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- Nest Gets Some Competition in the Form of $80 Quirky Norm
- Mozilla Replaces Aurora with Developer Edition on Firefox’s 10th B-Day
- Apple Watch Could Launch on Valentine’s, Cost as Much as $5000
- Amazon Echo Smart Bluetooth Speaker Makes Waves in Your Living Room
- Humanity’s Fate Hangs in Balance as IHMC Robotics’ ATLAS Learns Karate
| Nest Gets Some Competition in the Form of $80 Quirky Norm Posted: 11 Nov 2014 10:42 AM PST  New York-based Quirky has teamed up with General Electric to launch Norm, a $80 smart thermostat, along with six other great home security products. Advertised as “Death of a thermostat” or “anti-thermostat,” the Norm is so advanced that it’s no wonder the manufacturer doesn’t want any association with that ancient piece of technology. In partnership with General Electric, Quirky showcased today the Norm and six other smart home products at the Connected Home press event. The entire line is meant to help people save energy and keep their homes safe, in various ways. What sets Norm apart from the other smart thermostats is the array of sensors it relies on to determine where people are in the house, and where the temperature needs to be adjusted. The use of smart products is also detected and taken into consideration by Norm. The Wink app, which works with the other Quirky products, as well, allows to monitor and control temperature remotely. The other smart home devices launched today include:
The sixth smart home device launched by Quirky is Spotter Uniq, a modular sensor system that can have up to four different functions. The options are quite diverse, and include, but do not resume to sound, temperature, air quality, motion, moisture, carbon monoxide. This one starts at $30, but the price goes up depending on the sensors you’re installing. Overall, Quirky made some waves today, and let Nest know that it’s not alone. As a matter of fact, this sector has seen a lot of activity in the past few months, so each manufacturer of smart thermostats will have to come with new features periodically. Fighting to stay relevant is great for the progress of the industry, not to mention that the satisfaction of customers is thus maintained at high levels. Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the special price of Nest smart thermostats on Google Play Store on Earth Day, or the Honeywell Lyric smart thermostat.         |
| Mozilla Replaces Aurora with Developer Edition on Firefox’s 10th B-Day Posted: 11 Nov 2014 09:09 AM PST  Aurora, the Firefox version that brought users the latest and greatest feature in a sometimes slightly unstable environment, has been replaced by Mozilla on the browser’s 10th anniversary with Firefox Developer Edition. With the name change also comes a major improvement that will surely be appreciated by website developers. Mozilla included an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) right inside the browser, so Web developers can turn their face from Chrome yet again. New elements are visible from the second you launch the browser. Unlike Aurora, which had a light theme that wasn’t that different from the one in the stable version, Firefox Developer Edition comes with a dark default theme to go along with the developer tools. Secondly, Firefox Tools Adapter has become part of the browser, and is now known as ‘Valence’. Using this tool, you get to see how your website behaves when used with other rendering engines, which vary from Chrome to Safari and even Firefox OS. Not at last, Mozilla has added WebIDE to Firefox Developer Edition, a set of tools that enables developers to create, evaluate and launch Web apps. There’s a focus on Firefox OS here, as well. Mozilla’s Dave Camp provided a short explanation on each of the tools in the following video.
Having used Aurora myself for a while (mainly because I like to be up-to-date with the latest technologies implemented in browsers), I was quite surprised to see the new theme after updating the program. There were also changes in the interface, hinting at the fact that new features had been added. Bear in mind that after updating from Aurora to Firefox Developer Edition all of your add-ons will be gone. At least that’s what happened to me, as I had to install them all over again. Aurora was quite easy on the resources, but Firefox Developer Edition proved hungry for power on certain sites. RAM usage was still within decent limits (unlike Opera 12.17, which some people still use until the Norwegian company decides to implement some of the old features that made their browser famous), but CPU usage went as high as 48 percent sometimes. That will definitely vary from one computer to another, as I have quite the Antikythera mechanism, but it’s a thing to keep in mind. I’m sure that the performance of the browser will be drastically improved in future releases. Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Mozilla’s $25 Firefox OS smartphone for developing countries, or the Firefox OS Developer Preview Geeksphone devices.    |
| Apple Watch Could Launch on Valentine’s, Cost as Much as $5000 Posted: 11 Nov 2014 04:00 AM PST  According to a new report, not only is the Apple Watch set to release on Valentine’s Day but it could cost as much as $5000 too.
While the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus took centre stage at Apple’s big event in September, the Californian company also announced the ‘Apple Watch’. Tipped as a high quality wearable to take on the Samsung Galaxy Gear and others like it, the gadget didn’t quite get the reception that Apple was looking for. This was mostly down to the Apple Watch’s apparent lack of a ‘killer’ feature. On stage, Apple explained that not only does it have a touchscreen interface but it also has a digital dial on the side of it to help users zoom in/out and scroll on the device without their hands obscuring the display. But, this wasn’t considered a particularly interesting selling point. Other questions were also asked about the Apple Watch’s availability as the company was incredibly vague about its release plans. Thanks to a new report however, we have both a potential release date and pricing to hand. Coming from iGen.fr, a French Apple site, is the information that the Apple Watch could launch on February 14th – Valentine’s Day. Their reports state that both manufacturers and resellers are preparing for a mid-February timeframe, seeming to point to the day of love as the release date. Apple themselves have pencilled in the device for ‘Spring 2015′ and this only seems to be in line with that. Furthermore, the publication also states that the luxury version of the Apple Watch – the one with the body made out of gold – could retail as high as $5000. That’s a whopping great price tag especially considering that the aluminium ‘sport’ version of the Apple Watch will only cost $349 and the Retina iMac retails for less than $5000, so it will be interesting to see how Apple can justify that cost. It’s also worth noting that iGen.fr has been spot on the money with Apple rumours before, most notably they correctly reported on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus’ sizes. Apple has yet to make this official though, so we’ll keep you posted once they do. Source: HuffPo Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Apple Watch Gets Unveiled, Is Surprisingly Unsurprising, Swatch Touch Proves that the Swiss Watchmaker Won't Mingle with Apple    |
| Amazon Echo Smart Bluetooth Speaker Makes Waves in Your Living Room Posted: 10 Nov 2014 12:56 PM PST  Bluetooth speakers already come in all shapes and sizes, so what could make Amazon Echo so special? Maybe the fact that it is the e-tailer’s answer to Apple’s Siri, in a living room-friendly format. Much like Microsoft’s Xbox One, the Amazon Echo Bluetooth speaker is always on. A device that’s always listening in doesn’t sound like a very good idea, but much like the Redmond tech giant’s gaming console, it is activated using a word, or in this case, a name: Alexa. I would’ve went with Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as… you know, there are people whose name is Alexa, and if one of them visited you, confusion would ensue. The e-tailer’s latest product doesn’t really have an equivalent in the tech world, so I might as well call this a premiere. Echo is a virtual assistant, much like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Google Now. Unlike those, it doesn’t live in your smartphone or tablet, but in your living room. Once it’s activated, it listens to your commands, and the options are quite variate. Since it features 7 microphones and noise-cancellation technologies, it can filter sound and recognize your commands no matter where in the room you are located. Amazon’s virtual assistant can play music from Amazon Music Library, Prime Music, TuneIn and iHeartRadio. However, that’s only the beginning, as it can also tell you the weather forecast, the latest news, and it can answer simple queries using Wikipedia as its source of information. The free encyclopedia may not be the most accurate source of information in the world, but it’s good starting point. Echo also comes with a companion app, which is available for Fire OS and Android. It’s funny how Google makes apps for iOS, but Apple doesn’t get any love from Amazon. In the big picture, Amazon Echo could represent a major step forward for manufacturers of smart home devices, provided that the e-tailer is open to work on interconnectivity. There are many ways this could be improved, and let’s just hope it does not share Fire Phone’s short life and miserable fate.
At $199, Echo isn’t exactly cheap, but the ones needing such a smart Bluetooth speaker won’t hesitate to pay this much. As with the Fire TV Stick, Amazon Prime subscribers will get Echo at a lower price, $99. Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Amazon’s $39 Fire TV Stick, or Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch.    |
| Humanity’s Fate Hangs in Balance as IHMC Robotics’ ATLAS Learns Karate Posted: 10 Nov 2014 11:36 AM PST  One day, the 6-foot tall humanoid robot commissioned by the US government is taught karate, and the next thing you know, humanity is wiped off the face of the Earth. This is perfectly plausible, isn’t it? Many of us are terrified at the idea that robots will someday become self-aware and will consider humankind unnecessary for its future development. At that point, robots would probably learn in an instant all sorts of gruesome ways to terminate us, but roboticists thought that teaching them karate wouldn’t be such a bad idea. You, to cut down some of their effort! ATLAS, the humanoid robot built by IHMC Robotics, already is quite intimidating, as it stands 6 feet tall. On top of that, its developers programmed him to keep his balance on one foot, in what what looks very much like the Crane Kick karate stance from The Karate Kid. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what the roboticists behind this humanoid robot went for when they released a video aptly titled ATLAS KarateKid on YouTube. I guess the next logical step is to teach ATLAS to sand the floor, wax on and wax off, paint the fence, and catch flies. After that, we might as well turn off the light and leave by ourselves, before the mechanical units decide to take over. Apparently, the crane kick stance is precursory to jumping, something that robots are not particularly good at (phew!). Balance is not that difficult to master when it’s a quadruped robot we’re talking about. Both DARPA’s Big Dog (or China’s Da Gou version) quadruped and Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN bipedal robot keep their balance when they are kicked, but they’re using all of their feet in the initial position. In that context, what IHMC Robotics has done with ATLAS is impressive, even though we don’t know how this humanoid robot would react when kicked.
ATLAS was taught this particular stance for the DARPA Robotics Challenge finals, where it will compete against others of its kind. Let’s just hope that they won’t plot against us, as some of us really like this planet and wouldn’t mind living on it just a little bit longer, until we find our way to the stars. Remember, Mars is entirely populated by robots. Do you want Earth to be the same? Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the 6-foot tall humanoid robot commissioned by the US government, or Pepper, the incredibly communicative Japanese humanoid robot.    |
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