CARROT: WHY THE PRODUCTIVITY APP IS WONDERFUL

Bytemagazine

NEW IN

Is GOOGLE GLASS the ultimate companion?

NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR YOUNG PROFESSIONALS

Plus: your thoughts on the device

RASPBERRY PI DIY

BREAKING TECH NEWS

Apple Watch: The tear-down

PLUS: GAME REVIEWS COMPETITIONS AND MUCH MORE!

MAY 2015 EDITION - ISSUE 1

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w.b

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mag

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P £2

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Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO, dies at 47

Images are not my own unless otherwise stated. Front page image credit courtesy of isiqiri, photojojo, accelerated apps, barcode and gtin.info. Other image credit courtesy of connectedly, osxdaily, wikicommons, the bit-coin movement, eMarketing Ltd, Microsoft, Logok, ACP, Raspberry Pi, Mojang, Whatsapp, Facebook.

WELCOMEHi all! This is our first issue of Byte magazine, and we sincere-ly hope you love it. At Byte HQ we’ve been working hard to pull together some fun and interesting content for you all to read. Our focus is on the young professionals out there - we know you’re busy at work and you want all the most interesting news, ways to improve your productivity and worthwhile fea-tures without you having to search around for it. We’ve even added some fun bits in to make the commute go a little faster! So, what’s in the May edition? Well, we have an in-depth look into Google Glass and whether people feel it’s ready for the mass market. We also have some really interesting tech news and an insight into a brilliant app called CARROT. Not only this, but we’ve got a great how-to guide for the more practical of you - spend your weekend off work by building your very own Raspberry Pi projects!

Well, that’s it for now. We hope you enjoy the magazine and the many more editions to come!

- Holly Welch, Editor

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CONTENTS

APP ZONE: 10 reasons why CARROT is the ultimate productivity app

TECH NEWS: Dave Goldberg dies/Apple Watch teardown/rise of phablets

FEATURED: Google Glass - the perfect companion?Byte Opinion cornerYour views on Google Glass

3 - 4

HAVE A GO:Raspberry Pi D.I.Y.

BREAK TIME:Game review - Minecraft: Pocket EditionCompetition!Tech Trivia Time

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My Best Friend

I picked her up on Thursday morning. We were introduced by a mutual friend who told me all about her, and asked me to take her on a tour of the city. I can’t deny my excitement - I’d heard all about her, but never thought I’d be lucky enough to meet her. When we were left alone, we immediately hit it off - I felt this electric connection with her. She fit me like a glove - or a pair of glasses.

The time spent with Glass was, quite honestly, amazing. You might say I’m being hasty to make that sort of judgement, but sometimes you just click with them. I decided that I liked Glass so much, I had to invite her to mine for a sleepover.

My housemates met Glass later that evening, and they loved her (and were probably a bit jealous that I got to spend my time with her). When you find someone as interesting and fun as Glass, you can’t help but want to spend time with her!

Glass is the kind of friend every-one wishes they were. Popular, effortlessly cool, always fun to be around. The more time I spent with her, the better she

Sometimes it was easy to forget that I was even in her company. She wasn’t much of a talker, so I had to provide the majority - the entirety - of the conversation.

Regardless of these issues, spending time with Glass made me happy. We popped into town the next morning to do some shopping, and stopped for a bite to eat by the riverbank. A lot of people were staring at us as we talked and walked through the town centre - I think they were just jealous that they didn’t have a friend like Glass.

However, our friendship was not meant to last - she had seen enough of the city, and it was time to go home. I reluctantly dropped her back and instantly felt like part of me was missing. How would I function without Glass answering my questions? Was I now meant to answer my own calls? I realised how dependent I had become on her. It took a while to become self-sufficient again.

I feel honoured to have spent that time with Glass, and I will never forget it. But when you begin to treat a headset like it’s your only friend.. Well, you know you should get out more.

seemed to know me.

Glass quickly became the yin to my yang; she was, frankly, an amazing companion. She listened to everything I had to say and never once answered back. I divulged all my secrets, and she never once judged me. She was knowledgeable, and was able to answer (almost) any question I posed. Call me exploitative, but she was more than happy to do everything I asked of her. She even acted as my secretary and called my mum for me! Talk about obedience.

We relaxed outside and made some wonderful memories, which Glass happily recorded for us to look back on. She was my dedicated photographer and I didn’t have to lift a finger for her.

Although Glass was brilliant, she was far from perfect. A big prob-lem was her lack of energy. She seemed to get worn out easily, especially after her secretarial duties. While this barely mat-tered at first - we recharged our batteries overnight, and she was awake bright and early - having to stop every half an hour to give her a rest got tiring pretty quick-ly.

When Glass was awake, she seemed to need constant stimu-lation or she’d doze off. I had to make sure she was taking photos for me, or answering my ques-tions, or she’d just stop listening to me.

I got the chance to spend a few days with Glass. Here’s why she made an amazing friend.By Holly Welch @Hoxxie

Byte

FEATURED

“I felt this electric connection with her”

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Google Glass: ahead of its time or ready for the masses?

Tweet us at @ByteMagazine to make the magazine!

“I don’t think Glass fits into society yet. People

would get strange looks! And I don’t feel it can replace all the other

technology we have.”

@Amber_Is_Moi

“I’m all for Glass. If the price was a little bit lower

and lots of people were interested, I can see them

easily catching on. Sign me up!”

@JuliaMitchell24

“As someone who regularly wears glasses, I wouldn’t want to add

more weight to the bridge of my nose. I’m sure lots of others feel the same.”

@sniffmyspeed

HAVE YOUR SAY

Next week’s topic: would you buy a battery to power your home?

FEATURED

GLASS IS ‘TOO FUTURISTIC’ vs GLASS IS A NECESSARY TOOL IN THE WORKPLACEByte opinions

I don’t care what you techies say about the headset devices being the computerised “answer to all your prayers” - you need to face it. Google Glass is just too futur-istic to catch on. Who is going to want to walk around the street with a hunk of metal stuck to their heads, talking (effectively) to themselves about what they’re up to? People have been locked up for less.

Then there’s the cost of these gadgets. Most people don’t have the funds to go around buy-ing these commodities. You see people struggling to afford their phone bills, so how could they

possibly finance them? As it stands, the price for the very lim-ited run of Glass models comes up to a couple of thousand pounds. It is NEVER going to reach the pub-lic in a huge way, because it costs out too many people. I’m not interested in parting cash with such a daft, expensive invention. - N.E. Body

Glass is the way forward, and if anyone tells you otherwise then they are living in the dark ages. We need to think progressively in terms of inventing and technolo-gy. So many amazing innovations have been made in the past 15 to

20 years, and many of them have been written off at first as “stupid” or “pointless”. In another decade, I guarantee you that we will all be using Glass as our go-to device.

It’s of particular use in the work-place, because of its hands-free capabilities, as well as its pho-tography and Google Search functions. Being able to receive a phone call to Glass will revolu-tionise conferences, while search-ing on the go will remove our reliance on laptops and phones. Workplaces deserve Glass - you know it makes sense. - Joe Bloggs

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Our most personal device yet.

Because beauty speaks for itself.

Prices start at £299 (VAT included). The watch comes in three tiers: Sport, Watch, and Edition. Choose from a multitude of models in a range of different

straps, from sports bands, to llink bracelet, and various different buckles.

TECH NEWS

FEATURED

CEO of SurveyMonkey, Dave Goldberg, dies at 47On May 2nd it was an-nounced that the Chief Exec-utive of SurveyMonkey, Dave Goldberg, passed away sud-denly at 47 years of age.

At the time, Goldberg was on holiday with his wife, Facebook Chief Operations Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

Goldberg rose to prominence upon taking SurveyMonkey over as CEO in 2009. He saw the business grow dras-tically over his six years in authority; in 2013, the site had 15 million registered us-ers, and the company was valued at $1.35 billion in 2014. Prior to this,

Goldberg had co-founded Launch Media, an online mu-sic platform, which was taken over in 2001 by Yahoo. “It’s with incredible shock and sadness that I’m let-ting our friends and family know that my amazing broth-er, Dave Goldberg, beloved husband of Sheryl Sandberg, father of two wonderful chil-dren, and son of Paula Gold-berg, passed away suddenly last night,” wrote Goldberg’s brother, Robert, who broke the news in a post on Face-book.

Individuals took to Twitter to express their sympathies for

the Silicon Valleyentrepreneur and his family. One user declared “We’re gonna miss you Goldie”, while another agreed, saying “he was one of the nicest guys in silicon valley”.

Photo by Explorers Festival

Follow our Twitter for the latest, breaking tech news! @ByteMagazine

APPLE WATCH: THE TEAR-DOWN

PHABLETS ARE BECOMING MORE WIDELY USED

Tech dismantlers iFix-it have taken apart the Apple Watch to provide customers with guides to fixing their own, if they don’t fancy spending money on expensive Ap-ple repairs. These guides will give you a step-by-step walkthrough to tak-ing apart, mending, and putting your watch back together.

The tear-down has also revealed some interest-ing information into the technology contained within the steel casing. The watch (or, at least, the Sport version) contains an ambient light sensor, a tiny 205mAh battery and an IPX7 water-resistant

speaker (which allows for 30 minutes of sub-mersion). Interesting-ly, the heart monitor in the watch is actually a plethysmograph, which gives the ability to meas-ure oxygen in the blood.

The full run-down of de-tails and photos can be found on the iFixit website.

According to a new report from analytics firm Flurry, the demand for bigger mo-bile phones is growing.

Focusing on the top 875 devices used in March, Flurry found that the us-age of “phablets” - a cross between phones and tab-lets - have tripled in the last year.

While just 6% of devices used in January 2014 were

categorised as phablets, this has since jumped to a whopping 20%. Me-dium phones are down 8%, from 68% to 59%, and small phones have been reduced to 2%. The phablet category is the only area to have actually shown any sort of growth, which may give some indi-cation as to the likelihood of these devices becom-ing even more widespread in the future.

Photo by iFixit

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Greetings, lazy human.It’s beautifully minimalistic. Who needs all that extra text - and tonnes of images - clut-tering up the screen and inhibiting productivity? Not us. We guarantee that a distraction-free app will help your task-achievement levels ten-fold.CARROT gets angry if you don’t complete tasks. If you leave her for more than a day or so, she’ll fly off the handle. And you don’t want to see CARROT angry... Trust us. It’s a big motivation to get tasks completed as quickly as possible.Level up! You add points to your progress bar every time you complete a task, and this goes towards gaining a level. So not only do you have the threat of CARROT’s wrath making your productivity soar, but also the promise of new rewards to get you working hard.

The app has a brilliant back story. You aren’t just getting an app to increase your work-load, oh no. When you level up, you unlock a new part to the story of CARROT. We won’t spoilt it for you, but it’s hilarious.

Captain Whiskers. That’s the name of our kitten. Yep, you read that right - you get to name (and feed) your own virtual cat! It might seem like a bit of a silly thing to find on a productivity app, but it makes sense when you follow the story. And trust us when we say that an element of fun is necessary to keep using this sort of app.Challenges. For the competitive streak in you, CARROT gives you the ability to push yourself to complete a number of goals, and in a variety of ways. Think 99 problems are easily solved? Try aiming for 2,222. (If you manage that many, we reckon you’ve earned office bragging rights).Checking back. You can look back through your completed tasks to see how wonderfully productive you’ve been, or to have a little laugh over the bizarre things you’ve “achieved” whilst owning CARROT (thank god the app was there to remind us to “wash”).For those in need of organisation... CARROT has some handy functions for organising your tasks. Press and hold to move a task in the list, tap it once to edit the text, or double tap to schedule a reminder. You can prioritise your tasks and be painfully reminded about that conference next week with ease. CARROT speaks to you. With the advent of Siri, Cortana and a whole host of other talking companions, long gone are the days of silent apps. Yep, CARROT’S robotic little voice (weirdly reminiscent of HAL 9000) praises and berates you, depending on her mood. It adds to the notion of interacting with an ‘AI’, and makes for a more user-friendly (or user-angry, depend-ing on her mood) experience.The out-of-app interaction. CARROT’s influence on your life doesn’t stop when you close the app, oh no. She’ll ’message’ you in the early hours of the morning to let you know she’s watching you sleep. She makes sure you remember to check on her. Not only this, but we have tweeted about CARROT a few times, and she has replied to us with hilarious (and oc-casionally threatening) messages. The user experience of this productivity app is unrivalled.

CARROT is available on iOS for £1.79 - scan the QR code to be taken to the app store. If you would like more CARROTy goodness then you’re in lucky. There is also a CARROT alarm, fitness app, calorie counter, and weather app. Plenty of CARROT to go around!

ByteAPP ZONE

Here at Byte HQ, we love productivity... And we think we’ve found the ultimate app. Part HAL 9000, part to-do list, here are our top ten reasons why you should use CARROT to get your life on track.

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Show your truecolours.

10.8inch touch screen laptop with stylus. Up to 4GB RAM, Quad Core 2.4GHz processor. 1TB cloud storage with OneDrive and Office 365 included. Runs Windows 8.1.

3) Calendar

We know you have a ridiculous amount of meetings to keep note of, which is why this project is perfect. Keep an au-tomatic calendar on your wall and you’ll never forget them again (which could be seen as a good or a bad thing!). In-structions for this project can be found at:http://bit.ly/1cSnhup

4) WhatsApp

In this day and age, keeping connected is essential - especially for those updates from work. So what better a reason to use Raspberry Pi to send messages for you on Whatsapp? Look here:http://bit.ly/1KWM9ze

Regardless of what you fancy doing to your Raspberry Pi, there are a plethora of projects out there for you. If noth-ing here whets your whistle then take to Google to find something more your style.

Byte

HAVE A GO

RASPBERRY PI D.I.Y.Raspberry Pi is a delightful device. This cheap computer is the perfect way to build your own projects from it - the perfect weekend hobby when you’re relaxing away from work. Here are our favourite creations for you to check out.

1) Digital picture frame

Digital picture frames are awesome as they are, and any decent entrepre-neur enjoys a bit of art around their home. Well guess what? You can link your Raspberry Pi to Deviantart and update your frames every day with new, amazing content. A guy called Cameron Wiebe has come up with some awesome scripts to run on your Raspberry Pi - check them out here: http://bit.ly/1ceEJNK

2) “Pi”Phone

Check out our for more tech How-Tos! Search “ByteMag” to get

involved!

Fancy taking an old handset and put-ting it to a more modern use? Well now you can! These instructions allow you to take your landline, which is surely gath-ering dust, and turn it into a phone that can make calls over the internet. Perfect for conferences. Find instructions here:http://bit.ly/1JMEC9T

Got any awesome Raspberry Pi projects at home? Tweet us with a picture and make the magazine! @ByteMagazine

Holly Welch @Hoxxie

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BREAKTIME

BREAK TIME

MINECRAFT: POCKET EDITION - REVIEW

tech trivia time

COMPETITION!

either; though some features have been omitted for simplicity’s sake, the controls have been designed so that playing feels absolutely effortless. Many hours can be spent (or wasted?) on your tablet and, to us, actually feels more natural than being sat at a PC.

1 ) Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera are examples of what?

2) Who did Bill Gates found Microsoft with?

3) Atomic bombs work by atomic fission - True or False?

4) What does CPU stand for?

5) What year was Nintendo founded?

6) What does a HTTP server error 500 mean?

7) What does the “OS” in iOS stand for?

8) When did the Apple iPhone first become commercially available?

Check your answers!

1) Internet browsers2) Paul Allen3) True4) Central Processing Unit5) 18896) Internal error7) Operating system8) 2007

To celebrate the launch of our first magazine issue, we’ve got our hands on one awesome piece of kit for all you office goers. The Livescribe Echo Smartpen allows you to record audio while you’re tak-ing notes, so you can play it back later. You can also save the sound files and notes to your computer! In order to win, Tweet us at @ByteMagazine or email us at info@bytemag.com with your favourite thing about the new magazine! Competition closes 31st May at 23.59. Terms and conditions apply (see online).

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Minecraft is wonderful. It is the only game where stacking blocks on top of one another is actually fun. And no, Tetris doesn’t make the cut. Having been huge fan of Minecraft for YEARS, we finally decided to give its little sister - Pocket Edition - a try.

Mojang have been plowing money into Minecraft PE more and more over the years; with a new release due out in the next few weeks with all new Pocket-ex-clusive features (such as dirt paths and baby squid), it’s a truly exciting time for the mobile gamer.

Minecraft PE is as beautiful as the desktop version, with a simulated day/night cycle (including a square moon) and a variety of terrains. It’s no less fun,

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