is still the predominant format for music buying. Consumers bought 193 million CDs in 2012 vs. 118 million digitally downloaded albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan
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More About: Music

Watch This Skateboarder’s Near-Death Experience

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:04 PM PST


If you're a skateboarder, this video shows why you shouldn't bombt down steep hills that lead directly to busy cross streets.

More About: Sports, Watercooler

Laptop Vending Machine Offers Safety for Students

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:01 PM PST


A laptop bag might protect your computer from the elements but it could also act as a bullseye for muggers.

For students on late-night studying binges, schlepping their tech around campus might not be ideal. Drexel University in Philadelphia has an interesting solution to that problem. The university installed a MacBook vending machine in the library, reports VentureBeat. The machine dispenses out laptops on loan 24 hours a day. This way, students can access technology easily, and not worry about staying too late at the library and then having to carrying their laptops home.

SEE ALSO: What to Do if Your Cellphone or Laptop Gets Lost or Stolen

To access the vending machine,…
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More About: Hard Drives, library, macbook, students, university, vending machine

IBM’s Watson Memorized Entire Urban Dictionary, Then His Overlords Deleted It

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 01:59 PM PST


Humans talk funny. We invent words. We smash words together, tear them apart, abbreviate them one way, then another. Which is great and fun, if you're a human. Not so great if you are a machine or the kind of human who programs machines to understand language.

When IBM's famous artificial intelligence, Watson, he/she/it of Jeopardy-winning fame, was in development, its head researcher had a great idea. Humans created this repository of slang, The Urban Dictionary. For example, today on the site, we learn that 'healthy gas' is "the gas (fart) produced from a person who has eaten healthy foods like cabbage, beans, broccolli, grains or other high fiber, high carbohydrate foods."

Brown rea…
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More About: artificial intelligence, Dictionary, IBM Watson, slang

Incredible Rendering Brings Van Gogh’s Famous Self-Portrait to Life

Posted: 10 Jan 2013 01:55 PM PST


A Lithuanian artist has brought one of Van Gogh's most iconic self-portraits to life in a stunning, unimaginable way.

More About: art, Watercooler

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