For the past few years, NASA’s been working on a powerful rocket called the Space Launch System meant for missions to the moon, Mars and other places far from our planet. While the rocket’s not quite ready to take Bruce Willis to an asteroid, it’s at least getting nearer to a launch pad — the agency has just finalized a $2.8 billion deal with Boeing to start building its core stage and developing its avionics system . The deal went through recently after the core stage passed its critical design review, where 11 experts inspected 3, 000 of its artifacts. A core stage, by the way, is the middle part of a rocket that makes up most of its body: the one Boeing’s building for the SLS is a 200-foot tower that’ll store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to fuel the engines. Apparently, the last time a major NASA vehicle passed muster during one of these reviews was back in the 1970’s, and it was none other than the Saturn V, which carried many astronauts to the moon. The agency plans to earmark $6.8 billion of its funds from fiscal years 2014 through 2018 for the project and hopes to conjure up a rocket that’s ready for an unmanned mission by 2017. If that happens, the SLS could start ferrying astronauts to big space rocks or even the red planet as soon as 2021. [Image credit: NASA/MSFC ] Filed under: Science Comments Via: LA Times Source: NASA

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NASA gives the go-ahead to a rocket designed for deep space exploration

When I was a tiny tot, I watched Knight Rider and pretended I was Michael Knight , talking to KITT on my watch. Yet now that there are real-life watches that can do even more things, I don’t find myself quite as excited as my 5-year-old self was. Smartwatches have been around for over a decade already (remember Microsoft SPOT ?), but the category hasn’t evolved at the same pace as smartphones. It’s not because there’s a shortage of digital wrist-worn timepieces. The problem is that there’s no common platform for third-party apps, which means there’s little potential for growth. There also doesn’t seem to be any vision. Some watches act as Android phones with SIM cards and tiny touchscreens, while others try to establish their own platform to entice developers. Still others have even tried to put fitness bands and smartwatches into one device, to limited success. Even worse, most of the watches on the market today are what you might call “fashionably challenged” — they simply aren’t attractive enough to entice the masses. Google’s solution is to extend its Android platform — which has very strong market share and developer support — to the wearables genre with Android Wear . Why Android Wear? Manufacturers don’t have to waste precious resources on developing a watch ecosystem from scratch. Android Wear provides a low-cost launchpad for more companies to come out with a smartwatch of their own. Take Fossil: It has little to no experience developing software, so the introduction of Wear opens up more doors for the company to produce fashionable smartwatches without pouring quite so much money into R&D. Meanwhile, other manufacturers are reportedly attacking the lower end of the market with cheap Android Wear watches. In any case, that’s precisely what Wear promises: a wide variety of options in price, form and (we hope) fashion sense. But flooding the market won’t magically make smartwatches a success. So what will? They have to look good and make life easier. Functionality Android Wear wasn’t designed to replace your smartphone; it’s just meant to reduce the number of times you have to pull out your phone. With Wear, you can change your music, send and view emails and texts, dictate notes and reminders, answer or reject calls, keep track of a few fitness stats, look at your calendar appointments and ask a number of different questions. Wear isn’t meant to replace your smartphone. Wear treats your watch as a wrist-worn version of your phone’s notification bar. By scrolling down through the various cards displayed on my watch, I can see my most recent emails, Facebook messages, Google+ alerts, missed calls, number of steps I’ve taken today and how much time it’ll take me to commute home. Swiping to the left of these cards reveals actionable items (replying to emails, marking a text as read, looking at my fitness history and so on), while swiping to the right allows you to dismiss the notification entirely. The watches also use Google Now . Cards will pop up with information about stocks, time to my next destination, a friend’s birthday, upcoming hotel reservations and when I need to leave for my upcoming flight. It’ll even show me my boarding pass. (This is through Google Now, but Delta and American Airlines just came out with apps that do the same thing.) The latter case is actually one of the best arguments I’ve heard yet for Android Wear — it’s easier to scan a boarding pass on your watch if your hands are full with luggage and you don’t want to take out your phone. Wear also has voice search and Knowledge Graph access built in. Saying, “OK Google, ” will prompt me to make a voice command. I can ask it to do a variety of tasks — send messages, set alarms and timers, show how many steps I’ve taken, pull up my calendar agenda for any given date, navigate a route and so on. I can also ask Wear random questions: When is the next Giants game? How tall is Mark Wahlberg? When was Chris Rock born? What’s the tallest building in the world? Essentially, this is all the same type of stuff you can do with Google Now on the phone; it’s just now accessible hands-free on your watch. If it can’t find the answer, it’ll pull up the top three search results for you to look up on your phone. Not quite as handy, but I suppose it’s better than nothing. If a third-party app uses notifications, it’s technically going to show up on Wear, but its functionality will be limited unless the developer puts in some extra effort. The number of potential use cases will expand over time as more developers come out with apps of their own. Indeed, that’s one of the most exciting parts of the platform: It’s very basic at the moment, but its usefulness will grow as developer interest increases. Even so, there are already some clever things you can do with Android Wear. You can check your finances, share your location with a friend through Glympse, take and read notes via Evernote, respond to tweet mentions with Tweetings, browse through a recipe on Allthecooks, activate your Phillips Hue light setup and get updated on the latest World Cup scores. I’ll stop there, but you get the point: These are just a few examples from the first wave of Wear-ready apps. The number of Wear apps is steadily growing (you can find a comprehensive list here ), but one of my favorites is Lyft . I told my watch to “call a cab” and it not only requested a driver for me, it also added a card that told me the driver’s name and estimated time of arrival, and gave me the option to tell the driver my destination before she picked me up. After the ride was over, I got a card showing me how much it cost and asking me to rate my driver. Fortunately, fragmentation shouldn’t be as huge an issue with Wear as it’s been on smartphones. Excepting some manufacturer-specific clock faces, Google won’t allow the use of custom skins or user interfaces. If a company wants to build a Wear watch, it’ll need to follow Google’s rules. In theory, this should reduce the number of obstacles when pushing updates to the watch (which can be done in the About screen deep in the settings menu), and it’ll make for a consistent user experience across the board. It’s ironic, then, that Wear’s reach is limited because of fragmentation — the system is only compatible with devices running Android 4.3 or higher, which means 76 percent of current Android users won’t even be able to use Wear. User experience So far, we’ve seen Wear watches that are square (think: the LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live ) or circular (like the Moto 360 , seen above). This is really a matter of personal preference; the user experience is the same either way. Since most watches will have small screens, Google knows it doesn’t have a lot of real estate to work with; thus, it’s tried to make the user interface as simple as possible. That’s why there’s typically only one card per screen, and when you swipe to the left, you’re only presented with one option per screen. Easy enough, right? As minimal as the UI might be, it’s hard to come up with an intuitive user experience on a touchscreen watch, and Wear doesn’t do much to address that. There’s a significant learning curve, and even though there’s a tutorial the first time you use it, it’ll take a while to get accustomed to the layout. The use of voice commands is a massive improvement for the smartwatch experience because it reduces the amount of times you need to touch it, but it’s still impossible to get around your watch without doing a lot of swiping. It’s hard to come up with an intuitive user experience on a touchscreen watch, and Wear doesn’t do much to address that. Before anything else, you need to know this: You turn on the Wear screen by lifting up your arm. The watch interprets this act as a sure sign that you’re ready to look at something. (The Wear display is always on by default, which means you can look at the time whenever you want without activating voice commands by accident.) As you’d expect, you’re presented with a clock face. There are currently about a dozen faces to choose from; just long-press the face to look at all of your options. You’ll first be greeted by the Context Stream. This is your vertical-scrolling list of notification cards. You can’t change the order in which these cards appear, and it seems as though many of them get put in a random order each time you scroll through the list. Cards that appeared near the top of the list would often sink farther down the next time I checked my watch, even though no new notifications had popped up. If a notification has more information than a single card can manage, its corresponding card can be expanded. You’ll have to be careful with long emails — touch the card to expand it and you’ll find yourself scrolling down for an eternity before you get to the next card. (This is one of those times in which it’s just easier to whip out your phone and read it on the larger screen.) Some apps, such as Gmail and Calendar, will stack cards on top of each other; if you have six events coming up, Wear will show you the first and then feature a small button underneath that indicates you have five more. Touch this button and you’ll see all six events laid out vertically. If you need to take action on one of them, you’ll have to tap the individual event again before scrolling. You can’t swipe to dismiss individual events, however — just as on your phone, one swipe will dismiss all notifications for that particular app. Saying, “OK Google, ” or tapping the open space at the top of the Context Stream will prompt you to give a voice command. I explained earlier this feature can do, but if you need help figuring out what to say in the heat of the moment, there’s a handy set of examples in a scrollable list. (And yes, scrolling defeats the purpose of being hands-free, but your reliance on this cheat sheet will decrease as you get used to Wear.) You can even tap on each example and Wear will ask follow-up questions; for instance, if you tap the option to send a text, it’ll ask you to whom you want to send it and what you want to say. Oddly, apps and settings are hidden away at the very bottom of this list. If Google is trying to encourage developers to create apps for Wear, it sure has a weird way of expressing its gratitude. Granted, a lot of apps don’t do much when you access them this way, but it’s still confusing at first; if you’re looking for a specific app, you’re better off searching for it with voice commands (e.g., “open Evernote”). If you rely heavily on your phone for notifications, be prepared for some good and bad news. The good news is that you have access to all of those notifications on your wrist, so you don’t have to take your phone out. The bad news is that while you can filter out certain apps from sending you notifications (bye-bye, Candy Crush Saga invites), you can’t pick and choose which notifications you receive from within a particular app — in other words, the watch can’t decide which emails make it to your watch and which ones don’t, so you have to see all of them. When I pull down from the top of the screen, I see a shade with battery percentage and today’s date; I can also mute my notifications if I continue pulling. This is handy when I don’t want to be distracted or am trying to sleep, but I wish Wear offered quiet hours during which it would automatically turn off notifications when I go to bed. (That’s if my battery lasts through the day and night, which wasn’t always the case with the early Wear watches I’ve played with.) The Samsung Gear Live comes with a button on the side that lets you turn the display off, but covering the screen with your palm will do the same thing on every Wear device. Companion app To pair the watch with your phone, you’ll need to download the Wear companion app through the Play Store. It’s essential for setting up your watch, but you’ll find little use for it otherwise. The main screen shows a link to Wear-compatible apps in the Play Store and a list of eight voice actions. You can choose which app to use for each particular command, which will come in handy as more apps start showing up. So, let’s say Uber adds the same ability to call a car as Lyft does, and I want to use that service instead; I’d have to select the “call a car” voice action and choose Uber from the list of possible apps, so that Wear doesn’t keep defaulting to Lyft. The companion app also has a list of settings tucked in the top-right section of the app. You can mute specific apps, as mentioned earlier; turn off the always-on display; silence notifications on your phone when the Wear is connected (why get vibrations on your wrist and in your pocket?); show calendar events; and keep the top card from showing up when your display is dimmed. Finally, you can use the app to pair a different Wear watch if necessary. The app doesn’t have an option to manage watch apps, which seems odd since there isn’t a way to do this on the watch either. Perhaps it’s because Wear-compatible apps automatically get installed on your watch once you’ve downloaded them onto your phone. This seems like an oversight. There may be certain apps that you barely use on your handset and have no interest in using on your watch; why not give users the option to get rid of the unnecessary clutter? Challenges Essentially, Wear is a version 1.0 product, which means there’s still a lot of work to be done. It’s been a good experience thus far, but there are plenty of ways that Wear simply doesn’t fit the bill, and you’ll need to be aware of them if you’re going to plunk down $200-plus for a smartwatch. First, there’s the excessive touching. If users have to go through the effort of tapping or swiping the screen on a regular basis, there’s little incentive to use the watch instead of simply pulling out a phone. Most activities on Wear eventually point back to your handset anyway: Nearly every card in the Context Stream (excepting the step tracker) has an option to open on your phone, as if it’s somehow faster to swipe down to the card, swipe across to that button, tap on it and then pull out your phone to access it. If you’re going to use your phone, you might as well just whip it out from the start. What’s more, if you give a voice command that isn’t included in the supported list, or if you ask a question that can’t be found in the Knowledge Graph, the watch provides you with a series of three cards, each one representing a different website that — shocker — you can tap and open up directly on your phone. Congratulations, you just wasted a minute by using your watch. If you’re going to use your phone, you might as well just whip it out from the start. I’ll discuss this more in the next section, but battery life is a big challenge here. There’s a huge amount of computing and processing going on behind the scenes, on a colorful, capacitive touchscreen that by default doesn’t turn off. Throw in voice commands, keyword detection and a tiny battery, and it makes sense: O f course the battery life is going to suffer. The problem is, users aren’t going to want to plug in their watch as often as their phone. Until Google can find a way to extend the battery life by a few days, Android Wear will struggle to be anything more than a niche product. Navigation is also an issue. Google Maps is technically compatible with Wear, but it only shows one step at a time. Given that card-stacking is an option on other apps, it’d make sense to use this style to display upcoming steps along your route so you could plan ahead. Swipe to the left to reveal a high-level map of the entire route that’s void of any useful details; my brain comprehends visual maps more quickly than text, so I’d find this screen more useful if I could zoom in closer. Additionally, voice commands for navigation will automatically default to driving directions. You can specify if you want biking or walking. Oddly, if the phone can’t find a route, it doesn’t bother telling the watch — you simply get taken back to your clock face as if nothing even happened. And when I asked Wear for walking directions from my office to the Golden Gate Bridge, it presented me with a card with Google search results for three unrelated websites. (OurSausalito.com? Really?) Unfortunately, transit directions aren’t supported either. I’ve already mentioned the problem of excess notifications. The longer my Context Stream, the more inconvenient the watch experience becomes. Not only am I wasting time with countless swipes, but my anxiety increases when my wrist is vibrating a hundred times a day (this is actually a low estimate for me). There’s no VIP list and no way to block out unimportant emails. It’s possible to mute specific apps, but that’s of little help when you’re getting a flood of messages that don’t require your immediate attention. At least when you do dismiss a notification, it disappears from both the watch and the phone. Hardware: Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch LG and Samsung are the first companies to produce Wear watches, and both are available in the Play Store ( LG’s G Watch is $229 and Samsung’s Gear Live is $199). A third watch, the Moto 360 , was shown off at Google I/O last week and will be released later this summer. I’ll touch briefly on the G Watch and Gear Live; since Google won’t allow custom firmware or user interfaces, you’ll essentially get the same Wear experience on both watches. When it comes to firmware, the only differences you’ll see between the two are in the clock faces. That said, Samsung’s found a loophole by adding its own stopwatch and compass, so you can choose to use either those or the stock versions. In any case, those are minor alterations, so the important points of differentiation are in the hardware, with each offering a unique personality. The Gear Live is definitely your best looking option. At least, until the Moto 360 comes out. Which one is better? Suffice to say, the two watches each have trade-offs you’ll need to weigh, but the Gear Live is definitely the best looking (at least, until the Moto 360 comes out). Their internals are similar too: Samsung Gear Live LG G Watch Display 1.63-inch sAMOLED, 320×320 pixels 1.65-inch IPS LCD, 280×280 Battery 300mAh 400mAh Processor/RAM 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400; 512MB RAM 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400, 512MB RAM Water resistance Yes, IP67-certified Yes, IP67-certified Dimensions 37.9 x 56.4 x 8.9mm, 59g 37.9 x 46.5 x 9.95mm, 63g Storage 4GB internal storage 4GB internal storage Both have the same dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB internal storage. They each offer interchangeable wrist straps — I especially appreciate this on the Gear Live — and both feature a square shape. They’re also IP67-certified, which means they have the same water and dust resistance as the Samsung Galaxy S5 . I wouldn’t take either one scuba diving, but you’ll be fine wearing them while washing dishes or taking a shower. Because both watches have the same engine underneath the hood, I didn’t notice any difference in performance. They both smoothly, with only the occasional frame skip. In my comparisons, apps loaded in the same amount of time, and each one processed voice commands quickly. I’ve already alluded to battery issues, but let’s get specific. The Gear Live’s battery is a mere 300mAh, while the G Watch has a capacity of 400mAh. That sounds small, and it is small. I strapped both watches on my wrist and used them during a full workday. My to-do list included four navigation routes, at least a hundred emails, hailing a Lyft driver and countless voice commands. When I finally got home 12 hours later, the G Watch had 20 percent life remaining, while the Gear Live had 15. After leaving them on mute overnight — a seven-hour event — I woke up to find the G Watch at 5 percent and the Gear Live at 2 percent. All told, LG’s watch lasted around 90 minutes longer than Samsung’s. The G Watch almost made it a full 24 hours, while the Live came in at roughly 22. On weekend days with lighter use, I was able to push the life of both watches another eight hours or so, at best. There are a few ways to extend your battery life further, but since they significantly reduce how useful the device is, it completely defeats the point of using a smartwatch. You can turn off the always-on display setting so you’re just staring at a black screen whenever the watch sits idle. You can turn down the brightness (I tested the watch at about 60 percent), limit the number of routes you navigate, mute notification-heavy apps and so on. But if you’re constantly worrying about battery life, you’re basically chained to yet another device. Samsung Gear Live You might confuse the Gear Live for one of its Tizen-based siblings, the Gear 2 . It has a chrome band around all sides of the display, but it’s all for show; you won’t find any cameras or buttons here. There is, however, a button on the right-hand side, which powers off the active display with a quick press and brings up the settings menu when you hold it down for a few seconds. (I’d love the option to map this button to other actions.) Just like the latest Gear watches, the Live comes with a heart rate sensor on its belly, along with some pogo pins to connect a charging cradle. It has a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED display, with a resolution of 320 x 320. Breaking out my trusty pixel-density calculator (or cheating by looking at Google’s product page), this translates to 278 ppi, which is actually good for a smartwatch. Of the two watches, the Live is easily the sharpest and most color-saturated, but it’s also a fingerprint magnet and hard to see in direct sunlight. Because the back of the Gear Live has a slight curve on the top and bottom, it’s more comfortable to wear than the G Watch. That is, as long as you don’t count the miserable wristband that feels like you need five hands and divine intervention to snap together. It’s a mere four grams lighter than LG’s watch, but a full millimeter thinner. The charging cradle is nothing new for Samsung, but it’s just as annoying. For a device that you’ll need to charge once a day, it’s not so easy to manage. It’s a tiny cradle that has to be fitted just right onto your watch, and then you have to make sure it’s snapped in securely before plugging the charger in. LG G Watch The G Watch has many redeeming qualities, but attractiveness isn’t one of them. Featuring Gorilla Glass 3, stainless steel on the sides and a polycarbonate back, it’s very solidly built, but it’s also a boring square with no stand-out features. In fact, though, this was very much done on purpose: According to LG’s design team , the G Watch is designed to help content look like it’s floating above the screen. Extra tweaks often distract from the point of the product. I get the concept, but unfortunately it also works the other way — the lack of any design whatsoever can often be just as distracting. It’s a stark contrast to the gorgeous LG G3, which successfully found the middle ground between too flashy and not flashy enough. This watch falls in the latter category, and it’s going to struggle to stand out from the Moto 360 when it launches. (Admittedly, the white option is a little more aesthetically pleasing than the black one.) The IPS LCD screen is slightly bigger than the Gear Live — 1.65 inch versus 1.63. The difference in resolution, however, is much more noticeable. At 280 x 280, it’s easier to see pixelation without squinting. On the upside, it’s more readable in bright sunlight than the Gear Live, and the screen has brighter whites. Then again, the darks aren’t as dark as the Gear, and the colors aren’t nearly as saturated. Like the Gear Live, the G Watch also requires a separate cradle to charge up, but LG smartly uses a magnetic base that’s much easier to attach the watch to than that of its Korean rival. The magnets do a great job of holding the watch in place. The company’s pricing strategy is a little confusing. It’s $30 more than the Gear Live, even though it doesn’t add any features or performance benefits (aside from a meager increase in battery life). I’d be surprised if this cost doesn’t come down quickly — especially once it has even more competition from the Moto 360 — but in the meantime, LG is facing an uphill battle by selling its premier smartwatch at a higher price. Wrap-up Android Wear has me more excited about the future of smartwatches than any other platform or device. It’s more solid than I expected in a first-gen product, and of the options on the market, it has the most opportunity for growth. Wear enjoys a universal user experience; it’s backed by a robust operating system with tons of user and developer support; and there’s buy-in from manufacturers. Still, there are plenty of issues that need to be fixed. Few users will be content charging their watch on a daily basis or wasting time scrolling through endless cards and unwanted notifications. A smartwatch should make life simpler, more productive and more efficient, and at the present time, it’s just as easy — if not more so — to do most things on a phone. The platform will blossom as more apps come out, but it still has a long way to go before shoppers will be willing to spend hundreds of dollars on accessories. For now, Wear is the best OS for Android users who are in the market for a smartwatch, but since these devices aren’t necessities, they’ll need to be more stylish and add more convenience to your life if they’re going to attract the average consumer. Unfortunately, the Gear Live and G Watch just don’t have what it takes for Wear to go mainstream, although I’m holding out hope for the Moto 360. Filed under: Wearables , Wireless , Mobile , Samsung , Google , LG Comments

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Android Wear review: Taking smartwatches in the right direction

While 3D-printed organs sound like a great idea — imagine no longer waiting around for a transplant — a major hurdle for printing internal ones thus far have been creating intricate blood vessels and ventricles that are required for the organ to actually, you know, work. Now, a collaboration between scientists from the University of Sydney, Harvard, Stanford and MIT have discovered a way to do just that. The team used an advanced bioprinter to create tiny interconnected fibers, and then coated them in human endothelial cells and a protein-based material, which hardens under light. They then removed the fibers, and voilà — a network of capillaries was born. Lead author and University of Sydney researcher, Dr. Luiz Bertassoni, said: “While recreating little parts of tissues in the lab is something that we have already been able to do, the possibility of printing three-dimensional tissues with functional blood capillaries in the blink of an eye is a game changer.” We can’t help but agree. If you want to learn more about 3D-printed organs, we’ve got a handy explainer to do so right here . Filed under: Science Comments Via: 3D Print , TechCrunch Source: University of Sydney

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Scientists have figured out how to create blood vessels in 3D printed organs

Microsoft said last year that it was tightening security to fend off the NSA and others who would scoop up your data, and today it fulfilled that promise with moves that should improve real-world security. The company now encrypts both incoming and outgoing Outlook.com email when it’s in transit . So long as the other end also supports this encryption (Gmail and other big names do), snoops can’t easily intercept messages in mid-flight. Microsoft is also implementing Perfect Forward Secrecy in both Outlook.com and OneDrive, which gives each connection a unique security key — even if people do crack a code, they won’t have a complete picture of your email or cloud storage. Alongside the improved protection, Microsoft is also eager to show governments that it’s not creating back doors for spies. The developer has opened a Transparency Center at its Redmond headquarters that will let officials look at source code and otherwise verify that Microsoft isn’t purposefully including vulnerabilities. The tech giant would rather not worry about spying in the first place , but its new Center may prevent some of the company’s bigger customers (and their cash) from jumping ship . Filed under: Internet , Microsoft Comments Source: Microsoft on the Issues

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Microsoft’s new encryption makes it tougher to spy on your email

For the last year or so, Samsung has been touting a “paradigm shift” in the way it constructs flash memory: from a horizontal to a vertical arrangement of cells, or what it calls 3D V-NAND . Now, judging from reviews of the first V-NAND consumer SSDs, the 850 Pro range, it looks like this shift has resulted in a geniune and unequivocal boost to performance. Compared to synthetic and real-world scores from rival drives, made by the likes of Intel and Crucial, Sammy’s 850 Pro “led the pack almost across the board, ” according to HotHardware . Then again, Tom’s Hardware noted that Samsung is now pushing the limits of the SATA interface, such that other products are “within a stone’s throw” of the the 850 Pro’s scores (at least until a PCI Express version comes around). What’s more, all the reviews listed below highlighted the fact that the new line-up comes at a significant premium, even when you factor in Samsung’s nice 10-year warranty. The 128GB drive costs $130, while the maxed-out 1TB option costs $730, equating to a cost per gigabyte that is almost twice as high as other recent drives that lack the cutting-edge NAND (such as Crucial’s MX100). Actual street pricing, meanwhile, will only be established over the course of this month, as the 850 Pro starts to become widely available. Reviews of the Samsung 850 Pro SSD: HotHardware TechSpot The SSD Review The Tech Report Tom’s Hardware Filed under: Storage , Samsung Comments

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Samsung’s new consumer SSDs shoot to the top of the benchmark league

Brick-and-mortar book stores have clearly been on the decline for a while — just look at Barnes & Noble’s rocky finances . However, there’s now some tangible evidence that the pendulum has swung in favor of internet-based sales. BookStats estimates that US publishers made more money from online orders and e-books in 2013 ($7.54 billion) than they did from old-fashioned physical retail ($7.12 billion). While the difference isn’t huge, it suggests that a large chunk of the American population is content with buying books that it hasn’t seen in person. There is a bit of a dark cloud to this silver lining, at least for the booksellers. BookStats notes that e-book sales jumped about 10 percent to 512.7 million copies, but revenue was flat between 2012 and 2013; it may have been lower prices that triggered a surge in demand, not a renewed interest in going digital. With that said, researchers warn that their data doesn’t include books without ISBN numbers, so quite a few self-published e-books may have slipped through the cracks. Even with that wiggle room in the data, it’s evident that there’s a transition underway — you just shouldn’t expect to see the corner bookstore disappear overnight. [Image credit: Robert Michael/AFP/Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Via: GigaOM Source: Book Industry Study Group

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US book publishers now make more money from online sales than physical stores

In yet another successful attempt at making the Quad HD / 4K / Ultra HD situation as clear as mud, this week the CEA updated its official… definition of the term “Ultra High-Definition.” The original spec was established in late 2012 just as the first high-res TVs debuted , and now the expanded “updated core characteristics” will let customers know the TV or player they’re buying is actually capable of playing high-res video content. What’s new is that Ultra HD TVs, monitors and projectors have to be able to upscale HD (1080p) video to Ultra HD (3, 840 x 2, 160), decode HEVC, have at least one HDMI input that supports Ultra HD video input at 24, 30 and 60fps and that can decode the HDCP 2.2 DRM that super-sharp video will require. Not up on all of the acronyms and buzzwords? Whether it’s a stream from Netflix or Amazon, a broadcast over cable or satellite or some new version of Blu-ray , if your new TV has the logo this fall, you’ll be ready for it — simple, right? Filed under: Home Entertainment , HD , Samsung , Sony , LG Comments Source: CEA

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What ‘Ultra High-Definition’ really means

For the first time last month, I requested a car using a smartphone. The app correctly guessed my location using GPS, gave me a ballpark arrival time with a real-time map, and even estimated the fare. A polite driver arrived on time and whisked me to my destination. When I tried to pay and tip, he explained that the payment was already taken (I’d receive a receipt by email soon) and that the service (Uber) forbade tipping. Wait, what ? No haggling, luggage fee, credit card refusal, time wasted on receipts or even tipping? This was an epiphany! But professional taxi drivers who pay thousands of dollars for a license are understandably not thrilled about these services. Neither are many cities (and regions ) which collect those fees and say that Uber/Lyft/etc. are dangerous or improperly insured. The result of this clash, thus far, is chaos: bans , mass demonstrations and even violence . Despite all that, ridesharing poster-child Uber was recently valued at $17 billion . So, will app-driven car services gain traction or be run out of town ? WHAT IS IT? Uber and Lyft are the best known services, but other players include Sidecar , Wingz , Summon and Hailo . In Europe, there’s also LeCar, SnapCar , BlaBlaCar , Djump , Heetch and Carpooling.com . Uber has several slightly different services: it still operates its limo-style UberBLACK, which requires drivers to have a commercial chauffeur license and insurance. Taxis can now sign up for a service called UberTAXI with their existing permits and insurance. Finally, there’s the pure ridesharing service UberX and an even cheaper version called UberPOP . For its part, Lyft and its pink ‘stache is ridesharing-only, but recently announced Lyft Plus , a premium service it says is cheaper than competitive offerings. Believe it or not, SideCar and Lyft only launched two years ago. Uber arrived in 2009, but was just limos with apps until UberX launched in 2012. Oddly, the companies style themselves as “peer-to-peer transportation” platforms, not passenger services. So why the slippery terminology? We’ll cover that soon, but it’s largely about licensing, permits and insurance. If you drive for Uber or Lyft (or Sidecar, Hailo and others) you don’t need a commercial license or commercial insurance. However, all the services require a clean driving record and Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) check. They also perform a 10-year background check to ensure drivers have never been convicted of a violent crime, sexual offense or DUI (for example). Uber , Lyft , Sidecar and others also offer liability insurance for drivers, passengers and pedestrians for up to $1 million, but only if the driver’s personal insurance doesn’t cover an accident. Both Uber and Lyft now levy a $1 per-ride charge for insurance. A driver who works for all three companies in San Francisco (let’s call him “Jasper”) told me that Lyft and Sidecar encourage drivers to be extra-smiley and friendly, complete with fist bumps. He added that Lyft tends to overdo it, however, and some drivers “don’t drink the Kool-aid” and aren’t crazy about the “look-at-me” pink mustaches — which aren’t optional, by the way. HOW DOES IT WORK? Most ridesharing companies have a smartphone app that works on iOS and Android. You need to sign up and give your personal details, along with a credit card or PayPal account. When you’re ready to find a ride, they all work about the same. You can input your location based on your GPS coordinates, and add your destination if you need a price estimate. Again, with Sidecar you must enter your destination when you order a car. Most will tell you how close the nearest ride is in minutes, and show the car arriving on a map. You’ll also get the name of your driver, their overall rating (for Uber and Lyft, it’s on a scale of one to five) and the type of car they’re piloting. The nearest driver is dispatched based on their GPS location, and just before they arrive, you’ll receive a text message. “Jasper” told me that Uber’s driver app won’t transmit your destination to the driver, unlike Lyft and Sidecar’s app. Instead, he has to enter it manually when the passenger arrives, so most Uber drivers pack a second phone or GPS. However, Sidecar customers must enter a destination, which drivers like as it gives them a close idea of their fare. He said that many of his customers avoid Sidecar for the same reason, though — they’d rather not be bothered. When I used UberX about a half dozen times on a recent trip to San Francisco, none of the drivers had a rating less than 4.7 out of 5. However, the quality of vehicles varied. I rode in an older, not-very-fancy (but clean) Toyota Corolla and in a new, deluxe Honda Accord. Some drivers were very familiar with the city and drove me efficiently to my destination (I checked), but a few times they overshot it or took a wrong turn. Incidentally, Uber drivers keep track of passenger ratings, too, but keeps them under wraps to avoid confrontations — a low enough passenger rating can get you kicked off the service. The only way to find out is to ask a driver, who may or may not reveal it. I was told that on all three services, if either you or your driver give a rating of three out of five or less, you’ll never be paired together again. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Once you arrive, the driver will stop the “meter” and that’s it. You can just say “bye” and split, because your fare has already been calculated and the payment taken automatically. Tipping isn’t permitted on most services, though 20 percent is automatically added on UberTAXI (that can be changed globally ). So how much does it cost? That depends, but the chart below for San Francisco — the home base of Lyft, Uber and Sidecar — offers a rough idea. Most of the services come in around 10 – 30 percent less than a regular taxi…with some huge caveats. Uber’s infamous “surge” pricing, for instance, could make a trip much more expensive depending on demand, while Lyft’s happy hour pricing could make it much cheaper (which aggravates some drivers ). UberBLACK, XL and VAN services are higher, more in line with the price of a taxi or limo. San Francisco Rideshare / Cab (regular rates) UberX Lyft Taxi Base Fare $3.00 $2.25 $3.50 Per Minute (waiting-only for taxis) $0.30 $0.27 $0.55 Per Mile $1.50 $1.35 $2.75 Safe Ride (or similar) Fee $1.00 $1.00 $0.00 Minimum Fare $6.00 $5.00 $3.50 Cancellation Fee $5.00 $5.00 NA Price for 5 mile, 15 minute ride $16.00 $14.05 $18.95 [Source: Uber, Lyft, SFMTA — assumes 4 minutes of traffic/red light delays for cabs ] Sidecar allows drivers to select their own rates — either lower or up to 1.25x higher than the so-called community average (the company doesn’t post those figures). That lets users pick a driver with a low fee or, say, a high rating. Jasper told me, however, that Sidecar offers drivers some other interesting options. For instance, during their own commute, drivers can lower their minimum rate drastically to ensure they have a fare, rather than riding empty. If a neighbor goes to work at the same time, for instance, the driver could give him a cheap ride every day — a win-win deal. How much commission ridesharing companies take is another interesting aspect. Jasper said that right now, Uber is charging a 20 percent commission while Lyft is charging zero in San Francisco. (He added that fees seem to drop when companies get new rounds of funding.) In addition, drivers can be offered bonuses for recruiting other drivers — Uber is reportedly offering up to $500 for new recruits right now. WHAT’S AT STAKE? It’s hard to see the downside of ridesharing for passengers. The increased supply of cars makes it easier to find a ride, for one thing — even if you prefer taxis. It also avoids the normal calling or wandering around to hail a cab, and gives you a status of your ride from the moment you request it. It’s often cheaper than a cab, and there’s rarely a dispute about unwanted fees or questionable route decisions. And the rating systems help keep drivers ( and passengers ) honest. From a ridesharing driver’s perspective, it’s mostly all good, too. You’ll never get stiffed on a fare, and the services generally shuffle cars around efficiently, minimizing downtime. The pre-registration process and automatic ride logging also adds a safety factor for both parties. Of course, most cab drivers would rather that ride-sharing services go away. They see them as amateur interlopers who pay no hefty fees , but steal precious fares. As pointed out by the New Yorker , if peer-to-peer transportation companies continue on their current trajectory, they could put a lot of taxi drivers out of business. That would turn out to be bad for passengers in the end, too — with less competition, fares would go up. WHAT’S THE ARGUMENT? A demonstrator kicks a car, suspected to be a private taxi, during a protest in Madrid, Spain Ridesharing has two loud camps — which have literally come to blows in the past. Cab drivers call Lyft and Uber businesses-for-profit — not “peer-to-peer transportation” — and believe they should pay the same license fees and insurance as taxis. Cities, states and countries feel the same, in many cases. Uber started up in Vancouver last year, but was quickly shut down on the grounds that it was technically a limousine service and had to charge a minimum of $75 per trip. Similarly, it was barred in the state of Virginia and is technically illegal in all of Belgium. In addition, though Uber now does thorough background checks, it wasn’t always so careful. Following an investigation by the Chicago Tribune , it had to apologize for hiring a driver with a felony conviction and was forced to redo thousands of driver screenings. Other black marks include an allegation of kidnapping against one Uber driver (the charge was dropped), and questions of insurance gaps for passengers. The new $1 fee for “passenger safety” and insurance addressed those issues, but one pundit noted that it was like paying a fee not to get assaulted. On the other hand, taxis have a horrible reputation in many cities. According to the Washington Post , some 12, 000 complaints were filed against cab drivers in Chicago through the city’s Business Affairs and Consumer Protection fields, or around 33 per day . Amongst those, one passenger cited a driver that left him at the curb when the driver saw that he had a guide dog, while another cabbie refused a customer that wanted to pay with a credit card. Worse, many drivers have been cited for racist behavior or flat-out dangerous driving . Ridesharing services say their drivers would be banned with the first sign of such behavior, or weeded out by lousy customer ratings. They also say there wouldn’t be a demand for their services in the first place if cab companies didn’t mistreat customers so poorly. WANT EVEN MORE? The best way to find out if ridesharing services are for you? Grab one of the apps, sign up and give it a whirl. You’ll find them by searching for Sidecar, Uber, Lyft et al on the iOS and Google Play app stores. Unfortunately, none of the major players have official Windows Phone apps at the moment — Uber did at one point , but the app was pulled . Uber also has a BlackBerry app . Lyft , Uber and Sidecar ‘s blogs detail new city locations, service changes and other news. Uber also uses its blogs to discuss controversial topics, like the banning of cars in Brussels. You can check out the Washington Post’s story about the litany of Chicago taxi complaints, the Daily Beast’s argument against Uber’s $1 “safety” fees and why ridesharing insurance headaches could get worse . Forbes’ feature details the competition between Uber and Lift while GQ’s Uber Cab Confessions touches the industry’s sordid side. Finally, we here at Engadget have covered Lyft , Uber and Sidecar closely since ridesharing became “a thing.” [Image credits: Uber, Lyft, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, Paul White/AP] Filed under: Transportation Comments

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What you need to know about Uber, Lyft and other app-based car services

How many times have you checked your phone today? If Google’s data is correct, your answer is somewhere between zero and 125. This proclivity to check our phone is the foundation upon which Android Wear, the company’s wearables platform, is built. Wear isn’t about replacing your smartphone though; it’s about extending Android beyond your pocket and into the world around you. Yesterday’s I/O keynote revealed a lot about Google’s vision for the future — and Wear is the thread that could tie it all together. On stage, Director of Engineering for Android, David Singleton, explained that everything in Android L is contextually aware, and has voice recognition enabled. Wear isn’t a separate entity; it’s an extension of Android L. An interface that bridges your experience of the world to the phone in your pocket (and vice versa). No more unlocking your phone and digging for restaurant recommendations. Wear knows your location and preferences; it’s already giving you step-by-step directions to a ramen joint around the corner. Or so the theory goes. Wear isn’t a separate entity; it’s an extension of Android L. Singleton’s demonstration of how Wear dances with, rather than marches beside, your phone was to order a pizza through his watch in under 20 seconds. A party trick to please the mostly developer audience, sure, but that demo showed Wear’s potential in a way that people understand: a useful interaction that solves a (hunger) problem. That’s something you can easily do from your phone, of course; the smartwatch skeptics are going to be harder to impress. Singleton’s second onstage demo showed Wear working with a tablet, displaying a recipe from Allthecooks . The tablet is the main screen in this scenario, but Wear is listening; it’s a servant to more than one device. The tablet feeds Wear each stage of a recipe one by one. Swipe for the next instruction on the watch, and this is reflected back on the tablet. The same is true for all interactions on all apps across all your Android L devices. No more dismissing notifications twice. This same symbiosis will be present across Android, Wear and Chrome OS — Google’s making the most determined push for unity yet, and Wear is a big part of it. Great, we can order pizza and make recipes a little less likely to fail. But Google has a much broader ecosystem now. Android will be in cars , TVs and your home . It knows what you like to eat, where you go on weekends and how badly you suck at Tappy Chicken . All of this information is united by your phone, and (the idea being) effortlessly enhanced by Wear. The feel-good promo videos might ham it up a little, but Google Now’s cards are getting smarter , and could find a natural home on your wrist. Having a wearable that controls (and is controlled by) all the technology in your life is, perhaps, the only logical case for a smartwatch — and that’s what Google is going for. Google wants Wear to be the key that unlocks the Android experiences around you right now. Earlier on in the I/O keynote, Director of Engineering at Google, Dave Burke, showed off a new feature within Android L — trusted environments. If you have a “Bluetooth watch” (this was before Wear was discussed), your phone knows you’re near, and removes the need for a password to access it. This might work for all Bluetooth devices, but it’s further evidence of the neat shape Google has cut out for Wear in Android’s future. Google wants Wear to be the key that unlocks the Android experiences around you right now. If you’re thinking Wear is just a fancy example of the internet of things , that’s because it is. This isn’t even the first wrist-worn gadget to be used for controlling other smart devices. Jawbone and SmartThings may spring to mind. The difference here is potential scale. Having a fitness tracker feed into your home automation is great. A platform that can set your thermostat , get driving directions (or score a lift ), tell you about your surroundings and quickly reply to a friend’s message is better. Your phone is still the brain, the identifier, the hardware that knows you. Wear listens, interfaces, serves. Much like Android itself, or Google Now, Wear is a platform that, if grown with care and attention, could usher in the era of the smart-world. A world where technology is used to lower, not create barriers between discovery and social interaction. That’s the marketing dream at least, and surely one we’re all invested in. On a more practical level, if Google is working on a unified ecosystem (as it appears to be ), it’s about time for something like Android Wear. Filed under: Wearables , Software , Mobile , Google Comments

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Android Wear brings Google to life

Even as smartphones are getting bigger and better, battery life is often an issue. Google announced today at I/O that it’s upcoming version of Android includes “Project Volta” to take the problem head-on. A “battery historian” gives more info on exactly what’s draining energy, while a battery saver mode lets users squeeze up to an extra 90 minutes out of each charge by doing things like lowering the screen refresh rate. Developing… Filed under: Cellphones , Mobile , Google Comments

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Android L is bringing better battery life to all, battery saver squeezes out 90 extra minutes