Walyou

Twitter Implements Chat-Like Pop-up Notifications

Posted: 12 Apr 2014 10:00 AM PDT

It’s easy to miss notifications when getting a reply to your tweets or when someone retweets you, especially if you rely only on your e-mail for such things. In this context, Twitter’s new feature is definitely something that will make our lives easier.

A couple of days after Twitter switched to its new profile pages and basically turned into Facebook, the microblogging service announced a new feature. From now on, replies, retweets and favorited tweets will be presented in the form of chat-like popup notifications, assuming that the user is currently on twitter.com.

In a blog post on Twitter.com, Michael Ducker explained why the new features is so important: “When it comes to your interactions on Twitter, it should be easy for you to stay connected to what’s relevant. With this in mind, we’re bringing you real-time notifications on twitter.com when someone is engaging with your Tweets.”

The author of the post also detailed how the notifications will be displayed: “When you’re logged in on twitter.com, you will receive notifications if someone has replied, favorited or retweeted one of your Tweets. You can also receive notifications for direct messages and new followers. They’re fully interactive, so that you can reply, favorite, retweet, and follow right from the notification. We’ll be rolling this feature out over the coming weeks.”

Not at last, the blog post includes instructions on how to enable the new feature: “To make sure you’re getting the notifications you want, go to your Settings on twitter.com. That’s where you can choose what types of notifications you want to get on twitter.com and via email and mobile. If you use a Twitter app, check out your settings there too, so you can refine the types of push notifications you receive.”

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Google Glass and Other Wearables to Draw Power from Your Body

Posted: 11 Apr 2014 12:15 PM PDT

Converting body heat to the energy necessary for powering wearable devices is not that far-fetched of an idea, according to a team of South Korean researchers.

The battery life of Google Glass and other wearable devices is definitely their greatest downside. Until now, whoever owned a wearable was stuck with two options: either he charged the device wherever he could (more than once a day, in some cases), or he could carry a power bank with him, along with frustrating cables. This takes away from the pleasure of wearing a wireless device. The ideal solution would be to find a source that could transmit energy wirelessly to the wearable, but until such a thing is invented, the fiberglass-based thermoelectric (TE) generator developed by some South Korean scientists remains our best option.

Byung Jin Cho, a professor of electrical engineering at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), explained just how flexible this TE generator really is: “There are no changes in performance even if the generator bends upward and downward for up to 120 cycles.”

Further down the line, Cho also detailed the structure of the device that could change the life of anybody using wearable tech: “The TE generator has a self-sustaining structure, eliminating thick external substrates (usually made of ceramic or alumina) that hold inorganic TE materials.”

Cho also emphasized the elements that bring novelty in the field of energy generators: “The glass fabric itself serves as the upper and lower substrates of a TE generator, keeping the inorganic TE materials in between. This is quite a revolutionary approach to design a generator.”

Unlike inorganic-based TE generators, which are very rigid, heavy and take up a lot of room, the one invented by these South Korean researchers (which is organic, as it is based on glass) is very light and flexible, leaving very little to be desired.

By the looks of it, this thermoelectric generator could be not only an ideal source of energy for wearables, but also for other mobile devices such as smartphones. The whole concept might need to be adapted for that, as smartphones are known as more power hungry than smart glasses and the like.

The only thing that I hope is that no one gets the idea that people could be turned into massive power banks anytime soon, as that would be The Matrix all over again.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about how Google Glass could help people with Parkinson’s and Vodafone’s Power Pocket that uses body heat to power phones.