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Physical button can be programmed to request anything

Add / Remove Last year, we wrote about the Bttn button, which was a physical, internet-connected button that can be configured for uses such as turning devices off for nighttime or sending a quick message to loved ones. We then saw the Amazon Dash Button enable consumers to make repeated purchases of households goods without even visiting the digital store. Inspired by this, on-demand service app ALICE has partnered with Bttn to enable hotel guests to call for room service at a push of a physical button. The ALICE app contains any hotel service a guest would want — many users already log into the app when visiting partnering hotels, as it will notify specific staff of their requests. Hotel management can also monitor guest requests and employee responses from the app to improve their services. With new partner Bttn, ALICE’s service is further simplified, allowing frequently requested services to be made available at the push of a physical button. Bttn can also create branded buttons, programmable to execute specific tasks without the use of smartphones. For example, guests can request for housekeeping, or call a cab, and front desk will be notified. ALICE’s hospitality management app is already streamlining the industry’s services, and now guests won’t even need to use their phones to make simple requests. Where else would physical, connected buttons be useful? Website: www.aliceapp.com Contact: lola.feiger@aliceapp.com The post Physical button can be programmed to request anything appeared first on Springwise .

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Physical button can be programmed to request anything

Army’s first shoulder-fired “smart weapon” close to final test

Orbital ATK The XM25 is the Army’s first “smart” shoulder-fired weapon. “It launches 25mm dual-warhead, low velocity, flat trajectory ammunition designed to explode over a target,” as the Army describes it-allowing it to blow things and people up hidden behind cover. 4 more images in gallery Early next year, the US Army will begin acceptance testing of a weapon that seems like it’s straight out of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare:  the XM25 Counter Defilade Engagement System , a “smart” grenade launcher from Orbital Sciences subsidiary Orbital ATK. The XM25 is designed to be an “anti-defilade” weapon-its purpose is to allow soldiers to hit targets shielded by cover. The XM25 has a built-in “target acquisition and fire control system” that allows any soldier with basic rifleman skills to operate it effectively–the soldier points the weapon’s target selector down range, and a laser rangefinder determines how far away it is. The soldier can add additional distance to clear obstacles, and the fire control computer gives the soldier a new aiming point to put the round on target, as well as setting the fusing of the grenade in the chamber. The grenade doesn’t have to strike anything to explode, so it can detonate in the air over whatever or whoever might be hiding behind a vehicle, wall, or entrenchment. The XM25 has been in development since the middle of the last decade. Originally developed by Alliant TechSystems, which was acquired by Orbital Sciences. In 2010, the Army’s PEO Soldier program office sent prototypes of the XM25 to Afghanistan for “forward operational assessment”–use in actual combat to see how it performed. PEO Soldier’s Lt. Colonel Chris Lehner said in a post about the field tests that the “introduction of the XM25 is akin to other revolutionary systems such as the machine gun, the airplane and the tank, all of which changed battlefield tactics. No longer will our Soldiers have to expose themselves by firing and maneuvering to eliminate an enemy behind cover. Our Soldiers can remain covered/protected and use their XM25 to neutralize an enemy in his covered position. This will significantly reduce the risk of U.S. casualties and change the way we fight.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Army’s first shoulder-fired “smart weapon” close to final test

Webflow’s “first visual CMS” is like WordPress mixed with Photoshop

A demo video showing off Webflow CMS. Web design tools like Webflow have done a lot to thin the line between designers and developers. Now, however, the birthed-by-Y-Combinator startup wants to take it further with what it describes as the world’s first visual content management system (CMS). There’s not much to it right now. In a nutshell, Webflow CMS is a barebones WordPress installation jammed into a Photoshop-like interface. The idea here is to provide a way to create “completely custom websites powered by dynamic content” without any knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, or databases. And to an extent, it works. The Webflow CMS allows users to create or use pre-existing “Collections”—templates for dynamic content types. From there, you can then determine the kind of fields associated with the Collection, such as whether they’re mandatory to be completed, if they’re to be linked to another Collection, and what kind of minimum word counts are to be expected. These criteria are universal for any instance of the Collection. All Blog Posts, for example, will draw from the parent Blog Posts Collection. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Webflow’s “first visual CMS” is like WordPress mixed with Photoshop

"E-mailable" House Snaps Together Without Nails

MikeChino writes: Your next house could snap together like a jigsaw puzzle without the use of any power tools. Clemson University students designed and built Indigo Pine, a carbon-neutral house that exists largely as a set of digital files that can be e-mailed to a wood shop anywhere in the world, CNC cut, and then assembled on-site in a matter of days. “Indigo Pine has global application, ” says the Clemson team. “Because the house exists largely as a set of digital files, the plans can be sent anywhere in the world, constructed using local materials, adapted to the site, and influenced by local culture.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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"E-mailable" House Snaps Together Without Nails

Adobe and Dropbox make it easier to edit PDFs from the cloud

Dropbox got cozy with Microsoft Office back in the spring, offering a way to easily edit files stored in its cloud-based repository. Now, Dropbox is getting friendly with Adobe Document Cloud, too. More specifically, the company is playing nice with Adobe Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader to serve up quick and easy access to edit PDF documents . Once you connect your Dropbox account with the Adobe apps, you’ll be able to pull in files without leaving the app. What’s more, when you’re browsing files in Dropbox, you’ll have the option to open a PDF in the appropriate Adobe app to edit, e-sign, comment and markup the file as needed. And as you might expect, no matter how you open the document or which device you’re using, everything automatically syncs in Dropbox across desktop and mobile. PDFs are by far the most common file format stored with the could-driven storage service, and now its improving the workflow for power users. The new functionality goes live on the desktop today with iOS integration arriving “in the coming months.” Android users can expect to employ the PDF-editing workflow next year. Slideshow-328120

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Adobe and Dropbox make it easier to edit PDFs from the cloud

The company behind Relish wireless broadband makes a big loss

Relish’s dream to connect London homes with wireless broadband, rather than traditional landlines, could be in trouble. UK Broadband, the company behind the service, has reported losses of £37.5 million for 2014 — almost four times what it was the year before. To make matters worse, turnover slipped from roughly £2 million to £1.5 million over the same period. Relish was launched in June 2014 as a simpler, but capable broadband alternative to the likes of BT, Sky and Virgin Media. Instead of copper and fibre cables, the company relies on 4G connections to deliver the internet to its customers. The advantages are plentiful — you don’t need to pay for a landline, and because Relish’s network is already up and running, you don’t need an engineer to install anything. Once you’ve signed up, a router is sent round within the next working day and you can instantly get online. The concept is similar to the mobile broadband packages offered by EE, Three and other UK carriers, although here there are no restrictive data allowances. So what’s gone wrong? Well, it should be noted that the figures filed by UK Broadband aren’t just for Relish. The company also offers consultancy services and the “provision of wireless solutions, ” including design and the supplying of equipment, for instance. Even so, it’s evident that Relish hasn’t been a runaway success. At least, not in the six months following its launch, anyway. The company has been pushing its offering with ads on the Tube, but Relish still doesn’t feel like a household name. There’s also something of a stigma attached to wireless broadband at the moment. Adopters often tell stories of slow or unreliable connections, similar to those experienced on their phone. Relish promises “up to 50Mbps” speeds, but that’s also dependent on you being inside their catchment area. The company is focused solely on London, but its network doesn’t cover every household — to find out if you’re eligible, you’ll need to submit your postcode into its coverage checker first. Home broadband is still a messy quagmire in the UK, but traditional ISPs are pushing hard to improve speeds and coverage. Relish is an intriguing competitor, and could appeal to Londoners who move a lot and just want a decent, easy to cancel broadband package. Early demand appears to have been low though. Relish hasn’t failed just yet — business could have picked up in 2015 — but this is a worrying sign from the company. Via: ISPreview , The Telegraph Source: Companies House

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The company behind Relish wireless broadband makes a big loss

Android 6.0 has a great auto backup system that no one is using (yet)

We recently published a  rather lengthy review of Google’s newest operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but there was one feature we couldn’t get working in time for the review: the new automatic backup feature for app data. The theory is that this feature would take all your app data, stick it in the cloud, and when you restore your phone or buy a new one, it would be like nothing ever changed—all your settings and logins would come back like magic. “Theory” is the key word, since we only had Google’s descriptions and the behavior of the Android M Developer Preview to go on for the review. One week and lots of research later, we think we’ve nailed down how the system works in the final version. What follows is a rewrite of the backup section that we’ll paste into the review, but since it is 95 percent new content and information, we’re giving it a separate article, too. If you’ve had any experience with the Developer Preview’s backup behavior, it really doesn’t apply to the final version. The Developer Preview took a brute force “back up everything” approach to app data, which in part was for Google’s testing to see how such a system would work. The final version takes a safer, consumer-ready route that has a lot more restrictions for what gets backed up. Read 32 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android 6.0 has a great auto backup system that no one is using (yet)

New subreddit chronicles the most public “blue screens of death”

The new subreddit Public Blue Screens of Death. I swiped my credit card at a gas station last week, and as I replaced the nozzle, the pump’s display screen froze, blanked, and then rebooted. I had never seen such a thing before. Not sure if I had actually paid for the gas or not, I went inside and told the cashier. “It happens,” she said. Indeed it does. Thanks to our ever-more-computerized world, crashed software and arcane error messages are a common sight in public-facing displays. A new subreddit called Public Blue Screens of Death aims to chronicle these public crashes, especially those that result in the infamous Windows “blue screen of death” (BSOD). This isn’t the first such collection of BSODs, of course. The Flickr group ” Public Computer Errors ” has been around since 2005 and contains 1,500 images—but its remit extends far beyond the BSOD. More commonly, public BSODs are collected into humorous, one-off roundups . The new subreddit aims to be an ongoing archive of such material, however, and it has been skinned to resemble an old Windows display. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New subreddit chronicles the most public “blue screens of death”

Here’s How The 2016 Ford Focus RS’s Stall Recovery Feature Works

The new Ford Focus RS Comes with a Stall Recovery feature that will help you look like less of a jackass after you cut the engine out with the clutch pedal, but it won’t stop you from stalling. Here’s how it works. Read more…

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Here’s How The 2016 Ford Focus RS’s Stall Recovery Feature Works

5 Cities With Driverless Public Buses On The Streets Right Now

Last week it was announced that the US will be getting its first driverless bus fleet in a Bay Area office park as soon as next year. But say you can’t wait that long. You want to see the future now . So why not hitch a ride to one of these cities where you can ride in a public, autonomous vehicle in 2015. Read more…

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5 Cities With Driverless Public Buses On The Streets Right Now