Archive for category: Internet

Who said parenthood requires instincts and know how! Clearly, Huggies doesn’ think you should have to figure things out the hard way, and has introduced a new system that notifies you via Twitter when a diaper is ready to be changed. TweetPee alerts parents with an owl-shaped clip-on humidity sensor that detects when your child’s diaper is wet. Once the sensor detects any bit of moisture, the application activates and a tweet is sent. The system is being tested in Brazil with only four families, expanding to ten in July and may go mainstream if success is achieved. Dear Huggies – I’m in! @marcaflalo

Google waged a veritable blitzkrieg on the internet today during its first day I/O keynote presentation. So much content was released, so many products affected, it’s a little difficult to wrap our minds around. The display was impressive, and it resulted in an almost 30 point ramp in Google’s stock price.

We wanted to take a little time to digest the keynote and subsequent announcements; and rather than pack this feed full of individual posts and stories about each product and app update, we figured we’d tackle the whole kit and kaboodle in one post.

So. Let’s get to it.

In case you hadn’t heard, ABC has just revealed its latest Watch ABC app as an “open preview” for New York and Philadelphia residents. Available on the web, Kindle and iOS, it offers video-on-demand playback of the network’s shows, but also includes live network TV streaming. More cities are on the horizon, all of which is detailed in the PR after the jump.

With Google I/O now in full swing, we can barely keep track of every announcement being made; in fact, as soon as we put the proverbial pen to paper with one piece of news, the software giant hits us with something else–making it incredibly hard to keep up! First, Google finally unveiled its new Music subscription service called All-Access for $9.99 per month (take that, iTunes!); next, we found that Google Play was getting some upgrades in the gaming department in the form of real-time online multiplayer, cloud saves, achievements and leaderboards–but the news doesn’t stop there…

Next, we learned that Google Maps was getting some upgrades on both the front and  back-end, with UI improvements as well as enhanced tools for developers. Not to be left out, Google Now will get real-time transit info, reminder cards and music recommendations, and Google+ gets a new look–as well as mobile apps–to keep those chats going wherever you are. Whew…and that’s just scratching the service! Make sure you check back with us tomorrow morning as our own Juan Carlos Bagnell goes into more detail on everything Google. We’d also like to wish Juan a speedy recovery from the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome he’s sure to suffer from later tonight…

ESPN came out with something rather interesting, saying that they are looking into subsidizing mobile data plans to help you stream their content. We all know that wireless carriers offer tiered data plans that are often throttled after certain limits are reached–which means that streaming content (a popular feature, wouldn’t you say?) gets bogged down. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that ESPN has already spoken to at least one major U.S. carrier about subsidizing data plans in order to guarantee that streaming its content would not result in overages for customers. There’s no telling if this would be specific to streaming content from ESPN, or if it would apply to other use as well. We’ll keep an eye out for you…so stay tuned.

On one hand, the FCC is slow to allow mobile device use on take off and landing in-flight; and on the other hand, they are already trying to ease rules to allow for quicker in-flight internet deployment. The FCC is taking its plans of allowing more flights to have WiFi to a new level by increasing existing connection speeds, and have proposed auctioning off rights to use a newly available WiFi spectrum to provide better in-flight connections via Satellite, with the goal of bringing speeds akin to land-based connections to consumers while they fly. I’ll +1 that right now!

Sometimes its fun to pay attention to patents–even if they never see the light of day; and this new patent from Apple looks rather attractive and worth a mention. Through both a graphical user interface and automatically, Apple intends on notifying people trying to contact you of the best way to reach you: If you’re in a meeting, send an email or text; driving, do the same. The patent means that devices will be able to dynamically know and learn the best methods to contact you in the appropriate circumstances. Very cool tech that I’d love to see appear sooner than later.

I’m a big fan of Netflix. Any given day, and it’s likely we’ll stream a couple of hours of content though the little red service.

All is not rosy, however. You see, I have a decent internet connection, but there are still times where data is lean and Netflix starts buffering. It’s sadly more common in my household, what with all the reviewing I need to do.

It’s always bothered me that Netflix doesn’t allow me to control the quality of the stream; you know, for those times when I’ve got three review tablets updating apps all at the same time. I’d be content to watch in SD for smoother playback.

Well. If you don’t mind a little behind-the-scenes action, you can tweak the stream on a computer.

While streaming, hold down ALT and SHIFT–then left click anywhere on the screen. A small Diagnostics menu will pop up, and if you select Stream Manager, from that menu you can manually control the quality of the video stream. This is also a handy trick for under-powered computers.

Unfortunately, if you stream Netflix to your TV through a console, this diagnostic trick wont work. On XBox and PS3, you can reach a system menu by entering “Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Up, Up, Up”, but it wont allow you to alter the streaming quality.

I’m a little relieved.

The Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act had several provision which made us cyber-security folks nervous. To over simplify, it would have allowed for the back and forth sharing of private online data between companies and our government. No potential for abuse there, certainly.

After IBM flew hundreds of lobbyists to DC, and several companies contributed tens of millions of dollars supporting the legislation, the USA House passed the bill while most of us were focused on events in Boston (following the bombing). Now I’m not claiming that anything nefarious happened per se, but…

Thankfully, the USA Senate has decided to just not vote on the measure. I didn’t know they could do that. Apparently our elected officials can just push the “Naw, don’t feel like it bro” button on any piece of legislation which might make them even less popular with the American people than they already are. Good to know.

So revel in your internet privacy rights. Following SOPA (and similar bills before it), I’m sure we’ll see another variation on this theme some time next year.

CISPA on Wikipedia

Rogers Wireless is expanding its high speed LTE footprint, and 7 new markets reap the benefits this week–including Hamilton, Grimsby, Keswick, Orillia, and Stratford in Ontario (Rogers is the first in Canada to light up LTE in Stratford and Orillia). In the Ottawa region, new markets includes Kanata, Napean, Gloucester, Stittsbille and Cumberland; and out west, Langley, BC and Airdrie Alberta. All of these cities, with the exception of Airdrie, will be running the blazing fast 2600 MHz LTE spectrum. This should make for some happy times for those rocking the iPhone 5, or upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4–not to mention the LTE-equipped BlackBerry 10 devices.