Tech News Summary – May 16th, 2013.
- Christina Farr (VentureBeat) writes that “Kabbage announced today that it will provide loans to both online and offline businesses, and will reject or approve a claim in minutes.”
- Amanda Alvarez (GigaOm) writes about an electromagnetic coil which provides an inexpensive alternative to CT scans for detecting brain injuries.
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Image via CrunchBase
Jordan Novet (GigaOm) reports on Google’s upcoming API enhancements for Android devices which will allow developers to track location with minimal battery impact, trigger activities based on entering/exiting a defined geographical area (think Locale), and analyse movement patterns to determine the mode of movement (e.g. walking, bicycling, car, etc.).
- Adam L. Penenberg (pandodaily) writes an interesting analysis of bitcoin’s similarities to a religious movement and the effect “persecution” by the government could have on the “religion’s spread.”
- Joe Mullin (Ars Technica) reports on the unfolding saga of the Federal Government’s investigation into Mt. Gox (a bitcoin exchange) and shutting down of transfers between Dwolla and Mt. Gox. Apparently, Mt. Gox indicated that it was not going to be performing currency exchanges, but from the federal perspective it is…I can understand why Mt. Gox might think they weren’t. While bitcoins can be bought with “real” money and then sold/exchanged into “real” money, the bitcoin currency as such is a virtual currency and thus not associated the sort of brick-and-mortar exchanges one might find in other currencies – regulated by governments.
- If you want a good overview article of what is happening at Google I/O, take a look at Sundar Pichai’s post on Google’s Official Blog. You’ll get a high-level view of innovations with Android, Google Play, Chrome, VP9, Google+, Search, and Maps.
- Navneet Joneja writes on Google’s Cloud Platform Blog about some nifty enhancements to the Google Compute Engine as Google ramps up its competition with Amazon’s AWS. Meanwhile Urs Holzle writes another post for Google’s Cloud Platform Blog regarding the addition of PHP support to App Engine (now one can run WordPress on App Engine) and the availability of Google Cloud Datastore. See also Sean Gallagher’s article over at Ars Technica.
- Frederic Lardinois reports on Google’s new Actions feature in Gmail which allows one to take actions specified by the email sender without ever opening the email.
- Owen Thomas reports on Google’s latest innovations with its Wallet functionality – nothing I find too exciting. I do think the one item that hasn’t happened would be the most exciting – a credit card that is linked to Google Wallet, allowing use of Wallet to be ubiquitous.
- Also see Samantha Murphy’s (Mashable) summary entitled “Everything You Need to Know About Google’s Big Announcements.”
- Dave Dickinson (former CEO of Zeo) offers his thoughts on whether personal health data can motivate behavioral change after leading a company based on that premise for the past five years. One of his most interesting thoughts is the distinction of “Quantified Self early adopters” from “Mainstream Motivated Self” and the difficulties in reaching the latter. I had not heard this term “mainstream motivated self” before, perhaps someone else coined it – but I think it is a great term (and hey, we could even make an acronym – MMS) to summarize the larger market potential for these personal health applications.
- David Meyer reviews Skobbler’s GPS turn-by-turn navigation and maps app for Android as an alternative to Google Maps for the “privacy-minded Google users to consider.” Personally, I’m not worried about Google’s invasion of my privacy…
- Jeremy LaTrasse (ReadWrite) writes “How To Make the World Safer For Email” discussing the newish DMARC standard as well as offering some guidelines for consumers seeking to avoid being the victim of malicious spam.
- Ingrid Lunden (TechCrunch) reports on a new round of funding for BitPay, a startup attempting to become the “PayPal” of bitcoin. Usually I wouldn’t mention this – but as Lunden points out, this was funded by the “PayPal Mafia,” that is the VC firm Founders Fund, owned and run by a number of PayPal alumni.
- Jordan Crook (TechCrunch) reports that Amazon has signed a deal with NBCUniversal to bring popular TV shows (Covert Affairs, Defiance, Grimm, Hannibal, Suits) to Amazon Prime, expanding the service’s competition with Hulu and Netflix.
- Owen Thomas (ReadWriteMobile) reports on Google’s efforts to make websites usable across all devices – “responsive design.”
- Drew Olanoff (TechCrunch) reports on Google’s “conversational search” which brings the voice activated search found on Android and Apple devices to the desktop browser. Personally, I think Google is barking up the wrong tree…maybe it will be an okay feature, but it isn’t game changing. See also Brian Proffit’s article over at ReadWrite.
- Sean Gallagher and Casey Johnson (Ars Technica) report on Google’s unifying of Google+ video chat, Messenger, Talk, and Gmail interfaces.
- Sean Ludwig (VentureBeat) offers a concise and simpler explanation of what this means. As he states, “Hangouts will challenge WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and other popular messaging services that are supplanting traditional text messaging.” I’d like to highlight its competition with Facebook Messenger – the other big dog in the fight…and also the role this could play in eliminating SMS due to the ubiquity of Google accounts…The challenge facing everyone else (especially folks like WhatsApp) is the need for both sender and receiver to have the app – Google accounts are so ubiquitous this will be a very limited problem. Google could also use its Voice infrastructure to “mask” its messages into SMS messages as necessary…
- Dan Rowinski (ReadWrite) reports on Google’s efforts to simplify the programming process for developers creating apps on Android. I’m particularly excited about Android Studio, the new Maps API, and Cloud Save. Read Rowinski’s article for details.
- For more details on money-making enhancements to Google Play Developer Console see John Koetsier’s article over at VentureBeat.
- Owen Thomas theorizes that Google is aiming to make everyone developers (I agree, but this isn’t a new goal, perhaps newer to Google who has been obstinately hardcore geek in many ways…but this front is something Microsoft and other companies have been working on for a long time).
- Kyle Wagner (Gizmodo) reports that Google is selling a “pure” and “unlocked” Samsung Galaxy S 4….WHAT! This is awesome! Granted the price is painful ($650), but this means when I eventually upgrade my phone I won’t be tied to any provider but can migrate between them with ease…not to mention I won’t be loaded down with all the crapware the telephony providers load onto phones.
- Tom Cheredar (VentureBeat) reports that Google has launched a Spotify/Pandora/music streaming service competitor. Its a paid option – I’m not particularly impressed…Should I be? John Paul Titlow thinks so.
- Dan Goodin (Ars Technica) reports on a critical Linux vulnerability that affects both desktop and server OS’es, all sysadmins should pay attention.
- Casey Johnston (Ars Technica) reports on some significant enhancements to Google Maps. Om Malik offers a thoughtful analysis on GigaOm. Emily Price (Mashable) offers a guided tour.
- Jeffrey Grubb (VentureBeat) reports that Microsoft is phasing out its point system for Xbox and replacing it with regular currency payments, this comes on the heels of Amazon’s venture in “Coins” – one major player enters the market, another backs out.
- Josh Stevens (CEO of Keas) writes a thought provoking article on businesses abilities to reduce healthcare costs by encouraging online connectivity.
- Ucilia Wang reports that RelayRides is making most of its money from long-term car sharing. Unfortunately, RelayRides has taken a cease and desist order from NYS.
- Darrell Etherington (TechCrunch) reports on Google+’s enhancements to photos management.
- Dr. Michal Tsur and Leah Belsky write an insightful article on the dangers of “leaning in” encouraging workaholism.
- Kevin Fitchard reports that Ruckus Wireless is going to offer encrypted/secure connections over open WiFi in their next software release.
- If it wasn’t 3.5 hours long, I might watch the Google I/O keynote by Larry Page. I’m interested in this concept of a ‘mad scientist island’ as Kumparak calls it. See also Meghan Kelly’s article at VentureBeat.
- Adam L. Penenberg. writes about the US authorities attack on Bitcoin via shutting down Mt. Gox and ordering Dwolla to cease and desist from activity with Mt. Gox. He also chronicles some recent similar instances regarding e-Gold and Liberty Dollar…Can someone help me understand why these are considered “domestic terrorism” – or why this is illegal in general? I may be missing something…
- Barb Darrow (GigaOm) writes about VMWare’s new solution for BYOD devices – virtualization. I like the idea, btu am not a big fan of VMWare due to licensing complexity and priciness.
- Ki Mae Heussner writes, “Massive open online courses (MOOCs) just took another giant step: Udacity, the Georgia Institute of Technology and AT&T this week announced that they would join forces for a completely online computer science master’s degree that will cost students less than $7,000.” This is pretty fascinating and could have significant implications for higher ed.