The Next Web reports that Intel and FC Barcelona have announced a partnership to make the latter one of the world’s most technologically advanced football clubs.

“This is more than a sponsorship to Intel,” says Deborah Conrad, Intel’s Chief Marketing Officer. “The technology we are deploying and the programs we are working on together are designed to elevate FC Barcelona into one of the most technologically advanced soccer clubs in the world, and to launch an ambitious slate of educational initiatives.”

I like how the logo is inside the jersey. Yes, inside. And it says “Intel Inside.”

Forget smartwatches, apparently quite a few folks think that the next big thing is a smart ring. A campaign on Indiegogo for the Smarty Ring has surpassed its funding goal of $40,000 by breaching the$300,000 mark. Despite it’s relatively small size, the ring touts the ability to display the time, accept or reject calls, control your music, and much more. An interesting use of it is that it can function as an invisible leash for your smartphone, notifying you if your phone ends up 30 feet away from the device.

A nice design choice for this ring was to allow it to be charged wirelessly on a charging pad, removing the need for an ugly charging port on the ring. The Smarty Ring offers a 24-hour battery life, which should allow it to comfortably get through the day.

I’m not sure that it’ll catch on, but it would be a rather unique thing to have as a fashion accesory.

The first smartring has an LED screen, tells time, and accepts calls

The ring can display the time, accept or reject calls, control music, trigger the smartphone’s camera, and initiate speed-dial calls. It will also alert the wearer with light-up icons for texts, e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, Google Hangouts, and Skype. It supports dual time zones and comes with a countdown timer, a stopwatch, and an alarm. It can work as a tracker for your phone, too—if your smartphone is more than 30 feet away from the ring, Smarty Ring will trigger an alarm.

John Gruber writes on Daring Fireball about why there was no news about Scott Forstall in the past 13 months.

What I’ve heard is that when Tim Cook fired him, Forstall was offered (and accepted) a big truck full of money as part of a severance package. The terms of the severance agreement included a period of time during which Forstall can not (could not?) work for any other company, nor make any public statements.

While other news outlets report on the mystery of what happened to Forstall or that he was laying low, Gruber provides something more insightful.

The free service isn’t an exact copy of what you get on the desktop, since you’ll only be able to select an artist or playlist and hear a stream of shuffled tracks, instead of actually selecting the tracks that you want. Of course, if you want to have full control of your music, you can always subscribe, which won’t break the bank.

I’ve been hoping for this for a long time now as I’m currently using the free plan from Spotify on my desktop and have been looking to replace the radio station in my car with a Spotify station. Say what you may about Spotify, but the ads are considerably less irritating and less frequent compared to the terrestrial radio channels.

Spotify announces free streaming on Android and iPhone, but only in Shuffle mode

At an event in New York today, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced a free streaming product on Android and iOS smartphones, and also on tablets. “We don’t want to make another radio-type service,” Ek said. “We want to make something that’s really great — that really fits into people’s lives,” said Ek. Thus, the focus for Spotify Free on mobile is a Shuffle feature that lets you pick an artist or playlist and hear a stream of shuffled tracks. In other words, the service isn’t straightforward ad-supported streaming on-demand, but is instead more random, like Spotify’s current Radio feature on mobile for free users.

Business Insider reviews Automatic, an app that turns your car into a smart car.

Just plug the Automatic dongle (called a Link) into your car’s OBD port and you’ll start getting a bunch of data about your driving logged into the companion app. Much of this data is ultimately meant to help you save money on gas.

It alerts you of driving habits that use more fuel unnecessarily.

For example, Automatic alerts you by making your phone chirp you when you brake roughly, drive 10 or more miles per hour over the speed limit, or accelerate too rapidly. By giving you a heads up about your bad habits, it helps adjust the way that you drive to increase fuel efficiency. Better fuel efficiency means money saved.

It gives you a score and lets you compete with other drivers.

The app gives you a daily and weekly score based on your driving, and compares your logged fuel economy with the EPA’s estimated value for whatever car you own. If you’re competitive, you’ll love the fact that you can track your driving score week-to-week, and that the app will tell you where you rank compared to other Automatic users throughout the country.

It remembers where you parked and detects engine issues.

Every time you park, the app also GPS-logs your location, so you never have to search hopelessly for your car in a huge parking lot again. Because the Link is plugged into your OBD port, it can sense when you have engine trouble, and can offer a potential diagnosis.

Business Insider reports that Facebook might be adding a sympathise button.

When you write a Facebook status, you have the option of choosing to share how you’re feeling from a drop down list of emotions. If you selected a negative emotion like “depressed” from the list, the “like” button under your status would be relabeled “sympathize.”

How about having both the “like” and “sympathise” button at the same time? Some people might just be giving a thumbs up at your expense.