Cloudquays

Cloudquays ... a bunch of keys for people and brands with a digital presence in the cloud.

[cloudquays]

4 Wearables That Give You Superpowers

Fast Company - Mark Rolston used to be CCO at Frog Design. Now he runs his new consultancy, Argodesign. And as part of our Wearables Week, his firm generated a series of concepts based upon our simple mandate: No watches.

What Argodesign presented in response was “a provocation”--four wearable concepts that would not just track your heartbeat or put your email on your wrist, but give you what Rolston calls “superpowers.” Read more >>

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Light Field Photography May Eventually Replace DSLRs

The Next Web - On July 31, photographers will finally be able to wrap their hands around the Lytro Illum, the world’s first pro-level light field camera. Unlike the DSLRs that everyone is now used to, the Illum lets you create what Lytro calls “living pictures,” derived from the camera’s sensor and lens, specialized software and 3D graphics. Together, these create a novel, immersive visual experience. Read more >>

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Jibo The Robot Could Be The Face of the Internet of Things

Gigaom - The technology in our homes takes on a wide array of jobs: playing music, turning lights on and off and brewing coffee. One of the promises of the internet of things is that all of them could one day communicate, creating smarter homes that anticipate and meet our needs with minimal effort.

There are already systems for bringing connected devices into one central control center, but most of them resemble the remote controls we have used for years to manage our TVs and stereos. Siri has a voice, but does little to convince us that it is more than a computer talking. Read more >>

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Google Inks a Deal With Novartis to Make Smart Contact Lenses

Mashable - Google’s "smart contact lens" just went from patents to partners.

The Google X project is now officially in lock step with healthcare giant Novartis, the parent of Alcon, which produces some of the most-widely used contact lens products on the market, including Air Optix, FreshLook and Dailies. Novartis will work on turning Google's lab project into smart contact lenses for people around the world. A product of Google Research, the smart lenses look like traditional contact lenses. Read more >>

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Amazon's all-you-can-read Kindle Unlimited is now Official

The Verge - The service that a few Amazon users spotted making a premature appearance a couple of days ago is today official: Amazon's Kindle Unlimited is a $9.99 subscription that provides access to over 600,000 ebooks and "thousands" of Audible audiobooks. Read more >>

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Free Spotify for Times Digital subsribers in the UK

The Next Web - Almost four years after The Times and Sunday Times went behind a paywall, the UK-based publication is hooking up with Spotify to offer one year’s free Premium subscription to the music-streaming service.

Spotify says it’s the first such partnership it has entered with a media owner anywhere in the world, though it has in fact forged similar partnerships with mobile and broadband providers before. The latest offer will be available to both new and existing subscribers who sign-up to a year-long Times and Sunday Times’ Digital pack, which costs £6 per week, or the Ultimate Pack for £8 per week. Read more >>

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Can Prem Watsa, Canada's Warren Buffett, Save BlackBerry?

The Verge - Prem Watsa, the Indian-born billionaire whose Fairfax Financial made a bid to buy BlackBerry today, has acquired a sort of legendary status. It began with the rags-to-riches tale of a young student who turned his back on chemical engineering school, eventually becoming one of Canada's wealthiest investors. It grew when in 2007, he correctly predicted that the subprime mortgage market would collapse. And it reached a peak with his bold bet on the ailing Bank of Ireland, a move that paid off handsomely. Read more >>

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True Responsive Email Design Finally Made Possible

The Next Web - You’ve probably heard about how important responsive design is when building websites, but it’s even more important for email.

Email is such a personal medium that tailoring your marketing message to the recipient’s screen size can be vital for making an impact. According to research by Google, 82% of mobile users check their email on mobile devices, while a GetResponse survey shows that 42% of subscribers delete emails that don’t display correctly on mobile phones.

Email marketing software company GetResponse recently became first to market with the ability to create truly responsive emails. Read more >>

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SteamOS Will Bring PC Gaming to the Living Room

Valve, which runs the successful gaming marketplace Steam, announced a Linux-based operating system called SteamOS on Monday, which lets you stream Windows and Mac video games from your computer to a TV.

Steam OS will be offered as a free standalone operating system "soon" and is a part of Steam's larger effort to extend the PC gaming experience to the living room. Major game developers are already signed on and will run on SteamOS starting in 2014, the company said. Find out more on Mashable >>

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Free Download: The Essential PowerPoint Template for Killer SlideShare Presentations

HubSpot - Designing a PowerPoint from scratch isn’t ideal for most marketers. Though some of us may have some flair for design, it can be pretty daunting to create an engaging, interactive SlideShare presentation from start to finish.

To make sure you’re set up for SlideShare success, follow the steps in this free template. We’ll help you figure out the slide design elements, then combine them in different layouts, and then take care of some SlideShare-specific technical skills. Download it here >>

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Flipboard Brings Its Mobile Magazines To The Web

TechCrunch - Flipboard started on mobile devices, but the magazine app is moving to the web today with the launch of a new site. Its 75 million registered users will be getting access to its superior formatting and curation features for articles, photos and video on their desktops and laptops.

But why the web? Find out >>

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Instagram Hotel Features Selfies and Digital Murals

Mashable - If you live and breathe Instagram, you have to check out the month-old 1888 Hotel in Sydney, Australia. The name is an homage to 1888, the year Kodak launched the first box and roll camera — but it's anything but retro.

When you walk into the boutique hotel, you're greeted by a revolving digital mural of Instagram images, and a selfie space to snap a photo of yourself as you check in. More than 100 guest-shot Instagram photos adorn the five-story space's 90 rooms. Check out the hotel on Instagram under the #1888Hotel hashtag to see what we're talking about. See more >>

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The API-Economy is Coming and Fast

VentureBeat - In little more than a decade, application programming interfaces (APIs) have transitioned from relative obscurity to become the “digital glue” that empowers developers to create new software applications, partnerships and even new businesses. This business-to-developer (B2D) market is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing opportunities within cloud computing, and one we’re particularly excited about at Bessemer Venture Partners. Read more >>

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The Best Photo Apps for Keeping Your Memories in the Cloud

The Verge - The internet was always supposed to give us a hassle-free way to store and manage our stuff — but in practice, even storing photos and videos has remained a massive headache. Just as services like Apple’s Photo Stream have popularized the power of cloud storage, they have also revealed its limitations. Huge RAW image sizes, duplicate photos, 1080p videos, and years of library database bloat were all good reasons to just leave the photos sitting on your hard drive — and pray the drive didn’t stop working before you backed it all up. Read more >>

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Google Explains How Project Loon Smart Balloons ‘flock’ to Deliver Consistent Internet Coverage

The Next Web - Google launched one its most ambitious project to date when it unveiled Project Loon, its long-term project to provide balloon-powered Internet across the world, in June.

Loon is one of the Internet giant’s potentially world-changing efforts since it could bring millions of people in remote places online for the first time, but many have wondered how the floating, mesh-like network could deliver stable Internet coverage when taking into account factors like wind. Read more >>

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Toward a More Public Social Network: Facebook Rolls Out Embedded Posts

All Things D - The world’s premier social network is beginning to learn the value of publicness. Facebook announced on Wednesday that it will roll out embedded posts, giving users the ability to stick their status updates in pages across the Web, and outside of Facebook. Read more >>

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Can Two-Factor Authentication Keep Your Company's Data Safe?

Mashable - The idea behind two-factor authentication is that in addition to your regular password, users need to provide an additional bit of information when logging into a service or application. This information is usually a one-time password that is generated either using a mobile app or a physical device such as the YubiKey. Sometimes, those one-time passwords are sent via text message to a user's mobile phone. Read more >>