James Patterson new work is on Facebook Messenger

James Patterson  has partnered with Facebook to release his latest novel,‘The Chef’, on its messaging app. Patterson, known for the Alex Cross series, ‘The President is Missing,’ ‘Witch & Wizard,’ and others, has sold some 375 million books worldwide.

Apple and Samsung fined by Italian authorities over slow phones.

Italy fined Apple and Samsung for slowing down phones, it is said that they used software updates to reduce the functionality of handsets and prod consumers into buying new ones. It doubled Apple’s fine for not adequately explaining how to maintain batteries.

LetsShave

LetsShave is started by Sidharth Oberoi. It is an online store that sells razors and other shaving supplies for men and women on subscription basis. Claims to offer India's first 6 blade razor along with patented common docking system. Recently Korean razor manufacturer Dorco has taken a 10% stake in them. Dorco is the first company to introduce a 6 blade razor (worldwide).

Company Adds the Word ‘Blockchain’ to Its Name. Shares Jump 425% In One Day.

A company added the word “blockchain” to its name and saw shares surge 394 percent. British company On-line had its best day on record Friday after it announced plans to change its name to On-line Blockchain. The shares pared gains after the company published a follow-up release cautioning investors that the development of its blockchain product is still at an early stage.

Pryte, a Finnish startup has now been bought by Facebook

Facebook’s shopping spree continues, this time in Finland. Pryte, startup from Helsinki, which was founded last year, measures real-time user actions, app use and context to trigger marketing decisions.

The first look of the Angry Birds Stella

If you like games for smartphones and tablets, it is quite likely that you have already played at least once the famous Angry Birds, which is developed by Rovio. In the game, you will launch different types of angry birds against green pigs.

Owing to the huge success of their flagship title, Rovio has released different versions of their product, and here is the first look of the next version, Angry Birds Stella.



"The Stella story will engage and entertain everyone," said Rovio. "It's about courage, fun and daring to be you, with a spirit of female heroism and friendship. Each character is unique and powerful in their own way but together they cause even more mischief, take adventures to new heights and prove that true friends are there for each other through every battle."

Finally, Rovio stated that the title is scheduled for release in September and the feminine aspect of the title should attract all types of players, with the objective of "celebration of female heroism."

Taking Oath on a Kindle Tablet

If there's one place where a physical book has figurative significance, it's in our courts or in the swearing in of our elected/ constitutional officials. Remember the famous line from bollywood movies, मैं गीता पे हाथ रख के कसम ख़ाता हु  

Well very soon even this will also change, recently Suzi LeVine has become the first US ambassador to be sworn in to her position using an electronic device.   

As shown in a picture of the ceremony tweeted by the US embassy in London, the tablet was open on the first page of the 19th amendment, which prohibits any US citizen from being denied the right to vote because of their gender.

Twitter says goodbye to Helvetica Neue and hello to Gotham

This is what Twitter said today:

"Starting today, we're rolling out a new font on twitter.com , moving from Helvetica Neue to Gotham."

They further explained:

 "Words don’t just hold meaning; they communicate by their very form. We primarily use the Gotham font family: elegant and direct, stylish but not exclusive. Putting well-designed words in our product enhances the user experience,"

Bizdom Funda: 
Helvetica Neue is from the Helvetica font family, it is sans-serif typeface that was developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger along with Eduard Hoffmann. It was originally known as Neue Haas Grotesk, and in 1960, it's name was changed to Helvetica (meaning Swiss in Latin).

Gotham is a also a sans-serif typefaces that was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones (American type designer) in 2000. It was inspired by a form of architectural signage that was famous in the mid-twentieth century, and were especially popular in New York City. Infact the word Gotham is a nick name for the New York City, along with the Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps and Empire City.

Uniqlo Launches UTme! Custom T-Shirt App

Adding a new dimension to its already creative offerings, fast fashion giant Uniqlo has launched an innovative mobile app under its UT line – called “UTme!” The app allows subscribers to design their own shirts, disregarding templates and allowing the user a liberal amount of design control.

Google Acquires Quest Visual, Maker of 'Word Lens' App

Quest Visual, the guys behind Word Lens, announced that it was acquired by Google. 

"With Word Lens, we've seen the beginnings of what's possible when we harness the power of mobile devices to 'see the world in your language.'"

"By joining Google, we can incorporate Quest Visual's technology into Google Translate's broad language coverage and translation capabilities in the future," says Quest Visual on its website.

Word Lens is an augmented reality language translator app. Just point your phone's camera at the words you would like to be translated. 

The words, phrases, language and signs are translated from English to another language or vice versa.

YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch

Twitch, which launched in June 2011, has become the most popular service for broadcasting and watching videogames, even supplanting YouTube in terms of live-streaming traffic.

Kobo take over Sony’s ebook businesses in the UK, Germany, Austria, and Australia.

SONY ANNOUNCED on Wednesday that it plans to shut down its ebook Reader Store, just months after it closed its loss-making Vaio PC unit.
Sony said that all Reader Store customers will be moved to rival service Kobo. 
 

Return of the tape: Sony’s new storage tapes hold 185 TB of data

The cassette tapes these days are seen as items from a long forgotten era of the 80s and Walkmans. However, Sony has created a new record with storage capabilities using one of these tapes as the storage medium. Sony has created a tape capable of holding 185 terabytes, smashing the previous record for data storage. At 148 gigabits per square inch, Sony's new tapes hold the equivalent of 11,840 16-gigabyte iPhone 5s smartphones – or about 3700 Blu-ray discs.

The tapes, which were developed with the help of IBM, obliterate the previous record, which was set in 2010 by Fujifilm and IBM. Back then, the companies set the record with a tape capable of holding 35 terabytes.

Mills and Boon launch digital series The Chatsfield, designed to be told in real time

Mills and Boon, the Harlequin-owned book publisher best known for its saucy women's fiction, is embarking on a new chapter in storytelling, with the launch of digital series The Chatsfield. Fans can visit the dedicated Chatsfield website to learn more about each of the characters, snoop around their rooms and read their private emails and text messages. They can also create their own stories and share their own hotel escapades in the Lounge.

Happy Birthday, BASIC

Invented by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, BASIC was first successfully used to run programs on the school’s General Electric computer system 50 years ago this week–at 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, to be precise. Kemeny worked as Albert Einstein’s mathematical assistant before arriving at Dartmouth as a professor in 1953, where he was named chairman of the mathematics department two years later at the age of 29. He became known for his inventive approach to the teaching of math.

John Kemeny shows off his vanity license plate in 1967

PayPal’s New Logo

Yves Behar and his team at Fuseproject have developed a new brand identity and logo for PayPal. The refresh wants to reflect the ways the company makes it easier and safer for you to use money. The new logo has been condensed and modernized without losing the core of PayPal’s identity. The new wordmark was changed to a more youthful Futura typeface and was spaced closer together to create a mobile-ready compactness.

blueMotion, the Next Generation of sex toy

OhMiBod, a husband and wife-owned company headquartered in New Hampshire, recently launched their blueMotion, a Bluetooth-activated pair of vibrating underwear. 


OhMiBod equipped the lightweight, slimline massager with a powerful motor that takes advantage of built-in smartphone features such as the accelerometer, touch screen, and volume controls. blueMotion can even record ambient sound up to 60 seconds.

New functionality includes:

• TOUCH: This was our first functionality with an improved interface that allows you to easily "Favorite" a personally created pattern and then swipe left to edit and name that custom pattern.
• VOICE: Use your own voice or any ambient sounds to create a customized looping vibration pattern. Your partners voice, a song on the radio or a favorite mix at a club ... this unique experience is absolutely addictive.
• TAP: Simply tap the screen for up to 5 minutes in any crazy pattern you can come up with and it will play back those vibrations. The longer you hold your finger on the screen, the stronger and steadier the vibrations.
• WAVE: using the phones built-in accelerometer, simply wave the phone from side to side or use it as a "gas" pedal to drive stronger and steadier vibrations. When you find a vibration pattern that works for you, simply "lock" it in!
• RHYTHM: A number of pre-set patterns are loaded into this section. We'll add to those with periodic updates.

Facebook Acquires A Fitness-Tracking App.

Facebook Inc. has acquired mobile-fitness application Moves, as the social network jumps into the increasingly popular fitness-tracking market. Moves, which is operated by Finnish company ProtoGeo Oy, makes an app that works on Apple Inc. iOS devices and those that run on Google Inc.’s Android mobile operating system. The app lets people gather data from a smartphone’s accelerometer to determine whether a user is walking, running or doing other physical activities.
With the Moves app, Facebook can enter the market without developing its own wearable computing hardware. The app uses a smartphone's built-in sensors to track a person's physical activity, recognizing movements such as walking, cycling and running.

Google introduces 'time machine' feature in Street View

Google has turned its Google Maps Street View into a time machine to let users travel back in time and see how places have changed.

The new feature will let users track changes in landscape, buildings, roads and entire neighbourhoods from around the world since the Street View mapping program began in 2007.

Users can now click on a new clock icon that will appear in the corner of the screen when using Street View on Google Maps on a desktop or laptop computer, firing up scrollbar-controlled time machine, changing the year and even season of the area or building they are currently looking at to see how it has changed over time. 

Indian Railways is committed to Microsoft

Since 2013, Microsoft India is having an exclusive realionship with IRCTC, by which IRCTC app is only available for Windows Phone and Windows devices. Now, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) launched the official National Train Enquiry System for Windows 8 devices. The app has now made it to the Windows Phone Store as well.

It’s quite an impressive app – both in function and form. It has a very neat and beautiful user interface, and the user experience is seamless and intuitive.