This was hinted at when HTC announced its HTC Rhyme and we saw Dropbox installed as a pre-loaded app, but now HTC has confirmed it. Future buyers of HTC Android phones get a useful 5GB of free Dropbox storage space. More
Parasites are raising an army of zombie wasp queens to do their bidding, and it’s a good thing that these parasites aren’t more ambitious,
10-25-11 – Happy Haloween in tech land!
Today marks the launch of Silicon Valley startup Nest Labs‘ Learning Thermostat, a device that is exactly what it sounds like and much more: a thermostat that learns from user behavior to create a custom heating and cooling schedule. Company founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers—who spearheaded the design and engineering of the iPod, respectively—found it “unacceptable… that the device that controls 10 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn't kept up with advancements in technology and design.”
According to the U.S. Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the annual energy bill for a typical single-family home is approximately $2,200, with heating and cooling (HVAC) accounting for approximately half of the bill. The programmable thermostat, developed in the 1970s, promised to help people conserve energy, but 89 percent of owners rarely or never set a program (source: ACEEE, 2010). The devices are simply too complicated. In fact, Energy Star revoked its certification of all thermostats in 2009 when it became apparent that people weren’t actually engaging with programmable thermostats to reach their proper functionality.
Nest addresses the programming problem through a combination of sensors, algorithms, machine learning, and cloud computing. Nest learns behaviors and preferences and adjusts the temperature up or down accordingly, making you comfortable when you’re home and saving energy while you’re away. Nest also provides people with tips and information to help them make energy-saving choices.
Thus, the Nest Learning Thermostat sets new standard for climate control: while the device learns continuously throughout its lifetime, the first week of operation is purely a schedule acquisition period. The UI/UX is vaguely iPod-like in its intuitiveness: rotate the (brushed aluminum) outer ring in either direction to adjust the temperature.
Wi-Fi connectivity allows for remote control via network devices—i.e. laptop, smartphone or tablet—as well as metrics and syncing with weather.
Along with requisite temperature sensors, the Nest is also equipped with activity and ambient light detectors so it knows when you’re home, so a (secure) mobile app also allows for even remoter control.
The popular Linux distribution Ubuntu recently finalized its move to the new Unity interface, while other Linux distributions are moving to the new GNOME 3 shell. Both interfaces are remarkably different than the Linux environments you’re used to, but remarkably similar to one another. So which one is better for you? We delve down and uncover the differences between each. More
Machines have been outperforming the human brain for a while now. Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov, Watson vs. Ken Jennings, Siri vs. my hungover inability to operate technology. Now IBM’s Blue Gene is trying to not just outperform, but simulate the whole damn human brain. It’s 4.5 percent of the way there. More
Take that, Xperia Play. USB gamepads are already supported in Honeycomb, so we had plenty of hope that Android 4.0 — also lovingly referred to as Ice Cream Sandwich — would offer the same functionality. We finally have the answer, and it’s a resounding yes, courtesy of Google framework engineer Romain Guy’s Twitter account. The cool part, though, is that HDMI’s playing nice as well. In short, you could hook up an external gamepad to a USB-to-microUSB adapter on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, connect it to your TV and transform your handset into a fancy portable gaming console. It’s definitely something we can see developers flock towards, and we’ll expect some cool stuff to come out of it. Just in case you thought the Nexus wouldn’t let you get anything else done around the house already, this pretty much seals the deal. Move below the break to see a screenshot from the SDK.
Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB game controllers and HDMI, turns your phone into full game console originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 06:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
This Etruscan ceramic fragment is over 2,600 years old, and it’s quite possibly the oldest depiction of childbirth ever found in Europe. It’s a marvelous sight to behold, but the person who actually discovered it hasn’t even seen it. More
