The Medieval Unicode Font Initiative has a collection of glyphs and type elements that they’d like to see added to Unicode to make it simpler to represent medieval writing on the Web. ( via O’Reilly Radar )
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Medieval Unicode
You probably already know you can play your favorite retro games on your computer , tablet, or phone with an emulator. But emulators are good for more than just saving space in your entertainment cabinet—they can also make your games look and play better than the original systems. Here are a few ways you can modernize those old games when they’ve gotten stale. Read more…
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Bring Your Retro Games Into the Modern Age with These Emulator Tricks
That 60 gallon tank of hot water in your basement eats up a lot of energy. But tankless on-demand water heaters leave you running water down the drain while you wait for warmth. This tiny Kickstarter water heater promises to change all that, and save you money, thanks to some fascinating technology. Read more…
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This Football-Sized Device Could Replace Your Huge Water Heater
Apple is preparing for a big push in sapphire crystal display manufacturing, according to some new information unearthed by 9to5Mac and told to TechCrunch via a source familiar with the company’s plans. 9to5Mac, with the help of analyst Matt Margolis, has obtained documents that report Apple placing an order with partner GT Advanced technologies for large quantities of furnaces and chambers used in making sapphire displays. Our source informs us that a large order placed at Meyer Burger for wire-based diamond cutting systems (useful in handling ultra hard material like sapphire) was actually for Apple for delivery in 2014, though they aren’t named as a customer. Regarding the furnaces, Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac reports that GT Advanced has already taken delivery of 518 units, which could allow it to build as many as 116 displays of roughly five inches in size per year, with another 420 machines still on order, for a total potential capacity of around 200 million display panels at a size around one inch larger ( rumors suggest new models will be bigger ) than the current diagonal proportions of the iPhone 5s screen. Apple sold around 150 million iPhones in 2013 to put that in perspective, so doing the math, it could indeed be the case that Apple is putting the pieces together for a production run that spans the entire next generation of iPhone hardware. Gurman’s report adds that GT Advanced has ordered a large quantity of Sirius Sapphire Display Inspection Tool components, which helps manufacturers using sapphire in displays specifically for smartphones and other mobile devices by increasing yield numbers and making sure only high quality sapphire makes it into the production stream. Back when the GT Advanced deal, which saw Apple contribute $578 million to build a manufacturing plant for sapphire crystal in Arizona , our own Matthew Panzarino explained that it made sense for Apple to invest early in the tech should it plan to use it in large volumes later own. At first, it seemed likely that in the short-term, Apple’s focus would be more on small screen production with sapphire (for existing components like the camera lens cover and Touch ID sensor), but Gurman seems to believe iPhone displays are at least as likely. That’s backed up by a tidbit also reported by Matthew around the time of the revelation of the GT Advanced deal: Apple filed a patent recently for manufacturing sapphire laminates , which can help greatly reduce the cost of production for use of the material in touchscreen devices. Now, Apple seems ready to build the infrastructure necessary to turn its R&D into a key component advantage for future iPhone hardware. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these new reports around sapphire component manufacturing, but we have yet to hear back. We’ll update if new information comes to light.
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Apple Said To Have Acquired Sapphire Display Manufacturing Components, Diamond Cutting Tools
It’s already a pretty great time to be a couch-bound art lover , and this summer the gallery experience is getting even more futuristic—because anyone with a working Wi-Fi connection will be able to sign up to pilot light- and camera-clad robots around the Tate Britain late at night, offering a self-guided tour with a drone’s-eye-view. Read more…
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You’ll Soon Be Able To Explore Museums After Dark Using These Robots
First time accepted submitter time_lords_almanac writes “A Canadian band has sent an invoice to the U.S. Department of Defense after learning that its music was used without permission in ‘interrogations’ of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The members of Skinny Puppy, who specialize in electronic music, were originally going to make the invoice the cover of their next album until they discovered they could bring legal action against the department. They were also none to happy to learn the purpose their music was being employed for, let alone illegally. The amount of compensation requested? $666, 000, of course.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Skinny Puppy Wants Compensation For Music Used in US Interrogations
Buildings “grown” from fungus and other organic materials may seem like a far-off concept to some. But this summer, a group of young Brooklyn architects are planning to demonstrate just how real the technology is—by building a tower out of bricks “grown” from mycelium, a root-like fungus, in the courtyard of MoMA P.S.1. Read more…
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A Tower Grown From Fungus Is Coming to NYC This Summer
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Yesterday, the team that runs the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released the photo shown above. It’s a new impact crater on Mars, formed sometime early this decade. The crater at the center is about 30 meters in diameter, and the material ejected during its formation extends out as far as 15 kilometers. The impact was originally spotted by the MRO’s Context Camera , a wide-field imaging system that (wait for it) provides the context—an image of the surrounding terrain—for the high-resolution images taken by HiRISE. The time window on the impact, between July 2010 and May 2012, simply represents the time between two different Context Camera photos of the same location. Once the crater was spotted, it took until November of 2013 for another pass of the region, at which point HiRISE was able to image it. Higher-resolution photos, as well as a map of the crater’s location on Mars, are available from the HiRISE website. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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Spectacular new Martian impact crater spotted from orbit
Sony said it was ” addressing various options ” as recently as yesterday when it came to its VAIO PC and laptop arm, and while announcing its financial results for Q3 2013, it’s apparently come to a decision. Amid reforming its TV arm (and splitting it into a stand-alone entity), it’s going to sell its PC business and VAIO brand to Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), with the final deal set to be done by the end of March 2014. The company has reported a drop in demand for its PCs in prior financial statements, and (barring the VAIO Flip 11A ), Sony didn’t have much to show from its VAIO range at this year’s CES. Sony is now no longer designing and developing PC products, while manufacturing and sales will wrap up after the company’s final VAIO range goes on sale globally. The company explains that it decided to focus on mobile products (smartphones and tablets), meaning that it had to make big decisions with less successful parts of the business. Bloomberg is reporting that Sony will cut 5, 000 jobs worldwide by the end of the 2014 fiscal year, while the new PC company has stated that it will hire around 250 to 300 Sony employees, encompassing design, development manufacturing and sales, and will be based in Nagano — where Sony’s current VAIO HQ resides. The company is promising to fulfill all its aftercare warranties. Sony is signed up to invest 5 percent of the new company’s capital to support its launch and smooth over the transition. According to Sony’s predictions, it reckons the changes will ensure the TV business returns to profitability within the financial year of 2014. Developing… Filed under: Laptops , Sony Comments Source: Sony
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Sony sells its VAIO PC business, makes TV arm its own subsidiary
Unless there’s an electric vehicle parked in your driveway, you probably don’t think of your car in a computer – but a pair of Spanish security researchers sure do. In preparation for next month’s Black Hat Asia security conference in Singapore, Javier Vazquez-Vidal and Alberto Garcia Illera have assembled a small electronic device that can leave a vehicle’s computer system open to attack. “It can take five minutes or less to hook up and then walk away, ” Vidal says. It can also be built from off-the-shelf components for less than $20. What the gizmo can actually do depends on the car. The team says that they’ve wired the CAN Hacking Tool (named for the Controller Area Network bus it exploits) into four vehicles, and have used it to wirelessly manipulate lights, set off alarms, control power windows and even activate the vehicle’s breaks. By the conference starts they hope to outfit the prototype with a GSM radio, making it possible to control vehicle systems from virtually anywhere. Still, Vidal says they don’t want to enable people to hack their neighbor’s vehicles – the device’s source code is going to remain unreleased- – but they hope their demonstration at Black Hat Asia will get the attention of automakers. “A car is a mini network, ” Illera said. “And right now there’s no security implemented. Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Forbes
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Your car’s computer system can be compromised with off the shelf parts