Tag: huge-difference

Microsoft made the Surface Pro both lighter and quieter

Microsoft has mostly left the Surface Pro line untouched since late 2015, but the company is finally giving it a long overdue refresh today. Announced at an event in Shanghai earlier, the new machine — now simply dubbed Surface Pro — packs Intel’s 7th-gen Core processors ( Kaby Lake ; m3, i5 and i7 flavors), an enhanced PixelSense display, optional LTE Advanced radio and a battery life of up to 13.5 hours for video playback, which is a notable jump from the old nine hours. Oh, and there’s no longer a fan for the m3 and i5 models. Simply put, Microsoft calls this “the lightest, the best sounding, the fastest and the quietest Surface Pro ever, ” and the company was keen to claim that its own machine is 1.7 times faster than the iPad Pro . While the machine itself looks pretty much the same as before from afar, up close you’ll notice the slightly rounded edges. What’s also not immediately noticeable is the new hinge design: you can now push it all the way down to 165 degrees — or “Studio Mode, ” as Microsoft would like to call it. Even the Surface Pen has been given a spec bump: the old 1, 024-level pressure sensitivity is now at 4, 096 levels, and it comes with tilt sensitivity along with a speedy 21ms latency. Much like the recently announced Surface Laptop line, the new Surface Pro comes with an Alcantara keyboard in three colors: platinum, cobalt blue and burgundy. Pre-order starts today at $799 and up, with specs starting from 128GB SSD plus 4GB RAM all the way up to 1TB SSD plus 16GB RAM, and it’s shipping in mid-June. This mid-cycle update was expected after Surface chief Panos Panay said that a Surface Pro 5 wouldn’t appear until there’s “an experiential change that makes a huge difference in product line.” Even then, this new Surface Pro does manage to pack a few surprises, so it should keep us entertained for the time being. And if that doesn’t scratch the itch, you could just buy one of the many alternatives from other hardware makers. Jon Fingas contributed to this post. Source: Microsoft

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Microsoft made the Surface Pro both lighter and quieter

Mass-produced artificial blood is now a real possibility

Doctors dream of having artificial blood always on hand, but the reality has usually been very different. While you can produce red blood cells in a lab, the current technique (which prods stem cells into action) only nets a small number of them at best. British researchers appear to have found the solution, however: they’ve developed a technique that can reliably produce an unlimited number of red blood cells. The trick is to create “immortalized” premature red blood cells that you can culture as much as you like, making mass production a real possibility. The biggest challenge is translating the technique to commercial manufacturing. Scientists have produced a few liters of blood in the lab, but there’s a big difference between that and the massive volumes needed to serve even a single hospital. Although the UK’s National Health Service is planning to trial artificial blood this year , this new technique won’t be involved. As it is, you wouldn’t likely see a wholesale switch to artificial blood even if this new method was ready for the real world. Any mass production is most likely to focus on people with rare blood types that can’t always count on donations. Even that limited effort could make a huge difference, mind you. Hospitals could always have a consistent supply of rare blood, so you wouldn’t have to worry about them running out in a life-or-death situation. Via: BBC , Digital Journal Source: University of Bristol , Nature

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Mass-produced artificial blood is now a real possibility