Ben used Autodesk Inventor to lay out the ring’s dimensions. He then jumped onto building it. The ring is titanium so cutting it was not easy. He added 13 white stones and 10 blue stones to the ring.

After adding the stones, Ben started working on the ring’s electronic components. He formed an inductor and added LEDs to the ring. He then built a transmitter coil that when in close proximity to the ring, lights it up. His idea was to hide the transmitter under his jacket’s sleeve so that the ring lights up when he’s near his fiancé Julie.

Ben initially planned to let Julie pick out a permanent engagement ring after presenting her with this amazing ring. However, she insisted on making Ben’s creation her permanent ring.

Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared in front of a Senate hearing on Tuesday to discuss the company’s use of Irish subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes.  Cook insisted that the tax code has not been keeping up with the digital age and it restricts the free movement of capital in comparison to tax policies in other countries.  Cook asked the Senate to dramatically simplify rates and for reasonable taxes on foreign earnings.

“We pay all the taxes we owe – every single dollar with the spirit of the laws,” said Cook.  “We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.”

The chairman of the panel, Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich) said that Apple is an American success story with a well-earned reputation.  After admitting he has an iPhone, Levin said that does not excuse Apple’s tactics.  The subcommittee found that Apple avoided paying at least $9 billion in U.S. taxes for 2012.

“Apple executives want the public to focus on the U.S. taxes the company has paid, but the real issue is the billions in taxes it has not paid, thanks to offshore tax strategies whose purpose is tax avoidance, pure and simple,” said Levin.  Levin added that avoiding taxes by large U.S. companies increases the federal budget, causing average citizens to make up the difference with higher tax burdens.

Levin added that Apple is “exploiting an absurdity” that lets three of their subsidiaries in Ireland to claim that they have no responsibility to pay taxes to any country.  One of the subsidiaries, Apple Operations International, has no employees and reported $30 billion in income over four years.  That subsidiary has not paid taxes to any country.

Another subsidiary, Apple Sales International, has economic rights to Apple’s I.P. in Europe, Asia, and Africa.  The subsidiary reported $74 billion in sales income between 2009 and 2012, but paid under 1% taxes in Ireland.

These tactics are legal through cost-sharing agreements transferring economic rights to the intellectual property used for the iPhone, iPad, MacBooks, etc.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that he is offended by the way that this case is being handled.  He called this a “show trial” and pointed out that Corning makes the Gorilla Glass for Apple products in Kentucky.

“I’m offended by a $4-trillion government bullying, berating and badgering one of America’s greatest success stories,” said Paul. “Tell me what Apple’s done that is illegal.”  He added that Congress should apologize and compliment Apple for their job creation.

Google Happiness Evangelist François Beaufort wrote on Google+ that the company is working on a Chrome OS app launcher for the Mac.  Early adopters can try a beta version of the app now.  To access App Launcher in beta, you will need to install Chromium and run a command in terminal.  Then when you click on the Chromium dock icon, you will see a grid of installed web apps from the Chrome store.  When you click on the apps, it will open the browser windows in full-screen with the selected app.  You will also need to keep your terminal window open to access other apps.  No word yet on when the final version of Chrome App Launcher for OS X will launch officially.

“Pandora Premieres represents a great new discovery platform for our more than 200 million registered users and an equally powerful vehicle for artists, both established and emerging to reach new audiences,” stated Pandora founder and Chief Strategy Officer Tim Westergren. “Never has so targeted a program been delivered on such a massive scale.”

What makes this feature different is that listeners will be able to select any track in any order to listen to the featured album.  Users can also listen for an unlimited period for the duration that it is live.

Earlier this month, we reported that Pandora is hitting 70.1 million active listeners per month.  They have a total of 200 million registered users that listen to 1.5 billion hours of music on Pandora per month.

Swipely analyzes credit card payment data for merchants to learn customer behavior.  Customers will be able to sign up for loyalty programs that are tied to cards that they own.  Merchants can send users targeted messages and offers.

“We’re the new kids on the block in a pretty enormous market, and frankly, the people that hurt when we win are the legacy, old school payment providers,” said Davis as quoted by TechCrunch.

This round of funding was led by Shasta Ventures.  Other investors that participated in this round include First Round Capital, Greylock Partners, and Index Ventures.  The funding will be used to increase the size of their team and go from serving hundreds of merchants to thousands of them.

Swipely currently handles around $700 million in sales for their merchant partners.  They also have relationships with around 2 million customers.

Based in the United Kingdom, Brightpearl raised a total of $14.5 million.  Brightpearl offers cloud software to small-and-medium sized retailers.  Brightpearl offers to integrate orders, inventory, and customer data for multi-channel retailers.  Andy Young (chief marketing officer) and Adam Smith (SVP of finance and operations) have both joined Brightpearl.

“We believe Commerce Acceleration software for small to medium businesses is a multi-billion dollar global opportunity,” stated Eden Ventures co-founder and Brightpearl director Charles Grimsdale. “Brightpearl dominates this market with the ideal combination of technology, team and traction. We’ve seen customers experience growth rates of 40%-50% by adding new sales channels on the Brightpearl platform vs. single-digit growth for the overall retail sector.”

The company plans to use the Series B funding to invest in their Commerce Acceleration Platform and will expand sales in North America and the U.K. Brightpearl Commerce Acceleration Platform processed over $600 million of gross merchandise value.  Brightpearl can be integrated with various sales channels including Magento, eBay, Bigcommerce, Shopify, and Amazon.

Sprint Nextel Corporation

Sprint submitted the new offer after Clearwire shareholders protested that the original offer was too low.  Purchasing Clearwire is essential for Sprint to expand their Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network.  This will make data downloading faster for their smartphones.  Clearwire’s spectrum is similar to what is used by SoftBank in Japan.  SoftBank made a $20.1 billion offer to gain a majority control of Sprint recently.

This isn’t the first time that Sprint increased their offer for Clearwire.  In December 2012, Sprint increased their offer to $2.97 per share for Clearwire stock from $2.90 per share. This increased Sprint’s offer from $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion.

The Xbox One has a guide so that you can watch TV programs in a way that is similar to a cable box.  There are additional features like trending TV shows.  Xbox One does not have a TV tuner or DVR features built-in.  Your cable box connects to an IR port on the back of the Xbox One.  Skype is also built into the Xbox One.

New Kinect
The new version of Kinect has a 1080p RGB camera and 30fps sensing.  It also has a “time of flight” measurement feature that accounts for how long it takes for light to get from the Kinect user and back.  The sensor can even detect heartbeats and recognize individual joints.  The camera on the new Kinect has an increased field of view and is more sensitive than the previous model.

Three Operating Systems
The Xbox One has three operating systems.  One of them is a “Host OS” that powers the console on and runs two other systems.  The Shared petition is used for secondary apps like Skype, Netflix, and the Kinect sensor.  The Exclusive partition handles all of the games.

One of them will have Windows 8-like features so that developers can use the same Kernel on Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Xbox games.  Unfortunately, the Xbox One will not work with Xbox 360 games so your old games are going to start collecting some dust if you are an early adopter.

Snap Mode
The Xbox One will support gesture controls that can be accessibile anywhere on the console.  You can pick up content like movies and stretch them to fill up a screen.  You can also shrink the content.  The Xbox One can be snapped through a new “Snap Mode” feature, which lets you open up a browser window and move it to the sidebar while watching a movie or playing a game, according to TheNextWeb.  The Skype can also be snapped to the sidebar of the screen.

New Controller
The Xbox One will come with a new Kinect sensor that can detect more joints and has a lot less lagging time.  The Xbox One comes with a new controller that has a newly designed d-pad.

New Gaming Engine
Electronics Arts has announced a new gaming engine that is called Ignite.  There are four new games that will be launching on the Xbox One including an NFL, a FIFA, and a UFC game.  The Ignite engine supports 3D crowds, dynamic sidelines, and ten times the animation depth.  One of the games is called Forza Motorsport 5.  Forza has details like paint flake and plastic texture.

The Xbox One has a new gaming franchise that is called Quantam Break.  Quantum Break is one out of fifteen games that Microsoft Studios will publish in the first year of Xbox One.  Eight of those titles are now franchises.  The downloadable content for the next Call of Duty will even be exclusive to the Xbox One.

SmartGlass
Microsoft said that SmartGlass will be compatible with the Xbox One video game console.  SmartGlass will work as a second-screen companion app that can be integrated with the Xbox One.  SmartGlass has been downloaded over 10 million times.

NFL Partnership
Microsoft said that they have partnered with the National Football League (NFL) to bring their content to the Xbox One console.  The Xbox One will have fantasy football integration.  This means that users can pin their fantasy football team to the side of the screen as they watch the real game.  When your players are in a game, their stats and scores will live-update.

ConsultingMD

According to GigaOM, ConsultingMD prides themselves on building a network of physicians that tend to be chiefs or chairmen of the department that have publications in the top medical journals.  “The core problem is that in the highly elite world of academic specialists… access to these people is difficult [and] patients don’t know how to find them in the first place,” stated ConsultingMD CEO and co-founder Owen Tripp.

Tripp used to be the COO and co-founder of Reputation.com.  ConsultingMD’s other co-founder is Dr. Lawrence Hofman, whom is the chief of interventional radiology at Stanford Hospital.

Patients that visit ConsultingMD can get a second opinion by describing their case and disclosing what they have received.  ConsultingMD requires access to a patient’s medical history.  ConsultingMD digitizes and indexes medical records and delivers the information to an appropriate specialist on ConsultingMD.

It takes around 7-8 days to aggregate the records, but a doctor can turn around with a second opinion in around 48 hours.  A second opinion costs around $3,750.  The company hopes to offer this service to employers as a way to help employees get better outcomes so that they can boost productivity and lower costs for them.  At an extra $200, ConsultingMD can locate and schedule priority appointments with a top specialist that works near the patient and deliver all necessary medical records.

Doctors are able to interact with top-tier medical professionals.  ConsultingMD are admitted into the network based on a peer’s recommendation.

The Flickr photos are bigger and are shared in full resolution rather than being compressed into a lower quality.  Flickr also launched a new Android application.  This is higher than the 15GB of free storage that Google is offering across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google+.

Yahoo! has limited photo uploads at 200MB each on their free tier and 1080p video uploads (up to 1GB each) at a duration of 3 minutes.  Files can be uploaded and downloaded at original quality.

“Flickr’s stunning new desktop design puts photos at the heart of the experience. Built around a new photostream that gives you a vivid and endlessly scrolling gallery, it’s easy to see what your friends are posting and what they’re saying about your photos,” said Yahoo in a blog post. “And because Flickr has always been about exploring photographs from users around the world, we’ve also created a new slideshow that displays the most spectacular Flickr photos in gorgeous full-screen.”

Flickr lets you sign up for an “Ad Free” account at $50 per year.  It costs $500 per year for 2TB of storage.

In July 2012, Atomico led Fab.com’s $105 million round at a valuation of $600 million.  When this round of funding happens, Fab.com is expected to have a valuation of over $1 billion.  Fab.com has raised $171 million thus far so this would put them at over $420 million in funding.

What Is Fab.com Doing With All This Funding?
Late last month, Fab.com announced that they are opening a retail store in Hamburg, Germany.  The company is also going to launch their own exclusive products

Last year Fab.com hit almost $125 million in sales and they are expected to hit $250 million this year.  As of December 2012, the company hit around 10 million users.  Currently the website has 12 million registered users.  This is up from 5 million in July 2012.

Fab.com is not profitable yet due to their aggressive expansion.  The company is spending heavily on marketing and acquiring new customers.  They are also spending heavily on infrastructure that is required for fulfilling and shipping orders.  The company is expected to burn through over $60 million this year because of the expansion.  Fab.com is expected to hit break even at the end of next year.

Sprint

The Kyocera Hydro Edge has an IP57 rating that can handle being underwater for up to 30 minutes in 1 meter of water.  The phone also has Kyocera’s Smart Sonic Receiver technology, which does away with the need for a traditional speaker in a handset by using vibrations to send sounds directly to the eardrum.  Placing the phone in contact with the area of the area makes sound clear in very noisy environments like a construction site, concert, or sporting event.

“Just about everyone knows someone who has damaged their phone in water,” stated Sprint SVP of Product Fared Adib. “Kyocera Hydro Edge is the perfect smartphone to eliminate the panic of water damage for busy parents or anyone who works outside – from lifeguards to landscape architects. Sprint is making it even more affordable to enjoy Hydro Edge by giving our customers the choice between Sprint and Boost Mobile for their device purchase.”

The Kyocera Hydro Edge is a successor to the Kyocera Hydro, which was launched at Boost Mobile in 2012.  Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Sprint, specializes in prepaid phone plans.  There will be upfront savings with a new two-year agreement.

Uncovet

Uncovet sells accessories and home decoration products and personalizes product recommendations.  Uncovet sees over 500,000 monthly visitors.  Users can join using their Facebook credentials.  People that join through Facebook will also receive recommendations from Uncovet based on their Likes also.

The product recommendations are personalized and curated into a style graph.  Uncovet also has a “Daily Finds” feature.  The company is launching their first native iPhone app in early June.  The company is launching Android and iPad apps will be released later this year.  Uncovet said that shoppers visit the website more than 6 times per month and open an e-mail from the company 9 times per month.

The Apple iPhone still has the top ranking among mobile phone users, but Samsung and Motorola are closing the game, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).  The ACSI published the 2013 report today.  The iPhone rating dropped 2.4% from one year earlier to a score of 81-83.  Samsung climbed 7% to 76 from 71.  Motorola increased 5.5% to 77 from 73.

Apple iPhone sales have increased 7% in the past quarter, which is the smallest gain that Apple has seen since launching the original phone in 2007.  Samsung captured one-third of the global smartphone market in the first quarter, which is almost double of Apple’s 18% share according to Strategy Analytics.  According to the ACSI, Samsung saw a lot of success from the Galaxy S3 smartphone that was introduced this past May.

According to the same ACSI survey, Sprint Nextel lost their top spot to Verizon Wireless in a wireless carrier ranking.  Sprint was the top company in 2011 and 2012.  Sprint retained a 71 score from last year while Verizon Wireless saw an increased of 4.3% to 73.

ACSI LLC was founded at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.  The ACSI conducts surveys with about 70,000 customers.

[Pictured above: Apple CEO Tim Cook]

“For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we currently give all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share or Tiered plans. Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry have chosen to enable this for their pre-loaded video chat apps. And by mid-June, we’ll have enabled those apps over cellular for our unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices from those three manufacturers,” said AT&T in a statement.  “Throughout the second half of this year, we plan to enable pre-loaded video chat apps over cellular for all our customers, regardless of data plan or device; that work is expected to be complete by year end.”

People that do not have an unlimited data plan can use FaceTime over a cellphone network by the end of the year.  In the past AT&T blocked Apple FaceTime and other video chat apps from working on their data networks.  However AT&T recently started to allow FaceTime over LTE only for family plans subscribers.

This will also benefit people that want to use the Google Hangout app and Skype.

The Opera app for Android is no longer in beta mode.  Opera also added a few content discovery features to keep users engaged in their browser also.

The Opera for Android browser also performs data compression known as “Off-Road,” which reduces the amount of traffic when browsing so that users can save on their mobile phone data plans.

Opera has a “Discover” feature so that users can also browse content based on their interests like Art, Technology, and News.  Users can access various content by swiping to the right from the home screen.

“Most people just see a fraction of what the web has to offer,” stated Opera Software EVP of Consumer Products Rikard Gillemyr. “We check out the same sites every day, and you can get through with the latest news after just a short bus ride. We wanted to give people a relaxed way of discovering interesting articles and checking them out without any extra effort.”

The new Opera Android app is built on Chromium so that they have compatibility with a lot more websites.  The app also has gesture-based switching between multiple websites and is visually appealing.  The app also has a revamped and combined address along with a new search field.  The app also has a text reflow feature that allows people to view web text at any zoom level without having to scroll sideways.

You can download the Opera app on Google Play now.

Change.org

The Omidyar Network will be taking a minority and non-controlling stake in the company with a disavowal of a payday from a sale or IPO.  Change.org has no intention of doing any of these things.  Rattray has been talking to the Omidyars over the past seven years, but the opportunity came up recently.

“There’s this latent uncertainty about whether it’s possible to build a company focused on a mission, and we’re proving it’s possible. It’s not an open question, it’s pretty clear that we’re having substantial impact. People have a binary perspective of an organization. It’s an impoverished perspective of the possibility of business to change the world,” stated Change.org Ben Rattray.

Change.org hit $15 million in revenues last year from sponsored petitions and organizations can pay to get their causes in front and center on the website with the hopes of collecting a lot of signatures and e-mail addresses.  Change.org currently has 170 employees in 18 countries.

Powermat is used in 1,500 charging spots across the U.S. including airports, coffee shops, arenas, and malls.  PowerKiss is used in 1,000 charging spots in airports, hotels, coffee shops, and McDonalds across Europe.  The combined companies are aimed at enabling a consistent wireless charging experience for people across the world.

“With our on-the-go lifestyles, keeping our devices powered and ready at alltimes has become the biggest unmet consumer need. Uniting forces behinda common standard ensures that consumers will be able to avail themselvesof the widest possible ecosystem of public places where they can recharge,”said Powermat CEO Ran Poliakine. “Very soon consumers will be able toaccess wireless power seamlessly as they move between home, office, coffeeshop, car and airport. PowerKiss shares our dream of a wireless world, andhas the creativity and exceptional capabilities needed to help transform thisdream into reality.”

HasOffers is a company that has raised $9.4 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners.  Additional investors include Rob Glaser (RealNetworks founder) and Chris DeVore (Founder’s Co-op).  Based in Seattle, HasOffers was started by twin brothers Lucas Brown and Lee Brown in 2009.  The company currently has 79 employees and has been bootstrapping up until now.  Rich Wong of Accel Partners is joining HasOffers’ board of directors.

“We really didn’t need to raise money based on our current cash flow and ability to keep growing, but this partnership with Accel changes the game for us,” stated HasOffers CEO Peter Hamilton.

HasOffers runs two software-as-a-service products: 1.) a white-label software for networks and agencies to manage performance advertising programs. 2.) MobileAppTracking.com (MAT) – tracks installs, in-app engagement, and purchases back to ad partners like social networks, publishers, etc.

Some of HasOffers’ white-label social network clients include Tapjoy, PocketMedia, SponsorPay, Crobo, and Tapit.  Their MobileAppTracking clients include SuperCell, Spotify, Hotel Tonight, Square, and more.

“Our roots in performance advertising lead us to believe that successful advertising campaigns are built on relationships. Whether advertisers are promoting mobile apps or web campaigns, they must find the right partners with the right users, and both parties should be held accountable to campaign performance,” added HasOffers co-founder Lucas Brown. “That is exactly why unbiased attribution is so important.”

Dish Network

LightSquared went bankrupt in 2012 after the Federal Communications Commission initially approved the company’s application to use the L-band satellite spectrum that they owned for a land-based LTE network, but then later denied the application.  The Federal Communications Commission said that LightSquared’s spectrum was too close to what was being used for GPS, which causes interference when being used for an LTE network.

Dish Network would still need to be approved by the FCC before the spectrum could be used for LTE.  Dish Network could potentially use LightSquared’s spectrum for their satellite services without dealing with the same interference that LightSquared had to deal with because of lower power requirements for satellite services.

This would not be the first time that Dish Network acquires a bankrupt company for their spectrum.  In 2011, Dish Network acquired bankrupt company TerreStar for their S-band spectrum.  LightSquared has until May 31st to decide on whether to be acquired by Dish.