You Can Play Tetris On This Steampunk Bracelet

Keven Bates, the creator of the Arduboy programmable business card, has taken his upcoming project and stuffed it into the coolest bracelet you’ll see all week. The wearable, made of copper and exposed circuitry (do not get it wet, naturally) can play Tetris on a tiny LCD screen. You move the blocks by tapping the sides of the bracelet and it scrolls the falling parts across multiple screens, from top to bottom. It even keeps score.

The bracelet is currently a prototype but Bates is planning on adding some 3D-printed parts to make it look actually wearable ensure you don’t get shocked. The bracelet actually contains a tiny computer that runs the game and is completely programmable. Angry Birds on your wrist, anyone?

via Giz

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Garmin Announces A New Running Watch, The Super Smart Forerunner 920XT

Running watches can either be dead simple – see Timex’s Ironman line – or complex. Garmin usually errs on the side of complex. Their latest running watch, the 920XT, will be available before the holiday and promises enough bells and training whistles to help you go from couch to (probably not) a 100 miler in a few weeks.

The new Forerunner looks similar to the previous models – large screen, big body, comfortable strap – but is waterproof and allows you to track bicycle rides and pool laps. It also connects to your cellphone allowing you to pick up reminders, text messages, and notifications right on your watch. It also includes WiFi so you can upload stats directly without a cable. The watch costs $449 without a heart rate monitor and $499 with.

Some features include:

The Forerunner 920XT’s sleek design is 15 percent lighter and 18 percent thinner than its predecessor, and features flexible, hinged watch bands for a more comfortable fit. Its high-resolution color display features a watch mode, and daily activity tracking features including steps, distance, calories, countdown to a personalized daily goal, audible move alert after one hour of inactivity, and sleep tracking. It also keeps users connected with smart notifications of incoming text, email, call, calendar reminders and more when in range of a paired Bluetooth device.

I’ve been running with Garmin for years – the Fenix 2 is my current favorite – and it’s been fascinating to see the evolution of these pieces from the hotel-soap-sized 305 to is bright and beastly watch. We’ll have a hands-on test over the next few weeks but until then you can check it out here.

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Windows 10 Technical Preview is now available for download

As promised, Microsoft today launched the Windows Insider Program, giving those interested an opportunity to try out Windows 10. You can download the Technical Preview now from here.

The process is straightforward:

1. Sign up for the Windows Insider Program.


2. Read the system requirements.


3. one of the Download links on this page to download a special file—it’s called an ISO file—that you can use to install the preview.


4. When the download is complete, transfer the ISO file to installation media such as a DVD or USB flash drive.


5. Double-tap or double-click setup.exe from the installation media, and then follow the steps.

Like with any technology preview, especially an operating system, please don’t use this on any of your productivity computers. There will be bugs and things will break.

As you can see below, the Technical Preview is available in US English, UK English, Simplified Chinese, and Brazilian Portuguese. Both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors are available, meaning there are eight downloads up for grabs.

For those wondering, the system requirements for the preview are in line with those for Windows 8:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster.


• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit).


• Free hard disk space: 16 GB.


• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver.


• A Microsoft account and Internet access.

Microsoft does warn, however, that “some PC processors and hardware configurations aren’t supported” and “a small number of older, 64-bit CPUs might be blocked from installing the preview.” The preview also won’t work on devices running Windows RT 8.1 or Windows N.

There are also some issues worth knowing right off the bat. You won’t be able to play DVDs using Windows Media Player and Windows 8 Pro with Media Center users should know that installation will remove Windows Media Center.

Microsoft announced Windows 10 yesterday during an event aimed at enterprises. This preview is thus meant for enterprise and power users, so keep that in mind if you’re considering downloading.

The company plans to host more Windows 10 events: early next year it will talk about consumer features, and in April 2015, during its Build conference, it will share more details with developers. If you’re not a business user, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t join the Windows Insider Program, but you should set your expectations accordingly.

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Video Discovery App Showyou Launches A Platform For Subscription VOD Channels

Over the past several years, Showyou has been in the business of helping users find interesting videos that might appeal to them. Now it’s preparing to flip its model just a little, with the introduction of a new way for content owners to find viewers and get paid for their videos with the launch of a subscription channel store.

This isn’t the first time Showyou has put some effort behind the concept of channels. Last summer, it announced that partners could create channels of videos that they could then place advertising against. Those channels included the ability to set custom backgrounds, featured images, and the like.

But monetization didn’t take off. The idea was that ads would run as interstitials in between a channel’s videos. Still, for ad revenue to matter, you need a high number of viewers to really pay off. Selling videos — and selling access to them — can be a little bit easier, however.

For Showyou’s newest channel initiative, the company is providing a way for content owners to build channels and set up Netflix-like subscription video-on-demand services around them. Once again, content owners will be able to customize their channels, but this time they’ll be able to upload videos directly into the Showyou system and create playlists that can allow users to watch videos in a “lean back” experience.

Along with the platform for creating channels, Showyou is releasing a Channel Store for users to find and subscribe to. Users will be able to pay for channels on a month-to-month or yearly basis, giving them access to all the on-demand videos in those channels for as long as they would like.

Content owners are able to set their own prices for subscriptions, of which Showyou takes a 20 percent cut of all sales. Once subscribed, users will also be able to browse all the various videos within those channels, and channel owners will be able to add their videos to different genres or groups to help users discover some they’d like to watch.

The first two partners for Showyou’s channel store initiative are Indieflix and Above Average. Indieflix is sort of like Netflix for independent films, with access to more than 5,000 titles of movies produced by indie film makers. Meanwhile, Above Average is an online comedy network from the production company behind Saturday Night Live that produces a number of comedy series for the web.

Those channels are coming first to Showyou’s web and iOS apps, and will be added to its other apps over time. Showyou’s hoping to benefit from the use of AirPlay and Chromecast support to enable users to send videos directly to a TV from their mobile device. It’s also available on Amazon’s Fire TV and is looking to expand to other TV-connected devices over time.

By doing so, the company is hoping to provide content owners with an alternative distribution platform for their videos, and one that doesn’t require them to try to make money through advertising or be a part of a cable or other bundle of channels. Users pay only for access to the content they want, and can quit at any time.

Showyou Channels could end up serving as a new revenue stream for YouTube video producers who are looking for ways to make money beyond the platform’s existing ad-based system. Already, some multichannel networks are working on their own off-YouTube distribution platforms, but Showyou could offer a way for them to create first-look subscription channels or offer behind-the-scenes footage for shows that get added to their YouTube channels.

Ultimately, though, it will depend on how many users actually show up to purchase those channels. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the online video ecosystem, it’s that distribution and monetization aren’t as easy as “If you build it, they will come.”

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Thanks To A Partnership With Gimbal, Urban Airship’s Push Notifications Get Smarter About Location

Push notification company Urban Airship is announcing a partnership with Gimbal, the beacon technology company that spun out of Qualcomm earlier this year.

The end result, according to Urban Airship CMO Brent Hieggelke (who answered my questions via email), is a more precise approach to targeting promotional push notifications, one that uses Gimbal’s proximity beacons as well as Apple’s iBeacons.

“Gimbal brings the most precise, real-time location and proximity data to trigger messages within Urban Airship’s targeting engine, which adds segmentation attributes and conditional automation rules to ensure the most relevant and responsive messaging possible,” Hieggelke said.

Now we get a lot of pitches for marketing campaigns that use iBeacons and geofencing, but Urban Airship and Gimbal seem to have enlisted some big, high-profile events as clients, including the US Open, South by Southwest, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Cannes Lions advertising event. For example, the US Open (for those of who aren’t sports fans — it’s a big deal in tennis, okay?) combined a geofence for the Tri-State area, 20 on-site beacons, and Urban Airship’s data about in-app behavior to send targeted notifications for things like last-minute ticket offerings and sponsor messages.

Hieggelke said other businesses that could take advantage of the partnership include retailers who want send messages to in-store customers that are targeted to their interests, and hotels that send customer satisfaction surveys to people who leave the geofenced area.

(I guess I should note that Urban Airship recently saw the departure of its CEO following allegations of sexual assault.)

Anyway, the two companies will be talking about their partnership in a webinar on Oct 29.

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Houzz Raises $165M Series D Funding Round Led By Sequoia To Fuel International Expansion

Houzz, the fast-growing home-remodeling site, today announced that it has raised a $165 million Series D round led by Sequoia Capital, one of its early backers. Existing investors Oren Zeev, New Enterprise Associates, GGV Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers also participated in this massive round, as well as new investors DST Global and T. Rowe Price.

As Houzz co-founder and CEO Adi Tatarko told me earlier this week, the plan is to use this new injection of funding to accelerate the company’s global expansion plans. Houzz, which launched in 2009, already has already opened offices in Berlin, London and — most recently — Sydney. “Houzz is really meant to be a global platform,” Tatarko told me. More than a third of the company’s now 25 million monthly unique users already come from outside the U.S., she told me.

As part of today’s news, the company also announced the beta launch of its newest revenue channel, the Houzz Marketplace, which will allow users to directly buy some of the product they see when they browse the site. The service currently features over one million products from a large variety of sellers. As Tatarko told me, many businesses actually came to the company to participate in this — and some of them didn’t even have an online presence before this.

“But most importantly, we did this because our users really wanted this,” she noted. “They wanted to be able to complete everything on Houzz.” This is a marketplace, so while Houzz handles the payment in the background, fulfillment and customer service are handled by the sellers.

In addition, the company is also using this moment to announce its redesign, which already started rolling out to some users over the last few days. The idea here is to simplify the experience and create a better flow between the three parts of the site: inspiration, finding pros and the marketplace. The redesign also features improved search with better filters, as well as new ways for its users — and especially professionals — to personalize their profiles.

As for the funding round, Tatarko noted that she sees it as a huge vote of confidence in the company. “They saw that Houzz became the ultimate leader in its industry in the U.S. and wanted to support our initiative to bring it to the rest of the world, too,” she said.

Sequoia partner and Houzz board member Alfred Lin echoed this sentiment. “It’s rare for a company to be able to achieve this level of hyper-growth and establish such a substantial business with three different revenue streams,” he said. “We’re thrilled to invest again and to continue to help the team disrupt a massive global industry.”

The company didn’t disclose its valuation, but according to documents that disclosed at least some of this round earlier this year, the company was raising at a post-money valuation of over $2.3 billion.

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Estate Assist Wants To Provide Estate Planning For The Social Media Age

Contemplating the end of life freaks me out and as such, I’ve never put together a will. But then I’m young, healthy and I don’t own much so I can’t say I’ve felt the need to. Most Americans don’t actually. Over half of adults with kids don’t plan their estate, according to a 2012 Rocket Lawyer survey.

But who lets Facebook or your other social media profiles and online services know you’re dead? Only one state, Delaware, has a law that allows family members access to online profiles after someone dies. The problem with that is companies like Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter all have different policies for handling online information after someone’s passing. Add on the high expense of hiring a lawyer to deal with this and it may not seem worth it to most people.

Woody Levin watched his family, a family full of lawyers, scramble to find his grandmother’s assets and info right after she had passed. He started thinking about his own life and the kinds of digital assets millenials will leave behind. That gave him the idea to create a digital safety deposit box for all assets, both online and off.

His company, Estate Assist, launches out of beta today. It’s aim is to help you store all your online passwords, social media accounts, digital health records, bank info and other paperwork. This is different from other companies offering online estate assistance. Much of this is actually a paid service involving a law firm and does not include online stored access to accounts.

The site works by informing whichever loved ones you choose that the account exists. It will release information about all your accounts and digital paperwork as soon as this person can verify you’ve passed. This part seemed like a potential security issue. I asked Levin if a family member could potentially access your financial or other information by tricking the system into believing you’ve passed. Levin was confident that would not happen, however. He says most security breaches on sites are actually POS attacks like the ones at Target or Home Depot. He also informed me Estate Assist uses bank level security methods and has built-in ID protection. Estate Safe Plus also includes identity theft protection and identity restoration.

The site goes beyond just information storage to act as an online bank box as well with its Estate Safe product. This makes it a bit different than just saving passwords and social media info on Dropbox or Google Docs. People store and access financial and other key info in the cloud such as financial assets or important life documents like birth certificates but are also able to find real time financial info. Estate Assist has a partnership with Intuit and hooks into the Intuit API to aggregate your financial and other data so that it is updated in real time. This, Levin informs me, should make it easier to locate bills and other things that need to be shut off in case of death.

Levin bootstrapped the business with funds from previously successful exits. He founded gaming company BringIt, which was acquired by International Gaming Technology in 2012 and NFL advertising company InStadium (those ads you see in the bathrooms at sports stadiums were his idea). He has also kicked off the launch of this new venture with some key partnerships. PerkSpot will offer Estate Assist to its 1.2 million employees as a preferred benefit option. WeWork has also provided each one of their 15,000 members with their own Estate Safe. Additional partners include over 4 million military and first responder members of ID.me, and Optima, which is offering Estate Assist as a paid benefit for employees.

IMAGE BY Flickr USER Jason Howie



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