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Walyou

Apple Hires Tag Heuer’s VP of Sales, Is the iWatch On the Way?
How to Share Your Android Screen to Your TV With Chromecast
JIBO Is the Robotic Family Member You’ve Always Wanted
Facebook Mentions Is an App for the Rich and Famous

Apple Hires Tag Heuer’s VP of Sales, Is the iWatch On the Way?

Posted: 18 Jul 2014 07:00 AM PDT

As rumours surrounding Apple's iWatch device heat up, the company makes an interesting hire suggesting that the gadget is on the way.

Have you heard about the rumoured iWatch; Apple's wearable device that's said to have a fitness focus to keep you updated of notifications on your smartphone as well as giving you feedback about your health? Well plenty of us certainly have and Apple obviously have too, but they've kept completely schtum on the speculation with nary a statement offered to the media from the Cupertino, Calif. based company. They don't really need to say or do anything for suggestions to continue, though the electronics company have now tempered the flames of the fire like a hosepipe of gasoline by hiring Patrick Pruniaux who was the VP of Sales at watch brand Tag Heuer.

The reason Pruniaux's hiring is key is because he's not a brainy engineer, or a man with a plan of what the iWatch's features could be once the device comes to market but rather, he is the guy who can help Apple figure out which of the iWatch's features will help it shift the most units. Pruniaux's job will be to get the dang thing on our arms and make it seem like a must have item.

What Pruniaux's hire also means is that the iWatch is perhaps quite far into development (if Apple are looking at how to sell the thing anyway) and that they need a way to one up other smartwatch offerings with Microsoft rumoured to be working on a professional wrist device too and even Google has released a form of their Android operating system specially for wearable devices. That all points to the iWatch being released later this year (after a reveal in September alongside the iPhone 6) while Pruniaux's Tag Heuer background points to it being presented as a rather expensive luxury device that we'll all clamour over ourselves to buy. But will the iWatch really be worth it? We'll have to wait and see but we'll keep you posted once we know more.

Source: TechCrunch

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How to Share Your Android Screen to Your TV With Chromecast

Posted: 18 Jul 2014 05:00 AM PDT

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Google announced the ability to share your Android screen to your TV at Google I/O, and the feature has finally been launched!

Since the Chromecast was launched last year, it’s quickly becomes one of the most popular streaming devices, for obvious reasons. Not only is it only $35, but it also provides support for most major streaming services (let’s be honest, it really just needs to support Netflix) and it doesn’t require phone resources to stream. The workload is handed off to the Chromecast to do the lifting, leaving you free to use your device.

Several updates to the Chromecast at this year’s Google I/O, including one of the most demanded features: screen mirroring. The ability to cast a copy of your device’s screen, and not just streaming media.

This update has begun rolling out to most major Android devices, although some are not yet supported (such as the HTC One). If you would like to see if your device supports the screen casting functionality, you can find the full list of supported devices on Google’s Chromecast support page.

If your device is supported and you’d like to get started casting, it’s very simple. Assuming your device is supported, the first thing you want to do is make sure you have the most recent version of the Chromecast app installed. You can check your software version in the app under Settings>Software Version. If it is version 1.7 or newer, then you’re good to go!

The next steps are quite similar to streaming any other media. You need to make sure you are connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the Chromecast (Google announced feature that does not require this step, but it is not yet implemented).

If your app is updated and you are on the right Wi-Fi network, then you may have already figured out the next step, because it is fairly obvious once you enter the app menu. You will see a cast button, which enables the casting. Once your display is being shared, you will notice that there is a notification in your notification shade (just like when you are steaming media) that will allow you to turn sharing off. You can also turn it off by entering the app again.

So, why would you use this feature? Well, some apps don’t natively support casting to a Chomecast. The example Google used at Google I/O was Google Earth, but it can also be used for casting Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or web pages. Considering how often we share Facebook and Instagram photos on small screens, I’m actually surprised these apps don’t have built in cast functionality.

So there you have it. Thanks to this nifty update from Google, you can now cast anything you want from your phone to your TV. Chromecast is really taking off, so be ready for additional updates in the future as well!

Source: CNET

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JIBO Is the Robotic Family Member You’ve Always Wanted

Posted: 17 Jul 2014 01:58 PM PDT

Instead of asking for little brothers or sisters, maybe kids would be better off with robotic companion and home helper. The creators of JIBO thought that this might the case in modern families…

…and to be frank, they might as well be right! After all, small babies are noisy and ever-demanding, while a robot is quite and only interacts with you when needed. At 11 inches in height and 6 pounds in weight, JIBO is totally inconspicuous when people aren’t willing to interact with it, and emotionally available when they do. In other words, it’s not good for house chores, but it can connect emotionally.

When interacting with children, JIBO is the perfect playmate or storyteller. Besides that, he handles notifications quite nicely, and can take family pictures whenever the crowd feels like it. In some ways, it’s just like Google Now: what you need, when you need it. Just don’t expect him to wash the dishes, as your expectations might be shattered.

More importantly, JIBO is not even able to move around. Because of that fact, his developers suggest that families should place it in the room where most of their activities take place. JIBO is indeed a male robot, or at least that’s what the following video suggests. He talks in an American English accent, and has animations that will melt the hearts of adults, while keeping the ones of kids ever warm.

Supposing that your family and JIBO speak the same language, there shouldn’t be any problems in interacting with it. He is able to understand speech, and can recognize (and probably tag) faces. This makes him not only the world’s best family robot, but also the world’s best cameraman.

Since JIBO passed the initial goal of $100K that his developers had set on Indiegogo, anyone who pledged $499 or more should expect to receive their family robot in December 2015. A developer’s edition will be available in September 2015 for the ones who backed the project with at least $599. People seem anxious to add a metallic family member, as this crowdfunding campaign was really successful. The 483% raised funds to initial goal ratio speaks volumes about how much some want to have JIBO in their families.

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Facebook Mentions Is an App for the Rich and Famous

Posted: 17 Jul 2014 01:20 PM PDT

Today, the social network announced that it will target a niche audience with its Mentions mobile app. As if famous people weren’t members of plenty of exclusive clubs, now they also have a private social network.

To make sure that this app is furthermore niched, Facebook only made Mentions available for iOS users. An Android equivalent will surely be launched further down the road, but for the moment the social network doesn’t seem to think that this audience is worth the attention.

The name of the app is rather straight-forward, in that the rich and the famous can see when the others are mentioning them. That should help celebrities interact better with the plebs, and from a certain point of view, it could help a lot with the public relations of the famous. Think of it as an alternative to Google Alerts, but one that’s specifically tailored for this social network.

Notifications no longer focus on news, but on direct interactions. In the above example, Dom Lane stated that while Whoopi Goldberg is a cool person, the movies she starred in are anything but cool. With the help of the Facebook Mentions app, Goldberg caught wind of that and whooped Lane’s behind.

I would’ve said that the goal of Facebook’s new iOS app is to censor people saying bad things about celebrities, but Goldberg emphasized that Lane is entitled to his own opinion. After all, it’s a matter of taste if someone likes an actress in particular, or a famous person, in general.

Since the app is only available to celebrities, there’ll definitely be a lot of people trying to impersonate famous people. Unfortunately for the impersonators, Facebook will make sure that only the target audience can use the app by providing access exclusively to Verified accounts.

I wouldn’t say that Facebook Mentions is a terribly original app, but I’ll admit that it has some functionality, and it could prove useful for the few ones that are allowed to use it. I just wonder when will Facebook consider me famous enough to provide me access to the app. At the moment, I’m a bit on the antisocial side of things, as any geek who respects himself should be. I’m kidding! Or am I?

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about how Virgin America targeted business travelers with an in-flight social network, and these Internet-connected light fixtures that reinvent physical social networking.