With Laplock, You Get A Text Message When Somebody Unplugs Your Laptop

Fresh off the hackathon dungeon, Laplock is a nifty little app developed at our TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in London. Martin Saint-Macary and Ivan Maeder worked tirelessly for the past 24 hours to build an easy-to-use software lock for your Mac. Here’s how it works.

At heart, Laplock is a menubar app for your Mac. You install it, enter your phone number and/or Yo account, and that’s it. After that, whenever you close your laptop lid and leave it somewhere, if someone unplugs the power cord, an alarm will blast through your speakers and you will get a notification on your phone.

Notifications can be a simple text message or a Yo. If reception is bad, the app will call you instead. Behind the scene, the two hackers used the Nexmo API to manage the notifications.

While Saint-Macary was already part of the runner-up team at the Disrupt Hackathon in Berlin, it was Maeder’s first hackathon. They two met at the venue yesterday, and started working on this project right away.

“I think it’s great because you spend 2 days doing something full time,” Maeder said. “You wouldn’t do that normally.”

I asked whether he managed to get some sleep. He just put two chairs together and slept as much as he could for a couple of hours. “This hackathon really feels like 10 days,” he said.

Yet, when I see the end result, it was worth it — I’m definitely going to install the app after the event. You can download it on Laplock‘s website right now, and the app was just submitted to the App Store as well.

Good job guys, and enjoy your nap.

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...

MoviePass drops pricing to under $7 per month, if you opt for the annual plan

MoviePass, the subscription service that lets consumers pay a monthly fee to see unlimited movies in theaters across the U.S., is slashing its prices yet again. The company announced today it’s now offering its service for $6.95 per month, down from the current price of $9.95 per month, when customers commit to a one-year subscription plan. That works out to a flat fee of $89.95 annually. The deal is a limited-time promotion, as opposed to a permanent pricing change, but MoviePass didn’t say how long the offer is valid. However, it is open to both new and existing subscribers – the latter who would receive a 25 percent savings on their current subscription if switching over to the annual plan. This is not the first time that MoviePass has dropped its pricing. When the company introduced its $9.95 per month, one-movie-per-day plan this August, down from $15 for 2 movies per month (or more in select markets like L.A. and NYC, and going as high as $50), it saw so many new sign-up...

ASUS VivoBook X202E Windows 8 Touchscreen Laptop Review And Giveaway

It wasn’t very long ago when prices of touchscreen Windows 8 laptops soared beyond $1000. Thankfully, those days are behind us, and portable computers can easily be purchased – touchscreen and all – for under $500. That’s precisely the demographic in which the ASUS VivoBook X202E falls. When compared to a high-end laptop, its specifications might seem modest, but for laptop buyers just looking for a way to browse the web, watch videos, use basic apps, and not spend too much money, something in this budget is perfectly suitable. The question is, of course, how does the ASUS VivoBook X202E compare to others on the market, and is it the one which you should be spending your hard-earned money on? Well, you’re just going to have to keep reading to find out. Best of all, we are giving away an ASUS VivoBook X202E to one lucky winner. Keep reading for your chance to take home this Windows 8 touchscreen laptop! Introducing the ASUS VivoBook X202E Laptop The ASUS VivoBook X202...

Kiran Upadhyay

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