digital – Page 8 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Short story vending machine promises old-school distractions

In the French city of Grenoble, there are unusual vending machines that don’t dispense soda or snacks — they print out short stories that look like paper receipts instead. These machines were built by a publishing company called Short Édition , which placed eight of them in public locations (such as the city hall and libraries) as part of a pilot project. Each dispenser has 1-minute, 3-minute and 5-minute buttons, so readers can choose how long their stories are, all of which were written by members of the Short Édition community. Company co-founder Christophe Sibieude told Agence-France Presse that his team came up with the idea while in front of a chocolate candy machine: “We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments.” Best thing about these story dispensers is that they’re free, giving residents something to do if ever they get tired of poking on their phones or want to read the old school way. Via: PSFK Source: Short Edition , Konbini

Harvard creates a material that lets light go ‘infinitely fast’

Researchers at Harvard University announced recently that they had successfully developed a means of manipulating light at the nanoscale, which could lead to photonic-based ( rather than electronic ) telecommunications. Think, ubiquitous fiber optics. The team reportedly developed an on-chip metamaterial made from silicon pillars embedded in polymer and wrapped in gold film that exhibits a refractive index of zero. In English, that means that the phase of light passing through this material can travel infinitely fast without violating the known laws of physics. Source: Harvard University

Originally posted here:
Harvard creates a material that lets light go ‘infinitely fast’

Facebook expands search to all 2 trillion of its posts

Facebook announced on Thursday that it will expand its search function to include every publically-available post in its archive, not just those of your friends and liked Pages. But this won’t simply be a firehose of information , Facebook will reportedly segregate and stack results depending on the source. The top of the search results will be dominated by trusted sources like professional news outlets (CNN and the like). Below that section will be posts from your friends, presumably providing color commentary and insightful discussion of the headlined news — or, if they’re anything like my friends, it’ll quickly devolve into GIF wars and poop jokes. And at the bottom of the stack will be a Digg-like section of aggregated links related to the search topic. The returned results are reportedly personalized for each user based on 200 search factors. These factors include what subjects and Pages you like as well as your personal information and search history. This change comes in response to criticism of FB’s existing search feature, which has been characterized as an “echo chamber.” By at least exposing users to thoughts and opinions beyond those of their immediate social circle, FB hopes to improve the overall discussion about breaking news. “You don’t just see what your friends and people around you are saying, ” Tom Stocky, VP of Search, told TechCrunch . “You see the stories of people on the ground. It gives us a different level of perspective.” Though, if this new search function is anything like the bedlam of breaking news that is Facebook’s Signal news service, you might want to just stick with Google. [Image Credit: Shutterstock] Via: TechCrunch Source: Facebook

Continue reading here:
Facebook expands search to all 2 trillion of its posts

New Homeland Security policy demands warrants before deploying StingRays

The Department of Homeland Security announced a substantial policy change Wednesday regarding how it employs cellphone-tracking tools like the StingRay system. These cell-site simulators have been in use for more than a decade. They allow law enforcement to find cell phones either by directly searching for a known device or find an unknown device by sniffing for signaling information from the simulator’s immediate vicinity and triangulating that data. The new policy explicitly demands that DHS personnelle acquire a warrant before deploying the devices unless an exception, such as the imminent loss of human life, destruction of evidence, or to prevent the escape of a fugitive felon. Wednesday’s announcement follows a similar decision by the Department of Justice last month. [Image Credit: Getty] Via: Verge Source: Department of Homeland Security

More here:
New Homeland Security policy demands warrants before deploying StingRays

Nike’s power-laced ‘Back to the Future’ shoes arrive in 2016

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few hours, then you know today is Back to the Future Day . In the trilogy’s second film , Michael J. Fox’s character Martin Seamus McFly, better known as Marty, gave us a glimpse of how things would look on October 21st, 2015. And even though the future according to the movie may have not been fully accurate (which is okay), Marty’s power-laced Nike sneakers are indeed a reality . While the sportswear juggernaut did release the Mag in 2011 , that version didn’t use the self-lacing technology we saw in Back to the Future Part II . But don’t worry, the actual Marty McFly shoes are coming in spring 2016, Nike has confirmed. Tinker Hatfield, Nike’s VP of creative concepts and the man who designed the Mags, also sent a letter to Fox saying , “Although the project started as science fiction, we’re now proud to turn that fiction into fact.” “The first pair of self-lacing Nike Mag shoes is in New York City, ” a Nike representative said to Engadget early Wednesday. As for where exactly the limited edition sneakers are, well, interestingly enough, Fox is scheduled to be a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight. Yes, this means the 2015 Nike Mag is likely going to make its debut on the show — and it looks like Fox is already wearing the pair . Naturally, there’s no word on pricing, but in similar fashion to the originals, they will be sold at auction to benefit the The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research. Michael J. Fox models the first self-lacing @Nike Mag pic.twitter.com/bgPWM5CKBE — michaeljfox.org (@MichaelJFoxOrg) October 21, 2015 Source: Nike

Western Digital To Aquire SanDisk For $19 Billion

Western Digital just bought a bunch of memory cards. The storage giant just announced that it has agreed to buy SanDisk Corp for about $19 billion. This comes after speculation that SanDisk was shopping for a buyer. The deal values SanDisk at $86.50 a share, which is a 15% premium on the previous day’s closing price, giving the company a value of $15.4 billion. SanDisk is currently up… Read More

14 Things You Can Do in Android Marshmallow That You Couldn’t Do in Lollipop

Whether you’ve put in an order for a Nexus 6P or you’re patiently waiting for Android version 6.0 to reach your Galaxy S6 , you’ll want to know what Marshmallow can do for you. It’s not a dramatic leap forward for Google’s mobile OS, but there are still a number of useful new features you’re going to want to know about. Read more…

View original post here:
14 Things You Can Do in Android Marshmallow That You Couldn’t Do in Lollipop

Waze’s maps and traffic app gets a cleaner and smarter design

Waze is one of the most popular maps and traffic apps on iOS and Android. For good reason, too: It’s fast, intuitive and, often times, more accurate than the highly rated Google Maps. Today, Waze’s making its mobile application even better, thanks to an overhaul designed to offer a cleaner, prettier user interface and quicker access to useful actions. With a single tap, you can now send directions, location or estimated time of arrival to your contacts. You can also get traffic-based reminders, making it easier to get to any destination on time — as long as your calendar is synced with Waze. Last but not least, this new version of the app “significantly” reduces battery consumption, according to the company; if true, that’ll definitely be appreciated by users who rely on the app for their daily commutes or casual trips. The 4.0 update is already available for iOS , while Android’s expected to get it ” soon .” [Image credits: AFP/Getty Images] Source: Waze

Original post:
Waze’s maps and traffic app gets a cleaner and smarter design

Xiaomi will let you replace the brains in its new smart TV

Xiaomi is more than just a phone manufacturer — it makes almost every kind of consumer electronics now, including TVs , wearables and GoPro-style action cameras . Today, the company is expanding its living room lineup with a 60-inch 4K TV , which measures 11.6mm at its thinnest point and costs only RMB 4, 999 (roughly $786). That’s a lot of display for your money, although it’s not quite as sleek as the $645 Mi TV 2S Xiaomi announced in July. Plenty of dongles and set-top boxes can transform your old TV into a “smart” one — but what if you could do away with them entirely, and get the same features out of a TV speaker instead? That’s the idea behind Xiaomi’s “Mi TV Bar, ” anyway. To the naked eye it looks like a classic soundbar, but inside there’s a MStar 6A928 processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM and 8GB of flash storage. Once connected through the Mi Port — which also carries power — you’ll gain access to MIUI TV, Xiaomi’s Android-based smart TV platform. It’s designed to work in conjunction with the Mi TV 3, although you can also buy it separately and hook it up to any TV, monitor or projector. According to Xiaomi, a TV’s motherboard usually accounts for 20 percent of its overall cost — and it’s also a part that customers have to replace every 18 months. By taking the related components out and putting them in a separate device, Xiaomi hopes they’ll be easier to upgrade and replace — meaning you, the consumer, can just focus on buying (and keeping) a stellar display. It’s the same argument behind modern TV set-top boxes, although here you’re also getting a beefy speaker thrown in too. It’ll set you back RMB 999 ($157) on its own — for comparison, the new Apple TV costs $149 in the US, while Amazon’s 4K Fire TV is up for $100. These devices are meant for China, however, and we don’t expect either of them to be sold in the US or Europe anytime soon. Xiaomi might have online accessory stores for both of these markets, but it’s a long way off selling all of its electronic wares to the world. Source: Xiaomi

View original post here:
Xiaomi will let you replace the brains in its new smart TV

Facebook explains the tech behind its 360-degree videos

Facebook made 360-degrees videos viewable on the News Feed back in September, but it was apparently no easy feat making it possible. The latest post on its Engineering blog explains the problems they had to deal with, including the difficulty of stitching footage together without producing distorted images. To prevent making videos look like they came out of a warped nightmare, the engineers created a video filter that uses a common CG method called ” cube mapping .” It works by dividing a frame into six squares to form a cube: the top and bottom 25 percent of the frame are compressed into two images, while the middle part that makes up 50 percent of the frame is divided into four. Now, that six-image frame is still flat. So, what the filter does is wrap it around a virtual sphere inside a cube, with each square expanding to fill the cube in every direction you can view: up, down, left, right, front and back. That allows Facebook to render each frame with 25 percent fewer pixels than the original video, making the finished product easier to view from our end. Fewer pixels also mean faster processing times and smaller file sizes, which are essential for the social network to be able to produce 360-degree videos quickly. In fact, its engineers decided to split the job across several powerful machines, which the company can definitely afford , for faster encoding. While these 360-degree videos are perfectly viewable without VR glasses, they indicate the arrival of more content on the website optimized for virtual reality. Mark Zuckerberg revealed earlier this year that the company’s focusing on VR tech, as he believes it’s the “next major computing and communication platform.” Not to mention, FB dropped $2 billion last year to acquire Oculus VR. No doubt he’d want the News Feed to be more immersive, especially since the consumer version of Oculus Rift will be available for purchase in Q1 2016. As for what’s next for the team, Facebook engineers Evgeny Kuzyakov and David Pio had this to say: Of course, hurdles remain. We haven’t cracked automatic detection of 360 video upload yet — right now the false-positive rate inhibits our ability to fully implement this. Facebook’s scale is so large that even a 0.1 percent false-positive rate would mean we would incorrectly declare thousands of regular videos as 360 video. That’s a specific example, but there are a lot more broad, exciting challenges to tackle as well. Higher resolutions, 3D video, and 360 video optimized for virtual reality are all part of the near future of this space. It’s an exciting time to be working on video. We hope you enjoy the experience we built today and look forward to launching more in the future. Star Wars: The Force Awakens Immersive 360 Experience Speed across the Jakku desert from Star Wars: The Force Awakens with this immersive 360 experience created exclusively for Facebook. Posted by Star Wars on Wednesday, September 23, 2015 Source: Facebook Engineering

More:
Facebook explains the tech behind its 360-degree videos