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Khan Academy has quickly become one of the most popular educational sites in the U.S. and around the world. But TareasPlus, a startup with offices in Colombia and San Francisco, believes it may have a leg up with Spanish speakers south – and increasingly north – of the border.

Since launching last year, the company, which calls itself the “Khan Academy of Latin America,” has produced more than 3,600 instructional videos on math and science topics for Spanish-speaking students, teachers and adults looking for content on finances and other practical matters. On Monday, the startup said it was taking its biggest step toward making money with the launch of a new online marketplace, called Aula, that enables teachers and other users to create online lessons and upload their own videos to TareasPlus.

“We’re trying to push the teacher to create content of his own,” said founder and CEO Hernan Jaramillo. “It allows the teacher to simply create his own set of courses and easily share it with his students.”

While teachers may already have access to learning management systems (LMS) that enable them to share video and other kinds of instructional content with students, Jaramillo said they tend to be cumbersome and clunky to use. For $24 a year, teachers can use the web and mobile-optimized TareasPlus to curate video playlists made from content produced by the startup and other users, as well as include questions and exercises for students and track their progress.

The bigger revenue opportunity for TareasPlus is the capability for teachers to create and host their own courses on the site. Much like instructors on online learning startup Udemy, teachers can offer courses for free or a price of their choosing with TareasPlus taking 30 percent of the earnings.

Targeting Spanish-speakers in the U.S. and around the world

Initially, Jaramillo said, the company thought that its users were individuals aged 13 to 25 who searched online for math and science questions related to their studies. But it realized that about 40 percent of its users are older – aged 35 to 65 – some of those adults include teachers who use the videos in classes or on their blogs, but others are parents looking to review content before helping their kids or adults looking for practical instruction on calculating monthly mortgage or car payments.

To date, Jaramillo said, just 5 percent of the site’s users have been based in the U.S.  But over the next six months, he estimates that the figure could double or triple as TareasPlus uses its new marketplace to attract a larger global audience and builds up content relevant for U.S. users. For example, he said, many of its U.S. users are adults searching for help with “daily math” and finance problems, so future courses could include “math for moms” or “math for traders.”

Earlier this year, Khan Academy announced a partnership with the foundation supported by billionaire Carlos Slim to translate its online video content for students in Mexico and Latin America. (The non-profit is focused on translating its content into more than a dozen languages.) But Jaramillo said his company’s new exchange gives teachers an opportunity to potentially access Spanish-language content from a greater range of sources and make their own lessons available to a wide market.

The startup, which says that it has attracted users with search-engine optimized video content, has raised $1.8 million from online education company Academic Partnerships and says it receives 300,000 to 400,000 unique visitors each month.

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As previously reported, a student at the all-male La Salle High School in Cincinnati attempted to take his own life today by way of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during the first class of the day.

According to reports, police have indicated that he did not threaten to harm other students.

The school has now issued the following statement on its site:

ALL LA SALLE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE SAFE AND BEING DISMISSED INTO THE CUSTODY OF THEIR PARENTS DUE TO AN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE INVOLVING ONE STUDENT.

The student has not been identified, and his condition is unknown, as reporters wait to hear from hospital authorities. He was reportedly taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

More here.

Chattanooga was one of the first cities in the nation to introduce Fiber Internet to its residents through city-owned utilities. Other cities have slowly been jumping on board with the help of Google Fiber and other organizations. Now the gigabit Internet craze has returned to Tennessee.

Tullahoma is a small city in the south-central part of Tennessee. Its population is estimated at a little over 18,000. Starting this week, the city will start delivering 1Gbps fiber Internet to its subscribers. The Tullahoma News reports that LightTUBe, the city-owned utility company, will be upgrading residents who already subscribe to its 300Mbps plan will be automatically upgraded to 1Gbps at no extra charge over the next few days. The service is pretty expensive at $300, but it’s consistent with the pricing of Chattanooga’s service.

The high price obviously keeps many residents from being able to access gigabit speeds, and the city seems fine with that. Tullahoma Utilities Board Chairman Bob Lindeman says that upgrading the city’s infrastructure to 1Gbps speeds is more about attracting businesses to the area:

“It shows that we can provide anything they want. The TUB board made the decision to build a fiber to the premise system for economic development reasons, and it is paying off for our community. We want to make Tullahoma a much more desirable location for technology companies to locate, due to our ultra-high speed Internet and our highly skilled workforce. Tullahoma is light years ahead of most cities in the United States with the ability to offer these incredibly fast Internet speeds, and we look forward to the benefits this will bring to our city.”

Offering businesses gigabit Internet is definitely a major benefit for any community, but it may be a little shortsighted to keep access out of the hands of most residents. A rural ISP in Vermont is offering 1Gbps speeds to its residents for only $35 a month, and they are likely to benefit greatly. The rollout of Google Fiber in Kansas City has also proven to be incredibly beneficial not just for startups, but for the community as a whole.

Regardless, it’s encouraging to see gigabit Internet rolling out to more cities across the U.S. Sooner or later, the bigs ISPs will have to stop pretending that Google Fiber and its ilk don’t exist. They can’t feign ignorance forever.

[h/t: Reddit]

Update: In a press conference, authorities said that he is “fighting for his life”.

According to reports, a high school student at La Salle High School in Cincinnati shot himself this morning.

The story is still developing, but according to Ohio’s 10TV.com, police are on the scene after being called around 9AM:

Officers were called to the school on North Bend Road around 9 a.m. Monday. Authorities say a student shot himself in the school.

It reportedly happened during the first class of the day, and multiple students called 911 to report the incident.

The school is reportedly on lockdown, and the student was taken to the hospital. The Hamilton County sheriff’s office told the AP that there was no apparent threat to other students.

The student’s condition is unknown at this time. Reporters are waiting to talk to hospital officials.

The student has not been identified, but is apparently male, as La Salle is a Catholic all-male school. It’s on North Bend Road, and reportedly has about 800 students enrolled.

Local12 (CBS) has a live feed.

Update: From Fox19:

The student was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center…The school was placed on lockdown after the shooting, but parents are now being allowed in the school to meet with their sons. Classes have not been cancelled, but parents are permitted to take their student home.

Update: The school has issued a statement:

ALL LA SALLE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE SAFE AND BEING DISMISSED INTO THE CUSTODY OF THEIR PARENTS DUE TO AN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE INVOLVING ONE STUDENT.

It is a profound irony that the more you know about a particular industry, and the more experience you gain in it, the more difficult it can be to move it forward with truly meaningful innovation. But it’s true, thanks to something known as “the curse of knowledge” — one of the most vexing cognitive biases identified by psychologists and behavioral economists. (Another big one is “functional fixedness” — a topic I will save for another day). Cognitive biases are very human and arise from our need to make sense of a situation before deciding on a course of action. As we acquire, retain, and process relevant information, we filter it through the context of our own past experience, likes, and dislikes. Not surprisingly, with every subsequent challenge, our response is increasingly shaped by our knowledge of “how we’ve always done it.”

This is part of why open innovation is so powerful. By definition, it sources valuable ideas and inventions from outside the walls of an organization. That not only brings more brainpower to bear on a problem to be solved, it brings minds that are not constrained by industry conventions.

But if you think that by merely opting for open innovation you will escape the curse of knowledge, you may be wrong. Assumptions based on convention can still undermine the effort because, at the outset of any open innovation, someone has to communicate what is being sought.

Made to Stick authors Chip and Dan Heath share a vivid illustration of how the curse of knowledge leads to communication failures. In an experiment, psychologist Elizabeth Newton asked subjects to choose among 120 well-known songs and then tap out the melody with their finger on a table for a listener to try to identify their choice. When she asked the tappers to guess how likely listeners were to recognize the songs, they predicted a 50% success rate. As it turned out, the listeners correctly identified only 2.5% of the melodies they heard tapped. (Newton’s 1990 PhD dissertation, “Overconfidence in Communication and Intent: Heard and Unheard Melodies,” gives full details.)

Try it yourself — tap away while a familiar tune plays in your head — and you will understand why the answers seemed so obvious to the tappers. In the same way, the knowledge in an engineer’s or technologist’s head (or a group of them) causes them to make assumptions about what should be clear to anyone, while failing to give outsiders the understanding of a problem that would allow them to solve it in a new way.

Sometimes the curse of knowledge leads experts to communicate what they’re looking for at too low a level. Recently, for example, my colleagues and I assisted a large consumer products company attempting to improve its packaging. It sells a perishable product that consumers don’t use all at once, so its engineers had identified the need for a better re-sealing solution. But when we articulated the need, we went beyond describing what would constitute an ideal sealing technology; we specified how much freshness and taste quality had to be maintained over what length of time. (Other packaging performance factors such as ease of use and cost were also stipulated.) Being clear that the need was to preserve food quality, not just to seal a package, affected how solution providers approached the problem. The overall set of submissions was of high quality, as judged by how well each met the criteria for an ideal solution. Most important, the search resulted in a new package innovation -creatively combining different approaches to achieve the goal — which was promptly patented by the client.

In another search, the curse of knowledge made an organization communicate its need at too high a level. This was the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which decided to sponsor an open challenge to the scientific community to come up with an effective inoculation against that terrible disease. Unfortunately, defining the Request for Proposals as a vaccine challenge did not yield many high-quality responses. Our advice was to break down the need to a level where scientists who did not think of themselves as vaccine creators would engage. More fundamentally, this was a protein stabilization challenge. Once it was refocused on that critical stumbling block, the technology search brought back 34 proposals from highly qualified scientists in 14 countries. Three of these were sufficiently promising that IAVI funded their further development with $875K in research grants. Even for an organization full of smart scientists — indeed, especially for such an organization — it can take a third party, unencumbered by presupposition, to overcome the curse of knowledge.

The vaccine example underscores that if you define a challenge and its ideal solution’s qualities and characteristics in an application-agnostic way, you defeat the curse of knowledge in two ways. First, the knowledge of the expert sourcing the solution doesn’t translate to limiting assumptions about what form it will take. Potential solution providers are given an understanding of the challenge that doesn’t constrain their ideation. Second, the potential solution providers are less likely to self-select themselves and their ideas out of contention because they don’t think they’re relevant.

I regularly see companies’ open innovation efforts being undermined by the curse of knowledge. They write detailed specifications for the technology they are seeking based on what they have seen work in the past. They draw up exclusion lists that automatically remove certain companies or industries, and the science they have mastered, from their consideration. Without even recognizing that they are making assumptions, they contract their universe and discourage viable submissions.

The only way to avoid these missteps is to place a lot of emphasis on how the need for a solution is communicated up front. In open calls for innovation, we need to clearly communicate to others the real problem to be solved and the benefits the solution must deliver, as well as our own understanding of the chief stumbling blocks and the features a solution will offer.

In our role as innovation facilitators, we have to remember that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing — and a lot of knowledge can be a curse.

Sprint Nextel has been in negotiations with SoftBank for a $20 billion merger since last October. However, Dish Network swooped in earlier this month with a $25 billion offer for Sprint, making things much more complicated. Sprint is currently in the process of evaluating each offer, while Dish is adamant that its offer is superior to SoftBank’s.

Today, Sprint announced that SoftBank has given the carrier a waiver that allows Sprint to continue its discussions with Dish. The waiver does away with some provisions of the merger agreement between Sprint and SoftBank. It will allow Sprint to enter non-disclosure agreements with Dish for further discussion of its merger proposal. Sprint is still not allowed to disclose non-public information to Dish, and the two companies cannot enter formal negotiations.

Last week, Sprint released its first quarter 2013 financial results. While the carrier’s net losses dropped from the fourth quarter of 2012, the carrier’s subscriber numbers also dropped by over 500,000 postpaid subscribers. Sprint is currently in the process of shutting down its Nextel platform, which is where many of the subscriber losses originated.

Continue reading…

Study Offers First Look at Green Sea Turtle Habitat Use in the Dry Tortugas

Additional Contact: Kristen Hart, Mobile Phone: 954-650-0336

DRY TORTUGAS, Fla. – Nesting green sea turtles are benefiting from marine protected areas by using habitats found within their boundaries, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study that is the first to track the federally protected turtles in Dry Tortugas National Park.

Green turtles are listed as endangered in Florida and threatened throughout the rest of their range, and the habits of green sea turtles after their forays to nest on beaches in the Southeast U.S. have long remained a mystery. Until now, it was not clear whether the turtles made use of existing protected areas, and few details were available as to whether they were suited for supporting the green sea turtle’s survival.

U.S. Geological Survey researchers confirmed the turtles’ use of the protected areas by tracking nesting turtles with satellite tags and analyzing their movement patterns after they left beaches.

 “Our goal was to better understand what types of habitats they used at sea and whether they were in fact putting these designated areas to use. This study not only shows managers that these designated protected areas are already being used by turtles, but provides insight into the types of habitats they use most,” said the study’s lead author, Kristen Hart, who works as a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Hart’s team made the discovery by fitting green sea turtle mothers with satellite tags after they came onto beaches within Dry Tortugas National Park to nest. After tracking their movements and analyzing their time at sea, the team located the areas turtles used between their nesting events and determined where turtles traveled after the nesting season was over.

They found green sea turtles spending much of their time in protected sites within both Dry Tortugas National Park and the surrounding areas of the Florida Keys Marine National Sanctuary. 

“We were thrilled to find that these turtles used some areas already under ‘protected’ status. The ultimate goal is to help managers understand where these endangered turtles are spending their time both during the breeding period and then when they are at feeding areas. Given that worldwide declines in seagrasses – one of the most important habitats they rely on for food – has already been documented, this type of data is critical for managers,” said Hart.

The team learned about the turtle’s habitat needs during the nesting season by using ATRIS, a georeferenced, underwater camera system developed by the USGS to collect over 195,000 seafloor images. Researchers surveyed the areas frequented by turtles within Dry Tortugas National Park by photographing the seafloor in a series of parallel lines totaling 70 kilometers (over 43 miles).  Using a habitat map derived from those images, they found that the turtles most commonly used shallow seagrass beds and degraded coral reefs that have been overgrown by a mixed assemblage of other organisms, such as sea fans, sponges, and fire coral.

“Our synergistic approach of combining satellite telemetry data with an extensive habitat map proved to be an effective way to find out exactly what habitats these nesting turtles were using in the Park,” said Dave Zawada, a USGS research oceanographer and co-author on the study.

The Dry Tortugas’ population made shorter migrations than that typically seen among other green turtle populations around the world; this was only the second published study showing green turtles taking up residence at feeding grounds located quite near their breeding grounds.

“We hope to keep pushing the frontier of what is known about in-water sea turtle habitat use, as this type of scientific information is vital for understanding whether conservation measures are effective,” said Hart.

The study, “Habitat use of breeding green turtles Chelonia mydas tagged in Dry Tortugas National Park: Making use of local and regional MPAs,” was published this week in the journal Biological Conservation.

About Green Sea Turtles

Although their young feed on jellyfish and other invertebrates, adult green sea turtles feed on seagrasses and algae, making them the only herbivorous (vegetarian) species of sea turtle. In fact, their name comes from their greenish colored fat, which is thought to be caused by their diet.

Green sea turtles are found around the world in three main types of habitat: nesting beaches, open ocean, and shallow water such as lagoons and shoals where they feed on marine grasses and algae found on the seafloor (‘benthic’ habitat). Within the U.S., green sea turtles are found from North Carolina to Florida, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Their breeding populations in Florida are listed as endangered, but all other populations are listed as threatened.

The nesting season for green turtles lasts throughout the summer, but is most concentrated in June and July. During nesting season, females nest at roughly two-week intervals, producing an average of five nests or “clutches.” Each clutch contains an average of 135 eggs, which will hatch after incubating for about 2 months.

Ashton Kutcher is nothing if not a gentleman towards his fans.

The “Two And A Half Men” star was reportedly enjoying a performance at Stagecoach music festival over the weekend when a fan approached him and asked to shake his hand. When the woman got too close, however, a security guard stepped in and allegedly pushed both the woman and Kutcher, and Kutcher pushed back. Things escalated to a violent shoving match, and the guard tried to eject Kutcher, but the actor left on his own after having friends hold him back.

Kutcher isn’t the only star to have issues at a concert; Johnny Depp faced trouble from a fan last spring after the 52-year old woman claimed his bodyguards roughed her up during an Iggy Pop concert. Of course, bodyguards and security guards are usually just doing what is most certainly a tough job, but some fans think they can be overzealous when it comes to a major celebrity.

So far, Kutcher has had no comment on the incident, but he did tweet out several comments about the music at the festival on his Twitter page.

What do you get when you combine Google Glass and Robert Scoble taking a shower? A blogospheric buzzstorm, as evidenced this past weekend. But behind the raves and ribbing about Scoble and his enthusiasm for Google Glass lurked an intriguing question: will Glass lead to frictionless sharing that alters the way data is stored, uploaded and distributed?

Scoble, a technology evangelist and blogger for cloud computing specialist Rackspace Hosting, argues that it will.

“Google Glass is going to need a new kind of cloud computing and Google won’t be able to satisfy all the demand,” Scoble wrote in a widely-linked Google+ post. ”If Google Glass is as big a deal as I think it will be, humans will generate much more data than they do today. Either because of sensor tracking to do things like play location-based games, or do health tracking, or more. Think about Waze, a traffic app, on Google Glass. The new developers will need new cloud computing. Plus, I see Glass as part of a contextual system, one that uses an Internet of Things, but also brings data from your own businesses in along with big data computation that will find new patterns to display on our glass.”

And that, Scoble says, is the answer to the question at the heart of his post: “Why does Rackspace fly me around to promote Google?”

“It’s getting clearer and clearer to me that the future is contextual systems and Rackspace, if it executes well, should be a leader in providing infrastructure to these systems,” he writes. “If not, shame on us, but at least we knew where the goal line was because of the conversations we’ve been having with developers, analysts, and press about Google Glass.”

Google has made Google Now available on iOS in a new update to the Search app for iPhones and iPads.

Here’s the description for what’s new in version 3.0.0:

Get just the right information at just the right time with Google Now.

Find out more about all other ways Google Now can help at http://www.google.com/now

Google Now on iOS doesn’t support as many features as its Android counterpart. According to The Verge, Google will support the iOS background location feature, but it won’t use the iOS notification system to push Google Now alerts like on Android.

It also only has 22 of the 29 card types available on Android, leaving out boarding passes, local events, and Fandango, to name a few. Of course, Apple’s own Passbook offers similar features.

The app is available in the App Store.

Google Now is expected to come to Google’s Chrome browser, and possibly even the Google homepage in the future.

Update: Google has now posted about the offering on the official blog, adding:

In addition to the handy cards in Google Now, the Google Search app still gives you instant answers to all your questions. Try tapping the microphone and speak to your phone—you’ll get quick answers spoken back to you. For example, ask Google, “Do I need an umbrella this weekend?” and you’ll get the forecast. Or ask “Who’s in the cast of ‘Oblivion’?” to decide if you want to see it. Voice Search is particularly handy on the go—try “Show me nearby pizza places” and you’ll see a map of restaurants around you with directions, phone numbers, ratings and hours.

Kate Hudson was surprised with a super-secret birthday bash for her 34th recently, and a slew of celebrities showed up to help her celebrate.

Hudson’s fiance, Muse frontman Matt Bellamy, organized the party and invited several of their high-profile friends, including Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow and actress Cameron Diaz. The party was held at a friend’s home in New York City, where Hudson danced the night away with her pals.

“Kate was totally surprised,” a source said. “The party started outside, but it was freezing so people moved inside and danced.”

Hudson gave a surprise of her own last summer when she did a guest spot on “Glee” and ended up winning over the stars of the show as well as the fans.

“I’m so obsessed with her,” Lea Michele said. “She’s one of the greatest comedic actresses right now and I just think she’s so great.”

Over the weekend, footage from Beyond: Two Souls was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. As promised, the a brand new trailer for the video game was debuted at the event, as well as over 30 minutes of gameplay footage.

The new trailer shows off the heavily cinematic feel of the game, which stars Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page. The game is being developed by Quantic Dream and director David Cage, who have tried for years to bring a cinematic experience to video games through games such as Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain.

The extensive footage from the screening has also hit the web. It doesn’t seem to contain any major spoilers for the game’s story, though some of the game’s early events are depicted:

Two years ago, ABC canceled the long-running soap operas All My Children and On Life to Live, citing “extensive research into what today’s daytime viewers want and the changing viewing patterns of the audience.” Despite ABC’s “research,” plenty of viewers were upset by the announcement.

Just a few months ago, we got word that the two programs were being resurrected and would later launch on Hulu and iTunes. Today, Hulu has made it official.

“We’re thrilled and honored to carry on the tradition with the return of beloved soaps “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” with new episodes on Hulu and Hulu Plus starting today,” says Martin Moakler, Hulu’s Social Community Manager.

“I know it was a long wait,” says Cady McClain, who plays Dixie Cooney Martin on the show.. “I know there have been a lot of ups and downs. I just want to assure the fans that it feels like another era of golden years for this show. It’s truly the best that ‘All My Children’ is and can be again.”

“I’m very excited and feel super lucky to be here right now,” she says. “The story and sets are incredible. There are so many surprises coming. I can’t wait to watch it myself!”

Hulu knows that some of the soap opera crowd may not be totally familiar with Hulu, or online streaming in general. So they made this video full of soap stars to educate the uninitiated:

You can watch All my Children here and One Life to Live here. Are you excited to have these two classic soaps back?

AlphaWave is a really cool, classic arcade shooter from Hardline Studios. The game has some very intuitive controls, but the best part is the game progression coupled with the weapons at your disposal. As you play the game, it takes about a minute and you’re unleashing awesome lazers and dodging a screen full of enemies. Check it out in BlackBerry World.

Check out this link in BlackBerry World to download the free version.

Check out this link for the paid, full version of AlphaWave in BlackBerry World.

People are obviously proud of their elaborate Minecraft creations. Some may even want to create physical versions of their buildings to display for all to see. One company – FigurePrints – uses 3D printers to turn Minecraft creations into reality, but new software lets those who already own a 3D printer make their own.

Printcraft, a multiplayer server for Minecraft, lets players build creations on an in-game representation of a build platform. Once the creation is complete, players can then convert their creation into an STL file that’s compatible with 3D printers. Even better, Printcraft has teamed up with MakerBot to allow direct uploads of creations to Thingiverse.

Printcraft from Paul Harter on Vimeo.

What makes Printcraft so amazing is that it has turned the often complicated 3D modeling software into Minecraft. Those with no knowledge of 3D modeling can instead build objects in Minecraft to have them printed on their own 3D printer.

Granted, Printcraft is pretty limited in what it can do compared to traditional 3D modeling software, but it’s great for the hobbyists that just want to see their creations come to life.

[h/t: 3ders]

With IT consumerization, more devices, and a lot more data – the reliance on the corporate data center will only continue to grow. Administrators are being tasked with running a leaner and more efficient data center all while keeping costs down. It’s clear that resources will always be finite. Furthermore, some resources can be very expensive. In creating a truly efficient data center environment, administrators must control how and where their resources are allocated. The reality is simple, monitoring in data centers responds to key industry concerns for energy consumption, availability and costs, maintaining an optimal environment for IT equipment and for coping with increasing total cost of ownership.

In this white paper from Raritan, you will learn the valuable benefits behind creating an efficient data center monitoring platform. Beyond setting up a good infrastructure monitoring system – the paper addresses the following as well:

• Why monitor?
• Who monitors and what do they monitor?
• How are they monitoring?
• What do they do with the information?
• Where is the monitoring fit and purpose?

Download this white paper today to see how current monitoring and analysis systems appear stretched when answering the critical questions of:

• How and where can I save energy?
• How can I accurately track costs and identify cost savings?
• How can I track power availability (so I can ensure that power within the facility goes where it is needed while reducing wastage where it is not needed)?

According to the paper, a major cause for dissatisfaction is that deployment of technology is not moving as fast as corporate and facility requirements are moving. This indicates that the speed with which the requirements for actionable information and analysis has grown and changed has not been satisfied by the original technologies deployed. The future data center must be designed around direct efficiency and a granular monitoring system. This way, organizations can plan their resources for both current and future demands.

Target is launching a new campaign to promote electronics endorsed by Wired editors in its stores and online. It’s not the first time the retailer has partnered with an editorial brand: Target recently started including CNET reviews alongside certain electronics products in its stores, and CNET reviews appear alongside hundreds of products on Target’s website.

In the partnership with Wired, Target will offer “a custom-curated assortment of consumer electronics and gadgets” endorsed by Wired editors. The selections fall into four categories: Digital music, digital photos, productivity and body. Eleven of the products — including the Square credit card reader and Belkin WeMo switch — will appear in Wired-branded displays in Target’s 1,800 stores, and an expanded selection, including Fitbit products, is online at target.com/wired.

Wired gets a small percentage of sales revenue from the products, according to AdWeek, and the promotion will last for 12 weeks. ”We’re trying to push Wired out and beyond the four conventional walls of how it’s been defined its first twenty years,” Howard Mittman, VP and publisher of Wired, told AdWeek. “The ability to cross-pollinate opens [Target] up to affluent young men, and we get the opportunity to tap into their scale.”

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