New Technology News

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

What’s better than a selfie?

A selfie that is also a gif.

Meet Selfie360, the newest, and most aptly named, app from the Cycloramic team. After building an app that automatically rotates your phone (hands-free, no less) to take a 360-degree photo, the Cycloramic team leveraged the technology in a brand new way. A narcissistic way, you might say.

The Selfie360 app gives you three options for a selfie: portrait, panorama, or full. Portrait lets you create a shorter gif of your beautiful mug, which is automatically reversed within the feed. Panorama lets you hold the phone yourself, spin in a circle, and show off your face from every angle. Finally, “Full” lets someone else take the selfie of you by circling you like a tiger on the hunt.

All three are fun.

Once you’ve posted your selfie, it’s double-checked by a human to ensure it doesn’t include any genitalia or drugs or things that are illegal, and then it goes live on a public feed. You also have the option to share to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other social networks.

For now, the feed is public for all Selfie360 users, but founder Bruno Francois tells me that the team will eventually add a follow-based structure to the app, letting you curate your own feed. The team will also add likes, hashtags, Search, direct messages, and geo-location.

There are a number of apps that capitalize on our obsession with our own faces, including Instagram and FrontBack, but Selfie360 is the first that mixes selfies and gifs. It’s a lethal, lovely combination.

To check out the Selfie360 app, visit the iTunes store by clicking here.

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Selfie360 Turns Your Face Into A Gif

12:39 PM

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What’s better than a selfie? A selfie that is also a gif. Meet Selfie360, the newest, and most aptly named, app from the Cycloramic team . ...

In their first annual global mobile data report, analytics firm Mixpanel reveals that Android is the originating platform for the lion’s share of app data generated from the top 15 countries as measured by active mobile usage. 64 percent of all the mobile data from the top 15 data generators came from Android devices, and only 3 of the top 15 have a primarily iOS-using population.

The top data producers are Spanish-speaking countries, Mixpanel found, and in countries with Spanish as their native tongue, Android is even more strongly represented, accounting for 74 percent of all data generated by apps. France, Japan and The Netherlands are the only three countries on the list where iOS has a clear majority, and only one country (Thailand) shows a pretty much even split between the two platforms.

Screen Shot 2014-02-18 at 2.46.26 PM App data usage obviously isn’t the only way to measure platform and app engagement, but it does provide an indication that users are opening and using the software on their smartphones to communicate with the web. There are some valuable takeaways in this data for mobile devs, too: Specifically, it paints a picture of a mobile app market where Spanish localized titles have the potential to gain a lot of traction in terms of usage.

Another measure of app traction, and one potentially closer to developer hearts, is mobile revenue. App revenue in Asia grew a whopping 162 percent according to Distimo, with much of that growth driven by Android. Primarily Spanish-speaking countries don’t yet appear on Distimo’s Top 10 countries as listed by app revenue, however, so while Android may be exploding in those emerging markets in terms of usage, that isn’t necessarily leading to big monetary gains for developers targeting those regions just yet.

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12 Of The Top 15 Data-Using Countries Are Predominantly On Android, Mixpanel Says

11:54 AM

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In their first annual global mobile data report, analytics firm Mixpanel reveals that Android is the originating platform for the lion’s sh...

The revolution will be live-streamed. In violent clashes with police, tens of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets to protest the policies of President Viktor Yanukovych, who is accused of close ties with the Russian government.

Technology has had a unique role in the Ukrainian protests, both to the benefit and detriment of activists. Last month, demonstrators near the parliament building were sent an ominous text message, “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance”.

As for the live-stream, It is unclear what kind of impact International social media has on the success of these kinds of protests. Twitter and other networks garnered world-wide attention for the 2009-2010 “Arab Spring” Middle-East uprisings. But, inside the countries themselves, social media has a subdued role.

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Watch Ukrainian Police And Protesters Clash In A Live Stream

11:53 AM

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The revolution will be live-streamed. In violent clashes with police , tens of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets to protest th...

One of the UK's go-to spots for selling entertainment products online, Entertainment Magpie is now setting its sights on the U.S. with the launch of Decluttr.com. In this podcast, we chat with CEO Steve Oliver about how the digital revolution affects a business model predicated on physical entertainment media; the global network that underpins his company's business model; and how Americans' unfamiliarity with a black and white bird that collects shiny things forced Entertainment Magpie's stateside name change.

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Old Discs Get a Chance to Spin Again

11:53 AM

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One of the UK's go-to spots for selling entertainment products online, Entertainment Magpie is now setting its sights on the U.S. with...

Deepak Chopra believes we can have it all. Through a melding of science and spirituality, this author, guru, and speaker has worked tirelessly to create new methods for mindfulness. He shared a few with us at TC HQ where we got the opportunity to talk about the future of democracy, the global citizen, and our own ability to control aging and health.

It’s definitely a lot to handle at once but hopefully is message of “be in the now” is helpful for the frantic entrepreneur trying to do fifty or a hundred things a minute. “Multitasking is the only skill that gets worse with practice,” he said, and I think we’d all tend to agree.

Chopra is also expanding into online classes beginning with something called Timeless You. By using a MOOC platform called Siminars he’s been able to create and charge for a class on handling aging – making it one of his first real forays into the online education realm.

One of the coolest ideas he discussed was a networked method for sensing the mood of huge groups of people and allowing for a unique method for voting on global questions. We’re going to have a longer event with Chopra later this month but until then enjoy his thoughts on the future of humans and humanity.

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Deepak Chopra Talks About Mindfulness And The Future Of Government

11:25 AM

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Deepak Chopra believes we can have it all. Through a melding of science and spirituality, this author, guru, and speaker has worked tireles...

Whisper, the popular anonymous social sharing startup that’s raised $24 million from venture capital giants including Sequoia Capital, may have just gotten its big break into celebrity gossip territory that’s typically dominated by the likes of TMZ and the National Enquirer.

Neetzan Zimmerman, the Gawker alum known for his midas touch in driving online traffic promoted what appears to be the startup’s first A-list celebrity gossip scoop (Zimmerman says he has vetted the rumor). Zimmerman was hired last month to serve as Whisper’s first ever editor in chief.

Vanity Fair chickened out, so Whisper got the scoop: An anonymous source says Gwyneth Paltrow is cheating. bit.ly/1cm5Dj7—

Neetzan Zimmerman (@neetzan) February 18, 2014

While this particular bit of “news” is about as shallow and silly as it comes, in a larger way it reveals Whisper’s potential strategy for staying relevant in the notoriously fickle social app space. One of the chief criticisms lobbied against Whisper by those who have not caught on to the app is that it’s hard to really get worked up about the deep dark secrets of people you don’t know. But when the salacious secrets are about rich and famous people, they start to be a bit more interesting.

Now, this is not totally uncharted territory. Formspring launched as an anonymous Q&A forum, caught on like wildfire with teenagers and early-adopting tech types, raised $14 million in venture capital, and expanded into the celebrity space — only to ultimately shut down.

But these things are all about execution and timing — Facebook prevailed where Friendster failed, after all. Right now, Whisper is tapping into something really fascinating, and potentially very disruptive to the media powers that be.

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Whisper, The Sequoia-Backed Secret Sharing App, Makes A Move Into TMZ Territory

11:25 AM

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Whisper , the popular anonymous social sharing startup that’s raised $24 million from venture capital giants including Sequoia Capital, may...

Just in case you have $4,999 lying around and have a hankering to print in carbon fiber, the Mark One 3D printer is now available for pre-order. When first announced last month, the Mark One was going to be available to order in March, but today is your lucky day.

Named aptly for its creator, Gregory Mark, who also owns Aeromotions, this desktop printer debuted at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego. After seeing the expense and time currently associated with carbon fiber manufacturing, Mark started down a path that eventually ended up at the Mark One.

“We took the idea of 3D printing, that process of laying things down strand by strand, and we used it as a manufacturing process to make composite parts,” he told Popular Mechanics. “We say it’s like regular 3D printers do the form. We do form and function.”

The printer can not only lay down carbon fiber, but also fiberglass, nylon and PLA. Of course, only one at a time. The printer employees some pretty nifty advancements, too, including a self-leveling printing bed that clicks into position before each print.

For a few dollars more, the company also offers a Mark One Developer Kit Pre-order that puts your order at the front of the line and includes a few extras including more Kevlar and two extra beds.