What if you approached your life like a video game, treating your tasks as monsters to be battled and your daily goals as quests? That’s the idea behind HabitRPG , a site and community designed to be a role playing game for your to-do list. Read more…
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Behind the App: The Story of HabitRPG
There was one other Apple software update that came out yesterday, though it got lost in the shuffle between OS X and iOS system updates and record-breaking financial results . The venerable Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) application has been bumped from version 3.7.2 to version 3.8. Version 3.7.2 was a relatively minor update issued in March of 2014, and version 3.7 goes all the way back to October of 2013. ARD is pretty far off the beaten path, but the short version is that it’s an administrative tool used primarily by IT people to manage large numbers of Macs. It can do standard remote desktop stuff—viewing and taking control of remote Macs’ screens to perform maintenance or help out end users—but it also has a bunch of other handy capabilities. Among other things, administrators can use ARD to push out updates or other software packages to a bunch of Macs at once, run scheduled maintenance, show user and application usage histories, and view hardware and software information for each computer. The biggest addition to version 3.8 is official support for OS X Yosemite, and the update redesigns the app’s icon and UI to mesh better with Yosemite’s new aesthetic. Older versions of ARD supported Yosemite, but performance was quite a bit slower and image quality was visibly poorer than it was for officially supported versions. Improvements to file copying, Full Screen mode, and viewing multiple client desktops at once round out the update. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Apple Remote Desktop admin tool is updated for the first time in forever
BarbaraHudson writes Researchers figured out how to label and keep track of new pieces of DNA, and learned to follow the enzyme responsible for copying those pieces. Their research focused on enzymes called polymerases. These enzymes create small regions in DNA that act as scaffolds for the copied DNA. Scientists assumed that the body deletes the scaffolds containing errors, or mutations, and the standard computer models supported this theory. However, the actual research showed that about 1.5 percent of those erroneous scaffolds are left over, trapped within the DNA. After running models, scientists now believe they can track how DNA replicates and find the most likely areas where these scaffolds with errors turn up. The erroneous scaffolds usually appear close to genetic switches, those regions that turn on when genes activate. The mutations damage the switch, which results in genetic disease, as well as increasing the likelihood of cancer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Scientists Discover How To Track Natural Errors In DNA Replication
Sony today revealed PlayStation Music, a new Spotify -powered music service coming to PlayStation 3, 4 and “Xperia smartphones and tablets” this spring. The service will outright replace Music Unlimited, the service that Sony previously implemented across devices, powered by its own enormous music catalog. The news marks the first time Spotify has come to any game console, and is a major coup for Sony’s PlayStation group in the battle for major home entertainment apps on game consoles (Xbox One notoriously got HBO Go first). PlayStation Music will require a Spotify paid subscription (the “Premium” membership), and enables both playback on the aforementioned devices and the ability to listen to music in the background during games. When the service launches at some point in Spring 2015, it’ll be available in “41 markets around the world.” There are no images/video of the service in action just yet, nor is there news of exactly how pricing will work. We do know the exact date that Music Unlimited will go away, though: March 29, 2015. Sony says that paid users who are still signed up as of February 28th will receive free access through the end of the run. It’s not clear how, or if, their accounts will transfer over to PlayStation Music, but we’d bet they won’t given the tie to Spotify’s accounting system. In case it weren’t clear, this is great news: Music Unlimited is, to put it politely, hot garbage. Here’s what we said about it in our review of the PlayStation 4 : “Music Unlimited is, unbelievably, the only option for playing music on the PlayStation 4. You can’t set up a media server, or play MP3s or audio CDs. There’s a free 30-day trial to the subscription service as part of buying a PS4, but it’s a cumbersome hassle if you’re not already a member. And why can’t we play our own music on this super-powerful PC-esque game console? Sony says more options are coming, but at launch this is your only option. Music Unlimited takes a shockingly long time to load, and navigation within the app is similarly sluggish. When you’ve finally located music you’d like to listen to, you can thankfully push the Home button and keep listening to it on a system level. Jump into a game and turn off the game’s music track — voila! It’s pretty slick, but that same feature existed in a smarter form on the Xbox 360. And on the 360, we could load our own music onto the box.” That was one of the few massive negatives in an otherwise overtly positive console review. Glad to see it’s been sorted! We’ll have more coverage of PlayStation Music as the year rolls on. Filed under: Gaming , Household , Software , HD , Mobile , Sony Comments Source: Sony PlayStation , Spotify , Sony PlayStation EU
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PlayStation is getting a Spotify-powered music service, closing Music Unlimited
See that room above? It looks real, but it’s not — and by that we mean it’s just a 3D environment made in Unreal Engine 4. Sure, we already have a pretty good idea what the new engine can do, such as bringing realistic skin (among other things ) to games. But this “Unreal Paris” project by CG designer Dereau Benoît proves that it can be used to create objects and environments that look more like photographs of the real thing rather than CG. Benoît has created a snazzy Parisian apartment with receiving rooms, dining area, kitchen, bedroom, hallways and even a full bathroom. Benoît didn’t skimp on the details: the walls and ceilings are rich with patterns, there’s sunlight flooding in through the open windows, and you’ll see shadows, textures and even reflections mimicking their real-life counterparts. He took down the demo he uploaded on his website (presumably to iron out the kinks), but you can watch a video of the tour below to see what kind graphics to expect in future games. Filed under: Gaming Comments Via: Eurogamer , Neogaf Source: Dereau Benoît
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The Big Picture: 3D Paris apartment shows what Unreal Engine 4 can do
Not all spider silk is created equal. Some spiders spin webs of wet, sticky silk. Others like the Uloborus spider have fluffy webs made of nanoscale filaments. But those fluffy webs are just as good at catching prey, likely thanks to their electrostatic charge. Read more…
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This Spider Catches Prey With a Web of Electrically Charged Silk
This is the European Space Agency’s test spaceplane, which is planned to go on a 100 minute mission without a crew on February 11. It will blast off from Kourou, French Guiana. Read more…
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This Gleaming Monolith May Spawn the Next Space Shuttle
High-tech cards that store all your credit, gift and loyalty card info haven’t exactly made it big yet, but the competition’s already heating up. The newest entry in the race is called Swyp: a metallic device with a screen that transforms into the card you want to use when you need it, so long as you choose the appropriate one using its scroll buttons. In order to upload info, you’ll need to scan credit cards and loyalty cards with magnetic strips (support for scannable barcodes will come later) using a reader that plugs into a phone’s headphone jack. Each card’s details are then stored in the accompanying app, which you can also use to snap pictures of paper receipts. The device itself can store up to 25 cards’ info, more than what its rivals can handle: Coin , its oldest competition, can store up to 8 cards, while Plastc can keep up to 20. According to The Verge , Swyp was designed to deactivate if your phone detects that the card is more than six feet away, though there’s a way to override that if you’re, say, paying at a restaurant. Its creator, Ash Dhodapkar, also told the publication that Swyp will have a rechargeable battery (Coin, on the other hand does not — you’ll have to toss it when it runs out of juice), though it’s unclear if it will work with wireless chargers. It lacks a bunch of other features found on Plastc, including chip-and-pin technology, as well as NFC support, but it is loads cheaper than the competition (Coin costs $100, while Plastc is $150). A small number of Swype cards are now up for pre-order for $49 per, but once those are all gone, you’ll have to pay $99 to get one when it launches this fall. Filed under: Misc Comments Via: The Verge Source: Swyp
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Swyp is yet another one-card wallet vying for your attention
Linux users around the world are scrambling to update their operating systems, as a new flaw known as GHOST has been shown to have the potential to cause “a lot of collateral damage on the Internet.” Read more…
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New Linux Bug Could Cause "a Lot of Collateral Damage on the Internet"
What Should I Read Next? suggests books, similar to the algorithm used on sites like Netflix and Amazon based on your use patterns and ratings. Read the rest
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What Should I Read Next? Suggestions based on books you enjoyed