by ·Comments Off on Google Fiber Coming to Four New Cities

Google Inc. is preparing to offer its high-speed fiber-optic Internet service in four new metro areas, the latest step in a careful expansion of the service.

Google will announce launches of Google Fiber in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Raleigh-Durham, N.C. and Nashville, Tenn. in coming days, according to two people familiar with the situation.

via WSJ

by ·Comments Off on Dyson Robot Vacuum

There hasn’t been a lot of changes in robot vacuums over the last ten years, until now. Dyson’s new vacuum sports a 360 degree camera which it uses to determine reference points for where it is in the room. It has the suction tech Dyson vacuums are known for. It can also be controlled with an iPhone.

It’s a bit taller than a Roomba, so it’s not going to be able to go under a low couch. It’s going to be interesting to see how much this thing costs.

by ·Comments Off on Samsung will no longer sell plasma TVs

Samsung will stop selling plasma TV as have November 30:

Samsung is to stop producing plasma televisions (PDP TVs) by 30 November.

It said falling demand meant it would instead focus on producing curved and ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs.

CNET News via BBC News

by ·Comments Off on Nest pulls Nest Protect smoke detector for sale

Nest has pulled the Nest Protect from sale because of an issue where the detector could unintentionally be turned off, delaying the alarm in case of a real fire. Once the issue has been fixed, they’ll put it back for sale.

If you have one of these, Nest suggested you immediately disable this feature. When they fix the issue, they’ll produce an update.

Read more at 9to5google.com.

Update: As of last week (mid-June 2014), the Nest Protect is back for sale.

by ·Comments Off on The Facebook Acquisition of Oculus Rift And Thinking Long Term

People’s first response has been “Why would Facebook buy Oculus Rift”? They see the current incarnation of Facebook and think, “What can you possibly do with VR on Facebook? Facebook is just a text interface! Are they just going to make VR Facebook games?” That’s really short term thinking. In order to make really ground breaking technology, you have to think long term.

For example, say that you come up with a really great product idea, but it requires a lot more network bandwidth than is currently available to most consumers. In other words, even if you wanted to build it today, you couldn’t because of the lack of network bandwidth that would be required. A lot of people would just drop the idea right there, or wait until that type of bandwidth comes available.

In research projects, you really can’t be limited by that kind of restriction. You have to project where the technology will eventually be and how fast it will get there. Technology like networking will continue to improve for the foreseeable future. The question is how long it will take for it to catch up with your idea.

With something like VR, people always ask “What kind of program can I use this with? VR office where I can see everyone? Third person shooter?” Those are exactly the wrong questions. Sure, you can make a game. You can make a environment where people run around and build things, like in Minecraft. But you can do those on a regular computer screen too, maybe even with 3D glasses. What’s the point?

The question needs to be, how can I make something so compelling that people will use it exclusively. Something so amazing that they only way to really experience it correctly is with what you’ve built. It’s the difference between Second life and Star Trek’s Holodeck.

And it’s only with long term thinking that something like that can be accomplished.

I’m hoping that whatever Facebook has planned, it takes this long term approach. Build something new and different, something so compelling that people need to use this new tech on it’s own.

by ·Comments Off on Keurig’s DRM Coffee Machines

Ah, Keurig Coffee Machines, those coffee makers that take a little cup, drop it in, and out comes a nice cup of coffee in whatever flavor you like. People buy those coffee makers, and find inexpensive sources for those little cups you drop in, since the Keurig brand isn’t at the price they want to pay.

Well.

TechDirt is reporting that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the company behind the coffee makers is working on the next generation coffee maker that won’t accept those third party coffee drop-ins any more, if those drop-ins aren’t licensed.

You know, pretty much how a lot of printers work with ink cartridges these days. Except with the printers, if you put in a third party ink cartridge, it’ll probably work, you just won’t have the printer tell you things like how much ink is left.

I imagine this won’t go over very well.

Via Ars Technica.