gadgets – Page 19 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Hack Amazon’s Dash buttons to do things other than buying stuff

Amazon’s Dash buttons are tiny adhesive physical triggers that can order for you, through the magic of WiFi, anything you need to stock up on. But that’s not the limits of their power, if you’re willing to tinker with them. Ted Benson, (who works at a company that likes to regularly perform such shenanigans with the aid of its web tools), reckons it”ll you take under 10 minutes to repurpose Amazon’s physical iteration of Buy It Now. (I think he’s underestimating the degree of incompetence this editor possesses, but anyhow.) Benson managed to hack a diaper-ordering Dash button to act as an Internet Of Things -style tracker for how often his (adorable) baby poops. Or how many times he wakes up in a night. The trick lies in the fact that Amazon’s buttons aren’t constantly connected to WiFi. For the sake of battery life, the buttons only come to life when pushed, meaning the workaround picks up when your button is trying to access the internet, and registers that as a trigger for anything but buying stuff from Amazon. With a little bit of python code, a simple program can track when the button tries to connect to the WiFi, and once it gets a hit, record a datapoint. (In this case, inside a Google Doc spreadsheet.) Of course, you need to ensure you’ve setup the button not to order something every time you press it –easily done when you first start using the button. If you’re looking to make the idea of smart diapers seem suddenly very stupid, you can find all the code and instruction needed in the Medium post right here Filed under: Wearables , Internet , Amazon Comments Source: Medium Tags: amazon, amazondash, dashbutton, diapers, internetofthings, poop, video

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Hack Amazon’s Dash buttons to do things other than buying stuff

Microsoft working on an app that reads the news to you

Microsoft is testing a new app called NewsCast, which makes a playlist of news story summaries and reads them to you, according to Neowin . The publication came across a page on the Microsoft Azure Web Sites domain that had the app for download. In it, the company mentioned that the program was created by the Bing team and is meant to make commutes more productive, since you can listen to playlist even while driving. Unfortunately, the download’s no longer available , but Neowin managed to take some screenshots that you can see below the fold. NewsCast reportedly uses Bing’s text-to-speech program to read out blurbs that last 30 seconds each, though the voice isn’t as organic as Cortana’s . It allows you to save summaries for later and also has a feedback button that launches a three-question survey for testers. Curiously, the app that was on Azure was available only for iOS devices, though it’s probably because a lot of Microsoft employees/testers use iPhones and iPads. As you can see, it’s not quite identical to the breaking news app Facebook’s reportedly developing, as well, but the two could very well be rivals in the future. [Image credit: JeepersMedia/Flickr , Neowin ] Filed under: Misc , Mobile , Microsoft Comments Via: PCWorld Source: Neowin Tags: app, ios, iphone, microsoft, mobilepostcross

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Microsoft working on an app that reads the news to you

Why Google Became Alphabet, Explained In 120 Seconds

What are the pros and cons of Google reorganizing itself as Alphabet? Well, Larry gets to play with the future, Google can focus on more ambitious projects, and it could help the company retain top talent. But will the independent Alphabet company CEOs get frustrated relying on Larry for resources? Here’s everything you need to know in a quick two minute video. Read More

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Why Google Became Alphabet, Explained In 120 Seconds

Watching the Numbers Flow on This Ferrofluid Clock Is Almost Therapeutic

Ferrofluid is a wonderful metallic goo that magically reacts to the presence of a magnetic field . To date it’s really only been used in mesmerizing desk toys , but Zelf Koelma has found a way to manipulate the material into an animated clock that perfectly represents the flow of time. Read more…

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Watching the Numbers Flow on This Ferrofluid Clock Is Almost Therapeutic

Periscope’s live streaming video reaches nearly 2 million users daily

Now that Facebook is getting into streaming (soon for non-celebs too ) and even Google/YouTube is taking notice , the folks at Twitter-owned Periscope are publishing some stats to let us know where the bar is for live video apps. In a blog post on Medium , the team says it has grown past 10 million registered accounts just four months after its launch. An accompanying graph shows its number of Daily Active Users has risen to nearly two million people, with a spike showing where it just about doubled in May with the launch of an app for Android . Rival app Meerkat beat it to the punch on Android , but we don’t have similar stats on its growth yet. By their measure however, the important stat is Time Watched, which Periscope reports has risen to over 40 years of video being watched every day. This includes “huge viewership” on the web, outside of its iOS/Android apps, which the daily users stat does not. in a video Q&A , Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour says that features coming soon include landscape video support and better tools for handling spam/abuse. Filed under: Internet , Mobile Comments Source: Periscope (Medium) Tags: accounts, mobilepostcross, statistics, twitter, users, videostreaming

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Periscope’s live streaming video reaches nearly 2 million users daily

The World’s First Reversible Micro-USB Cable Rivals the Invention of the Wheel

There was much griping when Apple replaced its old dock connectors with the reversible Lightning cable , but they’ve made life infinitely easier for iOS users. So the MicFlip, the world’s first reversible micro-USB cable, promises to do the same for Android (and other smartphone) users. Read more…

Verizon tests new fiber system that hits 10Gbps speeds

Verizon has announced that it has successfully completed field tests of its new super-fast fiber optic technology, dubbed the next-generation passive optical network (NG-PON2). It could offer users connectivity speeds anywhere from 10Gbps to 80Gbps some point “in the future”, according to a Verizon press release. The new system utilizes an optical line terminal (OLT) capable of generating four wavelengths of light, each of which is able to transmit at an eye-watering 10Gbps down and 2.5Gbps up. Interestingly, the network can actually transmit both the current GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network) signal as well as this new NG-PON2 simultaneously. What’s more, should one of the wavelengths fail (due to, say, equipment failure), the system can reportedly switch over to one of the other three wavelengths to quickly restore the 10Gbps connection, a redundancy that should help improve the FIOS network’s reliability. The company sees its implementation as a necessary step for the upcoming shift to 4K video streaming. As such, Verizon will begin issuing “requests for proposals” for the hardware and software needed to upgrade its FIOS service later this year. There’s no word yet on when the service will actually come online but it will likely only be available to businesses at first. And even then, potentially only on the East Coast . By comparison, Comcast offers 2Gbps for $300 a month , and Google offers 1Gbps service for $70, both of which are already deployed throughout the country and available to personal and commercial users alike. [Image Credit: Associated Press] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: Verizon Tags: 10gb, fios, NG-PON2, opticallineterminal, verizon

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Verizon tests new fiber system that hits 10Gbps speeds

HTC Is Now Essentially Worthless (And Insecure)

Internet hyperbole (and financial analysis) have rendered HTC, a once high-flying mobile brand, essentially valueless. In short, the company is trading below cash on hand which means if you bought all HTC stock the company would have to pay, you, the buyer to take it over. This means the company’s factories, stock, and brand are worth nothing, at least on Wall Street. Furthermore, the… Read More

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HTC Is Now Essentially Worthless (And Insecure)

Chinese mega-manufacturers set up factories in India

Foxconn is opening a $5B facility in Maharashtra; Huawei just got a green-light for a networking gear factory; Xiaomi already runs a phone assembly plant in Andhra Pradesh that will announcing new products today. Read the rest

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Chinese mega-manufacturers set up factories in India

Nano-sized ‘yolks’ should lead to longer-lasting batteries

Those eggs you might have had for breakfast? They’re not just food — they may be the key to longer-running batteries in your devices. Scientists at MIT and Tsinghua University have developed a nanoparticle battery electrode whose egg-like design is built to last. Their invention, which houses a shape-changing aluminum “yolk” in a titanium dioxide cell, can go through charging cycles without degrading like the graphite electrodes in conventional power packs. That could improve not only the overall longevity of the battery, but also its capacity and maximum power. You’d have gadgets that not only hold out for longer between charges, but don’t need to be replaced quite so often under heavy use. This is still a lab experiment, but it’s closer to practical reality than you think. The manufacturing technique is simple, and these materials are relatively easy to find. The yolks already hold up well under stress, for that matter. Even with super-fast charging (which typically shortens a battery’s lifespan), a test unit had just over half its capacity after 500 cycles. So long as the team does get its tech into a shipping product, you could see a wave of hardware that reduces many of your energy-related woes, such as range anxiety in electric cars or phone batteries that die before you’re ready to upgrade. [Image credit: Christine Daniloff/MIT] Filed under: Science Comments Source: MIT News Tags: aluminum, battery, biomimicry, lithium-ion, lithiumion, mit, nanoparticles, science, TsinghuaUniversity

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Nano-sized ‘yolks’ should lead to longer-lasting batteries