Panasonic FZ1000: A Large-Sensor Super Zoom That Shoots 4K Video
Since Sony released the RX10
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Facebook Is Now Using Your Browsing History to Target Advertising
Source: http://gizmodo.com/facebook-is-now-sharing-your-browsing-history-with-adve-1589809318
Facebook has announced that it's to start using app and website data from your browsing habits to provide more targeted ads—and you'll have to opt out if you don't like it.
These Five Amazing Houses Just Won Awards For Being Small and Cheap
Source: http://gizmodo.com/these-five-amazing-houses-just-won-awards-for-being-tin-1589731329
Last month, we looked Chicago's tiniest buildings of the year
World Cup Refs Are Wearing Smartwatches That Alert Them To Goals
Source: http://gizmodo.com/world-cup-refs-are-wearing-smartwatches-that-alert-them-1589886222
At today's opening match between Brazil and Croatia, the referees will be wearing smartwatches that read "GOAL" and vibrate when a team scores. No, it's not punishment for the infamous Frank Lampard disallowed goal of 2010. It's part of a new "unhackable" goal line detection system, the first to ever be used in the World Cup.
Powerbeats2 are Beats by Dre's first wireless earbuds
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/12/powerbeats2-beats-by-dre/
There may have been some big changes at Beats recently, but it's still all about the headphones. The newest addition to the (ever growing) family is the Powerbeats². As the name suggests, they are a revision of the original sport-friendly buds from Beats, but this time they're wireless -- Beats' first in-ears to cut the cord. The Powerbeats² keep the (albeit modified) hook-over-the-ear design, but liberate heads from handsets via Bluetooth 4.0. Beats says you'll get six hours of playback from a full charge, but should they be low on juice when you fish them out of your kit bag, the company claims a 15 minute pre-gym charge will see you good for a one-hour workout. If keeping up with LeBron (who "inspired" the Powerbeats²) makes you work up a bit of a sweat, then their IPX4 water resistance should keep them in good condition.
The Powerbeats² come with one vital feature that anyone who's used Bluetooth headphones for any amount of time will know is essential. They have an LED that tells you when power is low. There's nothing more disheartening than having the music fade on you barely minutes in to your workout. In fact, the Powerbeats² tells you when it thinks there's less than an hour of playtime to go, and ramps this warning up when battery life could be below 15 minutes.
We had a pair of the Powerbeats² land in the Engadget office this morning, so had a real quick chance to check them out. An accusation often levelled at Beats headphones is that they are too heavy on the bass. The first thing I noticed about the Powerbeats² is actually how prominent they are on the mid-highs, perhaps a little too prominent -- if you have the volume jacked right up like I did. Set at a more reasonable level though, while listening to electronic music, I noticed synth stabs and vocals in particular seemed to cut through a lot more than the low end frequencies, and this is music with a lot of low end. This was a trend we found with the new Solo² on-ears, too. So one thing's for sure, Beats is clearly working to move on from the bass-is-best approach of earlier models.
If you've never used earbuds with fastening hooks before, you might be concerned that you don't get the fit that you may be used to with regular in-ears. It's a legitimate worry that the hooks might prevent the buds from sitting tight in your ear, and thus not giving the full "lock" that they need to provide the best audio experience. The Powerbeats² thankfully has adjustable, bendable sections within the part that goes over your ear. This means you can set them up just right for your particular lug-holes, and get the sound piped in without that dreaded "loose" feeling.
Despite being "wireless," there is a cable running between the two buds. This sits comfortably on the back of the neck and even has a widget to let you adjust the amount of slack. It also keep the Powerbeats² from ever parting company with each other of course. The lack of long cable does mean that the remote/control buttons sit quite high up by your left ear, but that's something you will probably get used to with regular use. It's certainly a small trade-off if you're not a fan of wingtips like Beats' Tour model, or Jaybird's BlueBuds. You might also be wondering if there's support for aptX, we were told there isn't, which is a real shame given the asking price (below).
The Powerbeats² launch in Beats' signature colors -- red, white and black -- but cost $199, (whichever hue you go for) when they launch later this month.
Filed under: Wearables, Wireless, Apple
Article: BitTorrent experiments with decentralized private chat service
Are you longing to chat in private — not just "off the record," but off the grid? BitTorrent today released an internal alpha of its server-less chat app, making your dreams for truly private chats a near reality. BitTorrent realized the word "privacy" means different things to different people a...
http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/11/bittorrent-experiments-with-decentralized-private-chat-service/
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Chrome tool lets you see what web apps are really doing
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/11/chrome-tool-shows-what-apps-are-doing/
Ever get the nagging feeling that a Chrome web app or add-on isn't entirely above board? You now have an easy way to prove it. Google has posted a new version of a Chrome developer tool that lets you see just what your apps and extensions are up to. While it's meant for programmers, it should be helpful if you're simply concerned about privacy or security; if a weather app is inexplicably changing pages or sifting through your history, that may be your cue to uninstall it. The tool isn't all that vital now that Google is starting to cut off extensions that don't come from the Chrome Web Store, but one additional safety net won't hurt.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Google
Source: Chromium Blog
Sigma's unique dp2 Quattro camera can be yours in August for $999
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/12/sigma-dp2-quattro/
The dp2 Quattro is a strange looking camera. Its extra-wide design is quite unusual, but if Sigma's CEO is to believed, the 29-megapixel shooter will deliver superior image quality thanks to its unique sensor design. The Quattro layers pixels in order to capture red, green and blue colors vertically -- there's no need for interpolation, resulting in shaper, more vibrant photos. The company claims that the dp2 can output an equivalent of 39 megapixels, based on tests that pit the chip against traditional sensors. The dp2 is expected to ship in early August for $999, including a fixed 30mm (45mm equivalent) f/2.8 lens. Pricing info for the dp1 and dp3, which come with permanently attached 19mm and 50mm lenses, respectively, is not yet available.
Filed under: Cameras
Amazon launches free streaming music service for Prime members
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/12/amazon-launches-free-streaming-music-service-for-prime-members/
It looks like the rumors were true: Amazon has just launched Amazon Prime Music with a million-plus songs and unlimited streaming with no ads or restrictions. As we noted earlier, the service is free to Prime members (only in the US for now) who've paid $79 to $119 for a subscription, and Amazon clearly hopes that it'll be yet another carrot to lure new subscribers. You'll also be able to download music to listen offline, which will be available on Kindle Fire, iOS, Android and Mac/PC devices anywhere, thanks to Amazon's Cloud Player -- now known as Amazon Music. The site has already been stocked with hundreds of "expertly programmed" playlists like "Powerful Women of Pop" and we were able to successfully sign up and start listening ourselves. Note that while a million songs sounds like a lot, Spotify currently has 20 million songs and Deezer has 30 million. In addition, the site doesn't seem to carry much! new mus ic yet, with quite a few songs in the Billboard Top 100 missing. Still, given other Prime perks like free shipping, streaming and the lending library, it might be enough.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, Amazon
Source: Amazon
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Cheap, tiny robots serve as terrain scouts for expensive ones (video)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/11/uc-berkeley-eth-zurich-robots/
Big robots like Cheetah and Big Dog cost a lot to make, so it would be such a shame if they get put out of commission after slipping on, say, a patch of ice. To prevent that from happening, UC Berkeley and ETH Zurich researchers propose sending a team of small, expendable robots ahead of the big, expensive one to scout terrain conditions -- in the event that they do get used for real missions, that is. The researchers demonstrated their idea at the IEEE robotics conference in Hong Kong, where they used UC Berkeley's tiny cardboard robot called VelociRoACH to do recon work for ETH Zurich's StarlETH.
They loaded the smaller machine with the ability to send back terrain data to the bigger quadruped, which, in turn, is equipped with a camera to monitor its minion's location. Thanks to this kind of setup, the scout robot can tell the main unit if an area's too unstable to step on, and the bigger machine can avoid that exact spot. During real missions, that'll probably mean losing scouts along the way, but that's the idea anyway: sacrifice cheap robots for the sake of the multi-million creation.
Filed under: Robots
Via: IEEE
Source: US Berkeley
An Austrian Teen Discovered The Vulnerability That Set Off TweetDeck's Outage
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/austrian-teen-tweetdeck-outage-2014-6
TweetDeck was down for about an hour Wednesday while the company was fixing a vulnerability allowing cross site scripting attacks (XSS) that caused a tweet with some code and a little heart in it to be retweeted over and over.
The script in the tweet was being rendered as code in users' browsers. Attackers could execute code (like making an account automatically retweet) on anyone's computer just by tweeting it out.
TweetDeck fixed the vulnerability, which may have first been discovered by an Austrian teen. The Verge reports that at 8:05 this morning, the Twitter account @FiroXL, which belongs to a 19-year-old named Florian, tweeted a Javascript tag along with a heart symbol and a German phrase that means something along the lines of "I wonder if this will work":
He basically discovered that if he included the heart in his tweet, TweetDeck would execute Javascript or HTML from plaintext (that's why all the spammy tweets you saw in your timeline had hearts at the end of them). As soon as he discovered the vulnerability, he tweeted "Discovered vulnerability in TweetDeck."
From there, other Twitter users started using the technique. TweetDeck shut down its service while it made the security fixes necessary to fix the bug.
SEE ALSO: A String Of Disasters At PayPal Has Capped eBay's Toughest Year Ever
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Article: Beautify Any Portrait w/FaceFilter3 Pro | Cult of Mac Deals
THE ULTIMATE BEAUTY KIT FOR YOUR PHOTOS FaceFilter Pro 3 is a versatile photo retouching and beautifying toolkit makes it easy to apply natural skin smoothing and blemish removal tools, or—if you're feeling creative—go all out with the comprehensive multi-layer makeup system to really make your f...
https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/beautify-your-graduation-pictures-w-facefilter3-pro-for-mac
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Article: 8 iPad Apps to Teach your Children about Space
Share This: Google+0 Twitter0 Facebook0 Pinterest0 I've been interested in space for as long as I can remember and I was trying to wrack my brains to figure out exactly what it was that got me into it. In a dark corner of my brain, a book appeared: The Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia. I rem...
http://ipadinsight.com/ipad-app-reviews/8-ipad-apps-to-teach-your-children-about-space/
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Wire magically untangles itself in water
Source: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/wire-magically-untangles-itself-in-water-1589098717/+caseychan
Nitinol wire, a metal alloy made from nickel and titanium, basically has magic properties that lets it remember its 'original' shape. You can bend it over and over, twist it up, bunch it together and confuse the heck out of it however much you want but once you throw it in hot water, it'll snap back to its original shape.
Read more...
GE's metallic ink can put tiny sensors inside jet engines
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/10/ge-direct-write/
GE is already testing Direct Write sensors with some of its partners, and it notes that the technique could apply sensors to devices well after they've left the factory. However, the technology isn't flawless; while the ink may survive hostile environments, wireless signals typically don't. It may be a long while before you can fit sensors in places where even wires are too risky.
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: GE Reports
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