McDonald’s is taking on a new strategy to get us to eat more of its artery cloggers — one that involves ramping up its digital efforts. Golden Arches has just hired its first ever U.S. vice president of digital (former Ticketmaster exec Julia Vander Ploeg) and, at the same time, posted a bunch of relevant job opportunities . By the looks of it, the company wants to form a team of professionals under Vander Ploeg to be able to reach its goals, including offering “a variety of digital music and entertainment experiences” (as stated in its posting for a product director for music and entertainment) to its patrons. McDonald’s is also looking for people to improve its mobile website, develop games and, more importantly, release a global mobile ordering app that customers can use anywhere they are. Sadly, the company hasn’t elaborated on what its plans are at this point in time. And since you’re not the only one wondering if McDonald’s aims to release games and downloadable music in the future, we’ll keep an eye out for more details. Filed under: Misc Comments Source: CNBC

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McDonald’s plans to release global mobile ordering app, digital music program

If traditional printers use ink and toner cartridges, most commercial 3D printers use plastic filament spools to create the objects you want. These filaments, however, are typically made from plastic pellets, so an Ohio company called Sculptify thought: “Hey, why don’t we make a 3D printer that uses pellets straight up?” Thus, David, a 3D printer loaded with open source software, was born. David can print objects using a number of soft and flexible materials, such as Polylactide (PLA) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), though it can surprisingly use wood, as well. Since pellets are usually much cheaper than filaments (according to Sculptify, a 2-pound bag of pellet costs around $18, while a 2.2-pound spool costs roughly $48), you’ll be saving quite a bit of money. “…using pellets allows for access to a wide variety of unadulterated materials, stripped of several layers of cost and time, ” the Sculptify team wrote on their Kickstarter campaign page to raise funds for David’s production. “In short, you get to print with higher quality materials, for less money.” Before you get to enjoy the savings, though, you’ll first have to pay a considerable amount up front, as you can only get a unit for a minimum pledge of $2, 745. If the team manages to raise $100, 000 via Kickstarter, they plan to use the money to finalize David’s hardware and to purchase whatever else they still need for mass production. Sculptify expects to ship out the first units by April 2015 if the campaign ends up a success, but for now, you can watch David do its job in the videos below. Filed under: Peripherals Comments Source: Kickstarter

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3D printer saves you money by using pellets instead of plastic filaments

The music industry is extremely well-blanketed on the web, what with services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Rhapsody, iTunes Music and many, many more. But one can easily argue that the same can’t be said about online videos — namely, those available at no cost on YouTube , Vimeo , DailyMotion and other similar sites. Here’s where N3twork believes it can help. The startup, which describes itself as a “personal network for internet video, ” has taken a cue from Pandora on how it delivers content to you. The new app, available only on iOS at launch, uses your personal interests to tailor a feed of videos, allowing users to employ swipe gestures to skip (left) or watch later (right) — think of the latter option as a DVR of sorts. N3twork uses its sign-up process to know a little more about you, as that’ll determine what your stream looks like; the populated channels are hashtag-based, so there’s always the ability to keep subscribing to different stuff as you continue to use the app. And you can search, too, by simply pasting in a URL or using keywords for whatever category you’re into, including sports, photography, technology and others. In addition to that, N3twork also acts as a social network of sorts, as it lets you have followers and interact with people by way of likes and comments, as well as repost videos that you may have run into and liked. What stood out the most is how the application displays thumbnails — they’re not static images, but rather 15-second previews of the videos that are coming up on your feed. You can upload your own content as well, which can then be shared to your friends on Twitter or Facebook, as is the case for videos from your personalized stream. Since it is fully invested in iOS at the moment, N3twork told us it went the extra mile to create a second-screen experience for Apple TV (pictured above), which should provide a nice touch for people who want to use AirPlay to watch videos on a bigger screen. “The internet isn’t just cat videos. We want to put content that you care about in front you, ” N3twork’s founder and CEO, Neil Young, said to Engadget about what he hopes to accomplish with the new service. Filed under: Internet , HD , Mobile , Apple Comments Source: N3twork

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N3twork wants to be the Pandora of internet video

You know how Twitter started inserting others’ favorites and follows into your timeline? As it turns out, it’s not an experiment — it’s official policy. We now know that the social network recently updated its timeline explanation to confirm that it’s adding tweets from strangers, new accounts to follow and other “popular” content to your feed. Like you might have suspected, the company is trying to make your stream “even more relevant and interesting” by showing you material you might not otherwise have seen. It’s reassuring that Twitter isn’t simply broadcasting everything you do. However, as Quartz notes , it still represents a big change to the way the service behaves. Outside of ads, the timeline has always focused on showing you the latest content from people you meant to follow. Now, it’s a more Facebook-like experience where the company chooses a bit of what you see in an attempt to get more active users and boost its ad revenue. You shouldn’t miss out on any of the action, but you may have to wade through some clutter (and become some of the clutter) to get what you want. Filed under: Internet Comments Via: Quartz Source: Twitter

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Twitter is officially putting tweets from strangers in your timeline