gadgets – Page 10 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

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

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Facebook expands search to all 2 trillion of its posts

Descent Underground recaptures that Descent multiplayer magic [Updated]

Video: the Descent Underground Early Access gameplay trailer. AUSTIN, TX—About a month ago, we called the retro-themed Descent -style shooter Sublevel Zero an awesome Descent -like experience but lamented its lack of multiplayer. Well, good news this morning for folks who are still craving multiplayer tunnel-shooting: as of 11:00 EDT, Descent Underground is available on Steam Early Access for $29.99. Players will be able to jump in and fly three classes of ships in five maps and a few different game modes. The product of a small Austin company called Descendent Studios founded by former Star Citizen Austin studio head Eric “Wingman” Peterson, Descent Underground was originally envisioned as a Descent clone under the working title “Ships That Fight Underground” (abbreviated as “STFU” ). However, the game changed course when an encounter with an Interplay shareholder led to a licensing agreement with Interplay, the studio that controls the bulk of the Descent intellectual property. The licensing deal meant that the game could be re-envisioned as an actual branded Descent game—though because the licensing agreement doesn’t include the character models or sound assets from the original trilogy, some creativity had to be applied. The result is Descent Underground, a prequel to the original Descent series. In it, the player takes on the role of a miner who remote-pilots drones through mines, blasting other drones and occasionally doing some actual mining to collect resources. Lead designer Peterson explained to us that the eventual goal is to have a metagame that has some hints of Dune about it: players will fly around in a large mothership, cruising through asteroid fields and looking for choice places to mine. A nice asteroid might already have another player group’s ship docked on it, and you can fly up next to it and deploy your own drones to try to fight them for the asteroid. (This is what’s going on in the launch trailer at the top of the page.) Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Descent Underground recaptures that Descent multiplayer magic [Updated]

3D-Printed Teeth Can Kill 99% of Dental Bacteria

An anonymous reader writes: A research group in the Netherlands has developed a new plastic resin that can destroy most dental bacteria when used for the creation of dental appliances via 3D-printing. The process involves embedding antimicrobial quaternary ammonium salts inside extant dental resin polymers. Since the salts are positively charged, these disrupt negatively-charged bacterial membranes. The process is also being mooted for use in the creation of knee arthroplasties, and in the manufacture of children’s toys and food packaging. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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3D-Printed Teeth Can Kill 99% of Dental Bacteria

Scientists stretch metal to make it stronger

You’d think that stretching metal would make it weaker, but just the opposite is true… on a very small scale. Researchers have developed a technique that pulls nanoscopic metal crystals to eliminate defects. By gently and repeatedly stretching the crystal, scientists move “dislocations” (rows of atom-level defects) to free surfaces, where they’re ultimately forced out. The result is a metal that is considerably less likely to crack or otherwise fail over time. You may not see this technique used to improve larger (that is, visible) metal, like what you see in buildings or vehicles. The same trick that improves nanoscale metal tends to make things worse at the macro level. However, it could be very helpful for processors and any other device where even the tiniest breaks could cause big problems. Don’t be surprised if you’re one day using electronics that last for years longer than you’re used to. Source: Carnegie Mellon University , PNAS

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

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New Homeland Security policy demands warrants before deploying StingRays

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

Voyo Connects Your Car To The Cloud

Now that connected car startups are now thick on the ground, it takes a special amount of pizzaz to stand out. Thankfully Voyo has amped up the jazz hands and is producing a small device that can truly change the way we drive. What does this little dongle do? It can interface with your car’s computer system via the OBD-II as well as via your relay panel. By connecting these two port… Read More

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Voyo Connects Your Car To The Cloud

Fitbit trackers can be hacked in ’10 seconds’

Fitbit trackers have a whopper of a vulnerability that can let somebody within Bluetooth range quickly hack them, according to security company Fortinet . Worse yet, once the attackers are in, the device will infect any computer that tries to sync with the device. Via Twitter , Senior Fortinet researcher Axelle Apvrille told Engadget “you don’t need physical access (to the tracker), but you do need to be close (Bluetooth range). It does not matter if it is paired (to another device) or not.” When in range, a bad actor could infect the device in as little as 10 seconds. Apvrille informed Fitbit of the vulnerability back in March, but the wearable outfit has yet to fix the issue, according to the Register . In addition, the vulnerability remains in the wearable even after it’s reset. Once infected, the device can install a virus, trojan or other vulnerability on your computer, even days later. “An attacker sends an infected packet to a fitness tracker nearby at Bluetooth distance then the rest of the attack occurs by itself, without any special need for the attacker being near, ” Apvrille said . While the Fitbit uses encryption, the Bluetooth transmitter itself is apparently wide open, allowing attackers in. If you want to find out more, Apvrille will present her findings via a video demonstration at the 2015.Hack.lu conference tomorrow in Luxembourg. @AaronIsSocial you don’t need physical access, but you need to be close (bluetooth range). It does not matter if it is paired or not. — Axelle Ap. (@cryptax) October 21, 2015 Via: The Register Source: Axelle Apvrille (Twitter)

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Fitbit trackers can be hacked in ’10 seconds’

Amazon’s grocery service now requires a $299 yearly membership

Amazon warned late last year that it would eventually require a $299 yearly membership just to use its AmazonFresh grocery delivery service. And like or not, the internet giant is making good on its word: shoppers in New York City, Philadelphia and Seattle (and possibly other cities) are finding out that they need that pricey Prime Fresh subscription before they can go food shopping. The outlay gives you free delivery on all orders over $50, on top of the benefits of a regular Amazon Prime membership, but it’s now considerably more expensive if you only occasionally want groceries shipped to your door. So far, tests that would open the door to standard Prime members (who’d always pay delivery fees) haven’t led to anything concrete. The pricing doesn’t stack up well next to rivals like Instacart, which both costs less up front ($99 per year) and waives the delivery fees at a lower threshold ($35). However, it’s doubtful that Amazon will have a change of heart in the near future. The company is one of the old hands in the online grocery delivery business, and it had a long time to do the math — it’s likely convinced that an all-encompassing $299 plan is more sustainable than a groceries-only option. [Image credit: Andrew Hitchcock, Flickr ] Via: GeekWire Source: AmazonFresh

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Amazon’s grocery service now requires a $299 yearly membership

Dragonlock Lets You Print Your Own RPG Dungeons

Your party enters a darkened room. Candles flicker in the gloom and something is glinting along the far wall. Your thief enters first. Her dwarvish blade begins to glow. Danger is nearby! What will you do? Will you 3D print a wall section and snap it to a floor section? Or will your move a 3D-printed Beholder into the room? What about a pillar or stairs? What about a little wooden door?… Read More

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Dragonlock Lets You Print Your Own RPG Dungeons