Fully Charged: 75 Xbox One prototypes, Dogecoin saves Jamaican bobsleigh team and Samsung puts tablets in your coffee (shop)

Dogecoin helps Jamaican bobsleigh team compete at Winter Olympics

Dogecoin, a Bitcoin-like crypto-currency named after an internet meme, could be sending a Jamaican bobsleigh team to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2002.

A two-man Jamaican team has qualified for the competition in Sochi this year, but does not have the estimated $40,000 funding necessary to compete. Sled pilot Winston Watt felt he had little choice but to turn to the internet for help, setting up a PayPal account for donations.

That’s when their plight was noticed by Dogecoin foundation co-runner Liam Butler, a huge fan of Cool Runnings (the Disney movie in which a Jamaican bobsleigh team competes in the Winter Olympics). He set up a fundraiser that – bobsleigh-like, you might say – quickly gained momentum. In a matter of hours, it had collected 26 million Dogecoins, worth around $25,000 (£15,000).

It seems that Dogecoin may have saved the Jamaican bobsleigh team’s Olympics.

[Source: Guardian]

Image credit: dilettantiquity

Go to Illy for a coffee, play with a Samsung tablet

Samsung has announced a deal with coffee company Illy that will see Samsung Galaxy tablets appearing in Illy’s shops. The tablets will allow users to view coffee price lists or decorate a virtual Illy coffee cup – while in-shop “Samsung Angels” will tell customers about the tablets’ feature. Samsung’s also popping NFC-equipped TecTiles on the shelves so that you can dial up information about Illy’s products.

Having Samsung salespeople hovering around as you drink your coffee sounds a bit annoying to us, but Samsung clearly thinks it’ll be an effective way to reach out to coffee connoisseurs. The first tablet-populated Illy shop will be in Regent Street, London.

Microsoft built 75 Xbox One prototypes

It’s no secret that hardware manufacturers build numerous prototypes of their products before deciding on its final form – but Microsoft went H.A.M. on the prototypes for the Xbox One, 3D printing around 75 different versions of the console, 100 versions of the Kinect module and a stonking 200 of the gamepad (this actually makes sense, because the gamepad is the user’s primary physical interface and therefore the aspect of the Xbox One in which form is most important).

Hit the link below to read more about the development of the console in a revealing interview with Microsoft industrial designer Carl Ledbetter.

[Source: Microsoft]

Nest CEO: we won’t give your data to Google unless you say it’s cool

When Google announced it was buying smart thermostat and smoke alarm maker Nest last week, people got a bit creeped out: these devices are monitoring your home (and in the case of the motion-detecting smoke alarm, monitoring your movements within it) – so would Nest be giving all that data to its new data-loving paymasters?

Nest CEO Tony Fadell has been trying to dampen down such fears, and this week he made it clear that Nest would not change its privacy policy without being transparent about it and without requiring that customers opt-in to any data-sharing activity.

Fadell is, of course, talking about current Nest customers and current Nest products in terms of “opting in”. In the future, Nest products may be sold with an opt-in assumed by the fact that you’re buying it…

[Source: Ars Technica]