Source: http://gizmodo.com/how-much-of-nyc-a-taxi-driver-sees-in-a-single-day-1604813865
Everybody's wondered what it's like to be a taxi driver. Whether riding in the back of a cab contemplating your existence or watching a Robert De Niro movie, we've all contemplated how many passengers it takes to make a day's wages. Now, thanks to some clever code, you can watch it play out before your very eyes.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/bittorrent-paywall-science-fiction-series/
BitTorrent is set to dabble in paywalls by teaming up with an independent producer for a sci-fi series called "Children of the Machine." Rapid Eye Studios will produce and fund the $1 million pilot, which will revolve around teenagers, global warming and technology gone awry. BitTorrent has worked with TV makers and major studios in the past, but is trying a brand new tact for the show. To fund a full eight-episode run, at least 250,000 users will have to sign up for a "BitTorrent Bundle" for $10 after seeing the pilot. Right now such bundles are free, but it plans to introduce paywall bundles starting in September with music content from a yet-unnamed "major artist." BitTorrent told the NYT it's looking for users "willing to reward creativity by paying a fair price" for the new scheme. It admit that it's a risky experiment, though -- users may be too set on a fair price being "free."
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Via: NYT
Source: BitTorrent
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/cheap-diabetes-test/
Researchers from Stanford University have developed a microchip that could make it much less costly to diagnose type-1 diabetes. The debilitating disease often strikes children, and the quicker it's detected, the easier it is to treat. The current test, however, is a time-consuming, costly burden for both hospitals and patients, requiring radioactive materials and several days of time. The new chip uses gold nanoparticles that cause fluorescent materials to glow when telltale antibodies are detected. Unlike the old tests, only a pinprick of blood is required, and the $20 chip can be reused up to 15 times. Such diagnostics could compliment other diabetes research, like Google's glucose detecting smart contacts, along with potential treatments or even cures. Researchers said the test will be particularly useful in countries where the standard test is too expensive, and are now working to launch it globally.
[Image credit: Stanford University/Norbert von der Groeben]
Source: Stanford University
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/mit-shape-shifting-robot-material/
Robots tend to be either very rigid or very soft, but neither extreme is ideal; ideally, machines could both squish themselves into tight spaces and remain sturdy for strength-dependent tasks. They just might, thanks to a team-up between MIT and Google's Boston Dynamics. The two have developed a composite material that can switch between hard and soft states on the fly. The design mates a compressible foam inside with an external wax coating. If a robot needed to deform, all it would have to do is soften the right joints with a bit of heating. It could even heal damage by heating and cooling an affected area.
It's still early days, but there are already plenty of potential real-world applications for the material. DARPA (the impetus for the project) wants robots that can literally slip through the cracks to reach otherwise inaccessible areas; they could rescue survivors trapped under rubble, for example. MIT, meanwhile, pictures surgical bots that could repair hard-to-reach body parts. We're still a long, long way from the liquid metal of Terminator 2's T-1000, but these findings suggest that the concept of a shape-shifting automaton isn't completely far-fetched.
Filed under: Robots, Science, Google
Via: TechCrunch
Source: MIT News
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/microsoft-says-super-cheap-windows-devices-are-on-the-way/
It used to be that if you only wanted to pay $199 for a brand-new laptop, you'd have to try your luck on Black Friday or pick up a Chromebook. Not so anymore. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner outed a $199 HP Windows laptop called the Stream at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference this morning, and it should see the light of day in time for the holiday season. Fine, it doesn't sound like the biggest deal ever. There are already a few solid Windows laptops floating around there for less than $100 more, after all, and at this point no one's sure what $199 will actually get you. That's a fair point, but c'mon: on some level this move is all about symbolism. Microsoft is telling the industry -- and the consumers that fuel that immaculate machine -- that it's not giving up low-end computing to Google without a fight.
Nadella and his crew are banking on the fact that Windows provides greater functionality and extensibility than ChromeOS right out of the box. When computer shoppers can own the full Windows experience (for better or worse) for the same price as committing to a Chrome-y connected lifestyle, they'll have to mull that choice over. That's exactly what Microsoft wants. Turner also confirmed that the next few months would bring at least a few full-blown Windows tablets priced to move at $99. That announcement wasn't as much of a surprise since the folks in Redmond revealed that the OS would be free to manufacturers when its installed on device's with screens under 9 inches. It was only a matter of time, but hey -- that doesn't make the gesture any less meaningful.Source: The Verge
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/secret-adds-facebook-login-collections/
When Secret first launched earlier this year, the only subscribers who could see your anonymous missives on the app were folks who were somehow connected to your phone's address book -- they were either your friends, friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends (you get the idea). Now, however, Secret has loosened that restriction just a touch with the introduction of Facebook login support. Now if you sign up with Facebook on the app, you'll be able to spill your secrets to all your Facebook friends who are also on Secret. Of course, the company promises that no personal information is ever shared and you'll still be completely anonymous. On the one hand, this lets those of us who have more friends on Facebook than on on our phone's address book see more Friend posts on Secret. On the other, it does give us a tiny bit of the creeps. Thankfully, the feature is completely optional, so you don't have to participate if you don't want to.
Secret also announced another feature today called Collections, which are simply daily digests of posts from a certain category. You can go to Secret's brand new web interface and subscribe to any of the available Collections -- current categories include Popular, Dating, Reflections, Funny, Work and Loss. If you do subscribe, you'll get secrets from that collection in your Explore stream. This definitely narrow the kinds of posts you see on Explore quite a bit, and it seems like it lets you hone in more on what you prefer to see on there. According to the folks at Secret, they're still experimenting on how to give users more control over what they see on Explore, which can be a rather daunting task given the growing popularity of the network. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, head on over to the source link to find out more. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone.Filed under: Misc
Source: Secret (Medium), Secret
You might think writing 10,000 articles per day would be impossible. But not for a Swede named Sverker Johansson. He created a computer program that has written a total of 2.7 million articles, making Johansson the most prolific author, by far, on the "internet's encyclopedia." His contributions account for 8.5 percent of the articles on Wikipedia, the Wall Street Journal reports.
But how can a bot write so many articles, and do it coherently? As Johansson--a science teacher with degrees in linguistics, civil engineering, economics and particle physics--explained to the WSJ, the bot scrapes information from various trusted sources, and then cobbles that material together, typically into a very short entry, or "stub." Many of the articles cover the taxonomy of little-known animals such as butterflies and beetles, and also small towns in the Philippines (his wife is Filipino).
Johansson's creation, known as Lsjbot, is certainly not the only bot to write articles meant for human eyes. For example, the Associated Press just announced that it will use robots to write thousands of pieces, and other news outlets use programs to write articles, especially finance and sports stories. And on Wikipedia, half of all of the edits are made by bots.
Several long-time members of Wikipedia are not happy that so many articles are being written by non-humans. But Johansson defends his bot, pointing out that the articles it writes are accurate (although there have been some glitches that he claims have been corrected), and can! very us eful. For example, Lsjbot wrote a stub about the town of Basey, in the Philippines. When Typhoon Yolanda hit the town, causing deaths, people were able to visit this stub and find out more about the town and its location.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/ingress-for-ios/
Google's Niantic Labs grew the potential audience for Ingress in a big way late last year, when it put out the finished Android version of its augmented reality game. Today, the studio is taking the next (if fairly obvious) step toward grabbing more players: it's releasing the long-promised iOS edition. Both iPad and iPhone owners can now capture territory ("portals" in Ingress-speak) and build up their virtual skills by visiting real locations. The experience will be very familiar if you've played before; missions give you an incentive to keep coming back, while faction chats let you coordinate turf battles and meet fellow players. There aren't any major tweaks or upgrades that we've seen. The game ultimately remains an excuse to explore new places, but that's not a bad thing if you're tired of visiting the same old haunts -- hit the App Store if you're willing to give it a spin.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Mobile, Google
Source: Ingress
Source: http://lifehacker.com/cut-a-watermelon-into-sticks-perfect-for-kids-and-part-1603562078
Summer's beloved fruit, the watermelon, can get pretty messy to eat. Instead of serving the melon in traditional wedges, cut it into sticks—easy finger foods.
This is great for little kids or for serving a crowd and you need smaller portions. I did this the other day and found another benefit: The sticks stack up much better in a container, so you don't have to do that Tetris-like watermelon wedges cramming to save space.
A Thrifty Mom has a tutorial for cutting the watermelon. Basically you'll first cut it into three pieces, then the intersecting 1-2" slices. If you have an apple corer
Watermelon Slices - Perfect for Little Hands | A Thrify Mom
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/12/chromebooks-can-get-cheaper/
You can pick up a Chromebook for a dirt-cheap $200, if you know where to shop. However, there are now signs that these Google-powered portables could get even cheaper. MediaTek has contributed code to Chromium OS (the base for Chrome OS) for a test device with an entry-level ARM Cortex-A7 processor -- a big step down from the relatively inexpensive Cortex-A15/A7 hybrid that Samsung uses, not to mention the Intel Celeron chips in other Chrome devices. Theoretically, this leads to Chromebooks and Chromeboxes that cost significantly less than $200, albeit after a big speed hit. Just as with phones and tablets, a Cortex-A7 system is likely to be pretty sluggish.
MediaTek hasn't discussed what it's doing with the code, and it could be a while (if ever) before there's hardware you can buy. However, it's not hard to see why the semiconductor firm would want to support Chrome gear. The company's chips are seemingly omnipresent in the basic smartphones seen across developing markets like China and India. Support for a starter Cortex-A7 processor could have a similar effect in the PC world, bringing Chrome OS systems to people who might not otherwise get a computer at all.Filed under: Laptops, Internet, Google
Via: Francois Beaufort (Google+)
Source: Google Source
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/lifetrak-zone-c410-2014-7
Salutron's LifeTrak Zone C410 is a simple fitness-tracking watch.
It doesn't have any bells and whistles. It simply tracks your steps, sleep, distance traveled, calories, heart rate, and it tells the time. All for a very affordable $99.
The best part about it? You can forget about adding another charger to your collection: The C410 runs off a regular battery and you won't have to replace it more than once a year.
The watch has a pretty basic design. There are two buttons on the side that allow you to do things like scroll through menu items, start and stop the tracking, light up the display, and sync the watch to your phone (more on that later).
There's also a button underneath the display that allows you to scroll through all the various tracking modes. When you hold it down, it tracks your heart rate. It even tells you the percentage of your maximum heart rate, which is an added bonus.
The watch and band are waterproof up to 90 feet. The band is reversible (blue and black), but you can buy different watch bands for around $14 from LifeTrak's site. It fits securely on the wrist and overall looks pretty unassuming.
You can set goals on the watch, like how many steps you'd like to take per day. This is pretty straightforward; you scroll through your options with the top-right button. It also has an iOS and Android app that allows you to change the settings.
There's a bar at the top on the watch face that shows you how close you are to reaching your daily goals.
The coolest feature is the automatic sleep mode. I've used fitness bands in the past that required you to put it in sleep mode before it would t! rack how much shut eye you're getting. But it's hard to remember to press a button when you're halfway to dreamland.
But luckily, the C410 senses it automatically. Once the device hasn't moved for a little bit, it goes into sleep mode and starts tracking your Zzzzs.
The problem is, it works a little too well. The watch would sometimes go into sleep mode even when I just took it off for a little while, like before a shower. But overall, that didn't seem to overly affect the overall sleep it thought I was getting.
The watch can also sync with third-party health-tracking apps like as MapMyFitness. Syncing is easy; you just press and hold the bottom-right button, and all your information is pulled into the app via Bluetooth.
The C410 is a basic fitness watch that performs well. It even offers more features than some of the competition.
All the information you need is right there on the watch. You don't have to take out your phone or use an app, if you don't want to.
It doesn't vibrate. You can't track your food calories. It doesn't even have an alarm function.
But for $99, you get a straightforward fitness tracker, with the added bonus of a heart-rate monitor and automatic sleep detection. And it's super accurate.
In a world of Galaxy Gears and Pebbles, it's nice to have an option on the opposite end of the spectrum. And the Zone C410 performs exactly as advertised, with very little fuss.
SEE ALSO: I tried out a standing desk for all the health benefits — here's why I quit
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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/demand-for-light-beer-is-collapsing-2014-7
American beer drinkers are becoming more discerning.
Thanks to the booming popularity of the craft beer business, light beer sales will hit a 10-year low in 2015, writes Devin Leonard at Bloomberg Businessweek.
Sales of once-popular staples like Bud Light, Coors Light, and Miller Lite are on the decline, Leonard writes.
Craft beer has become so popular that there's now a black market for rare brews.
Anheuser-Busch executives told Businessweek that it was pushing light beer sales through flavored beverages such as the Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Rita.
The cocktail-beer hybrid appeals to women who don't want to drink heavy craft beer.
Sales of the so-called 'Ritas hit $462 million last year, according to IRI, a research company in Chicago.
Bud Light is also working to develop seasonal flavors, such as apple for the fall, writes Venessa Wong the magazine.
The brand is also expected to step up marketing in the near future, executives told Businessweek.
SEE ALSO: RANKED: The 29 Most American Foods Of All Time
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/12/breach-is-a-completely-modular-hackable-and-open-source-web-br/
When it comes to surfing the web, our options are limited: the market is dominated by three or four mainstream web browsers, all of which share major similarities in design and function. Unless you want to build your own browsing program, you're stuck with their modern browsing paradigms. For San Francisco programmer Stanislas Polu, that wasn't good enough, so, he created Breach -- an open source modular web browser designed to allow anybody to tweak and modify it on a whim.
Breach wants to be a different kind of web browser, one that's not only a tool for browsing the internet, but one that is built of the technologies that power it. Using the Chromium Content API as a base layer, Polu built a browser with a UI coded entirely in JavaScript and HTML5 -- each element of the experience existing as its own individual webapp with access to Breach's deeper API. In fact, when the browser first boots up, it doesn't even have the ability to navigate the internet. "You don't have any modules running yet," it warns. "Let's add 'mod_strip', a module that provides a basic tab strip and URL box support." Install a module, and your browser suddenly has features. Neglect to, and it won't be able to do much at all.
The new browser only launched its public Alpha release this week, and doesn't have many modules to call its own. The basic strip and data components are active, but an official bookmarks module and other functions aren't yet done. Still, that's not the point: Breach is designed so any user with an idea for any feature can create it themselves in JavaScript or CSS. It's a barebones experience now, but one that's created so you can add any meat you fancy. We can't say it's likely to replace Chrome or Firefox in our hearts yet, but it's a neat take on an old technology we all use every single day. Check it out at the source link below.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Aaron Draczynski (Twitter)
Source: Breach
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-file-transfer-speed-boost-2014-7
In fact, some people think Dropbox's file-syncing technology is exactly what will prevent Amazon from destroying the company with its own streaming service.
Today Dropbox just made their file-sync speed even faster.
Dropbox rolled out a new service called Streaming Sync, which, according to the company, will speed up the sync time by as much as 2X. With Streaming Sync, users no longer have to wait for the entire file to be uploaded before accessing it, because it now “streams” data simultaneously from its servers to user devices. The service only works on files over 16MB, so large-file transfers will benefit the most from it.
Following Thursday’s launch of Zocalo, Amazon’s own file-sharing and collaboration service, Dropbox is in position to find a way to further distinguish itself from other competitors. Streaming Sync could be one of the features that make users want to stick to Dropbox’s service.
You can download the latest Dropbox desktop client here.
Here’s the how the sync times break down:
SEE ALSO: Amazon just launched a Box and Dropbox killer
Join the conversation about this story »
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/11/propellerhead-take/
If you saw Reggie Watts' musical set at Engadget Expand (don't worry, there's video after the break), then you probably noticed the table full of gear he needs to construct his loops. Propellerhead -- the Swedish software company behind Reason, not the electronica duo -- is hoping to lighten this load with Take, a creative vocal loop recorder that's being given away free to iPhone users. The interface is reasonably simple, offering you a wide variety of pre-made backing loops as well as three tracks that you can rap, sing or otherwise make noise on. It's tremendously easy to use, but it won't compensate for your lack of musical talent, which is why we won't be sharing our ham-fisted efforts with you.
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video, Software, Apple
Source: Take (App Store)
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