Source: http://lego.gizmodo.com/legos-getting-three-more-female-scientist-minifigs-1586081172/+ericlimer
Human girls can be scientist of all stripes, and they should have toys that encourage them to do so. That's why it's awesome that Lego ideas just greenlit three new female Lego scientist minifigs—an astronomer, a paleontologist, and a chemist—for an August 2014 release. Yay!
Source: http://gizmodo.com/bluetooth-controlled-led-bulbs-that-create-their-own-wi-1585962628
Coincidentally timed with Apple's WWDC HomeKit announcement, Samsung has revealed a new line of smart LED lightbulbs that communicate with your phone, and each other, using a mesh Bluetooth network they automatically create.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/monoprices-just-gave-the-3d-printer-a-crazy-price-cut-1586188765
With many machines well over the $2,000 mark, 3D printers are still mostly sequestered to use by professionals. Monoprice, the cut-rate technology powerhouse, is slicing more than a few hundreds off the price point with a 3D printer that costs $1,200.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/amazons-3d-smartphone-everything-we-think-we-know-1586225798
On June 18th, Amazon will announce
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-event-2014-6
Amazon is holding a product announcement on June 18.
It's probably for the long-rumored Amazon smartphone. Amazon posted a video to YouTube that teases the device. The video shows a bunch of people moving their heads around and getting super excited.
That's likely because Amazon's smartphone is said to have several front-facing cameras that can track your head's movement and display images on the screen in such a way that they appear to pop out in 3D.
The phone will likely run a heavily modified version of Android, just like Amazon's line of Kindle Fire tablets. That means you'll have to get all your apps and services from Amazon's own app store.
According to BGR, the Amazon phone may take advantage of AT&T's sponsored data plan, meaning streaming content from Amazon's video or music products won't count against your monthly data allotment.
Amazon has made a big push in hardware recently. In addition to its Kindle Fire line of tablets, it now has Fire TV, a set-top box that lets you stream video from Amazon and other popular services like Netflix. Fire TV doubles as a gaming system for some Android games if you buy an extra controller.
The event will be held in Seattle and appears to be open to the public. If you want to go, you can sign up here.
And that page shows what appears to be the edge of a smartphone:
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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-popular-apps-in-the-us-2014-6
With over 1.2 million apps in the Apple App Store and more than 1 million in Android's Google Play Store, apps are more popular than ever — but which ones are people using the most?
Internet-analytics company comScore just released the 15 most popular apps used in April in the U.S., for iOS and Android, and there are few surprises.
You can see the full list of rankings below.
Facebook is in the lead, reaching 74.1% of smartphone users, meaning 74.1% of people with smartphones used the app in April. Twitter clocked in with 20.4%, suggesting that only one in five smartphone users Tweet while nearly three of every four smartphone users surf Facebook.
YouTube leapfrogged Google Search for third place, coming in at nearly 50%.
Google Play and Apple Maps are, unsurprisingly, included in the rankings. Both are preinstalled on many Android devices and Apple phones. Smartphone users still prefer Google Maps to Apple Maps, however, though Android and Apple consumer can still choose between the two — both are available for both platforms.
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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-glass-wearers-from-recording-you-2014-6
Now that Google is selling Google Glass to anyone who wants to shell out $1,500 to buy one, there could be an increase in backlash from people creeped out by the device.
So privacy advocate Julian Oliver, member of a group called "Stop The Cyborgs," came up with a clever new way to stop Glass from doing things like secretly recording video without permission.
He's published a simple computer program that can detect when Glass is being used and stop it from connecting to a network. That in turn means that Glass can't access cloud servers and apps.
Oliver tells Wired's Andy Greenberg:
"To say ‘I don’t want to be filmed’ at a restaurant, at a party, or playing with your kids is perfectly OK. But how do you do that when you don’t even know if a device is recording? ... This steps up the game. It’s taking a jammer-like approach."
The program isn't a commercially available product, so using it would require a bit of tech skill. It would need to be installed on something like inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer that has been hooked up with a USB network antenna. Once installed, the program searches for the unique network address that Google Glass uses and, when detected, refuses to allow Glass to connect.
While anyone can post signs declaring a Glass-free zone, this uses technology to enforce the policy.
Oliver tells Wired that he's working on an even more aggressive version, one that can move around with you, disconnecting Glass from any network. The legality of that is questionable, Oliver admits, and he plans to warn people to use it only "in extreme circumstances.”
SEE ALSO: The 20 Most Valuable Enterprise Tech Companies In The World
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Source: http://gizmodo.com/intel-wants-to-make-your-office-entirely-cable-free-by-1585879520
A rat's nest of cables at the back of a desk is truly the sign of the gadget-obsessed. But Intel plans to end all that, and soon: it wants your desk—hell, your entire digital life—to be completely wireless by 2016.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/cree-turns-on-its-new-three-step-led-bulb-1585550336
The last luminary holdout in your house, that lamp with the three-step socket, can finally join the 21st century. Cree just announced a new 3-Way LED bulb to provide just the right amount of light, no matter the occasion.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/duckduckgo-is-going-to-be-one-of-the-default-search-eng-1585622421
DuckDuckGo is going to be one of the default search engines available in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, according to iPhonehacks.com. The operating systems are still in beta, so things could change, but it's an exciting prospect for people who prefer the privacy-focused search engine
Source: http://gizmodo.com/amds-new-fx-chips-have-integrated-graphics-great-for-ga-1585782621
It's Computex time, and that means new guts. While Intel's trotting out Broadwell for a spin
Source: http://gizmodo.com/cadmium-arsenide-a-3d-alternative-to-graphene-thats-wa-1585844161
There's no denying that graphene is a wonderful material
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/apps-apple-killed-with-ios-8-2014-6
Apple's newly announced operating system for iPhones and iPads, iOS 8, remedies a lot of things people have been complaining their iPhone can't do.
The problem is, a lot of successful apps out there have gained notoriety because of just that: they saw a hole that needed to be filled and people responded.
Apple has not-so-subtly incorporated many of these features into iOS 8, taking aim at these innovative apps and cherry-picking their most innovative features.
Here are the apps rendered obsolete by iOS 8.
Messaging apps such as Snapchat and WhatsApp: Apple's updated iMessage now allows users to send bite-sized multimedia messages and the option to display their location, longtime features of WhatsApp and Snapchat. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum tweeted that it was "very flattering to see Apple 'borrow' numerous WhatsApp features into iMessage."
Dropbox and Google Drive: iCloud Drive means all your work is stored in the cloud and pushed instantly to any of your Apple or Mac devices, no app needed. Just like Dropbox, iCloud Drive users can monitor which documents or photos are being synced, and can even edit them online using Apple's iCloud productivity suite. iCloud Drive is free for 5GB of storage, with additional storage available starting at 20GB for $0.99 per month.
Skype: There are many applications which allow users to make phone calls over WiFi, but Skype is one of the most popular out there. The only downside is that you have to pay. Apple has revealed iOS 8 will allow you to make phone calls over WiFi to any device, which will be great if you have poor cell reception in ! your hom e or office.
Skitch: Ever need to point out a specific detail with an arrow or circle? Skitch has been the go-to app for annotating images, but Apple has added the same functionality to its Mail app, getting rid of the need to switch between an editing app and your inbox. Terrible at making arrows or incapable of drawing a non-sloppy circle? Apple has included a feature to recognize the basic shape attempted and seamlessly replace it with a more geometrically correct version.
1Password: People have been itching for Apple to allow third-party apps to utilize their state-of-the-art fingerprint sensor, Touch ID, which acts as a unique and secure password to gain access to your iPhone. Until now, if you wanted to manage all your passwords, a manager like 1Password or LastPass were your best bets. Now, you won't even need to remember your passwords. All you'll need is your fingerprint.
SEE ALSO: The most important features in iOS 8 that Apple didn't tell you about yet
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source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/lKFJcs2aMFM/encrypted-gmail-data-2014-6
Google announced today that it has added a "Safer Email" section to its Transparency report. This section will help keep track of the percentage of incoming and outgoing email that's encrypted — or not encrypted.
Encryption is a common process of encoding messages so that they can't be read by anyone but you, or whomever you decide to share it with.
In the past 30 days, for example, 65% of all outgoing messages were encrypted; 50% of incoming messages from other services to Gmail were encrypted.
The key to email encryption is that both sides of the email exchange need to support it. Just because Google does, doesn't mean your email is automatically safe.
"Many providers have turned on encryption, and others have said they're going to, which is great news," wrote Gmail Delivery Team tech lead Brandon Long in a blog post announcing the update to the report.
The report also shows the top domains that are sending and receiving email to and from Gmail, and their respective encryption rate! s. If yo u're a Yahoo email user, rest assured that fewer than 1 in 100 emails a Yahoo account sends to Gmail is unencrypted. The same can't be said for Comcast.net, unfortunately.
This news coincides with Google's effort to make encryption easier for people to implement. The company just released the code for a new tool that encrypts your emails until your intended recipient decrypts the message in his or her browser. The new Chrome extension, called End-To-End, is currently in testing. By releasing the code, developers can offer Google feedback.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/03/smartphone-3d-holograms-2015/
Just imagine: a smartphone that projects 3D holograms into thin-air. If you can wait until the end of next year, and if you can believe the claims being made by a well-funded company called Ostendo, then your next handset could be capable of just that. Thanks to breakthroughs by the Californian display startup, 5,000ppi projectors the size of Tic Tacs are now powerful enough to control the color, brightness and angle of individual beams of light across one million pixels. Just one chip is said to deliver a usable image, but adding additional chips provides scope for even more complex and detailed images. The Wall Street Journal was treated to a demo involving six chips which beamed green dice spinning in the air and noted how "consistent" the motion appeared, irrespective of where it was viewed from.
Development of the technology is still in the early stages, meaning the first chip will be limited to only 2D video when it begins shipping in summer 2015, capable of being projected onto nearby surfaces at sizes of up to 48 inches. However, Ostendo founder Hussein S. El-Ghoroury says that its second chip, which is capable of creating 3D images that float in the air and appear almost like a solid object, will enter manufacturing just months after the first. If you've dreamed of seeing your friends projected in Star Wars-like holographics while you chat, Ostendo hopes it can make such a thing a reality. It's already got some major handset manufacturers on board, but the next step will see the company make the pixels smaller to boost the resolution of its holograms. After that, it'll try and embed its chips in anything with a 3D display, including TVs, smartwatches and even holographic tables.
[Image credit: Sam Hodgson, Wall Street Journal]
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Wall Street Journal
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