Hipstamatic today launched Snap, an iPad magazine exploring artists, trends and tastemakers that span industries and mediums, continents and languages, philosophies and backgrounds. Available for free and exclusively on the iPad, Snap is packed with passionate content, and provides Hipstamatic users with an opportunity to submit their photos to be featured. 

“We’ve been publishing content on our social media channels for the last two years, but we felt there was a more beautiful and cohesive way to share it with the world. That’s how the idea of Snap was born,” said Lucas Buick, CEO, Hipstamatic. “We’re excited to share the breadth of our company’s creativity through Snap, and it will be a great way to feature the amazing photography coming from the Hipstamatic community.”

Snap will be issued monthly, and is comprised of eight sections and three feature stories. The eight sections include: 

Cultured: From street photography to style, this how-to section covers essentials for hip living.

Obsessed: What we’re loving each month — from music to fashion to microbrews.

Climax: Speaking about the unspeakable, pivotal issues — sex, religion and politics.

Situation: See and be seen at all the hottest events — we’re people about town, and we take pictures.

Hip Stop: Whether it’s Shoreditch or Shanghai, we’re uncovering each city’s trendy treasures.

Adventures in Hipstaland: We’ve compiled the best of our popular Facebook travel series to give you an inside look at global destinations.

Slash: For all those indescribable in-betweens: love/hate is just the beginning.

Lensed: From Nic Adler to David Loftus and beyond, Lensed is an elite group of photography’s movers and shakers.

The three feature stories are based on each issue’s monthly theme. Snap’s inaugural issue, “Make Beautiful,” explores people and trends that are positively impacting the world, including photojournalist Ben Lowy, founder of PhotoJojo Amit Gupta, lead singer of The Limousines Eric Victorino, and guerrilla street art from across the globe. Snap’s June issue also features The Roxy’s Nic Adler, internationally renowned photographer David Loftus, the hilarious and poignant team behind Thought Catalog, and the founders of Seventh Son Tattoo, among others.

“Music, fashion, art, pop culture—t’s what we care about as a company and Snap will always mirror that,” said Buick. “The first issue is a cross section of amazingly creative people across a variety of industries. And of course, there will be plenty of beautiful pictures. We hope everyone enjoys reading the stories as much as we loved putting them together.” 

To download the latest issue of Snap, please click here. 

YOU DON’T KNOW JACK®, the multi-million selling interactive trivia franchise, has just launched on Facebook. This new design is the first in its category to fully leverage the connected nature and immediacy of social and mobile gaming platforms.

“One of the things people really love about YOU DON’T KNOW JACK on PC and consoles is the fun of competing directly against their friends and family members sitting together in the living room. So our challenge was bringing that experience to the connected but asynchronous nature of the social and mobile gaming environments. A kind of ‘party-play’ atmosphere for people playing at work, school, or perhaps at home in their pajamas or knickers,” said Harry Gottlieb, founder of Jellyvision Games and inventor of YOU DON’T KNOW JACK.

YOU DON’T KNOW JACK brings its well-known party-play style to Facebook in three important ways: First, by automatically matching a player against his or her Facebook friends who have already played that specific episode; second, by providing a direct option to challenge other Facebook friends at the end of an episode; and third, by offering multiple ways to share results, brag, and taunt friends through Facebook’s social channels, bringing the same type of banter experienced during a game of YDKJ on the couch into the Facebook gameplay experience.

“As we worked on the new design, we kept looking for every way we could to recreate the experience of playing YOU DON’T KNOW JACK with your family and friends,” said Steve Heinrich, Designer and Editorial Director, Jellyvision Games. “With this design we think we’ve accomplished a lot of that, even though we’ve never actually met your family and friends, probably.”

“We also wanted to create a gameplay experience for YOU DON’T KNOW JACK that could really mesh with the larger social and mobile environment,” said Mike Bilder, General Manager of Jellyvision Games. “So we optimized the game to tight, five-question episodes with an editorial schedule that allows us to release multiple episodes each week, often with very topical content. Plus, it ensures a constantly-updating app that will remain alive and fresh, not static and unchanging like many other games I’ve played at home in my knickers.”

With its editorial calendar, YOU DON’T KNOW JACK can produce content that engages players with questions related to many of the topics they are currently discussing on Facebook on their Timelines, bringing gameplay more tightly into the social media experience than any previous game.

YOU DON’T KNOW JACK’s new design will be rolled out on iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android later this year, allowing players the opportunity to compete cross-platform. Cookie Masterson, the game’s most popular (and sassiest) host is back, as is the game’s core structure, with humor-infused questions that range from Shakespeare to Scooby-Doo. The game will be free-to-play with free games provided frequently. Users can also win free games through achievements, and multi-game packs are available for purchase. Players can access YOU DON’T KNOW JACK on all available platforms athttp://www.ydkj.com.

“Even with the new design and new features, players will be instantly familiar with YOU DON’T KNOW JACK on Facebook,” said Allard Laban, Creative Director, Jellyvision Games. “Favorites like the DisOrDat, Gibberish Question, and Jack Attack are all there. And of course, Cookie Masterson is still our host, due to an apparently legally binding contract that he signed years ago in crayon.”

This new version of YOU DON’T KNOW JACK represents Jellyvision Games’ latest in a history of innovations within the interactive trivia space. When YOU DON’T KNOW JACK first launched in 1995, it was the first game to truly immerse the user into a fully interactive game show experience, making players feel like the game’s host was talking directly to them. The company also created Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for PC, which at the time was the fastest-selling PC game in history, and the TV game show Smush, which aired on the USA Network. To date, the YOU DON’T KNOW JACK franchise has sold more than 5 million units and generated $100 million in revenue with versions for CD-ROM, consoles, iOS and tabletop.

One of the Internet’s newest and most interesting startups, WannaFollow.me is in Beta. The site will allow anyone to quickly and simply assemble a personal splash page for free, all-inclusive of every social network to which they belong.

"The response has been overwhelming. We have had thousands of people create their profile already. Creating your profile on our platform is a first step to creating your name brand," states WannaFollow.me's CEO, Roger Safont.

Social media has gone mainstream in the past year. The Top 20 social networking sites have more than one billion unique visitors every month and most people have multiple online profiles, scattered across various services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and Twitter. One problem they face is pulling all that information together to build a single online identity — be it for personal use or to create a professional online profile. WannaFollow.Me is the solution by simplifying the social experience across the web.

WannaFollow.Me allows users to: 
1. Create a custom personal profile page (think splash page) 
2. Add social media links 
2. Post updates to social networking sites 
3. Build a fan base of followers to increase social connectivity 
4. Upload videos to truly showcase your personal profile

Here is an example of a WannaFollow.Me profile: 

•     http://wannafollow.me/smilecatz

Over the past year, virtually everyone has learned the importance of securing their online names as services like Twitter have come from nowhere to become significant drivers of top online brands. WannaFollow.Me makes this as simple as possible, establishing it as a great service and an even better opportunity for Internet users to control their identities online.

Giant Flick Films LLC in association with Steven Paul’s Crystal Edge LLC, an affiliate of Crystal Sky LLC proudly announces ‘Sinbad The Fifth Voyage’during this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.

The exciting $22M budgeted live action film is based on the Middle Eastern fairy tale adventures of Sinbad the sailor and is narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, Dune, X-Men). ‘Sinbad The Fifth Voyage’, which features creatures such as the Cyclops, the Goliath Crab monster, skeletons in the dead tree forest, and the Minozaur creature to name a few, has been produced using a unique combination of state of the art visual FX, old school stop-animation (Dynamation) technology of yester-year, and is loosely based on the original tales from the highly acclaimed ‘Arabian Nights’ book.

“Being a fan of the original tales from the Arabian Nights as well as the great creature movies of yester-year, we teamed up with artists from around the globe and really pushed to deliver a fresh version of Sinbad the Sailor. “ - said up and coming Persian-American actor/director Shahin Sean Solimon. “We wanted to create something very unique for the fans of Sinbad and bring back the traditional style of Visual FX movie making. Although it's a painstaking process, as the animators have to go frame by frame, we are excited and looking forward to giving young and old audiences a chance to experience this movie!”

Primed for a 2012 release ‘Sinbad The Fifth Voyage’ is reminiscent of the classic Saturday afternoon matinee films originally brought to the silver screen in the 1950s using stop-motion animation technology.

Steven Paul’s Crystal Edge, LLC is an affiliate of Crystal Sky (Ghost Rider, Tekken) also headed by Steven Paul, an Executive Producer, and is representing ‘Sinbad The Fifth Voyage’ as worldwide exclusive sales agent, and is showcasing Sinbad during Cannes International Film Festival.

About Giant Flick Films:

With core genres of Fantasy, Sci-fi, Horror and Action-Adventure Giant Flick Films LLC is a full-fledged production and distribution company based in Hollywood, CA and founded by a group of artist and partnerships that span the globe with a single goal of bringing great movies to the fans. Their goal is to broaden ingenuity and project imagination through good old fashion creativity for a new generation of cinema fans. Giant Flick is a green company. Recycling and conserving are an integral part of their operations in the corporate offices and on film sets.

Comic Images, the manufacturer of Marvel, Star Wars and Moshi Monsters plush, announced that it has signed a licensing agreement with Vamplet, LLC to produce a full line of designer plush characters from The Nightmare Nursery of Gloomvania.

The line will feature a horribly adorable cast of fashionable un-human babies and their pets including a Vampire, Zombie, Werewolf and Yeti, all wearing stylish diapers and trendy hair accessories.

“The Vamplets’ Nightmare Nursery is darkly humorous and different than anything we’ve seen in the market,” said Alan Gordon, President of Comic Images. “Each of these seemingly innocent babies is equipped with a special power that will cause chaos to their unsuspecting human owners."

“We are thrilled to have Comic Images producing The Nightmare Nursery of Gloomvania designer plush line,” said Carlin West of CWA, licensing agency for Vamplet, LLC. “Comic Images is a high quality plush manufacturer that will provide fans with the attention to detail they have come to expect from Vamplets.”

About Vamplet, LLC- Vamplet, LLC is the licensor of a line of un-human babies and pets from The Nightmare Nursery of Gloomvania, as imagined by conceptual artist and product designer Gayle Middleton. For the most up-to-date information from Gloomvania visit the Vamplets Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/Vamplet

About Comic Images- Comic Images, established in 1984, is a leading manufacturer of uniquely designed Plush products with distribution to a range of mass and specialty outlets.

The Nightmare Nursery of Gloomvania babies and pets will debut in July at San Diego Comicon. Visit http://www.shop.vamplets.com to meet them up close.

Hackers, makers and other technology do-it-yourselfers will soon be able to easily and affordably connect “things” to the Internet—ranging from people to pets, other objects and locations.

Startup firm Rowdy Robot is currently developing its new tōd (pronounced “toad”) device and open development software platform. The company is actively attracting investors on the tōd Kickstarter website.

Scheduled for release in October 2012, the company’s small rounded disks—known as a tōd Smart Beacon—and accompanying software will let tech savvy creators connect real-world objects and events to the Internet and even offline using their smartphones and other Bluetooth 4.0 enabled devices.

Using tōd Smart Beacons and their smartphones, people will be able to virtually bind together various people, places and things. Imagine being able to know the instant your child gets separated from you in a crowd...or your pet wanders too far from home...or a store’s customers come in and are instantly greeted with that day’s specials...or a nursing home is alerted if a patient with Alzheimer’s leaves the facility.

“The possibilities for creating actions tied to people, places and things using a tōd and a smartphone are endless,” said Rowdy Robot CEO and tōd Creator Jonathan Prevo. “We’re especially excited to put our product and an open development platform out there and see what innovative uses people come up with. We want developers to know that we are providing an affordable alternative for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) development. Our solution is entirely unique due to the Bluetooth 4.0 wireless protocol and offers much more than a single use, proprietary platform.”

     Early Developer Access

Rowdy Robot plans to ship the first devices in October. However, developers will have early beta access to the hardware in July. “This will be ahead of the software development, so interested developers can begin creating solutions for themselves, us and the whole Smart Beacon crowd,” Prevo said.

Early adopters and project backers are buzzing about the tōd, which has been written about on Mashable(and here), Endgadget, Geeky Gadgets and Mobile Magazine.

     Low-Cost, Low Energy Connectivity Solution

The tōd is a small device, about the diameter of a silver dollar. The current prototype is 38mm in diameter and 13mm in height, which may be reduced slightly in the final design. Depending on the final enclosure design, that will also add about +/- of 2mm all around.

Each tōd is small enough to fit in a child’s pocket or a car’s glove compartment and has a battery life of over a year. The effective range of each tōd is adjustable from three to 500 feet.

Pricing for the Smart Beacon will be about $35, making it one of the lowest priced, ready-to-use wireless devices on the market. Developer kits ranging from $95 to $155 are available and include access to an open development community, SDK, documentation, EULA and hardware needed to start developing your own “Internet of things” or to evaluate Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity for your own project.

     Connectivity Powered By The Growing Bluetooth 4 Standard

The tōd platform is based on proximity between the device itself and a smartphone enabled with Bluetooth 4.0. It uses “in range” and “out of range” events to trigger an interaction on the device within the app. Then using the cloud, those interactions can be made into richer experiences.

“Bluetooth 4.0 is quickly becoming the new, ubiquitous wireless connectivity standard for devices,” Prevo said. “Other comparable devices in development rely on WiFi connectivity, which is OK—but we wanted to enable people to use the low power, lightning fast connections with Bluetooth 4 regardless of whether they were connected to the Web.”

The tōd Smart Beacon is a single-mode Bluetooth 4.0 device, also known as Bluetooth Smart or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Rowdy Robot developers are using the BlueGiga BLE112-A module. The “A” represents that it ships with an on-board antenna and that the model has been RF Certified.

BLE112 Bluetooth low energy single mode module is a single mode device targeted for low power sensors and accessories. BLE112 offers all Bluetooth low energy features: radio, stack, profiles and application space for customer applications, so no external processor is needed. The module also provides flexible hardware interfaces to connect sensors, simple user interfaces and even displays directly to the module.

The BLE112 can be powered directly with a standard 3V source and includes on module voltage regulation. The Smart Beacon design offers enhanced voltage projection with the TI’s TPS62730, an ultra low power DC/DC converter with bypass mode that will reduce the current consumption during transmission nominally by about 20 percent when using a 3V coin cell battery. In the lowest power sleep mode, the BLE112A consumes only 400nA and will wake up in few hundred microseconds, according to the manufacturer, BlueGiga. The Smart Beacon is based on the BLE is module on a PCB that uses Rowdy Robot’s own design and includes the battery holder for a CR2032 coin-cell battery.

The BLE112A module includes the entire standardized Bluetooth low energy stack protocol which includes GAP, GATT, L2CAP, SMP and Bluetooth SIG low energy profiles. It can support an unlimited number of connections (master only) and offer both master and slave modes.

BLE112 has 32 pins, 21 of which are programmable. Rowdy Robot has exposed all 21 programmable pins with quick connectors, 2-2x5 headers for the GPIO and another 2x5 header for the debugger, which allows developers to add any number and configuration of add-on modules including sensors, Human Interface Devices, displays and even motors and servos to control.

Developers can also develop and implement their own firmware using the Texas Instruments Debugger Kit. The debugger is required to license and access the TI software and connect their computer to the Smart Beacon to add their own firmware. Custom firmware solutions are written in BGScript language using the BlueGiga's SDK.

Each tōd has a programmable 8051 CPU on board with 128K that can provide simple Arduino-like functionality using Bluetooth 4 and firmware.

     tōd Compatible Devices

Currently, tōd is compatible with the iPhone 4S, the new iPad, new Macbook Air, new Mac Mini, the Droid Razr family of phones, the HTC One S and X as well as the latest Samsung Galaxy S3. There are also USB Bluetooth Low Energy Dongles that plug into a PC or Mac for backwards compatibility.

“As far as being able to connect other accessories besides a tōd Smart Beacon to the platform and App, this is still under development, but we are committed to creating the most hardware agnostic platform we possibly can,” Prevo said.

     tōd Open Development Technology Platform

“We have an open development environment due to the fact that BlueGiga has graciously allowed us to utilize their SDK, documentation and tools provided that each Smart Beacon ships with the end-user license agreement,” Prevo said. “This allows developers full access to their BG Script and Profile Development Kit at no charge. BlueGiga has provided the FCC and Bluetooth certifications so that we don’t need to.”

Rowdy Robot will provide an API that will be open for development, allowing for unlimited connections into any existing platform such as ifttt, Ninja Cloud and any other system that allows open development.

The free tōd application comes pre-installed with 10 aptly named templates, including functionality for proximity-based events and automatic updates to social media sites like Foursquare and Twitter. Rowdy Robot developers have also created an easy way for non-technical users to build their own interactions.

“We are planning for an array of sensors and add-on modules to extend the functionality of the tōd Smart Beacons,” said VP Don Mallicoat. “We are actively experimenting with existing products and services that could be enhanced by the power of the tōd Cloud, the tōd App and Smart Beacons.”

“Our first priority is to the iOS and Android mobile platforms, and possibly WinMobile if they have their OS and compatible devices ready in time,” Mallicoat continued. “After that, we plan to release an application for PC and MAC desktops.”

To further spur development, Rowdy Robot is building a reusable framework based on HTML 5 that will simplify the process of porting to other platforms.

     Sign Up For Developer Access

Developers interested in the project are encouraged to participate in the company’s early funding on Kickstarter. Everyone who participates will be signed up to be notified as soon as the development materials are available.

AlgoSec, the market leader for network security policy management, today announced the release of "Firewall Policy Management for Dummies” by Lawrence Miller, CISSP, a reference guide designed to help network security professionals understand and cope with the growing complexity of managing firewall policies.

Network security management has become increasingly complex, as new technologies are adopted and as business requirements are rapidly changing - introducing unnecessary risk, operational burden and stunting business agility. Firewall Policy Management for Dummies examines the impact of this growing complexity and explores how organizations of all sizes can effectively and efficiently manage firewall policies to achieve improved operations, security and compliance.

“The only constant in today’s business environment is change, and it can be challenging for IT departments to effectively manage this, both from a security and operational perspective,” said Nimmy Reichenberg, VP of Marketing and Business Development, AlgoSec. “With the release of ‘Firewall Policy Management for Dummies,’ AlgoSec aims to raise awareness of these challenges and provide an educational resource to help organizations reduce the complexity of managing firewall policies.”

“Firewall Policy Management for Dummies” includes chapters on: 

•     Recognizing the Growing Complexity in Network Security Policy Management – Reviews the modern business realities that make security management so challenging and complex, include mergers and acquisitions, autonomous lines of business, budget constraints, and a constantly changing regulatory landscape.
•     Firewall Policy Management Challenges Every Organization Must Tackle – Describes the technical issues — such as cluttered firewall rulesets, change management, regulatory audits, and new technologies and trends — that security teams must deal with to manage their organization’s firewalls efficiently and effectively.
•     Addressing Firewall Management Pain Points – Explains how firewall policy management solutions help optimize firewall operations, simplify audits and ensure compliance, reduce risk, maximize your IT resources, and improve communications between IT security and operations teams.
•     Exploring the AlgoSec Security Management Suite – Delivers a deep dive into the advanced capabilities and features of the AlgoSec Security Management Suite.
•     Key Criteria in a Firewall Policy Management Solution – Explores key factors to consider when choosing a firewall policy management solution!

Published by John Wiley & Sons, For Dummies is the World’s best-selling reference series. “Firewall Policy Management for Dummies,” is available for download at http://pages.algosec.com/as_dummies_book.html.