Biggs is the editor of TechCrunch Gadgets. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at john@techcrunch.com. → Learn More If you don’t know a resistor from a Mister Mister, this is the app for you. Built by Adafruit, creators of DIY Arduino gear, Circuit Playground is a $2.99 app designed to help you identify and understand various electronic components. For example, the app includes a resistor identification system based on the colored bands painted on the casing as well as a field guide to many electrical components. The rest of the tools – including converters, calculators, and datasheet storage systems – just makes things a little bit easier when you’re building an electronics project. I’m terrible at this stuff so it would be a boon for me and my slow-witted monkey mind. The app is available now for the iPhone and iPad. Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Read More
Dr. Serkan Toto currently works as the first and only Asia-based writer for the TechCrunch network, mainly covering Japan-related technology and web companies for TechCrunch, CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Serkan also works full-time as an independent web and mobile industry consultant with a focus on the Japanese market. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. Serkan... → Learn More First, Japan got the world’s first connected home garden device, and now it’s time for Nippon to get the world’s first cloud-based LED lighting system. Developed by Tokyo-based lighting tech startup Net LED Technology Corp., the so-called NetLED system will go on sale in Japan on February 20 (here‘s the company’s English website). The 40W lights, which have a 40,000-hour lifespan, come with built-in Wi-Fi: users can control each tube over the web after installing the NetLed app on a smartphone, tablet, or computer (the iPhone app is already out, while iPad and Android apps will be released this summer). It’s possible to dim the lights (each tube has 10 different dimming levels) and to turn them on or off. Users can control individual, multiple, or a set of lights (which can be located in separate rooms) via the app, which also offers a timer function. The system also makes it possible to track energy usage in real-time and to automatically aggregate data over an extended period of time. Net LED says that when a company, for example, uses 200 of these lights, power consumption can be pushed down by up to 50%. Using the app and Net LED’s servers is free. The system’s own costs depend on how many lights are needed: the price for the control box/router set (see above) is fixed at US$780. One Wi-Fi-enabled tube (US$260) can be connected to up to three NetLED Read More
In August, I remember seeing YouTube links for the band , who recorded an entire song using only their iPhones and a few iPhone peripherals (in addition to their instruments and drum programs). Today, I received a press release indicating that the band have finished recording an entire 10 song album using the same setup. Intrigued, I contacted Stephen Poff, the mastermind behind the record, to get a few more details about the impetus and methods behind the project. The 10 song record was an intentional project by Mr. Poff that started on January 1, 2011 and was recorded, mixed and mastered right up until December 31, 2011. So it took a full year to complete this side project, amidst an undoubtably busy day job as a videographer/photographer at the agency LWT in Montgomery AL. As a former “four-tracker” myself, I have to say the results are surprisingly good. Poff clearly has a flair for writing pop punk/rock songs and he and his remote bandmates are adept at using some of the audio tools we have reviewed here at TechCrunch. Here is an example from the new release so you can hear the quality – Glory Days by One Like Son Remote bandmates? It was interesting to hear that Poff and fellow musicians Bill Rester (Bass and Backing Vocals), Perry Brown (Backing Vocals), and Bryan Segraves (Piano/Organ) crafted these songs together in different locations using Dropbox as their repository for adding their parts. Apparently, Poff would lay a MIDI drum part, guitar riff and main vocal line, then upload the file to Dropbox where his bandmates would download, add their parts and then put the files back into Dropbox. One Like Son are not the first band ever to do this (see The Gorillaz and The Ultramods—both using iPads), but they may be Read More
In October of 2001, Rockstar Games dropped a bomb on the gaming world. That bomb was called Grand Theft Auto III. In just one release, Rockstar shifted their flagship 2D series into a 3D world, introduced an enormous chunk of the population to the concept of massive sandbox games, and stirred up the first of many controversies that the company has since become known for. Just over 10 years later, GTA3 is back — but now it’s mobile. As of yesterday, it’s available for iOS and Android. Same game, same grit, same campy over-the-top action… but in your pocket. So, how has the game held up? How well did it make the jump from controller to touchscreen? Is it worth your $5? Lets go ahead and answer those immediately: Surprisingly well, moderately okay, and probably. For a game that’s probably older than the TV sitting in your living room, Grand Theft Auto 3 is still remarkably entertaining. I won’t wax on too much about the gameplay itself; many hundreds of reviews did that a decade ago, and it’s still the same game (save for a few little perks ported in from modern GTA games, like instant retries on failed missions) it was then. What worked well then still works well today: you run around, explore, go on a few hundred missions, then blow up everything in sight whenever all that gets boring. It’s not what most would call “gorgeous” by today’s gaming standards (read: it’s no Infinity Blade II), but it really does still look good. The audio is also wonderful, with an absurd amount of dialog, sound, radio chatter, and music crammed into the 500 MB package. At the very least, it’s a wonderful testament of how far technology has come; what required a big ol’ dedicated gaming console just Read More
Matt is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is TechCrunch. He learned the retail... → Learn More Get ready to set your house on fire! The Sims are back and are awaiting their invisible leader — you. Players have full control over a number of Sim characters just like The Sims of old. As the omnipotent creator, gamers have the ability to cause Sims to fall in love, live their life and watch them go to the bathroom. For free! No word on a naked cheat code, though. The FreePlay app allows for 16 different Sims with 1,200 customization options for their domicile including a select number of pets. With The Sims FreePlay, EA is slowly expanding its mobile portfolio by dipping into its library of blockbuster hits. “The Sims FreePlay app is a huge step forward in our mobile strategy,” said Bernard Kim, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for EA Interactive stated in a released statement. “We’ve taken a franchise that is a best-selling brand in nearly every major video game market worldwide, optimized it for iPad and made it free for all iOS users. That opens the door for our mobile business to continue to grow while immersing new fans in a brand as wildly popular as The Sims.” The Sims FreePlay is currently in the App Store and available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Read More
At the few times when I find myself on the bike or elliptical at the gym, I’m always frustrated by the lack of anything interesting to keep my eyes on. The TVs are showing something boring, the magazines are sweaty and old, the people too are sweaty and old, and I end up staring at the wall. Why am I telling you this? Because someone has created a solution to this particular first-world problem that seems rather promising. It started as a sort of hack by which a Redditor connected his exercycle to his Xbox 360. Since then he’s taken what he learned there and produced an iPad app, Virtual Active, that detects how “fast” you’re going on a cycle or elliptical by measuring the vibration, and moves you at a corresponding speed through a picturesque landscape. The creator assures me that the accelerometer is up to the task, and no configuration is necessary. You just put your iPad, iPhone, or what have you on the bike, treadmill, or elliptical, and it figures itself out. I’ll believe it when I see it, of course, but it sounds real enough. It’s free to download, but you purchase videos from different locations: the Alps, the Grand Canyon, even my own Pacific Northwest. Potential problems: the videos themselves are expensive ($8 each) and quite large (~800MB for around a half-hour video). Gym bunnies with disposable income might lap it up, but it’s a bit expensive for those of us not as dedicated to our fitness, or not as concerned with having fun while exercising. The BitGym technology behind the videos will expand into games and other types of video entertainment, though. The first will be Fit Freeway, which will use the accelerometer to determine speed and head tracking to steer. Don’t worry, nobody looks Read More
Today at the Le Web conference in Paris, Evernote is debuting two new applications for iPhone and iPod touch devices. The first one is called Food, and is designed to help people easily save and ‘relive’ all of their favorite meals and food experiences. The second app is dubbed Hello and basically wants it easier for users to remember people after meeting them, as well as recording thoughts about and experiences with those people. The Food app is essentially giving users ways to document dishes and drinks they’ve had, build a catalog of custom recipes, review restaurants and record food experiences in their neighborhood or abroad, and even manage their diets. It also comes with handy sharing options, of course. The application lets people capture all aspects of a meal through pictures, location, text and photo captions. All this information about the meal is automatically synchronized with Evernote, making it easy to track down later. More information is available here. The Hello app is a tad more sophisticated. Basically, the mobile application aims to make it easier for people to remember everything about encounters, shared experiences and impressions they have when meeting other people. More information is available here. From the pitch: Evernote Hello aims to modernize the standard greeting ritual. With the app, when two people meet, they exchange phones and quickly create a basic profile. Once added to Evernote Hello, individuals are displayed within a swipeable mosaic of faces. When tapped, a face becomes a profile that displays a history of every encounter the two people have shared, along with other people who participated in the same meetings, location information and any related content from the user’s Evernote account such as notes and photos. Sounds really cool, save for maybe the ‘exchanging phones’ thing … As with the Food Read More
Dr. Serkan Toto currently works as the first and only Asia-based writer for the TechCrunch network, mainly covering Japan-related technology and web companies for TechCrunch, CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Serkan also works full-time as an independent web and mobile industry consultant with a focus on the Japanese market. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. Serkan... → Learn More Japan-based Sanwa has announced the so-called Geiger Fukushima [JP], a portable and light (70g) geiger counter that uses the iPhone to measure beta and gamma rays in your environment. Just connect the 14cm long probe to the iPhone, fire up an app that supports the device and view the handset’s display to track radiation readings. There are many portable geiger counters out there, but the idea here is to make use of the iPhone’s capabilities to keep the price down: just the handset and the Geiger Fukushima are enough. The device can be ordered by people living outside Japan, too (it costs US$203 in the Japan Trend Shop). Sanwa says the measuring range for the Geiger Fukushima stands at 0.04-20 microsieverts per hour and that one AAA battery lasts about 200 hours. Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Read More
Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... → Learn More Attention all Onkyo-using music lovers: if you’ve felt like your life has been too quiet as of late, a new update for the Onkyo Remote Android app may be just what the doctor ordered. Onkyo has announced that they have added support for Spotify Premium to their free app, and that a handful of their network-enabled receivers and home theater systems will be updated to play nicely with it. Here’s a quick breakdown of the units that, after a quick software update, will be able to pump out all your favorite Spotify jams: Receivers: TX-NR609/709/809/1009/3009/5009 and HT-RC360/370Home Theater Systems: HT-S7400/7409/8400/8409 and 9400THX If you happen to use one (or more) of those components, then congratulations! The update is available to download now, so your sweet home theater system should be ready to blast all those carefully-crafted playlists in time for your Halloween party. Even if your receiver isn’t listed, you can rest easy: Onkyo will be extending Spotify support to a few more models when November comes. Sure, the boat will have sailed on that Halloween party, but maybe you can make it a particularly musical Thanksgiving instead. Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Read More
Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. → Learn More If you’re looking to get preemptive with holiday weight watching, Garmin’s got an app for that. The company today released the Garmin Fit app, which tracks speed, pace, distance, time, calories, and with the addition of Garmin’s ANT+ accessories, heart rate and cadence. The app also maps out the user’s workout and uploads it directly to Garmin Connect, all for $.99. We’ve seen devices that perform almost all the same functionality, though they tend to be much smaller dedicated fitness devices. The FitBit, the Striiv, and even Motorola’s new MotoACTV smart watch take the same metrics, but force you to carry around an extra device. That said, it may be much easier for most to pop a small pedometer/fitness tracker in their pocket or wear a watch than it would be for someone to carry around a 4.3-inch smartphone. The upside to the Fit app is that it never stops working, even if you have to take a call or write a text. A single tap displays all your basic metrics, including time, distance, pace and calories. Users will also be able to control their music from within the app. Once you’ve thrown in the towel on your workout, the Fit app will let you give notes on the experience and input details, at which point all the information is sent straight to Garmin Connect. From there, users can track their overall performance and improvements over the last 30 days. The Garmin Fit app is available Read More
