Get some of the newest Kindle e-readers at early-Black-Friday prices.
Source: LifeHacker – These Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Kindle E-readers
Monthly Archives: November 2023
The Last Of Us Part II Remastered Is Real, Out Next Year
The existence of The Last of Us Part II Remastered has leaked via a PlayStation Store listing that was spotted by fans online. A trailer has also leaked, which includes a release date of January 19, 2024.
Source: Kotaku – The Last Of Us Part II Remastered Is Real, Out Next Year
The Best Early Black Friday Tablet Deals on Amazon
Amazon’s early Black Friday deals might be the best time to get yourself a budget Android tablet.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best Early Black Friday Tablet Deals on Amazon
KEPCO Collaborates with Vertical Aerospace
Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) and Vertical Aerospace have formalized a commitment to advancing the field of advanced air mobility. This strategic collaboration aims to drive innovation in electric chargers, infrastructure, and charging standards, with a focus extending beyond Japan to key markets in Asia.
Vertical Aerospace, a manufacturer based in Bristol, United Kingdom, plans to unveil its VX4 flying car (eVTOL) at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka.
In this collaborative effort, Vertical Aerospace will develop specifications for eVTOL charging facilities. Simultaneously, KEPCO will play a crucial role in developing essential components such as DC fast chargers, battery cooling systems, and energy management systems based on these specifications.
Beyond the debut of eVTOLs at the World Expo, this partnership aims to expand throughout Japan and into other Asian countries.
Regulatory research is a crucial aspect of the agreement, involving a comprehensive exploration of specifications and regulations governing charging facilities for eVTOLs. The collaboration also encompasses a study on achieving carbon-neutral operation services for eVTOLs, emphasizing environmental sustainability. Furthermore, dedicated efforts will be directed towards enhancing social acceptance and awareness of advanced air mobility.
A similar agreement has recently been signed between KEPCO and Japanese eVTOL-maker SkyDrive.
Recent eVTOL Industry Related Articles
SkyDrive and KEPCO to Charge Up Flying Cars
Suzuki Factory to Produce SkyDrive Flying Cars
Hyogo Prefecture Launches New Flying Car Project
Marubeni Links Up with Lift Aircraft
JAL Chief Sees Flying Car Development as Urgent
Flying Car Hits Speed Bump in Nobeoka
SkyDrive Flying Car Gains Weight
Nidec to Build Flying Car Engines
SLT Aims to Produce Six-Seater Flying Car
The post KEPCO Collaborates with Vertical Aerospace appeared first on Akihabara News.
Source: Akihabara News – KEPCO Collaborates with Vertical Aerospace
Valve celebrates 25 years of Half-Life with feature-packed Steam update
Enlarge / It’s been a while since I’ve seen some of those once-ubiquitous logos… (credit: Valve)
This Sunday, November 19, makes a full 25 years since the original Half-Life first hit (pre-Steam) store shelves. To celebrate the anniversary, Valve has uploaded a feature-packed “25th anniversary update” to the game on Steam, and made the title free to keep if you pick it up this weekend.
Valve’s 25th Anniversary Update page details a bevy of new and modernized features added to the classic first-person shooter, including:
- Four new multiplayer maps that “push the limits of what’s possible in the Half-Life engine”
- New graphics settings, including support for a widescreen field-of-view on modern monitors and OpenGL Overbright lighting (still no official ray-tracing support, though—leave that to the modders)
- “Proper gamepad config out of the box” (so dust off that Gravis Gamepad Pro)
- Steam networking support for easier multiplayer setup
- “Verified” support for Steam Deck play (“We failed super hard” on the first verification attempt, Valve writes)
- Proper UI scaling for resolutions up to 3840×1600
- Multiplayer balancing updates (because 25 years hasn’t been enough to perfect the meta)
- New entity limits that allow mod makers to build more complex mods
- A full software renderer for the Linux version of the game
- Various bug fixes
- “Removed the now very unnecessary ‘Low video quality. Helps with slower video cards’ setting”
In addition, the new update includes a host of restored and rarely seen content, including:
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Source: Ars Technica – Valve celebrates 25 years of Half-Life with feature-packed Steam update
These Are Amazon's Best Early Black Friday Deals on Apple Products
You can save big on MacBooks, AirPods, and a new Apple Pencil.
Source: LifeHacker – These Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Apple Products
Canada Court Overturns Government Ruling That Some Plastics Are Toxic
A court in Canada struck down a regulation classifying some plastic products as toxic, “a ruling that could hurt a push by Ottawa to ban single-use plastic items like bags, straws and forks.” From the report: A ban on manufacturing and importing “harmful” single-use plastics came into effect last December after the federal government formally drew up a order that added them to a list of toxic items. But the Federal Court in Ottawa overturned that decision, calling the listing “unreasonable and unconstitutional.” The case was brought by plastics manufacturers such as Dow Inc as well as Imperial Oil.
The office of Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault said it was considering an appeal. “We strongly believe in taking action to tackle this crisis and keep millions of garbage bags worth of trash off our beaches, out of our waters, and away from nature,” spokeswoman Kaitlin Power said in a statement.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Canada Court Overturns Government Ruling That Some Plastics Are Toxic
Barefoot workers, bacteria found at factory that made big-brand eye drops
Enlarge / Eye drop over woman’s eye. (credit: Getty | AGF)
The Indian manufacturing facility that made generic eye drops sold under CVS, Target, Rite Aid, and Walmart brands had a slew of manufacturing violations, including allowing workers to regularly perform their roles barefoot and failing to document bacterial contamination, according to an inspection report released by the Food and Drug Administration.
Last month, the regulator warned consumers to immediately stop using over two dozen kinds of big-brand eye drops due to a risk of infection. The list has since been updated to include a few more products. In addition to the big store brands, the eye drops were also sold as Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), and Velocity Pharma branded products.
All of the products are made by Kilitch Healthcare India Limited in Mumbai. At the time of the FDA’s initial warning, the agency said it had found bacterial contamination in critical production areas of the Mumbai facility. As such, the agency warned of a possibility that the products, which are intended to be sterile, may not be and could pose a risk of infection.
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Source: Ars Technica – Barefoot workers, bacteria found at factory that made big-brand eye drops
MIT tests new ingestible sensor that records your breathing through your intestines
MIT researchers developed an ingestible capsule that can monitor vital signs including heart rate and breathing patterns from within a patient’s GI tract. The scientists also say that the novel device has the potential to also be used to detect signs of respiratory depression during an opioid overdose. Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT who has been working on developing a range of ingestible sensors, told Engadget that the device will be especially useful for sleep studies.
Conventionally, sleep studies require patients to be hooked up to a number of sensors and devices. In labs and in at-home studies, sensors can be attached to a patient’s scalp, temples, chest and lungs with wires. A patient may also wear a nasal cannula, chest belt and pulse oximeter which can connect to a portable monitor. “As you can imagine, trying to sleep with all of this machinery can be challenging,” Traverso told Engadget.
MIT
This trial, which used a capsule made by Celero Systems —A start-up led by MIT and Harvard researchers— marks the first time ingestible sensor technology was tested in humans. Aside from the start-up and MIT, the research was spearheaded by experts at West Virginia University and other hospital affiliates.
The capsule contains two small batteries and a wireless antenna that transmits data. The ingestible sensor, which is the size of a vitamin capsule, traveled through the gastrointestinal tract, and collected signals from the device while it was in the stomach. The participants stayed at a sleep lab overnight while the device recorded respiration, heart rate, temperature and gastric motility. The sensor was also able to detect sleep apnea in one of the patients during the trial. The findings suggest that the ingestible was able to measure health metrics on par with medical-grade diagnostic equipment at the sleep center. Traditionally, patients that need to get diagnosed with specific sleep disorders are required to stay overnight at a sleep lab, where they get hooked onto an array of sensors and devices. Ingestible sensor technology eliminates the need for that.
Importantly, MIT says there were no adverse effects reported due to capsule ingestion. The capsule typically passes through a patient within a day or so, though that short internal shelf life may also limit how effective it could be as a monitoring device. Traverso told Engadget that he aims to have Celetro, which he co-founded, eventually contain a mechanism that will allow the capsule to sit in a patient’s stomach for a week.
Dr. Ali Rezai, the executive chair of the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, said that there is a huge potential for creating a new pathway through this device that will help providers identify when a patient is overdosing according to their vitals. In the future, researchers even anticipate that devices could incorporate drugs internally: overdose reversal agents, such as nalmefene, could be slowly administered if a sensor records that a person’s breathing rate slowed or stopped. More data from the studies will be made available in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mit-tests-new-ingestible-sensor-that-record-your-breathing-through-your-intestines-224823353.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – MIT tests new ingestible sensor that records your breathing through your intestines
New Walking Dead Game Looks Uh… Not Great!
A new video game based on the popular TV show The Walking Dead is out now on consoles and fans who have jumped in to check it out are reporting another clunky, broken, and ugly Game Mill-published mess, just like that awful King Kong game from earlier this year.
Source: Kotaku – New Walking Dead Game Looks Uh… Not Great!
What NASA wants to see from SpaceX’s second Starship test flight
Enlarge / SpaceX’s Starship rocket on a launch pad in Texas awaiting liftoff on a test flight. (credit: SpaceX)
NASA managers are in South Texas this weekend as SpaceX prepares to launch its second full-sized Starship rocket. If the rocket flies perfectly, it will unlock additional tests beginning as soon as next year to prove that SpaceX can transfer hundreds of tons of super-chilled methane and liquid oxygen between two spaceships in orbit.
This is a fundamental part of the architecture SpaceX has designed to fly Starship missions beyond low-Earth orbit. With two NASA fixed-price contracts valued at more than $4 billion, SpaceX is on the hook to develop and fly two human-rated lunar landers based on the Starship design (and likely many more missions, assuming these first two work as advertised).
Depending on who you ask, SpaceX may need to launch a dozen or more refueling tankers to fill up the methane and liquid oxygen tanks on the Starship lunar lander, which will have emptied its tanks just to get into low-Earth orbit following launch on top of a Super Heavy booster. The Starship lander will use this fuel to boost itself out of low-Earth orbit toward the Moon, descend to the lunar surface with astronauts, and climb back into space to deliver the crew to their Earth return vehicle—an Orion spacecraft.
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Source: Ars Technica – What NASA wants to see from SpaceX’s second Starship test flight
These Are Amazon's Best Early Black Friday Deals on Smartphones
If you’re looking for a new smartphone, Amazon has some great deals to check out.
Source: LifeHacker – These Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Smartphones
Eli Roth's Thanksgiving Is a Dumb, Disgusting Delight
The idea for Eli Roth to make a horror movie about Thanksgiving was originally a joke. Several holidays are synonymous with Hollywood horror. Halloween, of course. Christmas has a few movies. Valentine’s Day too. But Thanksgiving? That’s so silly. Or is it?
Source: Gizmodo – Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving Is a Dumb, Disgusting Delight
Unauthorized 'David Attenborough' AI Clone Narrates Developer's Life, Goes Viral
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Replicate developer Charlie Holtz combined GPT-4 Vision (commonly called GPT-4V) and ElevenLabs voice cloning technology to create an unauthorized AI version of the famous naturalist David Attenborough narrating Holtz’s every move on camera. As of Thursday afternoon, the X post describing the stunt had garnered over 21,000 likes. “Here we have a remarkable specimen of Homo sapiens distinguished by his silver circular spectacles and a mane of tousled curly locks,” the false Attenborough says in the demo as Holtz looks on with a grin. “He’s wearing what appears to be a blue fabric covering, which can only be assumed to be part of his mating display.” “Look closely at the subtle arch of his eyebrow,” it continues, as if narrating a BBC wildlife documentary. “It’s as if he’s in the midst of an intricate ritual of curiosity or skepticism. The backdrop suggests a sheltered habitat, possibly a communal feeding area or watering hole.”
How does it work? Every five seconds, a Python script called “narrator” takes a photo from Holtz’s webcam and feeds it to GPT-4V — the version of OpenAI’s language model that can process image inputs — via an API, which has a special prompt to make it create text in the style of Attenborough’s narrations. Then it feeds that text into an ElevenLabs AI voice profile trained on audio samples of Attenborough’s speech. Holtz provided the code (called “narrator”) that pulls it all together on GitHub, and it requires API tokens for OpenAI and ElevenLabs that cost money to run. During the demo video, when Holtz holds up a cup and takes a drink, the fake Attenborough narrator says, “Ah, in its natural environment, we observe the sophisticated Homo sapiens engaging in the critical ritual of hydration. This male individual has selected a small cylindrical container, likely filled with life-sustaining H2O, and is tilting it expertly towards his intake orifice. Such grace, such poise.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Unauthorized ‘David Attenborough’ AI Clone Narrates Developer’s Life, Goes Viral
These Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Smartwatches
Take advantage of serious savings on these smartwatches during Amazon’s early Black Friday deals.
Source: LifeHacker – These Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Smartwatches
The Best Early Black Friday Deals on Fitness Watches
Garmin’s Fenix line, Google’s Pixel watch, and a budget tracker from LIVIKEY are all deeply discounted in this sale.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best Early Black Friday Deals on Fitness Watches
Crash Team Rumble’s Latest Cameo Makes Me Want A New Spyro Game
I liked Crash Team Rumble. I even said as much on this very website when the brawler MOBA launched back in June. But man, seeing them add Spyro, Crash’s flying, fire-breathing, OG PlayStation platformer contemporary to the roster just makes me wish we had a new Spyro the Dragon game.
Source: Kotaku – Crash Team Rumble’s Latest Cameo Makes Me Want A New Spyro Game
Here Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals for DIYers
Get your DIY to-do list done at a discount.
Source: LifeHacker – Here Are Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals for DIYers
7 Things We Liked, and 3 We Didn't, About Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Netflix’s animated take on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s seminal graphic novel series, hit the streamer today, and it’s a must-watch for fans of either the comics themselves or Edgar Wright’s 2010 movie adaptation. It’s one of our favorite animated shows of the year, but to find out why… we really…
Source: Gizmodo – 7 Things We Liked, and 3 We Didn’t, About Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Vulkan Support Begins Landing For Wine's Wayland Driver
A few days ago the Wine Wayland driver merged HiDPI support improvements and now for ending out the week is yet more work to land for Wine’s Wayland driver: the first bits of Vulkan enablement…
Source: Phoronix – Vulkan Support Begins Landing For Wine’s Wayland Driver