Tuesday, December 10, 2013

How To Turn Any Car Into A Smart Car For $100

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/automatic-review-2013-12

Automatic

In this heyday of smart technology, you can buy the equivalent of a FitBit for your car. 

We took Automatic, an app paired with an on-board diagnostics dongle that logs your location, driving habits, and fuel usage to make you smarter on the road, for a test drive.  

Click here to see how Automatic works >>

Just plug the Automatic dongle (called a Link) into your car's OBD port and you'll start getting a bunch of data about your driving logged into the companion app. Much of this data is ultimately meant to help you save money on gas.  

For example, Automatic alerts you by making your phone chirp you when you break roughly, drive 10 or more miles per hour over the speed limit, or accelerate too rapidly. By giving you a heads up about your bad habits, it helps adjust the way that you drive to increase fuel efficiency. Better fuel efficiency means money saved. 

The app gives you a daily and weekly score based on your driving, and compares your logged fuel economy with the EPA's estimated value for whatever car you own. If you're competitive, you'll love the fact that you can track your driving score week-to-week, and that the app will tell you where you rank compared to other Automatic users throughout the country. 

Every time you park, the app also GPS-logs your location, so you never have to search hopelessly for your car in a huge parking lot again. Because the Link is plugged into your OBD port, it can sense when you have engine trouble, and can offer a potential diagnosis. 

Finally, the accelerometer in the Link can sense if you may have gotten into a crash and! Automat ic personnel will alert local authorities. 

Automatic works with Android and iOS, but only on the iPhone 4S and above.

It costs $99.95 and works with most cars made after 1996. You can check if it works with your car here.

First, you've got to connect your Automatic app with your Automatic Link dongle.



It only took my friend and I about five minutes to successfully get our Automatic Link plugged into his car.



And then it took another five minutes or so for the app to sync with the Link.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider
    






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Monday, December 09, 2013

The First 64-Bit Snapdragon Processor Won't Be in a Phone You'll Want

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-first-64-bit-snapdragon-processor-wont-be-in-a-pho-1479862594

The First 64-Bit Snapdragon Processor Won't Be in a Phone You'll Want

Apple started a wave when it announced its new A7 processor--the brain of all its flagship products—would be 64-bit. Competitors have been keen to catch up, and now Qualcomm's making its move with the new Snapdragon 410, the first 64-bit chip in the line. The catch? It's for low and midrange phones.

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This Brilliant Stop Motion Video Only Uses Photos Taken With Google Glass

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-glass-stop-motion-video-2013-12

A team of artists created an awesome stop motion video using hundreds of photos taken with Google Glass, Google's computerized glasses that will publicly launch in 2014.

The Google Glass YouTube account shared the video, which we first saw on Buzzfeed.

This is what Google Glass said in its YouTube introduction of the video below. It also linked to the artist's Google Plus page:

Since the beginning, filmmakers have been telling us how they would use Glass for storytelling. Now that the Explorer Program is underway, there's a lot of directing, producing and exploring happening, and we're inspired. Filmmakers from the Glass Creative Collective, our partnership with top-notch film schools, will be sharing more in the coming months. In the meantime, here's Catch, a short film by our very own +Tu Uthaisri.

Here's the video:

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Saturday, December 07, 2013

Watch Music Turn Into A 3D-Printed Augmented Reality Sculpture

Source: http://gizmodo.com/watch-music-turn-into-a-3d-printed-augmented-reality-sc-1478126258

Watch Music Turn Into A 3D-Printed Augmented Reality Sculpture

Hearing sound isn't cool. You know what's cool? Seeing sound. Interaction designer Lukazs Karluk put an audio clip through a gauntlet of digital and physical transformations, resulting in an augmented reality tabletop sculpture.

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Friday, December 06, 2013

Someone's Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Internet Security Hole

Source: http://gizmodo.com/someones-been-siphoning-data-through-a-huge-internet-s-1477852827

Someone's Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Internet Security Hole

Sometimes, something is so big that you don't notice it for a long time. You suddenly realize you're in a massive crater, say, or that a building is towering overheard. Or, in this case, a gaping security void in the internet. And someone's been siphoning massive amounts of data out of it.

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