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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

drag2share: This $14,000 vacuum-powered brewer aims to make the perfect cup of tea

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/30/bkor-craft-brewer/

Here at Engadget HQ, most of us are used to the concept of heating a kettle or catching water from the office cooler in order to make a cup of tea. For true leaf aficionados, a more elaborate setup may be required, and that's where the Bkor Craft Brewer comes in. Using Reverse Atmospheric Infusion (RAIN) technology, the unit's vacuum process extracts "the optimal flavor elements" of loose-leaf tea, though it can also be used for coffee and even infused cocktails. The machine is efficient too, cranking out a cup in less than a minute and over 60 per hour -- all while storing up to 200 presets. You know, once you fine tune those recipes and ratios. To keep things tidy at the end of each cycle, the brew chamber cleans itself so you won't have to, however Uncrate reports that the price tag will tick $14,000 when it arrives. For now, there's a quick explanation of that RAIN-powered brewing process after the break.

Filed under: Household

Via: Uncrate

Source: Bkon

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drag2share: Minecraft creator's latest game trades blocks for existential angst

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/30/minecraft-creator-trades-blocks-for-angst/

While the game's intro tells us, "There is nothing," there is a lot more to the little word game beneath the surface. Drowning in Problems is in fact Minecraft creator Markus Persson's entry in Ludum Dare. The contest is an accelerated game-development event where programmers create a game in a weekend based on a theme chosen by the community. The theme for this event, Ludum 29, was: beneath the surface. The game is set up with awards and costs: You start with nothing and by clicking Solve, you'll become not nothing. Clicking again gives you hope; hope gives way to a body; and you are born. The game continues this way, gradually growing in complexity as you give up things you've solved to advance in life, get a job, meet a lover and grow. From start to finish, it takes about 10 minutes to complete if you button smash, much longer if you take the time to follow the -- decidedly glum -- narrative. Hit up the link below to play it through, or, if you'd rather follow on to Ludum Dare to get the source code and learn more. And with that you'll have to excuse us as we take a bit of time to kill off some Creepers and Zombies to cheer ourselves up.

Filed under: Gaming, Software

Source: Drowning in Problems

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drag2share: Concept smartwatch uses the whole screen as a joystick

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/30/concept-smartwatch-joystick/

It ain't easy using a smartwatch, especially if you have gigantic fingers. So, a team from Carnegie Mellon University developed a concept smartwatch that turns the whole screen into one relatively big input mechanism. By that, we mean you can pan, twist, zoom, tilt and click the screen by physically moving the watchface -- the whole thing (sans the bracelet) is essentially a joystick. As you can see in the video after the break, the team ported a bunch of apps to show how the technology works. Since the device features several ways to interact with software, it's a lot easier to set the time, scroll down a calendar and navigate a map. And, yes, the technology makes it possible to play Doom quite effectively even on a tiny screen. Now we can only hope that someone with serious design chops comes and transforms this fledgling tech into a smartwatch that actually looks good.

Filed under: Wearables, Mobile

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Gierad Laput (1), (2)

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drag2share: 23 Amazing Landscape Photographs That Are Actually Renderings

Source: http://gizmodo.com/23-amazing-landscape-photographs-that-are-actually-rend-1568601956

23 Amazing Landscape Photographs That Are Actually Renderings

It can be difficult to know what's real and what's fake when it comes to digital art these days. But don't torture yourself worrying about it now: Here are 23 of the most amazing photorealistic 3D renderings of landscapes on the web. Each one is completely synthetic; every single detail generated by madly talented 3D artists. Enjoy.

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drag2share: Coke's Arcade Machine Accepts Plastic Bottles Instead of Quarters

Source: http://gizmodo.com/cokes-arcade-machine-accepts-plastic-bottles-intsead-of-1569774192

Coke's Arcade Machine Accepts Plastic Bottles Instead of Quarters

Sometimes all that's needed to encourage people to recycle is a little incentive. That's why pop cans and beer bottles have deposits, and why Coca-Cola built an arcade machine that runs on empty plastic soda bottles instead of quarters.

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drag2share: An Illinois High School Is 3D Printing A New Hand For A Girl Born Without Fingers â And It Will Only Cost $5

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/kylie-wicker-boylan-high-school-3d-printed-hand-2014-4

Nine-year-old Kylie Wicker of Rockford, Illinois was born without fingers on her left hand, but enterprising students taking the Engineering Graphics class at Boylan Catholic are using a 3D printer to manufacture a prosthetic hand for her, reports MyFoxPhilly.

Kylie's father, Jeromy Wicker, knew that the school had a 3D printer — a Makerbot Replicator, specifically — and reached out to the school upon learning that 3D printing technology could be used to make prosthetics useful to people like his daughter.

These prosthetics can cost as much as $50,000, a grievous figure compared to the projections of Bud May, teacher of the Engineering Graphics class: "The total cost of this will be barely $5. Maybe a dollar's worth of plastic and a couple of bucks for the fasteners."

Here are a couple of pictures of what the hand looks like:

Screen Shot 2014 04 30 at 9.41.36 AM

Screen Shot 2014 04 30 at 9.41.57 AM 1

When it's ready for her on Friday, Kylie's new hand will enable her to do a number of things that were previously impossible or difficult.

"I can finally ride my bike," she told FOX.

For some reason, the B-roll of this news story is embeddable. Check it out below for a few comments from Kylie, her parents, and the teacher leading the class designing her arm.

Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

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drag2share: Ads Are Coming To Tinder This Year

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-ads-2014-4

The mobile dating app Tinder will likely see advertising sometime this year.

Re/Code reports that IAC, which owns a majority stake in the startup, said during an earnings call today that it would begin testing monetization methods soon.

Greg Blatt, chairman of IAC's Match dating division, said the app provides "real opportunities for native advertising."

Already, these capabilities have been tested by Fox and the USA Network, which set up fake profiles for characters from "The Mindy Project" and "Suits," respectively. No money changed hands for either of the brand integrations.

Mindy Kaling on tinder

The app has also considered selling subscriptions, as well as a "freemium" model that would give away basic services for free but require users to pay for additional features, such as the ability to go back and undo a swipe for a given user.

SEE ALSO: This Is How Tinder Plans To Make Money

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Article: Massive Firefox update hits refresh on browsing

Mozilla on Tuesday released the first major interface refresh for Firefox since relaunching the browser in 2011, making more than 1,300 changes to the browser in an effort to win users away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Google's Chrome, and Apple's Safari browsers. The massive overhaul come...

http://www.cnet.com/news/massive-firefox-update-hits-refresh-on-browsing/

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Article: Consumer Physics’ $150 smartphone spectrometer can tell the number of calories in your food

Would you like to be able to look up the calorie content of the specific apple you're eating? You could take it to a lab and run it through a spectrometer, but accurate spectrometers are huge, expensive machines that are often only owned by institutions and require training to use. A new startup,...

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/29/consumer-physics-150-smartphone-spectrometer-can-tell-the-number-of-calories-in-your-food/

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Article: Lix, A More Precise 3D-Printing Pen, Passes Its Kickstarter Goal In 2-Hours

The 3Doodler 3D-printing pen, as my TC colleague John Biggs recently pointed out, is a fun toy but a silly tool. It's big and its output is frustratingly wonky. But then it was created by a pair of veteran toy makers so focusing on the fun was clearly the primary intention. Now a U.K. startup is ...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/30/lix-a-more-precise-3d-printing-pen-passes-its-kickstarter-goal-in-2-hours/?ncid=rss

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drag2share: You can now use Chromecast to share your Google Drive Presentation

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/29/google-chromecast-drive-presentations/

Google's inexpensive dongle can do a lot of things. Whether it be streaming music or a variety of video programming, the Chromecast is capable of handling it all -- and don't forget live TV is coming soon, too. But while having these entertainment options is nice, sometimes you have to be, you know, productive. Thankfully, it looks like you can start using the $35 dongle to send some of your work to a separate screen near you.

As spotted by Android Police, Google has quietly added an option within Drive that lets you push your Presentation to Chromecast. We looked into it ourselves and can confirm that said feature is indeed there, via the "Present on another device" menu. Technically, you could already do something similar by simply casting the entire browser, but this gives you an alternative that's actually optimized for Presentations. And don't be surprised by the fact there hasn't been a formal announcement, since Google's been known to do things unexpectedly from time to time. Either way, you can give it a try now -- just be sure to have the Cast extension installed, as you'll need that in order for this to work.

Filed under: Internet, Google

Source: Android Police

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drag2share: Google Glass won't steal your phone calls anymore

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/29/google-glass-update-/

Google Glass with an earbud

Google isn't done upgrading Glass this month just because the KitKat update is out the door. It's rolling out another release this week that should be huge for frequent callers and photographers. You'll no longer miss a phone call just because Glass took control of the audio; the eyewear is now smart enough to route sound to your handset when you're using it to hold a conversation. It'll also be possible to back up photos and videos when away from WiFi, and you can clear those shots from your timeline with one swipe when you're done. There should be more voice commands to accommodate third-party apps, as well. It's not clear exactly when the update hits, but it should give the surge of new Glass owners one more thing to look forward to.

Filed under: Wearables, Google

Via: Jenny Murphy (Google+)

Source: Google Glass (Google+), Google Developers

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drag2share: GoPro's Android app now connects to your action cam automatically

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/29/gopro-android-app-update/

GoPro's smartphone apps have been a useful addition to its popular action cams for quite some time, and now the Android version sees a nice update. First, and most importantly, the app now automatically connects to your camera's WiFi signal on launch, nixing a visit to the settings menu as your first stop. Sharing is easier as well, as those captured stills and videos can now be beamed to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and other social repositories directly from your mobile device. There's also an updated UI for those wielding version 4.0 or later of Google's mobile OS and the ability to have the app set the curated Photo of the Day as your wallpaper. Haven't been alerted to version 2.4 yet? Well, jump down to the source link to nab the download now.

Filed under: Cameras, Software

Via: Android Police

Source: GoPro (Google Play)

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drag2share: Judges have more discretion to punish patent trolls, but they probably won't

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/29/judges-now-have-more-discretion-to-punish-patent-trolls-but-th/

the supreme court building in...

The US Supreme Court just gave judges a little more leverage to punish patent trolls: it defined the word "exceptional." A provision of federal patent law hinged on the definition of the word, stating that the court could charge a lawsuit's losing party with the winner's attorney fees in "exceptional cases." It sounds straightforward: if a lawsuit is obviously frivolous, the patent troll pays its victim's costs. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court said, precedent from a previous case left the rule with "an inflexible framework onto statutory text that is inherently flexible." In other words, it was too difficult to define exactly how exceptional a case was, making it nearly impossible to implement punitive fee-shifting.

To resolve the issue, the Supreme Court went back to the dictionary, declaring that the Patent Act provision's use of "exceptional" should be interpreted by Webster's definition: uncommon, rare or not ordinary. "An exceptional case," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, "is simply one that stands out from the others." This simplified definition will allow district judges to implement the kind of loser-pays fee-shifting found in patent reform bills like the Innovation Act. That said, most judges tend to rule on the conservative side: unless a troll's foul-play is abundantly clear, there is a good chance they'll still go unpunished.

[Image credit: Shutterstock / trekandshoot]

Filed under: Misc

Via: SCOTUS Blog, Verge

Source: Supreme Court (1), (2)

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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

drag2share: Acerâs new Chromebook first to use an Intel Core i3 chip

Source: http://gigaom.com/2014/04/29/acers-new-chromebook-first-to-use-an-intel-core-i3-chip/

Acer announced a new Chromebook in its C720 line on Tuesday at a New York City press event and unlike its other models, this one gets a chip boost. Instead of the fairly common Intel Celeron processor found in other Chromebooks from Acer, Dell and HP, Acer is putting an Intel Core i3 processor inside the laptop. Slashgear notes that the new 11.6-inch Chromebook is due out this summer with larger models possibly following. Using the Core i3 should improve performance while not severely impacting battery life.

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