Motorola Moto E 4G Listed With Price and Specifications Ahead of Launch

best Buy, the popular retailer, has listed the Motorola Moto E 4G’s Sprint variant as ‘coming soon’ along with the price and specifications, potentially spilling the beans ahead of the official unveiling. Of course since this is a third-party retailer, one cannot be certain if these will be the official launch price and specifications whenever Motorola launches the smartphone.

Notably, the Moto E 4G listed by the retailer is being considered as the second-generation of the popular Moto E, with upgraded specifications. The Moto E 4G is priced at $99.99 (approximately Rs. 6,200) for the unlocked version.

The listing, first spotted by STJsgadgets, also includes an image of the unannounced Moto E 4G, which coincidentally is identical to the image that was leaked in January for the Moto E (Gen 2). The listing confirms that Moto E (Gen 2) aka Moto E 4G will be Motorola’s first non-Nexus smartphone to run Android 5.0 Lollipop out-of-the-box.

According to Best Buy listing, the Moto E 4G will feature a 4.5-inch qHD (540×960 pixels) display; 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor (possibly quad-core); 1GB of RAM; 8GB inbuilt storage; microSD card support; 5-megapixel rear camera; 3G, and 4G connectivity support. The listing doesn’t list the front camera and battery capacity of the Moto E 4G.

We remind readers however that nothing is official yet, and that all such leaks must be taken with a pinch of salt.

In other news, Motorola India on Monday announced a bevy of offers on Moto devices in India on completing a year in the Indian market (since the launch of the first-generation Moto G) with its exclusive online partner, Flipkart. The new offers are valid on the purchase of the Moto E, Moto G (Gen 2), Moto X (Gen 2), Google Nexus 6 and Moto 360 via Flipkart from February 9 to 15.

Dave McClure Will Join Us At TechCrunch Disrupt NY

Live years ago, Dave McClure decided to strike out on his own and start a little venture firm called 500 Startups. At the time, the pure ambition of giving his seed-stage investment fund that name sounded crazy (classic Dave!) and many questioned his plan to invest small amounts of capital in a massive number of startups.Today, that thesis doesn’t seem quite so crazy. 500 Startups has nearly 1,000 companies in its portfolio, and the firm doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

McClure and his team have also become a global force, investing broadly around the world, and also supporting a diverse group of founders. 500 Startups has geographically focused “micro funds” in a number of regions around the world, including Mexico and Latin America, China, India, Korea, Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia.

It’s also been extremely forward-thinking in its use of AngelList Syndicates to support founder diversity, most notably through its 500 Women Syndicate and 500 LGBT Syndicate.

That philosophy of supporting those who are underrepresented in the tech community extends even further into 500 Startups, where a third of its investment partners are female and half of the overall organization is made up of women.

In other words, in many ways Dave McClure is changing the way the VC game is played.

A conversation with Dave is always insightful, never boring, and frequently raises the question of why there aren’t more VCs like him — or why he’s not like more VCs. All of that is why we’re looking forward to talking to McClure at Disrupt NY 2015 in May and hearing from one of the most interesting and controversial figures in venture capital today.

The show runs May 4-6 at the historic Manhattan Center. Tickets are available at an early bird discount rate until April 11th.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact

Apple’s Latest Betrayal

“Seriously, fuck them,” wrote one tweeter called M.J. The person was speaking about Apple and the new MacBook the company recently announced. There are countless other tweets and comments with the same sentiment. Right now there’s visceral hate directed at the company. A swathe of consumers feel betrayed by the stark design of the new MacBook. Our original post on the topic was shared over 25,000 times. It’s a polarizing design.

The new MacBook thinks different. It has more in common with a tablet than most laptops. Think of it as an iPad that has a keyboard and runs OS X. And like the iPad, it only has one port, which is the cause of the outcry.

Most computers have several ports scattered around the frame. There’s usually one for charging, a couple USB ports for various tasks, and some sort of port to output video. The new MacBook combines all three into a single USB-C port. This means users will not be able to, say, charge the laptop and an iPhone at the same time or input data from a flash drive while outputting video to an external monitor. Sure you’re going to have some nice accessories to do all these things down the line but this barebones approach is a pretty hard sell in a world where some laptops still have a serial port.

This is Apple’s world and we just live in it.

To Apple’s credit, the company must see a market for such a computer. The low-power Intel chipset that powers the computer likely doesn’t provide enough oomph to play computer games but it should render GIFs just fine. This is a couch computer. It’s a Facebook and Twitter machine. It even looks like a great programming computer. Watch the Apple event yesterday. The company didn’t demonstrate any of its new software on the new MacBook including the Photos app. Simply put, the new MacBook isn’t for photo editing. It’s for Facebooking.

Expectations are high for Apple. Had a company like HP or Lenovo released a watered-down computer like the new MacBook, there likely wouldn’t have been an outcry, but rather a collective chuckle. For some reason, a swath of Apple fans expects the company to build every product to meet their needs. If it doesn’t, feelings of betrayal sneak in. This happened with the original MacBook Air.

Apple released the first MacBook Air in 2008. It cost $1,799 and, like the new MacBook, was a svelte wonder of technology. But it lacked ports. The industry cried foul, pointing out that it only had a power port, a single USB port and a Micro-DVI port. It was missing a DVD-ROM and Ethernet port, a travesty in an era of burgeoning Wi-Fi and the slow decline of physical media. In 2008 this was a big deal. Software was still shipped on disks and Wi-Fi was hard to find. Apple fans felt betrayed. They felt forgotten. If a customer wanted Apple’s latest and greatest machine, they would have to buy into interacting with a computer without a CD drive or wired Internet.

Eventually, Apple dropped Ethernet from its entire MacBook line and the MacBook Air is now the least expensive laptop Apple offers.

The new MacBook joins the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. It’s not a replacement for either – at least not yet. But it bears a nameplate previously retired: MacBook. It’s not an Air, it’s not a Pro. It’s just a MacBook, which was long the company’s stalwart, low-cost machine against the rising tide of Microsoft Windows.

It’s highly likely that in a generation or two that Apple will drop the price of the MacBook to under a thousand. Will the MacBook Air survive? Maybe not. Apple is steadily making the MacBook Pro smaller. It’s easy to see a future where the MacBook will be the company’s only inexpensive laptop and a slightly slimmer MacBook Pro will be the other option if you want silly things like multiple USB ports, SD card slots and a MagSafe power adapter.

Until then, a 13-inch MacBook Air is a better buy than the new MacBook. The battery lasts nearly as long, the computer is more powerful and it has plenty of ports. Plus, nobody has ever said that they wished their MacBook Air was just a bit thinner. But maybe, soon, they will.

The new 27-inch iMac is getting a 5120×2800 Retina display, according to new leaks

After years of anticipation from Macintosh enthusiasts, Apple might finally be ready to release its first desktop with a Retina display. Rumors began surfacing this week that the new 27-inch iMac will be receiving a massive boost in resolution from 2560×1440 (109 PPI) to 5120×2880 (218 PPI) — four times the raw number of pixels on-screen. To help push nearly 15 million pixels at once, a new AMD-based GPU is said to be included as well. This is exciting news, but the inevitably-high asking price is bound to scare away most consumers.9to5Mac and Jack March have both independently reported on these new iMacs, and the rumors seem to be largely compatible. As far as these rumors are concerned, we can expect to see this crazy 5K iMac at Apple’s next press event — probably some time in October, alongside some new iPads.


New iMacWhile the 9to5Mac report is somewhat vague, March doesn’t shy away from listing specs. Apparently, this new model will have the exact same design and physical dimensions as the previous model — only the internals are getting refreshed. The Intel i7-4790K Haswell CPU (clocked at 4Ghz) will be included in this SKU, and it seems Apple is switching the iMac back to AMD-based GPUs. Little is known about which graphics processor Cupertino has in mind, but it’ll need to be quite beefy if there is any hope at running 3D games at the native resolution of the display. (This tidbit doesn’t quite ring true: Nvidia’s new Maxwell GPU, with its much lower TDP, would surely be a better fit than any of AMD’s offerings.)

Read: Nvidia Maxwell GTX 980 and GTX 970 reviewed: Crushing all challengers

Unfortunately, the 21.5-inch model doesn’t seem to be getting the same amount of love. We can expect the smaller iMac to stay right at 1920×1080 (102 PPI), but a small bump in CPU and GPU wouldn’t be much of a surprise. While it’s disappointing that only the biggest model is getting a Retina update, it’s not particularly surprising. High-res displays are still very expensive, so it doesn’t make sense for the cheaper low-end iMacs. For now, 5K displays are still a premium feature. It’ll take a while for those displays to work their way down market, but it’s bound to happen eventually.

Steve Jobs with iMac G3 (Bondi Blue)
The iMac has come a long way since the original iMac G3, which was released in 1998
We’re still waiting on new iPads and Macs for the holiday shopping season, and Apple is typically done making major releases by the time November rolls around. Whatever Apple actually plans to release, we’ll know sooner rather than later — at the moment, an event in October to announced refreshed iMacs and iPads seems most likely. I’ll be in the market for a new desktop after Christmas, but the idea of dropping thousands of dollars — probably upwards of $3,000 when all’s said and done — for a 27-inch Retina iMac doesn’t sit well with my pocket book. What about you? Is the Retina iMac exactly what you’re looking for, or will it be too much money for too little computer? Sound off in the comment section below.

Harvard University & Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

The University of Muhammadan., l. a. (UCLA), is additionally a public analysis university placed within the Westwood neighborhood of l. a. , California, u. s.. based in 1919, it’s the second-oldest field of the University of Muhammadan. system. UCLA is one all told the 2 flagship universities within the UC system (alongside UC Berkeley). It offers 337 student associated graduate degree programs in an extremely wide vary of disciplines. With degree approximate enrollment of twenty nine,000 student and thirteen,000 graduate students, UCLA is that the university with the foremost necessary enrollment within the state of Muhammadan. and to boot the foremost applied to Gymnasium within the world with over one zero five,000 applications for Fall 2014. In March 1881, once necessary lobbying by l. a. residents, the Calif. State general assembly commissioned the creation of a southern branch of the Muhammadan. State teachers college (which later became San Jose State University) in downtown l. a. to show lecturers for the growing population of Southern Muhammadan.. The State teachers college at l. a. opened on August twenty nine, 1882, on what is presently the placement of the Central Library of the l. a. library system. The new facility encircled degree linguistics school where teachers-in-training might follow their teaching technique on children. That linguistics school is imagined to this present day version, UCLA work faculty. In 1887, the varsity became explicit as a result of the l. a. State teachers college.In 1914, the varsity affected to a modern field on Green Mountain State Avenue (now the location of l. a. town College) in East Hollywood. In 1917, UC Regent Edward politician Dickson, the alone regent representing the South at the 

time, and Ernest Charles Lutwidge writer Moore, Director of the normal faculty, began operative on to lobby the State general assembly to alter the varsity to become the second University of Muhammadan. field, once UC Berkeley. They met resistance from UC Berkeley alumni, Northern Moslem. members of the state general assembly, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of Muhammadan. from 1899 to 1919, administrative unit were all showing neatness vital the organize of a southern field. However, David city Barrows, the new President of the University of Muhammadan., did not share Wheeler’s objections. On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians’ efforts were rewarded once Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law, that integrated the l. a. teachers college with the University of Muhammadan. as a results of the Southern Branch of the University of Muhammadan.. constant legislation additional its general student program, the varsity of Letters and Science.For the primary thirty two years of its existence, UCLA was treated as degree off-site department of UC. As such, its leader was noted as a “provost,” and reportable to the foremost field in Berkeley. In 1951, UCLA was formally elevated to co-equal standing with UC Berkeley, and its leader was granted the title of chancellor. Raymond B. Allen was the primary chief government thereupon title. The appointment of Franklin David spud to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped to spark degree era of tremendous growth of facilities and school honors. By the best of the last decade, UCLA had achieved distinction throughout a decent selection of subjects. This era as well secured UCLA’s position as associate correct university in its claim and not simply a branch of the UC system. this transformation is exemplified by a happening involving Chancellor vegetable, that was delineate by him later on: The Southern Branch field opened on Sept fifteen of that year, providing biennial student programs to 250 Letters and Science students and one,250 students within the standard school, beneath Moore’s continued direction.

Adobe Launches Document Cloud, A Subscription Service For Acrobat, EchoSign And New Apps

Over the last two years or so, the news around Adobe has mostly focused on its Creative Cloud, so it’s easy to forget that the company also has a huge business in the document space with Acrobat. Now it’s putting renewed emphasis on the product with the launch of its Document Cloud.

At the center of this is Acrobat DC, a new version of Acrobat for the desktop, web and mobile that will include free e-signing tools based on Adobe EchoSign and quite a bit of smart image-handling and OCR technology.

The company is also launching a new mobile app called Fill and Sign as well as a new Acrobat enterprise solution with additional advanced features like fine-grained permission controls and third-party integrations.

All of these new tools will launch within the next 30 days and will be available to existing Acrobat Cloud users who are currently paying $14.99 per month. Adobe will also offer perpetual licenses for Acrobat DC.

Adobe claims that over 50 billion PDFs were opened in the last year alone. Its mobile version Acrobat reader is seeing 400,000 mobile installs per day and EchoSign has now processed over 100 million agreements. But the company also argues that too often its users still have to resort to printing documents because they need to get signatures.

adobe cloud

According to Adobe vice president of product marketing Mark Grilli, almost 80% of document-based processes are at least partly dependent on paper. To fix this “last mile” problem, Adobe decided to take what it learned from the Creative Cloud and apply it documents.

The idea here is to create a unified experiences across all platforms, with e-signing as one of the key features.Here is what this looked like in a demo Adobe senior product marketing manager Lisa Croft gave me. Say you get a paper form you need to sign. You can now use the new Sign and Fill app to take a picture of the document. Similar to mobile apps likeTurboScan, the new app will then automatically try to recognize the borders of the form, but it will also clean it up, fix the lighting, and perform a few more operations to make it look good in digital form. Then, you can fill out the form, e-sign it and email it back (maybe to a teacher, for example). Most of the time, you end up putting the same information on every form you get (name, address, date of birth, etc.) and Fill and Sign allows you to save this data and then quickly add it to paper forms.

The new Acrobat mobile app, too, offers these features, but it goes far beyond this. There, too, you can now scan forms, but then you can head over to the web and fill them out there. The really nifty trick here, though, is that Acrobat also runs its OCR software over the text and then recreates the paper document as an editable file that is easy to modify. The software tries to match the font of the paper document with those in Adobe’s library, so chances the document you edit will look the same as the paper version (most documents are printed in a limited number of fonts anyway).

For the most part, the mobile apps, which are available for iOS and Android, feature the same tools as the desktop app, with a few exceptions like redactions, which are only available on the desktop. In the long run, Adobe may consolidate Fill and Sign and Acrobat Mobile into a single app, Grilli said. To store documents, Acrobat DC current supports Adobe’s own storage solution and Microsoft Sharepoint.

Haystack’s New App Wants To Be Your Digital Business Card

Over the years, a number of startups have attempted to kill the business card, but these antiquated pieces of paper have managed to stick around, despite our move to a digital age. However, that doesn’t mean people will stop trying to end the reign of the business card once and for all. The latest example? A newly launched mobile application called Haystack which allows users to not only create their own digital card, but also scan and store the cards given to them.Prior to today’s launch in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., Haystack’s app has been in beta testing in Australia for several months. There it has already grown to include 3,000 businesses on its service (and even more users), even though the team only marketed the app in the city of Brisbane, where founder Ran Heimann is based.

Heimann says he was motivated to try his hand at creating an app to displace the business card after spending years working as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he and his colleagues were heavy users of business cards.

While some of the apps that have launched in this space have tried to ignore the fact that paper business cards still exist, what’s interesting about the new Haystack app is that it allows you to transition from the world of paper-based cards to digital. That is, instead of ignoring the fact that you’re still going to have to deal with receiving physical business cards, it offers you a way to import them into your phone simply by snapping a photo.

emailImage

The app scanning functionality in Haystack isn’t comparable to competitors like CamCard from what I found, as in several cases it wasn’t able to identify the text on the card itself. That being said, it does have a few cool tricks up its sleeve. For starters, it has you verify the email address on the scanned card, and if the company is online, it finds its logo and uses that to create the digital version of the card to store in the app.

Additionally, Haystack will tap into crowdsourcing to build out its contacts database, so that the digital cards will update automatically if the card’s owner or a trusted contact updates that contact’s information on the service.

That means the more people using Haystack, the better it becomes at identifying contacts by email address and creating their digital business cards automatically. However, stresses Heimann, it won’t display this information to just anyone – information like a person’s phone number and email are kept private unless you have their physical card or have been sent their digital card via the app.

haystack

To transition users away from business cards, Haystack lets you build your own digital card just by entering in your email. The app then “auto-brands” your card for you using the logo it finds online and you can enter in the details you want to share, including also your accounts on various social networks.

You can share your digital card with others by sending it through email or text right from the app, and if the recipient is not using Haystack (as they’re likely not), they’ll be directed to a webpage instead where they can choose to download the card in the correct format for their device.

While Heimann is hopeful that Haystack will be the app that helps to put business cards to rest for good, I’m less optimistic. As he noted himself when detailing the problem, “these pieces of paper refuse to die.”

However, the app can serve as a simple way to snap photos of cards and send them to your contacts app on your smartphone, and can it works as an easy way to share your own contact details for those times when you either forgot or ran out of your own business cards. Whether or not that will motivate you to stop printing paper cards entirely is to be determined.

Haystack is a free download for both iOS and Android.

The company is backed by $500k in angel funding. It has plans to introduce its service to businesses where it could be used in conjunction with CRM systems.