Mobile recap: LoopPay vs. Apple Pay; new Pebble; LG Watch Urbane, and more for Saturday, February 21, 2015

Mobile recap: LoopPay vs. Apple Pay; new Pebble; LG Watch Urbane Kevin C. Tofel Feb 21 2015, 5:00am PDT Samsung has a new way to fight back against Apple and it has nothing to do with Google. This week, Samsung bought LoopPay; a company that adds mobile payments to phones using a magnetic field. Early reports and rumors about Samsung’s Galaxy S6 handset — expected to debut […] Read More » Verizon is laying down 400 tiny cells in SF to boost LTE capacity Kevin Fitchard Feb 20 2015, 1:54pm PDT In the coming months, workers and visitors along San Francisco’s major tech corridors may notice some very big improvement in Verizon’s 4G network speeds in some very specific places. The carrier plans to blanket the city’s SOMA, Financial District, Market Street and North Beach neighborhoods with […] Read More » For now, Spark looks like the future of big data Derrick Harris Feb 20 2015, 1:05pm PDT Titles can be misleading. For example, the O’Reilly Strata + Hadoop World conference took place in San Jose, California, this week but Hadoop wasn’t the star of the show. Based on the news I saw coming out of the event, it’s another Apache project — Spark […] Read More » Check out this cool connected water shut-off valve from Lowe’s Stacey Higginbotham Feb 20 2015, 11:44am PDT Lowe’s has added a smart water shut-off valve that you attach just inside your water meter to its selection of connected devices, which means for about $500 or maybe a bit less if you’re truly a DIYer, you could leak-proof your home. Take this valve, a […] Read More » Why Samsung is right to bypass Google Wallet for LoopPay Kevin C. Tofel Feb 20 2015, 10:05am PDT Don’t look now, but there may be discontent between Google and one of its key Android partners: again. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported growing tensions between Samsung and Google. It’s not the first time we’ve heard that the relationship is strained. So what’s the […] Read More » Is this the fuel cell that will crack the code to the data center? Katie Fehrenbacher Feb 20 2015, 8:31am PDT The controversial idea of using fuel cells to power data centers has been under discussion for the past couple of years. Probably the most famous project out there is Apple’s 10 MW fuel cell farm, which uses 50 fuel cells from Silicon Valley startup Bloom Energy […] Read More » Study shows patent licenses don’t lead to tech transfer Jeff John Roberts Feb 20 2015, 7:51am PDT It’s been another bad week for America’s benighted patent system: a Texas jury ordered Samsung to pay a patent troll $16 million for using Bluetooth — even though the “inventor” admitted Bluetooth had been on the market for years before he patented it. The system is a mockery. Still, […] Read More » Google fits more search results on mobile screens Kevin C. Tofel Feb 20 2015, 6:47am PDT Search Google for something on your handset today and you might get more information than you expected. That’s generally a good thing though, and Google is making it easier to view a wider range of search results on mobile devices. The company is adding groupings of […] Read More » Will Samsung’s mobile wallet plans work? We’ll know in 7 months Kevin Fitchard Feb 20 2015, 6:00am PDT Samsung has entered the mobile payments fray with its acquisition of LoopPay, giving it the technology to turn its smartphones into wireless credit cards that can purchase goods and service with a wave of the wrist. LoopPay is clearly Samsung’s answer to Apple Pay, but there’s still […] Read More » A massive database now translates news in 65 languages in real time Derrick Harris Feb 19 2015, 2:40pm PDT I have written quite a bit about GDELT (the Global Database of Events, Languages and Tone) over the past year, because I think it’s a great example of the type of ambitious project only made possible by the advent of cloud computing and big data systems. In a […] Read More » The internet of things goes extraterrestrial Kevin Fitchard Feb 19 2015, 12:22pm PDT As the internet of things grows to encompass many more “things,” so are the number of wireless ways to connect them. Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth Low Energy and cellular are being embedded in every manner of gadget from thermostats to cars, but industrial IOT specialist Sigfox […] Read More » Don’t let AT&T mislead you about its $29 “privacy fee” Stacey Higginbotham Feb 19 2015, 11:26am PDT This week AT&T got a lot of media attention for its expansion of its GigaPower service to Kansas City announced on Monday. The news wasn’t so much about the expansion, but about the ISP’s plans to to offer a $29 per month discount for customers who […] Read More » Entrepreneurs embrace net neutrality plan (except Mark Cuban) Jeff John Roberts Feb 19 2015, 10:00am PDT Propaganda machines are running full-blast ahead of next week’s landmark vote on net neutrality, so readers should take most “news” about the FCC with a grain of salt. That said, it’s worth noting a new letter in the debate over whether net neutrality will protect entrepreneurs (as supporters claim) or if it will […] Read More » Lenovo in hot water over Superfish adware, but dismisses security worries (updated) Kif Leswing Feb 19 2015, 9:42am PDT Reports from security consultants, media, and Lenovo users indicate that there’s bloatware pre-installed on recent Lenovo Windows PCs that’s a bit more sinister than a set of superfluous ThinkPad tools. It appears that adware called Superfish had been running on consumer laptops sold by Lenovo between September 2014 and this […] Read More » Apple sued for poaching car battery experts Kif Leswing Feb 19 2015, 7:33am PDT When you’re the world’s most valuable company, you can expect a few lawsuits to come your way. For Apple, the latest legal trouble comes via battery maker A123, which alleges that Apple “systematically” poached many of the Waltham, Massachusetts company’s most valuable researchers. A123’s suit claims that “Apple is currently […] Read More » What user-created content for virtual reality will look like Signe Brewster Feb 19 2015, 6:30am PDT Facebook is working on apps for virtual reality, chief product officer Chris Cox said at the Code/Media conference Tuesday. And Facebook is confident users will eventually get busy creating their own content. “You’ll do it, Beyoncé will do it,” Cox said during the event. It’s likely […] Read More » Microsoft adds digital ink and search in OneNote for iPad Kevin C. Tofel Feb 19 2015, 6:06am PDT Did someone declare this to be “let’s all make the iPad better with stylus support” week and not tell me? First we had Astropad, a $50 app that turns Apple’s slate into a graphics tablet, and now Microsoft is bringing of digital handwriting support to the iPad. announced the […] Read More » Katy Perry lawyers try again, file trademark claim for Left Shark Jeff John Roberts Feb 19 2015, 4:20am PDT What happens when the unstoppable force of an internet meme meets the immovable object of a celebrity’s lawyers? We could find out as Katy Perry lawyers try anew to claim the flash-in-the-pan phenomenon known as Left Shark. In the latest turn of fate for Left Shark, […] Read More » Cablevision Freewheel review: A Wi-Fi-only smartphone from a cable company Kif Leswing Feb 18 2015, 3:00pm PDT Could you get mobile service from the same company that provides your cable TV and internet? That’s the idea behind Freewheel, a new service from Cablevision’s Optimum that gives you a mobile phone that only works over Wi-Fi. As Wi-Fi becomes more ubiquitous, often people find themselves bouncing between […] Read More » DJ Patil joins White House as Chief Data Scientist to work on precision medicine Stacey Higginbotham Feb 18 2015, 2:48pm PDT As we reported two weeks ago, after White House staff leaked the news on a conference call, DJ Patil, the former Chief Data scientist at LinkedIn and most recently a VP of Product at RelateIQ, is now the Chief Data Scientist at the White House. In […] Read More »