Using a similar approach that allowed MIT to see through walls using just wifi signals , researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, led by Yasamin Mostofi, have found a way to count crowds of people —with a surprising degree of accuracy—using just basic wifi hardware. Read more…
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Wifi Networks Can Count People—No Phones Required
It’s just a keyboard, and so it should be limited to keys. But with the new version of iOS 9 for iPad, announced at WWDC, the touch-sensitive QuickType keyboard now has the ability to transform into a trackpad whenever you set down two fingers on the keyboard portion of the screen. Simply move those fingers to the left and the cursor moves with them. This allows you to move the cursor… Read More
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Apple Just Turned The iPad Into A Real Computer With QuickType
Taco Cowboy writes: The G7 group of countries has issued a pledge that they will phase out fossil fuels by the end of this century. The announcement was warmly welcomed by environmental groups. “Angela Merkel took the G7 by the scruff of the neck, ” said Ruth Davis a political advisor to Greenpeace and a senior associate at E3G. “Politically, the most important shift is that chancellor Merkel is back on climate change. This was not an easy negotiation. She did not have to put climate change on the agenda here. But she did, ” Davis said. The G7 plege includes a goal proposed by the EU to cut emissions 60% on 2010 levels by 2050, with full decarbonisation by 2100. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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G7 Vows To Phase Out Fossil Fuels By 2100
Last month, Microsoft removed the sign-up requirement for folks to give Skype’s live translation chops a try. Now, a preview version of the multi-language tool is heading to the desktop. Skype Translator is scheduled to roll out inside the chat-focused app’s desktop software at the end of the summer, delivering real-time translation for voice/video calls and instant messaging. Right now, the speech function supports English, Spanish, Italian and Mandarin, but if you’re conversing via IM, there are 50 more languages added to the list. Windows 10 arrives at this summer too , and real-time translating is sure to come in handy when chatting it up on a 84-inch Surface Hub . Filed under: Internet , Software , Microsoft Comments Source: Skype
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Skype Translator is heading to the desktop app this summer
In Switzerland, it’s apparently common for people to leave out bags of stuff they don’t want for others to take, instead of throwing it all in the trash. And when a writer over on Brick Fanatics found a sack of miscellaneous Lego, when he got home he was surprised to find it actually included classic sets, manuals, and catalogs dating back to the 1970s. Read more…
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Lucky guy finds a treasure trove of classic ’70s Lego in a discarded bag
The past few years have seen a shift from owning music to accessing as much as you want on various streaming services. Why pay $9.99 for a new album each month when you can get a firehose of content for the same price? Now Apple looks to get in on the action with its newest offering, Apple Music . They made a big splash with the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 but here in 2015 there’s a lot more competition for your listening attention. Does Apple Music have what it takes to stand out from its more established rivals? We’ve stacked up some of the bigger names to see which one can give you the most for your money. Apple Music Spotify Rdio Google Play Music Monthly fee Individual: $9.99 Family: $14.99 Premium: $9.99 Select: $3.99 Unlimited: $9.99 Unlimited: $9.99 Number of songs “Tens of millions” Over 30 million Over 32 million Over 30 million Audio quality NA 320kbps 320kbps Up to 320kbps Radio Yes (human-driven) Yes (automated) Yes (automated) Yes (automated) Video content Yes Yes No Yes Exclusive content Yes Yes Yes Yes Curated playlists Yes Yes Yes Yes Offline listening Yes Yes Yes Yes Online media storage Yes No No Yes Social features NA Yes Yes Yes Desktop apps Windows, Mac Windows, Mac Windows, Mac Web only Mobile apps iOS, Android (coming fall 2015) iOS, Android, Windows Phone iOS, Android, Windows Phone iOS, Android Filed under: Apple Comments
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Apple Music vs the competition: A streaming music cheat sheet
Film producer and real estate developer Nile Niami is building a massive Bel Air, California residence, containing a 74, 000 square-foot main house and three smaller homes, that he will try to sell for $500 million. Here’s what that pocket change gets you: Read the rest
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For sale: the largest, most expensive home in US history
HughPickens.com writes: BBC reports that Germany has abandoned tuition fees altogether for German and international students alike and more than 4, 600 US students are fully enrolled at Germany universities, an increase of 20% over three years. “When I found out that just like Germans I’m studying for free, it was sort of mind blowing, ” says Katherine Burlingame who decided to get her Master’s degree at a university in the East German town of Cottbus. “I realized how easy the admission process was and how there was no tuition fee. This was a wow moment for me.” When Katherine came to Germany in 2012 she spoke two words of German: ‘hallo’ and ‘danke’. She arrived in an East German town which had, since the 1950s, taught the majority of its residents Russian rather than English. “At first I was just doing hand gestures and a lot of people had compassion because they saw that I was trying and that I cared.” She did not need German, however, in her Master’s program, which was filled with students from 50 different countries but taught entirely in English. In fact, German universities have drastically increased all-English classes to more than 1, 150 programs across many fields. So how can Germany afford to educate foreign students for free? Think about it this way: it’s a global game of collecting talent. All of these students are the trading cards, and the collectors are countries. If a country collects more talent, they’ll have an influx of new ideas, new businesses and a better economy. For a society with a demographic problem — a growing retired population and fewer young people entering college and the workforce — qualified immigration is seen as a resolution to the problem as research shows that 50% of foreign students stay in Germany. “Keeping international students who have studied in the country is the ideal way of immigration, ” says Sebastian Fohrbeck.”They have the needed certificates, they don’t have a language problem at the end of their stay and they know the culture.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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How American Students Can Get a University Degree For Free In Germany
Early today, the official website of the US Army (www.army.mil) was defaced by attackers claiming to be with the Syrian Electronic Army. In addition to a message on the page claiming attribution, the attackers also included a pop-up message to anyone visiting: “Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting.” One of several messages popped up by the defaced Army.mil sites. At the time of publication, the Army main homepage is down, although other Army websites have not been affected. However, the website of the US Strategic Command —the joint Department of Defense command overseeing space and nuclear forces—is also down, as is the official page for US Cyber Command hosted on its domain. Screenshots of the attack were posted this afternoon on a Syrian Electronic Army Twitter account, one which has in the past posted links to “leaked” files about connections between the US, Turkish, and Saudi Arabian governments and Syrian rebels. This account has also previously shared information about defacements of other websites (including that of the International Business Times and the Telegraph last year) and the hijacking of Twitter accounts belonging to a number of western media outlets. The SEA claims to have created its own distribution of Linux based on Ubuntu for use by its supporters. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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US Army website defaced by Syrian Electronic Army
Airbus, the European aerospace giant, has unveiled Adeline: its answer to SpaceX’s reusable space launch ambitions. Adeline, which stands for Advanced Expendable Launcher with Innovative engine Economy, uses a rather novel solution to get the first stage engines back in one piece: it has wings and propellers that allow the engines to follow a ballistic trajectory, and then fly like an airplane back to a runway. All current space launch systems—SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Airbus’ Ariane 5, Russia’s Soyuz, etc.—are expendable. During every single rocket launch, the rocket engines and fuel tanks fall back to Earth, usually into the ocean, never to be used again. Rocket engines are not cheap: Orbital Sciences paid around $1 billion (£600 million) to Roscosmos for 20 RD-180 rocket engines. This is why companies like SpaceX, and now Airbus, are developing technologies that can bring the rocket engines back to the launchpad, so that they can be reused. SpaceX, which is currently leading the charge in this area, says that it wants to reuse rocket engines and fuel tanks within “single-digit hours” of their return. Depending on who you talk to, and the configuration of the rocket, current space launch prices are somewhere around $250-500 million; with reusable components, SpaceX wants to get that price down below $100 million . Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Airbus unveils Adeline, its clever answer to SpaceX’s reusable rockets