Verizon Cloud comes to iOS devices

Verizon Cloud comes to iOS devices -

Following up on an announcement made at the end of April, Verizon has begun rolling out its Verizon Cloud storage solution to iOS devices today. Verizon Cloud offers Verizon users a free 500 MB of cloud storage to backup their photos, videos, contacts, music, call logs and text messages. Users who want more storage can buy it at a monthly fee of US$2.99/month for 25 GB, $5.99/month for 75 GB and $9.99/month for 125 GB.

The Verizon Cloud service lets users stream music and sync data between devices, including photos, videos and documents. Users can also access their files via the web and desktop applications. On the iPhone, users can manage their Verizon Cloud account through the free Verizon Cloud app.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Moon dust gathered by Neil Armstrong discovered in warehouse after 40 years

Moon dust gathered by Neil Armstrong discovered in warehouse after 40 years - While tidying up a storage space at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, an archivist makes a cosmic discovery. [Read more]

(Via CNET News.com.)

Mr. Know-It-All on Whether You Own Your Kindle Books and How to Nab Free Journal Articles

Mr. Know-It-All on Whether You Own Your Kindle Books and How to Nab Free Journal Articles - Mr. Know-It-All answers your questions about Kindle books, the carbon footprint of online shopping and the ethics of reading journal articles for free.

(Via Wired Top Stories.)

Use Flickr as a cloud drive

Use Flickr as a cloud drive - Flickr has announced that all users will now have 1 TB of storage for free. With that much space, surely it would be interesting to figure out how to use Flickr as a cloud drive.

Ricardo Tomasi has done just that with Filr, a command-line tool that turns Flickr into a storage repository. This solution isn't ideal, since it's only available for now from the command line, and has only been tested with certain types of files (images), and only on files of up to 15 MB. But it's worth highlighting, and I'm sure others will come up with better solutions very soon.

(Via MacOSXHints.com.)

Smart bike handlebars have turn signals, GPS, speedometer

Smart bike handlebars have turn signals, GPS, speedometer - Helios Bars are sleek handlebar replacements that come with built-in LED lights and smartphone connectivity.

(Via CNET News.com.)

Kindle Fire HD spreads to 170 countries

Kindle Fire HD spreads to 170 countries - Starting in June, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD tablets will be available in over 170 countries worldwide.

(Via CNET News.com.)

Search is on for lost first draft of first Web page

Search is on for lost first draft of first Web page - Someone out there could have a missing copy of the world's first Web site from 1990. Have you checked your old floppies lately?

(Via CNET News.com.)

Awesome Photos Show Efforts to Preserve Historic Apollo Rocket Engines

Awesome Photos Show Efforts to Preserve Historic Apollo Rocket Engines - Starting this Friday, you can watch the conservation of historical Apollo Saturn V engines that were recovered from the bottom of the ocean. That is, if you live near or are planning to visit Hutchinson, Kansas.

(Via Wired Top Stories.)

Camera Traps Capture Rare and Beautiful Javan Leopards

Camera Traps Capture Rare and Beautiful Javan Leopards - Camera traps placed in the Javan rainforest have captured striking images of beautiful and critically endangered Javan leopards.

(Via Wired Top Stories.)

Best Buy MacBook Pro sale helps push down prices on 13" Retina models

Best Buy MacBook Pro sale helps push down prices on 13" Retina models - Apple and Best Buy have again teamed for a week-long MacBook Pro sale, not only helping the Mac maker push units in an unfavorable climate for the PC market, but also helping to driving down prices for consumers even further at competing resellers.

(Via AppleInsider.)

Fitbit Flex fitness tracker ships with Bluetooth 4.0 synchronization

Fitbit Flex fitness tracker ships with Bluetooth 4.0 synchronization - Fitbit has started shipping its first wrist-based activity tracker. The Fitbit Flex follows the Jawbone Up and the Nike FuelBand in providing tracking of activities and sleep patterns from the wrist, and like other Fitbit trackers in the entire range, is able to sync over Bluetooth 4.0 through iOS and Android devices, as well as using the provided Bluetooth dongle with a PC ...

(Via MacNN | The Macintosh News Network.)

My life with the Jawbone Up activity tracker

My life with the Jawbone Up activity tracker - If social makes things better, the Jawbone Up might be the tracker for you. It's easy for friends with the device to motivate you. But for "non-step" activities, you may need to do manual logging.

(Via CNET News.com.)

Thor's hammer gets a Tesla coil, puts out 80,000 volts

Thor's hammer gets a Tesla coil, puts out 80,000 volts - According to comic book legend, Thor's hammer can summon lightning. A couple of makers decided to make that concept real with an assist from a Tesla coil.

(Via CNET News.com.)

Using IFTTT with the Jawbone UP

Using IFTTT with the Jawbone UP -

The Jawbone UP fitness tracker is a lot more useful now that Jawbone has opened the API to third-party developers. One of the most exciting companies tapping into the UP platform is online automation tool, IFTTT. In the article below, I will talk a little bit about connecting your UP to IFTTT and then list some of my favorite recipes.

IFTTT is an automation tool that allows you to setup tasks that happen at a certain time or in response to a certain event. It uses a trigger event ("If this happens") to initiate an action ("then do that"). Within the IFTTT framework, you create what are called recipes to select the trigger event and its resulting action. For example, you can create a recipe that uses a date/time trigger to send you an email at the same time each day.

IFTTT is extremely useful because it ties into services, called channels, like Dropbox, Google Calendar and, of course, the topic of this post, the Jawbone UP. With IFTTT and an UP, you can do a myriad things like update your UP mood to exhausted when you get less than 6 hours of sleep, automatically add your morning coffee to your UP food list, and log the daily weather. Configuring the UP within IFTTT is extremely easy.

Just login to the IFTTT dashboard and click on the UP channel to activate your Jawbone account. You have to login to your Jawbone account and authorize Jawbone to share info with IFTTT. You can share your moods, moves, meals, events, sleep info, weight and more between IFTTT and UP. It's a bi-directional connection so you can pull down info from UP and send new information back to the fitness tracker. As you can imagine, there are a lot of ways to interact with the Jawbone fitness tracker using IFTTT.

Below are some of my favorite IFTTT recipes for the UP.

• See the big picture of how you sleep. Track your Zzz's with a spreadsheet!

• If I get more than X hours of sleep, set my mood to 'energized' in my Jawbone UP feed

• Share Foursquare gym check-ins to your Jawbone UP feed

• Log my UP meals and their nutritional content into a Google spreadsheet

• Send your spouse a friendly email when you get below 7 hours of sleep

• Tweet when I walk more than 10,000 steps

• Remind me if I don't work out for 3 days

• If I get less than 5 hours of sleep, put on a pot o' coffee with WeMo

• #sunshine brings better #mood

• Tag an Instagram photo with #UP to share it with your team

There are now 110 recipes on IFTTT for the UP and this number is climbing. If you have an UP, let us know in the comments if you use it with IFTTT.

Using IFTTT with the Jawbone UP originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 May 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Jawbone acquires BodyMedia

Jawbone acquires BodyMedia -

BodyMedia, the makers of a few fitness trackers that work directly with the iPhone and other smartphones, has announced that it has been acquired by Jawbone, creators of the popular Up motion tracker and other Bluetooth headsets and accessories. Techcrunch's "reliable sources" say the deal was close to US$100 million, which is a substantial price for a company like this.

BodyMedia's work has been very impressive so far -- not only has the company been doing very well selling its body and fitness trackers (and an accompanying premium subscription service), but it shared lots of future plans with me a few months ago at CES, including some disposable tracking units and new ways to keep an eye on your health. BodyMedia's also got a number of patents on new devices, which are becoming more and more valuable as the trend of fitness trackers grows. Jawbone is no slouch, either -- their well-built Bluetooth headsets have been very popular for quite a while.

BodyMedia says the two companies will join forces to "deliver great things across health and wellness." We'll look forward to seeing exactly what those things are.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Apple, Verizon earn poor marks in EFF privacy report

Apple, Verizon earn poor marks in EFF privacy report - They're among a number of companies that disappoint with their privacy practices, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- which likes what it sees from Twitter and others.

(Via CNET News.com.)

Aiming for more retail deals, Square adds partnerships VP

Aiming for more retail deals, Square adds partnerships VP - Former PayPal VP of retail marketing Alex Petrov will be responsible for finding more integrations for the hot mobile payments startup.

(Via CNET News.com.)