Twitter website 'blocked' in Turkey

Twitter users in Turkey report that the social media site has been blocked in the country.

Some users trying to open the www.twitter.com website are apparently being redirected to a statement by Turkey's telecommunications regulator.

It cites a court order to apply "protection measures" on the website.

This comes after PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to "wipe out Twitter" following damaging allegations of corruption in his inner circle.

The BBC's James Reynolds in Istanbul reports that he is unable to access Twitter.

"I don't care what the international community says at all. Everyone will see the power of the Turkish Republic," Mr Erdogan said earlier on Thursday.

He spoke after some users had posted documents reportedly showing evidence of corruption relating to the prime minister - a claim he denies.

His office said that Twitter had not responded to Turkey's court rulings to remove some links, forcing Ankara to act.

Twitter has so far made no public comment on the issue.

There are about 10m Twitter users across Turkey.

In 2010, the country lifted its ban on YouTube - two years after it blocked access to the website because of videos deemed insulting to the country's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The “Reaction” Messengers in competition

If you build it, they will come? Half a dozen or so applications have launched in recent months, hoping to dominate what they all hope will be one of the next big trends in mobile messaging: the “reaction” messenger. That is, these apps utilize a smartphone’s camera to either photograph or record a video of a message’s recipient to see how they react to your text, or other content, like a shared photo or video. The idea is that there’s uncharted territory still left to be explored somewhere in between the static nature of the text message and real-time video chat.

But how big a trend is this, really? And is it catching on?

Many of these “reaction” messaging apps are practically clones of each other, while others vary the experience only slightly. This one records a video reaction. That one records a video reaction or it snaps a photo. And so on.

Here are the top contenders for the would-be “reaction” messaging throne, and a brief description followed by their iOS App Store rank (U.S.) and current funding in parenthesis, if disclosed:

    React Messenger: Adds your facial expressions to each message – basically selfies                 turned into emoticons. #962

• Reactr: Lets you capture videos and photos, includes some added social features. (No data on App Annie because newly relaunched)
• Samba: A video messenger that lets you share videos and automatically record the reaction in video form as well. #213 ($630,000)
• Dumbstruck: Essentially, the same as Samba above – you record a video and a receive a video reaction in return. #1009 ($170,000)
• Gigglemail: Another that’s like Samba and Dumbstruck, is focused on video-sharing and video reactions. Not ranked in Social. Listed itself “Photo & Video” where they knew competition wouldn’t exist. #144 in Photo & Video.
• Chatwala: Yet another focused on video sharing and video reactions. #785 ($625,000)
• Meatspace: Not a native mobile app, but one where you record your facial expressionwhich is then played in a loop.
• Reactions: A “reactions” messaging app focused on photos designed by noted hacker George Hotz, aka “geohot.” For whatever reason, the app never launched.

With so many apps seemingly vying for dominance here, one would assume this space is rapidly heating up, or is already very popular. The latter is not the case, and the former is questionable. If by heating up you mean a bunch of startups are currently building reaction messengers, then yes, that could be true. If you mean that the market itself is reflecting some sort of shift to or adoption of this new format, well, that’s not quite true – at least not yet.

Today, the iTunes App Store’s Top Charts in the Social Networking category are nearly overrun with mobile messaging apps. (And no, it’s not necessarily a reflection of the still mind-boggling WhatsApp deal – many, if not most, of these applications had been built prior to WhatsApp’s $19 billion exit to Facebook.)

Then, within the general messaging category, there are a number of sub-trends that can be identified. Anonymous or private messaging, for example, seems to be taking off. Apps that connect you with people you don’t know for the purposes of chatting or dating, are also present. Others focused on letting you place free phone calls remain popular. And those that cater to the teen crowd, who are trying to achieve some sense of privacy outside of Facebook where mom and dad can watch their every move, are also seeing growing user bases.

But even though there’s a good handful of “reaction” messengers to choose from, not one has yet to break into the Social Top Charts for any significant period of time. That doesn’t mean that day won’t come to pass – the teen and young adult audience these apps target is nothing if not fickle with their attention. Plus, one could argue that’s it’s still early days for these “reaction” messenger types. That’s true, I suppose – many of these apps are fairly new. They need time to grow and develop their user base; they need to educate a market as to what a “reaction” messenger even is, and they need to perfect the user experience, and so on.

A third, more pessimistic argument, however, might be this: “reaction” messengers are trying to design an experience that doesn’t actually fulfill a need people feel they have.

The startups would argue that’s not so, of course. Because of physical distance or time zones, you can’t always have a real-time video chat, but there’s still a desire for that human face-to-face connection which traditional mobile messaging doesn’t serve, they’d say. “Give it time, the space is new – the people will come!”, founders tell us over and again. And yet, it’s far from a foregone conclusion that will be the case. Even positive reviews of these apps admit their “unnecessary” nature, or that the apps weren’t really something the writer was looking for. Or, as one commenterchimed in: “cool, but a feature not a product.”

In any event, these “reaction apps” have arrived en masse, at a time when mobile messaging is hotter than ever, into an App Store where the most popular apps are in the mobile messaging category. Now is the time to see if they can deliver.

After WhatsApp: An Insider’s View On What’s Next In Messaging

I was driving to a meeting in San Francisco when I got the message: “Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion.” I pulled over and watched as messages started to stream in. Everyone had the same question: Is Facebook crazy? As the CEO of the only smartphone messenger more popular than WhatsApp in the U.S., I gave them all the same answer: “No.” In fact, we had expected something like this for quite some time. And as we’ve now seen withTango’s $280 million round, led by China’s Alibaba Group, interest in this space clearly isn’t going away anytime soon.

Messaging is a complex topic. It’s also one of the most misunderstood sectors in tech today. What’s the difference between WhatsApp and GChat? Why not just use SMS? Why did Facebook need to buy another messaging app just three years after it had bought Beluga? At the same time, however, messaging promises to be one of the highest-stakes battles in mobile, similar to what search was to the web or what productivity software was to the PC.

So what does messaging mean to mobile?

It’s a question we at Kik have been thinking about for a long time. In fact, given that we launched in 2010, we’ve probably been thinking about it more than almost anyone else. Now, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s latest purchase, the question seems to be on everyone’s mind. So I thought I’d share with you what I’ve learned over the years. Grab a coffee, because this might take some time.

Advent of the mobile messenger 

This story begins in 2007, when I was working at BlackBerry as one of more than a thousand interns hired each term. The iPhone hadn’t launched yet, and data plans were so expensive that only Wall Street bankers could afford them. At RIM, however, we were all given BlackBerrys with full data plans. We used BBM like crazy. Thanks to MSN Messenger, we were already used to instant messaging – but somehow this was different. It was more immediate, more intimate.

With MSN, you’d always get people who would turn off their computers or leave them at their desks. But now the computer was always with you, always on, and always connected. For the first time, there was no such thing as offline.

Apps such as MSN, Facebook Messenger, and Skype have added mobile access over the years, but their desktop legacies live on: The “offline” setting is always a looming option. With WhatsApp, Kik or even SMS, on the other hand, the messaging communities are tied to the phones. By default, then, there is no such thing as offline – there’s only online, all the time.

So if you’re running five minutes late to meet your friend for coffee, you don’t send them a GChat or a message through Skype. You send them a text. Why? Because you want to maximize the chance they get your message. Only a mobile-only community guarantees everyone will be online, all the time.

If BBM was the first mobile messenger, WhatsApp was the second. It was 2009 and I had just left RIM to build a “Spotify for BlackBerry.” We planned to plug it into BBM to facilitate sharing. But towards the end of 2009, we realized the iPhone was actually going to be a thing, and that our music app needed to be on both BlackBerry and iPhone.

At about the same time, WhatsApp took off. It was basically BBM for iPhone users. Then it turned out they were planning to launch on BlackBerry as well. It was a killer idea. We went to RIM and asked them to launch BBM on iPhone. Not only did we need it for our music app, but we also thought it was the only way to compete with WhatsApp. RIM, however, needed BBM to sell BlackBerrys and chose not to take it cross-platform. We decided to take matters into our own hands and launch our own cross-platform messenger.

Fast forward four years and today the world is a very different place, with thousands of ways to message on a mobile phone. But when it comes to smartphone messengers, there are really only five messengers left in play: WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, Kakao and Kik. Yes, there are voice apps like Tango and Viber, as well photo apps like Instagram and Snapchat, but when it comes to that base utility of saying “Be there in five,” these are the ones that matter.

These five apps are quite similar, and only differentiate on one of three vectors: identity, region and platform.

Name and place 

For me, the first mobile messenger was BBM, but for most people it was SMS – and SMS worked well. It was mobile only and pre-installed on every phone. The key question for companies in the messaging space was: How do you take users away from SMS? The most obvious answer: make it free.

It’s easy for people in the U.S. to underestimate just how big a deal “free” is, because for most of us SMS is already free. Why would I use WhatsApp when I can just text? Because in most other countries around the world, texting is expensive.

That’s why WhatsApp was compelling: it was SMS, but it cost nothing. There was just one catch: your friends needed to be on WhatsApp, as well.

As a result, WhatsApp spread like crazy. In Asia, some companies reacted quickly and were able to compete. In China, Tencent launched WeChat; in Japan, Naver (actually a Korean company) launched Line; and Kakao sprung up as a startup in South Korea to launch KakaoTalk. For the most part, though, WhatsApp consumed the world. Except the U.S.

Aside from not being free, SMS has another problem: you can’t block people. For most people that’s okay. But there are times when you would like people who encounter you on Instagram, Tumblr, or SoundCloud to get in touch with you privately. Posting your phone number on such services is out of the question, because then you open yourself up to all sorts of spam and calls from weirdoes. Once that happens, the only way to stop the unwanted contact is to get a new number.

We chose to base Kik accounts on usernames, so you don’t have to hand out your phone number. As a result, we’re now seeing people share their Kik usernames to facilitate connections across a variety of services, including social apps, gaming apps and fitness apps.

The companies behind some of these other apps have seen all this activity and tried to build their own messaging right into the product. Take, for instance, Instagram Direct or Twitter’s Direct Messages. So far, those moves haven’t really worked out. People don’t want a messenger for each app they use – they want one messenger for all the apps they use.

Will consumers ever want more? 

I remember being at RIM when they had a simple, singular vision for Blackberry: email on your phone. That was it. And it worked for a while. BlackBerry grew faster than everyone else and became bigger than everyone else. When the iPhone came out, we all laughed.

“Look at how bad the battery is!”

“Look how slow the email is!”

“All those apps! Who even wants apps? They just get in the way of email.”

For a while, RIM was right. Smartphones were a big enough leap that consumers needed a simple value proposition like “email on your phone” in order to understand them. Soon, though, consumers came to understand email on your phone. Eventually, they would have a new question: “What else can I do on my phone?”

WhatsApp feels to be in a similar place right now. The company’s simple “SMS but free” proposition is lighting the world on fire, but at some point will consumers find that offering mundane? Will they start to ask: “What else can I do with SMS?” We’re about to find out.

Each of the four remaining messengers has a beachhead that WhatsApp can’t touch. Line has Japan. KakaoTalk has South Korea. WeChat has China. Kik has cross-app chat. So none of us are going away. But we each want more than that. We’re all hungry to win, hungry to find a way to take users away from WhatsApp. And each of us has settled on the same way to do it: by building a platform.

Platform: Simplicity with differentiation 

A platform lets you maintain simplicity for people who only want messaging, while providing for those who want a little something more. Do you just want to chat with your friends? Okay, just do that. Oh, you want to play a game with your friends? Sure, try this. Want to shop for shoes with your friends now? How about this…

Platforms let us maintain the simplicity of a core messenger while also creating differentiation. On Kik, you can chat with your friends, play Words with Friends, and listen to music with them too. On KakaoTalk, you can sell digital items. On Line, you’ll soon be able to create and sell your own stickers. Using WeChat in China, you can pay for taxis and coffees right from the app.

Once you add developers into the mix, an entirely new computing ecosystem will develop. Thanks to the enormous spread of smartphones and mobile Internet connections — we’re looking at 5 billion mobile phone users by 2017 — it’s an ecosystem that could surpass anything we’ve seen so far, including Windows and Facebook. This is where “messaging apps” are heading.

This platform play has long been the game plan for messengers like Kik whose platform is, uniquely, built in HTML5. We all started off as “SMS but free,” but that meme is fast becoming “SMS but more.” We’ve learned from BlackBerry taking too long to respond to the iPhone that, if the big shift does happen again, for WhatsApp it may well be too late.

Two key questions 

We always knew messaging would be a valuable space, but somehow a $19 billion acquisition has made that all the more real. From here on out, there are only two questions that matter.

1. Will people ever want more from their messenger than just free SMS?
2. What’s the best way to build a platform?

If the answer to the first question is “no,” then WhatsApp has likely already won.

If the answer to the first question is “yes,” then WhatsApp has likely already lost, and it will be up to the other four companies to fight it out.

Then you’re left with the second question, which is the more interesting, and more lucrative, one. WhatsApp doesn’t have an answer for question two, so the answer will have to come from somewhere else. For us at Kik, that’s the really exciting part. That’s the future of messaging.

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SALARY OF MAJOR POLITICAL OFFICE HOLDERS.

1) President Barack Obama (USA)- $400,000.

2) Prime Minister Davad Cameron (UK) - $222,000.

3)President Nicolas Sarkozy (France) – $302,000.

4)Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany) - $296,000.005.

5)President Hu Jintao (China)- $11,000.00.

Now Compare the above with the yearly salaries of Nigerian Federal Lawmakers

1) Senator (Nigeria) – $1,100,000.00

2) Member, House of Representative (Nigeria) – $834,402.00

A SNEAK PREVIEW OF OUR PRESIDENT AND VP’s PROPOSED EXPENDITURE

* If u buy 40 newspapers/day for 366 days @ N350, you’ll spend N5.12m. Our VP’s Newspapers budget in 2012 is N45.08m!

**Jonathan’s feeding allowance is N1 billion naira for this year… At an exchange rate of N159 to $1, N1b equals $6.3million dollars this equates to about $17,231 that is N2,739726 per day on food 

President Obama will not spend this!!!

**At N70,000 a month the money spent on feeding by the President will pay the salaries of 1200 Nigerians for a year!!!

**The Federal Government earmarked a curious N16.64million as rent payable on the official residence of Vice President Namadi Sambo, although the president and his deputy are not known to pay rents for their official residences. The presidency would spend another N230.133million on the acquisition, upgrading and

furnishing of the VP’s official guest house.

**Over N1.06billion comprising N500million for the construction and furnishing of the extension of the same VP lounge, and another N560million for the construction of official quarters for the VP’s director of protocols.N116.733million is provided for the installation of universal power system (UPS) facilities at the VP’s residence, while about N108million is to be spent on communication equipments at the VP’s guest house and the presidential villa.Other expenses include N20.80million for plant/generator fuel cost, and N10.40million for maintenance of plants/ generators, as against N54.33million and N15.216million respectively by the president.Also, the Presidency is to spend about N203.88million for the construction/provision of electricity at the villa this year, in addition to about N85.21million electricity charges and another N168.72million provided in the budget for fuel and general lubricants. Honorarium and sitting allowance, N173.75million; publicity and advertisements, N77.56million; medical expenses, N84.3million; postages and courier services, N14.06million as well as welfare packages, N285.14million.The provision for general utilities include N56.48million for telephone charges; N42.94million for water rates and N80.8million for leased communication lines(s) Who is deceiving who?

What are these people contributing to the growth and development of the Nigerian economy to deserve such hefty salaries? Just this week, there was massive pay cut (up to 52%) for politicians in Singapore. On which planet is Nigeria?

One of the very few underdeveloped countries that can afford such blatant waste of our very limited resources… Enough is Enough of this LOOTING OF OUR TREASURY.

Nigeria is ranked as one of the countries

whose citizens have a high tolerance level but this oppression has gone on for too long. Its time to stand up for our rights. Its time to stand up for our rights!!!!!

#OCCUPY NIGERIA!!!

Please read this.....Relationship overview

Hello y’all, whether or not you are in a relationship, kindly read this post. 

I came Across it on a friend’s timeline, but I’m sharing it because I know it can and will save marriages and relationships…

“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The sales girl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband….

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!

If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you.

If you do, you just might save a marriage. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Source: Odu Oluwafemi Daniel

Turn your twitter handle to a real time chat room with Nurph app

Back in 2010, Nurph was a tiny boot-strapped startup working on a platform which turned Twitter into a realtime chat platform. Developed by Neil Cauldwell, the app got a little Angel cash and tinkered away. Nurph chats are very easy to create with a Twitter handle and a place to invite friends to join and chat in real-time, instead of via slower @ replies. Just be warned though. This is not a private chat room – anything you post goes onto your main Twitter timeline, so people may not quite get the context.

Now, the guys have somehow managed to survive on Ramen Noodles all this time to finally close another Angel funding round led by Paul Ratcliff and a few others. Ratcliff founded Hatton Blue, an early CRM pioneer, and has invested in Symbios Group among others. The startup has now had a total of £200,000 invested so far.

Cauldwell says: “A lot has changed since 2010!”. They are now launching Nurph channels. These are Twitter-based real-time chats for businesses, brands or communities. Your can record these group chats and play them back like a video, get analytics and search them.

Gear 2 smartwatch (Sim equipped), New from samsung

Samsung is in talks with SK Telecom to release a version of the Gear 2 which has its own SIM and can make calls without needing a smartphone connection, according to a new report from The Korea herald. The variant of the Gear 2 would be exclusive to the Korean market for a while, but international expansion isn’t out of the question, according to the report.

This wouldn’t be Samsung’s first exploration of a standalone watchphone – the company had one back in 2003 that was announced and then later cancelled, with a 94×64 screen and SMS capabilities. But this would be the first one to incorporate so-called smart features, and the first based on Tizen, Samsung’s home spun smartphone OS which provides battery-saving advantages over Android.

Battery would be an issue that needs addressing with the Samsung Gear 2 smartphone watch, since adding cellular calling capabilities would mean its existing power usage takes a hit. Still, Samsung already improved its battery life on the Gear 2 over the original Galaxy Gear, so perhaps adding telephony services would just bump it back to around a day or so, which is in keeping with most modern smartphones.

Samsung has offered an SDK for the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, so theoretically a standalone version could also run its own apps, too. I still think most of the value of smartwatches is in their ability to complement the experience of a smartphone, but if Samsung can put out a Gear 2 variant that has built-in voice calling cheaply and see how users respond, it’s probably not a bad idea for them to see how the market responds. In light of Google's announcement of android wear, differentiating competing platforms is going to be key, after all.

$3.2M raised to make Google glass a standard kit for future doctors

Google Glass is facing some challenges in terms of public perception and an ongoing debate about its role in the public forum, but it has some potential in specific realms that could be very exciting, apart from its ability to be a huge consumer success. One such application is in medicine, and startup Augmedix just raised $3.2 million to help show how Glass can be useful to doctors.

The round from DCM and Emergence Capital Partners will help Augmedix hire new talent and then expand its user base from its initial few pilot studies. The company, founded by Stanford Biodesign program alums Ian Shakil and Pelu Tran, is one of the first companies to receive sizeable early funding based on a product aimed specifically at Google Glass, which hints at the potential for wearable tech in specific verticals.

Augmedix has been working on its platform since 2012, and has created a system whereby electronic health records are pushed directly to a doctor’s Glass device, where they can be queried using voice commands for easy retrieval of key patient information. This saves time spent recalling and browsing EHR records on a computer, something Shakil refers to as “feeding the beast.” That can occupy as much as one-third of a doctor’s day, according to Augmedix, which is all time they could be spending visiting with patients.

Of course, with Glass and EHR, there’s bound to be anxiety around patient privacy, but Augmedix says that it’s seeing “resoundingly high” acceptance of the system – which is opt-in – among patients across the country, in both urban and rural areas. It’s possible that the key to comfort with Glass is seeing it used by trusted professionals, like the doctors patients are used to entrusting with their personal health on a regular basis.

Autodesk competes with Adobe by purchasing creative market

It looks like Autodesk has taken one more step forward in its bid to compete more with the likes of Adobe in the business of providing tools to the design community, but also a bigger step into the maker movement. It has acquired Creative Market a San Francisco-based startup that provides a marketplace for digitally-designed content like fonts, icons, photos and templates.

We’re trying to find out the terms of the acquisition. Autodesk does not appear to have made an official announcement yet, but we’re looking out for it.

All of the Creative Market team will be joining the Autodesk Consumer Group, including co-founders Chris Williams (the CTO) and Aaron Epstein (VP product), who be relocating to San Francisco. “We have big plans to help lead them into a future where beautiful design can be simple and accessible to everyone,” Darius ‘Bubs’ Monsef, the co-founder and CEO, writes in a blog post about the deal.

In the words of Monsef, it looks like the startup was in the process of raising another round (it had raised $2.3 million to date from investors including SV Angel, Alexis Ohanian and Crunchfund, founded and led by the founder of TechCrunch, Michael Arrington). Instead, it decided to go the exit route.

Part of the interest in Autodesk came from the fact that the bigger company was looking to develop more consumer-focused offerings for the maker movement.

“After more than 12 straight months of month-over-month revenue growth, we had a lot of interest in our next fundraising round, and we also had interest from folks who wanted to acquire us,” he writes. “When I first spoke to the folks at Autodesk, I was impressed with their vision and where they saw an opportunity to develop a more consumer-focused offering to take their decades of design experience and bring that spirit to the maker movement. As a creative, I’ve always been in awe of the incredible work that folks are able to create with AutoCAD, Maya and Autodesk’s other professional design tools. The animated film I just watched with my wife & daughter… made with Autodesk software. Well-engineered sports cars, dream homes… made with Autodesk software.”

But there is likely more to this deal that is also related to competitive strategy. Last year, Creative Market launched a Photoshop extension that let people effectively sell and buy assets from its marketplace directly within the Photoshop app. If this extension remains intact, what it will do is give Autodesk a direct link into the world of professionals who are using Adobe’s flagship design product.

At the same time, this gives Autodesk another product to build out its wider ambitionof offering a suite of cloud-based services for the design community — covering not just digital assets (as in the case of Creative Market) but also 3D assets related to the growth of businesses creating new hardware and other physical products. This, too, is an area where Adobe wants to play more with its own Creative Cloud business.

Flappy bird will return to the app-store

I hope you enjoyed your life over the past month and a half; Flappy Bird is coming back to the App Store after its removal earlier this year, according to the game’s developer Dong Nguyen. A member of the Cloudshot media crew spotted the developer's tweeted response to a question about whether or not it would ever return, which was an unequivocal “Yes.”

Nguyen doesn’t give a timeline but does say it won’t be “soon,” which suggests possibly there’s some additional development going into the game, or at least some kind of preparatory action so that Nguyen can deal with the life upheaval that’s bound to follow. Nguyen left the door open for a Flappy Bird return in his extendedRolling Stone profile, but this confirms the bird won’t stay grounded forever.

I’ve already got the game on my phone, and I didn’t even try to sell it on eBay for tens of thousands of dollars, so I’m not sweating it, but this is good (bad?) news for people who haven’t yet tasted sweet pixelated feather.
All you lovers of flappy bird  and also to the addicts, Tell your friends that they should be expecting the original flappy bird on the app store soon.

100 Social Networking Apps to Feed Your Internet Addiction

Chat and Messaging

Skype – Call, video call and instant message anyone else on Skype for free with Skype for your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Plus call and text your Contacts (or any other number) at Skype’s low rates. It’s great value with Skype Credit.

Yahoo! Messenger – Connect with your IM friends using video and voice with the newest Yahoo! Messenger app for your iPhone. Make free voice and video calls to your Messenger friends, low cost calls to land line or mobile phones, video calls—plus get new features like multi tasking, instant notifications and free SMS.

AIM – Simplify. We’re making it easier to stay in touch with all your friends – regardless if they’re on Facebook or Google Talk, just tap and chat. We’ve also replaced the Contacts tab with type down search. When sending a new IM, just start typing and we’ll find all your contacts on your iPhone. Lifestream will let you post your status to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Lifestream with one tap. Now chatting with your Facebook or GTalk friends is as easy as using AIM.

LiveProfile – LiveProfile helps you stay connected with friends and share in real-time. Use your iPhone to send free mobile to mobile messages, status updates, photos, videos, and more! You can use it on iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices, it even works on the iPod Touch. Now with picture and video messaging!

LiveProfile

Beluga – Beluga is the best cross-platform messaging app for groups, period. With Beluga, you can quickly create private groups (pods) to stay in touch with your friends, coordinate plans, and share your life. Beluga lets you send and receive instant updates, location info and photos, all via push notification, with NO TXT messaging fees. When everyone is on the run, use Beluga to stay in sync!

GroupMe – Free group messaging with anyone you know. Works on any phone. Now works over data—no text plan required!

Meebo – Meebo is integrated, all-in-one instant messaging that connects you with your friends everywhere. Meebo has been the leading platform for multi-protocol IM on the web since 2005. With that knowledge and experience, we optimized Meebo on the iPhone for speed, simplicity, and performance.

Freespeech – Freespeech is the perfect combinations of group messaging, text messaging and real-time message acknowledgements, and it’s all for free.

Convore – Convore is the easiest way to have group conversations about topics you like! It’s a fun mix of chat, forums, and instant messenger. Create or join new groups and invite your friends to join the conversation in no time at all. Best of all: it’s free!

Convore

Goba – Goba (Get Out Be Active) is the easiest way to connect with groups of friends in person. Whether you are trying to get the fella’s together for a game of cards or the ladies together for a movie night, Goba helps you quickly create and send an invitation and gather responses using App notifications, text messaging or email. Fun follow-up features like Remind and Prod help give you the best opportunity to get your friends to respond.

PingChat! – PingChat! is the ultimate way to communicate with all of your friends, whether they use an iDevice, Android or BlackBerry. PingChat! provides free, unlimited, cross-platform, smartphone-to-smartphone messaging, with real-time conversations, group chat, media sharing, and much more. Simply create a Ping! ID, share your ID with all your friends, and start Pinging!

fring: Video Calls + IM – FREE Video Calls, voice calls & chat. fring’s video calling DVQ™ technology (Dynamic Video Quality) gives you the best video and audio quality possible by automatically and continuously adjusting your video call quality to match your connectivity.

Colloquy – Colloquy for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch puts the power of the most popular IRC client for the Mac in the palm of your hand. Built atop the Chat Core framework, Colloquy Mobile is a full featured client optimized for the on-the-go experience with iOS 4 multitasking support.

Location

foursquare – foursquare helps you explore the world around you. Keep up with friends, get insider tips, and unlock discounts and rewards. While on the go, you can easily tell friends where you are, share pictures, get their comments (“I’m right around the corner, I’ll stop by to say hello”), and get insider tips (“order the Lobster Ravioli; it’s the best dish by far.”). Tons of places offer discounts and freebies to foursquare users, and you earn points and badges for doing the things you love.

Gowalla – Gowalla is la social travel guide and passport on your phone. It’s a fun and social way to keep up with your friends, record your memories, share photos and highlights, and discover your city and the world around you. Plus, Gowalla is available everywhere, so you’ll be able to record your adventures wherever you go. Gowalla will even keep track of all the cities, states and countries you visit.

Google Latitude – With Google Latitude, see where your friends are right now. Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map.

Google Latitude

SCVNGR – SCVNGR is a game about going places, doing challenges and earning points. You’ll discover cool new places to go, find fun new things to do and share your activity with your friends.

Ditto! – What are you up to? Share it with your friends on Ditto! Exchange recommendations about restaurants, movies, and other activities. Select an icon, ping your friends, and get notified about replies.

Localmind – Localmind gives you the ability to know what’s happening, at this very moment, at any place you care about. Find out how crowded the bar is, how long the line to the party is, or what specials at the restaurant are. Mobile real-time omniscience at your fingertips.

atzip – Is all that time on social networks killing your social life? atzip is all about getting out. Whatever you’re up for, whether you’re new in town or a regular, atzip connects you to a dynamic network of places and people in-the-know — in and around your ZIP.