Posts Tagged ‘project’

Adafruit Industries has put together a weekend project for people worried the NSA is watching how many reruns of Seinfeld they watch on their tablet. The Onion Pi Tor Proxy is a weekend project that uses the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, along with a USB WiFi adapter and Ethernet cable to create “a small, low-power and portable privacy Pi” for using with portable or other computing devices (e.g. your work laptop) that can’t otherwise run the anonymising Tor network.

In the Onion Pi configuration, the Pi creates a secure access point which automatically routes any web browsing through Tor’s distributed network of relays. The Tor network is designed to disrupt web surveillance by preventing web snoopers from learning which sites you visit, and also the sites you visit from learning your physical location. It does this by ensuring every Internet packet goes through three layers of relays before going on to its intended destination. Hence Tor’s many layered onion motif.

Adafruit says the Onion Pi is good for those who…

…want to browse anonymously on a netbook, tablet, phone, or other mobile or console device that cannot run Tor and does not have an Ethernet connection. If you do not want to or cannot install Tor on your work laptop or loan computer. If you have a guest or friend who wants to use Tor but doesn’t have the ability or time to run Tor on their computer, this gift will make the first step much easier.

Getting the Onion Pi access point up and running means plugging the Ethernet cable into any Internet access point and powering up the Pi via its micro USB cable plugged into your laptop/the wall adapter. The Pi will then create the Onion Pi access point. Connect to that for a less NSA-friendly browsing session.

That said, Adafruit’s Onion Pi page does contain caveats regarding exactly how anonymous this set-up is — noting: “We can’t guarantee that it is 100% anonymous and secure! Be smart & paranoid about your TOR usage.”

Other Adafruit tips for keeping your web browsing on the down-low include:

• deleting and blocking your browser cache, history & cookies — and/or using a browser that offers anonymous sessions
• avoiding logging into existing accounts with personally identifying information
• using SSL to end-to-end encrypt communications —  NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has also said encryption works

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No, we’re not joking. Google is seriously proposing hot air ballon-powered internet access, and has already launched a pilot project in New Zealand. One of the Google[x] moonshot projects, there are a couple of videos embedded after the break explaining the issue, and the technology Google wants to use to address it. The project’s playful logo the custom designed antennas users will use to receive their signal from balloons floating twice as high as commercial airplanes fly. According to Google, in “more than half” of the countries in the southern hemisphere and for two out of three people on earth, internet access is far too expensive.

Developing…

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google Blog, Project Loon (Google+), Project Loon

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Doing your homework may net you more than just a good grade in school. Two young designers have just found out that it may lead to a big company snapping up your tiny design firm. Logitech announced that it has acquired Chicago-based TT Design Labs, the tiny startup behind the crowdfunded TidyTilt iPhone case that made it big on Kickstarter in late 2011. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eric Kintz, Logitech’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Logitech for Business, explained that, as the company continues to migrate from PC to mobile accessories, it is increasingly looking for products like the TidyTilt that bring design and technology together.

“We felt that TidyTilt was a really interesting product that met our trend of focusing on mobile,” Kintz explained. He went on to point out that the company is looking to crowdfunded projects as a potential new source of innovation.

The TidyTilt was born of a class project in 2011. At the time the company’s co-founders, Zahra Tashakorinia and Derek Tarnow, attended The Art Institute of Chicago and were tasked with developing and launching a project on Kickstarter. The pair originally wanted to raise $ 10,000 on Kickstarter, but managed to net $ 223K in backer funding.

Since then TT Design Labs went on to design and launch two more products: The TidyTilt+ and the JustMount magnetic holder. Logitech will relaunch all three products this July while retaining the products’ original price point. Meanwhile, Derek will be joining Logitech as a product designer with Zahra coming on as a consultant.

This acquisition is exciting news for the crowdfunding community, although not that unique. Best Buy did the same thing when it purchased the crowdfunded PadPivot. In both cases the buyer is essentially purchasing an established product line that has a built-in fan base. Big companies with big checkbooks can sit on the sidelines and scoop up products and designers once proven by the masses.

If designers aren’t already, it’s time to start using crowdfunding as a living portfolio. Prove your worth by standing taller than peers. Even if the product/startup isn’t successful, the experience is invaluable. After all, as the common edict in Silicon Valley states, startup experience is more valuable than an MBA.

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One interesting element of Google I/O this year were the sensors laid out everywhere around Moscone tracking environmental data throughout the event. Those types of sensors are now all around us, including in our phones and in various smart home devices, and now a new Kickstarter project from ManyLabs wants to help kids get familiar with them very early on.

The project is called Sensors for Students, and it wants to build a sensor collection kit that includes a plate for an open-source Arduino board and Grove shield combo, along with one of a variety of parts for a number of different types of sensors, including accelerometers, electromagnetic field detectors, a color sensor, a plant watering kit (similar to one component of the Bitponics automated hydroponic garden), and many more.

The team behind ManyLabs consists of Peter Sand and Elliot Dicus, who formed the nonprofit with the ultimate intent of spreading low-cost hands-on tools for teaching science and math to the classroom. Sand has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT, and has focused his work and research on computer vision, robotics and education.

Sand and Dicus wanted to make it possible to get kids learning data literacy and experimenting with open source hardware early on in life. Their goals sound similar to those of Adafruit, the NY-based hardware company that’s also trying to make people more comfortable with concepts around electrical engineering and DIY maker culture, beginning early on in life.

ManyLabs isn’t just supplying hardware, though, it’s also very clearly marketing a curriculum, with lessons and content being offered alongside each type of kit available to backers, along with online resources that will be made available on a yearly subscription basis. There’s no soldering required in the kits that are on offer, so these are suitable for a range of ages and skill levels, and ManyLabs hopes to put them in the hands of backers as soon as August this year, with kits beginning at $ 40. The most expensive individual kit is $ 75, and while ManyLabs requires you to supply your own Arduino, it’s still very affordable, a key value add for educational markets.

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We know that “where for are thou?” was in search of a different Shakespearean character, but if you had the same question for (Dell’s) Ophelia, then the answer is July. The Android pendrive / USB computer we saw back at CES may be one of many, but distinctive thanks to its mainstream PC-maker origins. We’re still lacking a lot of the specifics, other than that there’s WiFi, Bluetooth, Wyse PocketCloud integration, plus, of course, HDMI and Android 4.something. There will likely be a few enterprise-friendly features too (administration tools, remote wiping) reports PC World. As usual, developers will get their hands on them first, with — interestingly — some cable and telecoms companies potentially stocking it too — though no specifics at this time. So, the $ 100 Dell might not be the portable you’d love for this price, but maybe the USB PC finally crossing over?

Filed under: Desktops, Dell

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Source: PC World

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Dell introduced Project Ophelia to the world at CES back in January, and now it’s revealed shipping timeframes for the Android-powered MHL stick. Ophelia will ship in May to developers, with cable providers and telecoms able to buy it in July. A consumer release will follow shortly thereafter. When it does ship, the tiny device (about the same size as a portable USB stick) will convert any HDMI-ready display into an Android computer. Naturally Google Play is built right in, so you’ll have access to your entire library of Android software. Essentially, Project Ophelia is what you make of it; it can act as a portable gaming console much in the same vein as Ouya. Or you can go the set-top box route and stream content from Netflix, Hulu, and…

Continue reading…

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Adobe surprised everyone by showing off a new hardware effort today at its annual MAX conference, including Project Mighty and Napoleon. Mighty is a pressure-sensitive digital pen that works with tablets and stores a wide variety of settings and preferences in the cloud. Adobe showed it off working on an iPad, and it looked similar to what we’ve seen from existing pressure-sensitive input devices from other companies, but with tighter integration into Adobe products.

It can pull in stored Kuler color palette themes from Creative Cloud, for instance, as well as brush settings and a cloud clipboard that stores assets you’ve created previously for use in new drawings. Moving from tablet to tablet preserves the settings associated with your pen, which makes it possible to take everything from tablet to tablet.

Napoleon looks a little like a modern Apple remote, but allows you to easily draw straight lines and arcs via snap tools combined with digital pens like Mighty. It’s almost like having traditional drafting tools including squares and triangles, but better suited to digital media. For precise drafting and more serious, demanding graphics work, these two tools in tandem should help push creativity on mobile devices quite a bit further than what we have available today.

The Mighty pen itself looks similar to something like the Jot Touch 4 pressure sensitive pen, but with full access to Adobe’s Creative Cloud services behind it. It’s a little like an entire artist’s box in a single device, judging by what Adobe has shown us on stage today. It also takes advantage of non-stylus touch, too, in a way that looks novel, allowing users to do things like erase with their free hand. But when paired with Napoleon, it becomes much more powerful than what we’ve already seen, which should really push the envelope on mobile creativity.

This is still essentially a project in the R&D phase, Adobe noted, but we will definitely see it materialize down the road as a real product, they said. The real question will be how this can compare to for-purpose devices like the Wacom series of tablets, which are much better than anything else out there in terms of pressure sensitivity, latency and overall ability to mimic the experience of working with traditional artists’ materials.

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If you’re not familiar with Kevin Thau, you ought to be: he worked on many of Twitter’s early mobile efforts, helped integrate it into major platforms and headed up the Twitter #Music app. That’s what makes his newly confirmed move to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s new firm, Jelly, so interesting. While little is known about Jelly beyond its plan for a decentralized service, Thau will be heading up numerous aspects of business operations at the company while it builds “world class mobile products.” We’ll have to wait awhile before we see his influence, but his presence hints that Jelly is more than just a casual project.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile

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Via: The Next Web

Source: Jelly

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Jolla, the Finnish start-up consisted of ex-Nokians who left to keep the MeeGo fire burning, has verified it will be reflecting off its first mobile next month, and kicking off a “pre-sales” campaign to permit fans to register to purchase the phone. Although Jolla has demoed its Sailfish UI in some information previously, it has actually usually been tight-lipped about its plans for the gadget’s hardware design — so next month will imply another huge reveal.

Jolla had previously pegged the 2nd half of this yearfor its launching gadget launch. Today it has verified to TechCrunch that this launch timeframe is not altering, despite its purpose to reflect the phone following month. It provided the following emailed statement confirming the pre-sales campaign and noting that the shipping timeframe remains the exact same:

Jolla will showcase its first device in May. The precise timing of the introduction will be revealed later. A pre-sales campaign is anticipated to start after mid-May. The campaign is currently being planned and further details will be readily available at the time of the item introduction. The sales beginning of the first Jolla gadget will take location throughout the 2nd half of 2013 as earlier revealed. The pre-sales campaign was stated previously in Finnish publication digitoday, which ran a meet with Jolla chairman Antti Saarnio. According to the meeting (translated from the Finnish by Google equate), the pre-sales campaign will be a”Kickstarter-style”crowdfunding campaign, whereby very early backers can anticipate to obtain a gadget with a couple of unique extras compared to buyers who pile in later. Jolla told TechCrunch via Twitter that the pre-sales project is not a crowdfunding project to money the initial production run, rather”pre-sales is for the followers to register their interest and see to it they get the device initially”.

Nevertheless the difference in between a pre-sales project for fans and a crowdfunding project to fund manufacturing is a minimal one, and mainly an advantage of emphasis. In its meet with digitoday, Saarnio evidently discusses taking”advance repayments” and”pre-payments”from fans who sign up to buy the device — payments that” will not be so wonderful as to make up a threshold for the fans”but will be tiered, allowing them to get a more” customized”phone, the even more they pay. Jolla has not, nonetheless, confirmed this advanced payment detail separately to TechCrunch. Its statement suggests it is still wrapping up strategies for the pre-sales campaign. Update: Jolla has now verified by means of Twitter that it will be taking payments ahead of the phone’s launch from fans who mean to buy it.”Yes, there will be different choices to reveal the support and get something in return. Stay tuned for the announcement in May,”it stated. The pre-sales campaign is clearly component of Jolla’s marketing and community-building efforts to spread out the word about Sailfish and construct energy behind it. But taking payments ahead of production likewise makes good sense for a start-up with limited resources to develop hardware and one that is competing in such as fiercely competitive space, against smartphone makers with such huge resources.