The Moto 360 features an orientation-free 1.8-inch display, and more

Hangout with Moto 360 chief designer Jim Wicks took a little longer than expected to get started, but once it did, there was some good info to be had about the Moto 360 smartwatch. We were hoping to get some information on things like specs, battery life, pricing, and release date. We only got a tiny bit on specs and nothing on the rest.
Wicks had originally only said that the Moto 360 was "not too big, but not too small", which doesn't really mean all that much.But, he did wear the watch in the Hangout, and it does look to be a good sized device. Wicks just said that the diameter of the Moto 360 is 46 mm which translates to about 1.8-inches. Wicks said that the benefit of the round design was actually that it offers the most screen real estate without compromising functionality,

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Microsoft's Blink Windows Phone app gets a redesign, lots of new features

The Blink app for Windows Phone 8 is already pretty good, and it's about to get even better. Microsoft Research has released a new version of its photography application, complete with a fresh look and a swath of new features. Aside from letting you create GIFs, Blink now makes it easier for you to lock on your subject, take more stable shots and quickly get to gallery view, where you can see the stuff you've captured. You can also see images show up on your Start screen, thanks to added Live Tile support. Plus, there's a new tutorial mode -- perfect for those who have yet to take the app for a spin. Either way, the revamped Blink is available now from the Windows Phone Store.

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Source: Windows Phone Store

More Coverage: Inside Microsoft Research blog

Tags: Blink, Blink app, lens apps, LensApps, Microsoft, Microsoft Research, MicrosoftResearch, mobilepostcross Next: Comcast's first transparency report reveals over 25,000 government data requests .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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SugarSync for Android gets more offline features, full-resolution media uploads

Cloud storage service SugarSync has updated its Android app with quite a few nifty features. For starters, the application now allows any file to be saved to your device or SD card card -- a feature that will come in handy when you don't have a connection. You can also rename folders/files and export them to other apps, while some optimization on the tablet side will make SugarSync for Android look better on larger screens. Most importantly, perhaps, the new version uploads pictures and videos at their full resolution -- and we know how meaningful this is for some of you.

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Via: Android Police

Source: Google Play

Tags: Android, Cloud Storage, CloudStorage, mobilepostcross, Offline, SugarSync Next: The next mobile imaging war won't be waged over megapixels .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Camera360′s Latest Version Is Streamlined But Packed With Features

Camera360, which now claims more than 250 million users, is one of the world’s most successful photo apps. But Camera360 still faces plenty of competition from other apps like Camera

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App.net Launches Backer, A Bitcoin-Friendly Crowdfunding Engine For Individual Software Features

As the popularity of crowdfunding grows ever larger, an interesting new trend has started popping up: developers, curious if a new feature is worth adding to their products, are asking interested customers to chip in to cover the costs of development. In other words: if you really want a feature, put your money where your mouth is.

Balanced, a payment service, recently used crowdfunding to support adding a new money sending feature. App.net, a subscription-based/ad-free Twitter alternative which as a whole was born out of a $803,000 crowdfunding campaign, is currently using it to determine if they’ll accept Bitcoin payments on their site.

This morning, App.net announced that they’re opening up the engine they built for their Bitcoin campaign, allowing other companies to use the platform to raise money for individual features. They’re calling the new platform Backer.

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Baidu Translate App Features A Cool Image Recognition Feature

Baidu, the company best known for making China’s top Internet search engine, just made its translation app available for iOS. The descriptions for the iPhone and Android versions are in Chinese (search for “Baidu Translate” in the stores), as are its intro/instruction screens, but don’t worry–the app’s user interface is mostly in English.

One of Baidu Translate’s key features is voice translation for English, Mandarin and Cantonese, which I found to be very accurate. But that’s not the cool part. I am having the most fun with Baidu Translate’s image recognition feature, which lets you take a picture of something and circle it. The app then attempts to identify the object and tell you what it is in Chinese and English.

The image translator’s accuracy is currently hit-and-miss, with often hilarious mistakes. It correctly identified a picture of my kitten (though it called her a Norwegian Forest Cat, when she is actually a Taiwanese Alley Cat), an Xbox 360 controller (but not by brand–Baidu Translate just described it in English as a “wireless handle”), a tin wind-up toy, a mug, a pen, and a chair. But the app thought my Homer Simpson Pez dispenser was a “cartoon duck” (to be fair, he does look like a yellow rubber ducky) and it described an image of Harry Potter as a “braised carp head.”


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GymPact, The App That Pays You For Working Out, Relaunches As Pact With New Diet Features

GymPact, the app gives you money if you make your fitness goals, has a new name, Pact, and two new diet-oriented features for the New Year.

We covered GymPact when it first launched a year ago and again in June when it received $850,000 in funding from the founder of Guitar Hero. It recently secured an additional $1.5 million in a seed round led by Khosla Ventures and Max Levchin to expand its features beyond exercise.

Founder Yifang Zhang tells me that GymPact changed its name because “only about one out of five people understood the ‘impact’ pun.” The “gym” part of the name was also confusing for users because the app not only counts gym check-ins, but also check-ins at other fitness centers, outdoor runs, walks, bike rides and activity measured by the wearable tech devices and apps it integrates with, including RunKeeper, Jawbone UP, Fitbit, Moves, MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal. Now that the app’s latest version includes two new features focused on healthy eating.

To use the app, you can chose to make a “pact” to exercise, log your meals on MyFitnessPal.com or eat vegetables for a certain number of days. When you sign up for a pact, you select a certain amount–$5 or $10–that is deducted from your credit card or PayPal account for each day you miss. If you hit your goal, then you get paid a reward ranging from 30 cents to $5 per week as soon as you accumulate $10. That payout comes out of the pool of money from people who didn’t make their pact.

Zhang says that Pact has been beta testing its two new features for three months and claims that “they are just as effective, if not more, at keeping people eating healthy consistently as our gym pact feature.” I’m not good at keeping a food diary, so I signed up for the diet pact as soon as the app went live and I already feel the pressure of my potential $5 per day penalty motivating me to log all my meals even though my pact hasn’t started yet (each one starts on the Monday after you sign up and runs through Sunday). I could use MyFitnessPal’s social feed to inspire me instead–MyFitnessPal claims it helps people increase their success rates up to three times–but, to be honest, I find constantly hearing about my friends’ diet and fitness goals tedious.

To be sure, Pact isn’t completely cheat-proof. People can just check in at gyms, for example, without actually exercising and log food or post pictures of vegetables that they haven’t eaten. Zhang says the app tries to “make it difficult enough to cheat that the average smartphone user won’t find it worthwhile.” For example, users fulfill the vegetable pact by uploading pictures of produce that they have consumed and the app checks for device and meta data to make sure that the each picture was taken with the user’s smartphone.

“Also, since the Veggie Pact community has it’s own pool for rewards, members are incentivized to vote down on photos that should not count or look like veggies you are not eating. Selfies are encouraged!” Zhang says.

While the $5 penalty I’ve set for myself is enough to keep me motivated to log meals on MyFitnessPals each day, the 30 cents to $5 reward each person can potentially earn per week is probably not worth the trouble of fake check-ins, fabricating three complete meals per day (the app requires you to enter at least 1,200 calories worth of food and at least three meals, including snacks, each day), or preparing or buying new vegetable dishes to photograph.

I wish I was organized enough to remember to make daily entries in MyFitnessPal on my own, but I’m not, and a week or two on Pact might be the jumpstart I need to make logging my calories a habit in 2014.

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