After disrupting electric cars, Tesla announces Powerwall and Powerpack batteries for home and businesses

Tesla Powerwall

Today electric carmaker Tesla Motors debuts into a new product category -- the second after cars -- called Tesla Energy. The company shows off new batteries designed to power homes, businesses, and even public utilities. The batteries called Powerwall will store solar energy and serve as a backup system during power outage. The batteries will be available for sale in US this Summer. It will eventually launch at other places as well.

At an event in Los Angeles, Tesla Motors Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk says that Tesla Energy holds the power to change the entire energy infrastructure in the world. "This is within the power of humanity to do," he says. "We have done things like this before. It is not impossible... In a lot of ways it's taking derivative technology from the car".

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Shhh! Anonymous messaging app Secret shuts down

secret-app-900x506

The new trend on mobile is anonymous messaging apps capable of hiding all personal information, while allowing thousands of people to converse on one platform.

It looks like not all of the apps are making a killing. Co-founder of Secret, David Byttow announced he would be closing the application and deleting all the content in the coming weeks, following the steady rise of apps like Whisper and Yik Yak, which appeal to the same demographic as Secret.

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Microsoft reveals Code editor for Windows, Mac, Linux

VisualStudioCode200-175

Microsoft has announced the first public preview of Visual Studio Code, a free cross-platform developer’s editor for Windows, Mac and Linux.

As you’d expect with this kind of tool, there’s syntax highlighting, autocompletion, bracket matching and similar support for a lot of languages: C++, jade, PHP, Python, XML, Batch, F#, DockerFile, Coffee Script, Java, HandleBars, R, Objective-C, PowerShell, Luna, Visual Basic, Markdown, JavaScript, JSON, HTML, CSS, LESS, SASS, C# and TypeScript, with more to come,

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Microsoft releases Band SDK to developers

Microsoft Band SDK released to developers

In the world of wearables, Microsoft Band may not hold the same gravitas as Apple Watch or the various Android Wear devices, but the company is still trying to get more developers on board -- today launching the Microsoft Band SDK, following on from February's preview release.

With support for Windows Phone, Android, iOS, and full-blown Windows, Microsoft is clearly keen to appeal to as many developers as possible. This full SDK release offers access to all of Band's sensors -- as part of a push to get more third-party apps on the device.

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Euro currency crisis raises Chromebook's sales appeal

Toshiba Chromebook 2 Ports

What if you manufactured a low-cost, underpowered laptop -- and the configuration suddenly turned into a massive marketing advantage? That may well be the opportunity ahead for Google and its Chromebook OEM partners; if they seize the opportunity.

As we reported Wednesday, Gartner predicts that currency devaluation will compel major computer manufacturers to raise prices by as much as 10 percent, particularly across Europe and in Japan. Higher prices mean more customers will do with leaner configurations, and choose sub-$500 systems. Meanwhile, PC makers will give purchasers less for more money, cutting back features to preserve margins while shifting sales priorities to markets where currencies are more buoyant. What is Chromebook already? A lean, low-cost PC in that price category but better optimized for hardware.

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Shazam and TuneIn Radio gain 'OK Google' Android music identification and playback

voicecomntr

The older I get, the less aware I am of the current popular musicians. If I hear a pleasing song while I am at the store or chilling at Starbucks, it would be awkward to ask one of the younger and hipper people to identify it for me -- that is about as uncool as one can get. Luckily, thanks to technology, I can use my smartphone to discover name of both the song an artist.

Today, both Shazam and TuneIn announce a partnership with Google to integrate their app functionality into the Google app on Android. What does this mean? You can call upon Google with the familiar "OK Google" followed by "Shazam This Song". The Shazam app will then attempt to identify a song using your devices microphone. You can use similar functionality to play music with TuneIn Radio.

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Android Wear: How to set up your smartwatch

Moto 360 Watch Face

So you’re thinking about getting yourself an Android Wear smartwatch, but you're not sure if it’s too complicated to set up?

The truth is it’s a very simple device and setting up is no different than, say, setting up an app on your smartphone.

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Google's open source addressing system could replace longitude and latitude

Google's open source addressing system could replace longitude and latitude

Google often decides to go about things in its own way, and is frequently found approaching common problems from a unique angle. The latest candidate to receive the Google treatment is the humble address. Not web addresses or email addresses, but regular postal addresses. So what's the deal?

While street names and numbers usually get you to where you want to go, that's not always the case. You could opt to use longitude and latitude instead, but what sane person wants to do that? This is the very question Google asked before it came up with Open Location Code, an open source addressing system the company hopes developers will latch onto.

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LG G4 vs Samsung Galaxy S6: Which flagship has the better camera?

Galaxy-S6-vs-LG-G4

Samsung’s Galaxy S6 is a great device, no doubt about it. It has all the elements needed for a great smartphone: a large, high quality display, powerful processor, a great operating system with countless features, and two amazing cameras.

However, the competition out there is merciless. Apple has hit the South Korean giants hard with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models, and now the LG G4 seems to be out for blood, as well.

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Ever wondered how old you look? New tool from Microsoft will hurt your feelings

how old

Microsoft has created a new website which makes use of its recently released Face detection APIs to guess a user’s age based purely on a photo they submit.

The creators expected around 50 people to be interested in trying out the project, but the site has gone viral, racking up over 35,000 users as of yesterday, and likely hundreds of thousands more today. People want to know how they are perceived by others and a site that promises to predict their age based on an uploaded photo was bound to be a hit. It’s a shame then, that a random number generator could probably produce more accurate results.

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What Google's looking for in a manager

Google bans Chinese security certificates

Being a manager at a company is a difficult task. You need to help people, motivate them to work, plan their projects, and make decisions. Even though a lot of people dream of becoming a manager, or any sort of boss at a company, not everyone is fit for that kind of pressure and expectation.

But when it comes to Google, being a manager is a completely different experience. The reason? It’s kinda hard to manage people that are most likely a lot smarter than you.

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Dell Wireless Dock available today

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Laptop computers are great, as they allow the user to be portable. Want to surf the web in Starbucks? You got it. Need to take notes in class? Go for it, bro. Unfortunately, some people -- myself included -- prefer working with a huge monitor, mouse and keyboard. Traditional docking stations are a good solution, but they can take up significant desk space. Plus, depending on the unit, docking and undocking can be a tedious affair.

There has to be a better way, right? The Dell Wireless Dock may be what you are looking for. While not the first such Intel WiGig solution, fans of Dell quality will want to take notice. If you have a compatible Intel-powered laptop or tablet, you can dock your machine -- sans wires -- for increased productivity.

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Are you a Bitcoin early adopter? Here's how you can minimize risk

Bitcoin more acceptable

Bitcoin has significantly shifted from being a commodity traded by investors towards being used as an actual currency used to pay for goods and services. Exponentially growing transactions in the past year as well as increased involvement from businesses and government figures suggest that cryptocurrency adoption will only continue. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, stated his desire for the UK to become a "global center of innovation for financial technology" before the end of 2015, and has taken steps to both regulate Bitcoin exchanges as well as provide guidelines for organizations who deal in the currency. On the business side, the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin have already hit 100,000 this year -- this number is expected to reach 140,000 by the end of this year.

It is common knowledge that there are clear business benefits and opportunities to utilizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For example, any existing market currency can be converted to a cryptocurrency through the use of online portals. Once held, cryptocurrencies can be stored in an electronic "wallet" without the need for a bank account. If a company manages most of its assets in bitcoin, this will naturally result in a reduction of third-party costs, and represent an alternative to managing multi-currency risk -- however, this option is not without its own risks.

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Why backups are shifting to the cloud

cloud laptop

A backup and recovery solution is essential for enterprises if they're to safeguard their critical data. Yet whilst they may take care of their servers, according to a new infographic from private cloud company SingleHop they're less concerned about endpoint data.

Only 50 percent of companies have endpoint backups in place and this leads 16 percent of end users to do their own backups using a non-approved solution.

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Tor blocks third-party tracking, debuts security slider

TorProject

Privacy software Tor has been updated to version 4.5 with a stack of new and enhanced features.

Improved website isolation stops most third-party tracking by social networking buttons, adverts and "mashup" content.

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