5 Days left: TNW Europe early bird sales end soon. Learn more! In the run up to Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016, Canonical has released details of its next Ubuntu OS smartphone to come to market, and it offers the highest spec of any phone running the platform so far. The Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition keeps with the existing trend of manufacturers repurposing existing devices to run Canonical’s OS – in this case the Pro 5 that runs Meizu’s own Flyme 5 OS, which is itself a fork of Android. Hardware-wise, the Pro 5 is no slouch and the Ubuntu Edition will offer up a 1080p 5.7-inch Corning Gorilla Glass AMOLED display, Samsung’s Exynos 7420 octa-core processor (such as found in the Galaxy S6 Edge, Edge+ and regular S6 models), 21-megapixel Sony sensor for the rear camera and a fingerprint reader for biometric unlocking.
InboxVudu, a service that provides smart summaries of your most important emails, has launched a nifty Chrome extension to help you stay on top of your messages. As before, InboxVudu connects to your Gmail or Google Apps account and then analyzes your emails to provide a list of what you need to respond to and when. It extracts only the text you need to actually act on, as well as any details it deems important, to help you sift through content more easily.
No matter what level of profession you’re in, networking is the fuel to accelerate your success. Not only is it useful for learning directly from individuals you meet, but the benefits of association and growing your own authority are just as powerful. For some of us, hearing the word “networking” can leave a bad taste in our mouths. Many of us aren’t sure where to start, what to say when we connect with someone, nor how to maintain that relationship.
It’s 10:36pm and you finally got a few minutes to spend with your significant other, after a 14-hour day of hustling up business for your startup. You’re going to relax and watch the next episode of House of Cards. Maybe some of Mr. Underwood’s negotiating skills and charisma will rub off on you. You sure could use it for the meeting you have the next afternoon with a couple of investors.
This is one of their selling points: We are using the same technology we used ten years ago, to build a phone Goes to show new and more isn’t always better. It’s a Kickstarter project and at the time of writing this they’ve reached $54,115 of their $200,000 goal with 41 days to go. Even though it’s a great concept and I would love to own one of these there’s a close resemblance to John’s Phone, a very similar basic phone project from 2010.
There’s a lot being published these days about how to break into noisy digital environments and capture the interest of people whose attention spans are shorter than ever. Yes, you can achieve this goal with things like paid Facebook ads and sponsored tweets. You can do it by pushing content on native advertising platforms like Outbrain and Taboola. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret… There’s another approach that’s guaranteed to help your startup build buzz without the time and expense associated with digital marketing campaigns.
Organic growth for digital marketers is in steep decline. Brands shake in their boots at the prospect of Google making further major changes to its algorithms, and marketers struggle to keep up with the impact of those changes. Recently, its new mobile-friendly ranking factor algorithm has led to hysteria dubbed ‘mobilegeddon’. Marketers like to feel they are in control. If you were to grant marketing teams three wishes, control over audience reach, and brand visibility would feature.
I’ve been intrigued by the Chromebook Pixel ever since the original version launched in early 2013. The looks and style of a MacBook coupled with the seductive minimalism of ChromeOS tantalized me, but I was put off by the high $1,300+ price for a machine with limited functionality compared to my trusty 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display. The 2015 Chromebook Pixel is a more appealing proposition as it boasts a cheaper pricetag, along with a few other minor tweaks like two of the brand new USB-C ports.
