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Thursday, January 9, 2014
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idrive_safe_disk

Cloud storage and data backup service IDrive today announced the launch of a new long-term archival service that allows users to ship data to the company on physical drives.


IDrive Safe, as the company calls this feature, allows users to choose between plans to allow a single backup with up to 1TB of storage ($99.50/year), annual backups ($199.50/year) or monthly shipments ($999.50/year for up to 13TB of stored data per year). Just like with IDrive’s regular hard disk-based backups, the company ships the 1TB drives to customers who then only have to plug them in and start the backup process. Data on the drive is optionally encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption.


The company believes that the consistency of the hard drive shipments encourages its users to routinely make backups.


The difference between this new service and the company’s regular backup solution is that the data isn’t always available online, but will only be made available once a customer requests it. This allows the company to offer significantly lower prices for this feature than for its regular backup service, though users lose some of the flexibility when it comes to retrieving data.


For companies with a dedicated development staff, solutions like Amazon Glacier may be more attractive for long-term storage, especially given that Amazon also offers hard drive-based backups to augment its regular online cloud storage for continuous uploads. As an offsite backup solution that’s augmented by a more traditional service, however, IDrive Safe could come in handy for businesses and individuals who want to add some redundancy to their records storage systems, for example.







9:09 AM

Cloud storage and data backup service IDrive today announced the launch of a new long-term archival service that allows users to ship data ...

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In my mind, 2014 is shaping up to be Apple's wildest year in the post-Jobs era. Last year, we saw a lot of incremental innovations from Apple but no thunderous new products. Sure, the new Mac Pro is insanely small, quiet and super sexy -- not to mention manufactured in America, which is no small feat these days -- but it's also a niche product for professionals. Apple's street creds and ultimate success are firmly entrenched with mass consumers. Hence the wild-and-wooly promise of 2014.


7:09 AM

In my mind, 2014 is shaping up to be Apple's wildest year in the post-Jobs era. Last year, we saw a lot of incremental innovations fro...

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TeamLab Personal

Online document editors such as Google Docs, and Zoho Docs, have long-promised a browser-based alternative that will finally let you eradicate Microsoft Office from your desktop. But for more complex document editing and complete compatibility with Microsoft’s incumbent file formats, it’s fair to say these Web-based editors often fall short. There competitive advantage, of course, is the document sharing and collaboration possibilities that come with the cloud, something that has seen Microsoft take note with Office 365 and its accompanying Web-based document viewers and editors.


Enter TeamLab Personal, a free version of TeamLab’s cloud-based Office suite. Built using HTML5′s Canvas element (for those who are Web-standards au fait), it claims to combine the best of Google’s online collaboration features with Microsoft Word’s high quality formatting. And if the slightly self-serving demo video below is anything to go by, may well send Microsoft Office 365′s online versions back to the drawing board.


The free Personal edition of TeamLab combines text, spreadsheet and presentation editors, essentially mirroring much of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint’s features, with additional online co-editing and commenting capabilities. Talking up its use of HTML5 Canvas technology, no mean feat, TeamLab says its been able to offer functionality unavailable in other online word-processors.


These include ensuring that the input is always identical to the output (i.e. a processed file keeps the same style, paragraphs, symbol and line spacing etc. while displaying in any modern browser on any OS as well as while importing or printing); a broader choice of options for table processing, line spacing, multi-level numbering, text and heading styles; ability to handle multi-page reports while adhering to document standards; and multi language support including hieroglyphs.


To get started, you sign up to TeamLab Personal via Facebook or Google and connect to various cloud storage accounts, including Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive and Box, therefore creating a single workspace for your files. The tie-in with third-party storage is presumably one way the Russian company is able to offer a free version.


(What’s interesting about the comparison video above is that while TeamLab does an infinitely better job at handling the document in question than Google or Microsoft, none of the three solutions do the job perfectly. In other words, we have some way to go yet.)







6:24 AM

Online document editors such as Google Docs, and Zoho Docs, have long-promised a browser-based alternative that will finally let you eradica...

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CrashPlan is an automated backup system that does the job, but it's not without its pitfalls. The software offers a cross-platform backup solution that's reliably easy to use once you configure the software. Installing it to your Linux system, however, is anything but user-friendly. More than a few Linux users will emerge looking for a less-finicky solution. In addition, while the developer, Code 42, appears to adhere to the open source philosophy, you will face a big challenge if you try to locate the source code.


5:40 AM

CrashPlan is an automated backup system that does the job, but it's not without its pitfalls. The software offers a cross-platform bac...

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One of the disadvantages of retaining a phone after the expiration of a two-year contract -- as many of us do -- is that those older phones have accumulated a few years' worth of digital gunk. They're clogged up like an aging sewer on the wrong side of town. Just like on a PC, bits of app and OS code become discombobulated -- orphaned from the parent program. Onboard digital debris becomes disoriented like a drunk stumbling out of a favored hole-in-the-wall; jumbled lethargy sets in, and the device can take forever to start.


5:09 AM

One of the disadvantages of retaining a phone after the expiration of a two-year contract -- as many of us do -- is that those older phone...

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Wednesday, January 8, 2014
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hardware-battlefield600

After two days of presentations, hours of judging, and 14 demos, we’re excited to announce the finalists for the inaugural Hardware Battlefield: Atlas Wearables, Blaze, Cube Sensors, and Owlet Baby Care.


The winner will be decided tomorrow afternoon and awarded a $50,000 check and a robot-topped trophy.


Fourteen companies participated in our first Hardware Battlefield representing eleven countries. From medical devices to quantitative self gear to drones to bike lights, these companies launched for the first time on our stage at CES 2014 and were judged by panels of all-star judges.


Tomorrow, at 3:00pm PDT, the four finalists will present their product yet again to four more judges including Yves Behar, Bre Petis, Jen McCabe, and Matt Turck. The winner will take home the first Hardware Battlefield cup.


All of our companies were amazing. All of our entrants are already doing some amazing work in their fields and most are well on their way to successful crowdfunding. We were proud to have them on our stage.


The finalists are:


358844v1-max-250x250Atlas [CrunchBase] – Atlas is a wearable device that tracks and identifies specific activity. Where existing products can only track a single metric, steps, Atlas is smart enough to identify pushups, squats, dead lifts and everything else.


Team:

Peter Li, CEO

Mike Kasparian, CTO

Alex Hsieh, Lead Software Developer

Mehdi Mirza, Data Scientist



Screen Shot 2014-01-05 at 1.45.34 PMBlaze Laserlight [CrunchBase] – Blaze are an intelligent biking brand. Launching with the Laserlight, a radical innovation tackling the greatest cause of cyclist fatality – being caught in the ‘blind spot’ and vehicles turning across an unseen bike.


Team:

Emily Brooke, CEO + Founder



scaled.logoCubeSensors [CrunchBase] – CubeSensors are small, stylish and connected devices that help you understand how every room in your home or office is affecting your health, comfort and productivity. The Cubes monitor everything that can be measured about indoors, like temperature, humidity, air quality, noise, light and barometric pressure. They are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and can easily blend in any room you want to optimize for leisure, sleep or work.


Team:

Ales Spetic, CEO

Marko Mrdjenovic, CTO



Screen Shot 2014-01-05 at 1.37.55 PMOwlet [CrunchBase] – Owlet provides parents with peace of mind by implementing new technologies to monitor, track, and alert on changes in their infant’s health. Owlet helps parents prevent SIDS and other early infant issues.


Team:

Jordan Monroe, CMO

Zack Bomsta, CTO

Kurt Workman, CEO

Tanor Hodges, CFO

Jake Colvin, COO







11:24 PM

After two days of presentations, hours of judging, and 14 demos, we’re excited to announce the finalists for the inaugural Hardware Battlefi...

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faraday bikes

Urban commuters are getting more and more comfortable with the idea of biking around, but in places like San Francisco that can be a drag. Electronic bicycles have emerged to help people get where they’re going, even in incredibly hilly environments. But many e-bikes are ugly, due to huge motors and battery packs that end up being placed in odd places around the frame.


Faraday Bicycles hopes to change that, with a bike that was built to be stylish, functional, and a lot of fun to ride. We got a preview of the company’s first bike, which will be shipping soon to customers who pre-ordered it. With a motor on its front wheel and batteries actually stored inside the frame, the Faraday bicycle is built to look just like a regular city commuter bike.


The first iteration of the Faraday bike was designed while founder Adam Vollmer was at IDEO to compete in a contest to create the ultimate city bike. But what started out as just a side project was spun out into its own company.


Faraday has come a long way since then. About a year and a half ago, the company ran a successful campaign on Kickstarter, and has sold several more pre-ordered bikes in the meantime. Behind the scenes, the company has been working to put the final touches on its prototypes and preparing to enter production soon.


What you see in the video is pretty close to what will end up being shipped to the community. It has a 350-watt motor, which works out to about three times your power.


The company pre-sold about 200 of the bikes at a price of around $3,500. Starting in March, Faraday expects to be shipping out to those who pre-ordered, and then hopes to ship a second production run in the mid-to-late summer. Check out the video above for more details!







5:10 PM

Urban commuters are getting more and more comfortable with the idea of biking around, but in places like San Francisco that can be a drag. ...

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