Oct 8, 2015

Mad Paws wants to be an Airbnb for pets so your dog always feels at home

An Airbnb-style website is trying to gain more foothold in Australia’s fast-growing market for pet services.


Mad Paws was conceptualized after its co-founder and CEO Alexis Soulopoulos pet-sat for a good friend who was struggling to find a place for his labrador to stay while he traveled.


Soulopoulos got together with two entrepreneurs Jan Pacas and Rolf Weber to launch Mad Paws in 2014, and grew it to what they claim as the largest pet services marketplace in Australia today.


Mad Paws just got the vote of confidence of investors, raising $1.1 million in seed funding. The round was participated in by Paul Migliorini, CEO of Amazon Web Services; Michael Doubinski, co-founder of HotelsCombined; Commonwealth Bank Group Executive Matt Comyn; and Macdoch Ventures. …


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Mad Paws wants to be an Airbnb for pets so your dog always feels at home

SwiftKey Announces Neural Alpha, A New Keyboard Based On Neural Network Technology

Do you ever feel like your phone’s keyboard is dumb? SwiftKey has announced a new experimental keyboard that leverages the power of an artificial neural network that hopefully won’t make the same old mistakes that other keyboards do. You can give it a shot right now by downloading the SwiftKey Neural Alpha from the Play Store.



An artificial neural network is a model of machine learning that attempts to replicate the functionality of a brain.


Read More

SwiftKey Announces Neural Alpha, A New Keyboard Based On Neural Network Technology was written by the awesome team at Android Police.


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SwiftKey Announces Neural Alpha, A New Keyboard Based On Neural Network Technology

Unofficial Samsung Galaxy J3 spotted with big upgrades over the J2

Hot on the heels of the J2 (announced just a month ago), the Samsung Galaxy J3 has already passed the Geekbench test. The phone offers a great deal of upgrades over the affordable Super AMOLED-packing Galaxy J2.


The screen goes up to 5″ 720p, though software measurements of the diagonal are inaccurate and this may still be a 4.7″ screen. The resolution is a definite upgrade though, coming from 540 x 960px. Then the chipset – a Snapdragon 410 with a faster 64-bit Cortex-A53 processor. RAM and storage stay at 1GB and 8GB respectively.


The camera on the Galaxy J3 should be much better, perhaps the biggest update over the original. An 8MP camera with 1080p video capture, plus a 5MP/1080p selfie camera. For reference, the main camera on the J2 was worse than the J3’s selfie camera at 5MP/720p.


The Galaxy J series had an entry level device (J1 then J2) and a high-end device (J7), but no mid-range. The Samsung Galaxy J3 could be just what the J lineup needs to fill that hole.


Source 1 • Source 2 |…


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Unofficial Samsung Galaxy J3 spotted with big upgrades over the J2

Global IT spending to cross $3.6 trillion in 2016: Gartner

Gartner predicts spending on Internet of Things (IoT) hardware will exceed $2.5 million every minute in 2016.


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Global IT spending to cross $3.6 trillion in 2016: Gartner

You Can Now Back Up Your WhatsApp Messages to Google Drive

If you’re one of the hundreds of millions of people in the world who use WhatsApp for your messaging, you might want to save your message history from time to time. Now, you can automatically back it up to Google Drive.



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You Can Now Back Up Your WhatsApp Messages to Google Drive

FIFA suspends Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for 90 days

FIFA has provisionally banned President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini for 90 days in the wake of a Swiss criminal investigation.


See also: Sepp Blatter was showered with dollar bills during a FIFA meeting


The move by the FIFA ethics committee further taints Blatter’s 40-year career at FIFA, including 17 years as president. It also damages the hopes of Platini to replace Blatter in the February election.


Swiss authorities turned up at Blatter’s office at FIFA headquarters last month and interrogated him. The criminal case centers on Blatter allegedly misusing FIFA money by making a $2 million payment to Platini, who was questioned as a witness. …


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FIFA suspends Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for 90 days

Registration Is Now Open For Country Pavilions At Disrupt London 2015

Disrupt London 2015 is just a few months away, and entrepreneurs, investors, and tech enthusiasts from around the world will soon be flocking to London’s Copper Box Arena for the show. Will you and your budding international startup be joining them? Read More


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Registration Is Now Open For Country Pavilions At Disrupt London 2015

Sony Buys Gesture-Tracker And 3D-Sensor Maker, SoftKinetic

Sony has announced it has acquired Belgium-based SoftKinetic, a maker of 3D sensing computer vision technologies including Kinect-style depth cameras, CMOS depth chips and gesture-tracking middleware. Read More


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Sony Buys Gesture-Tracker And 3D-Sensor Maker, SoftKinetic

Gionee launches Elife E8 in India

Gionee has launched its flagship device – the Elife E8 – in the Indian market. The phone is priced at INR 34,999 ($539) and will be sold exclusively through Snapdeal. This is the first time Gionee will be selling any of its devices officially through an online retailer in India.


The Elife E8 has a 6.0-inch, QHD AMOLED display, MediaTek Helio X10 chipset, 3GB RAM, 64GB storage, 24 megapixel rear camera with OIS and phase detection autofocus, 4K video, 8 megapixel front camera with autofocus, fingerprint sensor, 3500mAh battery, and Android 5.1 Lollipop.


The phone will be available starting October…


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Gionee launches Elife E8 in India

Scientists are growing mini-kidneys from skin cells

Add this to the list of things you can grow in a petri dish: An honest-to-goodness mini-kidney.


Australian scientists have successfully developed a method that allows mini-kidneys to be grown from stem cells in a lab — an achievement that could help with drug research, as well as one day possibly providing assistance to those in desperate need of a kidney transplant.


See also: This common mealworm could help dispose of plastic waste



Minoru Takasato (left) and Melissa Little.


Image: University of Queensland


Using stem cells derived from human skin cells known as fibroblasts, the team “encouraged” the cells to form a miniature organ, Melissa Little, a professor at the University of Queensland, told Mashable Australia. The research was …


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Scientists are growing mini-kidneys from skin cells

Kantar: Windows Phone market share rises in several countries

Market research firm Kantar WorldPanel has released its latest report on mobile operating system market share. The report, which covers the 3 months ending August, reveals that Windows Phone’s share has increased in several countries around the world.


As you can see in the image above, the countries where Windows Phone has seen its market share increase considerably include Germany, France, and Australia, where the share has risen 3.6, 3.2, and 2.3%, respectively.


“Windows Phone share has experienced some growth in France, Germany, and Australia, and maintained share elsewhere, but we have not seen any major impact on the overall market, despite some aggressive price points,” said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.


“At the Windows 10 New York launch on October 6, we saw Microsoft refocused on offering a companion phone for users of Windows 10, and enterprise-class devices to IT departments – a more modest goal perhaps, but certainly a more realistic…


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Kantar: Windows Phone market share rises in several countries

These Are The Earth Cars Of A Space Agency

NASA is best known for its work with space-faring vehicles, including some very cool …


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These Are The Earth Cars Of A Space Agency

Google for iOS updated with the ability to play GIFs in image search results

Google has updated its iOS app, bumping it to version 9.0 and brining a few new features, including some interesting ones such as the ability to play GIFs.


The updated app now lets you tap and play animated GIFs in image search results, something which is not only convenient but also saves you some time. In addition, you can now also add a photo or review for your favorite local places, as well as get map results right within the app whenever you search for an address.


The updated app is now available for download from the App Store. This comes just over a month after an update brought along a couple of new features – always-active OK Google and improved local search results – to the app.


Source | Image…


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Google for iOS updated with the ability to play GIFs in image search results