Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Velocity Health: Innovators Are Invited To Join

Posted on by

One of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) that has serious commitment in healthcare solution , has join forced with Wayra, a start-up accelerator owned by Telefónica Open Future, to launch their first preventing healthcare start-up program in UK, Velocity Health, for searching the best preventative tech startups.

“Technology is revolutionising how we manage healthcare and the UK can be at the heart of it. Digital start-ups are at the forefront of this innovation, said Mike Nally, MSD’s managing director.

To accomplish the goal, the selected startups will be joined with others 100 startups that already being supported by Wayra. They will be injected by up to 64k GBP, and have 10-month period mentoring. And they will also have wide access to MSD’s resources and Wayra’s facilities, as well as 300m Telefonica’s customer base, to develop their innovation and brilliant ideas in digital preventing healthcare solution.

MSD wishes their investment via Velocity Health could make a big help and a real impact to NHS Five Year Forward Plan for indentifying and preventing the rise of major diseases amongst an ageing population in the UK.

Will you join the party???

New Facebook Guidelines Tell You If Your Post Will Get Deleted

Posted on by
Facebook on PC

In order to provide more clarity as to what sort of content Facebook will remove, the social media site now has a set of community standards.

Social media is pretty great; it lets us saying anything we want on a whim. Cooked up a tasty meal and you want to share it with everybody? Hop onto Instagram and stick a nice filter over the top. Wondering why a particular website is down? Just tweet the people who run it and they’ll provide you with an answer. Social media lets us express ourselves in anyway we want, but when it comes to threats and abuse, there’s a line that has been crossed. Now, Facebook wants to make it clear how it decides whether the line has been crossed or not and what happens to your account if you do.

In their new community standards, Facebook explains that the following put you at risk of having your account suspended or may just see the content removed from your account: direct threats, self-injury/suicide mentions, dangerous organisations (including terrorist activity), bullying and harassment, criminal activity, sexual violence or exploitation, regulated goods (e.g marijuana and firearms), nudity, hate speech and violent or graphic content.

Facebook explains that each violation of this is looked at on a case by case basis and that they carefully review each one. It also seems as though Facebook isn’t interested in limiting free speech but is actively making sure that its users abide by the law. For example, you can use Facebook to sell weed and guns but only if you adhere to the law when doing so and also don’t try and sell them to anyone they shouldn’t (e.g minors).

Other issues such as Facebook’s policies on nudity may cause a bit of controversy, though. They don’t allow pictures of women’s breasts if they show a nipple, just in case they offend people, but the community standards list makes no mentions of men’s nipples. Many would argue that Facebook is helping to foster a double standard here. Furthermore, they also allow people to upload images of art that has nipples in, and there aren’t any clear rules on how realistic that art is allowed to be.

There are clearly some issues here that Facebook needs to work out, but the social media site is slowly but surely getting there.

Source: Facebook

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Facebook changes the way it tallies “likes”, Facebook will add location-based suggestions to news feeds

The Apple car and what we know so far

Posted on by
Apple Car 1

Last weekend both Financial Times and Wall Street Journal reported independently that Apple might be working on a very special project regarding cars.The main idea? It wasn’t about accessories, but about Apple producing their own.

Some press outlets around the world are claiming Apple is getting ready to create their first “Apple Car”, with the Cupertino guys recruiting experts and directos of many automotive companies to get the ball going for this ambitious project. And even though the press claims this, Apple has neither confirmed nor denied anything. What is going on?

According to The «Wall Street Journal», one of the most reputable business outlets in the world, the new car will be a reality, and its name is Titan – Apple Titan. It will be an electric car, in direct competition with Tesla who are the biggest creators in the high-end sector. Apple has for a while been discussing the importance of keeping the environment clean and taking care of the planet, so a project like this fights right in with this philosophy.

This information is all leaks and rumors, so nothing is official. Yet, we can’t help but get excited. The car won’t just be a sports car, but a monovolume – but it’s still in development. and that might change. The car is being touted as autonomous and self-driving, like everything Apple, once we think about it.

Steve Jobs himself had dreamed of an Apple Car, declaring to the New York Times once that, “had [he] had more energy, [he] would have attempted it [himself]“. Now Mickey Drexler declared last year that this was definitely spot on, and probably the next step for the Cupertino company.

Via ABC

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter! And read more geekiness from across the web, likeApple Giving Away Freebies With ‘Free On iTunes’ and New Apple leak shows us their 12-inch MacBook Air.

Treadmill Desks Can Make You Smarter, Says Study

Posted on by
Treadmill Desk woman

According to the results of one study out of Canada, treadmill desks can actually make the user smarter and more efficient at their jobs.

In this day and age, we have plenty of reasons to be lazy. Between Netflix and YouTube, we don’t have to leave the sofa for hours or even go to the movie theatre to catch a good film. Thanks to voice activated controls on some of the latest TVs, we don’t have to lift our hands to reach the TV remote either. And that’s why so many people are constantly looking for ways to encourage themselves to keep fit and keep moving, when every bit of gadgetry in our homes and places of work is telling us to do otherwise. That’s why there’s so much interest around wearables like FitBit and the Apple Watch.

One slightly less mobile (and sometimes more expensive) device that people have been using to keep fit is the treadmill desk. Unlike your ordinary desk which you sit at until your bottom has gone numb, the treadmill desk encourages you to go for a light jog or a brisk walk as you go about your day to day. And, according to one study, using treadmill desks can even make you smarter.

The study, published in Computers In Human Behavior, took 18 students from Montreal and made nine of them read some text and answer some emails while the other nine did the same whilst using a treadmill desk. After 10 minutes, the groups of students were then given a break and were hooked up to an EEG machine (EEG machines record brain activity) before being asked true or false questions about the text and emails that they read.

According to the results, the group who used a treadmill desk were 34.9% more likely to answer questions correctly than the group that did it whilst sitting down. Those who used the desks also added that they felt that they paid more attention to what they were doing, whilst the EEG backed that up, confirming that their brain activity showed better signs memory retention.

So can we take this study as the gospel? And is this a good enough reason to go out and buy a treadmill desk of your own? Well, not really. One of the flaws of the survey is that they didn’t figure out just how well the participants were able to remember things before they took part in the study and they may have just picked a batch of attentive people. Furthermore, just 18 participants were used which is an incredibly small sample of people to conduct this test on. Alas, there are still plenty of health benefits so that remains a good reason to buy one.

Source: Computers In Human Behavior

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Wokamon Is the Modern-Day Equivalent of Tamagotchi for Fitness, Withings Activité Packs Fitness Tracking in the Body of a Classic Watch

Samsung’s Voice Controlled TV Could Eavesdrop On You

Posted on by
Samsung Smart TV in use

As gadgets begin to offer more and more features, a new smart TV from Samsung highlights our serious fears about new technology.

In theory, smart televisions sound like a phenomenally good idea. Instead of having to buy specific boxes such as the Amazon Fire TV or a games console to to access media apps, your TV would already offer them and so all you’d have to do is use your TV remote to connect to Netflix or Amazon Prime Video to catch up on that show you love. Similarly, you’d also be able to watch shows on YouTube, where media creators are increasingly releasing web series. Or you could listen to music; or play games, or interact with your friends on social media.

The possibilities are endless, which is why smart TVs are speedily increasing in popularity. But as a warning included with Samsung’s smart, Internet connected TV shows, the future of our televisions is also a scary one. That suggestion comes from the following policy, regarding the Voice Recognition feature in Samsung’s new TVs:

“You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands. If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.”

Yes, the company has confirmed that the things you say to your TV to control it will be sent to a third-party service, where the data is then analysed and sent back, to tell your TV what to do. And while it’s true that most of the time the third-party service is just another tech device (and there’s no human interaction), that’s still incredibly scary.

Samsung has also explained that users can disable Voice Recognition data collection (where Samsung collects various bits of data and text versions of the thing you say in order to improve Voice Recognition’s performance) but doing this will prevent you from using Voice Recognition at all. They also note that you can disconnect your TV from the Internet and that a microphone icon shows up on the screen when the Voice Recognition is activated so even if you think you’re being eavesdropped on, you would know about it. But who will want to disconnect their TV from the Internet every time they want to have a person conversation? And who wants to constantly be on the lookout for that little microphone symbol? No one, that’s who.

And other concerns still remain. Namely, even if Samsung themselves isn’t collecting our voices for whatever usage, what if somebody else is? What if the smart TV gets hacked and some nefarious human being uses it to spy on us? Less bizarre things have happened, so we wouldn’t write it off.

If smart TVs (and indeed, all Internet-connected smart gadgets) are going to take off, privacy concerns like this will need to be addressed in the future. We’ll keep you posted should Samsung make any more statements.

Source: TechCrunch

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Could Samsung Be On of the Main Suppliers for the Next iPhone?, Samsung get ready to unveil their newest Galaxy

Could Apple’s Next iPad Come With a Stylus?

Posted on by
iPad Stylus

As Apple looks to create the next version of the iPad, patent filings suggest that it will come with a stylus.

While tablets are often more powerful than their smaller sized smartphone brethren, the main reason that most of us invest in tablets is because of their size. The giant displays of tablets offer us far more screen space to work with – which is handy when you’re fed up of your thumbs and fingers getting cramp from holding your phone for a prolonged amount of time.

These large screens also make them ideal for work which is why so many people have opted to ditch their laptops and desktop PCs for a tablet instead. There are now keyboard plug-ins that make writing up that essay or investor report a doddle.

But to make it even easier, you’d need more than your fingers and a detachable keyboard – you’d need a stylus. Easy to carry around and offering more accuracy than the tip of a digit, a tablet that comes with a stylus just makes sense. And that’s exactly why Apple is looking into it for the next iPad.

The suggestion comes from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities who regularly makes correct predictions about Apple’s future projects. In a report obtained by AppleInsider, Kuo wrote that “Given that it’s more precise than a person’s fingers, a stylus can be more convenient to use than the combination of keyboard and mouse in some cases”, adding that it would provide haptic feedback that lets a user feel what they’re doing better rather than having to poke uncomfortably at a glass screen. Kuo’s info is based on patent filings from Apple which makes it all the more likely.

It’s believed that Apple has created the stylus to go with its rumoured iPad Pro tablet. While it’s purely speculation at the moment, the iPad Pro would be a 12.9 inch affair that makes working from it a lot easier. It would cater especially to business professionals and education facilities.

However, despite the benefit of a stylus, Kuo noted that a stylus with haptic feedback could be expensive for users. Kuo writes that “high selling prices may turn consumers off if the 12.9-inch iPad is always bundled with it. We therefore expect the stylus to be an optional accessory before sufficient user feedback is received.”

In typical Apple fashion we can also expect them to continuously release updates to the stylus as the years go by and their research improves. An accelerometer and 3D handwriting features could be added to the gadget following a successful launch.

We’ll keep you posted once Apple confirms.

Source: AppleInsider

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Why The iPhone 6 is an iPad Killer, 4 Amazing Product Reveals from Apple’s iPad Event

SPOTTED: The Loch Ness Monster Spoon In A Kitchen Near You

Posted on by
SPOTTED: The Loch Ness Monster Spoon In A Kitchen Near You

Animi Causa is selling this Loch Ness Monster Spoon. They’re going for $16 and will be shipping out in February 2015. Pretty adorable! You ever spot a legendary monster IRL? Like Nessie here, Bigfoot, or a chupacabra? I haven’t, but once when I was tripping balls, I saw the Pink Panther watering his lawn. During […]

The post SPOTTED: The Loch Ness Monster Spoon In A Kitchen Near You appeared first on Incredible Things.


Visit IncredibleThings.com for the full post.

Power & sustainability: the cars of CES 2015

Posted on by
mirai-toyota

The mega event CES 2015 wasn’t just about gadgets, but car companies also took the stage to show their new technology, which is as sustainable as it is cool. Check out the best cars of CES 2015.

Toyota & hydrogen cells

Toyota shared their vision for the future at CES 2015, especially for those vehicles we use inside of cities, which consume fuel. One of the ideas they are moving forward with is liberating thousands upon thousands of patents related to hydrogen usage as a power source for vehicles – not only they’d be able to use this themselves, but any other manufacturer interested in it might too.

But that wasn’t all Toyota introduced, and their commitment to a better, greener planet doesn’t end there. The Japanese giant announced the product of their collaboration with Hino Motors, Ltd, a bus that rus entirely off of these hydrogen cells. This uses the same patents mentioned above, and ended up in a hybrid bus that does not require any traditional fuel sources. It’s already circulating Toyota City in Japan, at that, and who knows which city might be next.

Audi and interactivity

The team at Audi, on their end, started out collaborating with LG to show a smartwatch capable of unlocking cars, but also revealed their Audi Tablet. This is a product meant to become a middleman in between mobile phones and the vehicle to ease communication in between the two of them. The concept, according to Audi is that cars are slowly becoming phones with four wheels and they can’t be left behind in the past. This is the vision that inspired the Audi Q7, a car from the future that connects to any and all of your gadgets, while bringing new functionalities like self-driving and intelligent navigation to avoid traffic jams.

Just like the Toyota team, Audi plays their part in saving the planet. Their collaboration comes in the form of electromobility, hybrid cars, and wireless recharging. Audi means to turn their engines electric, and improve the recharge times and means so we don’t need cables any more. Their innovations in the fields of potency, comfort and functionality became a reality in a new prototype called Audi prologue piloted driving concept, and it has all of the functionalities mentioned above plus connectivity that would make any iPhone or Android phone tremble with lust and envy.

Mercedes Benz: luxury in movement

Germany wasn’t happy with winning the Wolrd Cup in 2014, they also had to win CES 2015. They introduced the new Mercedes Benz F015, a fantastic concept vehicle created around the idea of “luxury in movement”. The idea behind this car is that it’s not necessary to drive it, but users can leave the computer to perform these tasks for him. These automatic cars are already legal in some states of the USA, and users can now pick exactly when they want to drive or not. Also, this is a car that combines high performance batteries with hydrogen cells that would give it an autonomy of over 1,100 km.

BMW and the i3 System

Another spectacular concept came via the BMW team, who came up with a solution to parking in big cities and reduced spaces. The i3 system lets vehicles park on their own, without users doing anything, and guaranteeing that they won’t touch any other car. This shines amongst every other concept at CES 2015 as it gives it a very specific function, particularly relevant if you live in the city.

Hyundai and Android Auto

Hyundai introduced their ecologic systems and new models at CES 2015, but their big bet was all about interaction and Android Auto, a system that turns your Android device into a screen that displays your car status at any time. Users can activate and deactivate stuff from the phone or do things like regulate AC, turn on or off lights, or unlock doors. At the same time, Android Auto is not the main system of the car, but it can also operate on it’s own. You lucked out, iPhone owners.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at BMW Launch ‘Pay As You Go’ Car Service In London and Near Field Communications (NFC) coming to cars soon.

 

Netflix To Debut a New Show Every Two Weeks

Posted on by
Netflix HQ

As more and more people sign up to Netflix, the media streaming service say that they’d like to release even more original TV shows in the future.

The way in which we consume media is rapidly changing. Before, we were confined to cable subscriptions and DVRs (and maybe the odd TV boxset or two) but now we consume television shows whenever and wherever we please, binging and marathoning when our time is free.

Most of us use Netflix for that. A monthly subscription service, users pay to gain access to Netflix’s massive library of content. From popular blockbusters like Disney’s Brave to popular series like Breaking Bad and American Horror Story, it’s all available from our dekstops and mobiles to our games consoles and tablets.

But in addition to all of the shows that have already been made, Netflix’s other draw is the content that it makes itself. Prison dramedy Orange is the New Black is a massive hit whilst political thriller House of Cards has also hoovered up awards. And now, the service wants to debut even more of these original TV hits.

That reveal comes from Netflix’s Chief content officer, Ted Sarandos. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference he explained:

“I think that we can expand on our original programming … from where we are today to probably as many as 20 original series — so the idea of launching original series or [an] original season of content every two half weeks or so.”

Such a large amount of content allows them to appeal to more people across a wider range of demographics but what will be most important is quality and not quantity. Orange is the New Black may just have 26 episodes in all (13 in each season) but the small drip-feed of content is brilliant. The same can’t be said for Marco Polo, Netflix’s latest TV offering, which has not gone down so well with critics. Making sure that they knock it out of the park more times than not will be key to their end goal of getting more subscribers to the service.

The goal of subscribers is also why Netflix is unlikely to release viewing numbers – surely these do not matter so long as people are signed up and watching something. Furthermore, focusing too heavily on what people are watching means that you risk chasing numbers instead of making good TV. Sarandos says,

“It’s an irrelevant measure of success for us … Ratings measurement has been bad for creative of television,” he said. “Now maybe it’s been necessary for the business of television, but it’s been horrible for the creative television.”

So although we don’t have numbers – or really much of an idea of what Netflix is working on next, the service is doing big things and we are paying attention. We’ll keep you posted once we know more.

Source: Vulture

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Netflix expands to Australia and New Zealand in March 2015, Netflix Job Pays You to Binge Watch

How Facebook Wants to Prevent Embarrassing Photos

Posted on by
Facebook on PC

With over a billion active users, social network Facebook now wants to prevent them from uploading embarrassing photos to the site.

 

Most people are no stranger to the prospect of embarrassing Facebook photos. From the drunken selfies people have taken to commemorate nights that they probably won’t remember to sober silliness, we’ve all been there done that or laughed at others in the same situation.

But these images are not always such a good thing. While they make for good entertainment, drunken photos especially can be incriminating whilst other pictures can get you in trouble with your parents, loved ones or your boss.

That’s why it would be incredibly useful for something to stop us from uploading these embarrassing snaps in the first place. Thankfully, Facebook is working on embarrassment preventing technology of their own. The technology is being pioneered by Yann Lecun at the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab (FAIR). Lecun and his team want to use a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect whether or not it’s a wise idea to post the photo that you’re uploading. He explains:

“Imagine that you had an intelligent digital assistant which would mediate your interaction with your friends and also with content on Facebook.”

Further uses for the technology include finding out when other people have posted photos of you, without having to wait for them to tag you in them. Lecun says that “You will have a single point of contact to mediate your interaction but also to protect your private information”.

There are clear benefits to the AI that FAIR are working on (their work already examines Facebook users’ behaviour to figure out what sort of content you’re interested in) but some people may be wary of Facebook analysing us so much. Lecun expressed that FAIR’s work is strictly about helping us though (rather than using the data to allow Facebook to sell more ads) so although plenty of people will still have doubts, his words are something to hold onto for when we see the advanced AI in action.

Source: Wired

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Facebook’s simplified data policy can finally be understood, RIP Words, Facebook Rolls Out Stickers in Comments