Thursday, February 12, 2015

Article: RoboCore Is A Core For Your Robo

Krakow-based RoboCore has just launched on Kickstarter and is looking for a mere $50,000 to help you build better robots. The device is essentially a brain for your robotic projects. It is compatible with LEGO MindStorms and allows you to control multiple servos and sensors. You can also stream a...

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/robocore-is-a-core-for-your-robo/

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Article: How sleeping 6 times a day helped the founder of WordPress build a billion-dollar company

Matt Mullenweg's WordPress content management platform is one of the most influential pieces of software on the Internet, running more than 19 percent of websites (including VentureBeat). But before Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, was on the path to being a billion-dollar company, Mu...

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/11/how-sleeping-6-times-a-day-helped-the-founder-of-wordpress-build-a-billion-dollar-company/

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Article: King of Thieves, the addictive new game from the makers of Cut the Rope

I'm not what you would consider a "gamer." I dabble in mobile titles like Monument Valley and occasionally play Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart with friends, but few games manage to grab my attention for very long. Yet there's a new iPhone game I haven't been able to put down for the past two wee...

http://www.cultofmac.com/311929/king-thieves-addictive-new-game-makers-cut-rope/

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Article: Ikea-style game inspired by flat-pack furniture

To build your dream home, you have to live through the nightmare of constructing flat-pack furniture. That is the sad truth now acknowledged by many. But for one group of American students, this was also the realisation that led to a video game that has generated a lot of buzz. Home Improvisation...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31133955

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drag2share: Police are using software to predict where crime will happen

source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/11/predictive-policing/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Minority Report's Precogs

Police are unlikely to ever have a Minority Report-like ability to get inside would-be criminals' heads, but they may already have the next-best thing. Developers like PredPol are offering "predictive policing" software that tells cops where and when crimes are likely to happen based on the location, the nature of the crime and the time of day. The software knows that there's a good chance that a burglary or gang slaying will lead to similar activity in a given area, or that you'll see drunken fights outside of a dive bar in the early morning. Theoretically, police just have to patrol these areas more often to stop crime before it starts.

There are some signs that the strategy may be working; as Forbes notes, early results in cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz saw both reduced crime rates and better prediction compared to conventional analysts. However, the jury's still out. Without more extensive studies, it's hard to know whether the drops are directly related to predictive software or can be chalked up to other factors, such as crooks moving to other areas. Also, the tools could tempt police departments into leaning too much on code instead of understanding neighborhoods and tackling deep-seated problems. If the software is both proven effective and used wisely, though, it could cut back on unnecessary tragedies and familiarize rookie cops with known trouble spots.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Samsung expands the search for its next hit product with 'innovation team'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/10/samsung-expands-its-search-for-the-next-big-thing/

Virtual reality, drones, 3D printing, robotic telepresence and self-driving cars. A nice selection for tech buzzword bingo, but also just some of the things that Samsung's new product innovation team is already tackling in a bid to come up with the next (big-selling) thing -- its next Galaxy. "Samsung's previous success was mostly due to releasing products that are competitive in pricing. This is an old business formula...": said one official, unsurprisingly not named in the Korea Times report. And while, barring an initial foray into VR, these could all be very new business avenues for Samsung.

It all sounds a little bit Google, in the good kind of way, and at least a more interesting approach than wave after wave of iterative smartphones, tablets... and wearables. The company is looking to make up for the severe dip in smartphone sales it's experienced recently -- another successful product line could pick up that slack, especially if it ties into its profitable component business. While this new innovation team will apparently have no direct links from the corporate beast that is Samsung Electronics, however it'll still be headed up by the company's head of mobile, JK Shin, so read into that what you will.

"The main purpose of the team isn't to develop single devices for any imminent results, but to develop solutions to go with Samsung's manufacturing capabilities," said another Samsung spokesperson, adding that the team would pull technicians, strategists and product managers in from the company.

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Source: Korea Times

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IBM's Watson taking crash course in Japanese for SoftBank

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/10/ibm-watson-softbank/

IBM's publicity-loving supercomputer Watson has a new job in Japan for wireless carrier SoftBank doing... something? It's job description there is vague so far, but first it'll need to learn Japanese, no small feat for a machine which has remained mostly occidental so far. Watson is first and foremost a cognitive computer who's job is to parse language and find relationships between huge amounts of data. That means in order to help SoftBank -- which has divisions around the world, including Sprint Nextel in the US -- it'll need to get a better grasp of the language and culture in Japan.

IBM and Softbank will jointly build the Japanese language version of Watson, and SoftBank will resell and distribute the tech in Japan. As for what exactly it plans to do with Watson, the carrier said it will start by tapping local developers to build new features aimed at its home market. For its own purposes, it'll exploit IBM's knack for natural language learning to help consumers and use its predictive talents to make better business decisions.

More concretely, SoftBank could put Watson to use in next-gen robots that would work as teaching assistants or hospital aids, two areas where the supercomputer already has some experience. SoftBank also said Watson would operate in its local data centers. In the US, Watson has won Jeopardy, imitated Dr. House and been a financier. Despite those feats, however, it's been a commercial failure so far, forcing IBM to bolster it recently with a $100 million round of funding.

[Image Credit: Getty Images]

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Via: Re/Code

Source: IBM (translated)

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drag2share: Sigma makes a super wide-angle version of its super wide camera

source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/10/sigma-dp0-quattro/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Sigma dp0 Quattro

Don't think Sigma's extremely wide dp Quattro cameras are outrageous enough? Don't worry, the company has you covered. The new dp0 Quattro mates a new version of Sigma's high-detail Foveon X3 sensor (billed here as equal to a 39-megapixel conventional sensor) with a fixed 14mm f/4 ultra wide-angle lens. Yes, you read that correctly -- buy a dp0 and your only choice is to capture all-encompassing shots. While the glass corrects for the chromatic aberrations and distortions you sometimes see in wide-angle imagery, you'll need a penchant for shooting landscapes or real estate ads if this is going to make much sense. Sigma isn't talking about prices or ship dates for the dp0 just yet, but the $999 price of both the dp1 and dp2 suggests that you'll be paying a hefty sum to own a compact cam with freaky optics.

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drag2share: New video spec clears the way for 8K laptop screens

source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/10/embedded-displayport-8k-spec/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

ASUS Zenbook NX500 with a 4K display

Think your 4K laptop or 5K iMac is hot stuff? If specification developers have their way, both will soon be old hat. The Video Electronics Standards Association has unveiled Embedded DisplayPort 1.4a, a new format that lets all-in-ones and laptops use 8K screens (7,680 x 4,320, if you want to be exact). The technology uses compression to squeeze more data into the video feed, and it can divide displays into two or four segments to help the pipeline cope with all those extra pixels.

There should be advantages to 1.4a even if you don't crave razor-sharp visuals. Since PC makers won't need as many data paths to drive lower resolutions, they can use thinner and more efficient displays. A laptop that "only" supports 4K could have longer battery life, for instance. The best part is that this is more than a theoretical exercise -- VESA expects systems to ship with the new DisplayPort by 2016. You might not see an 8K computer all that quickly given that this capability hasn't even reached shipping TVs, but the groundwork will at least be in place.

Embedded DisplayPort 1.4a

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Monday, February 09, 2015

​DARPA Hacks GM's OnStar To Remote Control A Chevrolet Impala

Source: http://jalopnik.com/darpa-hacks-gms-onstar-to-remote-control-a-chevrolet-i-1684593523

​DARPA Hacks GM's OnStar To Remote Control A Chevrolet Impala

In a broad-reaching report by 60 Minutes about DARPA and the Internet of Things, the Department of Defense has shown that it can hack General Motors' OnStar system to remote control a last-gen Chevrolet Impala.

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Deep Web Search Engine Memex Fights Crime a Bit Like Minority Report

Source: http://gizmodo.com/deep-web-search-engine-memex-fights-crime-a-bit-like-mi-1684674056

Deep Web Search Engine Memex Fights Crime a Bit Like Minority Report

Exactly one year ago, DARPA announced a characteristically scifi-inspired mission: to create a search engine that could find things on the deep web that Google's crawlers would miss. The so-called Memex project is now well underway, and for the first time we're getting a look at the crime-fighting search engine in action.

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LG builds its own mobile VR headset for the G3

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/09/lg-google-cardboard-vr-headset-g3/

Korea's two largest companies are Samsung and LG, and while Samsung has been making a big splash in the VR world, LG has remained conspicuously silent. That's because the company has been working with Google to build a headset for the LG G3 that'll do a similar job to the Gear VR. The charmingly-named VR for G3 is a plastic headset that'll let you slide the phone into the hardware, with special holes cut for the smartphone's rear volume keys.

Rather than building its own virtual reality platform, however, LG has cribbed the design from Google's paper-craft VR headset, Google Cardboard. Like the original, the plastic hardware comes with a neodymium ring magnet on the side that'll pair with the G3's internal gyroscope, enabling you to control your phone without having to touch the display. Of course, by leveraging Google's VR platform, LG can piggyback off the search engine's software background rather than starting yet another rival in the nascent space.


Unfortunately there's no word on how much it'll cost or where you'll be able to snag one. For now, the company is saying that it'll launch in "selected markets" and that a headset will be thrown in for free when you purchase a G3. Naturally, we've pinged the company to find out more, and will let you know what we learn.

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Google to speed up Chrome with the next version of HTTP

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/09/google-spdy-http2/

Google Inc. To Announce Earns

Google is giving up on its homegrown SPDY protocol, which aimed to deliver a faster web browsing experience in Chrome than tried and true HTTP. Instead, it's adopting HTTP/2 -- an upgraded version of the protocol that's close to being standardized -- in Chrome 40 in the next few weeks. All of that working developing SPDY wasn't for nothing, though. Google says HTTP/2 includes several features that evolved from its protocol, including multiplexing and header compression, both of which allows you to efficiently make multiple page requests at once. Don't expect your web browsing to speed up immediately with HTTP/2 -- it'll take some time for Google, other browser makers, and developers to fully take advantage of its many improvements -- but it lays the groundwork for a faster and safer web over the next few years. As for SPDY, Google says it'll dump support for that entirely in early 2016.

[Photo credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

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Source: Google Chromium Blog

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This awesome trick lets you use Google Maps even when you're offline (GOOG)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-google-maps-offline-without-wifi-2015-2

Google Maps

Since Google launched Maps ten years ago this week, the service has become completely increasingly ingrained in our lives.

One lesser-known Maps features is that you can download a part of a map to check out even when you don't have mobile data or wi-fi. It's especially handy for travelers, who often don't have cell service. 

Here's how you use make it work:

First and foremost, download the Maps app. Then, either search for a location, like "New York City," or zoom into a specific area that you want to save for viewing offline, and click the location box at the bottom of the screen:

Maps4

In the top right corner, you'll see three vertical dots. Click them, and you'll see a "Save offline app" option:

Map5

Google will ask you what you want to call the new offline map:

Map6

Then, you can find all your saved maps by swiping right any time on the app and tapping "Your places":Maps

Viola! You'll see your saved maps, and be able to find your way around even without cell service or wi-fi (you'll still be able to see your location as a blue dot):Maps2

 

SEE ALSO: 9 tricks that will help you get way more out of your Kindle

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Sunday, February 08, 2015

drag2share: Google buys an app that helps you privately share photos

source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/08/google-buys-odysee/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Google Photos on Android

Remember those murmurs that Google would detach its photo service from its social networking? It just took steps that could make this split a practical reality. The search firm has snapped up the creators of Odysee, a mobile app that can automatically share photos in private as well as send your phone snapshots to your PC at home. The team (Nimbuz) isn't specific about its future plans beyond promises of more "amazing products," but it's joining the Google+ group. That's an unusual move for a developer that specializes in keeping pictures out of the public eye, but it'd make sense if Google wants a photo platform that can stand on its own two feet. Whatever Google's intentions, it's acting quickly. Odysee has already vanished from app stores, and the service shuts down on February 23rd.

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