Soldiers Detain House Of Reps Speaker Aminu Tambuwal In Kaduna

Stern looking armed soldiers earlier today in Kaduna detained the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, insisting his official car must be searched before he could be allowed into an international conference he was due to deliver a speech. Angered by the conduct of the soldiers,  the Speaker came out of the car and trekked into the venue.

The incident occurred at Hotel 17, venue of an  International conference on security and development challenges of pastoralism in West and Central Africa organised by the office of the National Security Adviser. This is coming barely days after four state governors of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC were treated in the same manner by soldiers acting 'on orders from above'

While Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa was prevented from flying from the Yola airport, Governors Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers, Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano and Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state were prevented by soldiers from entering Ado Ekiti to attend the final campaign rally of Governor Kayode Fayemi, all also acting on 'orders from above.' Tambuwal is believed to be top on the target of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration for his critical stance against the executive.

The Speaker,  who arrived the venue of the gathering at exactly 9.16 am for the 10.00 am local time opening ceremony, had his convoy stopped by soldiers who insisted they must search his official car before he could be allowed into the venue.

Despite much entreaties by security details attached to the Speaker, the soldiers refused, with some saying they have orders from above to search the Speaker. Incidentally, other VIPs, especially Governors,  who attended the conference were allowed access into the hotel without hindrance. The Speaker is the number Four in protocol hierarchy in the Federation,  after the President, Vice-President, and the Senate President.

When contacted for his reaction, Tambuwal's spokesman,  Malam Imam Imam, decried the conduct of the soldiers, saying their attitude undermines the institution of the legislature. "It is not about the person of the Speaker, but the office he is occupying. What we expect is for the security agents to show respect for the office of the Number 4 citizen of the country, " he said.

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This Glove Makes You Beethoven

“Have you ever seen the Matrix?” Thad Starner excitedly asks me over the phone. “There’s that scene where they need to fly a helicopter and Trinity just says, “hang on” and then uploads the instructions to her brain. That’s the future of what I’m doing.”

What started as a wearable experiment for the Georgia Tech professor could possibly make anyone a master at guitar, piano, Braille or even dance steps at superhuman speed.

All you have to do to play like Beethoven, Starner tells me, is slip on this glove he’s made called the Mobile Music Touch and it’s just bzzz, bzzz bzzz… bzzz bzzz…bzzz bzzz buh bzzz bzzz bzzz. Pretty soon you’re playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” like a pro.

Starner, by the way, is a current technical lead on Google Glass. He’s actually been wearing some kind of computer on his head for over 20 years. In fact, he built a wearable computer with a mounted display back in 1993. He’s also heavily involved in AI and techniques in human computer interaction (HCI) using wearable tech.

His glove is like one of those fingerless leather gloves you’d see at the gym for weight lifting, but with a robotic box of wires fixed at the back containing a Bluetooth radio and microcontroller. This means you can hook it up to your laptop or mobile device and start to play a song.

Mobile Music Touch has been something of a study in haptic learning for Starner for the past couple of years. That repetitive buzz from the device infuses a kind of muscle memory that, in theory, can really cut your time for learning things like playing the piano.

But it has a much wider potential for teaching not just patterns but also language. He lists off a series of other applications like sign language and Braille.

He’s also studied the effects the glove might have on those with spinal cord injuries. “We looked at those with fractured spines between the fourth and seventh vertebrae and found that using the glove actually helped them gain some sensation back in their hands.” This was over the course of a year and without other rehabilitation efforts, according to Starner.

The remarkable thing is that those studied in the injury actually pick up skills faster if they don’t think about it. It’s an idea called Passive Haptic Learning (PHL). If you’ve ever been a dancer or played guitar you know you’re better when you just move to the rhythm instead of thinking about what you are doing. Starner says it’s kinda like that.

The PHL activities associated with Starner’s glove allows an individual to learn one skill through their sense of touch while performing another, unrelated activity.

“And do you think a baseball player improves his pitch if you just show him a video of what he’s doing wrong?” he asks. Maybe? “Who knows? I don’t know…but what if he had something that could teach him how to throw right while he’s throwing?” Rad.

We’re far off from learning to immediately fly a helicopter, according to Starner. And of course you don’t suddenly become Beethoven just by putting on the glove. But the research does indicate you can master skills at a much faster pace and with more precision than just trying to do it on your own.


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Google and Nest Acquire Dropcam For $555 Million

Remember those rumors a few weeks ago that Google was looking to acquire the plug-and-play security camera company, Dropcam?

Yep. It just happened.

Just months after being acquired themselves, the now Google-owned Nest has just announced that they’ve acquired Dropcam. We’re digging for more details on the deal now, but have confirmed that the final sale price was $555 million in cash.

Wondering what the heck a Dropcam is? They make a few different things, but their namesake device is a WiFi-enabled security camera ($149 or $199, depending on video quality) that requires little-to-no-effort to maintain. You plug it in, get it up on your WiFi, and you’re set. If you just want to be able to check in on your cameras remotely, that’s free; if you want Dropcam to keep an archive of recorded footage on their servers, that’ll cost you anywhere from $10 to $30 a month (depending on how long you want archives kept).

In a blog post on the acquisition, Dropcam founder Greg Duffy explains the move:

Nest and Dropcam are kindred spirits. Both were born out of frustration with outdated, complicated products that do the opposite of making life better. After numerous conversations with Nest Founders Tony and Matt, it was clear that we shared a similar vision.

If privacy advocates were bothered by the idea of Google buying a thermostat, this acquisition will probably send them up the wall.

Right off the bat, Nest founder Matt Rogers started working to sooth the inevitable concerns in his initial announcement of the deal:

Like Nest customer data, Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too.

According to Crunchbase, Dropcam had raised just shy of $48M to date.

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Autopilot Launches CoPilot Sales Automation Tool

Those campaigns can be tweaked based on a client’s behavior, and CoPilot automates follow-ups based on the recipient’s actions. The service also provides sales teams with a real-time feed of a prospect’s actions from within the email.

Unsurprisingly, CoPilot is integrated with Autopilot’s Prospect Ace, which allows companies to verify their email lists using social profiles. The service also allows companies to import their existing lists using CSV files. The team tells me the service is also integrated with Salesforce Sync, and the plan is to add more solutions and data providers directly over time, so users won’t need to rely on CSV files.

CoPilot is now available for sign-up, with prices starting at $39 per month and seat, which allows a company to send up to 5,000 monthly emails.

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Microsoft Does Us A Solid By Accidentally Confirming That The Surface Mini Is Real

Microsoft declined to comment. Earlier today, a manual published to help users dig into their new Surface Pro 3 devices contained multiple mentions of the currently Super Secret Surface Mini. Oops.

Surprised? Don’t be. Microsoft had originally planned to debut the Surface Mini alongside the Surface Pro 3. I’ve heard from people with knowledge of the matter that the decision was made close to the cusp, making the mistakes funny, if not particularly surprising.

Keep in mind that Microsoft also slipped up — perhaps the accident wasn’t much of an accident — and outed the coming Surface Pro 3 before its official announcement.

Today, of course, marks the first day of general availability for the Pro 3. Hence the user guide. Does this mean the Surface Mini will go on sale in the future? No. But it does underscore how far along the device got before it hit the weeds.

Is a smaller Surface a good idea? There has been success by some — the Dell Venue Pro 8 comes to mind — in selling smaller Windows-based tablet devices. However, given the Surface line’s focus on keyboards, and docs, and the ability to do more than consume content, the smaller form factor is slightly hard to parse.

Just for fun:



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Lenka Might Be The Black-And-White Photographer’s Dream App

Photo apps have evolved from adding filtering, to being social, to smashing up the two. Instagram grew like a weed based on this philosophy. EyeEm has grown by making your feed of friends photos look so good, you know you just have to take great photos as well (there’s some clever algorithms at work there). Now a new app, designed by one of the world’s best photographers, wants to bring it all back home: to the picture itself.

And not just any picture. The new Lenka app for iOS is like having Kevin Abosch — who has photographed everyone from Steven Spielberg to Yoko Ono — hovering over your shoulder, reminding you that all you have now is your eye.

Developed by a team in France, the app uses proprietary image processing with automatic exposure. Costing $2.99 and requiring iOS 7, it’s built for the iPhone 5 series but can be used on any iPhone.

With Lenka, Abosch has stripped back the process of photography to its bare essentials. Lenka shoots only in Black and White, and will only allow you one ‘filter’ which is a high contrast mode, will only allow you to light a subject with the iPhone light switched on, or off. There is no flash. It’s this kind of discipline he demands, and it shines through in the app he has had produced.

Now, while there are competitors include Hueless and the ‘Dramatic Black & White’ app, when you fire up Lenka you immediately realise that it’s capable of much more subtle greys and textures than most normal camera apps. There is a feeling of quality and simplicity about it.

Its auto focus and auto exposure makes the process of shooting fast and easy. Editing it also paired-down. You can crop or rotate a photo. That’s it. After-all, that’s probably all Abosch does himself. You can almost hear him saying ‘just take the best photograph *first*’.

Instead of a flash, you can switch the iPhone light on continuously – again, this is to help you take the best photograph, not the best quick snap. You can also choose between a rectangular or square aspect ratio with a pinch.

No serious photographer would use the poorer front-facing camera. Thus, with Lenka, that is not available to you. What real photographer chooses a worse lens, after all?

You can’t post-process other photos from the camera roll. Either you take pictures in Lenka, or you don’t. Again, Abosch is almost saying, ‘hey, I do this for a living, trust me.’

Lenka is not a social network, but you can export your images to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook or via email or message. Your images are also saved in the app’s own gallery and the camera roll.

When I first saw Lenka images I realised quickly that the subdued monochromatic character of the images set it apart from many other smartphone images I’d seen.

Abosch says his team spent a lot of time analysing the characteristics of the iPhone camera sensors, modelling their behaviour, and compensating for inherent weaknesses through real-time image processing. It shows.

Applying a filter to a color photo is “just not the same as previewing and conceiving an image in black & white from the start,” he Abosch. “For me the story now is about changing people’s approach to taking pictures,” he says.

“Up until now, it’s all about frequently shooting and then considering what to do with the results. Trying to turn mediocrity into something greater through post filters. Lenka encourages thoughtful creation. When I think of black and white I think of the moon set against a black sky… In alchemical teachings this represents feminine energy, so I always thought of this app in this sense.”

But where does the name comes from? “I’ve always been drawn to early Czech photographers like František Drtikol. I picked a popular Czech name… Lenka.”

Lenka appears to have been well-received on the app store already. Abosch guesses it might be “a reaction to the overly complicated apps that in my opinion, get in the way of just… taking the photo.”
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HOW TO CREATE A SITEMAP FOR BLOGGER

WHAT IS A SITEMAP

A sitemap is simply a directory of all the pages existing on your site, like a table of contents showing the structure of your blog. Sitemaps help search engines crawl your site and index it properly. Search engines will crawl your site if you have a sitemap or not, but this makes the process easier and quicker for them.

Bloggers default XML sitemap only shows recent blog posts – which is about 26 posts. We want search engine spiders to know your blogs structure so that they can easily understand and index it.

HOW TO CREATE A SITEMAP FOR BLOGGER

Creating a site map on Blogger is easy, simply add your blog name to the link below.

Blogger – Default URL

http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

Blogger – Custom URL

http://blogname.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

A single sitemap file should not be exceed 50MB which is why we limit it to max results 500. You may need to edit this depending on how big your feed is. Now we’ve to tell search engines that this is your site map. To do this, we add it to your robots.txt file and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools.

ADD BLOGGER SITEMAP TO ROBOTS.TXT FILE

Go to Blogger > Dashboard > Settings > Search Preferences and click edit the custom robots.txt file. Click enable and paste the following adding your blogname.

 User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /
 
Sitemap: http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500 

The above section means that search engines can index your entire site (Allow: /) apart from your blogs search results (Disallow: /search) which is good because that would be considered duplicate pages.

ADDING SITE MAP TO GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS

Now login to Google Webmaster Tools and select your blog. On the left click Crawl > Sitemaps > Add/Test Sitemap. You’ll see your blog name and a text input box, paste atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500, test for errors and submit.

Google will now start to crawl and index your site. You can check what pages have been indexed on Googles Webmaster Tools or by going to Google Search and typing “site:www.BLOG-URL.blogspot.com”, “site:BLOG-URL.blogspot.com”, “site:www.BLOG-URL.com” or “site:BLOG-URL.com”. To submit your sitemap to Bing, login to Bings Webmaster Tools, add your URL, verify ownership and then submit your site map. It may take a few days for your site to be indexed.

HAVE MORE THAN 500 POSTS?

If you have more than 500 posts on your blog, you simply submit another sitemap starting at post number 501 for the next 500 posts like so /atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500 and continue this depending on the amount of posts you have. So if I had over 1000 posts, my robots.text file would look like this and I would submit the three separate sitemaps to Googles Webmaster Tool.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /
 
Sitemap: http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500
Sitemap:http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500
Sitemap:http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1001&max-results=500

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