Wireless electricity? It's here

A world without wires

Katie Hall was shocked the second she saw it: a light-bulb glowing in middle of a room with no wires attached.

Looking back, it was a crude experiment, she remembers: a tiny room filled with gigantic cooper refrigerator coils -- the kind you'd see if you cracked open the back of your freezer.

She walked in and out between the coils and the bulb -- and still the bulb glowed.

"I said: 'Let's work on this. This is the future.'"

What's the trick?

"We're going to transfer power without any kind of wires," says Dr Hall, now Chief Technology Officer at WiTricity -- a start-up developing wireless "resonance" technology.

"But, we're not actually putting electricity in the air. What we're doing is putting a magnetic field in the air."

It works like this: WiTricity build a "Source Resonator" -- a coil of electrical wire that generates a magnetic field when power is attached.

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If another coil is brought close, an electrical charge can be generated in it. No wires required.

"When you bring a device into that magnetic field, it induces a current in the device, and by that you're able to transfer power," explains Dr Hall.

And like that, the bulb lights up.

Wireless homes

Don't worry about getting zapped: Hall assures that the magnetic fields used to transfer energy are "perfectly safe" -- in fact, they are the same kind of fields used in Wi-Fi routers.

In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet.

If all goes to WiTricity's plans, smartphones will charge in your pocket as you wander around, televisions will flicker with no wires attached, and electric cars will refuel while sitting on the driveway.

WiTricity have already demonstrated their ability to power laptops, cell-phones, and TVs by attaching resonator coils to batteries -- and an electric car refueller is reportedly in the works.

Hall sees a bright future for the family without wires:

"We just don't think about it anymore: I'm going to drive my car home and I'm never going to have to go to the gas station and I'm never going to have to plug it in.

"I can't even imagine how things will change when we live like that."

World outside

Beyond these effort-saving applications, Hall sees more revolutionary steps.

When Hall first saw the wireless bulb, she immediately thought of medical technology -- seeing that devices transplanted beneath the skin could be charged non-intrusively.

WiTricity is now working with a medical company to recharge a left-ventricular assist device -- "a heart-pump essentially."

The technology opens the door to any number of mobile electronic devices which have so far been held back by limited battery lives.

"The idea of eliminating cables would allow us to re-design things in ways that we haven't yet thought of, that's just going to make our devices and everything that we interact with, that much more efficient, more practical and maybe even give brand new functionality."]

What's next?

The challenge now is increasing the distance that power can be transferred efficiently. This distance -- Hall explains -- is linked to the size of the coil, and WiTricity wants to perfect the same long-distance transfers to today's small-scale devices.

For this reason, the team have high hopes for their new creation: AA-sized wirelessly rechargeable batteries.

For Hall, the applications are endless: "I always say kids will say: 'Why is it called wireless?'"

"The kids that are growing up in a couple of years will never have to plug anything in again to charge it."

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Amazing Auctions Let You Buy iPads and Other Electronics for Under $40

Few things match the thrill of getting an incredible deal on an item we really crave. It’s a basic human response that we all can relate to.

That’s why auctions are so much fun – they present the titillating chance of scoring something for a lot less than we would expect. And that leaves us feeling great, because we now have the object of our desire and we have money left in our pocket.

Marketers know this and exploit it all the time –hence the profusion of sales, discounts, coupons, and the like… so much so, in fact, that we become numb to the tactic. People just don’t believe they’re really getting a bargain.

But now there’s a new online company that has actually figured out a way to sell new must-have consumer products for jaw-dropping prices.

It’s called QuiBids – and it turns out that they are selling everything from the latest new Apple iPads and iPods, to MAC and PC notebooks, to HDTV’s and gift cards from the top retailers at prices as low as 5% of regular retail prices.

Now, of course, anyone in their right mind would be skeptical of such a claim – so we looked into it to learn just how they do it.

It turns out that both the prices and the products are real.QuiBids runs a unique version of the traditional auction - when you bid on an item you actually get charged a small fee of about 60 cents. Collectively, the amount collected for all of the bids on an item allows the company to sell the item at a price far below actual retail and even below the wholesale price they paid the manufacturer for it.

Figuring out how many bids to place and when to place them involves a little strategy but on QuiBids it’s actually a lot of fun. Each auction has a strict time limit and when you place your bid, the system adds a little time to the auction to see if any other bids come in. If you have the winning bid when the clock runs out – you win the item for that price. According to QuiBids CEO Matt Beckham, “Thousands of people are trying QuiBids every day – and then coming back again and again - so we must be doing something right.”

For the auction winner, the true cost of the item is slightly higher than their winning bid price because they have also spent a little for their bids, but this amount is usually modest, and the savings still work out to be spectacular in most cases.

And then there’s the “Buy Now” feature. This allows bidders who did not win an auction to still buy the product they want and apply the cost of the bids they placed as a discount on the regular product price. So, you still get the item and the bids you placed previously in the auction don’t cost you anything.

So, if you want real deals - like a new iPad for under $34, a new Nikon Digital SLR Camera for less than $24 or a new 46” LED HDTV for under $25 – check out the action at QuiBids.

Click here to see what’s for sale right now on QuiBids and just how low it’s going for.

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Meet the robotic guitarist with 78 fingers and coolest cable hair you've ever seen

Meet "Z-Machines," the three piece robot band bringing a whole new meaning to electronic music.

Z-Machines.

 

Quick math question: What has 78 fingers, 22 arms, and no brain?

Answer: "Z-Machines," the robot band with a surprisingly human sound.

Listen to this three-piece with your eyes closed and it could be any group of musicians plucking a guitar, twinkling on an electric keyboard, or beating a drum.

Sure, there's a synthesized quality to the music -- which sweeps from orchestral to experimental rock -- but what band doesn't get a little help from computers these days?

Open your eyes and you'll find something very different indeed.

For starters, the guitarist is a humanoid looming two-meters-tall, with 78 fingers sweeping across the glowing instrument strapped to its torso.

The rocking robot -- called March -- bangs its impressive mane of multi-colored cables in time to the music, albeit a little jerkily.

Seated a little behind is Ashura, the drummer with 22 arms extending like a futuristic octopus and playing four times faster than any human ever could.

And then there's Cosmo, perhaps the most alien band member of all, a keyboardist with green lasers hitting each key with pinpoint accuracy.

Can these robots play music that is emotionally engaging?
Tom Jenkins

"The footage of the robot performer is almost like watching a broken human, with a skeleton of steel, and oil for blood," said Tom Jenkinson, better known as British recording artist Squarepusher, who composed the music for the mechanical band's new EP.

"Using robots has this eerie narrative associated with it -- the twilight area between human and machine. It's just a box of tricks, but it still haunts us because we see it as an impression of ourselves."

Big in Japan

Created by engineers at the University of Tokyo, the robot band uses around 300 kilowatts of electricity, which designer Kenjiro Matsuo admitted: "Is a big amount of power."

"We just bought a power board which has a switch -- many people can try to make this kind of robot in their house now."

Visitors at a technology fair in Tokyo test out the giant guitarist.

Getty Images

The machine musicians made their stage debut at a "Future Party" in Tokyo last year, performing an electro-rock mash-up for the screaming crowd.

Girls in space-age outfits gyrated around guitarist March, whose screen face flashed slogans like "Party!"

Each time the audience raised their drinks in the air, the band would play faster, in an event sponsored by the drinks company.

It's almost like watching a broken human, with a skeleton of steel, and oil for blood
Tom Jenkins

Soul music?

Now the machine musicians are set to release a five-track album, with the first single "Sad Robot Goes Funny," a more melancholy tune than you might expect from a band without hearts.

"Can these robots play music that is emotionally engaging?' asked Jenkinson, who composed the song and has experimented with electronic music in a career spanning two decades.

"It's a fascinating question, and one that I've tried to explore in this project. I'll let people make up their own minds."

So how do you create music for a machine with 78 fingers, which can hit a note every eight milliseconds?

"It's just another way of making sound, but in this case what's interesting is the aesthetics of the instrument," said Jenkinson.

Are you ready to rock? Z-Machines in action.s

"Just like when you're writing music for a human, there are certain possibilities and certain limits. The robot guitarist for example, can play much faster than a human ever could, but there is no amplification control."

Electronic evolution

If you imagine that this is the start of a robot revolution, never fear, we've still got a fair way to go before people tire of flesh and blood performers, said Jenkins.

"Is the performance going to be less compelling because it's robots?" he asked.

"For me, part of the appeal has to do with hearing a familiar instrument being 'played' in an unfamiliar fashion."

And behind every robot musician, is a human being bringing it to life.

 

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Is this our first glimpse of iOS 8 Or just an imposter?

We've been hearing a few whispers about iOS 8 recently, but now we've got something to actually feast our eyes on.

The screenshot above was posted on a Weibo account, claiming to be of iOS 8, and 9to5Mac says it has confirmed its legitimacy "with several sources".

As you can see, the rumoured Healthbook app is sitting on the top right, while Preview and TextEdit are also present.

iSpy

According to "sources in the know" Apple is optimising versions of Preview and TextEdit for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, which would explain their appearance here.

These versions will reportedly be made for the purpose of viewing files that are synced to iCloud by OS X, but not editing.

If this picture is real, Apple clearly still has work to do on the icons, as Preview and TextEdit are just copies of their Mac counterparts right now.

The same Weibo user also posted a picture allegedly of the settings screen, which shows the version of iOS to be 8.0.

As convinced as 9to5Mac is that these pictures are the real deal, it would be very easy for someone to knock out a photoshop job like this in no time at all, so we'll remain a tad cautious.
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Best cloud services compared: Google vs Microsoft vs Amazon vs Apple vs Dropbox

Email, storage, synchronization, mobile apps and more
Cloud services compared
It's amazing how quickly things change. A few short years ago cloud computing - getting everything from software to songs and soap operas from faraway servers - was just a buzzword, but now everybody's at it.
We're tuning into Netflix for the final episodes of Breaking Bad, catching up on Luther via iPlayer and streaming music via Spotify - and increasingly, we're using the cloud to store our stuff too.
Cloud computing isn't a new concept - it's been around since the 1960s - but its rise was limited by one crucial factor: connectivity. Storing everything in the cloud is a great idea, but it's not much cop if your connection isn't up to scratch or if you can't get online at all.
Compare cloud services: Dropbox | Microsoft SkyDrive | Google Drive | Apple iCloud | Amazon Cloud Drive
Thankfully for most of us the days of dial-up modems and crappy GPRS mobile connections are long gone, and our connections are fast enough and reliable enough to make the cloud part of our everyday lives.
It happens so often we're barely aware of it. Uploading smartphone snaps to your photo stream, to Facebook or to Flickr? You're using the cloud. Checking webmail? Cloud. Twitter? Cloud. Getting ebooks for your Kindle? Cloud.
Daily operation
It's quite possible to do all your everyday computing in the cloud, and there's even specialist hardware to do it: Google's ultra-cheap Chromebooks, which the firm describe as "a new model of computing", run an operating system that's little more than a web browser.
With cloud computing all the important stuff happens online, and that means cloud computing's as happy on a titchy tablet or a smartphone as it is on a traditional desktop or laptop PC.
That represents a massive change in the way we use our devices. Our data used to be stuck on a single machine, our music, games and music only playable if we had the discs handy. Now, our data and media is accessible everywhere.
We used to buy software that was tied to a single computer. Now, we can work or play from anywhere there's an internet connection.
We used to need high-powered hardware to get the most from software. Now, the speed we need isn't in the processor, but in the link between us and our ISP.
Easy does it
The big benefit of that is convenience. Take Netflix, for example: its cloud-based media streaming goes wherever you go, so you can watch a programme or film on your PC, on your tablet, on a Smart TV or via a cloud-connected Blu-Ray or DVD player, or on your phone.
You can create a document in Google Drive on a PC or Mac (or Chromebook) and access it from any other computer, or via a smartphone or tablet app. You can save a document to Dropbox and access it from anywhere.
The future of computing is clearly cloud-y, and the giants of tech haven't been slow to notice. Google was an early adopter, of course, but Amazon was quick to spot the potential too - and today its cloud services power everything from Amazon's own music and movie streaming to banks' online offerings.
Microsoft uses the cloud for online entertainment and the mighty Microsoft Office, and Apple has iCloud for its Macs and iOS machines. The most recent survey by Strategy Analytics reports that 27% of US consumers have used iCloud, 17% Dropbox, 25% Amazon Cloud Drive and 10% Google Drive; smaller players such as Samsung and LG, who offer their own cloud services, account for two to three percent each.
However, more than half of those surveyed had never used any kind of cloud storage service, and that means there's a huge market that's still wide open.
The Strategy Analytics report had another interesting statistic to share: 90% of Apple, Amazon and Google cloud users store music - and even Dropbox, which isn't marketed as a music service, is used for music by 45% of its users. As SA director of digital media Ed Barton said: "Music is currently the key battleground in the war for cloud domination."
Should you keep your music in iTunes, or embrace Amazon? Would your world domination plans be best stored on SkyDrive, or whatever its new name will be (it's just been sued by Rupert Murdoch over the "Sky" bit), in iCloud or Google Drive?
What's best for your family photos and memories of your big nights out? Can a single cloud provider cater for your every need? Let's find out.
Cloud services compared: Google
As you'd expect from the creator of the Chromebook, Google is taking a "100% web" approach to everything it does. Those aren't our words; they're from Robert Whiteside, head of Google Enterprise UK, Ireland and Benelux, and he told us that Google's uptime is 99.948 percent: that means just seven minutes of downtime per month.
Google has spent a lot of time refining its many cloud services, and there have been a few changes - so for example Google Docs has been rolled into the wider Google Drive service. Drive has three price plans: free, which gives you 15GB of total storage; $4.99 per month for 100GB; and $9.99 per month for 200GB.
That storage is shared across three Google properties, Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos, but it's only used for certain things: the documents, presentations or spreadsheets you build in Google Drive don't use any of your storage capacity, and neither do photos in Google+ if they're smaller than 2048x2048 pixels.
Google also offers a version of Drive for business users, Google Apps for Business, which starts at £3.30 per user per month plus taxes. That provides 30GB of storage, guaranteed uptime (99.9%) and you can upgrade the storage to as much as 16TB.
Getting collaborative
Google Drive is designed to do two things: create and share documents, and share files. By default you can create a new document, presentation, spreadsheet, form or drawing, and you can also connect third-party apps to add features such as note taking, mind mapping, diagramming and even interior design.
Files you store on Drive can be accessed from phones and tablets with the Google Drive apps, and there are also desktop apps for PC and Mac that can automatically synchronise files between your computer and your Drive.
Google's own apps aren't as comprehensive as, say, Microsoft Office, but they aren't supposed to be: they're fast, easy to use and make commenting and collaborating effortless, and if you team them up with Google Mail and Google Calendar you're covered for most everyday business tasks.
That's work taken care of. What about play? Google Play is the entertainment arm of Google's cloud offerings, and it has five types of content: Android apps, movies and TV programmes, music, books and magazines.
The movies section offers both purchases and rentals, and the music section enables you to upload your own library as well as listen to songs you've purchased from Google. You get enough room for 20,000 songs, and music you buy from Play isn't included in your total.
Google Music Standard is free, and you can add Spotify-style streaming music with Google Music All Access. That's £9.99 per month or £7.99 if you sign up before the 15th of September.
Google's cloud computers
We've already mentioned Google's Chromebooks, which are designed as thin clients for Google's many online services. Sergey Brin called them a "new model of computing", but are they ready for prime time?
Forrester Research says yes, especially for business users: speaking to business IT decision makers in the UK, Canada, France, Germany and the US, 28% of respondents said they were interested in Chromebooks.
The attraction is their simplicity: according to Forrester analyst JP Gownder, where deploying Windows PCs "requires time and effort from infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals... Chromebooks require very little imaging; pilot users say any given device can be configured for a new user in under 15 minutes."
Low overheads, coupled with Chromebooks' ultra-low cost and their suitability for mobile working, mean they're ideal business machines - unless you're doing business in China, where Gmail and Google Apps don't work.
Cloud services compared: Apple
The late Steve Jobs promised that "we're going to demote the PC and the Mac to just being devices. We're going to move your hub, the centre of your digital life, into the cloud."
He was talking about iCloud, which would provide easy access to your documents, important information and iTunes library, and which Apple no doubt hoped would erase the memory of its former cloud service, MobileMe.
The media side of iCloud works very well indeed across Mac and iOS devices: you can buy a song on iTunes on the desktop and it'll magically appear on your iPhone or iPad, and if you've bought a movie or TV show on one device your Apple TV knows about it and knows where you left off. You can store your entire iTunes library in the cloud and stream it too, but unlike rivals such as Google Play Music the Apple version isn't free: iTunes Match, as it's called, is £21.99 per year.
From later this year there will also be a Spotify-style music streaming service for music you don't own, iTunes Radio, and if you're an iTunes Match subscriber your experience will be ad-free.
Down to business
What about documents and data? iCloud gives you 5GB of storage (purchases don't count towards that total, and neither do the photos you share via iCloud's Photo Stream service), with additional storage weighing in at $20 per year for 10GB, $40 for 20GB and $100 per year for 50GB.
iCloud will sync your calendar, contacts and email between devices, can be used to save web pages for later reading and, if your chosen apps support it, it can be used to sync files too. Apple's own Keynote, Pages and Numbers support Documents in the Cloud, as do Garageband, Preview and TextEdit, but many Mac users prefer the more fully featured and more widely supported Dropbox.
iCloud is about to be revamped: when iOS 7 ships later this year there will be new photo sharing features enabling friends and family to add content or comments to your photo and video streams, and iCloud Keychain will create passwords and securely store credit card and account logins for you. There will also be new, web-based versions of Apple's iWork apps, which are already available to iCloud users as public betas.
If iCloud sounds less ambitious than Google's cloud offering, that's because it is: Apple and Google are approaching the cloud from very different perspectives.
Google wants everybody to use its cloud offerings so it can sell ads, but Apple wants to use its cloud offerings to sell hardware. As a result its focus is much narrower, and it's not particularly interested in doing great things on non-Apple devices.
Cloud services compared: Microsoft
Microsoft's been doing the cloud computing thing for decades: Hotmail (later Windows Live Hotmail, and now Outlook.com) was one of the first web-based email services, and Microsoft bought it back in 1997 when nobody really knew what cloud computing was. Its Azure platform powers many big businesses, and Xbox Live brought all kinds of entertainment to the Xbox.
When Google Docs first appeared, Microsoft didn't see it as a threat, but that belief has clearly changed: today, Microsoft offers a range of cloud-connected Office services including the online Office Web Apps (free for home and school users) and the subscription-based Office 365.
Like Google, Microsoft has been revising its various cloud offerings, so for example its Live Mesh file syncing service was retired earlier this year. File synchronisation is now handled by the soon-to-be-renamed SkyDrive.
Office on the go
SkyDrive is rather similar to Google Drive: you can use it to share and synchronise files between different devices, and you can create Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, OneNote notebooks and Excel surveys inside your browser. You get 7GB of storage, with additional space charged at £16 per year for 50GB and £32 per year for 100GB.
SkyDrive apps are available for Windows Vista onwards, for the Mac, for Windows Phone, Android and iOS, and like Google Drive there are also third-party apps that can use SkyDrive for synchronisation. Examples include sketching apps, document scanners, PDF managers, notepad apps and document signing apps.
When it comes to entertainment in the cloud, Microsoft's track record has been patchy: its MSN Music was relatively unsuccessful rival to Apple's iTunes and was shut down in 2006, and its next attempt was tied to the supposed iPod-killing Zune music player. Just to keep things nice and confusing, the latest incarnation is called Xbox Music even though it isn't limited to the Xbox.
Xbox Music works across multiple platforms: the web, Windows 8 and Windows RT, Windows Phone 8 and the Xbox 360. It's a Spotify-style streaming service with offline access, and it costs £8.99 per month or £89.90 for a year (plus the cost of an Xbox Live Gold account if you want to use the Xbox Music Pass on your games console).
There's also a companion service, Xbox Video, which offers movie rentals and purchases and which once again works on PCs and tablets (Windows 8 and Windows RT only) as well as on the Xbox. Unlike rivals there's no ebook service: Microsoft's e-reading offering, Reader, was canned in 2011.
Cloud services compared: Amazon
Amazon isn't just the world's biggest retailer. It's one of the world's biggest cloud services providers, and its servers power some of the internet's favourite services.
In 2011 it decided to join the consumer cloud party too, and since then it's quietly added some very useful cloud-based features. The most recent example is Amazon's AutoRip, which automatically adds MP3 versions of CD or vinyl records you've bought to your cloud music player - and which checks through your purchase history to AutoRip CDs and records you've bought in the past.
AutoRip isn't perfect - it can only rip the records it has the digital rights for, so don't be entirely surprised if your prized 1977 punk rock B-sides collections aren't covered. But it's still a clever and appealing feature, enabling you to stream music you can't remember you bought or just listen to new purchases before the postman delivers the CD.
As CEO Jeff Bezos put it: "What would you say if you bought CDs, vinyl or even cassettes from a company 14 years ago, and then 14 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those albums… and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free?"
The centrepiece of Amazon's consumer cloud services is Cloud Drive, which offers 5GB of free storage and comes with desktop (PC and Mac), iOS and Android apps. If 5GB is insufficient you can add additional storage, with plans available from 20GB (£6 per year) to 1,000GB (£320 per year).
On stream
You also get Cloud Player, Amazon's online music streamer, which you can access via the web or via iOS and Android apps. The free version is limited to 250 songs, with the option to have up to 250,000 songs for £21.99 per year.
In the US Amazon additionally offers Prime, a mixed bag of benefits that costs $79 per year and offers unlimited Kindle ebook lending as well as access to Amazon's Instant Video service. Non-US customers don't get the video option: while Amazon owns the streaming video and DVD service LoveFilm, it currently keeps it at arm's length. Amazon also has an App Store for Android - not just the customised Android that powers its Kindle Fire devices, but ordinary Android too.
Cloud services compared: Dropbox.
Steve Jobs famously tried to buy Dropbox, but the nine-digit offer was rejected. Jobs then dismissed the whole thing - "He said we were a feature, not a product", recalls Dropbox's Drew Houston - and decided to stomp the fledgling service into the ground.
But, despite Apple's best efforts, Dropbox isn't letting itself be stomped: last month its user numbers reached 175 million, and the firm has supplemented its file and folder APIs with data APIs, enabling mobile app developers to share data as well as files over the service.
That's important because, unlike some rivals, Dropbox is multi-platform. You can install it That's important because, unlike some rivals, Dropbox is multi-platform. You can install it on a Mac or a PC, on a BlackBerry.
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Trends from the world's biggest mobile show

Mobile World Congress spans the full spectrum of untethered gadgetry, from the next generation of mobile phone networks to wireless charging technology.


But it's always the consumer technology that's the star. We asked Stuff Magazine Editor-in-Chief Will Findlater to analyze the top trends from the show.

Trend 1: Getting the whole world connnected

Mark Zuckerberg used his keynote address to wax lyrical about Internet.org, "a global partnership dedicated to making internet access available to the two-thirds of the world not yet connected."

By striking deals with telecommunications companies in emerging markets, Internet.org plans to get basic web services - weather reports, Wikipedia, messaging and Facebook (naturally,) to people at no cost, in the hope that it will inspire them to explore the rest of the web and reap the benefits that it can provide. And there was plenty of hardware at MWC that should help along the way.

Given the deep relationship with Microsoft, many were surprised to see Nokia's mobile division adopt Android for its new devices, but Android is a platform more suited to the emerging markets at which these three devices are aimed. The X series lacks superstar specifications but do feature dual SIM slots, expandable memory and swappable cases, all of which Nokia's Windows Phone devices lack, and all of which it says the developing world wants.

Mozilla's Firefox OS might not be making huge waves in the developed world, but it could be the platform that helps spread smartphone use through emerging markets.

Key could be the Flame, a handset that costs next to nothing yet features all the traits of a smartphone: Firefox OS, a dual-core processor, 3G, Wi-Fi and a 4.5in touchscreen. It can run a selection of HTML5 apps and will cost just U.S. $25.

Mozilla suggests that people think of the Flame as a more powerful feature phone than a full-on smartphone, but as Firefox OS expands there will be access to more and more apps.
Trend 2: Wellness and wearables
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Mobile World Congress: Who's wearing wearable tech?

Samsung have launched their Gear Fit at the Mobile World Congress 2014
It's not just smartphones on show at the world's biggest mobile technology event in Barcelona.
If you can wear it, fit a battery in it and connect it to the internet, the chances are you'll find it here.
Fitness bands are everywhere, big manufacturers are pushing smart watches despite slow sales and there is a lot of experimental technology on display.
We found some people embracing the trend and asked them about their favourite wearable tech.
Wiebe Elsinga - Fitbit Flex and Google Glass
"I think it's going to be the future. The consumption of information is more important for us on a day to day basis.
"Wearing glass gives me more information and wearing the wrist band gives me a more relaxing way of knowing whether I'm healthy.
"At the end of the day I unplug. As a consumer money is a really important factor, it's the responsibility of the manufacturer to give us low prices on these devices."
Sebastian Cocsis - Sony Smartwatch

"I like my smartwatch because I like to see my notifications and messages on this because it's small and I have a big phone.
"During school I can't use my phone so the watch is a good product for me. It's waterproof, I go in the sea with it no problem.
"I think that smart watches are the future now - they are beautiful and very useful."
Alex Saltwater - Nike Fuelband

"It tracks my movement, counts calories and steps and can sync wirelessly to my mobile app.
"It's a nice reminder, I look at it every day and from time to time it gives me a goal and I can share it to my social network so it's fun to use as well.
"I think it just has to find how it can be useful in people's lives.
"As the price comes down and people feel like it gives them some value, I think wearable technology will become more common."
Johannes Lundberg - Mirama smart glass operating system

"Our goal is to replace the smartphone with smart glasses. So whatever you can do with your smart phone and more, that's our goal.
"This is our prototype. Our unique feature is that it's gesture controlled. You use your hands to interact with virtual objects.
"They are big now, but the technology is accelerating in this field so within a couple of years it'll be much smaller and much.
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Protesters using peer-to-peer messaging app

(CNN) - From Kiev to Caracas, protesters are taking their indignation to a walkie-talkie app, but some may be running into government roadblocks.

Zello allows smartphone users to send short voice messages from person to person or to a limited group of people. Some Ukrainians and Venezuelans have been using the app to organize their protests.

Broadcasting a message to the world on social networks like Twitter is not always ideal for many people in chaotic situations. Apps like Zello and WhatsApp facilitate private, peer-to-peer digital messaging.

Facebook's $19 billion plan to purchase WhatsApp underscores the need that more than 450 million users have to send messages that aren't broadcast for everyone to see.

Zello, which was founded in Russia and is now based in Texas, has been one of the most downloaded apps in Ukraine and Venezuela, but late last week, Venezuelans began complaining that the app stopped working inside the country -- just one of the many apps and social networks that Venezuelans say have been blocked over the past weeks since protests began.

Alexey Gavrilov, Zello's chief technology officer, confirmed to CNN that the app was blocked for users of CANTV, Venezuela's state-owned Internet service. This leads Zello to believe the Venezuelan government is behind the digital blockade. CNN has asked the Venezuelan government for comment, but no official has returned calls about the matter.

Gavrilov has begun changing the Zello app's coding so it can evade the Venezuelan roadblocks.

"We just released an update to the Android application which changes the IP addresses and makes it much harder to block them, and we also submitted updates for iOS and BlackBerry," he told CNN. "So people with Android can already use Zello again in Venezuela."

Zello is waiting for Apple and BlackBerry to approve the updated version of the app for those smartphone platforms.

Venezuelans also report that pictures and videos have been blocked on Twitter inside the country.
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Enjoy Your Favourite Books Anywhere

Reading Any Book Anywhere
Is it just me or is does the world seem like a lot busier place? We seem to be rushing around a lot more, seeing more places and trying new things. With advances in travel and technology we can get to places a lot quicker and we can be much more active with our lives. This is all fantastic but with all this moving around we are missing out on some of the simpler things in life. I found that there is sometimes nothing better than taking some time out of my busy day and enjoy reading a really good book.

As we move around more and more I found it a lot harder to carry around the books I want to read. I used to find that when I was getting ready for work my briefcase would be filled up and I'd have no room to take a book with me. Then there are times when I forget to take it with me or I wished I had brought another book with me.


In recent years eReaders have made it a lot easier for us to read on the move and take our whole libraries with us in one easy portable device. The only trouble is they aren't cheap and can you afford to buy yourself another piece of technology? Thankfully this problem has now been solved with the explosion in popularity of smart phones and tablets. Now you no longer need to buy a separate device just for reading books you can simply download an app onto your phone or tablet and suddenly you can read on the go for no extra cost.
The Kobo App
The app we recommend is the Kobo eBook app. This is a free eBook app that you can download onto your mobile or tablet. This means you can now read on your android mobile or tablet anywhere and at anytime. Now when I am on the train to work I can read anyone of my books without having to carry around any of them with me.

Kobo has a library of over 4 million free or affordable titles for you to choose from. Generally you will find eBooks are cheaper than their hardback or paperback equivalents so you will often find you are saving money on your purchases. Most books will be downloaded in seconds so you can purchase and download books in seconds. So when you hear a recommendation of a good book you can be reading it in seconds. The background, look and even the font sizes can be customised making the whole reading experience a lot more enjoyable.

So now in this non-stop world when you want to take a break and enjoy your favourite book you can simply pull your phone out of your pocket and you can be reading in seconds.
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How the UK are Getting the iPad 4 and Other Tech for Free

UK Evening News tells you how to get the latest products for free
At UK Evening News we have been reviewing the newest and best tech products for a long time now. Over this time our inbox has seen a recurring theme; how can we get these products at a price we can afford. Aware that our aim is to educate the world on the top technology products our Editor decided we needed to answer this question for the masses. So UK Evening News broke out our best Sherlock Holmes hat and magnifying glass and started to investigate.

We have reviewed plenty of fantastic products like the Samsung Galaxy 4 and the Apple iPad and we always factor in the value for money a product offers. A lot of the best new products are expensive for a reason; they are fantastic creations and are expensive to produce. So whilst we would all like the best products at low prices we didn't hold out much hope of finding them. Well it turns out we were very wrong. We didn't just find them at a low price, we found them for free at Product Testing.
Becoming a Product Tester
Product Testing is a site that selects product testers from their members and sends them some of the best and latest tech products and all you have to do in return is write a review of the product for the site. Yes we know what you are thinking "surely this is too good to be true". Well actually it turns out it is true. So how can Product Testing afford to send you these great products for free?
Product Testing are paid by manufactures for access to the reviews their testers write them. This kind of user feedback is vital to companies like Apple and Samsung and they not only aid with improvements for existing products they also help shape the design of future products. This is a rare win-win-win situation where you get to keep fantastic free products, Product Testing earns their money so they can buy more products to send out and the manufacturers gain vital market research.
The user reviews sit proudly on Product Testing and they are full of happy members who have been chosen to be product testers. You can see that Product Testing have given away Galaxy S4's, iPad's, Kindle Fire's, iPods and so much more. One look at the front page and you can see that they offer opportunities to test and keep great products like 3D TV's, MacBook Air's and some of the latest tablets.
Easy to Join
To join Product Testing you have to complete a lifestyle survey, it is important to answer this truthfully otherwise you may invalid your application to be a product tester. Then if you are a successful applicant you will be sent your chosen product to review and then keep.
UK Evening News set out to find out a way to get the latest new products we review for a low price. We were not expecting to have much luck and we were totally shocked and very impressed when we found that Product Testing was giving them away for free.
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Protect Your Mobile And Save Money

Protecting Your Mobile From Accidents
As a nation we love technology and gadgets and in particular we love our mobile phones. We will stand in queues for hours (some of us for days even!) to get the latest models. We spend money on accessories and nifty little add-ons for our phones. In the UK over 40 million of us have a mobile phone and a large number of us couldn't live without our mobile.

So what do you do if your phone breaks or gets damaged. Well you have to buy a new one and that means you are looking at spending upwards of £300 for the latest must have phones. So how do we go about that stopping this from happening? A lot of people buy cases for their phones but this will only stop superficial damage to your phone. What if you could get comprehensive mobile phone insurance for less than you are paying for your cases? Well thanks to Protect Your Bubble you can.


When you purchase your phone you are often offered insurance by the phone provider. This is overpriced and doesn't actually offer much cover. Protect Your Bubble can offer you insurance deals for as low as £1.49 per month. Your phone will be covered for accidental and liquid damage, theft and loss of the phone. When you consider the cost of a new phone £1.50 a month is an absolute steal. Protect Your Bubble offer a range of insurance policies so you can find the best way to protect your mobile for a low price. It is not just mobiles that you can insurance as well. They will cover tablets, laptops, cameras and more. You can also get a single policy that covers all your gadgets. On top of all this they are offering a new Family Gadget Insurance where the whole family can be covered by one policy. You have probably seen tennis legend John McEnroe on your television promoting it.

The Peace of Mind From Being Covered
UK Evening News has been regularly contacted by many of our readers telling us what a great service Protect Your Bubble offers. Tanya Lee is a student at University of Kent in Canterbury. She had spent 2 years saving up to get a new iPhone and on a night out she thought she had lost it. "The feeling I had when I couldn't find my phone was horrible. I felt sick to my stomach, it cost me so much money and I love it, the thought of losing it was terrible. Luckily I found it but the next day I went straight to Protect Your Bubble and got my phone covered. Now on a night out I can relax and not be worrying about my phone." John Sanders took out a policy with Protect Your Bubble as soon as he brought his new android phone and quickly saw the value in it. "I am forever damaging and losing my phone but I have to have the latest phone going. I've wasted so much money on buying new phones so I got this one covered. Two months later I had dropped it down the toilet and ruined it. I was covered so this time it was not a £300 mistake. Protect Your Bubble is the best."

It is quick and easy to find and sign up to the policy that is best for you and the low cost means that should your phone meet an accident or gets stolen or lost you have the peace of mind to know it is covered. In the long term you will be saving hundreds of pounds.
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