Category: Tech news

Nokia’s Lumia 2520 tablet will set you back $500 if you want to buy it flat out. AT&T is more than happy to sell you one at that price. Pick it up with a wireless contract, and AT&T will knock $100 off that sticker.

But pick up a Lumia 925, 1020, or 1520 at the same time, and the price of the Lumia 2520 drops to $200. That’s an incredible decline in cost. I confirmed with AT&T that the phone itself would be subsidized, but subject “to a second agreement,” or contract, so the deal only works if you are ready to pony up for two devices and requisite plans.

So, for the sum of $300 ($100 for the Lumia 925, $200 for the Lumia 2520), you can buy into the larger Windows ecosystem of Windows 8.x and Windows Phone. Why would Nokia do this? You can’t really view Nokia’s hardware choices as independent anymore, but for kicks, the reasons would be simple: Device volume is key to the health of the Windows (et al. form factors) platform. This means that Nokia does more than help its short-term revenue when it moves devices, it sets up its future by supporting the platform that it needs to stand upon.

But Nokia’s hardware division is now all but part of Microsoft’s hardware business, making the above all the more muddled in the best possible way. Let’s do this in pieces:

1. Nokia lashes its tablet and smartphone hardware together, using carrier subsidies for consumers to bear the brunt of its margin pressure, to sell more units and help launch it into new hardware categories.
2. Windows and Windows Phone benefit from larger unit volume, which brings more users, more downloads, and thus more developer satisfaction.
3. Developers then in theory build more applications, which leads to happier customers, and therefore more customers, creating a virtuous loop.
4. Microsoft buys Nokia’s hardware business, which it wants in order to sell more smartphones.
5. Its new smartphone business is being used to sell tablets that compete with its own Surface line of devices.

So that’s fun, but the real issue here is that Microsoft (Nokia) has compiled a hardware package that it can presumably vend not at a loss that brings consumers onto its platforms (platform, depending on how precise you want to be), in twos instead of ones.

This is only a good for Microsoft if the Lumia 2520 is worth a damn. Early prognostications appear to be in its favor, though I can’t see why I’d prefer one to a Surface 2. But that doesn’t matter; Microsoft merely wants more RT devices sold, period. And that’s why the later points I think don’t matter to Microsoft: In the Game of Platforms, you either win or you become BlackBerry.

So to Microsoft, shaving Surface revenue in the short-term to bolster the somewhat tenuous Windows RT piece of the Windows empire probably makes sense.

Stepping back, moving units is Microsoft’s current problem, which is of course part of the same app problem that we endlessly discuss. The two are directly entertained. And Windows is bigger than Surface, meaning that it takes precedence.

Can Nokia (Microsoft) keep the deal up and not end up in a cold bath whilst ripping up hundred-dollar bills? (Margin pressure is a bitch). I don’t know, but I bet that Microsoft does. We’ll see if it keeps the gambit alive once the deal closes.

Gillmor Gang – John Taschek, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Live recording session is over for today. Like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/gillmorgang

Twitter’s tests involving a new mobile interface that would do away with the app’s standard four buttons in favor of a “swipeable” menu at the top, have come to a halt. Previously, users on Android’s beta testing program were using an unreleased version of the application that let you move through a number of streams, including Home, Notifications, Messages, Activity, Trending, Find People and Me, for example.

The changes beta users could see, as reported by The New Yorker this September, were a hint of what was to come in what would soon be a radical overhaul of the Twitter user interface. Said the report at the time:

Twitter will dispense with its hallmark menu-four buttons at the bottom of the screen-which lets users toggle between different sections of the service: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. Instead, users will swipe from stream to stream to stream. The streams themselves will be both airier and more immersive, consuming more of the screen; they will show more content and less interface.  (A new version of its Android app just emerged which offers a taste of the new look.)

The design had a brighter, almost iOS 7-like feel, hinting that what Android beta testers were seeing could potentially become the new public build that would be pushed across both Android and iOS platforms, as the company attempted to better unify its product versions across devices.

But in an update to both the alpha and beta builds this week, Twitter rolled back these changes, reverting testers to the older user interface where four black buttons (Timeline, @ Replies, Discover, and Me) have again returned. They are at the top of the screen in these builds, not the bottom as on iOS.

The alpha version of Twitter, which was opened up for public signups just this month, is focused on improving the Android experience across a wide range of devices, including those with poor connectivity, from what we’re hearing. The current app offers a combination of public and pre-released features, including the ability for users to reply, retweet, favorite and follow others directly from their Twitter timeline, which is a newer addition to the public release.

Alpha users also have a different looking Discover section, where trends are available in both detail and list views, the former to give a bit more context to a trend by providing a sample tweet or two. And a new pop-up is appearing on the “compose tweet” interface, asking users for their current location with a prompt “are you in [city, state]?” But those are minor changes, and seem a bit experimental. 

However, resetting both test builds, alpha and beta, to the older, four-button user interface may imply Twitter has some retooling to do when it comes to the release of its forthcoming redesign. We have been hearing that Twitter is pulling back on the aggressiveness of the changes, but then again, alpha and beta builds are still only test builds, so you can’t read too much into any of this.

Twitter has introduced a number of changes in recent weeks, some which have been divisive. In the case of switching from the black, four-button UI to the lighter one, some users preferred the more iOS-like look and feel of the updated interface, while others found the increased array of choices a bit too much to swipe through. The company has also rolled out changes like rich media-filled Twitter Cards, a blue line to connect conversations, interaction buttons on the mobile timeline, pre-expanded images, and more, not all of which have been met with favorable reviews.

Below, are screenshots of what the alpha app looked like before and after this week’s switch.

Note: Image credits withheld to protect privacy.

Out today from Microsoft is a 3D-printing application called 3D Builder that will help the amateur set dig into 3D printing, provided that they 1) have a Windows 8.1 machine, and 2) have a Windows 8.1-ready 3D printer.

So, it’s a small group. But that’s just fine. Every technology has an incubation phase apart from the mainstream, and 3D printing is only now enjoying public awareness, let alone mass adoption.

Windows 8.1 was designed to support 3D printing in an almost gimmick that’s cool instead of moonshotty, due to the falling price of consumer-grade 3D printers, such as what MakerBot produces. MakerBot will support Windows 8.1 this year, if you didn’t know.

The application is designed to help you design. It has a catalog of built-in pieces, and you can add your own to zazz things a touch. From the looks of it, if you recall the creature stage of Spore, it should be somewhat similar. I didn’t get to road test the app as I don’t have a 3D printer (AOL? Hey?), but reviews will tell the tale over the next few days.

Microsoft was late to the Internet and missed the smartphone train, but it appears hell-bent on being early in 3D printing. If the technology advances far enough as the price falls quickly enough, this could be a winning move for Microsoft in the next five years. For now, you can probably only make little lumpen dinosaurs for your kid if you have all the hardware.

From humble beginnings.

Top Image Credit: Microsoft

Postmates is expanding its service in the New York City area, crossing the bridge and making its mobile delivery service available in Brooklyn, as well as Manhattan. The expansion also comes as the company has added a trio of new investors, bringing angels David Sacks, Dave Morin, and Bill Lee on board.

But first, the expansion: Postmates is kicking off its Brooklyn coverage with more than 200 restaurants that have been added to its app, allowing customers in the borough to order from nearby restaurants for the first time. To support the new borough, Postmates has added a whole new fleet of couriers to make pickups and deliveries there.

Postmates has seen pretty dramatic growth in Manhattan. It’s growing at about 60 percent since launch, which is three times faster than in San Francisco. And New York City as a market is already profitable for the company. So it makes sense that Postmates would begin supporting the nearby borough as its next expansion market.

According to CEO and co-founder Bastian Lehmann, there are many things that are interesting about Brooklyn. For one thing, it’s home to more than 2.5 million people, which makes it the company’s second-largest market after Manhattan. And there’s been a huge amount of pent-up demand there – Lehmann says that since launching in New York City, the app has been opened by someone in Brooklyn 60 percent of the time, even though there was no coverage there.

Brooklyn customers will pay the same prices as those in Manhattan for deliveries, starting at $5 for ultra-local delivery and skewing up based on distance within the borough. But for those who are feeling ultra-adventurous or have a craving for something from Manhattan, Postmates will also make deliveries across boroughs for a delivery fee of $20.

The expansion comes as Postmates has added a few new names to its investor ranks. The company already had a pretty impressive investor list, including Founders Fund, SoftTech VC, Matrix Partners, Crosslink Capital, and Expansion Venture Capital, along with angels such as Scott Banister, David Wu, Thomas Korte, Naval Ravikant, Russell Cook, Russel Simmons, Walter Lee, Andy McLoughlin, Paige Craig, and Jawed Karim.

But it’s recently added Yammer founder David Sacks, Path founder Dave Morin, and Remarq founder Bill Lee as investors. Sacks comes with a lot of experience in the on-demand space, as he’s also an investor in Uber and Lyft, while Morin and Lee also have done a pretty good job of picking winners as angel investors. Lehmann said that the team had hoped to get those three as investors earlier, but it finally worked out as the company added a little bit of additional capital.

“If someone like David Sacks offers his help, you don’t turn him down,” he said. For Postmates, the new investors will help to advise as it scales up and continues expansion into even more markets going forward.

Anonymous hacktivist, Jeremy Hammond, who leaked millions of emails from security firm Stratfor, has been slapped with the maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Hammond claimed the harsh ruling was a “vengeful, spiteful act” designed to send a message.

In 2012, millions of emails were given to Wikileaks from Strategic Forecasting. They revealed a number of secret relationships between heads of government, for-profit military contractors, and intelligence agencies. They also alleged discrete foreign policy strategies, including the Czech Republic’s desire for F-16 fighter jets to defend against Russia and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s misgivings about President Barack Obama (note: the link to the F-16 story auto-plays an audible video feed).

The ruling has ignited calls for reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which governs the sentences for hacking crimes. Back in January, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren proposed a reform known as “Aaron’s Law,” named after the famed hacker Aaron Swartz who had killed himself in response to aggressive prosecution of hacktivist crimes.

The 27-year-old Hammond claims that he was the victim of FBI entrapment, baited indirectly through a fellow hacker named Sabu, who had been cooperating with officials after his own criminal charges.

“It is kind of funny that here they are sentencing me for hacking Stratfor, but at the same time as I was doing that an FBI informant was suggesting to me foreign targets to hit. So you have to wonder how much they really care about protecting the security of websites,” Hammond told The Guardian.

There have been several calls to reform the CFAA, but with Congress unable to solve healthcare and immigration issues, it’ll likely have to wait.

[Photo: Jim Newberry]

A week after Twitter’s IPO and two days after education company Chegg debuted on the NYSE, Zulily, the daily deals site targeted at mothers, opened on the NASDAQ this morning under the symbol ZU. Things are going well since the company priced 11.5 million shares at $22 each late last night, as shares jumped to a high of $41.32 this morning and presently stand at $38.20.

The company filed its S-1 in early October with the goal of raising $100 million in its IPO. In December 2012, Zulily was valued at $1 billion, and between 2011 and 2012 sales grew from $132.4 to $331.2 million.

It’s a success story among flash sales sites, which have faltered and bred a degree of distrust from VCs in recent years. But it may not be the only one to go public. As Bloomberg reported earlier this summer, there’s the possibility of a future IPO for Gilt Groupe, one of the biggest names in flash sales. Although Gilt’s growth had slowed as it took on too many areas, resulting in layoffs and cut divisions, CEO Michelle Peluso told Bloomberg that the company still sees flash sales as its core.

Zulily is profitable – although as others will point out, just barely so – and raised a total of $369M from investors like Maveron, Trinity Ventures, August Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, and most recently Andreessen Horowitz.

This isn’t the Zulily founders’ first time at the IPO rodeo: that was Blue Nile, the online jewelry retailer, back in 2004.

[Image from Zulily]

For many companies in Silicon Valley, it’s fairly easy to find, train, and evaluate technical talent – for the most part, it’s easy to determine and quantify how well a person codes. But evaluating and training non-technical personnel is something many struggle with. To help change this, a new school called Tradecraft has emerged to help teach those seeking UX, growth, and sales positions the skills they need to succeed in the tech world.

Tradecraft was founded by Russ Klusas and Misha Chellam, who believe it (or something like it) is necessary to teach necessary skills to non-technical tech workers. The school was founded on the idea that Silicon Valley has done pretty well with training and setting expectations for technical personnel – that is, those who code or work with code. But it hasn’t done very well with non-technical talent, and they want to fix that.

Behind the school is a deeper philosophical belief that startups and tech companies in general could de-risk their organizations if their non-technical workers were better trained and equipped to do their jobs. That is, startups generally don’t fail because their code isn’t good, but they stumble due to poor user design, or growth strategy, or business development and sales.

Many non-technical workers at tech companies come in at the entry level and then it takes a year or two for them to grow into their role at the company. But if Tradecraft works, the team believes its students will learn enough in 12 weeks to be able to contribute right away.

So what is Tradecraft? It’s an intensive 12-week program designed to teach students all the necessary skills they will need to step right into a tech company and begin making an impact. It’s grouped into three tracks that will run simultaneously: UX, Growth, and Sales.

Each track will have about ten students in it and will be taught industry leaders: The UX track will be led by respected user experience designers Laura Klein and Kate Rutter, growth will be overseen by Match.com founder Will Bunker, and the sales section will be taught by Klusas. Tradecraft has also recruited top executives from each area of expertise to act as mentors.

Tradecraft will be taking a flipped-classroom approach to instruction, with less emphasis on teaching and more emphasis on “doing.” There will be some reading material for the curriculum, but for the most part students will be focused on actually working on various projects for different tech companies throughout the course of the program.

To do that, Tradecraft has signed up several company partners – ranging from a just-graduated Y Combinator startup to a publicly traded tech company – that have specific projects for students to work on over the course of the three months. Not only will that give students practical experience, but it will also give them some context for what type of company they’d like to work for.

One of the issues that the Tradecraft founders has identified is that some non-technical people who aspire to work in Silicon Valley don’t know where they’d best fit in, whether it be an early-stage startup, part of a larger organization, or somewhere in between. This approach will make them better informed as they look for positions after the program.

Tradecraft is taking applications for its first group of students now through December 5, with the curriculum starting on January 6 next year. Tuition is $12,000, with financial aid available to qualifying students. At the end of the program, it’ll also work on placing graduating students. But if somehow they don’t find a position within three months after graduation, Tradecraft will refund their tuition.

There’s a new CEO at Onswipe – Jonty Kelt, who was most recently CEO of e-commerce startup Group Commerce.

Until this week, that’s the role Jason Baptiste held at Onswipe (which he co-founded in 2010), and it sounds like he’ll continue to be the face of the company. He’s becoming Onswipe’s first chief marketing officer, so while Kelt runs the business, Baptiste’s job will involve evangelizing for the platform, which allows publishers to optimize their websites for tablets and other touch devices, and to run similarly optimized ads. Put another way: His goal is “to make the world love Onswipe.”

Baptiste (he’s the one on the left in the photo above, and Kelt is on the right) assured me that the move was very much his idea, rather than something that was forced on him by investors. In fact, he described himself as “relieved” about the change, arguing that his strengths are in “communications, design, marketing,” areas that he barely had time to focus on as CEO. Plus, the company needed someone who can take the business to “the next level,” especially since it started making money from ads in February.

“We want somebody who can just grow it,” Baptiste said. “He gets to make the final call as CEO.”

Kelt, meanwhile, had been taking some time off after Group Commerce merged with NimbleCommerce. He’s got experience on the ad side, having served as vice president at Google-acquired ad-tech company DoubleClick. And he already had a connection to Onswipe through its investor Spark Capital, which also backed Group Commerce.

Kelt acknowledged that it’s “always kind of a sensitive moment when the founder either is forced out or recognizes that they need some help – in this case, it was very much the latter.” But apparently when Baptiste approached him about taking the job and outlined how he saw the two of them working together, “It all just made sense.”

As for where the company goes from here, Kelt said, “The vision and the direction that they’re taking is 100 percent the right one. It’s about scaling that in all respects.”

Onswipe recently added a new CTO, too. The company says it currently reaches 25 million unique monthly visitors on iOS, and it plans to launch the new version of its platform on November 20.

Google Play Music arrived on iOS today, following reports from earlier this week stating that a launch was “imminent.” The app, which will compete with Apple’s iTunes Radio and other streaming music options like Pandora, Spotify and Rdio, offers a standard service and All Access option, both of which allow you to store your music collection in the cloud, and stream songs to your device, without having to first save them locally. All Access adds a radio option, too.

Users of the standard service can add up to 20,000 of their own songs to their cloud storage, but All Access users are able to listen to unlimited songs, the company says. In addition to the mobile app, desktop users can also stream their songs from the web interface at play.google.com/music. An Android application was previously available.

Those who also choose to upgrade to the $9.99/month All Access service are able to stream songs through a radio option, as well as tracks from their own collection. Unlike some competitors’ services, All Access lets you skip as many songs as you like during radio play, while you also help to improve your personal recommendations by tapping a thumbs up/thumbs down icon.

All Access users can also explore various curated sections, including New Releases, Staff Picks and other playlists from music experts and tastemakers.

Other features, like building playlists and saving files for offline playback, are supported, too. And All Access automatically builds playlists of songs you’ve given a “thumbs up” rating, plus music you’ve added to your library recently, as well as free and purchased songs you’ve downloaded to your account.

Users can also manage their queue while listening to music, which won’t interrupt the stream. The new app allows for streaming over Bluetooth, AirPlay and Chromecast at launch, and the company is now working to bring the experience to the iPad.

The app itself has a simplified interface, where you can browse through navigational option on the side for accessing “My Library,” “Playlists,” and for All Access users, “Radio” and the “Explore” sections are available as well. Radio works as you’d expect – you can built a station based on track, artis or genre. Explore is where you’ll find the featured playlists and recommendations. There’s also search box at the top, and an arrow button to tap when you want to save a file for offline playback. 

On iOS, Google Music’s paid tier will have to compete with iTunes Radio, a free option which shipped with the new iOS operating system. However, iTunes Radio runs ads, while Google Music’s All Access tier does not. That’s a distinction that matters to some users, who will want the premium experience.

To kick off the launch on iOS, Google has made the All Access service free for the first month, through a trial option for new users. If you want to pay for the full service, you’ll need to do so from the web or an Android device. 

The app is live now in the iTunes App Store here.

Update: We’ve noticed the web page for the iOS app went live, but when clicking through to fulfill the request in iTunes, it timed out. Your mileage may vary, as the app rolls out. 

Not to freak everyone out, but there are six fewer days than usual between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. For shoppers, that means a tighter timeframe in which to negotiate parking lots and mall lines. According to the Washington Post, retailers have started the full court press on marketing for their most important season earlier than usual.

It’s like that scene in Gravity where the space shrapnel starts hurtling toward Sandra Bullock and she’s all, “Oh no, oh nononono.”

To cope – and by popular demand from its customers – ShopKeep POS is releasing a new version of its iPad-based sales management system to cut checkout time in retail locations. Retailers can now customize their register with color coded buttons and group products to jump between different categories more easily.

ShopKeep has also focused on receipt and order printing, a pain point that adds friction to the sales transaction. High volume restaurants can now print orders to multiple locations, like the kitchen and bar, while smaller retailers can print receipts and tickets to the same printer. They’re pretty sensible updates to ShopKeep’s platform, making life easier for the independent retailers that make up the majority of its user base.

In the coming year, however, ShopKeep is looking to add larger scale businesses to that roster as they move toward cloud services. As with these latest features, customization is a key part of that push.

At this point, about half of ShopKeep’s customers are quick serve restaurants, like bakeries, coffee shops, and food trucks. The other 50% tend to be boutiques, clothing stores, and pop ups. They’re the type of retailers who wold be inclined to adopt payment systems like Square.

“Our main competitors are Windows-based POS systems. Depending on the sophistication of the merchant, there’s PayPal or Square, but then they realize they need reporting and timeclocks and employee management. When you’re running a store you need retail management, not just payment. They’ll try those first and then move up to us,” ShopKeep founder Jason Richelson said.

Acquiring larger clients is a function of making ShopKeep’s system easily customizable through its API.

ShopKeep will provide the basic tools for payments, employee management, general ledger, and supplier management, and the retailer can then hire integrators to do custom work on top of that API. Retailers are able to use any payment and accounting providers they want; ShopKeep connects clients to payments, rather than serving as the payments provider.

“In three to five years we can be in a really large percentage of retail stores, very similar to what Salesforce did with CRM,” Richelson said. “It’s a very different world now. POS used to be very fragmented because someone had to install a server in your basement. It’s no longer a fragmented industry. There’s going to be a dominant player.”

[Image: Flickr/ Ted Eytan]

King, the maker of the addictive and popular “Candy Crush Saga” game, and reported IPO candidate here in the U.S., released new numbers today indicating its growing user base and traction. The company says the game has now been installed over half a billion times across both Facebook and mobile devices, and has seen over 150 billion individual games played to date.

Oh, and the level people get stuck on the most? Level 65, apparently. It’s one where you have to beat the chocolate and the licorice. (Non-players, feel free to roll your eyes right about now. But really, chocolate was hard.)

The casual games company, which sees over 1 billion gameplays daily, is celebrating Candy Crush’s one-year anniversary today, which has prompted the release of these new milestone metrics.  To give you a sense of how much the company has grown over the past year, back in February, the company was reporting 9 billion gameplays per month across all its titles, which also now includes things like Bubble Witch Saga and Pet Rescue.

Candy Crush, both a Facebook and mobile game, is hard to ignore. Even if you don’t play the game yourself, you’ll be inundated with requests from those who do. Odes have been written about this thing, in fact.

The company first released the game to Facebook users in April 2012, but it became a breakout hit over the course of the year, following its smartphone release last November. The premise of the game – matching three or more candies of the same color – is not entirely original, but what makes the game engaging has to do with its perfected viral metrics, cross-platform support allowing users to switch between devices to pick up where they left off, and, of course, that whole aggravating feature where you actually run out of lives and then have to wait to play again.

The game has also been designed to be updated as players move forward, instead of having to roll out sequels or spin-offs to get gamers to return. Already, Candy Crush has been expanded with more levels, but King hints today that it will again release more updates as well as new “in-game anniversary treats” over the coming weeks.

“The incredible milestone of more than half a billion downloads of the game, as well as the continued enthusiasm from our community, really delights the entire King team,” said Tommy Palm, “Games Guru” at King in a statement released this morning. “Fans can look forward to even more exciting new Candy Crush Saga content over the coming months, including an exciting new twist to the game.”

The company also released a few other figures that demonstrate not just how often the game is played, but how it has managed to squeeze its way into users’ lives during their downtime. Over 61% of U.K. Candy Crush fans play during their morning commute on public transportation, while 78% of U.S. players engage with the game the most while watching T.V. Gameplay peaks after work hours, 6 to 9 PM, and on Sundays.

Today, one in every 23 Facebook users worldwide is also a fan of Candy Crush, adds King.

This fall, it was reported that the British gaming company King had confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S., using the secretive IPO registration process made possible thanks to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.  The Wall Street Journal reported also that the company had hired J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse Group AG, and Bank of America Corp. to handle the IPO. An IPO could value the business at $5 billion to $7 billion, noted Bloomberg, citing analyst figures which found King’s sales this year topping $1 billion, up from $500 million in 2012.

An IPO is risky because a game maker needs to be able to reproduce its hit-making formula beyond one breakout release. For King, several other titles do very well, too, but not necessarily on the level of Candy Crush. For example, according to AppData’s analysis of King’s Facebook titles, Candy Crush sees over 100 million monthly actives, while Bubble Witch and Pet Rescue see 10 million+ each.

Location-based messaging has been tried before, and in a world where messages go in streams, go global, and go poof, one of these geo-fenced messaging companies will eventually float to the top.

The latest of these location-focused messengers is Drop, an app out of Boston that lets you “drop” a message in a certain location, which friends will find as they enter that geo-fenced area. The company walked away with first prize from our Boston TC Meetup + Pitch-off.

After signing up on the platform, you’ll instantly be shown a map. You can auto-drop to your own location, leaving a message and perhaps a photo for a particular friend or multiple friends, or you can choose a specific location to leave a message at. Imagine leaving a drop for your teenage kid at their high school on the first day of school, or leaving a drop for your best friend at their work when they’re having a rough time. Even better, you could leave drops at special places you share with your sweetheart for them to find as they wander through your town.

The company is in its earliest stage, launching just two days ago in the App Store, but the founders have big ideas for new features. For one they plan to make it easier to associate certain locations with users, like their house or their work, as well as some UI tweaks to make navigation a bit smoother. And the potential to generate revenue is definitely there. The only thing advertisers like more than an engaged user base is location information, which is built right into Drop.

The app is available now in the App Store.

The PS4 is a lovely gaming kit. It’s sleek. Monolithic. And relatively small in comparison to the Xbox One. Sony did its 4th generation console right. iFixit found in its teardown that the gaming system is nearly as beautiful on the inside as it is on the out. But that shouldn’t be a big surprise. It’s a Sony product and Sony knows how to build things. However, iFixit did find something somewhat shocking: The latest PlayStation is very user serviceable. On iFixit’s scale of 1 to 10, the PS4 scored an 8 meaning most users can expect to rip the system open and tinker away. Most importantly, the hard drive is very easy to access, giving owners options to upgrade to a larger or faster option. The hardest thing to service, per iFixit, is apparently the fan which is buried deep the system’s innards. iFixit and others have yet to teardown the upcoming Xbox One. That should be in the coming days. Hopefully Microsoft designed it with the same thought as the Xbox 360E, the last model of its generation. That model was simple to open up. In fact, all of Microsoft’s gaming systems from the start have been trivial to crack open and tinker around. The original Xbox’s modability was a significant factor in its widespread adoption. Let’s hope Microsoft hasn’t forgotten that. With the gaming world entering the 7th generation, there is hope that hardware makers, namely Sony and Microsoft, have learned from past mistakes and gamers shouldn’t have to fear a red or yellow light of death caused by shoddy hardware design.

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Here’s another twist on messaging aiming to make digital comms more fun. Toymail is a Wi-Fi connected toy that lets parents talk remotely to their kids via a smartphone app – with their message spoken in the toy’s tone of voice. Why can’t they just give their kids a cheap phone and call them up? Of course they can, but a phone probably isn’t going to be as cute looking or fun sounding as Toymail’s ‘Mailmen’ toys.

The idea is to inject a little cartoon fun into parent/child digital interactions, and give kids a chance to play with physical toys rather than being sucked into screens and phones so early. (While letting parents carry on their love affair with their smartphones.) There’s a choice of five different Mailmen characters, which have been designed to look like a cross between a mailbox and an animal.

Toymail is not the first cutesy connected object that can remotely convey messages. The now defunct Nabaztag rabbit springs to mind. Toymail’s Mailmen also have some spiritual overlap with The Little Printer – although where that gizmo churns out tiny little rolls of paper inked with messages, the Mailmen’s missives are pure audio.

Toymail does allow for conversations not just one-way broadcasts, though, since kids can hit a button on the back of their Mailman to reply to the last message received – with the kids’ reply delivered for playback in the app. Only people who have been approved via the app are able to connect to the Mailman, so random strangers aren’t going to be able to send messages.

And if you’ve run out of things to say yourself, there’s a Daily Toymailer service you can sign up for that will send a daily message to the toy, greeting your child by name and singing a song or sharing a factoid or quote.

One half of the Toymail’s creator team, entrepreneur and MIT alumna Gauri Nanda, came up with the cute yet fiendish Clocky: an alarm clock with wheels so it could scoot out of your reach and force you to crawl out of bed to shut it off.

Toymail has taken to Kickstarter to try to raise $60,000 to get Toymail to market. At the time of writing, it’s approaching $10k raised, with 17 days left on the campaign.

And while each Mailman costs $50 to Kickstarter backers, and the iOS app is free (an Android app is planned), there is an ongoing cost associated with use of Toymail. Parents will need to buy virtual books of stamps to send messages to the toys. Each stamp is good for one message, and a book of 50 stamps costs $0.99 – or unlimited stamps are $2.99 per month.