Apple today announced its annual Lunar New Year sale, a one day event for Asian countries that is also known as "Red Friday" because of its similarity to November's Black Friday sales.
During the event, which takes place three weeks before the Lunar New Year, Apple will be offering deals on Macs, iPads, iPods, and accessories like the Smart Cover. It is unclear whether Apple will offer traditional price cuts or instead give customers gift cards with purchase as it did in the United States during Black Friday. In previous years, Apple has offered modest cash discounts on products.
Discounted prices will be available in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, on Friday, January 10. Last week, Apple also held its annual "Lucky bag" promotion for Japanese customers.
Some analysts expect Apple to introduce a larger "iPad Pro" later this fall, but Samsung has beaten them to the punch. The Korean firm today announced a pair of 12.2" Galaxy tablets running Android.
Engadget got a hands on with the 12.1-inch Galaxy NotePro, noting that it "simply isn't designed for optimal portability" and that it is awkward to hold for long periods of time. Weighing in at 1.66 lbs with a 2560x1600 pixel display at 247 ppi, the device is significantly larger than the iPad Air.
First, let's discuss the key specs. With a larger Note comes an even larger 9,500mAh battery, an 8MP rear camera paired with a 2MP front camera, "super clear" WQXGA LCD panel, IR support, dual-band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MIMO, USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 4.0. The LTE model promises support for 800/900/1800/2100/2600+850, while you'll get quad-band HSPA+ (with a max of 21Mbps).
The Note Pro 12.2 runs Android 4.4 KitKat, but the user experience is drastically different than any Note we've played with before. Instead of being graced with a standard Android/TouchWiz home screen panel when pressing the home hardware button, you get whisked away to a new interface lovingly called Magazine UX. This experience consists of three separate customizeable screen panels: one for your office/workspace, another for personal use and a last one that handles your social networks and media.
The Verge also has a hands-on video with the new tablets:
There are two 12.2-inch variants -- the GalaxyNotePro which includes Samsung's S Pen functionality, and the Galaxy TabPro which does not -- though both include custom Samsung software and firmware. It will come in LTE, 3G and Wi-Fi-only variants and is expected to launch later this quarter. Pricing is not yet available.
Along with the 12.2-inch devices, Samsung introduced several other new Galaxy TabPro tablets, in 10.1- and 8.4-inch variations.
A new company called Sen.se has debuted an electronic device called "Mother," which is designed to serve as a hub for a series of Motion Cookie tracking devices. Cookies are multipurpose portable sensors able to track a variety of information, including movement and temperature.
As with your real mother, Mother cares about you and loves you. Yet this Mother is programmable. You decide what aspects of your life you want her to handle and she tunes to your current needs. Unlike other devices that specialize in only one area, this Mother knows how to help you in many areas of your daily life: fitness, health, security, well-being and comfort. You decide how she can help simplify your life, ultimately helping you live better, healthier and happier.
Cookies, which interact with Mother, can be stuck on any object and will capture and analyze movements and factors like ambient temperature or closeness to the Mother base station. A Cookie can be placed on any object to measure its whereabouts and its movements. For example, if a Cookie is placed on a dog's collar, it can track when the dog moves too far away from the base station.
Motion Cookies are the first essential members of the ever growing Mother family.
Small and slick, they can be affixed to almost anything. They have the power to detect and understand the movements of objects and people.
Cookies are endlessly reusable and can be placed on a wide array of objects. They are reprogrammable and are able to handle new functionality at any time. Cookies have a one year battery life and a 10 day memory before needing to resync data with the Mother. 24 cookies can be controlled by a single Mother.
Cookies can send alerts to phones, and Cookies near the Mother will upload collected data to the Internet. A number of apps are designed to work with the system, and Sen.se details several different possible use cases for Cookies and Mother, including fitness tracking, monitoring for intruders, tracking temperature, monitoring medications, and tracking sleep.
Sen.se is comprised of team members that were previously behind a Wi-Fi connected rabbit called Nabaztag, which was a programmable and customizable smart object that could connect to the Internet and display information like weather forecasts and email notifications.
Mother is expected to begin shipping in the spring of 2014 and is priced at $222 for a Mother base unit and four tracking Cookies. Pre-orders will begin in February and additional cookies will be sold in sets of four for $99.
Apple updated its investor relations page today to note that it will announce its earnings for the first fiscal quarter (fourth calendar quarter) of 2014 on Monday, January 27. The earnings release typically occurs just after 4:30 PM Eastern Time following the close of regular stock trading, and the conference call is scheduled to follow at 5:00 PM Eastern / 2:00 PM Pacific.
MacRumors will provide running coverage of the earnings release and conference call.
The release will provide a look into initial iPad Air and Retina iPad mini sales during their first quarter of availability as well as iPhone 5s and 5c sales throughout the holiday. Apple reported a record number of iPhone/iPad sales during fiscal 2013, at 150 million iPhones and 71 million iPads.
In its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call, Apple guided expected revenue of $55–58 billion and gross margin between 36.5 and 37.5 percent. If the company meets even the low end of that guidance, it will count as the strongest quarter for Apple in history.
Holi yesterday announced that its iPhone and iPad-Controlled smart lamp will be coming to the United States in the near future. Currently, the square 18-LED mood light is available in Europe.
At just over an inch thick and approximately 7.8-inches wide, the Holi light sports a minimalist design that is meant to fit into any room. Much like the Light Strip and the Bloom from Philips’ Hue line of lights, the Holi is designed to be an accent light. With over 500 lumens, it produces more light than a standard 40W bulb. Comparatively, the Philips Hue bulbs come in at 600 lumens, while the Bloom has a 120-lumen bulb.
Users can utilize the Holi app to create various lighting effects, which can be shared with the entire Holi community. Holi is able to sync with music, changing color with tempo, and it also serves as an alarm clock with a built-in dawn simulator.
Holi is able to simulate millions of different colors, and it is also able to combine colors with its individual LED bulbs. Similar light offerings, like the Philips Bloom, are limited to a single color. The Holi app can be used to create lighting scenes from photographs, and it includes pre-programmed effects like rotating colors. Three Holi lamps can be synced and controlled from a single iPhone.
Though U.S. pricing has not yet been released, the lamp retails for €199 in Europe and will likely cost around $200 in the U.S. It is expected to be available beginning in March.
Later this year, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts will move to Apple as a new senior vice president in charge of Apple's retail and online sales efforts. Before Apple announced her hiring in October, Fast Company spoke extensively with Ahrendts across several non-Apple related interviews. However, since the announcement, she has unsurprisingly declined any interview requests.
In a wide-ranging profile, Fast Company looks at Ahrendts' job history and work style, the troubles Apple Retail has seen in the past few years, and how her experiences at Burberry could shape Apple Retail's growth going forward.
Ahrendts' is not a tech-savvy geek, but she has a vision for how to speak for customers. In an interview with Vishal Sikka, a development executive at SAP, Fast Co. discovered that she exhibits some Steve Jobs-esque tendencies:
She saw a wealth of information... what did customers respond to? What did they like or dislike? What did they share on social media? She thought there must be a way to collect and share such data with the whole Burberry team, as well as combine all six of Burberry's consumer-intel databases into one salesperson-friendly interface. "She wanted to merge the digital experience with the in-store experience," Sikka says. She did not know how to do that herself; she freely acknowledges that she is no digital native nor is she fluent in the language of coders and engineers, but she is very good at asking for help. "She is not a geek. She is not technical," Sikka says. "But she has a vision for things she wants to see, and she has a profound understanding of what technology can do for people."
Beyond that, Ahrendts put extensive amounts of technology into the sales experience at Burberry. She created a back-end system that allows every Burberry salesperson, across 330 stores, to access all the data that the company has collected on individual customers, including data as detailed as whether customers prefer to browse merchandise with assistance or to be left alone.
The company uses RFID tags extensively, allowing customers to bring a piece of merchandise to a mirror and a video will appear with a model wearing the coat. She also oversaw the creation of a website where users can upload photographs of themselves wearing Burberry attire, allowing users to share their looks and potential buyers to imagine themselves in Burberry garb.
Finally, Ahrendts appears to take a page out of Ron Johnson's communicative playbook. Johnson was famous for the videos he recorded to be played to all Apple Retail employees at quarterly staff meetings, and Ahrendts currently does weekly videos for Burberry's 11,000 employees.
At Burberry, she communicates constantly with her 11,000 employees, sending emails to thank them for a particular contribution and frequently jetting to offices and stores around the world (she tries always to be home by Friday night to be with her husband and her kids, who are 18, 17, and 13). She is adamant that significant news be shared first with staff, so that they never learn about their own company by reading the papers. She does a weekly video update--soon, perhaps, Apple staff will joke about how perfect Ahrendts's hair is, just as they did with Johnson. Her main message is usually "thank you." Sometimes that's an epilogue to an all-hands call to action: "I will sit there on the webcast and say, 'Okay, guys, we're nearing the end of the quarter and it's really tight, but I know we're gonna make it because there's 11,000 of you out there,' " she says. "'Could you do me a favor? Just one extra call to a customer? 'Cause if you do that, we'll win.'"
Angela Ahrendts will join Apple this spring and will continue in her role as Burberry CEO until then. In his email to Apple employees announcing the hire, Tim Cook said Ahrendts' shares Apple's values and "focus on innovation" and that she "embraces our view that our most important resource and our soul is our people".
ComScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the September-November 2013 period, showing that Apple's U.S. smartphone market share has increased 0.5 percentage points for a total share of 41.2 percent. Though Apple's share continues to grow, it still lags behind Android's total share of 51.9 percent.
When measuring usage by handset manufacturer, Apple continued to come in first place by a wide margin, with Samsung coming in second at 26 percent and Motorola, LG, and HTC bringing up the rear with just over 6 percent share each.
152.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (63.8 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in November, up 3 percent since August. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 41.2 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.5 percentage points from August). Samsung ranked second with 26 percent market share (up 1.7 percentage points), followed by Motorola with 6.7 percent, LG with 6.5 percent and HTC with 6.4 percent.
Collectively, Apple and Google control 93.1 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, with BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Symbian losing share during the November period.
ComScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, which means it is more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.
Pebble today announced its next-generation Pebble Smart Watch, the Pebble Steel, which features a stainless steel body with a leather or steel band and a face covered with the ultra durable and scratch resistant Gorilla Glass used in Apple's own products.
Along with a new metal or leather band, a deviation from the plastic band of the first-generation Pebble, the Pebble Steel features smaller side and top bezels for a slimmer, lighter profile. The Pebble Steel weighs 45 grams, two grams less than the original Pebble.
According to Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky, who spoke to CNET, the Pebble Steel is designed to be a more formal version of the original Pebble.
CEO Eric Migicovsky describes Steel as a more formal version of Pebble: "I'm going out for dinner, I'm wearing a suit, I've got a position that doesn't allow me to wear a plastic watch on my wrist. How do I benefit from a smartwatch? How do I get notifications and run all the apps that Pebble offers without having to put something that I don’t prefer on my wrist. We took that as an industrial design problem. It wasn't really a software problem…We just had to build an aesthetically different Pebble."
The band is available in both brushed stainless steel and a matte black steel, along with black leather. Pebble Steel lasts for up to a week on a single charge and includes an LED indicator that displays battery life. Like the original Pebble, it is waterproof.
Along with the Steel, Pebble has announced that its app store will be available to users later in January. The company is also partnering with new companies to introduce a playback control app for Pandora, ESPN sports stats and box scores, and a car stats monitoring app from Mercedes.
Pebble Steel will begin shipping on January 28 for $249, a $100 premium over the existing Pebble watch. Pre-orders can be placed today on the Pebble website.
Kolibree has introduced the world's first connected electric toothbrush at CES this year, designed to track brushing habits and encourage better dental care. Kolibree analyzes brushing habits and then displays them on a mobile dashboard, which can be accessed via an iOS app.
The Kolibree uses Bluetooth to connect to an iPhone, automatically synchronizing data each time the toothbrush is used. A built-in sensor measures the amount of time that a user spends brushing and whether hard to reach areas were properly cleaned.
The toothbrush itself features switchable heads, allowing multiple users to use one toothbrush base, but the company suggests that sharing could complicate the data gathering process and recommends an individual brush for each person. The Kolibree toothbrush has vibration speeds and brushing patterns ranging from 4000 to 12500 RPM, and the battery lasts for approximately one week before needing to be recharged.
Kolibree's app works with up to five different brushes in order to make family management of dental hygiene a simpler task. Kids and adults who need motivation to brush can earn badges and track their brushing progress via a graph.
While Kolibree does not proclaim to solve periodontal disease or suggest that it can keep cavities or gingivitis at bay, the better you take care of your teeth, the more likely it is that you can and will avoid serious problems. Before Kolibree, the issue is that there has been no easy and quick way to monitor whether you're doing an A+ job or a C- one when you brush, so how can you improve on a habit you don't have any data about? Kolibree solves that problem.
Kolibree plans to launch a Kickstarter in the summer to accept pre-orders for the device, which will range in price from $99 to $200. The product is expected to ship during the third quarter of 2014.
The device is rechargeable via USB and lasts up to six hours on a charge, turning on and off automatically when inserted and ejected from the cassette deck and somewhat supports hands-free calling by routing incoming call audio through the car's speakers -- though a speakerphone will still be needed to talk.
With Cassette Adapter Bluetooth from ION, your car’s cassette player instantly becomes a wireless Bluetooth receiver. Just like that, you can stream music from any Bluetooth music player or phone. No complicated installation. No cables. No tangled or snagged tape. Just pop it in and it automatically turns on. Cassette Adapter Bluetooth contains a long-lasting rechargeable battery for even the longest road trips. Plus, you now have a hands-free solution for phone calls.
Now, you can use your car's speakers to hear phone calls and music without having to buy a new stereo head-unit. Both of your hands stay safe on the wheel while your audio source stays in your pocket. Cassette Adapter Bluetooth is the last cassette you’ll ever need and the first —and only—step to bring your favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks into your car.
Pricing and availability information have not yet been released. The last U.S.-sold automobile to offer a factory-installed cassette deck was the 2010 Lexus SC430.
AT&T today announced a new Sponsored Data program to allow its customers to download content or apps over cellular data, with businesses picking up the cost of the data -- that is, downloads won't affect the users' monthly wireless data plan allotment.
The system, which works similarly to toll-free 800-numbers, was originally rumored nearly two years ago.
According to AT&T, the service will allow companies to sponsor data use across a number of industries including healthcare, retail, media and entertainment, and financial services, and giving a number of possible use cases in its press release announcing the program:
- Encouraging customers to try a new smartphone or tablet app. - Promoting movie trailers or games. - Providing patient healthcare support via wellness videos. - Encouraging customers to browse mobile shopping sites. - Allowing businesses with ‘Bring Your Own Device’ policies to pay for the data employees use for specific business-related apps and services. - Enhancing customer loyalty programs by providing sponsored data access to products and services.
For users, the program will be nearly invisible, with post-paid customers receiving automatic access to Sponsored Data when on AT&T's domestic wireless network. Prepaid customers will not be able to use the Sponsored Data program.
U.S. cellular carriers have been in something of a marketing war in recent months, particularly between T-Mobile and AT&T. Recently, AT&T began a new promotion to offer up to $450 in credits to customers that switch to it from T-Mobile.
The new sponsored data program, if widely adopted, could reduce user concerns over data usage, particularly after AT&T has moved aggressively to wean customers off of its unlimited data plans.
Following its announcement late last week regarding new "3D" curved Gorilla Glass for smartphones and other products, Apple's glass supplier Corning today officially announced its antimicrobial Gorilla Glass, incorporating ionic silver into the glass to inhibit growth of bacteria and other organisms.
“Corning’s Antimicrobial Gorilla Glass inhibits the growth of algae, mold, mildew, fungi, and bacteria because of its built-in antimicrobial property, which is intrinsic to the glass and effective for the lifetime of a device,” said James R. Steiner, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Specialty Materials. “This innovation combines best-in-class antimicrobial function without compromising Gorilla Glass properties. Our specialty glass provides an excellent substrate for engineering antimicrobial and other functional attributes to help expand the capabilities of our Corning Gorilla Glass and address the needs of new markets.”
The new antimicrobial Gorilla Glass will be included in a new version of Steelcase's RoomWizard conference room scheduling device, which is being shown at CES this week in Las Vegas, and the company says that it is working with "numerous manufacturers" to develop applications for the material. The company has also demonstrated that it can produce antimicrobial Gorilla Glass in high volumes needed for popular products such as the iPhone.
Last year, Corning noted that it was working on antimicrobial technology as part of a feature arguing that Gorilla Glass 3 is a superior material compared to sapphire, which has been gaining attention as a potential future display covering. Late last year, it was revealed that Apple had reached an agreement with GT Advanced Technologies to develop a sapphire glass manufacturing facility in Arizona, with Apple building out the plant and GT Advanced operating it. Apple currently uses sapphire to cover the rear camera on several of its recent iOS devices and for the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s, but it appears that Apple may be looking to significantly expand the use of sapphire in its products.
Amid the increased talk of sapphire as a possible replacement for Gorilla Glass in future mobile devices, Corning is clearly continuing to push its technology forward, with the new techniques for curving the glass allowing for innovative new product designs and antimicrobial properties serving as another selling point for device manufacturers and consumers. Corning is also working on next-generation flexible "Willow Glass", but the company has indicated that it will be several years before that product can make its way into mobile device display assemblies.
Apple has come under criticism from major shareholders Trillium Asset Management LLC and the Sustainability Group over the absence of women on its board and throughout its top-level rankings, reports Bloomberg.
“There is a general problem with diversity at the highest echelon of Apple,” said Jonas Kron, director of shareholder advocacy at Boston-based Trillium, which manages $1.3 billion. “It’s all white men.”
According to the report, the shareholders met with Apple representatives several times over the past few months to address the company's lack of female executives. The shareholders intended to bring the issue to a vote at Apple's shareholder meeting on February 28, but backed off once Apple agreed to address the issue through new language in the company's corporate charter [PDF link].
Apple is now adding the following language to the charter of the board’s nominating and governance committee: “The nominating committee is committed to actively seeking out highly qualified women and individuals from minority groups to include in the pool from which board nominees are chosen.”
While the statement was included in the company’s proxy for the past several years, it hadn’t been part of the company charter, a governing document. Apple also vowed to continue discussions with shareholders about ways to improve diversity, Ruoff said.
Currently, the only woman serving on Apple's board is former Avon CEO Andrea Jung, who was elected to the position in 2008. The company is also set to add Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts to its executive team in the spring, as she will become Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores.
Apple's 2014 Annual Meeting of Shareholders will take place at the company's 1 Infinite Loop headquarters on February 28, 2014 at 9:00 AM Pacific Time, where votes on eleven proposals related to director reelection, compensation, and more will be held.
Note: Due to the nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Parrot, the company behind the iPhone-controlled AR.Drone Wi-Fi quadricopter, revealed two new products at CES 2014 including the MiniDrone, a smaller version of the AR.Drone, and the Jumping Sumo, a robotic car with individually controlled wheels.
Like Parrot's other products, the MiniDrone is controlled using an iOS app, allowing a user to adjust the pitch, yaw, altitude and rotation with ease. Parrot's MiniDrone also comes with large wheels that act as a protective barrier around the rotors, allowing for the device to be durable when bouncing off of objects. The Verge also explained the device's internal features:
On the tech side of things, Parrot's using an accelerometer, ultrasonic sensor, gyroscope, and downwards-facing camera to give the drone all it needs to stay aloft. Unlike the AR.Drone, there's no usable camera on board and no video output — you'll have to make do with watching the MiniDrone buzz around the room. Bluetooth 4.0 is used to communicate with the drone, and the company says that offers a maximum range in clear air of about 160 feet.
Meanwhile, Parrot's Jumping Sumo is controlled by a system that uses swipe gestures, accelerometer detection, and gyroscope movement to navigate and turn. The device itself includes an onboard QVGA camera and dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi to communicate with the included iPad app, as users can view the perspective from the robot in real-time.
Both drones are expected to be released later this year, with pricing info to be determined.
Following the release of the Logitech Powershell and MOGA Ace Power, gaming peripheral company SteelSeries today announced its Stratus iOS 7 gaming controller. Unlike the other two controllers, the Stratus is a completely wireless accessory that connects through Bluetooth instead of using the Lightning port on an iOS device.
Featuring console-style controls such as a directional pad, two analog sticks and four pressure sensitive face buttons, the Stratus' Bluetooth capabilities allows connectivity for up to four controllers. The device also includes a protective cover that doubles as an extended grip.
Our sister site TouchArcade had the opportunity to spend some extended time with the SteelSeries Stratus, and has provided a detailed review outlining the strengths and weaknesses of the controller. While the device was given high marks for being useable with any iOS 7 device and an impressive battery life of over ten hours, criticisms centered around the high price tag and the comfort issues that the controller's small design creates. Despite those criticisms, TouchArcade stated that the SteelSeries Stratus is “without a doubt the best controller out there.“
Another positive aspect of the SteelSeries Stratus was its ability to work well with Apple's Lighting Digital AV Adapter while gaming:
Also, obviously, this begins to open the door to the strange new world that is treating your iPhone like a portable game console hooked up to your TV. You could technically do this with the Moga Ace Power and Logitech Powershell, but it required beaming your video output via AirPlay, which arguably is the least ideal of all possible solutions given the significant amounts of nearly unplayable lag AirPlay introduces. Wiring your iPhone or iPad direct to your TV via the Lightning Digital AV Adapter significantly mitigates this.
Currently, games such as Dead Trigger 2, Asphalt 8: Airborne, and Bastion offer controller support, with additional developers pledging to build controller support into their apps now that the hardware is available to consumers.
The SteelSeries Stratus sells for $99.99 and is available now for pre-orders.
Orbotix, the company behind the smartphone-controlled robotic ball Sphero, today announced its next-generation toy, the Sphero 2B. Unlike the original Sphero, which was spherical in shape, the Sphero 2B features a rugged, tubular two-wheel design.
According to Orbotix, the Sphero 2B is able to move up to 14 feet a second, making it twice as fast as the Sphero 2.0, which debuted in August 2013. At 14 feet a second, the Sphero 2B can travel a mile in just over six minutes. Like the first Sphero, the Sphero 2B will connect to an iOS device via Bluetooth LE, and is controlled with an iOS app.
The Sphero 2B will offer customizable tires and accessories for a personalized driving experience, and along with an array of multiplayer games, the 2B is fully programmable.
Thanks to its design, it is also able to make quick turns, pull off tricks, and tumble over uneven terrain. Much like the Sphero, developers will be able to create a variety of apps and games that will interact with the Sphero 2B.
Sphero 2B will be available in the fall of 2014 for $100.
Withings, the company behind the Smart Activity Tracker and the Smart Body Analyzer is showing off its newest health monitoring device, the Aura Smart Sleep System. Aura, which consists of a bedside device with an ambient light, a sleep sensor, and an app, is designed to monitor and improve the sleeping experience.
The system's bedside device records information like noise pollution, room temperature, and light level, while the sleep sensor, which goes under a mattress, monitors sleep patterns, breathing cycles, and heart rate. The sensor is able to pick up the tiniest of movements, even under thick mattresses.
Withings Aura is comprised of a soft and discreet sleep sensor that slips under your mattress and works in synchronization with the sensitively designed bedside device. Together, the two units record and monitor an array of factors to offer you a deep understanding of your sleeping experience. The sleep sensor focuses on personal patterns (body movements, breathing cycles and heart rate) and the bedside device screens your bedroom environment (noise pollution, room temperature and light levels).
In addition to recording information, the bedside device is able to offer customized light and sound to improve sleep, along with alarm clock functionality and personalized wake-up and fall-asleep programs.
For example, the multi-color LED in the bedside device is able to regulate melatonin, and sound programs are able to replicate the frequency and pattern of the circadian rhythm to stimulate users upon waking and relax them when sleeping.
The accompanying app allows users to visualize and compare their sleep cycles from night to night, monitoring triggers that cause poor sleep, and it also allows user to program their individual sleep programs.
Withings' Aura sleep system will be available in the spring of 2014 for $299.
LaCie today announced the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2, one of the first external hard drives that will support Intel's new Thunderbolt 2 specification to deliver transfer speeds of up to 1375 MB/s, significantly faster than USB 3.0 drives.
Little Big Disk includes two 500 GB PCIe solid state drives from Samsung in a Raid–0 configuration and is able to support mobile streaming and editing of both 4K and 3D video. The drive features a fully aluminum enclosure with a Mac Pro-style black finish along with an optimized interior design that improves cooling efficiency.
The drive includes a thermoregulated fan that turns on only when necessary, producing little to no noise, and it also ships with an included Thunderbolt cable and a three year warranty.
AnandTech has posted a mini review of the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2, and in testing, found 1400 MB/s in sequential read speed along with 1100 MB/s write speed. Engadget saw similar results at CES, observing write speeds of 1200 MB/s and read speeds of 1300Mb/s. A 300 GB file transferred in approximately four minutes.
Thankfully, the drives that were set up ahead of our arrival, and had been sorting files for some time, remained at nearly room temp. With two of the Thunderbolt 2 drives set up in RAID 0, we witnessed 2,000 MB/s write speeds and 2,600 MB/s read numbers.
The LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 will be available during the first quarter of 2014 from LaCie.com. Pricing has yet to be announced.
AT&T today announced a 
Apple has come under criticism from major shareholders Trillium Asset Management LLC and the Sustainability Group over the absence of women on its board and throughout its top-level rankings, reports 
