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The All In One with Latest HD TV
You get a lot of trouble while fixing cables for your wall mounted LCD and i can bet those wires are never looking decent. And hiding those wires is a puzzle itself, atleast i get puzzled. The smart solution to this problem is all just in one piece by IKEA. They neither call it a TV nor furniture, instead they call it UPPLEVA.
A tip-top HDTV with high quality 2.1 sound system, blue ray and digital boxes comes up in form of a meticulously designed furniture. This ensures that there would be no trouble hiding those wires and installing the entertainment system. The HDTV isnt a simple LCD, instead it is a 1080p HD LED Smart TV.
Two USB ports and four HDMI port come up with the IKEA TV along with a single remote to control all of the components (TV, Blue-ray, sound system). The furniture contains extra drawers as well to place your electronics in them. To top it up, UPPLEVA is now available in different frames, sizes, styles and colours for just $960 (Not Bad indeed). But we are still not sure about the size of the TV in this $960 set.
The Real Ring to Unlock Them All !
The Near Field Communication (NFC) standard has become a super useful way of sharing things, by allowing you to interact with other devices wirelessly for communication and data sharing. Well, here is something new from John McLear which he calls “The NFC Ring”. If you are a tech geek then you would love to have this thing around your finger.
McLear developed this ring for the purpose of unlocking doors, but NFC tech is capable of doing multiple things; sure, if you have a Lockitron device (NFC equipped Door Lock) just bring it near the lock and the door will automatically open for you – but you could also use it to unlock an NFC equipped phone with just a swipe.
The ring isn’t just built for unlocking doors and phones. It can be used for Wi-Fi connectivity, video locks, unlock interfaces and much more. If this shiny tech jewelry comes into production then maybe the cumbersome task of carrying multiple conventional keys will be history.
All Ping | Emergency Hot Tub Water
OK. So it’s emergency time. You’ve been without water in your house for several hours already. Can you use the water in your hot tub?
Emergency Preparedness Canada recommends: “Aim to have an emergency survival kit that will keep you and your family self-sufficient in your home for at least three days.”
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends the same for Americans. This is how long they estimate it should take to get food and water to anybody in the event of a major disaster.
Recalling the Ice Storm of 1998 and the Katrina Hurricane devastation of 2005, it is best to be prepared to hold out much longer.
an I drink my hot tub water?
But what if you didn’t prepare? Or what if you are left high and dry for longer?
Water is perhaps the most essential of all provisions. And there it is, in abundance, in your hot tub or swimming pool. But is it drinkable?
- Yes, but not really. This water should be your very last resort. After all, you do put chemicals in the hot tub and the water really isn’t good for drinking. Additionally, your hot tub is a breeding ground for bacteria and viruses that should not be consumed internally. Just think of all the people who have been sitting in your hot tub and now think about drinking the water. Exactly.
- If you have some advance warning – tornado alert, hurricane warning, etc., you can sill up your bath tub with drinkable water. Or buckets, jars – whatever you have around the house.
- No warning? Dip into the toilet tank or the hot water heater. Yes, drinking from the toilet tank is preferable to drinking from a hot tub or swimming pool.
- You might also want to keep on hand a purification device, through which you can filter your hot tub water or swimming pool water. Or you might try a purification tablet that you put into the water to make it safe to drink using flocculation. Flocculation literally means that the microbes group themselves into flakes or bundles that can easily be filtered from the water by hand. This is the same process used in cheese-making, and there is a good chance that your water utility uses flocculation to treat your sewage.
- Back-country campers use these purification methods all the time, so head over to your favorite outdoors store and ask what they have that would be useful to purify your hot tub water. This assumes you have not overdone the chemicals. These products are designed to remove contaminants from lake and river water, not to remove chlorine and such.
In a time of crisis, your hot tub can be a life saver, but it pays to be prepared.
Oh, and if you do get an advance hurricane or tornado warning, don’t forget to make sure your hot tub coveris locked down so that it does not follow Dorothy’s house into the sky.
All About Google Glass
I’m sure by now, most of us have heard of the potential Google Glass has. In the video you see a few people going through everyday routines while others put it on for more extreme stuff like skydiving.
On their head, is the wearable gadget that gives you the first-person’s view of the experience, made possible by you guessed it, Google Glass.
While Google Glass is still currently a developer’s toy, who has the time to wait until it becomes an item for the masses? So we did a little digging, got our fingers dirty and found 10 things you can expect from this high-tech eyewear.
We’ll talk about its hardware, what it’s capable of doing and how it’ll do it. Be prepared for the future as you might see many people wearing the Google Glass when it’s released
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1. Tiny (But Powerful) Hardware
It’s amazing how the Project Glass team has managed to squeeze all of its features into a tiny ‘computer’ supported on a lightweight yet strong frame.
Google Glass is packed with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, speakers, a camera, microphone, touchpad andpossibly a gyroscope that detects head-tilts. Then there’s the main piece, a tiny screen the size of your finger, that shows you all the information you need at your finger tips.
(Image Source: The Verge)
You can tell by the prototype that the design and engineering team have done a great job cramping everything into the current Glass design: a wearable, non-intrusive gadget that doesn’t get in the way of daily life.
2. Heed My Command!
Well, all that hardware is put to good use: Google Glass has voice input, which makes everything a lot more interesting. The built-in microphone combined with Google Now connects you directly to the search engine.
You activate Google Now by saying "Okay Glass" then send a command or question. Tilting your head up does the same thing.
You can take a photo or record a video, all by just saying the command for it – more on that, later. On the right, is a touchpad where you can swipe through, to get to menus; tapping, registers your selection.
3. Life Pauses For No One
Google Glass users can now live in the moment, and keep that memory in pictures or videos. No more foraging around for a camera, tuning the settings of your photo apps, and letting the moment go by without a single snap. Just say, "Take a Photo" and your view at the moment is captured, hands-free. Imagine the possibiltiies.
Other than photos, you can do the same with videos, which spells opportunities for extreme sports, real-life tutorials and more. Of course, picture quality coming from a device this small would not be comparable to a DSLR camera, but oftentimes, you’d rather not lose out on the moment.
4. Always On Call, Literally
With Glass being able to record videos, it can also act as a webcam with the data connection from your home or smartphone. You can use Google Hangout for a group conference, and still do what you need to do without being confined to a desk.
The powerful voice input feature also allows you to dictate text messages, attach videos and pictures alongwith and sending it via your mobile data connection, without having to remove your phone from your pocket.
5. Never Get Lost Again
Since it’s built with a GPS chip, it’ll be able to help you navigate, with help from Google Maps. This will take away the need to look down at your smartphone and it will be especially handy when you are driving, when you’re walking through crowded streets or when you’re hiking through the countryside.
Travellers, backpackers and even long distant cyclists won’t have to stop and check on where they are. In fact, this is the perfect example of augmented reality.
6. Blend In With The Locals
If you have read this recap on Awesome Things Google Search Can Do For You, know that you can do all of this on Glass as well. What’s the difference? Think about travelling and visiting a place where you don’t speak the local language.
7. Live From The Field
Live information that is shown to you would come from the predictive software of Google Now. On Android’s Jelly Bean, Google Now knows when you’re leaving your home for work and can warn you of bad traffic before you get stuck in it.
You can also set your favourite sports team and it’ll give you the latest news, scores and updates from the team, whenever they play.
All those features are available on Android, but with Glass, you can skip checking your device and just get it shown to you as and when it happens, or as news feeds. Google Now cards also shows you your boarding pass, next appointment, hotel or restaurant reservations, reminders for important birthdays and events in your calendar.
8. OS Compatibility Not An Issue
Google Glass works not only with Android phones but also with the iPhone, according to this report. Apart from the GPS chip inside, Google Glass is dependent on the Wi-Fi or mobile connectivityto deliver its features. It is only fair game it if is available like any third-party accessory
When paired up with your smart device, it can show social network notifications and let you communicate via the same channels as you would on the computer. This removes the need of looking at your smartphone constantly, giving you more time to concentrate on the task at hand.
9. Time For A Make-Over
What is high tech without a sleek and cool design? Google Glass weighed an astounding 8 poundswhen it first was announced more than a year ago, but now is seeking to receive nods from the fashion industry.
Already lightweight, and soon to be available in 5 color options (Shale, Tangerine, Charcoal, Cotton and Sky), Google Glass is set to get a make-over with help from eyewear companies.
The flexibility in design is made possible with different frame and lens shapes — the computing part of Glass can be unscrewed from the current frame and attached onto another. We’re looking forward to a less cyborg, more natural feel to it. But for now, it’s wait and see.
10. Still Elusive But Almost Here
Google first made Glass available to developers during the Google I/O conference. At the time, it was priced at $1,500 and word has it that it will still be within that price range when it is finally released end of this year.
More recently, participants of the #ifihadglass competition can get an opportunity to buy Glass if they give the most creative Tweet or Google+ comment. For the rest of us, we’ll just have to wait until they iron out the rough edges before we can put on a pair.
All You Need To Know About Facebook’s Latest News Feed
The New Facebook is about you. In a new attempt to manage clutter that is invading our personal feed on Facebook, Facebook is putting all your favorite feeds into one ‘personalized newspaper’ where you can get high quality content from famous figures, relevant local sources and your social circles.
With the new design you can stay on top of a topic, or ‘drill’ into the essence of that topic – the new Facebook design allows you to dwell in both.
It’s also taking tips from Pinterest and pushing for a more visually engaging interface, putting the focus on photos instead of just pure text. The new News Feed has been designed to give us richer stories, better choice of feeds, and a more consistent user interface between desktop and mobile Facebook.
Here’s everything you need to know about Facebook’s latest News Feed redesign.
1. Customized News Feed
The things that matter only take up 40% of the real estate on your current Facebook news feed. The new design puts importance on making the stories come alive. One way is via clearer, more stunning visuals with both individual photos and full albums.
Article shares also got a facelift, giving it a more clean-cut, professional look. More of the summary is revealed and the logo of the publisher gets a bigger spotlight (it’s about time!).
2. Easier To Make Connections
The information put into Timeline is now better displayed to outsiders, to help make connections. The profile photo is bigger and you can see mutual friends you have with this person, right from their Facebook cover photo.
All the information you need to make the connection is at the same spot. The same is applied to pages, brands and services.
3. Check-Ins Are More Relatable
With the new design, when you check-in into a place, you can see the place on a map with a description of the place, which is actually a great idea. Rather than depend solely on your friends’ descriptions, you get a clearer picture of what the place is and where you can find it.
This effectively makes your friends’ adventures more relatable to you.
4. Logbook Of What You Do On Third-Party Apps
Love Pinterest or Spotify? Facebook can help you track what you are doing there, giving your friends an idea of your activities outside of Facebook. It takes the repetitive work of sharing the things you do elsewhere with your friends in Facebook, and helps you curate all your actions into one feed for a more organized look.
5. Multiple-Sharing Highlighted
When an article or video is shared several times from different people, it no longer clutters your feed repetitively. We already have this in the current design but the new design lets you go into every single conversation that is attached to each particular share, sorted by your friend’s profile picture to the left of the article, or video, that is making recent headlines.
6. Curating Made Simple
Apart from articles and videos, you can also see all the postings from a single publisher, or headlines about a topic or public figure curated together for easier access. While this probably contributed to most of your clutter previously, it is now properly packaged into an easier-to-handle design.
Choice Of Feeds
1. Feeds Switch
You can jump to the feeds using the switcher at the top right side of the new design. For mobile, this only takes a swipe down to find the feed you want. The Feeds Switch lets you get to the sections like how you do in a newspaper (like the sports section? Flip to the Sports section).
With the new design, you can even create your own feed e.g. make a game feed if you are an avid gamer to get all the latest about your favorite games.
2. All Friends
The new design is bringing back an old friend. The All Friend feed makes a comeback and gives you the updates from everyone in your friends’ list in a single feed and in chronological order. Don’t worry, there is a separate feed for Close Friends so all that sorting will still come to good use.
3. Music
You can now get the latest updates from your favorite musical artist, such as concerts that are happening nearby or the latest releases of albums. Also in the music section are other music that your friends are listening to
This gives music artists a great avenue to release their latest updates on Facebook, rather than do so with other less-populated social networks.
4. Photos And Pages
Photos also get their own ‘section’, so you can look into the lives of your friends through their eyes, with help from their phone cameras and perhaps Instagram filters. If you follow Pages, these are all put together in the same ‘Following’ feed so that when you sit down and read, you are getting all of them on the same channel and in chronological order.
5. Preferential Sorting For Feeds
If you tap into the Music feed often, this will automatically be ranked higher in your choice of feed based on your recent and frequency of interactions. Since you can create any other types of feed, this gives you better, more personalized management of the information you can find on Facebook.
Mobile Consistency
1. Global Navigation
In an attempt to make Facebook look and feel the same across all platforms and screen sizes, the new design has a tray feature accessible on the left of your Facebook view. This is the same on the tablet, your smartphone and the desktop.
This reduces the need to relearn how to navigate Facebook whenever you access it from different devices.
2. New Updates, New Look
New notification about new incoming stories have also gotten a facelift in the form of a clean, bubble near the top of your feed. It lets us access new stories without scrolling off the page so you don’t lose sight of what you are reading.
3. Responsive Design
The new design is essentially mobile-inspired, and the physical model of how you got around in Facebook on smartphones and the tablet has now been ported to the desktop view. You can now access a page on Facebook from another page without having to go back to the homepage.
Conclusion
Can’t wait to try the new look on? Join the waiting list and experience the new Facebook yourself.
Plug – Group And Secure Files From All Your Devices Effortlessly
Cloud storage is, shall we say, the current way to store all our files for easy access on multiple devices. It is however, not without its list of pitfalls. While cloud storage is a great concept, we havelimited free space and have to pay for extra (yet rented, not owned) space to store our files in someone else’s servers.
Plug can plug up all those problems while still providing you an effortless way to make your files accessible on all your mobile and desktop devices.
Plug is a small adapter which transforms USB drives to a grouped storage space for your devices. An Internet connection is still required but as all connected devices have access to the same content, users don’t need to manually copy or move their files here and there anymore.
Getting Plug For 24/7 File Access
It is very easy to set up Plug. Connect Plug to a home Internet connection with a LAN cable and connect a USB drive to it. Then, install the Plug app on your devices. And you’re done.
With Plug, all the devices share the same storage. That also means that smartphones and tablets connected with Plug will have a lot more storage to save more pictures, documents and media files.
So what is the difference? For starters, compared to a cloud storage service like Dropbox, Plug doesn’t sync your files, it just groups them all in the same place. The Plug app allows access by any device to that group of files. Applications and system files are automatically ignored.
All other files (pictures, videos, documents, music etc) can be accessed on mobile devices as if the user is on the desktop.
What’s more, Plug also can connect the TV to the mix. With this, we can watch our movies without needing to transfer it from the laptop to the TV manually. Users can set the type of media i.e. video and audio files, they want to make available on the TV.
Need more space? Just connect another USB drive to Plug. The storage space adds up and users can plug in up to 8 USB drives. If you have 1 TB worth of USB drives connected to Plug, that is theamount of storage all your connected devices have, each
For users who seem to accidentally delete items all the time, Plug is a life saver. Every version of a saved document is backed up. If you mess up a document just look up an older version under History and retrieve that version. Plus, users can set a file accessible for offline viewing.
Lastly, if you have always been worried about the security of your files particularly those stored in Cloud, then Plug will lay those worries to rest. Plug uses a private key that is password-protected to authenticate any user found inside your Plug system. This private key is stored in your Plug and devices letting no one except you to access your data.
Plug is available at an affordable one-off price tag of $79 on Kickstarter, USB drives not included, but we’re sure you have a few of those lying around unused. Shipping starts January 2014.
