Manage Your Entire Home From a Phone Using This App

A new app aims to reassure absent homeowners by letting them manage and monitor household items, straight from their phone or tablet.
Prizm is a 5-inch touchscreen controller that uses Z-Wave, a wireless system designed to help users communicate with home appliances. Combined with the Prizm Manager mobile app, they can turn light switches on and off, lock and unlock doors, raise and lower shades, and adjust the thermostat. Users are also notified when a door or window is opened, or when someone leaves or enters the house.
The product's creators say they have developed a cloud platform that makes it possible for users to "stay connected to your home from anywhere in the world."
So far, Prizm has raised a little over $6,000 of its $200,000 goal on Kickstarter. Would you use it? Tell us in the comments, below.

Image courtesy of Prizm

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Friends Sex App; Registers 5 Users Per Minute

The Bang With Friends sex app, which claims to anonymously hook users up with their Facebook friends, revealed plans to expand following its successful launch last week.

"Support for same-sex selections is already under development here at BWF along with an iPhone application for banging on the go," the app's creators told Mashable in an email. While the creators provided no specific launch date, they said these new features will launch "soon."

Bang With Friends' controversial debut attracted plenty of media attention, as well as user interest. The app's "mostly 20-something" user base has topped 30,000, according to the California-based creators — three men who keep their identities hidden. What's more, they claim the app is registering five new users, or "bangers," every minute.

Bang With Friends' goal is simple, and its approach has a decidedly frat-boy-esque quality that may appeal to a young user base (the creators' contact email is "pimpin@bangwithfriends.com," after all). To join, users sign in with Facebook, and are taken to a page that features names and photos of their friends. After settling on an object (or objects) of lust, users must click a "Down to Bang" button that then changes to "Awaiting Bang."

The app says it "will only show your friends that you're interested if they are too," and notifies both parties via email about their mutual interest.

Currently, Bang With Friends can only accommodate heterosexual users, as the list of potential lovers includes exclusively members of the opposite sex, as well as people of the same-sex who did not list their gender on Facebook, according to Buzzfeed.

What do you think of the app? Would you use it? Tell us in the comments, below.
Images courtesy of Bang With Friends; thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, jafsegal
original article in mashable.com
Friends Sex App; Registers 5 Users Per Minute

Kim Dotcom's Mega Begins Early Rollout and Now Open to Public

Kim Dotcom's new service Mega has started to roll out for early-access users, revealing a wide-array of ambitious features and the service's premium prices, as reported by TechCrunch.

Mega is the new venture of the founder of the now defunct Megaupload, which was seized by the U.S. government almost a year ago. The service will launch to the general public over the weekend, but it's already available to some beta users. The features already available, among others, are mobile access, instant messaging and word-processing. Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch explains that the site basically looks like a "simplified version of Dropbox."

For basic, non-paying users, Mega will provide 50GB of space. For premium users, there will be three tiers of additional storage: 500GB, 2TB and 4TB for $13.29, $26.59 and $39.90 USD per month, respectively.

Many features are still unavailable and will probably be rolled out after the official launch. Mega will supposedly offer domain, hosting, and email services, instant messaging, a cloud-based Office-like suite and desktop and mobile clients. In other words, Dotcom wants Mega to be much more than an encrypted version of Dropbox. We'll probably find out more details over the weekend, when Mega goes live for all users.

Kim Dotcom’s ‘Mega’ Now Open to Public

A news from mashable.com
Kim Dotcom's Mega Begins Early Rollout
 

5 Emergency Apps to Download Before Hurricane Sandy Hits

Hurricane Sandy will make landfall on the East Coast within the next few days. If you’ve got a smartphone, you can quickly, easily and cheaply turn it into part of your emergency readiness kit by downloading a few useful apps.

To keep your eye on Sandy’s path, download the Hurricane Tracker app for iOS. It delivers the latest forecasts and National Hurricane Center data on the storm’s path right to your iPhone. Also included: relevant Twitter feeds from storm centers, meteorologists and others.

Download iMap Weather Radio, an iOS and Android app which either tracks your location or follows a set of locations you select. If a weather alert is issued for where you are, the app will automatically alert you. It’ll also let you tune in to local weather television broadcasts.

For drafting an emergency plan before the storm strikes, download the Insurance Institute’s Your Plan app. You can use it to figure out what to pack in an emergency “go” kit, store contact numbers, figure out where to go and how to get there.

The Red Cross has a feature-packed and useful Hurricane app for iOS and Android with myriad features: It tracks weather information, it lets you broadcast an “I’m safe” message to friends and family with one button, and, if you need to evacuate your home, it maps the nearest Red Cross shelter. It also has a list of steps to take in case of an emergency. Hopefully, you won’t have to use most of these features — but if you do, you’ll be glad you have it. Get it from the Red Cross.

Finally, every emergency preparedness kit should have a flashlight — make sure the batteries are fresh and you know where to find them in your home. But for a quick backup solution, download a Flashlight app to turn your phone’s camera flash into a solid beam of light. There’s plenty out there for iOS and Android alike, but this free Flashlight app (ad-supported) is a favorite for iOS that doubles as an emergency beacon.