Since 1999, NASA’s Terra spacecraft has been capturing amazing images of thermal emissions and radiation across the surface of the planet for Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Now, those images have been made publicly available. Read more…
Continue reading here:
NASA’s Made 2.95 Million Amazing Images of Earth’s Thermal Emissions Public
Just because robots can be more efficient than humans and can make certain processes cheaper doesn’t mean they’ll always come out on top. Case in point: Johnson & Johnson is pulling its anesthesia robot called Sedasys from the market over poor sales, according to Outpatient Surgery and Anesthesiology News . It was once a promising alternative to anesthesiologists, since it can bring down the cost of administering sedation from $2, 000 per procedure to $150 to $200. It eliminates the need for an anesthesia professional, after all, as it allows any nurse or doctor to put a patient under in the operating room. One of the reasons why it experienced such slow adoption rates is because the American Society of Anesthesiologists campaigned against it. The group eventually backed down after the machine was limited for use in routine procedures like colonoscopy, but by then, they’ve already done their job. Unfortunately, J&J now plans to lay off 3, 000 employees from its medical devices division due to its products’ (Sedasys included) poor sales, so it’s not a total victory for humans after all. Via: PopSci , The Washington Post Source: Outpatient Surgery , Anesthesiology News
Link:
J&J’s anesthesia-bot loses against its human counterparts
Last week as T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced that his company’s Binge On program would expand to cover YouTube, he mentioned a strange point: that even the “mobile optimized” 480p Netflix streams T-Mobile offers were higher-res than what you get streaming via AT&T or Verizon. Executives from those companies said they don’t reduce the resolution of videos on their networks, although tests revealed that Legere was right — Netflix does only stream at 360p on AT&T and Verizon. Now the Wall Street Journal has reported that the culprit behind this restriction was actually Netflix itself. 7/ @TMobile has been listening to customers and thanks to a little partnership, @YouTube is now a #BingeOn partner! https://t.co/VQVZoM86Jh — John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 17, 2016 In an odd wrinkle on net neutrality discussions over whether or not broadband providers might restrict video quality of streaming companies they compete with, Netflix chose to limit its own quality on those two networks. Through a blog post and statements to WSJ , Netflix explains that it set a cap at 600kbps to avoid using up too much data under the caps set by those providers for their customers. Sprint and T-Mobile were apparently exempt because of a history of “more consumer friendly policies.” It all makes sense considering how quickly users can chew through bandwidth caps with HD video on mobile, although it seems odd that it wasn’t made clear until now. According to Netflix, this hasn’t been an issue for its users, who are more concerned about saving bandwidth than quality. However, it will soon introduce a “data saver” feature on its mobile apps to let users choose what bandwidth they want to stream over cellular networks — just in case you’re willing to burn a few GB so you can actually see what’s going on in Daredevil . Source: Netflix Blog , Wall Street Journal
Read the original:
Netflix is the one limiting its video quality on AT&T and Verizon
Indoor plumbing and unlimited clean water aren’t available everywhere. That’s why this clever, compact shower that recycles the same water several times—after purifying it after each use!—seems very handy. Read more…
Read More:
This Portable Shower Reuses the Same Water for Two Whole Weeks
“We don’t like our car bumping into things, ” said Chris Urmson, head of Google’s self-driving project, addressing the February 14 incident where Google’s car struck a bus . “This was a tough day for us.” Read more…
Original post:
What Google’s Self-Driving Car Team Learned From Hitting That Bus
Iki-ningyō are life-sized dolls that were primarily used in festivals and exhibitions in Japan. This one, which belongs to the Victoria and Albert Museum, is estimated to have been made around 1880, shortly after the samurai class was outlawed. Read more…
Continued here:
Watch 130-Year-Old Samurai Armor Get Restored to a Pristine and Fearsome State
Social media has increasingly broken down the walls between musicians and their fans, allowing bands to have more direct conversations with the people listening to their music. The “artist marketing platform” (AMP) that Pandora launched a few years ago was meant to be part of that move, helping to enable that connection between musicians and fans. In an effort to foster that connection, Pandora is launching AMPcast, an app that lets Pandora artists record messages to fans on-the-go and insert them right into a user’s audio stream. A musician participating in Pandora’s AMP program can use the new app to record a quick message to fans, add a link and then share it out to their listeners with speed and spontaneity. Perhaps the most obvious use case is a band alerting fans to a new album release or that there are still tickets available for a concert that night, but Pandora expects it’ll become an all-purpose way for artists of all sizes to reach fans and even grow their audiences. The messages can include a call to action link so you can click for more details. If you’re worried about your listening experience getting cluttered with messages you don’t want to hear, fear not. For starters, Pandora will only insert audio messages from artists that you’ve used to start a station or who have songs you’ve liked. So you shouldn’t hear messages from bands you couldn’t care less about. Unlike Pandora ads, you can skip past artist message, and you can even opt-out of the entirely. In Pandora’s view, the magic for artists is the combination of the company’s reach and targeting. For starters, artist messages are only delivered to listeners who’ve expressed an interest in that artist, but the company envisions a time in which it can use the vast amount of data it has tying together related songs and artists to serve listeners messages from bands they’ve never heard before. Pandora thinks that could be very valuable to smaller groups trying to find an audience. There’s even talk of making these messages location-based — so if a band is chatting about its concert in New York City, listeners in San Francisco won’t necessarily have to hear about it. Much of the story around Pandora over the last year has centered around the company’s move towards offering listeners ways to engage with music they love beyond just listening to songs. The company bought Rdio in an effort to eventually compete head-on with Spotify, launched new recommended stations to help users find new music and purchased Ticketfly in an effort to get its listeners buying tickets to see their favorite bands. This latest initiative ties in well with the Ticketfly move, as artists can directly talk to listeners about upcoming shows as well as have a link to buy tickets. The program launches today in a limited fashion: only a small group of selected artists can participate for now. But Pandora plans to roll it out to anyone using its AMP platform soon after it gets data on how the service is best used. The company wants to optimize the frequency of messages and get better at targeting before widely rolling it out.
See more here:
Pandora will let bands insert voice messages into your music stream
HTC has just dropped the most salient detail for anyone wanting to immerse themselves in the virtual reality experience it’s been cooking up with Valve for the past year: the price. The forthcoming Vive headset will cost $799, the two companies confirmed today. So $200 more expensive than the rival Oculus Rift headset. Read More
Continue Reading:
HTC-Valve’s Vive VR Headset Will Cost $799, Bundled With Two Controllers
See sample pages from this book at Wink. I saw the sour plums on the cover of Preserving the Japanese Way calling out to me from the highest bookshelf at teeny-tiny Moon Palace Bookstore, Minneapolis. As the Master Food Preserver for my county, I’m a sucker for beautiful books on food preservation. Angela, the owner, clapped and oohed as I plunked it down. “I love this book. I can’t cook, but this book makes me want to eat!” I’m authorized by the State of Wisconsin to teach the safest scientifically proven methods of food preservation. In my teaching, I’ve heard lovely stories of immigrant grandmothers and their favorite recipes and the joy keeping these traditions alive brings to people. This connectivity to our shared and adopted cultures is one of the most compelling aspects to Preserving the Japanese Way . Nancy Singleton Hachisu is a wonderfully opinionated ex-pat who embraced rural Japanese culture with her marriage to a Hokkaido farmer nearly thirty years ago. Her notes and recommendations are informed by her American “keep trying” attitude, coupled with the Japanese concept of perfecting a singular thing. Hachisu follows her insatiable curiosity in discovering the old ways. Her vignettes of meetings with artisanal makers are entertaining and informative. Her explanations and definitions of very specific Japanese ingredients are profoundly useful; for the first time ever I understood the nuances of soy sauces. She also acknowledges that artisanally made food is expensive. She recognizes that not everyone has the monetary luxury of purchasing small-batch regional soy sauces and offers accessible and easily available substitutes. I’ve taught classes in making Tsukemono (Japanese-style quick pickles) and am familiar with both the techniques and concepts on why preservation food-science works. Hachisu doesn’t dwell on the science of Why, which might be off-putting to both food scientists and beginners. Beginning food preservers will want to take a basics class or contact their local Master Food Preserver to give you the rules for fermentation. That being said, if you have interest in Japanese cuisine and culture, not to mention food preservation, Preserving the Japanese Way is book that you will return to many times. – Christina Ward Perserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen Preserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting, and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen by Nancy Singlton Hachisu Andrews McMeel Publishing 2015, 400 pages, 8.2 x 9.9 x 1.5 inches $27 Buy a copy on Amazon
See original article:
Perserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen
Floating things on magnets makes most things cooler. Bonsai trees are certainly no exception. Kickstarter project ” Air Bonsai ” combines together magnetic levitation, wee plants and traditional Japanese “monozukuri” (craftsmanship). Using the same magnetic floating trick we’ve seen in speakers , everything that the tree — or plant of your choosing — needs is contained within the floating ball. The team has already passed its goal of $80, 000 but you can still add to the money pot, with $200 enough to land you a basic starter kit. Because of the import issues of sending plants between countries, US-based backers will be receiving locally-sourced, tiny pine trees, but there’s nothing to stop you floating different tiny plants for your own bizarre anime dream. Depending on your aesthetic tastes, you can upgrade the “little star” floating orb, with a particularly attractive lava-stone pot at the top of our shopping list. There’s four designs for the “energy base” that maintains the magnetic field: all of which look classier than the chintzy speakers we’ve seen at tech trade shows. And if you’re feeling classy to the extent of $10, 000 , then you can get an exclusive handmade cushion, base and Bonsai “star”, as well as a tour of both a Bonsai garden and the workshop behind the project. Source: Kickstarter
See the original article here:
Floating Bonsai trees are better than floating speakers