sugar

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Jeff's review: Using Appetize at a concert.

- The end of "just browsing:" Australian store charges $5 browsing fee.

- How the P2P era of SEO-baiting, intentionally mislabeled MP3s changed our taste in music.

- Hollywood embraces the Tweaser on Vine.

- T-Mobile finally gets the iPhone.

- T-Mobile launches 4G LTE network.… Read more

The name SugarSync Manager might conjure up images of a pimply teen sullenly manning a pinktacular technology-themed candy store, but the reality is far more pleasant: SugarSync is an online storage, sync, and sharing service, and SugarSync Manager is its software client. (Yes, the client is the "manager.")

SugarSync works similarly to other top software in its category--users install the free SugarSync Manager on any computers and devices they wish to connect; they select the folders that they want it to back up and/or sync online; and then SugarSync automatically keeps their data up-to-date and synced on … Read more

Tons of options exist for which cloud storage service to choose from. You've got Google Drive, Box, SugarSync, DropBox, Apple's iCloud, and more. A new report by tech support site FixYa, which sourced data from its 25 million users, studies which service best fits different customers' needs.

For starters, DropBox and Box users have security concerns as well as complaints of lagging response time, according to FixYa. This isn't a huge surprise considering DropBox was hacked in July and hundreds of users were sent spam e-mails about online casinos and gambling sites. However, users also say they … Read more

People who know me know I don't like paying for anything. If there's a free (or at least cheaper) alternative, you can bet I'll take it. I am, after all, a cheapskate.

That said, there are a handful of Web services I consider to be great values -- so great, in fact, that I actually don't mind paying for them. Well, OK, I'd rather get them for free, but they don't make me cringe the way I do when paying for, say, phone service and cable TV.

My three worth-the-money picks:

1. Followupthen

I'… Read more

I was talking with a former colleague a few months ago, explaining how unsure I felt about everything since my move to San Francisco -- from where to drop off my dry cleaning to navigating the dating scene. Both make me queasy.

"Oh, but you're in the best spot," my source crooned. "Think about all the companies that are going to IPO soon. You just have to know where to be. " Go find a guy. A soon-to-be rich guy.

Quelle horreurs! With my two Ivy league graduate degrees and a solid decade of working at … Read more

With more and more computing devices becoming mobile or located in different areas besides the desktop, the need for online storage and syncing options to manage files created or edited on these devices is increasingly important. To tackle this need, Apple has explored various approaches to online document management and sharing with its MobileMe and .Mac services, but these options have been phased out in favor of newer and more integrated approaches to online storage and syncing options.

Apple has its online storage offerings that so far have culminated into its iCloud service, but there are others as well, which … Read more

Here at Samsung's product showcase in New York, multimedia connectivity played a big role. The company talked up its rebranded AllShare Play technology, not to be confused with Google Play, which was previously called AllShare.

Essentially AllShare Play allows owners of Samsung tablets and smartphones, Samsung Galaxy Tabs and Galaxy Nexus devices for instance, to push media files such as pictures to servers in the cloud. Samsung says it will save up to 5GB of data for users of the free AllShare Play service. … Read more

Startup Virdia is joining hundreds of biotech companies trying to make low-cost sugar to replace oil and food crops.

The company today announced new financing, including $30 million of venture capital from existing investors Khosla Ventures, Burrill & Company and Tamar Ventures. Mississippi also provided the company with $75 million in low-interest loans and tax incentives to build an operation in the state.

Founded in 2007, Virdia uses acid hydrolysis to separate the sugar from the cellulose in wood chips. Once it has done so, the company intends to sell the resulting sugar into the existing "commodity carbohydrate markets&… Read more

Glucose levels are 100 times more concentrated in blood than in saliva, which is why in spite of many efforts to use saliva, diabetics are still pricking themselves to get accurate glucose readings.

But now, harnessing the power of nanotechnology, engineers at Brown University say they've designed a biochip that can measure glucose levels in saliva almost as accurately as current devices can measure levels in blood.

To do this, the engineers etched a complicated array of thousands of plasmonic interferometers (no, this is not an episode of Farscape) onto a fingernail-size biochip. This means they were essentially using … Read more