February 12, 2016
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5 min read
Tech News February 2016
All the latest news and developments in tech, startup and innovation.
Budding entrepreneur and Melbourne high school student Spencer Porter has developed a nifty app that has scored a place in the Apple app store.
The 16-year-old from Langwarrin developed LOWK8 which allows users to record a specific location and then enables them to return to that same spot.Mr Porter said the app assisted users to keep track of where they had parked their car, where their hotel, home or favourite bar or coffee shop was.
“I came up with the idea because me and my mate would go to the city and want to get back to the location we had found. I wanted an easy way to find directions," he told Fairfax Media. Mr Porter has been developing apps since he was 12 and this one took just six months to complete.
“I went on the internet and found how I could find about development," he said.
“Even to this day I'm still learning. I still find errors and search on the internet for fixes."
You submit it to Apple and you have to get accepted and whether you get in depends what your application does and how you went about it," Porter says. "They are very selective in what will be accepted."
LOWK8 is available from the the Apple app store and costs a one-off fee of $1.50 to download.
Mostly used for personal hobby projects, large retailers and small businesses have jumped onto the 3D printing to mass-distribute custom products.
Sporting giants Nike, Adidas and New Balance have already started developing customised shoe orthotics and insoles using 3D printing machines, Fairfax Media reported.
The brands have teamed with technology companies to create the 3D-printed athletic footwear, some which might be released later this year.
Nike chief operating officer Eric Sprunk spoke about on-demand shoes at the GeekWire Summit in October, 2015.
Mr Sprunk discussed a version Nike was using to produce its Flyknit Lunar shoes.
"This is a file we send on the computer ... We send the file, we send it to the knit machine, the operator of the knit machine can operate many knit machines, he hits it into the knit machine and out comes a shoe," Mr Sprunk said.
"There's almost zero waste. The amount of waste from this shoe can fit literally in a thimble. It's just leftover thread.
"The amount of waste of an Air Force One or the shoe I have on my foot, which is made by stitching pieces together, cutting them with dyes, the waste that hits the factory floor - this eliminates all of that."
Alphabet Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly profit, with shares of Google’s parent soaring in after-hours trading setting it ahead of rival US company Apple Inc.
Solid results eased concerns by investors about the company’s spending on ambitious ideas, the ABC reported.
"As long as the core business continues to operate well with accelerated revenue … investment in those businesses can continue," JMP Securities' Ronald Josey said at the time.
Consolidated revenue jumped 17.8 per cent to $21.33 billion in the fourth quarter ending December 31, from $18.10 billion one year earlier, Alphabet said.
Analysts said they had expected $20.77 billion, according to Thomson Reuters Institutional Brokers' Estimate System.
Paper clip-sized device could help people walk again
People suffering from paralysis might soon be able to walk again by simply using mind control.
Royal Melbourne Hospital researchers said the device, known as a stentrode, was the size of a paper clip and sat inside a blood vessel next to the brain.
They said it could be described as a “bionic spinal cord” which recorded the activity of the brain and converted signals into electrical commands, the ABC reported.
A group of RMH researchers plan to insert the device into a group of spinal patients in 2017.
"What has been shown in other instances is that patients can learn over time to use their brain to move devices in a particular way that they choose to do," Professor Clive May said."What we have done is taken a stent, which is normally put into an artery to expand the artery."We've used that same technology and we've put micro-electrodes around it and we worked out a way of inserting this up through blood vessels into a blood vessel in the brain that's just above the motor cortex, which is the part of the brain that controls movement."
The US’s number one fintech startup Acorn Grow - which enables users to turn small change into an investment portfolio - launched in Australia on Wednesday.
This came after a successful trial period of 22,000 people.
According to a statement by the startup, Australians will be able to round up their daily purchases and automatically Invest the Change® into a diversified portfolio of ETFs.
Its aim was to be a simple and inexpensive way to enter the sharemarket and was targeted at people under 35.
