#Virtual reality comes into the store VENICE BEACH, Calif. elcome to this reality-a store where you can buy shoes, eyewear and coffee,
and also take a 360 degree immersive video trip to Peru. Shoppers at Toms flagship store here can don Samsung's Gear VR virtual reality goggles,
which are tapped into a Samsung phone in what believed to be one of the first consumer retail VR experiences.
Virtual reality is a huge buzzword in the Hollywood and gaming communities, as folks look to eye-popping photography directly to your eyes to as the next big thing,
and a way to get the mobile generation entranced. Facebook bought tech start-up Oculus, which works with Samsung on the Gear VR system, for $2 billion in 2014.
Toms specializes in one to one marketing--buy a products from Toms and it donates to people in need.
The top request from customers has always been to o on a giving trip, "says Toms founder Blake Mycoskie. ow, with VR,
and when they take the headset off, your whole world is now upside down. he cost for the project wasn cheap.
an analyst with Creative Strategies says VR will be acquired an taste for retailers until the price comes down. lot of major brands will look into it,
although Bajarin notes that Patron Tequila recently used VR to show its distillery in Mexico,
and cites a comment from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that VR will potentially be as disruptive as the smartphone.
Shoppers at the Toms flagship store here can don Samsung's Gear VR virtual reality goggles,
which are tapped into a Samsung phone in what believed to be one of the first consumer retail VR experiences.
Facebook bought tech start-up Oculus which works with Samsung on the Gear VR system, for $2 billion in 2014.
Toms specializes in one-to-one marketing. Buy a product from Toms and it donates to people in need.
and when they take the headset off, your whole world is now upside down. he cost for the project wasn cheap.
an analyst with Creative Strategies, says VR will be acquired an taste for retailers until the price comes down. lot of major brands will look into it,
although Bajarin notes that Patron Tequila recently used VR to show its distillery in Mexico,
and cites a comment from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that VR will potentially be as disruptive as the smartphone.
#NASA test-fires shuttle engine for SLS rocket A former space shuttle engine roared to life Thursday in Mississippi, billowing steam from a Mississippi stand during a nearly nine-minute test firing.
The test shown live on NASA TV was the third of four preparing upgraded shuttle engines to lift NASA Space Launch System exploration rocket,
The Aerojet Rocketdyne engine is equipped with a new controller, or rain, among its improvements. Shuttles flew with three reusable main engines positioned at the back of the orbiter,
Two stretched versions of shuttle solid rocket boosters also will help lift the SLS rocket early in flight, for at least the first two launches,
#Europe's top court rejects'Safe harbor'ruling Europe's top court on Tuesday ruled that a 15-year-old agreement allowing American companies to handle Europeans'data was invalid,
Facebook and Google operate overseas. The European Court of Justice examined the case of an Austrian citizen who claimed that his data,
in light of revelations by Edward Snowden that U s. agencies spied upon people in other nations,
wasn't being protected adequately by Facebook. No appeal is possible as the European Court of Justice is the equivalent of the U s. Supreme court. The ruling comes as European leaders
and Washington are negotiating a new agreement on data transfers across the Atlantic It also raises questions about how major U s. tech firms can continue to operate in Europe without breaking the law.
Under so-called Safe harbor rules, U s. firms are allowed to transfer personal data of European citizens back to the U s..They only have to follow one set of rules on how data they store
when users post on social media, search the web, buy items online and other activities. Companies use this information to direct ads
and promote products. Without the Safe harbor rules, in place since 2000, each country in the European union could potentially set is own privacy rules
and data protection landscape to make the EU the global center of gravity, "said Jim Koenig of Paul Hastings, a Washington, D c.-based law firm.
It could also force U s.-based businesses to make expensive infrastructure investments and build European data centers to process data previously transferred to the U s.,
said Fox Rothschild's Vernick. Larger U s. tech companies have set up procedures to transfer data beyond the Safe harbor framework.
Microsoft told its enterprise cloud customers on Tuesday that it believes they can continue to transfer data by relying on additional steps
and legal safeguards it put in place when it realized the court ruling was a possibility.
Laws in the European union view personal data privacy as a fundamental right. U s. laws consider it more an issue of consumer protection.
Today, more than 3, 000 businesses in the U s. and the EU depend on the agreement to avoid running afoul of European privacy laws, according to the Information technology and Innovation Foundation.
That could change because of the lawsuit brought last year against Facebook by Austrian law student and privacy advocate Max Schrems.
meant his data privacy rights were not being protected adequately. Schrems filed the case in Ireland, Facebook European headquarters.
The irish court rejected the suit and Schrems appealed to the European high court.""This decision is a major blow for U s. global surveillance that heavily relies on private partners.
"Schrems said in a statement posted on his Twitter account after Tuesday's ruling. In a statement, Facebook said Europe's Advocate General had been very clear the issue was not Facebook per se,
but the mechanisms that European law provides to enable essential transatlantic data flows. The company said it was imperative that the EU
and U s. governments ensure that reliable methods for lawful data transfers are provided to companies. In an opinion on Sept. 23
the European Court's Advocate General for the case, Yves Bot, had declared already the Safe harbor agreement invalid.
"once personal data is transferred to the United states, the National security agency and other United states security agencies such as the Federal bureau of investigation are able to access it in the course of a mass and indiscriminate surveillance and interception of such data."
"The U s. Mission to the European union issued a statement saying that"the United states does not
driven by an increasingly powerful mobile technology that is making portable VR a near-term possibility.
I donned an Oculus headset and grabbed two joysticks that, when held, became my hands.
Clicking a button on each flexed my virtual fingers and, in this computer-generated virtual clothes showroom,
I could choose from an in-the-air menu whether to peruse clothing, shoes, gift cards,
In the Oculus setup, a small black box from Sixense was attached to the top of the headset.
A custom, high-end computer drove the experience, which was also visible in left eye/right eye views on a high-def monitor.
Sixense, which has been providing a VR development platform for training and gaming since 2009, also offers a software development kit with creation tools that require little or no programming.
Sapientnitro brings experience design and software development to the party, plus interactive experience working with major retailers.
The companies also have a mobile Samsung Gear VR setup running, which uses the Galaxy Note 4 as the display in a set of goggles.
In that environment I encountered a different experience light sabers in a large hall doing battle with a ray-firing orb that was driven only by the Note 4. The companies join others,
including Oculusparent Facebook, in envisioning VR for shopping. That vision is still fluid for vretail,
as the companies are just now looking for retail partners. The idea is VR as a differentiator in physical stores,
and VR for remote shopping from home. Venturebeat is studying email marketing tools. Chime in, and wel share the data with you.
Physical stores have become the most exciting new dimension for digital marketing. Some retailers now wrap the Net around you with screens showing live streams of social posts
geofencing that offers just-what-I-need coupons, and data collection that optimizes customer flow in the store in a way similar to how Google analytics helps optimize visitor flow on a website.
On just a technology level, in store VR would seem to be the next step. But, I asked Sapientnitro VP of innovation Adrian Slobin,
what problem or need was this trying to solve? After all, if I in a store to shop, why do need
I another environment for shopping? The opportunity, he replied, could be putting customers into environments, even into stories,
where the store products are meant to be used. At an outdoor recreation retailer like REI, Slobin told me,
ou could don a VR headset and youe in the Andes setting up camp. Cooking a meal/dining with Jefferson While such experiences would create new meanings for rying it on it remains to be seen
if VR even a system with much greater verisimilitude than the exceptional computer-generated shopping experience
I had could ever meet the standard of experiencing a product in its intended environment.
Sixense has made a living in part by offering VR to developers for such experiential applications as learning to drive a crane
but there is arguably a big difference between learning how a machine operates via mediated VR the step-by-step processes and actually entering into an experience.
Similarly, VR gaming creates its own worlds, but do gamers ever feel the equivalence of actually camping in the Andes?
Sixense Rubin told me. very high-end smartphone sold from now on is a VR smartphone, he said, because of their very high resolution and processing power.
This extends the concept of Samsung pioneering Gear setup dramatically, especially since Rubin expects that wireless companies like AT&T could start offering free or inexpensive goggles as incentives for longer contracts.
In fact, Rubin said he expects there could be tens of millions of smartphone-equipped VR headsets out there in the U s. within the next few years.
If so, and assuming wireless speeds continue climbing, distributed VR becomes more of a near-term possibility. ou could shop in a unique store in Tokyo,
#Why Google Project Fi could be the beginning of the end for Verizon and AT&T Google made an exciting announcement Wednesday,
confirming plans to launch its own wireless service, Project Fi. The service will leverage existing Wi-fi networks
and switch to carrier networks (T-Mobile and Sprint) only when Wi-fi isn available. This approach to mobile communications is
what some are calling Wi-fi First. It an approach several companies are already pursuing, including Republic and Freedompop,
and my own company, Scratch Wireless. And Cablevision recently launched Freewheel provides a Wi-fi only service.
Google announcement is a great thing for the wireless industry the Wi-fi First industry and ultimately, a great thing for consumers.
Right now, with a cost of $10-20/GB for data in the U s.,traditional cell service is expensive (upwards of $140 per month, per subscriber),
and according to a 2013 study by Validas, smartphone users typically waste $28 each month on unused data.
But smartphone service doesn have to be so costly. According to Cisco, about half (46 percent) of total mobile data traffic was offloaded through Wi-fi in 2014,
and with the Wi-fi rollouts that are happening now that number could reach 90 percent. At $10/GB
if 90 percent of traffic went over Wi-fi instead of cellular, it could save consumers $700 billion each year.
Here where that hurts the AT&T and Verizons of the world: When implemented properly, a Wi-fi First model can relegate cellular networks to simply filling the gaps between hotspots.
A Wi-fi First model could save consumers literally trillions of dollars over the next decade if adopted in mass,
and Google is the company to pave the way (and do so quickly). Given its size and influence in the device space,
Google Project Fi could help accelerate the adoption of Wi-fi First through a couple of key moves.
The first is by requiring all Android devices to have Wi-fi First intelligence built in at the outset.
This would ensure that all phones use Wi-fi as the main communication method and only rely on cell service when absolutely necessary.
The second is Wi-fi connectivity. Wi-fi is nearly everywhere, but consumers don always take advantage of it in the capacity they could.
Google has the opportunity to speed up this adoption by creating standards and device requirements that would make Wi-fi connections more mainstream,
and a seamless, easy experience. So what does this mean for the big carriers? At the same time Google ushers in Wi-fi First to the masses, its wireless vision could fundamentally transform the role major carriers play in the market.
Let use Verizon as an example of a carrier that will be impacted. When you buy a phone through Google,
Google will manage the relationship with Verizon instead of you. When Wi-fi isn available, your device will automatically select which network it should connect to based on availability,
but similar to making calls while roaming, the device decides for you based on the network with the most availability that the least expensive.
Youe not tasked with deciding what network to connect to and there is little (if any) interaction between you and that cell brand.
Youe buying the phone from Google, youe paying Google, and youe calling Google support if you experience any issues.
If Google move means consumers now have billing relationships with only Google, Verizon brand (which the company spends more than a billion dollars promoting each year) is diminished.
This model commoditizes the wireless carriers while simultaneously putting downward pressure on their margins. As such, the Wi-fi First business model eliminates erizonfrom consumersvernacular,
the company influence over the subscriber is removed all but, and the $77 billion in gross profit it made in 2014 will also be a thing of the past.
It clear Wi-fi plays an integral role in the future of the industry. Based on Google track record,
if there is any player that can take down Verizon and AT&T, who have been upselling consumers on wireless service that isn efficient
or cost-effective for decades, it Google. And it only a matter of time before carriersrelevance to smartphone subscribers everywhere is diminished.
The end is near d
#Microsoft granted patent for glasses that detect wearer's emotions Put this one in the WTF file.
The United states Patent and Trademark Office granted Microsoft a patent today for a pair of glasses that can detect a wearer emotional response to what theye looking at.
In patent talk, the thing is called a wearable emotion detection and feedback system. If you are watching TV
and suddenly soccer comes on, your posture may change and you may smile. The system will be able to identify a change in your emotional state. uring interactions,
the device, recognizes emotional states in subjects by comparing detected sensor input against a database of human/primate gestures/expressions,
posture, and speech, the patent reads. eedback is provided to the wearer after interpretation of the sensor input.
Once the database determines the emotional response, various kinds of corresponding content can be pushed into the user view.
It can work the other way, too. If the wearer is looking at a person through the glasses,
the emotional state of that person can be detected, either by their posture or facial expression. So if the wearer is giving a speech,
say, and the glasses detect that audience members look bored, the specs my suggest a joke for the speaker to insert into the speech
#Stratos starts shipping its all-in-one smart credit card Today, Stratos announced it has begun shipping its smart credit card to those who preordered it.
The announcement comes just after competitor Coin has started to ship its connected card. Though Coin was the first to ship,
it encountered delays along the way and is already fielding issues with its card. Of course, Coin isn the only competition in town.
The connected-card arena features a slew of alternatives from players like Plastc, Dynamic, and Swyp.
Stratos will also have to contend with digital wallets like Google Wallet Apple Passbook, and Paypal,
which increasingly have a physical presence. Stratos enables you to compile all your credit cards on a single Bluetooth connected credit card that links up to a mobile app.
To select a card, tap your Stratos card to your mobile phone screen twice to see options appear
while your phone is locked still. The idea is connected that one credit card is easier to manage and safer than a wallet full of credit cards.
Stratos doesn display credit card numbers and you can remotely lock your card in the event that you ever lose it.
The company raised $5. 8 million back in October 2014 in order to fuel production c
#EU annual scorecard paints bleak picture of innovation efforts across Europe Whatever Europe plans to do to reboot its innovation economy,
it better do it fast. According to the latest EU Innovation Scorecard released today, the European commission found that he number of innovative firms is in declineacross a continent hungry for job growth and an economic boost.
The problem runs across the board as Europe is suffering a drop in atent applications, exports of high-tech products, venture capital investments and sales of innovative products, according to the report.
The brightest spot remains Sweden, which the report ranks as Europe most innovative country. n the overall ranking,
Sweden is once more the innovation leader, followed by Denmark, Finland and Germany, the report says. he fastest growing innovators are Malta, Latvia and Bulgaria, Ireland, the UK and Poland.
The release of the scorecard comes one day after the EC formally proposed plans to create a Digital Single Market.
The set of 16 reforms would create a more unified set of rules governing digital goods
and services in the EU 28 member states in part to give homegrown tech companies a boost. he European commission has agreed now its strategy for this ambitious project,
said Andus Ansip, EC vice president for the Digital Single Market in a speech at the European Business Summit in Brussels today. t will not only resolve some urgent short-term problems
but also prepare Europe for a bright digital future. Getting rid of years of national legal differences around the EU to create an open accessible digital environment, with no restrictions or discrimination:
that will not happen overnight. Too bad, because based on the scorecard, Europe needs help now. The EU uses 25 different indicators such as patents, venture capital,
and exports to measure and rank countries along an innovation index. In the latest report, it placed each country into one of four categories:*
*Innovation Leaders: Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Sweden.**Strong Innovators: Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovenia, and the United kingdom.*
*Moderate Innovators (considered below EU averages: Croatia, Cyprus, Czech republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain.*
#Samsung will debut new round Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch in Berlin early next month Samsung teased its new round smartwatch, the Samsung Gear S2, at its press event
The watch, until now, had been known as the Samsung Gear A. The new watch will probably not run on Android Wear,
but rather run Samsung own Tizen operating system. The time is nigh for smartwatch makers to come up with some kind of answer to the Apple Watch.
Samsung said at a Tizen developers event July 30 that the new device would feature a rotating bezel for navigating watch content and controlling watch functions.
The bezel may be used for some of the same functions managed by the digital crown on the Apple Watch,
The rumor mill says the new Tizen watch will ship with an Exynos 3472 dual-core chip, a 360 x 360 pixel display resolution, 768mb of RAM, 4gb of storage,
and a 250mah battery. Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy Note 5 phablet and the plus-sized Galaxy S6 Edge Plus at the press event Thursday n
#Google Alphabet: Where the brand vision? This week, Google grew up. Taking many in the business world by surprise,
the tech giant restructured itself under a new holding company, Alphabet. The shake-up means many of the oonshotprojects Google picked up over the years have been spun off into separate and independent companies,
while Google retains the most profitable side: search and advertising. To many, Alphabet will make a lot of sense.
Google had started to seem like a mega-conglomerate that was too powerful for its own good
and this will help change that. But there is a problem. Google is an exciting and innovative brand.
The company has spawned belief statements learned by heart by brand strategists and copied by businesses across the world.
Its motto, on be evil, is probably one of the world most recognized. But the language around the Alphabet launch struck a different chord.
more accountable and more management scalemakes Google sound more like a financial services firm than the innovative tech company we know and love.
and work to make sure each business is executing well. This may be sensible stuff, but brand strategists certainly won want to memorize it.
Finally, Google vision, or the way it sees its position in the world, has always been core to its brand,
but what is the vision for Alphabet, and what does the new company actually stand for?
and increased Google market cap by $20 billion overnight, but how will Google employees, some of the brightest,
most creative people in the world, react to this new, corporate focus? After all, these are the same software engineers who are encouraged to design their own desks
and express themselves by scribbling on walls. People work for Google because it exciting, but the messaging wee heard this week has been anything but.
Although the Alphabet announcement plays well to the markets, I concerned that the move indicates a shift from innovation and creativity to the bottom line.
So, while Alphabet is a great name and could be a brilliant way of bringing order to Google complexity,
the language surrounding the announcement also hints at new limitations, the sort of convention that restricts less original companies.
Alphabet must still include the spirit of Google brand values within the new company and concede less to the financial markets
if it is succeed to. I, for one, hope it does. Peter Knapp is Global Creative Officer at brand consulting
#Hackers dump data from cheating website Ashley Madison online: reports (Reuters) Hackers have followed through on a threat to release online a huge cache of data,
including customer information, that was stolen a month ago from cheating spouses website Ashleymadison. com, several tech websites reported on Tuesday.
Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the posting. The data was posted onto the dark web,
meaning it is only accessible using a specialized browser, although lists of email addresses have sprouted
since up on other sites. A group calling itself Impact Team had leaked snippets of the compromised data in July
and threatened to publish names and salacious details about clients unless Ashley Madison and Establishedmen. com,
another site owned by Toronto-based parent company Avid Life Media, were taken down. Tech website Wired said 9. 7 gigabytes of data was posted,
and appeared to include member account and credit card details. vid Life Media has failed to take down Ashley Madison and Established Men,
Wired quoted Impact Team as saying in a statement accompanying the online dump. e have explained the fraud, deceit,
and stupidity of ALM (Avid Life Media) and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data,
the hackers said, according to Wired. Avid Life, which uses the slogan ife is short. have did an affair not immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment s
#Google becomes part of a new company, Alphabet Google chief executive Larry page on Monday announced that the tech giant is undergoing a major restructuring
and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of a new conglomerate known as Alphabet. The move, Page said,
will allow Google to focus more on its core products, including its search engine, while Alphabet manages a variety of different businesses,
including driverless cars and drones.""What is Alphabet?""Page wrote.""Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies.
The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is slimmed a bit down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead."
"Other companies within Alphabet will include Calico and Life sciences, the parts of Google that focus on health products.
Page said the company's X lab, which focuses on moon-shot projects such as Google's drone delivery service,
also will be part of Alphabet, as will its investment arms, Ventures and Capital. The move comes as Google struggles to maintain focus as its portfolio grows
and its interests spread across various industries. That sprawl has attracted recently criticism from investors, who wondered whether the company could remain innovative with so many distractions.
Page will be chief executive of Alphabet while Google cofounder Sergey Brin will become president. Sundar Pichai, who is Google's senior vice president of Android,
Chrome and Apps, will become Google's chief executive. Page said, "Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity
and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights."
"The company's two classes of shares will continue to trade on the Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG,
he said. So what stays a part of the core Google business? According to the company's Securities and exchange commission filing, the main Google business will include"search, ads, maps, apps, Youtube and Android,
"as well as the technical infrastructure for those departments. Most of the top Google executives will become Alphabet executives,
the filing said. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Chief Financial officer Ruth Porat and chief legal officer David Drummond will take up corresponding positions within Alphabet.
Porat will also remain the CFO of Google. Google, one of the few companies to actually become a verb, hardly needs introduction.
The firm was started by Larry page and Sergey Brin in 1997 after the two met as students at Stanford university.
Before Google, the two worked together on a search engine called Backrub, which they operated on the servers at Stanford for more than a year.
The pair registered the domain name"Google. com"on Sept. 17,1998, with the mission to organize all of the world's information.
The company went public in 2004. It is worth $443. 9 billion and handles an estimated 67 percent of the country's desktop searches and 83 percent of its mobile searches, according to Comscore.
Internationally, Netmarketshare puts Google's global desktop search share at 70 percent. While the company has held always search at its core
it has expanded into several different areas. Investors and analysts have criticized Google in recent years for spending so much on these"side projects
"and have called repeatedly on Page to streamline Google's purpose. Google shares were up more than 5 percent in after-hours trading on the news, at $665. 99 per share. p
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