Tag: compare-your-gadgets

Sit in the orchestra pit with Google’s 360-degree video

To get a good view of a world-class orchestra in New York’s Carnegie Hall, you normally have to buy an expensive front row seat. With a little help from Google, however, you can now sit on stage for free. The company is launching a “virtual exhibition” today called Performing Arts which includes four performances recorded with multiple 360-degree camera rigs. Alongside Carnegie Hall , you can experience the Berliner Philharmoniker , London’s Royal Shakespeare Company and the Theatro Municipal in São Paulo. Via: Google (Blog Post) Source: Performing Arts

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Sit in the orchestra pit with Google’s 360-degree video

Scientists create gold nuggets that are 98 percent air

Researchers at ETH Zurich have accomplished a bit of modern-day alchemy, transforming 20 carat gold into a lightweight foam. Well, technically it’s an aerogel: an exceedingly light and porous matrix of material. It’s so porous, in fact, that the foam doesn’t conduct electricity because, at atmospheric pressure, the gold atoms within the structure don’t actually touch. “The so-called aerogel is a thousand times lighter than conventional gold alloys. It is lighter than water and almost as light as air, ” Raffaele Mezzenga, Professor of Food and Soft Materials at ETHZ, said in a statement. Via: GizMag Source: ETH Zurich

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Scientists create gold nuggets that are 98 percent air

E-paper sneakers change your style on the fly

If you’re the sort to buy multiple pairs of sneakers just to make sure your footwear is always fashionable, you might soon have a way to save a lot of money. David Coelho is crowdfunding ShiftWear , or sneakers that have color e-paper displays in their sides. You only need a mobile app to change your look at a moment’s notice (there are promises of a shoe design store), and you can even use animations if you’re feeling ostentatious. The shoes are machine-washable, and the e-paper consumes virtually no power if you’re using static imagery — there’s even talk of walk-to-charge tech that would save you from ever having to plug in or swap batteries. Source: Indiegogo

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E-paper sneakers change your style on the fly

Amazon Video gets a bunch of new features on iOS

Amazon has released a ton of new features for its Video app. The update includes 3D touch support, Next Up (which is basically auto-play), picture-in-picture and X-Ray, which offers a wealth of IMDB information and trivia at the touch of a button. Even though some of these features are iPad exclusive (like picture-in-picture) they can help Amazon stand up against competition like Netflix when content alone won’t carry the day. The 3D touch option is only available on Apple’s latest smartphone offerings, the 6s and 6s Plus, and lets you access a number of features faster, but offers nothing in the way of exclusive functionality. Also, the app has been customized for the iPad Pro , meaning Amazon-exclusive content is bigger and better than it’s ever been before. What more could you ask for? [Image credit: AOL] Source: iMore

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Amazon Video gets a bunch of new features on iOS

Jeff Bezos beats Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the reusable rocket race

Blue Origin, the private space firm owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, has just dropped a huge, unexpected gauntlet in the race to develop a reusable rocket. In video released by the company (below), it managed to launch its New Shepard space vehicle consisting of a BE-3 rocket and crew capsule to a height of around 100.5 kilometers (62 miles). Minutes later, the capsule made a controlled landing beneath a parachute, but more importantly, the BE-3 rocket started its own decent when rockets fired at 5, 000 feet. From there, it made a a controlled vertical landing and touched down at a gentle 4.4 mph. Source: Blue Origin , Blue Origin

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Jeff Bezos beats Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the reusable rocket race

Google Street View gives you a tour of ancient Jordan landmarks

Jordan is home to some extremely significant historical and religious sites. However, visiting those landmarks in person is no mean feat — which is why Google just added many of them to Street View. Fire up your web browser and you can get virtual, 360-degree tours of more than 30 ancient locations, including the city of Petra (above), Jerash and legendary castles from the Crusades. We suspect that this will pale in comparison to the grandeur of seeing these relics first-hand, but you should at least have an inkling of what the experience would be like. Source: Google Maps

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Google Street View gives you a tour of ancient Jordan landmarks

Square’s new reader arrives to accept mobile payments and chip cards

We’ve known about Square’s new NFC-friendly reader for a while, and now the point-of-sale gadget is available for use. Starting today, 100 merchants in “select cities” (quite a few, actually) will begin accepting NFC-driven payments like Apple Pay , Android Pay , Samsung Pay and those newfangled chip credit/debit cards . The reader is a square pad (of course) separate from the company’s usual POS setups and sliding readers, allowing you to hover your phone or insert a card to complete purchase. The unit is wireless and pairs with either a countertop system or Square’s free mobile app to handle the transactions. However, the new reader itself will set businesses back $49 in order to get started. For the initial rollout, look for the device at businesses in the following cities: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Seattle, St. Louis Tampa, and Washington, D.C.

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Square’s new reader arrives to accept mobile payments and chip cards

Oddball machine makes ‘analog’ techno music with vinyl records

Many techno DJs are used to playing music on vinyl , but creating it? That’s another matter. However, Graham Dunning has found a wonderfully strange way to make that idea work. His Mechanical Techno device produces full-on dance tracks by driving several heavily modified records at once with a turntable, with each record relying on unique triggers to produce a sound. Electrical contacts will produce a synth sound as one record spins around, while piezoelectric triggers create that all-important beat on another disc. The result is techno that’s at once analog and not. It sounds digital, but it has the imprecision and unpredictability that you’d never get from software. Via: Boing Boing , Nerdcore Source: Graham Dunning

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Oddball machine makes ‘analog’ techno music with vinyl records

Samsung’s consumer Gear VR is available now for $99

We knew it was coming , but now it’s finally here. Samsung’s newly improved virtual reality headset, the Gear VR , is launching today in the US for $99 . This iteration of the Gear VR is, without a doubt, the most consumer-ready VR headset to date. One of its downsides is that it only works with Samsung’s latest smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge and Galaxy S6 Edge+ — but that’s great news for people who own handsets. As you may recall, Samsung’s Gear VR is powered by Oculus software, and services like Hulu have already announced compatibility with the device. If you’re Stateside, you can grab the Gear VR now from retailers including Amazon and Best Buy . As for worldwide availability, an Oculus spokesperson says that will be announced “soon.” Source: Oculus

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Samsung’s consumer Gear VR is available now for $99

NASA’s FireSat system will be able to detect wildfires from space

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and San Francisco-based company Quadra Pi R2E are developing a space-based wildfire detector that can keep an eye on the whole world. This system, called FireSat, will be made up of over 200 thermal infrared imaging sensors installed on satellites in low-Earth orbit. It will be powerful enough to detect wildfires 35 to 50 feet wide within 15 minutes from the time they begin. And since wildfires spread very quickly , it will have the capability to contact authorities, so they can send emergency responders to the scene as early as possible. Source: NASA

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NASA’s FireSat system will be able to detect wildfires from space