Some people claim that they have experienced out-of-body experiences—aka "astral trips"—floating outside of their bodies and watching themselves from the outside. A team of scientists found someone who says she can do this at will and put her into a brain scanner. What they discovered was surprisingly strange.
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/edx-expands-range-of-institutions/
EdX's open online education system has drawn a lot of interest -- enough interest that the non-profit has just loosened up its membership structure to allow for more participants. The revamp lets 12 additional organizations offer free internet-based courses, including schools as well as non-academic outlets like the International Monetary Fund, the Linux Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. Details of the new programs aren't available beyond the Linux Foundation's plans for an introductory Linux course, but edX's move is bound to improve the diversity of things you can learn without spending a dime on tuition.
[Image credit: TU Delft, Flickr]
Filed under: Internet
Source: EdX
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/06/sharp-aquos-near-4k-tvs/
Even though CES 2014 is long gone, some of the stuff announced there is just now starting to become available for purchase. Case in point: Sharp's Quattron+ lineup, a series of 2014 AQUOS televisions featuring the latest and greatest, including a revamped SmartCentral platform. But that's not what's interesting here. Instead, it's the Quattron+ technology, one that Sharp describes as being able to "accept a 4K signal and play it back at near-4K resolution, with an effective resolution of 3,840 x 2,160."
The company says this is possible thanks to its Revelation Upscaler, which takes HD content and "optimizes it for the higher resolution screen, so that it's sharper and more vivid." By building Q+ TVs on 1080p panels, Sharp claims it's then capable of pricing these lower than some of its would-be competitors. Now, is that enough to get you to buy into it? If so, you'll have quite a few options to choose from -- they're up for grabs now in 60-, 70- and 80-inch flavors, with prices ranging from $2,500 all the way to a cool $6,000.
Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Sharp
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/07/hp8-8-inch-android-tablet/
Hewlett Packard is trying to pull off a flanking maneuver on the Android market, through low-profile launches of low-cost devices. We recently came across the company's VoiceTab phablets during a side-show at Mobile World Congress, and now we're looking at a more traditional 7.85-inch tablet called the HP 8. In return for $170, you'll get a plain-looking device that, aesthetically, has more in common with last year's Slate 7 than with the faux-metal VoiceTabs. However, since we're making comparisons, we should also point out that the HP 8 has a worse display than both the Slate 7 and Dell's rival Venue 8, with fewer pixels (1,024 x 768) spread out over a larger area. The software and internals seem functional enough, though: Android 4.2.2 running on a quad-core ARM chip made by the Chinese company Allwinner, with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, stereo speakers, and a just-about-okay 3,800mAh battery that promises up to seven hours of use.
Filed under: Tablets, Mobile, HP
Via: PhoneArena
Source: HP
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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/preschoolers-learn-gadgets-faster-than-college-students-2014-3
In a new study, preschoolers outperformed college students in figuring out how to make an novel and unusual gadget operate.
The researchers say that the kids get the advantage because adults — with all their age and wisdom — have amassed biases and prior assumptions that make them less willing to consider unconventional options when dealing with a new problem.
Here's how the study worked: researchers gave preschoolers a gadget that lights up and plays music when you place a certain combination of "blickets" (clay pieces formed into various shapes) on top of it.
Unusual combinations of the "blickets" could make the gadget work. Children caught on to that pattern, but adults took much longer to figure it out.
"These children unconsciously are making inferences, drawing conclusions, solving problems, the same way in many ways that a very intelligent scientist would. But they aren't self conscious about it. They couldn't tell you that that was what they were doing," study researcher Alison Gopnik, from UC Berkeley, says in the video below.
The adults, on the other hand, ignored the training that didn't match what they'd previously experienced about the world. That led them to make mistakes and have a harder time developing the new skills.
The study notes: "The very fact that children know less to begin with may, paradoxically, make them better, or at least more open-minded, learners. The plasticity of early beliefs may help to explain the bold exploration and breathtaking innovation that characterizes children’s learning."
The study will be published in the May issue of the journal Cognition. This video from UC Berkeley shows some of the experiments (and adorable kids) that went into the paper:
SEE ALSO: New Marshmallow Study Challenges Conventional Thinking About Willpower
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