The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

More news from that China hacking deal . Investigators have tracked the attacks that befell Google and other victims to two schools in China, one of which has ties to the Chinese military.

Read the rest here: 
Trying to track down those Chinese hackers

At what point do you consider something “unreasonable”? Let’s say you’re pulled over while speeding—do the police have the right to search your mobile phone

Read the original:
Should mobile phones be subject to warrantless police search?

Olympus isn’t new a new player in the megazoom game. The camera company’s megazoom line is older than some Jonas Brothers’ fans. And it shows

Read the original:
Here’s the Olympus SP-800UZ & SP-600UZ megazoom cams

UPS just dropped off this beauty courtesy of Seagate and I think its owner should be someone that will actually wear it. That’s not me. So who wants it

Read more: 
Who wants this Seagate T-Shirt?

You’ll recall that CrunchGear broke the news regarding the leak of Microsoft Cofee, a suite of applications used by law enforcement officials for their own devices. The leak came from a popular BitTorrent site, and then spread to The Pirate Bay and all over the Internet

See more here: 
Take-down notices going after Microsoft Cofee

Netherlands-based Startup Tom’s Planner is launching their dead-simple web-based project management and planning system lets users create and visualize an online planning schedule. The application is meant to be used by a broad spectrum of consumers, from project managers, event and wedding planners to busy soccer moms or personal assistants.

Tom’s Planner lets you create color-coded project plans and schedules, share them anyone in a team or groups, embed project schedules, and export to Microsoft Project. To help users get started, Tom’s Planner provides project planning templates for website designers, construction projects, event and wedding planners, vacation home rentals and personnel schedules. And users can save their projects to their hard drives instead of storing the file in the cloud.

The startup faces competition from Microsoft Project, LiquidPlanner, Primavera, and others. But the beauty of the application is that it’s simple to use, even for those users who aren’t particularly tech-savvy. And it’s free (for now). Tom’s Planner is offering a free, one-year account to all new users who sign up for the public beta launch by December 31.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

To paraphrase the great Joe Rogan, from last Saturday’s UFC 104, I don’t watch much TV, maybe the Discovery Channel here and there to see a documentary or two. I bring this up because I’ve been told to write about some TV show called “V,” and the beauty is that I have no idea what it’s about! My first thought was, “ V For Vendetta ? Oh, no?

Read more from the original source:
Video play-by-play: The first seven minutes of the new sci-fi TV show ‘V’

Fitness gadget Fitbit was a hit at last year’s TechCrunch50, where it created a ton of buzz and was a runner-up for the top prize. Of course, we all know that it takes hardware companies longer to launch than software startups and since last September, Fitbit has been working tirelessly to refine the product, establish distributions channels and tweak its online platform. Now we won’t have to wait any longer, since Fitbit will officially open up to the public on Tuesday. The site you see currently is the beta version and will feature a redesign as well on Tuesday.

So what does Fitbit do? The sleek little device clips onto your clothing and tracks your movement, sleep and calorie burn throughout the day and night. Fitbit, which costs $99, uses the information it gathers about your movement to help you determine how much exercise you’ve been getting and how many calories you’ve burnt. It can also tell you how many steps you have taken and how well you’ve slept, all based on its internal motion detector. By clicking a little button on the device, you’ll see a small blue LED screen that will alternate between the steps you’ve taken, the calories you’ve burned, your distance, and gives you a gauge of how high your activity level is. This is shown via a small flower that will grow as you exercise more (though I’m told that you will be able to switch your icon).

Here’s the really innovative part—the device is wireless so all data gets automatically synchronized to your computer and then the web through a wireless base station, so you don’t even have to plug it in. If you are within 10 feet of the device (it plugs into your computer via a USB cord), the station will sync with your device. In order for the wireless functionality to work you need to install a syncing software that runs on both Macs and PCs. Once synced, you can view your health dashboard online.

The dashboard is fairly simple and organized. You input your age, height, weight, and gender and are given basic info of how many steps you’ve made in a day and a breakdown of how active you are within the day, showing the highs and lows of your activity. The site will even break down particular activities and measure the intensity of workout. In terms of caloric burn and intake, Fitbit will calculate how many calories you burn in a given day, and if you log in your nutritional info, will also compare that to how much your intake was, making it ideal for anyone who wants to lose weight. And Fitbit has made it easy to input any type of food by already integrating the nutritional value of most types of food, cuisine and even restaurant chain foods, which cuts out a large amount of work for you.

One of the features that I find particularly compelling is the ability to monitor your sleep pattern. If you wear the device while sleeping, it will give you a snapshot of your “sleep health.” As you fall in and out of sleep, the Fitbit tracks the movements that your body makes and can tell you how long it took you to fall asleep, how many times you woke up throughout the night and the actual time you were asleep vs the time you were in bed. You will be able to see all of this detailed information on your dashboard. And to make sure that the device is comfortable for people to wear during the night, you can slide Fitbit onto a wristband that is provided.

Fitbit’s co-founder and CEO, James Park, told me that when it comes to running and walking, Fitbit is 99 percent accurate in its reporting of steps and 90 percent accurate for caloric burn. But Fitbit isn’t as accurate for other types of activities, like weight-lifting and biking. To mitigate this problem, the online dashboard lets you input exercise types and times manually and Fitbit will calculate how many calories you burned based on health information it has collected.

On Tuesday, the site will be open to the public and all of those individuals who pre-ordered the device over the past year will finally receive their Fitbit. While the site will be the only place you can order the Fitbit, Park says that in Q4 you’ll be able to buy the Fitbit online and in retail stores but declined to name which stores he’s partnered with. Fitbit raised a cool $2 million last October and Park says they are looking to raise more to up manufacturing and distribution channels.

Fitbit will also become more social, letting users form groups where they can compare their fitness goals and activities. The site will also take a page out of Mint.com’s book by letting you compare your activity and fitness with other anonymous people who have similar weight, height, and gender. While using the personalized dashboard is free, Fitbit will soon be rolling out premium paid features such as customized fitness coaching and guidance.

So what’s the competition? There are similar products on the market that offer the same functionality as Fitbit, such as the Philips Activity Monitor or the BodyBugg or Nike/iPod gear (which doesn’t measure sleep patterns). But the beauty of fitbit is in it’s pricing and in its sleek structure. It fits in any pocket and is so small and unobtrusive that it could be hooked into a bra. Both the Philips and BodyBugg products are bulky, making it difficult to wear 24-hours per day. The advantage of the BodyBugg is that it measures calories burn by heat, which is a more efficient and accurate way of measuring calorie burn. Fitbit counts calories via motion, but that’s also why it’s easy to wear.

I wasn’t at TechCrunch50 last year but after seeing a demo, I’m already excited about this product after being frustrated with the limitations of pedometers that I’ve used. The ability to wirelessly connect to the online dashboard takes a lot of the work out of actually making sense of the data. And being able to understand your optimal balance of diet, workouts and sleep is valuable. It seems that Fitbit was worth the wait.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Bandsintown, a platform for connecting live music fans to local live concerts and bands through personalized recommendations and notifications, is publicly releasing its API and launching an affiliate program which lets anyone share revenue from concert tickets sold on their sites.

Bandsintown, which was incubated at Launchbox Digital, basically aggregates concert ticket information from 62 separate ticket marketplaces (currently the site lists 200,000 concerts).

But the beauty of the startup is that they’ve exposed their API so that other music sites can integrate the concert listings. Bandsintown’s technology is compelling because it connects to music players like iTunes, last.fm, Pandora and other sites to learn a user’s music preferences, and then lets users track their favorite artists and receive alerts when there are events of interest near where they live.

The Bandsintown API lets people filter listings by by artist, location, date, and also recommends shows specific to a website’s or user’s musical tastes.

Now, Bandintown is creating further incentives for music sites to integrate its listings by launching the Affiliate Program. The revenue share is 50/50, so anyone who participates in the program will get half of whatever Bandsintown receives from its its third-party ticketing partners.

Hype Machine, TuneGenie, Pure Volume and Absolute Punk are music sites that are already using the Bandsintown API and participating in the affiliate program. Competitors to Bandsintown include Songkick, Last.fm, and Setlist.fm.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

As facial recognition and virtual try-on technologies continue to improve, there is an opportunity to use this innovation for the cosmetics industry. Last year, we reviewed Tazz, a virtual makeover site that lets you alter the makeup and hair of a photo of yourself (or a celeb like Angelina Jolie). This week, startup Daily Makeover is launching a new version of its similar product, Makeover Studio, which could make the online makeover process even more detailed and easy to use.

Makeover Studio, which can be used on Daily Makeover’s standalone site and is licensed to more than 60 beauty brands, including Avon and Mary Kay, and web media publishers, lets women upload a picture of themselves (or use a model’s picture) and then try on makeup and hair styles virtually. Women can try on specific brands of makeup in all different shades and styles. When a woman uploads the photo onto the platform, her face is instantly traced using facial recognition technology so that all the different application techniques such as a smoky eye shadow effect or a blush technique can be superimposed on her face in the correct area. Plus, women are able to try on different brands of products in each genre of makeup. So you could try a Dior blush and a Lancome blush and compare the looks on your face.

The new version of Makeover Studio (which will be released later this week) includes new rendering functionality, visualization technology and face-tracing capabilities. The latest version has also added a more expansive list of makeup finishes, including satin, matte, metallic, shimmer, stained, dewy, sheer, and glossy in an attempt to show the reality of the finish of the makeup on a woman’s skin. Makeover Studio has added an option for women to adjust the placement and coverage levels of foundations, concealers, lip colors, eye shadows, mascara, and blush. The detail that Makeover Studio offers to women is compelling. You can differentiate between a lengthening mascara and a thickening mascara or determine how glossy a lipgloss is compared to a lipstick.

Of course, makeup is a set of products that is difficult to buy (especially if the product is pricey) without seeing what it looks like on your face. Daily Makeover says that Makeover Studio’s technology can help bridge this gap in the online space for cosmetics, perhaps now allowing women to get the same trying-on opportunities they would find in a department or retail store for a cosmetics company. Currently on Tazz, you can purchase the cosmetics your “virtually” try on, which is unavailable on Daily Makeover’s site. But companies can brand the makeover application and let users email and publish their “makeovers” to social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace.

There’s no doubt that buying and trying on makeup online is certainly disruptive to the cosmetics industry. But I’m still a little skeptical as to whether the online experience is the same as trying on a product at the beauty counter. When you try on the product at a beauty counter, you see the technique of putting a particular eyeliner or blush on, which isn’t shown on the Makeover Studio. It’s unclear if masses of women will trust that the makeover technology using virtual tools, such as Makeover Studio, is as accurate as actually trying on makeup. That being said, if you can combine the experiences of trying on and learning how to use a cosmetic product into an e-commerce platform, this could closely resemble the experience at the beauty counter.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.