Category archives: Uncategorized

 

 

DARPA realizes it needs contact lenses, opts for those nice AR tinted ones (video)

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DARPA saw the battlefield potential in AR glasses ages ago, when even Sergey Brin was happy to wear regular Ray-Bans. It’s now stepped up its investment, giving more cash to one of its research contractors — a company called Innovega — to produce prototype contact lenses that could make military wearable HUDs smaller and less conspicuous . Innovega’s iOptik lenses don’t actually include a display, but rather allow the human eye to focus on an image from a separate accessory that sits right up close to the eyeball. The lenses have different zones that give the wearer multiple areas of focus, so they can see the overlaid augmented reality HUD — such as a feed from an overhead drone — but also warlike events going on in the immediate environment. Judging from the video after the break, however, calling them plain ‘bifocals’ might be taboo. Continue reading DARPA realizes it needs contact lenses, opts for those nice AR tinted ones (video) DARPA realizes it needs contact lenses, opts for those nice AR tinted ones (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | BBC News | Email this | Comments

 

Free download: Exclusive Stylish User Interface Kit (PSD)

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We’ve partnered with the awesome guys at PurtyPixels.com to bring you a wonderful new freebie! This Stylish User Interface Kit is a cool set of everything UI… toggles, sliders, progress bars, buttons, switches and social icons… in three different colors. Everything is fully layered, completely vector and strictly organized so you can easily implement any element into your designs. Go ahead and download this set, we’re sure you’ll love it! This freebie is designed by Richard Tabor from PurtyPixels.com , a Web/UI designer from New York, New York. Check out his site for some more amazing freebies! This PSD has been exclusively designed for our Webdesigner Depot friends. You can use the file for free for personal and commercial purposes. Redistribution in any form is not allowed. Enjoy! iOS App Design Templates (choose any 3) – 82% Off! Source

 

Researchers say crab-based computing possible, lobsters throw up claws in disbelief

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IBM’s Holey Optochip ? Yawn. Fujitsu’s K supercomputer ? Yesterday’s news. Forget about boring old conventional computing stuff, the future of computer technology lies in crabs — lots and lots of crabs. Researchers at Kobe University and the University of the West the England’s Unconventional Computing Centre have discovered that properly herded crabs can signal the AND, OR and NOT arguments essential to computers, not to mention those crucial 1s and 0s. Forcing two swarms of crabs into one, for instance, represents the OR gate — a trick the computational crustaceans pulled off fairly reliably. Not every operation was pincer perfect, however, as the crabs tended to stumble a bit through attempts at signaling the AND function. At least guiding a group of crabs isn’t as tough as herding cats — researchers used a shadow to imitate a predatory bird and direct the hapless creatures accordingly. Sure, it may not be the first biological computer , but it just might be the first fear-based computer. Researchers say crab-based computing possible, lobsters throw up claws in disbelief originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 04:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink New Scientist | Complex Systems (PDF) | Email this | Comments

 

Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus mini PC launches with E-450 APU, gets reviewed

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Zotac and its XBOXes — just when you think your next dorm room PC couldn’t get any smaller… it does. The latest in the stable is the long-winded Nano XS AD11 Plus, a hysterically titled small form factor PC equipped with a dual-core 1.6GHz AMD E-450 APU, Radeon HD 6320 GPU, 2GB of DDR3 memory and an HDMI output. There’s also a 64GB mSATA SSD, a pair of USB 3.0 sockets (as well as a couple of the USB 2.0 variety), a gigabit Ethernet jack and a bundled MCE-compatible remote. In a smattering of reviews that also cropped up alongside the box’s launch, we’ve learned that the E-450 moderately bests the prior E-350 rigs and soars past similarly equipped Atom-based machines; the mSATA SSD is perhaps the biggest upgrade, however, easily helping the system as a whole feel far faster than those with mechanical hard drives. Hot Hardware was pleased with the overall showing, though they did note that the include USB WiFi adapter gave ‘em headaches when trying to stream high-bitrate content from a NAS / home server. Worth the $359? Hit those More Coverage links to help you decide. Gallery: Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus mini PC Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus mini PC launches with E-450 APU, gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink TG Daily | | Email this | Comments

 

Student's push to make Raleigh more walkable relies on homemade signs and QR codes

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Walking is apparently underrated. So University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student Matt Tomasulo decided to engage in some “guerilla urbanism” in January with fellow fans of bipedal activity, posting 27 signs at three Raleigh, NC intersections as part of the “Walk Raleigh” project. The cardboard and vinyl signs contained snippets about how many minutes it would take to walk to must-see destinations like Raleigh City Cemetery, as well as QR codes for downloading directions. Like the activity it promotes, Tomasulo says the idea behind the project is simple: It’s OK to walk. Apparently, Tomasulo and his buddies did such a great job with the signs that it took the sharp folks at the city government a month to catch on and take the stuff down. The city has since walked back its opposition to the signs, however, and put them back up as part of a 90-day pilot project. In the meantime, Walk Raleigh has turned into a Walk [Your City] Kickstarter campaign to put your wallet where your feet are. Student’s push to make Raleigh more walkable relies on homemade signs and QR codes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink The Verge | AP (Yahoo) | Email this | Comments

 

Splashtop brings Windows 8 Metro Testbed to Apple's iPad (video)

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This has gotta be uncomfortable for the iPad . Now, Windows 8 tablet developers — or anyone, for that matter — can test their apps and play with the Microsoft’s Metro interface from within the confines of Apple’s ubiquitous tablet. The functionality is made possible by Splashtop , which is known for its remote desktop apps that are currently available for Android and iOS. It seems that a good amount of effort went into this application, known as the Win8 Metro Testbed, which offers the same swipe capabilities that will be available on a native system. This includes the ability to swipe from the left to switch apps, swipe from the right to reveal the Charms menu, and pull down from the top to close an application. Splashtop’s Win8 Metro Testbed is currently available for a promotional $24.99 in the iTunes App Store, whereafter it will sell for $49.99. You’ll find the full PR and a quick video tour of the app’s functionality after the break. Gallery: Splashtop Win8 Metro Testbed for Apple iPad Continue reading Splashtop brings Windows 8 Metro Testbed to Apple’s iPad (video) Splashtop brings Windows 8 Metro Testbed to Apple’s iPad (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | iTunes | Email this | Comments

 

Valve job posting reveals plans for homegrown hardware, promises it won't suck

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Rumors fluttering about Valve’s entry into the hardware market just got a little less salty. According to the outfit’s own jobs page, it’s prepping to offer consumers “whole new gaming experiences.” A call for an experienced electronics engineer says it all, “For years Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences. Now we’re developing hardware to enhance those experiences.” The ideal candidate ought to have a hefty load of prototyping experience, a knack for working with embedded systems and microcontrollers , a proficiency in thermal management, high speed serial interfaces, ARM / x86 system design, and more. We’re not about to hazard a guess at what this adds up to, but Valve promises it’s more compelling than “me-too mice and gamepads .” Hit the source link below to apply, get hired, and let us know what’s up. [Thanks, Alexis] Valve job posting reveals plans for homegrown hardware, promises it won’t suck originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink Jeri Ellsworth (Twitter) | Valve | Email this | Comments

 

Dyson's engineers head off to the races, create dragsters using spare parts, DC-16 motors (video)

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Dyson engineers certainly know a thing or two about creating innovative vacuums and fans Air Multipliers , but did you know they’ve also dabbled in the world of high-speed racing? Such is apparently now the case, as these folks were tasked with building go-kart drag racers out of spare parts, resulting in a variety of wheeled wonders viaing for the fastest run on a makeshift strip in the office. Of course, there was a catch — all of the dragsters had to use the motor from Dyson’s DC-16 handheld vacuum in a battle for maximum torque. We won’t spoil the outcomes for you, so scroll down to catch a video mashup of all the hijinks in the video below. Continue reading Dyson’s engineers head off to the races, create dragsters using spare parts, DC-16 motors (video) Dyson’s engineers head off to the races, create dragsters using spare parts, DC-16 motors (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | | Email this | Comments

 

Google puts False Start SSL experiment down, nobody notices

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Back in September of 2010 Google started experimenting with a new Chrome feature called False Start, which cut the latency of SSL handshakes by up to 30 percent. While the delay in forging a secure connection never seemed like a major concern for most, the pause (which could be several hundred milliseconds long) before a browser starts pulling in actual content was too much to swallow for Mountain View engineers. The tweak to SLL was a somewhat technical one that involved packaging data and instructions normally separated out — reducing the number of round trips between a host and a client before content was pulled in. Unfortunately, False Start has proven incompatible with a number of sites, in particular those that rely on dedicated encryption hardware called SSL Terminators. Chrome used a blacklist to track unfriendly sites, but maintaining that repository proved more difficult than anticipated and became quite unwieldy. Despite reportedly working with over 99 percent of websites Adam Langley, a Google security researcher, has decided that False Start should be retired with version 20 of the company’s browser. The change will likely go unnoticed by most users, but it’s always a shame to see efforts to make the web as SPDY as possible fail. Google puts False Start SSL experiment down, nobody notices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink Ars Technica | Imperial Violet | Email this | Comments

 

Calyx Institute to create ISP that keeps customer traffic private, away from prying governmental eyes

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Wouldn’t it be nice if we were free to surf the web free from fear of having our traffic monitored and emails scraped by the NSA? Well, if Nicholas Merrill has his way, we won’t have to rely on anonymous browsers or proxy servers — we’ll have a new ISP built from the ground up to protect customer privacy. A non-profit, the Calyx Institute, will run the ISP that’ll employ end-to-end encryption on web traffic, plus encrypted emails to prevent anyone other than the user, including the ISP itself, from seeing people’s internet activity. Because of this structure, Calyx, quite literally, won’t be able to comply with governmental requests to obtain customer traffic data under the Patriot or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts. The best part is, such online privacy may cost as little as $20 a month, and Merrill has hopes to provide a similarly secure VoIP service at some point as well. Of course, the venture will only be possible if Merrill can raise the $2 million needed to get it going — which is why he’s pitching the idea to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and the general public through crowd-sourced funding site IndieGogo. Want to help out? Hit the the source below to make a donation. Calyx Institute to create ISP that keeps customer traffic private, away from prying governmental eyes originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink CNET | IndieGogo , Calyx Institute | Email this | Comments