Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Gridded "Superlens" Brings Wireless Power Transmission A Step Closer

Source: http://gizmodo.com/gridded-superlens-brings-wireless-power-transmission-1510675780

Gridded "Superlens" Brings Wireless Power Transmission A Step Closer

Above is a close-up of what developers call a "superlens," a device that can focus low-energy magnetic waves over a distance. The result? Wireless power generation over nearly one foot of air between transmitter and receiver.

Read More...

To Make Glass Stronger, Etch It With Microscopic Cracks

Source: http://gizmodo.com/to-make-glass-stronger-etch-it-with-microscopic-cracks-1510973860

To Make Glass Stronger, Etch It With Microscopic Cracks

To anyone who has ever dropped a wine glass or broken a window, you might have a thing or two to learn from mollusks. A new technique inspired by natural materials such as mollusk shells or tooth enamel can make glass 200 times stronger. Weirdly enough, it works by weakening the glass with microscopic cracks.

Read More...

drag2share: Chrome apps will soon arrive on Android and iOS devices

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/chrome-apps-android-ios/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Last month, we discovered Google was working on a tool that would port Chrome apps to both Android and iOS. Today, the folks in Mountain View released a developer preview that does just that. Like the early rumblings suggested, it's based on open-source Apache Cordova, which leverages the software's native HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This means that the software will get wrapped in the stylings of a native app and can be submitted to each app store for distribution. There's also a slew of Chrome APIs available that you'd expect to see in mobile apps, including the ability to build in payments, notifications and alarms on top of those offered by the Cordova platform. Now that the tools are in the hands of devs, we'll have to bide our time until the finished Chrome apps begin to surface.

Read More...

drag2share: Future US Soldiers Might Just Be Trained In a Star Trek Holodeck

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/oLM7KAXRK30/us-soldiers-might-be-trained-in-holodeck-2014-1

attached imageThe VIPE Holodeck is similar in approach to the Infantry Immersion Trainer (IIT) that was developed by Lockheed Martin to train marines, but they differ in many key ways.

IIT was designed as a mixture of mediums, including physical reconstructions that were meant to resemble Fallujah, Iraq. This scenario was complemented by a piping in of digital sounds and avatars to create a fully immersive environment.

VIPE, though, is purely digital. Aside from the individuals within the Holodeck, everything else is a projection based on simple, and inexpensive, consumer technology.

Read More...

drag2share: This 17-Year-Old Dropped Out Of High School For Peter Thiel And Built A Game-Changing New Kind Of Computer

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/RwrGreCBvB8/cool-startup-17-year-old-thiel-fellow-2014-1

Thomas Sohmers REX Computing

On Tuesday, 17-year-old Thomas Sohmers unveiled a new super fast computer server that uses a fraction of the electricity that a normal computer does.

He's showing it off at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit happening this week in San Francisco.

OCP is the Facebook-led project that is changing the data center hardware industry. It's where big Internet companies like Facebook design their own hardware to be faster and cheaper than traditional options from companies like Dell, HP, IBM, or Cisco. (But Dell and HP are also involved in OCP). It gives those designs away for free, a concept called open source hardware.

This computer is the first product from Sohmers' startup, REX Computing, created with 52-year-old co-founder and CTO Kurt Keville.

The computer is a very powerful machine built with ARM processors, the kind low-power processors that run smartphones and tablets. (In geek speak: these are multi-core ARM processors designed for servers, made by a San Jose company called Xilinx.)

These servers allow more computing power to be packed into a smaller space. The server is "2,500% more power-efficient for the same performance," Sohmers told Business Insider. Think of it like a supercomputer running on the equivalent of smartphone battery.

And that has big implication! s for building green-but-powerful data centers.

"I think of myself as an entrepreneur besides just being an electrical engineer. I believe what I'm doing can have a major effective on the world," Sohmers said.

Low-power ARM servers is big trend in the server industry with companies like HP and Dell now in the market, but one that hasn't really taken off yet for a bunch of technical reasons that add up to one thing: there isn't a lot of software that runs on them, yet.

Read More...

drag2share: Intel's smart headset understands you even when you're offline

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/intel-smart-headset-offline-voice-recognition/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Intel Jarvis headset

Intel claims that its Jarvis headset's voice recognition makes it smart, but we've seen voice commands on Bluetooth earpieces before -- what's so special this time around? It's all about offline support, the company tells Quartz. Unlike many wearables, Jarvis can process complex voice requests without talking to a server. That's most helpful when there's no internet access, but it also leads to faster, more natural interaction than you typically get from the likes of Google Now or Siri. You won't necessarily have to buy Jarvis to reap its benefits, either. Intel hopes to sell its voice recognition technology to phone manufacturers, so your handset may be the only smart device you need.

Read More...

Article: Akamai's state of the internet: America gets with faster broadband, IPv6

Good news, everyone! The U.S. has shot up rapidly in its adoption of high-speed broadband, up to 20 percent in some states, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report for the third quarter of 2013. Things seem to be on the up-and-up for American broadband connections, especially af...

http://gigaom.com/2014/01/28/akamais-state-of-the-internet-america-gets-with-faster-broadband-ipv6/

Sent via Flipboard

Read More...

drag2share: Lenovo's 10-inch Miix 2 convertible tablet goes on sale early, starting at $699

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/27/lenovo-10-inch-miix-2-goes-on-sale-early/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Lenovo Miix 2 convertible tablet

You won't have to wait until March to get your hands on Lenovo's 10-inch Miix 2; much to our surprise, the budget-friendly convertible tablet is already on sale. Just be prepared to pay extra for early access. The company is offering only higher-end versions of the Windows 8.1 slate, which currently starts at $699 for a WiFi model with 128GB of storage. The promised $499 variant isn't listed on Lenovo's site as of this writing. While it's hard to complain too much about the higher price given the unexpectedly quick launch, those who want the cheapest edition of this mid-size Miix 2 will have to be patient.

Read More...

drag2share: Smartphone sales may have topped 1 billion in 2013, depending on who you ask

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/smartphone-sales-may-have-topped-1-billion-in-2013/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

IDC smartphone market share for all of 2013

You once had to look to the broader cellphone market to see more than a billion phones ship in one year. Well, times have changed... at least, if you ask the right analysts. IDC now estimates that smartphone shipments topped one billion for the first time in 2013. However, Strategy Analytics begs to differ -- it reckons that shipments fell just short, at 990 million. Whether or not the industry hit its symbolic milestone, the roughly 40 percent increase over 2012 data shows that the smartphone market had plenty of room to grow last year. Samsung led the pack with 31.3 percent of the the market, while Apple dipped to 15.3 percent as both Samsung and Chinese manufacturers (including Huawei and Lenovo) chipped away at its second-place position.

As for what happened in ! the fourth quarter? Both analyst groups say that Samsung was once again the top vendor, although they note that the Korean firm's share was largely flat at 29 percent. Not that Apple fared any better, as its record-setting iPhone shipments weren't enough to prevent a slide to 18 percent share. Huawei, LG and Lenovo were the real victors -- each of them typically gained a point or more of share in the past year. IDC chalks some of this up to the rise of very low-cost smartphones, which are quickly taking over developing markets like China and India. Companies which focus on more expensive handsets, such as Apple and Samsung, have the most to lose in these areas.

IDC smartphone market share for Q4 2013

Filed under: , , , , ,

Read More...

drag2share: British government reportedly tracking YouTube and Facebook data without permission

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/gchq-squeaky-dolphin-youtube-facebook-snoop/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

While the NSA has been busy scouring the Angry Birds leaderboards, newly leaked documents report that its British counterpart -- the GCHQ -- has been monitoring the flow of social media in real-time. The General Communications Headquarters can apparently keep track of YouTube traffic, which links are liked on Facebook and even which Blogger or Blogspot pages are visited. This all comes via documents taken by Edward Snowden that were obtained by NBC News. NBC's sources also say that the British spies have been able to physically tap the lines carrying global web traffic to extract key data about specific users as well. This initiative, called Squeaky Dolphin, intends to put broad data trends into context with world events and give the intelligence community a heads up for future anti-government happenings -- not for spying on a person-by-person level. What's more, the GCHQ reportedly shares this information with the US.

The GCHQ has issued a statement claiming that all of its work is carried out within the limits of the law, while the NSA says that it's only interested in the communication activities of valid foreign intelligence targets. For their part, Google and Facebook say that the spying on unencrypted information was done with out their respective knowledge, and neither company had given the UK government permission to access the data -- something we've heard before.

Read More...

drag2share: Chipotle Is Launching A Satirical Series About The Dark Side Of 'Big Agriculture' On Hulu

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/qKpSBmDeps8/chipotle-launches-satirical-tv-series-on-hulu-2014-1

Chipotle series

Chipotle is launching a satirical TV series on the dark side of industrial agriculture in the U.S.

The four-part series, called "Farmed and Dangerous," will air on Hulu and Hulu Plus beginning Feb. 17.

The show was produced by Chipotle and New York-based studio Piro. It contains no explicit Chipotle marketing, according to the company.

"The show addresses issues that we think are important — albeit in a satirical way — without being explicitly about Chipotle," Mark Crumpacker, chief marketing and development officer at Chipotle, said in a release. "This approach allows us to produce content that communicates our values and entertains people at the same time."

The first season focuses on the introduction of "PetroPellet," a petroleum based animal feed. 

Read More...

Monday, January 27, 2014

Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested for Money Laundering

Source: http://gizmodo.com/report-bitcoin-exchange-ceo-arrested-for-running-illeg-1509842040

Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested for Money Laundering

The Justice Department has formally charged the CEO of Bitcoin exchange Bitinstant.com with running an illegal wire service, and according to reports by the New York Post's Kaja Whitehouse, he's just been arrested at JFK. Uh oh.

Read More...

The FBI Seized All of TorMail's Data and Is Using It to Catch Hackers

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-fbi-seized-all-of-tormails-data-and-is-using-it-to-1509838202

The FBI Seized All of TorMail's Data and Is Using It to Catch Hackers

If you had any faith left in anonymous email services, now would be the time to let that go. New court documents show that in chasing down associates of Freedom Hosting, the FBI managed to download the entire email database of TorMail. And now it's using that information to take on the Darknet.

Read More...

Article: Chartio Raises $2.2M, Updates Its Business Intelligence And Data Visualization Platform

Chartio has raised $2.2 million from Avalon Ventures and added some new features to its data visualization platform that blends data sets and does complex calculations. Chartio had previously raised a $4.4 million Series A round from Avalon in 2011. With the funding, Chartio will continue to deve...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/24/chartio-raises-2-2m-and-adds-new-features-to-business-intelligence-and-data-visualization-platform/

Sent via Flipboard

Read More...

Stratasys' new 3D printer creates multicolored flexible materials

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/27/stratasys-3d-printer-flexible-color/

Stratasys' has a new $330,000 3D printer, but this one has the potential to do a whole lot more than monochrome figurines. In fact, the company says it's the first machine able to create objects in colored, flexible materials. The Objet500 Connex3 3D printer uses rubber and plastic as base materials, although according to Stratasys (the company which now owns the MakerBot series) material combinations will be able to offer different levels of rigidity, transparency and opacity. Colors, meanwhile, are produced by the same mix of cyan, magenta and yellow you'll find on your inkjet printer at home -- it even comes with six palettes of rubbery "tango" colors, if you're perhaps looking to channel your '90s tastes into some tasteful flexible booties, as seen above.

At the technical level, the printer can go as fine as 16-micron layers, offering a high level of detail and finish, and can pump out around 30kg of resin (that is, base material) per run. Talking to the BBC, a Stratasys spokesperson said the advanced printer could cut down industrial design prototyping times by 50 percent, although he was talking about the time from prototype to market, not printing time itself. The Objet500 Connex3 launches today, although those flexible color printing materials won't be available to buy until Q2 later this year, so hold on to those neo-boot dreams for now.

Filed under: , , ,

Comments

Read More...