On Wednesday in New York, the Wearable Technology Fashion Show featured technology integrated and sewn into apparel in brilliantly colorful and imaginative ways. Organized by Tech in Motion, an event series for local tech communities across the U.S., the show presented 3D printed work, LED clothing, Google Glass, and more in new, unusual and often striking fashion designs.

This mix of apparel and tech represented the innovative soul of fashion—a look into future possibilities of where style, clothing, and accessories might take us in the years ahead. The future of fashion is truly tricked out with tech.

This knockout pair of onyx kicks are from the creative minds at ContinuumFashion, a Manhattan-based group that specializes in unique 3D printed shoes that are "not just for the runway." Projects in queue for the fashion-meets-printing company include 3D printed bikinis and dresses.

New York City's TheLaserGirls has taken the current and obsessive trend of nail art and translated it into the world of 3D printing. These nails, pictured above in a royal blue nylon, have a stylized pattern that protrude from the nail in true 3D fashion. Painted nails enthusiasts, listen up—with 3D printing, now every nail art look can grace a hand. 

San Francisco-based company Sensoree works to achieve "extimacy" through its brightly-lit apparel, a portmanteau for "externalized intimacy." Sensoree blends apparel with a dash of human emotion, mixing in a splash of installation art for good measure. The group uses sensors to read the wearer's excitement levels, and connects these sensors to display LED lighting in an array of bright colors for the ultimate mood halo. 

Designer Asher Levine, known for his menswear designs, also has a true taste for wearable tech. In the past he has collaborated with MakerBot to introduce the world’s first 3D printed sunglasses.

Here, his Grenade Bag is outfitted with TrackR, a Bluetooth device that syncs up with your iPhone or Android app to monitor the bag's location. The bag, which comes in a black or yellow design, is made of a "neoprene compound." 

Corrected, 3:21pm PT: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the Wearable Technology Fashion Show. It was produced by Tech in Motion, an organizer of local events for technology communities across the U.S.

Lead image courtesy of ContinuumFashion; other images by Olivia Christina Photography for Tech in Motion. Additional reporting by Lauren Orsini for ReadWrite

Apple on Friday confirmed its purchase of Burstly, the maker of the popular iOS beta testing platform TestFlight.

The news was first reported by TechCrunch but confirmed by Apple in a statement to Recode.

Amazon is raising the price of Amazon Prime subscriptions in the U.K. and Germany by roughly 60% to 70% starting February 26, it announced Friday. The new fee coincides with Amazon's decision to include streaming video in the deal for its European customers and may be a sign of things to come for U.S. users as well. Amazon said a few weeks ago that it may impose similar increases for domestic Prime users, who have access to free streaming since 2011. 

Amazon may launch a TV-streaming device in March that would compete with Apple TV, Roku and, to some extent, Google's Chromecast, the tech site Recode reports. The gadget—which Amazon reportedly considered, then decided against, releasing for the just-passed holiday season—would presumably help the sprawling e-commerce giant build the audience for its online video offerings and its nascent slate of original programs.

See also: How Apple TV Can Win; Getting Started With Chromecast; How To Choose Between Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast

“The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion,” Johnny Lee, who leads Google’s Project Tango team, said in a video on the project site.

Here are five things you need to know about Project Tango:

1. Google's Project Tango prototype is a 5-inch smartphone. Project Tango aims to merge the physical and digital worlds. Humans use visual cues to interact with their environments, Google is building a prototype smartphone that can do pretty much the same thing.

“Our current prototype is a 5” phone containing customized hardware and software designed to track the full 3D motion of the device, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment,” Lee said. “These sensors allow the phone to make over a quarter million 3D measurements every second, updating it’s position and orientation in real-time, combining that data into a single 3D model of the space around you.”

2. Project Tango isn't Android, but it runs on it. Google’s Project Tango prototype runs on Android and offers development APIs to help Android apps built on Java, C/C++ and the Unity Game Engine to learn data about the phone’s position, orientation and depth. We reached out to Google to learn more about the prototype’s specs, especially its processors, and we’ll update this story as soon as we learn more.

3. Project Tango could revolutionize navigation and augmented reality apps. A phone that can create 3D models of its immediate environment could have a wide range of applications. For instance, Google could provide more granular directions for navigating indoor spaces like buildings or malls (although the company has already started to do that without 3D phones).

It could also spur along the development of “augmented reality” apps that overlay digital information or graphics atop photos and live video of the real world. Augmented reality could also be used to include real-world objects in digital games.

4. Project Tango dev kits are limited. Google is currently offering 200 prototype kits to developers, but due to "FCC restrictions," developers who want an early glimpse at Project Tango must work for an incorporated institution or entity. (It's not clear why.) You can apply for one by filling out this form.

But not all dev kits are built the same. According to Google, some of the devices are optimized for projects in indoor mapping,  processing sensor data, single and multiplayer games, and the company also plans to "set aside units for applications we haven’t thought of yet.” Google expects to distribute all its available units by March 14.

5. Google has 16 Project Tango partners and counting. These include Movidius, a Silicon Valley startup dedicated to developing chips that can interpret data from sensors and cameras; Bosch; OmniVision and the Open Source Robotics Foundation.

Images courtesy of Google

The deal nets the social network a fast-growing, international user base and some street cred in the burgeoning global-messaging market, where Facebook had long been a marginal player. It also takes out a social competitor that one day could have potentially threatened Facebook's dominance. And while $19 billion is a breathtaking sum—it's the largest venture-backed acquisition in history—it's still eminently affordable for the social giant.

WhatsApp investors, founders and employees stand to benefit handsomely as well, not least because Facebook will dispense restricted stock grants worth $3 billion to keep its talent around.

WhatsApp's users, meanwhile, are about to become part of the Facebook product, whether they like it or not.

Privacy Concerns

Both Facebook and WhatsApp insist that the deal won't change anything where WhatsApp messaging is concerned. In particular, they insist that WhatsApp will operate independently of Facebook and that it'll stay free of advertising.

There's no reason to doubt the former point, at least in the short term. Facebook made a similar promise almost two years ago when it bought Instagram, and it's still so independent from Facebook that the only way to tell Instagram belongs to the social network is to visit its help pages.

On the other hand, the one major change Facebook brought to the photo-sharing service is that its users now see ads. Of course, WhatsApp has long been militant about its no-advertising stance, even featuring this quote from Fight Club on its home page: 

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
—Tyler Durden, Fight Club

You have to wonder how well that goes down with the advertising machine that Facebook has become.

But the issue for WhatsApp’s 450 million monthly users—a group both companies say is growing by a million registered users every day—goes well beyond advertising. Those users may not realize they’re about to be sharing their online conversations with Facebook. Some might not care, but anyone who flocked to WhatsApp precisely because it didn't seem to want to know everything about them will likely be miffed.

WhatsApp is a free download from most mobile app stores, but the service itself isn’t free. In order to stay ad-free, WhatsApp charges users 99 cents a year for the service, with a free year thrown in up front.

And now that the service belongs to Facebook, users won't be paying with just money, but also with their personal information.

Facebook has access to all of WhatsApp’s data—users’ phone numbers, address books, and payment information. Facebook was previously unable to tap these resources unless people connected their address books to Facebook Messenger, or provided Facebook with credit card information to donate to various non-profits. 

It’s easy to distrust Facebook, especially since the company has a history of playing fast and loose with user privacy and collecting information it wasn't supposed to. In the past year alone, Facebook killed a privacy setting in order to expand the reach of its search feature, updated its privacy policy to explicitly reserve the right to feature its users' names and profile pictures in ads and faced an accusation that it scrapes data from private messages to better serve advertisers (a charge the company says is "without merit").

Now Facebook has access to even more personal data—specifically, information that many users wouldn’t willingly give up before. In return, people get better-tailored advertising and, potentially, the ability pay for things on Facebook. That may strike some, even most, WhatsApp users as a fair trade, though you have to wonder.

Growing Global

You can see why Facebook, which still hankers to "connect the world," was so anxious to close this deal. More than a billion people already use Facebook, and it's aiming to get the next billion users through global expansion, specifically in developing countries and those with growing economies.

According to a report released in November 2013, WhatsApp dominates the mobile messaging market in the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and China, surpassing runner-up Facebook Messenger in those markets. 

Facebook wanted to buy a true messaging app to complement Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp was the obvious choice thanks to the simple utility and skyrocketing global popularity.

“Messenger evolved from Facebook chat which was more instant messaging, not SMS ... a lot of messages aren’t real-time. WhatsApp evolved from the model of replacing SMS,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call on Wednesday afternoon. “Those are two pretty big and different use cases and the world needs both.”

Own Your Phonebook, Own Your Social Life

The rise of mobile messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Snapchat and Kik suggests that consumers find it relatively easy to adopt new messaging services that fit their fancy, simply because it’s easy to connect to their friends via their phone's contact list and chat away.

Until now, no social network could be an all-purpose messaging service because no social network had an SMS replacement. Most social networks are purely social identity managers. As WhatsApp falls into the Facebook fold, though, you can bet that the preeminent social network hopes to build it into a messaging application that dominates its rivals.

But marketplace dominance does a disservice to users when one major company keeps snatching up its competitors. We don't know how WhatsApp's data will affect what Facebook wants to build next, but anytime you diminish competition you also diminish innovation, which is both bad for users and developers.

Lead image by Madeleine Weiss for ReadWrite

Java still tops the charts but Scala has gained new adherents due to its emphasis on functional programming. As Java 8 adds significant Scala features, there's a case to be made that Scala will diminish. 

Though there's still plenty of reason to think Java 8 will obviate much of the reasons people turn to Scala, I recently sat down with Martin Odersky, the creator of the Scala language and chairman of Typesafe, to get his assessment of where things stand between two languages that share a love for the Java Virtual Machine.

Scala-Like Java Is Good For Scala

ReadWrite: Java 8 seems to have embraced some of the basic concepts behind your original design of Scala. Is that vindication? Or do you fear that Java 8’s enhancements might suck developers away from the Scala community?

Martin Odersky: Java 8 represents one of the most significant changes to the language in its history, with new constructs that will change the traditional ways Java developers have approached solving problems.

People often ask me if these features coming to Java will slow the adoption of Scala. Quite the opposite! Instead, I feel the acceptance of these features by the Java Community Process validates our innovation in language design on the JVM. As developers come to understand what these features are and how they work, they will also develop a better appreciation of the more extensive support of functional programming that Scala provides.

There is also likely going to be an increased interest to investigate Reactive tools such as Akka and Play Framework, even via the Java API.

Java 8’s Impact On Scala

RW: What will be the main impact of Java 8 on Scala?

MO: The list of features being included in Java 8 is actually quite long, but several of them are particularly interesting to me. Java 8 will definitely bring the Java and Scala developer communities closer together.

I also believe it will make life easier for polyglot language support on the JVM, while at the same time giving Java developers just a taste of how languages are evolving to support a higher degree of concurrency and parallelism.

Java Learns Some New Lambdas Tricks: Will Developers Follow Along?

RW: What features in Java 8 stand out for you?

MO: To me, the most interesting new feature is lambdas. It will be more helpful for Scala to be able to standardize the bytecode emitted by Scala’s compiler in the way Java implements its support of this feature, using Functional Interfaces.

I doubt this will be a difficult leap for most existing Java developers who are already familiar with anonymous implementations of interfaces, which Java has permitted for some time now. The same rules will apply, such as not being able to “close over” non-final external values.

Java 8’s implementation of lambdas will bring new methods to the java.util.stream.Stream type that will sound very familiar to Scala developers. In my experience, these methods make writing high-level collection code a lot easier and act as a “gateway drug” to change to a more functional style overall. Heavy users of these abstractions would then also appreciate the additional readability Scala bring to the table with itsfor expressions.

Having these implementations will also likely be very helpful for tools such as Akka and Play Framework in supporting a more cohesive Java API, allowing them to create Java-based functional interfaces where they could not before. This will mean the APIs will be very similar regardless of whether you’re calling them from Scala or Java, increasing usability for programmers in both languages.

Make Bytecode, Not War

RW: Any other features that stand out in Java 8?

MO: Scala developers will also be excited by Java 8’s inclusion of default implementations of methods in Java Interfaces. Scala compiler developers have long had to jump through hoops to create bytecode for Scala traits that would be acceptable to the JVM, such as creating an interface for the trait and a class for the implementation of methods that would be extended by classes extending that trait. Now the bytecode emitted by the Scala compiler can be cleaner and match the Java specification, while continuing to support linearization.

Java: A Little More Like Scala Every Day

RW: It sounds almost like you are in “embrace mode” with the Java community. I’m reminded of Sprint creator Rod Johnson's controversial ScalaDays keynote last summer in New York. Johnson listed examples of Scala being opaque and hardcore as obstacles to widespread adoption. He called for Scala to become more Java-like, more friendly and usable to the mainstream of developers.

MO: Rod is a good friend of Scala’s, actually! He sits on the board of Typesafe with me. And Typesafe is focused on providing first-class support for Java developers with the Akka concurrency toolkit and the Play Framework.

In fact, Typesafe believes that the addition of these new Java 8 language features will help us expose more powerful and fluid APIs for Java developers that closely mirror much of the way we code from Scala. This is the benefit of having Java introduce constructs similar to those in Scala. The introduction of these features, as well as other Scala-influenced features such as the purely non-blocking CompletableFuture and Parallel Collections, underscore the impact Scala’s success has had in influencing the future of Java.

Lead image by yukop on Flickr

The Galaxy S5 is likely to drop on Monday, February 24, at an event at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain. Invitations for a Samsung “Unpacked” event went out last month.

Announcing the Galaxy S5 at MWC would be a dramatic departure from last year's Galaxy S4 launch at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, which was a fatuous, blown-out and somewhat sexist celebration. By attaching the Galaxy S5 to Mobile World Congress, Samsung is ensuring a more low-key (if still fancy) announcement that is likely to highlight the device and, hopefully, avoid charges of arrogance or chauvinism.

All that begs the question: what is the S5 actually going to bring to the table? Here are the five key elements we expect.

Bigger, Brighter, Sleeker

The rumors leaking ahead of Samsung's Galaxy S5 announcement point to a larger device than its predecessor, the Galaxy S4. The Galaxy S5 will likely feature a 5.2-inch display with a 1,440 x 2,560 resolution that runs full 1080p HD video. 

Samsung may also trim down or completely eliminate the bezel on the device, although speculation about the S5 design has been all over the place since rumors started flying in mid-2013. One notable improvement may be the phone's casing, which has historically been plastic since the release of the first batch of Galaxy S smartphones. The casing for the Galaxy S5 could be all-metal, bringing it closer in design quality to other top-end smartphones like the HTC One and iPhone 5S.

Some rumors suggest Samsung will release two different versions of the Galaxy S5—one with a metal case and one with plastic. This would be very much like what Apple did with the release of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, the latter using a colorful plastic case. Samsung is known to release multiple versions of the same device, as last year's Galaxy S4 release came in several varieties such as the Galaxy S4 Zoom, Active and Mini.

Hardware Bump To The Top Of The Market

Samsung benefits by releasing its flagship smartphone early in the year, as it did when it released the Galaxy S4 last March, since it can come out with all the top-of-the-line hardware components. By featuring the latest and greatest technologies in the Galaxy S series, Samsung ensures all its other devices released this year will be compared to its top best-selling unit.

Rumored specs of the Galaxy S5 point to a bigger 2,900 mAh battery (the Galaxy S4 featured a 2,500 mAh battery), a Qualcomm 800 or 805 Snapdragon processor, a 16-megapixel camera with advanced LED flash and a couple of storage options (32 GB and 64 GB, most likely). If history is any guide, Samsung will again tap Qualcomm to power its U.S. devices with Snapdragon processors, while foreign markets will see S5s powered by Samsung's own Exynos processor.

Fingerprints For Security, Functionality And Access

Apple isn't the only smartphone maker to get in on the fingerprint sensor craze. Samsung has been experimenting with biometrics in its products for some time and it appears to be ready to ship a fingerprint sensor for security and functionality in the Galaxy S5. 

According to Samsung-focused blog SamMobile, the fingerprint sensor will be embedded into the home button (like the iPhone 5S) and will require a swipe of some sort to get the full fingerprint. Samsung may have a “private mode” that is activated by the fingerprint sensor with a personal folder for documents.

Samsung may also allow users to create up to eight shortcuts to apps with other fingerprints outside of the one used to unlock the device. For instance, you could use your pinky fingerprint to unlock your calendars or your index to unlock your email. 

Flat User Interface, Less Samsung Bloatware

Samsung and Google are often at odds with each other over the direction of Android. Samsung has been creating its own ecosystem of core apps and functionalities; Google, meanwhile, has evinced displeasure that Samsung is basically copying and cluttering its core mobile apps like email, calendars and the Google Play app store.

Earlier this year, Google and Samsung reached an agreement where Samsung would stop deploying so many copycats of Google’s core services, such as its Samsung Hub media and app store. In turn, Samsung may have leaned on Google to sell Motorola, which the search company offloaded to Lenovo earlier this year.

So, there's a good chance the Galaxy S5 won't clutter users' phones to the extent it has until now. But that doesn’t mean Samsung won’t have its own proprietary systems in place.

All of Samsung's much-touted—though inconsistently executed—touchess gesture controls from previous years, such as "air view" and "smart scrolling," will likely make their way to the Galaxy S5. The fingerprint sensor will likely be baked well into the experience. In addition, Samsung may have a flatter, sleeker user interface for the TouchWiz launcher it places on top of Android, according to chronic phone scoop expert @evleaks.

A Cheaper Galaxy To Ship By April

As we have seen the last couple of years, price and size tend to be the main drivers of smartphone growth across the globe. People like bigger phones (in the 5-inch range) that cost less. Samsung knows this as well as anybody and may try to manipulate the smartphone market by bringing the price of the Galaxy S5 down, perhaps as much as 25% before carrier subsidies and deals. 

The notion of a price drop would also give credence to the rumor of a dual Galaxy S5 release with a cheaper plastic version and a full metal version. Samsung is not averse to hitting every carrier on the globe with smartphones at a variety of price points—this strategy has fueled its massive smartphone growth over the last three years. So if Samsung believes that it can crowd out the likes of HTC and Apple by undercutting them on price for high-end smartphones, Samsung will do just that.

Samsung typically takes about a month to ship its new smartphones flagship smartphones after they are announced, so a ship date for the first U.S. and international carriers by early April is what analysts are expecting.

We will be on hand at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for Samsung Unpacked 5 next Monday. Tune in next week for the specifics on Samsung's newest smartphone.

ReadWrite will be on hand for Samsung Unpacked 5 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week. Follow @Dan_Rowinski on Twitter for news as it breaks.

Top image: Samsung Galaxy S4 by Dan Rowinski

Everyone’s a tech company these days. From new-school video streaming services like Netflix to old-school grocery businesses and government agencies, technology increasingly drives business productivity. At the heart of this movement is Linux, resulting in exceptional, highly paid job opportunities for Linux professionals.

Software Developers’ Increased Currency

Software developers are the new kingmakers, according to Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady. Small wonder, then, that the most recent US News & World Report list of the top 100 jobs now ranks software developer at #1, with system administrator positions in the top 20.

Clearly, the economy is rebuilding around tech as every company seeks competitive advantage by making more intelligent use of their data and seeks to improve agility with cloud and open-source technologies, among other means.

What’s perhaps less clear is just how much this new tech economy depends on Linux.

The New World Of Tech Is Built On Linux

This Linux dependence becomes evident in a survey of 5,000-plus Linux professionals and hiring managers the Linux Foundation recently released in partnership with Dice.com. Among other findings in the report:

• 77% of hiring managers have “hiring Linux talent” on their list of priorities for 2014, up from 70% in 2013. With these strategic priorities set, 93% of hiring managers plan to hire a Linux professional in the next six months.
• 46% of hiring managers are beefing up their plans for recruiting Linux talent over the next six months, a three-point increase over last year.
• 86% of Linux professionals report that knowing Linux has given them more career opportunities, and 64% say they chose to work with Linux because of its pervasiveness in modern-day technology infrastructure.

All of which means demand for Linux professionals is heating up. Considerably.

Linux: Lots Of Demand, Not Enough Supply

In fact, 90% of hiring managers said it’s “somewhat” or “very difficult” to find experienced Linux pros—and those who have the right skills and expertise are being aggressively recruited. In fact, 75% of Linux professionals surveyed said they received at least one call from a recruiter in the last six months. Nearly 50% of those received six or more calls.

It’s a good time to be a Linux pro.

This translates into higher pay and better benefits. Because 55% of Linux pros believe it would be “very easy” or “fairly easy” to find a new, better job, 20% of them said they received incentives such as higher pay, a more flexible work schedule or additional training as part of a counteroffer from their employer after they tested the job market.

To keep them from testing the market, Linux pros enjoyed salary increases over the past year that exceeded the average for technology professionals by more than two percentage points. These professionals also received an average bonus of $10,336, up 12% from the previous year.

The Past, Present And Future Of Linux

Ten years ago, the smart way to earn more money was to learn Linux. Today, that’s still true. Back in 2004 Linux was still new and was largely being deployed by early adopters seeking a competitive edge in their respective markets, and often financial services. Today Linux is the default operating system for cloud, Big Data and mobile, the big trends that are reshaping industries. Not confined to early adopters, Linux is simply the platform on which much of our innovation happens.

As such, I’ll give the same career advice I gave back in 2004, and which I’ll likely still be repeating in 2024: learn Linux. it’s the future.

Image by Flickr user mikecogh, CC 2.0

Two Qualcomm engineers told ReadWrite in January at the Consumer Electronics Show that HTC had licensed the hardware and design of the Toq smartwatch including its Mirasol-based MEMS display and internal components. During CES, a Qualcomm product manager for the Toq project declined to comment on if HTC had licensed Toq.

Now Bloomberg reports that HTC will be showing off wearable devices to cellular carriers at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week along with a smartwatch based on Google’s Now semantic search services with an AMOLED display. HTC is also said to be planning as a touchscreen smart wristband music player.

Scoop: HTC will likely make a smartwatch based on Qualcomm’s Toq hardware and designs.

— Dan_Rowinski (@Dan_Rowinski) January 7, 2014

HTC getting into the smartwatch game is not much of a surprise as every gadget manufacturer in the world appears to be exploring wearable devices in one fashion or another. 

 Qualcomm wants to place itself at the center of the wearable universe by supplying technology, software and components to wearable manufacturers in much the same way that it sells the computer processors that are embedded into smartphones and tablets. New Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said during a press conference at CES that the Toq was a proof-of-concept device to show off its technology (like the Mirasol display) to show off to its manufacturing partners. Qualcomm does not have major ambitions to enter the consumer gadget space on its own.

HTC is not announced plans for its potential line of smartwatches and Bloomberg reports that the wearable devices it will be showing to cellular operators at MWC next week will not be available for public display.

Top image: Qualcomm Toq by Dan Rowinski

ReadWriteDrive is an ongoing series covering the future of transportation.

The star attractions of many major international auto shows are the way-out futuristic concept vehicles that stand little to no chance of going into production. These crazy high-tech cars are an invitation to imagine an alternative transportation reality in which vehicles can fly, swim, think, and move us— physically and psychically—in unpredictable ways.

But the latest concept vehicle from Rinspeed, a Swiss tuner shop known for exotic cars, reveals that today’s automotive technology is quickly catching up with the future.

The concept car, dubbed “XchangE,” is intended to be a meditation on the interior layout of cars when—in about a decade—vehicles are capable of completely driving themselves. This will relegate passengers into a passive role, and turn car cabins into living room and office spaces on wheels.

Rinspeed will display the XchangE at the upcoming 2014 Geneva Motor Show, which will be taking place March 6-16, 2014.

Back to the Present

Previous far-out concept cars from Rinspeed have been dazzling, both in their vision of future mobility and their creative combination of upper- and lowercase letters. There was the 2008 sQuba, a Lotus Elise that doubled as a speedy submarine.  There was the 2009 shape-shifting iChange, a concept sports car that transformed its seating configuration—with the swipe of an iPhone—for one, two or three passengers.

And in 2010, Rinspeed unveiled the UC micro electric car, piloted by a joystick instead of a steering wheel, and dockable into a network of drive-in high-speed trains.

However, with the XchangE, which uses the Tesla Model S as its platform, we are starting to see designs and technologies—until very recently relegated to the realm of science fiction—crop up in cars available at your friendly local neighborhood auto dealership.

In Rinspeed's press release, we are told that the XchangE can communicate with other cars, the road, and cloud-based services via an LTE network. Travel-specific services, such as warning messages about road conditions and recommendations for efficient routing, are available in real time.

Wait a second. Dashboard displays and mobile apps already offer these types of features. Vehicle-to-vehicle systems using DSRC and LTE are being widely tested.  Admittedly, at this stage, the stream of data still needs to be interpreted into driving decisions by a human being.

The next step is to use a data feed to alter and control core operations of the vehicle, such as acceleration and braking. Today, many cars have similar driver-assist systems—although mostly using inputs from on-board sources such as radar, lasers, and sensors. Rinspeed says this technology will free up passengers to read, listen to music, surf the web, play games, watch movies on demand, or conduct video conference calls.

Again, it appears that we have already caught up to the future of driving. Just a few years ago, auto show concept cars with an array of screens providing navigation, entertainment, and driver assistance were cast as something our kids or grandkids might one day enjoy.

The XchangE concept continues to convey these features as aspirational—but they can already be found in Tesla’s oversized dashboard display, or for that matter, in the smart phones and tablets that passengers bring aboard even the jankiest hoopties on the road.

Joysticks and Joy Rides

The chief difference between Rinspeed’s vision and what is already happening is that, in today’s cars, one person—namely, the driver—has to look up and drive.  That requires a steering wheel.

The XchangE’s steering wheel uses hand-recognition and transparent multifunction keys, and can be moved to the middle of the dashboard—essentially becoming a “steer-by-wire” control console, somewhat similar to gaming controls or, according to Rinspeed, a little bit like what is used modern jet aircraft. (Pretty cool, although I wonder about reliability and safety.)

If we can truly relieve the driver of the responsibility to pilot a vehicle, then the biggest opportunity will be to redesign seating configurations. This is much more about industrial design than software design.

For the XchangE concept, Rinspeed collaborated with Otto Bock Mobility Solutions, a manufacturer of medical prosthetics, to allow seating for the driver and passengers not just to recline, but to more radically tilt and swivel into 20 possible seating arrangements—creating ideal accommodations for workstation productivity or media consumption.

Once more, since we are already driving around with our phones in our hands and in-vehicle infotainment systems in front of our faces—despite safety concerns—this vision of autonomous travel, even if we can't totally recline, is looking increasingly mundane. 

Not at all like Rinspeed’s bold but slightly creepy photo illustrations of a turtleneck-clad couple riding an autonomous Tesla into a Sci-Fi movie landscape from the 1950s, back when the future was still futuristic.

Google I/O is coming at the end of June. The biggest developer conference of the year for Google was announced today by the company’s head of Android and Chrome platforms Sundar Pichai in a posting to his Google+ profile.

This year Google I/O will take place at Moscone West in San Francisco from June 25-26. I/O comes about a month later this year than it did last year but at about the same time as it did in 2012.

The expectations for this year’s Google I/O are a bit up in the air. Google focused specifically on new developer features last year, eschewing the opportunity to release any new versions of Android or Chrome OS. Instead, Google’s announcements focused on Google Play Services and the Google Play developer console, design principles and updates to maps. Google did not announce any new hardware last year (though it did give all attendees a Chromebook Pixel). Google introduced the original Nexus 7 tablet at I/O 2012, the same time it announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Pichai will be the headmaster for Google I/O this year, as Google focuses on getting developers on its two biggest platforms, Android and Chrome. Pichai was the head of Chrome before taking over Android when founder Andy Rubin went to Google’s special projects group to work on robotics.

Information on how to register for tickets to I/O will be announced next month. Pichai said that the registration process will be different this year to allow people that have an interest in going to be able to get tickets. I/O has sold out as soon as registration has opened in the past couple of years so Google will be making it easier for people to get tickets without having to hustle the second tickets for the event go live. The new system is akin to a lottery.

"We'll be implementing a new system, where you can submit your interest to attend Google I/O 2014. Successful applicants will then be randomly selected and notified shortly thereafter," Pichai said.

For more information on Google I/O 2014, visit the event's website here.

[*] Updated purchase price to $19 billion to account for $3 billion in stock grants to WhatsApp founders and employees that vest over four years.

In a press release, Facebook said WhatsApp will continue to operate independently, much the way Instagram—the photo-sharing service Facebook acquired for $1 billion almost two years ago—does.

Go Mobile, Social Network

The acquisition is clearly intended to further bolster Facebook's relevance in mobile. While the social network has successfully retooled itself into a mobile powerhouse over the past year, its attempts to jump into the burgeoning global messaging market have never really taken off.

Facebook Home, its attempt to turn Android phones into Facebook phones, appears to have mostly died a gruesome death. Facebook Messenger, the social network's attempt to compete directly with WhatsApp and its rivals with a standalone app, hasn't exactly been a standout.

WhatsApp, by contrast, has been on a long hot streak. According to the release, more than 450 million people use the service each month, 70% of whom are active on any given day. WhatsApp is adding more than a million registered users every day.

In April, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said the company was processing 20 billion messages a day—eight billion inbound and 12 billion outbound. That's more than double what analysts believed Facebook's message volume at the time to be. In the release, Facebook said WhatsApp is almost as popular as all carrier-based texting services combined; its message volume, Facebook said, is "approaching the entire global telecom SMS volume."

Another Mobile Arrow In Facebook's Quiver

By joining Facebook as as an independently run service, WhatsApp may fit easily with the social network's current strategy of breaking out many of its services into standalone apps—some of them duplicative. After all, Facebook offers both Instagram and its own Facebook Camera as photo apps, so it can't do much harm to have multiple messaging apps as well.

Over time, it's entirely possible that Facebook will make WhatsApp work more readily with Messenger, such as by letting the apps access users' contact lists on both services. In a blog post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that because Messenger and WhatsApp service "serve such different and important uses," the company will continue investing in and improving both services.

A bigger question is whether Facebook will try to bring ads to WhatsApp, as it's done recently with Instagram. WhatsApp has long defiantly resisted advertising, instead charging users 99 cents a year for its service (although Android users get a free year up front). As for the future, CEO Koum issued this promise in a blog post:

Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing.

WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.

Koum, by the way, will be joining Facebook's board.

Facebook and Google have both reportedly taken passes at WhatsApp in the past. Just over a year ago, in fact, WhatsApp took the unusual step of denying a report that it was then in discussions with Facebook.

Lead image by Madeleine Weiss for ReadWrite

Google is in talks with 34 cities in nine metro areas across the United States to introduce Google Fiber, Internet that's up to 100 times faster than broadband, the company announced today. 

Selected cities will have to complete a "fiber-ready checklist" with information that can speed up planning and construction. In the meantime, Google Fiber will begin detailing costs and timelines for the new fiber-optic network.

Google Fiber is already rolling out in Kansas City (in both Kansas and Missouri); Provo, Utah; and Austin, Texas. Here's the list of newly proposed cities:

• Atlanta, including surrounding areas Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs, and Smyrna
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• San Antonio, Texas
• Phoenix, Arizona, including surrounding areas Scottsdale and Tempe
• Portland, Oregon, including surrounding areas Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, and Tigard
• Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, including surrounding areas Carrborro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Morrisville, and Raleigh
• San Jose, California, including surrounding areas Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Palo Alto

Lead image by Flickr user meneame comunicacions, CC 2.0

LinkedIn is initially allowing 25,000 members to post pieces to the site. Unlike the work of its high-faluting Influencers program, which features the likes of Jack Welch and Sallie Krawcheck, LinkedIn expects the output of this broader group to be more technical and practical. The site will display these posts to members’ contacts—not the broad public distribution that Influencers get.

The professional network, still known to many as a job-hunting site, has been pushing its media ambitions for some time. The goal of this new program, says executive editor Dan Roth, is to let members show off their skills and knowledge in a concrete form. Or as he put it, “You’re building your professional permanent record."

A Farm Team For LinkedIn’s Influencers

While Influencers and the new member publishers differ in how far their content can spread, LinkedIn hopes to tie them together.

"If this thing works the way we believe it will, there should be some amazing voices that come out of it,” Roth told us.

He cited the example of Nate Silver, the sports and politics analyst who recently jumped from the New York Times to ESPN. "The Nate Silver of LinkedIn, someone who's writing amazing content for her particular field, and just starts getting more and more attention, we take that person and she becomes an Influencer and gets enormous distribution," Roth said.

For now, members who haven't been invited to publish will have to wait to hear more, according to a help page on LinkedIn's site:

We're in the process of rolling out this feature to all members but it may take a while. We'll let you know as the feature rolls out to more members and when you're able to publish posts on LinkedIn.

In the meantime, here's a look at the publishing tool LinkedIn is offering:

Net neutrality—the principle that Internet service providers should treat all data on their networks equally—is not dead yet. And the Federal Communications Commission says it will do just about everything in its power to enforce an open Internet.

In an announcement today, the FCC said that it will not appeal its court loss to Verizon earlier this year that repealed its ability to regulate Internet service providers on the topic of net neutrality. Instead, the FCC will attempt to create new rules aimed at preventing Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon from charging companies and consumers extra money for access to fast broadband over their pipes.

The FCC today announced a new docket for proposed rulemaking called “Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet.” It is seeking public comment on the matter and predicts that it will have new rules written on the topic of net neutrality by late spring or early summer. 

The FCC also said that it will try to curb what it calls “improper blocking” of content services flowing over ISPs' pipes, such as slowing the rate of streaming services from companies like Netflix or Google while granting their own services, or services from favored business partners, unfettered speed.

The FCC states:

The DC Circuit recognized the importance of the Open Internet Order’s ban on blocking Internet traffic, but ruled that the Commission had not provided sufficient legal rationale for its existence. We will carefully consider how, consistent with the court opinion, we can ensure that edge providers are not unfairly blocked, explicitly or implicitly,from reaching consumers, as well as ensuring that consumers can continue to access any lawful content and services they choose.

Essentially, the FCC is going to rewrite its net neutrality rules and hope to enforce the agreements that it already has in place with providers like Comcast. The cable company agreed, in principal, to uphold the FCC’s Open Internet Order that guides net neutrality as part of its acquisition of NBCUniversal.

The problem with that approach: The primary reason the FCC’s ability to regulate net neutrality was shot down by the DC Circuit appeals court was in how the Commission classifies broadband providers like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Comcast. The FCC does not classify these companies as public utilities (like water or power companies) but more as content and media companies.

Activist groups and Democratic members of Congress have asked the FCC to reclassify the Internet providers in a way that would make them subject to more government regulation and oversight, but it has not yet done so, which strikes us as puzzling, given that a court has shot down its ability to regulate these companies as things stand.

Will the FCC’s new rules make a difference in net neutrality, or is the Commission just attempting to assert its relevance on a topic that it believes it should have the power to enforce?

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock

PayPal is opening up its mobile software developer kit to the global community today, enabling app makers everywhere to more easily integrate the company’s payment solutions. 

The PayPal mobile SDK will enable app developers to integrate PayPal in much the same way they already do on the Web. User accounts will be saved so they don’t have to log in every time they want to pay through and app and the interaction flow is simplified so users are not taken to a new page when they want to make a transaction. The new mobile SDK will allow developers to accept both credit card and PayPal accounts for payment.

The first company to integrate the PayPal mobile SDK was Uber last November. The trial must have gone well as PayPal is opening up the SDK today to more than 30 markets across the world. 

PayPal has made a big move into making itself not just a plugin service for developers but a platform to build upon in the last year. PayPal acquired payments portal Braintree last year for $800 million and has shifted its developer relations and resources to the Braintree wing of the company. PayPal also acquired mobile backend-as-a-service company StackMob in December to fill out its developer platform and team. PayPal will be shuttering StackMob’s service later this year.

Top image: PayPal's David Marcus and Braintree's Bill Ready via David Marcus

MyFitnessPal, the maker of a food-and-exercise-tracking app with more than 50 million users, is announcing the acquisition of online fitness-coaching service Sessions Wednesday morning, for an undisclosed amount.

In November, I wrote that coaching was becoming the next big thing in fitness apps. Sessions was of the services I highlighted. Cofounders Nick Crocker and Ben Hartney and their team are joining MyFitnessPal—in fact, they’ve been quietly working from MyFitnessPal’s San Francisco offices for the past few weeks.

It’s a big move for MyFitnessPal—the company's first acquisition, and its first push to provide more than just tracking and community features. And it signals the company’s quiet ambitions in digital fitness.

“We're trying to create a world where it’s easier to be healthy than to be unhealthy,” Lee told me. 

Help Is On The Way

Sessions is shutting down its existing coaching service, for which it charged between $69 and $199 a month, depending on the plan. But Crocker is working on bringing coaching features into MyFitnessPal.

Already, MyFitnessPal users are taking over existing features, like the app’s social activity feed and the site's forums, to serve as each other’s informal coaches. Since I've been talking about my use of MyFitnessPal, which helped me lose 83 pounds, my friends have asked me if I'd help them stay on track when they signed up for the app. And just last month, MyFitnessPal forum members started an “Adopt a Noob” thread, where experienced members offered to advice newcomers. (“Noob" is an alternate form of “newbie,” Internet slang for “new user.”)

That peer-to-peer support has worked well for many MyFitnessPal users. But there’s clearly potential to do more. Sessions saw its subscribers complete 80% of the workouts assigned by a coach, and overall, 90% stuck to their programs.

"Everything we've learned about keeping people engaged with their health over a meaningful length of time will end up in the MyFitnessPal product in one way, shape, or form,” Crocker said.

The Hub Of Fitness

Where the addition of coaching to MyFitnessPal gets really interesting is when you factor in the strength of its API, or application programming interface, which is used by a growing number of fitness device makers and app developers. Lee estimates that 80% of wearable fitness devices now offer some kind of integration with MyFitnessPal.

Right now, most of those API relationships feed data into MyFitnessPal. It's intriguing to think about what happens when those relationships become bidirectional, with MyFitnessPal tapping into its data about your food consumption and exercise to make recommendations about what to do next.

Add human coaches to interpret that data and offer accountability that you can’t get from an algorithm, and the combination could really make a difference to people who struggle with their weight or health.

"The majority—not all—but the majority of people know what they need to do, they just have a real struggle applying it consistently over time,” Crocker told me. "That's what's powerful about coaching, it lets people be that better version of themselves."

Crocker and Lee aren't ready to talk about exactly what MyFitnessPal’s coaching products will look like. But it’s easy to imagine a smart mix of products that are an extension of what they’ve done so far.

• Some users might get free social support from other users and simple advice generated algorithmically from the data they feed into MyFitnessPal.
• Others might get matched with similar MyFitnessPal users into groups for Weight Watchers-style coaching for a lower fee.
• And for more money, those who want it may get one-on-one coaching—similar to a personal trainer, but less expensive because it’s done over email, text, and video chat.

According to a report by Ars Technica, multiple notifications were sent to Belkin from IOActive as well as the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), but its failure to respond or address the holes—which include insufficient data encryption, insecure delivery of software updates and other issues—compelled the security researchers to issue the stern warning. 

Update Feb 19, 2014 10:00AM PST: According to a ZDNet report, Belkin issued a statement late Tuesday indicating that the company had been in touch with IOActive before the advisory went out and patched five security holes. 

ReadWrite reached out to Belkin via email, and the company said it has already addressed security flaws in its WeMo API server, WeMo firmware and WeMo apps, and that products with the recent firmware release (version 3949) are not vulnerable to malicious firmware attacks, including remote control or unauthorized monitoring of WeMo devices.

The company provided the following information: 

Belkin has corrected the list of five potential vulnerabilities affecting the WeMo line of home automation solutions that was published in a CERT advisory on February 18. Belkin was in contact with the security researchers prior to the publication of the advisory, and, as of February 18, had already issued fixes for each of the noted potential vulnerabilities via in-app notifications and updates. Users with the most recent firmware release (version 3949) are not at risk for malicious firmware attacks or remote control or monitoring of WeMo devices from unauthorized devices as described in the report. Belkin urges such users to download the latest app from the App Store (version 1.4.2) or Google Play Store (version 1.1.2) and then upgrade the firmware version through the app.

Specific fixes Belkin has issued include:

1) An update to the WeMo API server on November 5, 2013 that prevents an XML injection attack from gaining access to other WeMo devices.

2) An update to the WeMo firmware, published on January 24, 2014, that adds SSL encryption and validation to the WeMo firmware distribution feed, eliminates storage of the signing key on the device, and password protects the serial port interface to prevent a malicious firmware attack

3) An update to the WeMo app for both iOS (published on January 24, 2014) and Android (published on February 10, 2014) that contains the most recent firmware update

The post will be updated if more information becomes available. 

Irrational Games, the 17-year-old development arm behind the successful games Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, will be reshaped into a new team within Take Two Interactive, according to Ken Levine, the company’s creative director and co-founder:

While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before. To meet the challenge ahead, I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers.  In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience.

Levine said Irrational Games will release the final downloadable module for Bioshock Infinite, entitled “Burial At Sea,” but Levine will take roughly 15 members of the Irrational Games team while the rest will be laid off. Those laid off from Irrational Games will have a chance to discuss other opportunities within Take-Two Interactive, and Levine will also help departing Irrational staff get jobs at third-party studios and publishers by hosting a formal “recruiting day.”

To learn more about what will happen to Irrational Games and Levine’s next project, check out Levine’s blog post on Irrational Games’ website.

Lead image by nez on Flickr