This week the world’s first and only digital circuit breaker was certified for commercial use. The technology, invented by Atom Power, has been listed by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the global standard for consumer safety. This new breaker makes power easier to manage and 3000 times faster than the fastest mechanical breaker, marking the most r…
G2Reader / kenmay /
Tag: change
In A World First, Scientists Change Snail’s Shell-Coiling Direction With CRISPR
“Most snails are ‘righties’. Now scientists have found genes that can change the shell coiling direction, ” writes the New York Times. ( Non-paywalled version here ) Suren Enfiajyan shares their report: Studying these snails offers clues to the evolution of body plans in many animals. It also could be important for understanding why up to 10 perc…
G2Reader / kenmay /
Apple’s $999 iPhone X packs an edge-to-edge display and dual cameras
The iPhone X (pronounced “iPhone ten”) is real, and it’s finally here. CEO Tim Cook just unveiled the biggest redesign of the iPhone we’ve seen yet at today’s event in the Steve Jobs theater at Apple’s brand-new campus. As expected, the phone is dominated by a massive screen that takes up the entire front of the display. Just like Samsung’s Galaxy S8, the bezels are barely there, though the iPhone X has a slightly odd “cut-out” at the top of the phone to allow for the front-facing camera and sensors. The lack of bezels means the phone isn’t that much bigger than the iPhone 7. The “super retina” display is 5.8 inches with a 2436 x 1125 resolution — that works out to 458 pixels per inch, by far the highest ever seen on an iPhone. Phil Schiller also notes that it’s an OLED screen, the first that’s “good enough” for an iPhone. The screen supports HDR, and naturally includes 3D Touch technology and the “true tone” display on the iPhone 8 and iPad Pro. To accommodate this giant display, Apple has ditched the home button and touch ID. Given that every iPhone has had a home button, this change might even be a bigger deal than the bigger screen. The phone is wrapped with stainless steel and has glass on the front and back; surprisingly, it only comes in two finishes (silver and black). To accommodate this giant display, Apple has ditched the home button and Touch ID. You can raise the phone to wake, but you can also tap the screen to wake it up. Given that every iPhone has had a home button, this change might even be a bigger deal than the bigger screen. To get home, Apple has added gestures like the ones we’ve seen on the iPad for years — a swipe up from the bottom gets you back to the home screen, while swiping up and pausing will bring you to the multitasking menu. To access Siri, you can use “hey Siri” or you can hold the side button, which Apple has enlarged. To replace Touch ID, the iPhone X is locked until you look at it and it recognizes you. Apple is calling this “Face ID.” It uses the front-facing camera as well as other sensors, including an infrared sensor, flood illuminator and dot projector to unlock the phone. (Apple’s calling it a True Depth sensor.) It’ll update your face scan frequently to account for changes like haircuts, hats and beards. Schiller says it’s a one in a million chance that someone else’s face would unlock your phone, compared to one in 50, 000 for Touch ID. Face ID will also let you authenticate Apple Pay purchases — by clicking the side button twice and looking at the screen, your phone will make the desired payment. And Apple’s also using the True Depth sensors to let you create and share animated emojis. Apple is starting with a dozen different emoji (most of them animals) that you can animate using your face. As for the camera, it’s a dual camera, much like that on the iPhone 8 — it has dual 12-megapixel sensors with a f/1.8 aperture on the wide end and f/2.4 on the telephoto lens. The big thing to note here is that both lenses have optical image stabilization, while the iPhone 8 Plus only has OIS on the wide-angle lens. It also features factory calibration on the cameras for augmented reality. The processor is the same as the A11 Bionic chip found in the new iPhone 8, and it sounds like a big step up over last year’s processor. It’s a six-core CPU, with two high-performance cores. Those high-performance cores are 25 percent faster than the A10, while the four high-efficiency cores are 70 percent faster than the A10. Apple also designed the GPU for the first time and says that its optimized for the company’s Metal 2 graphics framework. Despite all the new features and power of the A11 chip, Schiller says that the phone should last two more hours than the iPhone 7. Like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the iPhone X will also include wireless charging for the first time. To facilitate wireless charging, the entire iPhone lineup now has glass backs, just like the iPhone 4 and 4S had many years ago. Somewhat surprisingly, Apple is using Qi, one of the biggest open wireless charging standards. That means that plenty of wireless charging pads out there should work with the iPhone X right out of the box. Naturally Apple has made its own charging mat that can accommodate the iPhone X or iPhone 8, the series 3 Apple Watch and Airpods, provided you buy a new wireless charging case for them. It’s called AirPower, but it doesn’t come out until next year unfortunately. There are a few changes to navigating iOS to accommodate for the lack of a home button. Since swiping up from the bottom gets you home or to multitasking, you now access control center by swiping down from the top of the screen, You need to hit the targets on the left or right where your status and battery indicator live to do that, though. Apple hasn’t shown the notification center yet, but we’re guessing you can get it by swiping down from the middle of the screen. One of the biggest questions about the iPhone X has been its cost. It’ll start at $999 for 64GB, and the 256GB model will likely run an extra $100. Pre-orders start on October 27th, and the phone will begin shipping on November 3rd. Start saving your couch change, folks. Follow all the latest news from Apple’s iPhone event here!
Continue reading here:
Apple’s $999 iPhone X packs an edge-to-edge display and dual cameras
The Battle of the Tooth Worm
I come across a lot of strange objects in my research: books bound in human skin , prosthetic noses made of silver , iron coffins with safety devices to prevent premature burial. But perhaps one of the strangest objects I’ve seen is the one pictured on the left. This is a depiction of the infamous tooth worm believed by many people in the past to bore holes in human teeth and cause toothaches. But before I tell you about this fascinating piece of art, let me give you a quick lesson in dental folklore. Tooth worms have a long history, first appearing in a Sumerian text around 5,000 BC. References to tooth worms can be found in China, Egypt and India long before the belief finally takes root (pun intended) into Western Europe in the 8th century. [1] Treatment of tooth worms varied depending on the severity of the patient’s pain. Often, practitioners would try to ‘smoke’ the worm out by heating a mixture of beeswax and henbane seed on a piece of iron and directing the fumes into the cavity with a funnel. Afterwards, the hole was filled with powered henbane seed and gum mastic. This may have provided temporary relief given the fact that henbane is a mild narcotic. Many times, though, the achy tooth had to be removed altogether. Some tooth-pullers mistook nerves for tooth worms, and extracted both the tooth and the nerve in what was certainly an extremely painful procedure in a period before anaesthetics. [2] The tooth worm came under attack in the 18 th century when Pierre Fauchard—known today as the father of modern dentistry—posited that tooth decay was linked to sugar consumption and not little creatures burrowing inside the tooth. In the 1890s, W.D. Miller took this idea a step further, and discovered through a series of experiments that bacteria living inside the mouth produced acids that dissolved tooth enamel when in the presence of fermentable carbohydrates. Despite these discoveries, many people continued to believe in the existence of tooth worms even into the 20 th century. The piece of art at the top of the article is titled ‘The Tooth Worm as Hell’s Demon.’ It was created in the 18 th century by an unknown artist, and is carved from ivory. It is an incredibly intricate piece when you consider it only stands a little over 4 inches tall. The two halves open up to reveal a scene about the infernal torments of a toothache depicted as a battle with the tooth worm, complete with mini skulls, hellfire, and naked humans wielding clubs. It is, without a doubt, one of the strangest objects I’ve come across in my research; and today, I pass this random bit of trivia on to you in the hopes that you may use it someday to revive a dying conversation at a cocktail party. 1. W. E. Gerabek, ‘The Tooth-Worm: Historical Apsects of a Popular Belief,’ Clinical Oral Investigations (April 1999): pp. 1-6. 2. Leo Kanner, Folklore of the Teeth (1928).
Read the article:
The Battle of the Tooth Worm
15 Real Sci-Fi Technologies About to Change the World
By CRACKED Readers Published: July 17th, 2013 We’ve all come out of a sci-fi movie wishing we had whatever cool gadget the hero was killing aliens with. Fortunately, our readers dug up some technologies that will soon be available for you to use as irresponsibly as you see fit. The most awesome
Read More:
15 Real Sci-Fi Technologies About to Change the World
Apple May Delay the New iPhone Because of a Change in Screen Size
Bloomberg is reporting , citing Taiwanese newspaper Commercial Times, that Apple may delay the next iPhone—after it allegedly decided to tweak its design to feature a bigger 4.3-inch retina display screen. Read more…
Read this article:
Apple May Delay the New iPhone Because of a Change in Screen Size
Windows 8 scrubs North Korean launch
Visit site:
Windows 8 scrubs North Korean launch