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This startup wants to arm firefighters with iPads and real-time data

Apr08
by on April 8, 2014 at 4:49 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

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Charlie Jacobson has been a volunteer firefighter since he was sixteen. But fighting flames represents only one of the student’s passions – he’s also pretty hot on data. Along with a team of fellow Princeton engineers, Jacobson has founded FireStop, which is being touted as the “first truly cloud-based platform” that lets firefighters collect, use and share critical information during emergencies. It’s all about real-time. In tangible terms, this means things like having immediate knowledge of nearby fire hydrants, what other fire trucks are already responding to a situation, and any potential hazards nearby. FireStop’s methodology is still very much…

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These new mockups show what the iPhone 6 may look like

Apr08
by on April 8, 2014 at 4:34 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

Remember those design illustrations of the supposed new iPhone that made it into the public realm a few weeks back? Well, MacRumors has commissioned a designer to create some mockups. The latest renderings not only show what the rumored 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch models might look like in the flesh, but it also juxtaposes them up against Apple’s existing line of iOS devices. © MacRumors While this is all conjecture at the moment, it is likely that Apple is at least looking at releasing larger-screened smartphones. Only time will tell how accurate these ‘leaked’ schematics prove to be, and how spot-on…

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UX designers: Side drawer navigation could be costing you half your user engagement

Apr08
by on April 8, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Design & Dev

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Anthony Rose is co-founder and CTO of zeebox, the social network for TV. So, you have a mobile app where there are more pages or sections than can fit on a mobile screen at once. Your first thought might be to create a tabbed design, with a row of tabs along the top or buttons along the bottom. But wait… that extra row of tabs or buttons wastes a lot of valuable real estate on a small mobile display, so let’s not do that. Instead, let’s move the options into a side menu, or side drawer, as our Android team keep reminding…

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Skype for modern Windows now lets you set your availability to Invisible and brings back sign out option

Apr08
by on April 8, 2014 at 3:10 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web

Skype today updated its modern Windows app (read: Metro version) with two new availability options. You can download the new release now directly from the Windows Store. Here’s the Skype 2.7 for modern Windows changelog: Invisible – This option lets you still receive incoming messages, but without others knowing you’re there to read them. Just like with SMSes, you can choose to respond now or later. Sign out – Although Skype had this option before, it was removed a few versions ago, and now it’s back again. In other words, you can once again choose not to receive any messages…

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What Alibaba’s IPO means for e-tailing in the US

Apr08
by on April 8, 2014 at 2:08 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Asia, Insider

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Julia Q. Zhu is Founder of  Observer Solutions, a China-focused e-commerce consulting and research firm. You can reach out her via LinkedIn or email. Global investors are eagerly awaiting the most talked about Chinese Internet IPO of all time. As one of China’s e-commerce pioneers, Alibaba has dominated all aspects of online commerce in China since its founding in 1999. Its version of eBay, a consumer-to-consumer online shopping marketplace called Taobao, accounts for more than 90 percent of all C2C online transactions. Its online business-to-consumer shopping mall for branded products, Tmall, accounted for 50.1 percent of market share based on transaction volume in 2013. In…

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