Tuesday, April 15, 2014

drag2share: Here's Amazon's phone: six cameras and a 4.7-inch screen

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/amazon-phone-pictures/

Rumors of an Amazon-made phone are nothing new, but today the rumors enter reality more firmly: what you see above is what BGR claims is the Amazon's first phone. "Whoa, that's super ugly!" you might be saying. Cool it, that's just an enclosure around the device itself preventing prying eyes (like our own) from seeing the actual design. The good news is we can still learn a few things about the device without the enclosure removed: five cameras up front (reportedly a sixth out back) and a trio of buttons along the left side handle power and volume. The screen is reportedly of the 4.7-inch variety -- which lines up with previous rumors -- and puts Amazon's first phone on the same scale as Motorola's Moto X (among others).

Before we move on, we should probably address that whole six cameras thing, huh? Well, the rear one is a standard phone camera for taking photos, and apparently one of the five on the front is also just a standard camera. The four other face cameras, though, are apparently for something especially unique: the phone's 3D interface. All those cameras reportedly enable the phone to track the position of your head and where you're looking, thus enabling glasses-free 3D from any angle. BGR says the four face cams are low-power infrared sensors.

So, what's powering that effect besides cameras? 2GB of RAM and an unnamed Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, apparently. Rather than going 1080p, the handset is also said to push 720p (also similar to the Moto X).

If that's not enough, the report also says that a less flashy, more affordable version will arrive this year as well. That's two Amazon phones potentially leaked without Amazon acknowledging or even teasing either. Don't expect shock on our faces when an ambiguous event invite shows up in the next few weeks.

Vote on our poll for Amazon's Phone. First thoughts?!

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Source: BGR

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drag2share: HotelTonight app now lets you preview room availability seven days ahead

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/hoteltonight/

HotelTonight's namesake feature is also holding it back: You can only book a room beginning at 9AM on the day of check-in. If you're planning to arrive during a major event, say, in Los Angeles during E3 or Rio during Carnival, landing without a confirmed room can add to the already stressful travel process. But the folks at HotelTonight have a good idea of whether or not you'll be able to find a room, and the team's now ready to share that info with you. Now, when you open up the iOS app, Look Ahead will let you preview room pricing and availability for the next seven days. The app will even give you a heads up if there's an event in town, so you can be aware of higher than normal rates, or opt to change your plans to avoid the crowds. Look Ahead is available today in Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, DC. You'll need to have an iPhone to take advantage, but expect the feature to hit Android soon.

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Source: TechCrunch, HotelChatter

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drag2share: Google's Project Ara wants to revolutionize the smartphone industry within a year

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/project-ara-modular-smartphone/

The night before Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division was supposed to show off the one and only functional Project Ara prototype to a room full of eager developers, someone dropped the phone and broke the display. At any other product reveal, this worst-case scenario would be a nightmare come true. Not to Google: The company made lemonade out of a lemon by turning it into a selling point for the modular smartphone. A year from now, painful situations like this can be easily fixed by simply buying a new display and swapping out the broken one.

Not that last night's fiasco would've made much of a difference. Attendees at this week's Project Ara developer conference wouldn't have been able to boot up the prototype and play around with it like any typical smartphone -- in this case, "functional" is not the same as "functioning" -- but at least it would've made for a better presentation. Regardless of how it looked, however, we were able to briefly handle the Project Ara prototype and some of its first modules. To be clear, this is an extremely early model and there's a long way to go before it sees the light of day, but it at least allows us to get a good glimpse of what's to come over the next year as Ara continues to prepare for launch.

Project Ara brings the modular smartphone from concept to a reality; it almost seems like it should've made a cameo in The Lego Movie. The Ara consists of a metal endoskeleton, which is essentially the spine of the phone, and slots for replaceable components known as modules, which look a lot like tiles. (If you're reminded of Windows Phone when looking at the back, you won't be the first.) These tiled modules can include anything that makes your phone tick (processor, RAM, WiFi, power jack, baseband, display and battery, for instance), as well as plenty of other features like your camera, speakers and storage space. Each module will connect to the other working parts through capacitive interconnects, which are essentially wireless pads that are smaller than standard pins. Electropermanent magnets not only hold modules in place, but they also act as a toggle switch, which allows you to easily turn that element on and off. As you might already imagine, all modules can be swapped out at your convenience. ATAP plans to feature Ara in three different sizes, ranging from a smaller six-module option to a large-screened model with more modules.

At first blush, it almost sounds like this project only appeals to the same consumers that enjoy building their own computers from scratch, but ATAP insists that it'll transform emerging markets -- more specifically, the 5 billion people on Earth who own feature phones, but cannot afford to get anything more expensive. Today, the division announced that it's planning to ship a "Grey Phone," which is simply a prepackaged device that comes with only a screen, processor and WiFi module. From there, users can easily add and take away components as they see fit. It'll be relatively cheap -- the product would cost Google $50 to make, though retail price hasn't been determined yet -- and users on a tight budget can easily add or upgrade modules whenever they can afford to do so.

Longevity is another huge factor; whereas most smartphones today can barely make it through a two-year contract, Ara is meant to last for several years. This means it'll likely be much less expensive over the long run, and fewer phones will wind up in dumpsters.

According to ATAP, a device like Ara will also bring power of choice to consumer hands. Buying a smartphone often feels like a gamble -- a matter of sacrificing some features in favor of others. With Ara, you'll finally be able to determine exactly what kind of stuff you want in your phone. In essence, it sounds like Google's hoping to "disrupt" the traditional phone makers like Samsung, HTC and LG (as well as carriers), since the average consumer wouldn't need to go through those companies to buy a phone anymore.

When it comes to what kind of modules would be available, the sky's the limit. ATAP has already begun offering a development kit to anyone who wants to put together modules of their own, so there are plenty of possible use cases. One example shown was a pulse oximeter, featured in a long module that extended beyond the rest of the phone's chassis; there was a thick camera module that could easily be swapped out with different kinds of lenses; and we even listened to developers as they floated the idea of a credit card reader similar to a Square dongle. As of this week, it's now up to these partners and devs to explore the space and figure out how to make Ara successful.

This all sounds fine and dandy, but it doesn't come without a setback or two. Despite ATAP's efforts, it's still larger, heavier and thicker than your run-of-the-mill smartphone, and there are some concerns with battery efficiency (although the ability to hot-swap batteries certainly helps). Naturally, the team understands that such matters could be a turnoff for potential buyers, so they hope to resolve these issues by the time the next prototype comes around later this year.

Project Ara is halfway through a two-year mission. The deadline is a driving motivation for the handful of full-time employees and contractors involved in the project, as the expected timeframe was brought up several times during today's conference. There isn't any time for delays, which makes this project even more exciting -- if it's going to happen, it has to be ready to go this time next year. Not only is ATAP facing a ticking clock, but it's also doing so with a pretty hefty to-do list: It has to entice developers, conduct demonstrations at convincing scales and get consumers interested in taking a chance on a brand-new type of smartphone. It's not going to be easy, but the journey will be fascinating to watch.

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drag2share: Here's the software that helps Edward Snowden avoid the NSA

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/edward-snowden-software-choice/

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden hasn't escaped the NSA's watchful eyes purely by exploiting lax security -- he also uses the right software. We now know that he communicates with the media using Tails, a customized version of Linux that makes it easy to use Tor's anonymity network and other tools that keep data private. The software loads from external drives and doesn't store anything locally, so it's relatively trivial for Snowden and his contacts to discuss leaks without leaving a trace.

The underlying technology isn't completely original, and it's not perfect; Tails' open source code and anonymous developer base help resist pressure to include spy-friendly back doors, but there are still potential security holes. Users also have to be careful with their choices of internet services while using Tails, as the wrong ones could give the whole game away. Even with those concerns in mind, the software is a big help to Snowden, journalists and others that want to keep their conversations under wraps with a minimum of effort.

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Via: Slashdot

Source: Wired, Tails

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drag2share: Sony has a 4K TV for every budget (that's at least $2,099)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/sony-2014-4k-tv-pricing/

Sony 4K TV

Sony has nailed down the final launch details for its newest 4K Bravia TVs, and surprise -- they just might be affordable this year. The "entry-level" XBR-X850B series will start at a relatively frugal $2,099 for a 49-inch model, with prices peaking at $5,499 for a 70-inch set. If you've got a bit more cash and want upgrades to both audio and wall mounting, the XBR-X900B line starts at $3,999 for a 55-inch set and scales up to $8,999 for a 79-inch variant. There's still a couple of models for the money-is-no-object crowd, of course. The improved LED lighting of the 65-inch XBR-X950B will set you back $7,999, while the display's 85-inch sibling costs an eye-watering $24,999. All of the 4K sets ship in June.

The company also hasn't forgotten about those with earlier Bravia sets. It's releasing an updated version of its 4K media player, the FMP-X10, this summer. There's no pricing just yet, but it has 1TB of storage for downloaded Video Unlimited movies and supports the same 4K Netflix movies as newer Bravia TVs. The previous model sold for $699, although Sony has bundled it with sets for free or at a discount -- whatever the new one costs, you may not have to pay full price.

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Source: Sony

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drag2share: With This Robotics Program Thriving In Public Schools, It's 'Cool To Make Mistakes Again'

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/teq-nao-robots-in-public-schools-2014-4

Joe Dixon is Chief Learning Officer of Teq, a professional development company for teachers that aims to "champion the continued evolution of the modern classroom." Lately that means getting lots of robots into the hands of schoolkids.

Specifically, Teq is bring the NAO robot, a small humanoid from Aldebaran Robotics, into the classroom for educational applications. The bot is already in widespread use as a development platform for roboticists, and Teq leads weeklong school programs geared for students of all ages in getting the robot to do interesting things.

"NAO represents the ability to bring error back into the classroom," said Dixon. "In the 1930s, educational reformer John Dewey said, 'Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.' Robots make it cool to make mistakes again."

Teq's program has students using the NAO robot's various sensors for navigation, face and voice recognition, and pre-programming specific movements. Despite having sensors and electronics that are about as sophisticated as you can get right now, Dixon says it's "amazingly simple at its base level."

Students are not writing lines and lines of intimidating computer code, but are instead building programs from a "block" language. This enables them to make the robot do useful things without the students' needing to learn super-specific computer syntax. These prewritten "blocks" can be modified and arranged so that NAO can dance, participate in a class' story time, and even help kids with autism interact with other people. But above all, learning elementary robotics teaches kids to think in terms of order and process.

"The robots provide instant feedback and the students don't get upset when something goes wrong, but they instead say, 'What happened?' This gives them the opportunity to make hundreds of mistakes in minutes," Dixon said.

Young er children are encouraged to think about what they'd like their robots to do. They often answer that it should make their bed or help their moms around the house.

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Older kids will interact with the robots more directly, feeding it prewritten blocks of code to get it to do things.

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Regardless of age, kids seem to love their robots.

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drag2share: It's palindrome week: Every day is going to read the same backwards

Source: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/its-palindrome-week-every-day-is-going-to-read-the-sam-1562965672/+caseychan

It's palindrome week: Every day is going to read the same backwards

A fun fact: If you live in the US and other countries where they put their months first on dates, every day is going to read the same backwards until Sunday. It's palindrome week!

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drag2share: A weird black ring appeared in the sky in England and then disappeared

Source: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/a-weird-black-ring-appeared-in-the-sky-in-england-and-t-1563234883/+caseychan

A weird black ring appeared in the sky in England and then disappeared

This is bizarre. A 16-year-old girl saw a giant black ring in the sky above England and captured it on video. After three minutes of floating around like a cloud, the black ring disappeared completely. So far, experts have no idea what it was.

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drag2share: Try the Super-Secure USB Drive OS That Edward Snowden Insists on Using

Source: http://gizmodo.com/try-the-super-secure-usb-drive-os-that-edward-snowden-i-1563320487

Try the Super-Secure USB Drive OS That Edward Snowden Insists on Using

We all know that Edward Snowden insists on secure email , but he's also very picky about his operating systems, too. In fact, he uses a free, super-secure version of Linux—called Tails—that fits on a USB stick and can be used on any computer without leaving a trace.

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drag2share: Amazing Arcade Simulator Spins Players Completely Upside-Down

Source: http://gizmodo.com/amazing-arcade-simulator-spins-players-completely-upsid-1563344179

Amazing Arcade Simulator Spins Players Completely Upside-Down

The arcades that dominated the 1980s and 1990s slowly died off as home video game consoles became more and more capable, but there are apparently still some good reasons to keep a pocket full of quarters handy. Namely this arcade simulator for a game called War Thunder that puts Afterburner to shame.

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drag2share: Netflix speeds soar on Comcast following controversial deal

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/14/netflix-isp-speeds-connection-deal/

The past few months have been very active for Netflix, as it's faced new challenges with getting its video streams into homes. It responded to customer complaints and dropping average speeds by making a new connection deal with Comcast, while others like AT&T and Verizon also lined up with their hands out. For Comcast users at least, the recent deal between the cable provider and Netflix does seem to be bearing fruit. Thanks to the agreement -- which allows Netflix to connect its network directly with Comcast's infrastructure to bypass the bottlenecked third parties -- average speeds for streams on the network have surged up to 65 percent, going from 1.51Mbps in January to 2.5Mbps in March.

Netflix also notes that it has also seen "early improvements" as a result of its deal with Telenor, an internet service provider in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. "We are dedicated to delivering a great streaming experience and invest in continually improving that experience," states Netflix on its blog. Even if similar deals are on the way with other ISPs, so long as net neutrality only covers traffic over the last mile, Reed Hasting likely has a few more furious Facebook messages in store.

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Source: Netflix

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drag2share: Office comes to the Chrome Web Store along with a slew of upgrades

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/14/office-online-upgrades/

Microsoft OneNote on the web

Microsoft isn't done with Office updates just because it released Office for iPad and made Office Mobile completely free -- it has a bunch of improvements in store for Office Online, too. To start with, Office has reached the Chrome Web Store. You can now launch most of the productivity suite's web apps (Excel is due soon) in the Chrome browser or Chrome OS just by clicking a shortcut. Clearly, the crew from Redmond is no longer averse to supporting your Chromebook.

Each of the apps has received at least one big upgrade at the same time. OneNote Online now offers printing support, while its Excel counterpart finally lets you add comments; PowerPoint accurately previews text, and it's far easier to put footnotes and lists into Word. If you've been holding off on an Office 365 subscription because its web component was lacking, there may be enough tweaks here to justify giving it a second look.

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Source: Office Online Blog

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drag2share: Broadcasters' backup plans for thwarting Aereo include live TV streaming

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/14/broadcaster-backup-plans-for-aereo/

Aereo New York City

The big US broadcasters are primarily leaning on legal action to shut down Aereo's antenna-based streaming TV service, but what if the startup prevails in court? Apparently, the media giants aren't too worried; they have some backup plans. The Wall Street Journal claims that CBS is considering a subscription-based video service of its own that would offer both live and on-demand shows for a few dollars per month. While it would still include ads, there might also be an option to pay for Showtime's premium programming.

The big providers may not decide to fight Aereo in the marketplace, though. Other options include lobbying Congress for anti-Aereo legislation or even pulling content from over-the-air broadcasting. This last option may be impractical -- it could limit the content that affiliates can offer, hurting both local stations as well as viewers that can't afford (or simply don't want) pay TV. The operators haven't locked down what they plan to do, but Aereo hasn't discussed a failsafe of its own. If it loses its court battle, the networks may not have to lift a finger.

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Source: Wall Street Journal

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drag2share: Google's new terms of service tell you that it's scanning email for ads

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/14/google-terms-of-service-update/

Gmail logo

Many Gmail users know that the service scans email looking for ad keywords, but some have been upset that Google hasn't spelled this out -- enough so that there are several privacy lawsuits underway. The company may have just headed off future trouble, though, by updating its terms of service to clearly state what's taking place. Read through the giant text and you'll see that the company now explicitly warns that "automated systems analyze your content" for the sake of ads, customization and security.

Google tells Reuters that the move is based on feedback from the "last few months" and should provide "even greater clarity" to customers. Both are true, although we'd note that few people read the terms of service for... well, anything. The new language may ultimately be more helpful in educating current account holders than giving concerned newcomers a heads-up.

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Via: Reuters

Source: Google

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drag2share: Toshiba's first 4K laptop arrives next week for $1,500

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/toshibas-first-4k-laptop-arrives-next-week-for-1-500/

After launching its first 4K laptop in the UK, Toshiba has just announced US availability. Stateside, it'll be called the P55T, but as before, it's a 15.6-inch laptop with 3,840 x 2,160 resolution -- a staggering 282 PPI, if you're scoring at home. Driving all those pixels is AMD's 2GB DDR5 Radeon R9 M265X discrete graphics, 4th-gen Intel core i7 CPU, 16GB DDR3L max memory and a 4K-ready HDMI port. Another hook is Technicolor certification, which ensures that each IPS display is individually calibrated for accurate colors. Along with the included copy of Adobe's Lightroom 5, that'll appeal to photographers and designers -- though the rather anemic 1TB, 5400 RPM mechanical hard drive is a letdown. It'll arrive on April 22nd at $1,500, a price that seems competitive with the few other 4K laptops. Meanwhile, Toshiba also announced some more mainstream models -- hit the break for more on those.

As with the 4K laptop, Toshiba's other new models are similar to those announced in the UK, but with slightly different model names. In brief, you'll get three performance models: the 15.6-inch Satellite S55, 17.3-inch S75 and 14-inch E45. All can be had with up to 1080p resolution, Core i5 or i7 dual-core CPUs (the S55 is also available with an AMD A10 APU), 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Touchscreens are available on the S55t and E45t models. Prices start at $650 for the 14-inch E45.

Finally there's the "everyday stuff" laptops, as Toshiba calls them. Those include the C55/C75 and L55/L75, 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch laptops for each lineup, respectively. As the focus here is on value, the screens have less resolution, with a touchscreen only available on the L55. Toshiba isn't mentioning exact specs, but did say that they'll come with either Intel or AMD CPUs, 12GB of RAM max and up to a 1TB disk drive. The C series will start at $400, while the L models will run $330 and up, with availability for all models starting on June 22nd.

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Source: Toshiba (1), (2)

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