Technology that can wirelessly power our devices on the go could change our world. Imagine never having to plug in your cell phone again, or technology that continuously keeps your electronic car battery running. According to Energous Corporation, that day is just around the corner. Energous’ WattUp is a wireless charger for electronic devices. It can charge your cell phone and… Read More
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A Look At The Tech That Could Mean We Never Have To Charge Our Phones Again
Finally, after millennia of bullshit agriculture and metallurgy and revolutions industrial, political, cultural, whatever, shit’s finally getting good. That’s because there are now two giant, functional, manned robotic mecha-Gundam-Pacific Rim-giant-robot-whatever suits, and it looks like they’re gonna fight. Who will win? Everyone. Read more…
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U.S. Builds First Giant Robo-Suit, Immediately Challenges Japan To Fight
With each passing year, engineers are getting closer to recreating the 3D interface technology that pop culture has rendered so clearly for decades. Read more…
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You Can Feel These Plasma Holograms Made With Femtosecond Lasers
Starting Wednesday, the city of Chicago’s new ” cloud tax ” went into effect: it imposes a 9-percent tax on “patrons of amusement,” including those services that are “delivered electronically.” In short: Netflix users in Chicago will be paying a little extra for their subscriptions pretty soon. “We will be adding it to the cost we charge subscribers,” Anne Marie Squeo, a Netflix spokeswoman, told Ars in a statement. “Jurisdictions around the world, including the US, are trying to figure out ways to tax online services. This is one approach.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Chicago Netflix customers: Your bill is about to go up 9 percent
1sockchuck writes: Facebook faces unique storage challenges. Its users upload 900 million new images daily, most of which are only viewed for a couple of days. The social network has built specialized cold storage facilities to manage these rarely-accessed photos. Data Center Frontier goes inside this facility, providing a closer look at Facebook’s newest strategy: Using thousands of Blu-Ray disks to store images, complete with a robotic retrieval system (see video demo). Others are interested as well. Sony recently acquired a Blu-Ray storage startup founded by Open Compute chairman Frank Frankovsky, which hopes to drive enterprise adoption of optical data storage. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Where Facebook Stores 900 Million New Photos Per Day
Before dialling an unfamiliar service number, many of us feel an overwhelming sense of dread. Not just for 0800 and 0808 “freephone” numbers, which are now free to call from a mobile, but numbers starting with 084, 087 and 09 too. From experience, you know what they represent: expensive call charges. Worse yet, it’s almost impossible to know how much you’ll be spending. When the latter are advertised on TV, you’ll usually hear something along the lines of: “Calls cost 50p from a BT landline. Other landlines may vary and calls from mobiles may cost considerably more.” It’s confusing because the costs vary wildly depending on your operator and the number you’re calling, and neither charge is explained properly in advance. Most of us just dial the number anyway and hope for the best, or try to avoid the call entirely. It’s a mess, but from today everything is going to change. Ofcom has introduced a new system that makes call charges simpler to figure out. How does it work? Calling what are known as “non-geographic numbers” can involve a lot of different companies. Under the new system though, there are only two parties you need to care about: the company you’re calling, and your phone operator. They each have a rate, called the “access charge” and the “service charge, ” which are combined for a final fee. The “access charge” is set by the company behind your landline or mobile SIM. The number should be easy to find: Ofcom says phone operators are required to publish them “in a way that is prominent and readily accessible to customers.” That means on their website, on your phone bills and on the paperwork you sign for a new contract. The figure stays the same for every premium rate call you make, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to memorise — even if your family uses a landline and multiple mobile networks. The second part is the “service charge” levied by the company you’re calling. Whenever you stumble across a service number, you should also find this rate — and again, it’ll stay the same regardless of whether you’re placing the call on a landline or mobile. So from now on, you can expect to see something like this: “Calls cost 50p per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge.” If your access charge is 25 pence per minute, for example, the total cost would be 75 pence per minute for the duration of the call. Why does this matter? The new system should make it much simpler to work out what premium-rate calls will cost in advance. The introduction of a clear “access charge” should also make it easier to compare phone operators. Although most of us call non-geographic numbers infrequently, it could be a contributing factor when choosing your next phone contract. Anything else I should know? Yes, actually. As we mentioned earlier, you’ll no longer be charged for calling 0800 and 0808 numbers from a mobile. So if you don’t own a home phone or need to place a call when you’re out and about, freephone numbers are finally just that — free. Filed under: Wireless Comments Source: UK Calling , Ofcom
An anonymous reader writes: Software developer Nolan Lawson says Apple’s Safari has taken the place of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the major browser that lags behind all the others. This comes shortly after the Edge Conference, where major players in web technologies got together to discuss the state of the industry and what’s ahead. Lawson says Mozilla, Google, Opera, and Microsoft were all in attendance and willing to talk — but not Apple. “It’s hard to get insight into why Apple is behaving this way. They never send anyone to web conferences, their Surfin’ Safari blog is a shadow of its former self, and nobody knows what the next version of Safari will contain until that year’s WWDC. In a sense, Apple is like Santa Claus, descending yearly to give us some much-anticipated presents, with no forewarning about which of our wishes he’ll grant this year. And frankly, the presents have been getting smaller and smaller lately.” He argues, “At this point, we in the web community need to come to terms with the fact that Safari has become the new IE. Microsoft is repentant these days, Google is pushing the web as far as it can go, and Mozilla is still being Mozilla. Apple is really the one singer in that barbershop quartet hitting all the sour notes, and it’s time we start talking about it openly instead of tiptoeing around it like we’re going to hurt somebody’s feelings.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Is Safari the New Internet Explorer?
Daily Windows 10 builds? OK, not really. Or at least not yet. But Microsoft will today be releasing a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build, version 10159, to its fast track testers just a day after releasing build 10158 to the fast track. Yesterday’s build was the first to sport the new Microsoft Edge branding in the browser—prior builds had used the “Project Spartan” codename—along with many bug fixes and other minor improvements. Today’s build includes a further 300 fixed bugs, along with another piece of branding: it includes the new default wallpaper, a Windows logo made with lasers. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago , both yesterday’s build and today’s build are on the final path toward creating the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) build. While early builds didn’t have Windows Activation and preinstalled the Insider Hub for getting news about the previews, the latest builds are set up for the general public. As such, they include the activation system and only preinstall the apps that will ship when Windows 10 goes live. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Daily builds? Microsoft bangs out two public Windows 10 builds in two days
You can get desktop PC displays that are curved , super-wide and gaming-friendly , but all three at once? That’s tricky. Thankfully, Acer thinks it has an answer. The company has just launched the 34-inch XR341CK in the US, giving you a curvy, 21:9 aspect ratio LCD with AMD’s anti-tearing FreeSync tech built-in. So long as you have a fast-enough gaming rig (including newer AMD graphics, if you want FreeSync), you’ll get an extra-immersive canvas for your first-person shooters and racing sims . You won’t get 4K (this is “just” a 3, 440 x 1, 440 LCD), but you’ll still find DisplayPort input, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0 and a USB 3.0 hub. There’s also a 14W speaker system if the screen takes up the free space you’d normally use for audio gear. This monster monitor will cost $1, 099 when it ships in July — no small potatoes, but potentially worth it if you’d otherwise get multiple displays to achieve the same all-encompassing effect. Filed under: Displays , Gaming , AMD , Acer Comments Source: Acer (PRWeb)
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Acer rolls out a curved, super-wide display with AMD’s gaming tech
When you think of internet security from Cisco, you probably imagine firewalls and routers ( usually ) stopping hackers and malware from hitting your network. You’re going to have to expand that definition very shortly, though. Cisco has snapped up OpenDNS, whose domain name services you might have used to dodge regional restrictions or improve on your internet provider’s less-than-stellar connection. The networking giant isn’t making the acquisition for any of those reasons, though. Instead, it’s all about boosting Cisco’s cloud security — the goal is to defend against attacks on your corporate network wherever you happen to be, and to predict threats before they strike. You might not get much first-hand experience with the fruits of this merger, but things will likely kick into high gear when the purchase closes later in 2015. And in case you’re wondering: no, OpenDNS’ existing services aren’t going away . They’ll continue to run as-is (and importantly, expand) under the deal, so you won’t have to scrounge around for an alternative. [Image credit: AP Photo/Paul Sakuma] Filed under: Networking , Internet Comments Source: Cisco , OpenDNS
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Cisco buys a DNS provider to protect you in the cloud