March, 2016

• 16 March

  Nike wants to build a deeper relationship with you through its app

  

  Nike is creating a personalized retail experience to appeal to athletes and fitness enthusiasts. The nation’s largest sportswear maker on Wednesday unveiled a revamped Nike+ app at its annual Nike Innovation Summit event in New York. Nike has watched as competitors snap up popular fitness apps. Rival sportswear brand Under Armour has acquired MapMyFitness and …

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• 16 March

  Born in the USA: The Rogue Audio Sphinx v2 integrated amplifier

  

  Rogue Audio makes great high-end components and sells them for very reasonable prices through its dealer network here in the USA, and its worldwide distributors. Rogue’s owner, designer and all-around nice guy Mark O’Brien came to audio after he was with Bell Labs working on electronics development, laser and transformer design. Don’t let his Sphinx v2 stereo-integrated amplifier’s plain looks …

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• 16 March

  Hands

  

  This is the story of an Indiegogo campaign that barely raised $8,000 of its $25,000 goal, but went on to become a real product anyway. That product is the super cool-sounding Siam 7x, a mash-up of Android phone and e-reader. To look at it is to see a fairly normal 5-inch phone, but to flip it over is to find …

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• 16 March

  Valve’s ‘Lab’ and desktop theater mode could be the perfect introduction to virtual reality (hands

  

  If you spend $800 on an HTC Vive virtual reality headset, you’re going to want something to play. And so far, we’ve seen fewer games for the Vive than for the rival headsets from Oculus and Sony. But Valve has a couple new pieces of Vive content that will be totally free — and they’re some of the best, most …

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• 16 March

  Adobe’s Project Comet hits earth as Experience Design CC (opinion)

  

  I’m glad I took a little extra time to get to know Adobe Experience Design CC (XD), the productized version of the Project Comet that Adobe unveiled in October 2015. If I had written this as planned on the day it launched my thoughts would have been far less charitable. That’s partly because Adobe’s Previews — what we used to …

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• 16 March

  Maddening! More ways to catch the NCAA tourney could put a crimp on productivity

  

  The Madness will be inescapable for some college hoops fans. About a third of American adults polled in a survey will have their eyes glued to NCAA action playing out on their phones and tablets this Thursday and Friday. Those distracted workers could cost employers $3.9 billion in lost productivity. That’s more than double last year’s $1.9 billion in estimated …

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• 15 March

  TouchTunes is now the biggest ‘in

  

  It’s been a long time since jukeboxes have taken dimes as the machines went digital a long time ago. But now, thanks to an app by jukebox manufacturer TouchTunes, they not only accept PayPal but can also sync with your Spotify library. The TouchTunes app is now in its third major iteration, after being launched in 2010, and boasts a …

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• 15 March

  Samsung headphones could help you feel VR, not just see it

  

  Virtual reality can make you think you’re racing down a speedway in a zooming car. But if you can see the scene all around you, why can’t you feel it as well, taking in the motion as you hug the turns? That’s what Entrim 4D headphones, unveiled this week at the South by Southwest tech, film and music festival in …

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• 15 March

  Vizio says new TV certification program has ‘serious problems’

  

  I recently told you about UHD Alliance Premium Certified, a program that aims to set picture quality standards for new TVs and Ultra HD Blu-ray software. I found the idea potentially helpful for shoppers, with the caveat that it wasn’t the whole picture when it comes to image quality. Vizio, the number two TV maker in the US, is one …

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• 15 March

  Anonymous goes negative on Trump… again

  

  Hacktivist group Anonymous declared “total war” on Donald Trump, urging hackers to knock the billionaire’s websites offline as it put the Republican front-runner in its sights for the second time. In a video posted Tuesday, a representative of the group called on hackers to attack Trump’s websites and reveal any personal information about the candidate they unearth. It also addressed …

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