Allrecipes, the operator of food-focused social-networking website Allrecipes.com, has boosted the rate of downloads and use of its Dinner Spinner app by 50 percent in northern Ohio, where it has installed Bluetooth beacons within 58 Marc'sstores. A beacon, provided by Footmarks, is mounted at the entrance to every Marc's store, where it transmits a unique ID number that a Dinner Spinner user's smartphone receives when he or she enters the store. The app then uses that ID to determine that shopper's store location, and to access local weather and product promotion information. Based on that data, the app displays recommended recipes, along with …

A robot capable of thinking for itself is set to be scrapped after it escaped from a high-tech lab for a second time. The Promobot IR77 has been fitted with artificial intelligence meaning that it learns from its experiences and its surroundings, although the programmers had not expected it to yearn for freedom. They say that despite reprogramming it twice, the robot continues to attempt to escape and they are now considering scrapping it. The other robots which have been created from the same series are well-behaved, and have not been escaping, say the team.

News about building 5G wireless broadband in the United States has been ramping up for months. Both AT&T and Verizon have promised to offer customers these ultra-fast networks within a few years, and now the Federal Communications Commission is setting the stage. It’s still unclear what 5G will really deliver at scale. Verizon’s early 5G testing is promising gigabit speeds, and CNET reporter Roger Cheng watched Verizon produce a 3.77 gigabits-per-second download in a demo. In general, the vague range people talk about is a 10 to 100 times speed improvement over 4G. Any improvement would be …

Using wearables in the workplace is only but a logical step as the popularity of wearable devices continues to increase. Sales of wearable devices grew 118 percent year-on-year in 2015 in the UK as around 3 million people purchased such devices. Privacy concerns among workers may however hamper the realization of that evolution. A new study by PwC research shows indeed that UK workers are worried about employers using wearables in the workplace against them. Only 46 percent of the 2,370 surveyed workers say they would accept a free piece of wearable technology if their employers had access to the data that is …

Samsung just can’t seem to get enough of the “Internet of Things.” On Tuesday, the South Korean electronics giant announced it would be investing $1.2 billion into the United States specifically around the Internet of Things market. “We think there’s still a lot to do in this area,” said Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics, in an interview. Defining the Internet of Things (or IoT) is a little tricky. In general, it’s dry jargon to describe the ever-increasing number of connected devices in our lives. But it’s both broad and vague enough that nearly any new technology these …

StubHub is continuing to simplify ticket-buying experiences by enabling application users to slide their smartphone into a pair of virtual reality goggles to receive a better view of a potential seat in a stadium or concert hall. The ticketing platform is seeking to offer event-goers more convenient access to concerts and sporting games through its iOS, Android and tablet apps. Consumers will be able to open the StubHub app on their smartphones and use the feature that way, or opt to slide their device into a VR headset, after which they may tilt their head from side-to-side to receive a …

LG Electronics said Monday it has rolled out attachable smart sensors and a device that can turn conventional home appliances into connected smart devices. As the nation’s second-largest electronics maker focuses on extending the coverage of its smart home technologies to outdated home appliances, expectations are that the smart device can be upgraded to support more diverse controls based on voice recognition technologies and compete with artificial intelligence-based systems such as Google Home’s Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa’s Echo. With the SmartThinQ Sensor and SmartThinQ Hub, the nation’s second-largest electronics maker pledged to continue to invest in the smart home business to …

A research report has suggested that by the year 2020, each human being on earth will have as many as four devices that are connected via the Internet. In other words, the total number of such devices could exceed 34 billion for an estimated population of over eight billion inhabiting this planet. The report, generated by BI Intelligence, the premier research service of Business Insider, bases its analysis on the fact that by 2018, at least half of the world’s population would be connected via the Internet. During the same period, the cost of hardware, that makes IOT (Internet of …

KIWI PLUS, one of Korea’s leading companies in software development, has launched a new children’s smartwatch developed in collaboration with u-blox, a global leader in wireless and positioning modules and chips. LINE Kids Watch is a tiny and colorful wearable with LINE emojis functioning as an Android-based smartwatch and officially distributed by KT Corporation. It enables precise tracking of the whereabouts of children, while also offering educational and interactive content.

German automaker BMW is sharing its vision of the brand’s future. As part of its celebration of its centennial (see story), BMW is revealing its vision for what its vehicles will be capable of in the future. The Vision Next 100 stays focused on the “sheer driving pleasure” that helps define the brand while seamlessly incorporating technology to enhance the experience.