Startups

Netherlands-based hardware initiative Fairphone began around three years ago as a project designed to highlight the use of conflict minerals in the construction of consumer electronics, and then evolved three years later into a full-fledged hardware startup, with the aim of turning its knowledge into action with the building of an ethically sourced, built and distributed smartphone. Now, it’s opening up pre-orders to the general public, beginning with customers in Europe. The Fairphone needs 5,000 pre-orders in order to begin production, and retails for a total of €325 ($436). That price included taxes, however and what you get for that is an unlocked, 4.3-inch smartphone running Android 4.2, powered by a quad core processor. It has an 8 megapixel rear camera, and a 1.3 megapixel front facing shooter, with dual-SIM trays for easy carrier switching and international travel. As a smartphone, the Fairphone seems capable enough, but it’s the manufacturing process that’s really core to the concept of the device. The phone itself is made using materials from a completely transparent supply chain – Fairphone is looking at the provenance of each mineral used to make each component, the people who build each part and the processes evolved and their social and ecological impact, and will make all of that information available to buyers and the general public. The idea is to flag stuff that’s being done poorly, highlight ways to make changes, in both the short and long term, and also build a collection of best practices that can be shared with the rest of the industry. Fairphone initially had opened sales only to the over 16,000 people who signed up to express interest when it initially announced the project, giving them first crack at the initial pre-order run. It seems like the percentage of those that were actually willing to put their money down on a device and contribute to the initial fund was much lower, however, which has prompted the expansion of sales to anyone in Europe who might want to contribute. The Fairphone is being transparent about the sales process, too; thus far, it has managed to sell 2,333 phones through pre-orders, with 20 days left in its campaign. Hopefully broadening the buyer pool will spark more interest, because the project stands to be able to shed a lot of light on what for many is a completely invisible or poorly understood process.

The rush to get a PE job for young investment banking analysts. German brewers are worried that fracking could ruin the purity of beer there. Lois Lerner, the IRS’ director of exempt organizations, has been placed on administrative leave. Broken immigration laws stymies innovation says Brad Feld. Anthony Weiner is running for NYC mayor but his website uses Pittsburgh’s skyline. Teen who asked Kate Upton to be his prom date is going with another SI model Yahoo buys PlayerScale Chicago is the slowest growing big city. Atari seeks a minimum of $22.2 million in bids. Pinterest is driving more traffic to retail web site, according to Monetate. Google is facing a new federal antitrust probe. And, now Google is in talks to buy Waze Photo courtesy of Shutterstock The post peHUB First Read appeared first on peHUB.

Company / App Name: Feedbacq http://www.feedbacq.com Twitter – Feedbacq What does it do? Feedbacq is a platform that connects expats and repatriates with quality international moving companies. Why do we need it? There are lots of moving scams, and one of our founders had a bad experience while he moved back to India from UK. Upon further research, he realised that this is happening often online. Therefore, he started Feedbacq to offer people who a Who is it for? There are over 4000 searches done every month on Google by people who are looking for international movers. Feedbacq has been able to tap into this market, getting around 8000 visitors last month. What makes it stand out from the crowd? Feedbacq has partnered with over 112 moving companies in 26 countries. This global partnership with quality companies makes Feedbacq stand out. What’s next? We need to create a mobile app. There is an innovation on the way. Pitch Video http://

Despite the fact that ebooks have taken off to the extent that Amazon's ebooks now sell more digital books than paper ones, I still feel that there is something missing with the format. It's just not the same as picking up a book and reading it from cover-to-cover. The ebook needs to deliver more to convince the rest of us non believers that it has something else to offer besides a kindle. And this iOS application could well be the kind of thing to convince me. Carmilla is a new app by DraculApps (yep, you heard it right) that not only gives you the story of a young vampire girl but also illustrates our imagination with maps, original creepy music and beautiful illustrations that turn the humble ebook concept into something far more interesting. Carmilla begins in a castle that is nestled deep in the forests of a magical world called Stiria. Our heroine Laura is a lonely girl living with her father. She longs for the company of someone of her own age and, after a sudden scary crash in the middle of the night, a new and mysterious friend enters the house - the very beautiful and quite fascinating Carmilla. The two girls bond quickly and easily but a dark shadow looms over the seemingly peaceful valleys of Stiria and an unknown sickness is dragging young boys and girls to an early death. Laura, meanwhile, is experiencing strange and disturbing dreams as well as episodes of precognition while Carmilla is wavering between moments of extreme excitement and days of apathy. In a struggle between rationalism and magic and between ancient lore and science, the enemy is never where you would expect and apparently it wields superhuman powers. This unique and riveting ebook with a difference lets you read how the story unfolds, track events on the ancient map, listen to the music and share illustrations with your friends! The Carmilla experience is available in English, Chinese and Italian. There were points in their evolution when both the CD and DVD revolution finally took off that signaled the death knell for both the vinyl industry (which funnily enough is having a bit of a renaissance right now) and the video world (which isn't.) The initial release of both formats was taken on by staunch supporters of new technology but the real fans tended to stick to their original formats until they were given something that was too good to turn their noses up at. And that thing was the heaps of extra music on CD's and things like directors commentaries and outtakes on DVD's. By adding to the novel experience with maps and music and letting you share the illustrations with your favorite social networks, Carmilla is just the beginning of the journey for the ebook. And the horror genre is just the place to start with shows like The Walking Dead and True Blood capturing a huge audience. Carmilla is not just a simple ebook. It's a novel new experience.

It appears Yahoo-owned Flickr has suffered the first significant outage after its major revamp. People online are reporting the site going down, with some tweets marked as early as 5:30PM PDT, says TNW. That was about six hours ago, at time of writing. Flickr also tweeted its acknowledgement of the site going down, about two hours ago. Experiencing slowness or having trouble accessing the site? We’re on it, and are working to fix the issue as quickly as possible. #badpanda — Flickr (@Flickr) May 24, 2013 TNW reported the site flashing the #badpanda image when it went down, but I only managed to see it once. The site was otherwise completely unresponsive the other times I tried loading it. Flickr’s revamp, launched just four days ago, overhauled the photo site’s interface with large, high-res photos. This pairs with a recent update of Flickr’s apps on both iOS and Android. Flickr has said that the updated iOS app yielded 25 percent more uploads. The additional load placed on Flickr’s systems by all the high-res flood coming in is likely to have taken its servers down. Flickr has about 89 million users. The new revamp bumped up each user’s upload quota to a whopping 1Tb. Not everyone’s going to be rushing to reach the quota, but it’s undoubtedly revived a lot of interest from users who have fallen by the wayside in recent years. #badpanda

A Canadian vampire, a Jewish Frankenstein, an Egyptian mummy, and a yeti from India teaches kids all about being different. Join Count Dracu and his lovable gang of multicultural monster friends, as they take kids on an interactive journey while teaching them all about "opposites" - like tall & short, fat & thin, and the different characteristics that make us all unique.

Here in this post we will tell you 10 ways to make broadband internet connection run faster. Are you trying to load a web page for completing your project report but facing the dismal problem of timed-out internet connection? Seeing the message “Internet Explorer cannot display the Web Page” again and again on your computer screen is really frustrating. Moreover, it is not easy to find and fix the problem as there are so many places to look out and you probably don’t know about the tips and tricks for fixing the broadband low internet speed problem. Here is a quick guide comprising 10 ways for troubleshooting and speeding up your broadband internet connection. 1. Check your Modem and Router Sometimes a modem heats up if used for long hours so switch it off for few minutes for cooling it down. Moreover, you can also physically move your router to the central place for receiving better signal. Keep it away from other electronic devices such as baby monitors, Bluetooth devices and cordless phones, as broadband wireless connections are weakened due to electrical interferences from other devices. 2. Maintain your PC by running Scans Clear your recycle bin by running a scan disk, Disk Defrag, a malware or virus scan. Sometimes due to virus or malware infection internet speed slows down drastically. You can also remove the temporary or old files that are often downloaded with the main files. The free space on your C: Drive should be always more than 10% of the total size of the drive. Keep updating your system as it facilitates your system with new features. 3. Upgrade your Broadband Package If you are facing low internet speed problem frequently maybe you use internet heavily, and your broadband package is not suitable as per your usage. A few years ago you subscribed for a broadband package that is no longer suitable for your iPlayer or MMORPG. For this, you can search online the best bt broadband deals as per your usage requirement. 4. Use BT Broadband Accelerator It is also known as iPlate and it helps in accelerating internet speed when used with the right kind of socket. This iPlate is used for reducing the external interferences which is very often picked up by your bell wires. It is seen that by using iPlate broadband internet speed can be increased up to 1-2Mbps. 5. Troubleshoot -Line Quality You need to determine the signal coming at your home, so for replacing it you have to check at what instant the signal is degraded. For checking satellite internet connections you need to determine Line of straight. The angle between the dish and satellite has to be at a certain angle if something comes in between then, problem occurs. 6. Check Weather conditions Broadband connections are affected by climatic conditions. Ice, snow can be affecting your connectivity and maybe becoming a barrier between your dish and the satellite. This is one difficult situation where you have to climb on the roof for clearing snow and other barriers. 7. Change Cable Network Connecting wrong cables may slow down you internet connection. Crossover cables are to be connected directly to two different PCs. If you are using extension cables then it would slow down your connection speed, straight through cables works best when hub or routers are used. 8. Change Connection Settings Running SG TCP Optimizer lets you arrange your settings and make your system faster. Moreover, press CTRL + ALT + DEL buttons, go to the task bar and close all unimportant programs running as they can consume your bandwidth making your internet connection slow. 9. Fix Wireless Router outage problem You can check the wireless router outage problem by connecting your laptop or PC with the wired connection if the connection is established then it means your wireless connection is causing the problem. You can either fix it by using the wireless device manual; however, it requires in-depth knowledge, so it is better calling your Internet Service Provider. 10. Test your Programs Run

Course Toolkit's web-based training software enables teachers and training administrators to create courses that can be served to students online. Trainers can add fully-formatted documents and media and track student progress with Course Toolkit's real-time reporting. Tests and exams can also be created with manual or automatic marking, enabling students and teachers to submit tests and results quickly and easily.

Coffeetopia aims to become an organic social network for one particular special interest group - coffee lovers. The app will let you rate (from 1-5 stars) your favourite (and least favourite!) coffee experiences, leave a comment and a photograph and share it on your Facebook page or Twitter account. The average rating is calculated and each place is given a real user rating to help people find the best coffee in any given area. Businesses can register too (for a $1.99 fee) and add a more detailed description of their activity. The better a coffeehouses rating (whether a registered business or not) the better it is placed in the top-ten lists for your Area, City, Country or the World. There is also a "Fancy a Coffee?" function. This allows you the user to invite anyone (logging in with Facebook the app imports your friends or you can choose to invite someone entering an email address) for a coffee and choose a place and set a time. This is the function that'll help diffuse the app.

The Photo Journal publishes the finest photography every fortnight for your iPad. The Photo Journal has no ads, and is entirely funded by the readers. Thanks to you we can work with a lot of photographers to publish their finest work in our magazine.