Amazon has a new service for managing payments, named Amazon Wallet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/22/amazon-wallet/

Tried Apple's Passbook and Google's Wallet and not feeling satisfied? Perhaps Amazon's flavor of mobile payment app will strike your fancy. It's also named Wallet, and it arrived in beta form on the Google Play store recently. Like Apple and Google's versions, Amazon Wallet collects your gift cards, loyalty programs, and membership cards in one place -- on your phone -- and pushes them to the cloud. Should you switch from, say, Apple's iPhone to Amazon's Fire phone, all that information would move over with you, tied to your Amazon account.

There's another added benefit with Amazon's service in that your other, far more important financial info is likely already part of Amazon's system and connected to your profile. As a result, when you browse Amazon Wallet through the web, all that extra payment info is all in the same place.

It's not clear when Amazon Wallet is coming out of beta (if ever), but for now, consider yourself a guinea pig if you're jumping in.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Software, Mobile, Amazon

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Source: Google Play, Amazon

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drag2share: Samsung's curved, 105-inch 4K TV can be yours for just $120,000

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/22/samsung-105-inch-4k-tv-costs-129-000-dollars/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

There were so many TVs on display back at CES, that you'd be forgiven if they all blended together. So allow us to give you a recap: The Samsung UN105S9W was, in the company's own words, the "world's first, largest and most curved 105-inch curved UHD TV." Well then! Sounds like an expensive piece of kit, huh? You have no idea. Sammy just put its flagship TV up for pre-order and it's kind of a doozy. The whole thing costs $120,000 -- also known as a mortgage. For the money, you get 5,120 x 2,160 resolution on an unusually large screen, with an unusually wide aspect ratio of 21:9. Additionally, you'll receive a visit from one of Samsung's "Field Engineers" to walk you through all the features, if that's any consolation. It's also a Smart TV, with all the usual built-in apps, and the ability to separate the screen into four quadrants for watching live TV and surfing the web at once. Honestly, though, we'd be offended if a TV this expensive didn't do that. You can pre-order now if you like, but let's be real: Most of you are probably saving $120,000 for your future child's college tuition.

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Stunning Images Capture Alcohol Under A Microscope

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/images-of-alcohol-under-a-microscope-2014-7

It's not just to drink any more.

Instead of getting wasted, a company called Bevshots is using alcohol to do something amazing: They're crystalizing your favorite beer, wine, cocktails, and liquor and putting tghe results under a microscope. Booze never looked so beautiful.

The drinks were crystallized on a slide and photographed under a polarized light microscope. The light refracts through the drink's crystals and the results speak for themselves.

 

Tequila looks almost like glass. The artist says this is a good example of the fact that they are shooting microscopic photos of crystals because you can see the individual formations.

Piña Colada looks extremely exotic. The artist says many customers liken this image to peacock feathers.

There's something about this photo of scotch that reminds us of Vincent Van Gogh's, "The Starry Night."

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Researchers fully 'delete' HIV from human cells for the first time

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/22/researchers-delete-hiv-from-cells/

So far, HIV has eluded a cure because it installs its genome into human DNA so insidiously that it's impossible for our immune system to clear it out. While current treatments are effective, a lifetime of toxic drugs are required to prevent its recurrence. But researchers from Temple University may have figured out a way to permanently excise it using a highly-engineered HIV "editor." Here's how it works: the team analyzed a part of our immune system that fights infection and built a "guide RNA" strand consisting of 20 nucleotides (RNA building blocks). Those strands were then injected into cells typically infected with HIV, like T-cells. There, they targeted the end parts of the virus's gene and snipped out all 9,709 nucleotides that made up its genome. Since the guide RNA strand contained no human DNA sequences, it left the host cell intact -- but free from HIV.

Though scientists eliminated the virus from cultured cells, there's still a lot of hurdles to clear before such therapy is ready for human trials. The virus's highly mutative nature means that there are numerous variants that the treatment would have to remove. The other challenge is to deliver the treatment to every infected cell, since complete removal of the virus is required to cure AIDS. However, Temple researcher Kamel Khalili said that "We are working on a number of strategies so we can take the construct into preclinical studies... we want to eradicate every single copy of HIV-1 from the patent. That will cure AIDS."

[Image credit: AP/NIAID]

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: Motherboard

Source: Temple University

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Comcast's customer losses are slowing, which is no surprise since it's so hard to leave

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/22/comcast-earnings/

Even as cable giant Comcast tries to get bigger by absorbing Time Warner Cable, its own revenue grew in the last quarter to $16.8 billion, up 3.5 percent from last year, and net income hit $1.99 billion. The most important number for a subscription business though is how many customers it has, and through a traditionally slow quarter, it managed to slow the loss of total "customer relationships" to 25,000 from 66,000 for the same period last year -- although my friend Ryan Block recently found out how difficult ending that relationship can be. More of the customers that remain are picking up internet and phone services, as it has over 21 million high speed internet subscribers alone. You can check out the numbers yourself right here, I'll be tuning in for the earnings call in a few minutes to find out if it has any new response to the recent customer service controversy, net neutrality and its battle with Netflix, or an update on the $45 billion TWC acquisition.

[Image credit: Associated Press]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Comcast

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