NailO – a thumbnail track pad from MIT

Fresh from the MIT campus – a new wearable device that turns the user’s thumbnail into a miniature wireless track pad.

Inspired by the colorful nail stickers, the invention can be solution in moments when hands are full. For example, when cooking you might need to answer the phone or scroll through a recipe.

The researches will present their concept next week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer-Human Interaction conference in Seoul.  Read more on MIT website.

Save the Internet

Most of us might not even know that there is a fight for the open internet happening right now in Brussels.

Net neutrality is the founding principle of the internet. It guarantees that all data packets are treated equally. This principle guarantees that the internet will remain diverse, innovative, and free. Telecoms companies want to change that. They want to establish new business models based on discrimination and restrictions. We cannot give up the economic and social value of the internet just to help a handful of companies to make more money.

Learn more about the issue on this site. Then go to Take Action section and contact a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) of your country asking him/her to defend the net neutrality in Europe.

AWS Announces Amazon Machine Learning

Good news for the development community: last week Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) has announced Amazon Machine Learning, a fully managed service that makes it easy to use historical data to build and deploy predictive models.

This means machine learning technology is now available and affordable to the developers of all skill levels – no need to learn complex ML algorithms and technology as Amazon did the job already.

Amazon Machine Learning provides visualization tools and wizards, and once the models are ready, it should be easy to get predictions for own applications using simple APIs without having to implement custom prediction generation code or manage any infrastructure.

Sounds really promising! We just cannot wait apply the service in our projects.

More information in the official press release and on the AWS website.

Nieuwsbite: the news platfrom where your opinion matters

Want to stay up to date about the actualities but have no time to dig into the daily news? Want to have a place to express your opinion and see what the rest thinks about the matter as well? Then we have good news for you!

Nieuwsbite – our latest assignment – has just gone live! It is a digital platform that brings news in an engaging way and offers a simple and quick way to get involved with what’s happening in the Netherlands and around the world.

Download_on_the_App_Store_Badge_US-UK_135x40   googleplayicon_40

The YipiY editorial team (our lovely office mates) selects 10 important news items per day, and offers you a chance to state your opinion about them.  You can also share your votes via Facebook and Twitter. And there is a video break – a funny video –  that accompanies each article so that you can unwind a bit!

New connections: USB Type-C

Are you wondering what that thing USB Type-C is? The answer is very simple – it is a faster, more versatile and conveniently reversible connector that replaces USB, power and other types of cords. Also the Type-C port measures just 8.4mm by 2.6mm. This means it’s small enough to work for even the smallest peripheral devices. With Type-C, a USB cable’s both ends will be the same, so you don’t need to worry about plugging it in upside down.

Apple was the first major company to throw its weight behind USB Type-C with a flagship product – the new MacBook, but Google isn’t far behind. We have noticed that the search company launched its own brand new notebook – Chromebook Pixel, with the same USB and according to Google Product Manager Adam Rodriguez  Type-C will be appearing in Android phones soon.

 

Gmail app just got better for Android users

mobile drawer shot copyAs of today Android users, which most of The Black Bears are, will be able to view all their mail at once, regardless of which account it’s from, using the new “All Inboxes” option in Gmail app.

So now it became really convenient to read and respond to all messages without having to hop between accounts. And there are more nice features like conversation view for non-Gmail accounts, smarter search and more responsive animations. Thanks, Google!

Read more on Google’s official blog.

[Image Source: Google’s official blog]

Keep those precious baby moments in the Bébéboek App!

Great news for all mothers and mothers-to-be since the Bébéboek App – our latest project – has been released!

Download_on_the_App_Store_Badge_US-UK_135x40   googleplayicon_40

The Bébéboek App is one central place to store, share and edit the baby photos. Mothers can also keep records of baby’s height and weight which are plotted in the growth graphics.

The best thing of all is that the pictures and the graphics can be added a photo album directly in the app. The Bébéboek is then sent as a PDF per e-mail and can be ordered for printing.

This app was an assignment from Superunie  which has presented the Bébéboek App during the “Negen Maanden Beurs” (Nine Month Fair) in Amsterdam.

SanDisk introduces 200 GB Ultra microSD card

If you are like us and a 128GB microSD card isn’t big enough to put all your high quality snaps, audio and video on your phone – don’t worry. We are happy to tell you that SanDisk has introduced a new microSD card designed to provide a little more storage.

The SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, packs a whopping 200 GB of storage capacity, more than many laptops will give you! Capable of delivering transfer speeds of 90 MB per second, or around 1,200 photos per minute,the card is targeted primarily for use with Android devices.

SanDisk says its new 200 GB microSD card will be available worldwide in the second quarter of 2015.

 

Manual review for Android Apps

 

Just heard that Google has started to manually review apps before making them publicly available on its Google Play store. The company has been using the process quietly for the past several months but nobody noticed it until 17th of March when it was disclosed in some techno blogs.

The new process involves a team of experts from Google reviewing applications for compliance with their laundry list of policies pertaining to content, network usage, application promotion and other items. In addition Google has also added a new application content age-based rating system for apps and games.

 [Image Credit: Android Developers Blog]