Author: kenmay

Android 6.0 has a great auto backup system that no one is using (yet)

We recently published a  rather lengthy review of Google’s newest operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but there was one feature we couldn’t get working in time for the review: the new automatic backup feature for app data. The theory is that this feature would take all your app data, stick it in the cloud, and when you restore your phone or buy a new one, it would be like nothing ever changed—all your settings and logins would come back like magic. “Theory” is the key word, since we only had Google’s descriptions and the behavior of the Android M Developer Preview to go on for the review. One week and lots of research later, we think we’ve nailed down how the system works in the final version. What follows is a rewrite of the backup section that we’ll paste into the review, but since it is 95 percent new content and information, we’re giving it a separate article, too. If you’ve had any experience with the Developer Preview’s backup behavior, it really doesn’t apply to the final version. The Developer Preview took a brute force “back up everything” approach to app data, which in part was for Google’s testing to see how such a system would work. The final version takes a safer, consumer-ready route that has a lot more restrictions for what gets backed up. Read 32 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Taken from:
Android 6.0 has a great auto backup system that no one is using (yet)

New subreddit chronicles the most public “blue screens of death”

The new subreddit Public Blue Screens of Death. I swiped my credit card at a gas station last week, and as I replaced the nozzle, the pump’s display screen froze, blanked, and then rebooted. I had never seen such a thing before. Not sure if I had actually paid for the gas or not, I went inside and told the cashier. “It happens,” she said. Indeed it does. Thanks to our ever-more-computerized world, crashed software and arcane error messages are a common sight in public-facing displays. A new subreddit called Public Blue Screens of Death aims to chronicle these public crashes, especially those that result in the infamous Windows “blue screen of death” (BSOD). This isn’t the first such collection of BSODs, of course. The Flickr group ” Public Computer Errors ” has been around since 2005 and contains 1,500 images—but its remit extends far beyond the BSOD. More commonly, public BSODs are collected into humorous, one-off roundups . The new subreddit aims to be an ongoing archive of such material, however, and it has been skinned to resemble an old Windows display. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
New subreddit chronicles the most public “blue screens of death”

Here’s How The 2016 Ford Focus RS’s Stall Recovery Feature Works

The new Ford Focus RS Comes with a Stall Recovery feature that will help you look like less of a jackass after you cut the engine out with the clutch pedal, but it won’t stop you from stalling. Here’s how it works. Read more…

See original article:
Here’s How The 2016 Ford Focus RS’s Stall Recovery Feature Works

5 Cities With Driverless Public Buses On The Streets Right Now

Last week it was announced that the US will be getting its first driverless bus fleet in a Bay Area office park as soon as next year. But say you can’t wait that long. You want to see the future now . So why not hitch a ride to one of these cities where you can ride in a public, autonomous vehicle in 2015. Read more…

Read More:
5 Cities With Driverless Public Buses On The Streets Right Now

A New PS4 Remote Makes the Playstation a Halfway Decent Set-Top Box

Sony’s Playstation 4 does most of the TV-watching things a TV-watching box is meant to do, apart from the fact that watching Netflix using two analog sticks is a pain. Sony’s new Bluetooth universal remote should fix all that. Read more…

See the article here:
A New PS4 Remote Makes the Playstation a Halfway Decent Set-Top Box

Dell Reported to Announce $50 Billion ‘Biggest Deal in Tech’ Later Today

According to several reports , the ‘largest-ever technology merger’ is set to be announced later today — and it’s between Dell and storage technology firm EMC, in a deal said to be worth over $50 billion. Read more…

Continue Reading:
Dell Reported to Announce $50 Billion ‘Biggest Deal in Tech’ Later Today

Open-Source Doom 3 Advances With EAX Audio, 64-bit ARM/x86 Support

An anonymous reader writes: Dhewm3, one of the leading implementations of the Doom 3 engine built off the open-source id Tech 4 engine, has released a new version of the GPL-licensed engine that takes Doom 3 far beyond where it was left off by id Software. The newest code has full SDL support, OpenAL + OpenAL EFX for audio, 64-bit x86/ARM support, better support for widescreen resolutions, and CMake build system support on Linux/Windows/OSX/FreeBSD. This new open-source code can be downloaded from Dhewm3 on GitHub but continues to depend upon the retail Doom 3 game assets. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See more here:
Open-Source Doom 3 Advances With EAX Audio, 64-bit ARM/x86 Support

See the Sketches J.R.R. Tolkien Used To Build Middle-Earth

Esther Schindler writes: In addition to writing the story of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien drew it. The maps and sketches he made while drafting it “informed his storytelling, allowing him to test narrative ideas and illustrate scenes he needed to capture in words, ” reports Ethan Gilsdorf at Wired. “For Tolkien, the art of writing and the art of drawing were inextricably intertwined.” It’s all coming out in a new book, but here we get a sneak preview, along with several cool observations, such as: “If Tolkien’s nerdy use of graph paper feels like a secret message to future Dungeons & Dragons players, then so does his ‘Plan of Shelob’s lair.’ Tolkien’s map of tunnels stocked with nasties—here, a spider named Shelob—would be right at home in any Dungeon Master’s campaign notes. He even marks the place for a classic dungeon crawl feature: ‘trap.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View the original here:
See the Sketches J.R.R. Tolkien Used To Build Middle-Earth

All the Stuff iCloud Syncs Besides the Obvious

We all know that iCloud syncs up items like photos, contacts, reminders, calendar events, and iMessage conversations, but chances are you’ve noticed that it also syncs up a few other little things. Finer Things in Tech is putting together a list of those unexpected synced items. Read more…

Read the original post:
All the Stuff iCloud Syncs Besides the Obvious

Laser shines through fly’s skin, controls its heart by activating doped cells

Eliza writes, “A researcher from Lehigh University has invented a light-based pacemaker for fruit flies, and says a human version is ‘not impossible.’ The pacemaker relies on the new technique of ‘optogenetics,’ in which light-sensitive proteins are inserted into certain cells, allowing those cells to be activated by pulses of light. Here, the proteins were inserted into cardiac cells so the researchers could trigger the contractions that produce heartbeats.” (more…)

More here:
Laser shines through fly’s skin, controls its heart by activating doped cells