Ready for another Amped Wireless announcement? The company’s 802.11ac revolution continues with the APA-20 long-range access point. The unit promises to bring Amped’s trademark high-power WiFi know-how to your existing setup, promising to configure itself as soon as it’s plugged in. Available for pre-order from today, the APA-20 will set you back $190 and will ship to customers on October 29th. Filed under: Wireless Comments
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Amped Wireless announces APA-20 long-range access point
Prosthetic limbs have gotten more lifelike — and also more useful — recently. But how do you let people feel what they’re touching? Recently, scientists have developed a number of supersensitive artificial skins, but the goal of restoring sensation has remained elusive. That is, until now. Read more…
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A Major Breakthrough in Bringing the Sense of Touch to Prosthetic Limbs
When most people hear the word “drone, ” they probably picture a cockpit-free plane zipping over the Iraqi desert. But there’s more to it than that. The Army is in the process of adopting a whole new generation of unmanned vehicles that will assist soldiers on the battlefield—and they’re by far the scariest remote-controlled cars you’ll ever see. Read more…
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These Next Generation Drones Carry Gear and Machine Guns into Battle
Jasmine Santana of the Catalina Island Marine Institute was snorkeling off the coast about 20 miles southwest of L.A. when she spotted an 18-foot-long oarfish. It was dead. From the AP: “We’ve never seen a fish this big,” said Mark Waddington, senior captain of the Tole Mour, CIMI’s sail training ship. “The last oarfish we saw was three feet long.” Because oarfish dive more than 3,000 feet deep, sightings of the creatures are rare and they are largely unstudied, according to CIMI… The carcass was on display Tuesday for 5th, 6th, and 7th grade students studying at CIMI. It will be buried in the sand until it decomposes and then its skeleton will be reconstituted for display, Waddington said. ” 18-foot-long sea creature found off Calif. coast ”
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Giant, rare "sea serpent" dragged to shore in California
Twitter now allows anyone you follow to send you direct messages, if you enable the feature in your settings. The feature can be useful for people who get followers begging them to follow back in order to DM something private, but it could also lead to a ton of spam—that’s why it’s off by default. Read more…
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Twitter Now Lets Any User Send You Direct Messages (If You Enable It)
Still upset about breaking the handle on your favorite mug? A 3D printer can make it as good as new, and thanks to researchers at the University of Southern California, the process is even easier now since they’ve developed a printer that can build directly on curved surfaces. Read more…
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This Insane Six-Axis 3D Printer Even Works On Curved Surfaces
Don’t think that the NSA’s bulk communication data collection is focused solely on the communications themselves . The Washington Post has published more Edward Snowden documents which reveal that the agency collects large volumes of contact lists from email and instant messaging users around the world. While the NSA gathers the information on foreign soil, its method reportedly prevents it from automatically screening out any Americans in the list. The NSA and anonymous officials argue that American laws prevent analysts from accessing data unless they believe there’s a foreign target hidden with, but the strategy still has the government storing contacts for “millions” of people. Yahoo customers are some of the most common targets of this surveillance, as the company doesn’t normally encrypt webmail sessions. That’s about to change, however. The internet firm tells the Post that its webmail service will default to using SSL encryption on January 8th, catching up with Facebook and Google. Yahoo isn’t officially tightening its security in response to NSA activity, and using SSL won’t necessarily stop interceptions when spies frequently have workarounds . However, the upcoming encryption will at least complicate any snooping — whether or not it’s part of an intelligence operation. Filed under: Internet Comments Source: Washington Post (1) , (2)
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NSA collecting email and messaging contacts worldwide, Yahoo moves to encrypt webmail by default
Everybody hates wires, but if you want crazy speed, they’re the way to go. But maybe not anymore. A team of German scientists have developed record-setting Wi-Fi that cooks right along at 100 Gigabits per second . You know, like Google Fiber but times 100. Read more…
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The World’s Fastest Wi-Fi Makes Google Fiber Look Like Dial-Up
“Todd, ” the digitally rendered man pictured at far left, is a physiologically average American male, his paunchy proportions based on averages from CDC anthropometric data . Beside him stand average men from Japan, the Netherlands and France. How do you stack up? Read more…
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The bodies of average men from around the world
It’s autumn, which means it’s time for Microsoft to come out with its latest and greatest update for Windows Phone. This year, however, the company isn’t pushing anything as drastic or significant as WP8 , and it even shows in the name of the refresh itself: GDR3. (GDR stands for General Distribution Release.) The update, which will begin rolling out in the coming weeks and “will continue over several months, ” doesn’t feature any improvements to the notification experience, but it delivers on a few important enhancements that are sorely needed — especially when it comes to hardware support. First, GDR3 will now offer Start screen support for screens between 5 and 7 inches, with resolution support now set at a maximum of 1080p (both of which lend credence to the leaks we’ve seen of the Lumia 1520 , Nokia’s upcoming 6-inch device). As an aside, we’ve confirmed with a Microsoft rep that this update won’t be adding support for full-on tablets, though we can’t rule out that possibility in a future refresh. Future Windows Phones can become much more powerful as well, now that the update adds support for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 quad-core SoC. On the software side, Microsoft is throwing in Driving Mode, which limits notifications on the lock screen and can be set to trigger whenever you connect a Bluetooth device. You can also close individual apps in the multitasking menu, lock your screen orientation and assign custom ringtones for text messages. Also, remember that annoyingly vague “other” category in the storage settings? GDR3 now breaks it down into more specific categories and lets you manage each one (excepting the system storage). Aside from these enhancements, Microsoft claims “hundreds” of other tweaks and fixes, many of which are under the hood. For a few more details, head below the break to look at the official blog post in its entirety. Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Mobile Comments
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Microsoft announces Windows Phone GDR3 update, adds 1080p and large screen support