Jemblog

The Pitch: The ChargeCard is a super-slim USB phone charger that can fit in a wallet as easy as a credit card. The product was funded on Kickstarter, and was recently sold on the shopping site Grand St.

The Verdict: Few phones have the juice to last through an entire day of even moderate usage. In fact, I’d put down money that either you or somebody you know carries a phone charger with them everywhere they go (you know: just in case). The ChargeCard purports to offer an always-with-you charger that takes up no more space than a credit card.

“But what about backup batteries?” the chronically depleted might ask. Sure, those things work great for some folks, but you still need a bag (or a hefty pocket at the very least) to tote them around. And while battery cases such as those made by Mophie may offer a slightly more elegant solution, they can be a bit bulky for some folks. Not this bad boy: It really does slip into a wallet. And if you have a maleable phone case, there’s a chance it could even fit in between the back of your phone and the case itself.

After a few weeks of giving this thing a go, I can say that it really does make good on its simple promise: It charges your phone (there are different versions for the iPhone 5, older iPhones, and micro-USB-charged phones), and does so without taking up much space. Simple.

Sure, I had had some knocks with the product: Some folks might find the plastic construction to feel a bit cheap, or lament the fact that you still need to find a USB port to plug into (meaning it won’t work with an AC wall outlet without an additional attachment). And while I found myself wishing the strip-shaped USB cord was a bit longer, I don’t see anyway they could have made it so without ruining the product’s wallet-sized design. That’s the thing with making something portable above all else: There’s gonna be compromises. And as long as they don’t mess with the product’s base functionality (none of these did), I’m fine with that.

www.chargecardproject.com/

Q: Where can you find Mike Tyson, Andy Milonakis, and a “Pot Consultant” named Ryan all in the same place?

If you said “the weirdest high school reunion ever,” that’s a good guess. But the answer we were looking for is Braindex, a new iPad app that is set to radically transform interactive gaming.

Braindex, billed “the world’s first App Show,” pits your mind against the famous and the weird in a TV-quality trivia game show. Mustachioed host Alex Blagg poses a question that you and your illustrious competitor race to answer. The quicker the response, the more points you rack up.

And if going head-to-head with La La Anthony or Amir the Venice Beach Bodybuilder isn’t thrilling enough, know that you play them in real time, with new episodes added every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

It’s a nifty trick; as if the only thing separating you from Ryan was thin “air”.

http://www.playbraindex.com/

JustMount is an effortless wall mount for your iPhone, keys, and other essentials.

Mount your most important items anyplace you choose. JustMount creates the perfect resting spot for iPhone, keys, earbuds, & more!

JustMount lets you magnetically tack your iPhone almost anywhere, elevating it from clutter on counters and desks. With JustMount, you’ll always have a handy spot for important items.

Combined with our new TidyTilt+ Case for iPhone 5, JustMount enables effortless and secure mounting on walls, cabinets, mirrors, desks, cubicles, windows, and more.

JustMount holds iPhone in portrait or landscape orientation. It’s curved edges are crafted to align perfectly with TidyTilt+ Case.

JustMount is compatible with original TidyTilt for iPhone 4/4S and new TidyTilt+ for iPhone 5

Charge your iPhone above your nightstand.
Read the news while brushing your teeth.
Keep your iPhone safely above clutter.
Know exactly where you left your keys (and phone).
Mount your iPhone at the door.
Store keys, earbuds, and more.

get it here

PlugBug World is a 2.1-Amp USB wall charger that attaches to, and converts, any MacBook Power Adapter into a dual charger that works in any major country. PlugBug World lets you charge your MacBook Pro + iPad or iPhone simultaneously, from one outlet. How? PlugBug World piggybacks onto your MacBook Power Adapter, creating a one-of-a-kind, dual charger for MacBook + iPhone or iPad. This unique accessory includes five international snap-on plugs and doubles as an international, stand-alone USB charger for iPhone and iPad.

PlugBug World is the global version of our popular PlugBug and brings dual charging convenience to Mac users everywhere. People living in the UK, Continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan and many other places can use PlugBug World to charge their MacBook and iPad or iPhone at the same time using one electrical outlet. Use PlugBug World at home, in the office, at a coffee shop or anywhere else where outlets are scarce. Going on a trip out of the country? PlugBug World is all you need to charge your MacBook and iPad/iPhone pretty much anywhere you go.

http://twelvesouth.com/products/plugbugworld/

A hypersonic “SpaceLiner” would whisk up to 50 passengers from Europe to Australia in 90 minutes. The futuristic vehicle would do so by riding a rocket into Earth’s upper atmosphere, reaching 24 times the speed of sound before gliding in for a landing.

Many challenges still remain, including finding the right shape for the vehicle, said Martin Sippel, project coordinator for SpaceLiner at the German Aerospace Center. But he suggested the project could make enough progress to begin attracting private funding in another 10 years and aim for full operations by 2050.

The current concept includes a rocket booster stage for launch and a separate orbiter stage to carry passengers halfway around the world without ever making it to space. Flight times between the U.S. and Europe could fall to just over an hour if the SpaceLiner takes off — that is, if passengers don’t mind paying the equivalent of space tourism prices around several hundred thousand dollars.

“Maybe we can best characterize the SpaceLiner by saying it’s a kind of second-generation space shuttle, but with a completely different task,” Sippel said.

SpaceLiner passengers would have eight minutes to experience the rocket launch before they reached an altitude of about 47 to 50 miles (75 to 80 kilometers). That falls short of the 62-mile (100-km) boundary considered the edge of space, but even a suborbital flight would allow SpaceLiner to glide back to Earth at hypersonic speeds of more than 15,000 mph (25,200 kph).
Relying on Rocket Power

The rocket-powered design stands out compared with other proposed hypersonic jets, which feature new air-breathing engine concepts. European aerospace giant EADS previously unveiled a hypersonic jet concept that would rely mainly upon air-breathing ramjets to reach cruising speeds of Mach 4 — faster than the supersonic Concorde’s Mach 2 performances but far slower than the SpaceLiner’s Mach 24 goal.

SpaceLiner’s European project planners say their reliance upon proven rocket technology could allow their vehicle to fly sooner rather than later. They plan to use liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket propellants so that the rocket engines leave only water vapor and hydrogen in the atmosphere.
(more…)

InstaDating is a free social dating app for singles to meet girls & guys on Instagram. Join InstaDating to date, chat and flirt with your favorite instagrammer now. Discover girls and guys nearby and connect directly with anyone you like on Instagram. Share your photos, status and check-in locations in a simple activity stream with followers to see. Send free messages, funny emoticons , photos to have a nice private chat with anyone. Gorgeous filtered effects to make your photos beautiful and awesome.

“We provide a quick, convenient and secure way to share sensitive information. Just copy your message in the box, set the recipient and your password (if you want to protect your message) and send it. The recipient will receive a secure link. If you select Auto Destruct as an expiration setting (by default), once the link is opened the message will be deleted. Hover the labels with your mouse or click them (on touchscreens) for more info. ”

https://cloakmy.org/

David Petraeus. War hero. Smart guy.

And yet: also a cautionary tale.

Now, we’re not saying that you’d put yourself in any similar kind of compromising position, but let’s assume—for whatever reason—that you had to cover the tracks of your communications.

Well, then you’ll want to use something like Cloakmy, an online app that encrypts, protects and then destroys your most sensitive messages, available now.

So the next time you need to send out the eyes-only coordinates of your Atlantic City meetup spot, or when you’d like to tell The Wall Street Journal what your boss is really up to, you’ll visit this site.

It basically looks like any web-based email app. So far, so good. But here you can set a password that the recipient needs to know before she can access your message (“Motel 6” or something). And at the bottom, you can set the message to self-destruct as soon as it’s read, or at a predetermined time in the future.

As soon as you send, it will display links for you to read the message (in case you forgot what the important message you just sent was) and to destroy the message (in case you sent it to the wrong person).

Since cellphones became ubiquitous, cities have been looking for ways to give new life to underused pay phones. Today, a pilot program is beginning to test one option: replacing the phones with touchscreens that can provide information about the surrounding area. The first two screens launched around Union Square, with two more opening tomorrow. Eventually, 250 are planned for installation in the next few months, and they may start showing up in more cities if the plan is a success. The kiosks are free and ad-supported, and a portion of revenue will go back into the city coffers. But are they worth using? We took a look at one to find out.

Electronic information kiosks aren’t new, but the rise of small, self-contained apps seems like it could make them more useful than ever. Unfortunately, this one suffers from an overabundance of disorganized content. The app you’ll see pulls data from CityMaps, Foursquare, Zagat, and other sources, but there’s little attempt to tie it all together — instead, you’ll get a jumbled collection of restaurants, bars, events, public safety information, and links to other apps. The data is quite useful, but the piecemeal layout and lack of a consistent design language makes it unintuitive. I counted at least three different mapping systems, for example, but none of them seemed to offer transit or driving directions, an obvious feature for tourists. Likewise, while most sections let you look up a mentioned location on Google Maps, not all do.

The system itself has potential, but it’s also far from perfect. The screen is big and fairly bright, with on-screen contrast and accessibility buttons. Generally, the top half displays app content, and the bottom half is dedicated to advertisements or service advisories; if you’re in a wheelchair, you can opt to swap the two for easier viewing. The screen will instantly display your touches with a translucent circle, which turns out to be vital feedback, since the app is painfully laggy.

The program is still young, and some of the more interesting features are yet to come. A camera will be installed later, allowing the kiosk to detect people with seeing eye dogs or canes and switch to a voice-based mode. While it wasn’t online today, there’s also a Wi-Fi hotspot, and we heard previously that Skype and email will eventually be supported, making the kiosk surprisingly full-featured. For now, there’s plenty of information, and it’ll likely be useful to tourists or people who want to get a quick look at a map. We just wish more effort had been put into laying that information out to the best effect.

source

CalmSpace – Effective recovery in power nap capsule

Haworth joins designer Marie-Virginie Berbet to present CalmSpace, a stand alone, “plug & play” power nap capsule for the office, at Orgatec 2012. Individuals searching for rest enter through an acoustic curtain and lay down on a fabric-upholstered mattress. The user is able to select a power nap period – from 10 to 20 minutes – that includes preset sound and light cycles, which helps the individual fall asleep and wake up smoothly.

CalmSpace allows individuals to refresh, relax, and reenergize to be ready for productive activity. In times of high-speed work and a demanding economy, many companies offer their employees collaborative relaxation areas like lounges and cafeterias, but few are exploring the benefits of calm, individual relaxation. With an unusual background in neuropharmacology, Marie-Virginie Berbet used her scientific knowledge in her CalmSpace design. The short- and long-term benefits of mid-day naps include improved cognitive abilities (e.g., alertness, memory, learning, and creativity), improved mood, stress prevention, better nightly sleep, and can even lower the likelihood of heart disease.

In 2011, Haworth tested a prototype of the CalmSpace concept at the call centre of France Telecom Orange in Lyon. Now, Haworth is extending CalmSpace’s innovative approach to lifestyle at work to all companies. CalmSpace is a helpful retreat area for people who do intense work, have demanding schedules or are subject to jet lag.

Developed by Haworth in cooperation with Zyken, who provided scientifically-validated light and sound technologies, CalmSpace is made of dark grey-blue coloured composite material. Acoustic foam is used between the internal and external skin.

Visit Haworth at Stand B70 in Hall 6 at Orgatec 2012 in Cologne.

http://www.haworth-europe.com/en/About-us/News/2012/Orgatec-2012-CalmSpace