“iBeacon is not…

“iBeacon is not a hardware play. It’s actually a way to distribute software to create the first API layer for the physical world. And here’s the magical part: it’s completely free of charge from a power perspective. Beacons use effectively zero power themselves, and soon will last forever. But even more importantly, scanning for beacons at the OS level also uses zero power. Think about that for a second: with iBeacon, Apple made a way for your phone to constantly ‘see’ signs (i.e. scan for BLE signals), all the time even when on standby, without using any power at all. This is truly a remarkable breakthrough for location technologies. Beacon IDs are all individually unique (as unique as IP addresses). So in actuality, beacons can be thought of as place URLs for the real world.”

http://stevecheney.com/on-the-new-edge-network-and-the-future-of-local-commerce/#fn2-997

Raise money instantly, from anyone, anywhere, right now.

“… Finally, a fourth interesting use case [of Bitcoin] is public payments. This idea first came to my attention in a news article a few months ago. A random spectator at a televised sports event held up a placard with a QR code and the text “Send me Bitcoin!” He received $25,000 in Bitcoin in the first 24 hours, all from people he had never met. This was the first time in history that you could see someone holding up a sign, in person or on TV or in a photo, and then send them money with two clicks on your smartphone: take the photo of the QR code on the sign, and click to send the money.

Think about the implications for protest movements. Today protesters want to get on TV so people learn about their cause. Tomorrow they’ll want to get on TV because that’s how they’ll raise money, by literally holding up signs that let people anywhere in the world who sympathize with them send them money on the spot. Bitcoin is a financial technology dream come true for even the most hardened anticapitalist political organizer.”

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/

KitKat Android and Google’s vision for mobile.

“KitKat is Android’s biggest step yet into what Google believes is the future of mobile: ambient information, tied tightly to the company’s intelligent cloud services, available on cheap and powerful devices.”

Sums it up nicely.

 

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/5063490/android-4-4-kit-kat-review