Last week, Hurricane Harvey touched down in Texas, causing unprecedented amounts of catastrophic damage to the area and killing at least 38 people according to the New York Times. Entire sections of Houston, the United States’ fourth largest city, are underwater. The storm has been chronicled on the news and social…
Source: Gizmodo – YouTubers Are Broadcasting Their Perspective Of Hurricane Harvey
Amazon’s Alexa skills let you add all sorts of functionality to your Echo devices, and there are more coming every day. You can order a pizza, manage your video streaming binges, find out when your package has shipped and even book a hotel with your…
Source: Engadget – Alexa’s new kid-friendly skills have a layer of parental control
LG is gearing up against Apple, Samsung, and other top smartphone makers with their latest flagship, the V30: early impressions suggest that the company has a potential winner, as it pairs great performance (Snapdragon 835) with a beautiful, nearly bezel-less 6″ 2880×1440 OLED screen display. The V30 is also the first smartphone to not only feature an f/1.6 lens but support T-Mobile’s 600MHz LTE band.
The LG V30 builds on the strengths of the OLED FullVision display in a body that is surprisingly compact, slim and light. Even with a large 6-inch 18:9 OLED FullVision display, the V30 is 8mm shorter and 3mm narrower than its predecessor, resulting in a firmer, more confident grip. With a thickness of only 7.3mm and tipping the scale at 158g, the V30 is the lightest among smartphones in the 6-inch and over category. The tempered glass that covers both the front and back is curved all the way around the edge, resulting in a sleek, integrated look and feel.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – LG Unveils V30 Flagship Smartphone with FullVision P-OLED Display
Nintendo has been ordered to pay $10 million after a jury found that the company infringed on iLife’s motion-sensing accelerometer technology, which was used in Wii Remote controllers. iLife uses its tech to monitor infants to help prevent sudden infant death syndrome and the elderly to watch out for falls.
“On Aug. 31, 2017, a jury in Texas found that certain Wii and Wii U video game systems and software bundles infringed a patent belonging to iLife Technologies Inc. related to detecting if a person has fallen down,” Nintendo said in a statement provided to Glixel. “The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife’s patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals.”
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Wii Remote Lawsuit Ends in M Verdict against Nintendo
The next big Windows 10 update may not be ready for prime time: according to the press release for Lenovo’s Miix 520, a professional two-in-one PC, Microsoft has delayed the Fall Creators Update from September to October (17). The author suspects that it may be related to unforeseen issues related to mixed reality.
The date is significant, if only because Microsoft told its customers in April that it would hew to a strict schedule of semiannual release dates, specifically in March and September. “We’ve… heard our customers want more predictability and simplicity from this update servicing model to help make deployments and updates of Microsoft products easier,” Bernando Caldas, the general manager of Windows Commercial Marketing, wrote in a blog post.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Slips to October
“Art is never finished, only abandoned,” Leonardo Da Vinci supposedly said, which is maybe why abandonment itself is a popular theme among artists. Abu Dhabi-based Brazilian artist and designer Fábio Araujo has highlighted that loneliness by p…
Source: Engadget – Haunting ‘Abandoned Places’ float in digital space
Today Western Digital is taking the wraps off of the industry’s first microSDXC card with a 400 GB capacity. The card is aimed at Google Android-based smartphones or tablets and can run applications that require A1 performance class spec. Meanwhile, given the current shortage state of the NAND market combined with its class-leading density, the price of the card is not going to be low, with pricing running closer to that of a higher-end SSD.
The Western Digital is not disclosing which NAND flash chips are used by the SanDisk Ultra microSDXC 400 GB card, but given the capacity of the device, it is highly likely that we are dealing with modern, high capacity 3D NAND. When it comes to performance, the microSDXC card uses the UHS-I bus and features transfer speeds of up to 100 MB/s. In addition, the card is compliant with the SD Association A1 Application Performance specification and therefore supports sustained sequential performance of 10 MB/s and at least 1500 random read and 500 random write IOPS. In addition, the card is designed to sustain extreme conditions and can operate in the range between -13ºF to 185ºF (-25ºC to 85ºC).
To simplify usage of the card, Western Digital offers an updated version of the SanDisk Memory Zone app that helps to organize data on Android-based devices and easily back it up to the card.
| SanDisk Ultra microSDXC 400 GB Card at Glance | |||
| SDSQUAR-400G-GN6MA | |||
| Usable Capacity | ~400 GB | ||
| Read Speed | up to 100 MB/s | ||
| Write Speed | |||
| Minimum Sequential Write Speed | 10 MB/s | ||
| Operating Temperatures | -13ºF to 185ºF (-25ºC to 85ºC) | ||
| Interface | UHS-I | ||
| Availability | Fall 2017 | ||
| SDA Labels | A1, UHS-I, Class 10, U1 | ||
The 400 GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card will be available shortly from SanDisk.com and other retailers in the U.S. for $249.99, which is a rather high price for a memory card. A good news is that the product is covered by a 10-year warranty.
Related Reading:
Source: AnandTech – Western Digital Launches SanDisk Ultra microSD Card with 400 GB Capacity
A 2014 study by the Human Rights Campaign found that 53 percent of LGBT individuals remain closeted at work. According to Audrey Gallien, Director of Marketing for Catalyst, a workplace inclusion advocacy organization, even when businesses attempt to provide an inclusive environment, individuals “still must face the…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Be a Straight Ally at Work
Seventy-seven new patches were posted today for the AMDGPU DC (formerly DAL) display code that reworks around six thousand lines of this massive codebase…
Source: Phoronix – 77 More Patches For AMDGPU’s DC Display Stack
The movies coming out this fall are almost unbelievable. It’s not just the usual mix of awards movies looking towards the Oscars, or the glut of horror movies for Halloween, or even those the normal holiday blockbusters. This season, we’re getting a bunch of movies fans never thought they’d see.
Source: Gizmodo – Fall Movie Guide: 35 Superhero, Scifi, and Fantasy Movies to Look Out For
Saritha Rai, writing for Bloomberg: A teenage entrepreneur who became a millionaire by 20 before sharing a billion-dollar fortune at 36, Bhavin Turakhia isn’t afraid to think big. Now he’s putting $45 million of his own money into building a rival to Slack and other office messaging platforms. Flock, a cloud-based team collaboration service, has attracted 25,000 enterprise users and customers including Tim Hortons, Whirlpool and Princeton University. It’s a market that has already drawn interest from global technology giants Facebook, Amazon.com and Microsoft. This time last year, few had heard of Bhavin and his younger brother Divyank. That changed when they sold their advertising technology company Media.net, with customers including Yahoo, CNN and the New York Times, to a Chinese consortium for $900 million. The all-cash deal catapulted the duo from mere millionaires into the ranks of the super-rich. “I want to make Flock bigger and better than anything I’ve built before,” Bhavin Turakhia, wearing his signature dark Levi’s T-shirt and Puma sweatpants, said at his Bangalore offices.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Billionaire Brothers Want to Build a Cheaper Rival to Slack
It’s hard to judge Bang and Olufsen’s hardware by the standards of mere mortals, because it’s hard to imagine spending $16,000 on a TV. But there’s something inspiring, and infectious, about the lengths the company goes to in order to ensure you get…
Source: Engadget – Bang and Olufsen sweats the details on its moving TV
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. (credit: JD Lasica)
Eight years ago, Google was on top of the world. People across the political spectrum saw the search giant as a symbol of high-tech innovation. During the just-completed 2008 presidential campaign cycle, candidates as diverse as Ron Paul, John McCain, and Barack Obama had all made pilgrimages to Google’s Mountain View headquarters to burnish their reputations for tech savvy.
Even better, Google soon had a close relationship to the newly elected president, Barack Obama. “Google was riding high on the fact that Eric Schmidt was campaigning for Obama,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia and a longtime Google critic. “There was a lot of attention paid in the press to the fact that Googlers were starting to work in the White House.”
With so many Googlers in government, Google had an outsized influence on policymaking during the Obama years. But today, Google is in a different situation. Most obviously, Schmidt worked hard to get Hillary Clinton elected president, and Clinton lost.
Read 36 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Google is losing allies across the political spectrum
This is an ad for and demonstration of Pravana’s new heat-changing hair treatment, Vivid Moods Color. There are four different color changes to choose from (violet to pink, gray to invisible, lime green to yellow, and peach to invisible), and they all operate like a Hypercolor shirt: one color when it’s cool, one color when it’s hot. Or, if it’s like my Hypercolor shirt: the same color all the time because I accidentally washed it wrong once. That was a sad day. That’s really too much technology for a shirt. If I wanted a smart-shirt I’d make one that unbuttons itself when I raise my eyebrows seductively like I’m doing now. Are you in love yet? “Close.” Just let me know when you’re there and we’ll make this thing official.
Keep going for the commercial and demonstration.
Source: Geekologie – Hypercolor For Hair: Heat-Activated Color Changing Hair Treatment
At this past CES, Lenovo announced its $130 Smart Assistant speaker with Amazon’s Alexa inside. While that device is still listed as “coming soon” on Lenovo’s website, the company isn’t putting any of its smart home ambitions on hold. Lenovo’s new Home Assistant Pack appears to be a pared-down version of the Smart Assistant—one that’s built to connect to any Tab 4 tablet.
The Home Assistant also has the Alexa voice assistant inside, but it’s not as powerful of a speaker as the Smart Assistant. It has a three-watt speaker and two built-in mics with far-field detection designed to pick up your voice from three meters away. The Smart Assistant instead has a five-watt tweet, a 10-watt subwoofer, and eight built-in mics with far-field detection.
Weighing 300 grams, the Home Assistant is basically an accessory version of the Smart Speaker that you can tote from room to room. By itself, it’s akin to Amazon’s Echo Dot—but paired with a Tab 4 tablet, it becomes similar to an Echo Show. Sliding one of Lenovo’s tablets into the Home Assistant’s dock will automatically bring up the “Home Assistant interface,” in which you can ask Alexa to play music, check your calendar, give you weather updates, and more. The tablet will show “display cards” for visual information in addition to the Home Assistant providing voice answers via Alexa.
Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Lenovo’s second Alexa-powered speaker connects to its Tab 4 devices
Dogs are fluffy, slobbering, pooping creatures that don’t hesitate to sniff (and maybe taste) any unknown object they see on the ground. So, if we’re trying to protect our health, is it ok that we let them share our home, sleep in our beds, and lick our faces?
Source: LifeHacker – How Much Do I Have to Worry about My Dog’s Germs?
A fraud lawsuit brought against former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick by investor Benchmark Capital was sent to arbitration on Wednesday, and Kalanick is feeling blessed.
Source: Gizmodo – Travis Kalanick: ??
Lenovo’s collaboration with Amazon to make Alexa-powered devices began with the Smart Assistant speaker in January, but the PC maker is far from done with its smart home ambitions. Today, the company unveiled the Home Assistant Pack, which is basical…
Source: Engadget – Lenovo made a basic Echo Show out of a tablet dock
It’s been years since we got a Moto X, but Lenovo hasn’t forgotten about Motorola’s one-time flagship. As predicted by leaks, Motorola unveiled the fourth-generation model at IFA in Berlin, and it’s… definitely not the Moto X you remember. For one,…
Source: Engadget – The Moto X is finally back, and it brought Alexa with it
The world may be distracted by the advanced, high-end technology of the Galaxy Note 8 and the highly anticipated iPhone 8, but those devices also tend to come with appropriately hefty prices. For people looking for budget-friendlier options that look…
Source: Engadget – Moto X4 hands-on: Premium looks and features on a budget
