We transmit almost a thousand petabytes of data over the ‘nets every month—an amount that’s growing exponentially, thanks to your narcissistic obsession with Snapchat. In fact, we’re quickly closing in on the limits of how much data optical fiber can transmit. Luckily, scientists at Boston University recently unveiled what could be the next generation of bandwidth tech. Read more…
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Corkscrew Lasers Are About to Revolutionize Internet Bandwidth
bshell writes “The Verge has a great photo-essay about Tûranor PlanetSolar, the first boat to circle the globe with solar power. ‘The 89,000 kg (nearly 100 ton) ship needs a massive solar array to capture enough energy to push itself through the ocean. An impressive 512 square meters (roughly 5,500 square feet) of photovoltaic cells, to be exact, charge the 8.5 tons of lithium-ion batteries that are stored in the ship’s two hulls.’ The boat is currently in NYC. Among other remarkable facts, the captain (Gérard d’Aboville) is one of those rare individuals who solo-rowed across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, journeys that took 71 and 134 days, respectively. The piece has a lot of detail about control systems and design.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Solar-Powered Boat Carries 8.5 Tons of Lithium-Ion Batteries
Rich Lee, a “grinder” (someone who has surgical enhancements and/or modifications conducted upon their person), implanted a magnet in his ear that he can use as a speaker; he wears a coil on a necklace that he can use to transmit to it (he was inspired by this Instructable ), and is now branching out into some serious experimentation: Listening to music is nice and probably the most obvious answer, but I intend to do some very creative things with it. The implant itself is completely undetectable to the naked eye. The device & coil necklace are are easily concealed under my shirt so nobody can really see it. I can see myself using it with the gps on my smartphone to navigate city streets on foot. I plan to hook it up to a directional mic of some sort (possibly disguised as a shirt button or something) so I can hear conversations across a room. Having a mic hooked up to it and routed through my phone would be handy. You could use a simple voice stress analysis app to detect when people might be lying to you. Not to say that is a hard science, but I’m sure it could come in handy at the poker table or to pre-screen business clients. I have a contact mic that allows you to hear through walls. That might be my next implant actually. He also wants to hook it up to an ultrasonic rangefinder and learn to echolocate. He’s going blind, so being able to use his hearing for physical nav is going to be important to him. He also wants to hook it up to a Geiger counter. DIY Headphone Implant ( via M1k3y )
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Implanted invisible headphone
An anonymous reader writes “Sony claims that both the new 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch models of its Haswell-equipped Vaio Pro ultrabooks are the world’s lightest. The 11.6-inch model weighs in at 1.9lb (0.87k , where as the 13.3-incher is a little heavier at just 2.33lb (1.06kg). But it’s the battery life on offer here that really makes the new Pros stand out. The 11.6-inch Vaio Pro offers 11 hours of battery life as standard, while the 13.3-inch achieves 8 hours. However, Sony is also offering a sheet battery you can connect to the base of the ultrabooks. On the 13.3-inch Pro that increases battery life to 18 hours, but on the 11.6-inch you get a true day-long amount of juice with 25 hours of battery life claimed.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Sony Touts 25 Hour Battery Life For Haswell-Equipped Vaio Pro
An anonymous reader writes “Edwin Vargas, a detective with the New York City Police Department, was arrested on Tuesday for computer hacking crimes. According to the complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court, between March 2011 and October 2012, Vargas, an NYPD detective assigned to a precinct in the Bronx, hired an e-mail hacking service to obtain log-in credentials, such as the password and username, for certain e-mail accounts. In total, he purchased access to at least 43 personal e-mail accounts belonging to 30 different individuals, including at least 19 who are affiliated with the NYPD.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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NYPD Detective Accused of Hiring Email Hackers
An anonymous reader writes “In a decision that’s almost certainly going to result in this issue heading up to the Supreme Court, the Federal 1st Circuit Court of Appeals [Friday] ruled that police can’t search your phone when they arrest you without a warrant. That’s contrary to most courts’ previous findings in these kinds of cases where judges have allowed warrantless searches through cell phones.” (But in line with the recently mentioned decision in Florida, and seemingly with common sense.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Fed. Appeals Court Says Police Need Warrant to Search Phone
1.4.0 already? Yes, you read right. Attached to this news you will find the pre-release test version for MediaPortal 1.4.0. From the pre-release test version to the final version we are only doing bug-fixes. This means that in only about 2 months we will release 1.4.0 final! You will be able to upgrade from the MP 1.4.0 pre-release test version to the MP 1.4.0 final version easily! But how is this possible? No more annual (Christmas) final Releases? The team has successfully transitioned to a new release process. We’re calling the process a “train model”. The idea is to enable us to deliver the features you want faster by working to a more fixed schedule. That means no need to wait for our traditional Christmas releases. “Christmas” will come more often from now on! Have a look here if you want to know more. So what’s in store? You might think that because of the short development timeframe, the 1.4.0 release will be just a few small tweaks here and there. But thanks to the fantastic help from the community in Area 51 , we think you’ll be surprised! HDMI half/fullscreen fix: HDMI is THE connection these days. In 1.4.0 we have finally managed to fix the issue that plagued so many people in our community. MediaPortal no longer resizes into a small window when you use HDMI to connect your HTPC with a TV or AV receiver! MediaPortal starts faster: MediaPortal can take a fair amount of time to start. This release introduces a few changes which should reduce that startup time a bit. Standby (S3) hibernation (S4) handling reworked: MediaPortal’s compatibility with Windows power saving features has been improved. Hopefully this will allow you to save some money from your power bill. Compensate for Windows DPI settings different than 100% Windows has a feature that enables you to increase the size of text (to make it easier to read). This version of MediaPortal works better than previous versions when that feature is enabled. Video and TV-recordings thumbnails creation Our thumbnail creator for videofiles has been worked on to make it more reliable. We are also now able to create thumbnails for TV recordings on multiseat systems! Picture thumbnail creation MediaPortal 1.4.0 pre-release creates picture thumbnails more than 10x faster than MediaPortal 1.3.0. Music playback The music player implementation has also been given an overhaul. WASAPI support has been added and the existing ASIO support has been cleaned up. MediaPortal Audio Renderer Based on your feedback, the MPAR which was first introduced in MediaPortal 1.3.0 has been refined and improved even further. Blu-Ray Playback We know you love the native Blu-Ray support that was introduced in MediaPortal 1.3.0. We’ve made further improvements in this release. TV-Server enhancements The TV-Server has received numerous small fixes and enhancements such as the option to also import and export your tuner settings. New logging framework The new log4net logging has elements that can be configured, specifically the log file size and log rotation. Full list of changes You can review the complete change log for 1.4.0 by using the following links: Changelog: MediaPortal Changelog: TV-Server Changelog: Installer – DeployTool Compatibility When introducing new features and reworking areas of MediaPortal, we try very hard to make sure that compatibility to previous versions of plugins and skins is maintained. However, sometimes this is not possible. In 1.4.0 we have a few changes which will render sins and some extensions incompatible. Skins: Due to the changes introduced in 1.4.0, none of the old skins are compatible. However the changes are not that massive or numerous. Skin Designers can find out about what needs to be changed in the 1.3.0 to 1.4.0 section of the Wiki. Plugins: Due to the changes introduced in 1.4.0, you will find some plugins reported as incompatible after the upgrade. Many plugin developers have already released 1.4.0 compatible versions. But before you start testing the 1.4.0 pre-release, make sure that the plugins you are using are available in a compatible version. Developers can find out what needs to be changed to become 1.4.0 compatible in the related wiki section . WindowsXP support is about to end A little over 4 years ago, Microsoft ended the mainstream support for Windows XP, and the extended support for developers and businesses is to end in less than a year. Windows XP has served many of us well during the last 12 years. Most have already moved on to Windows 7 or even Windows 8 which both bring a lot of features and optimizations that especially HTPCs benefit from. Since quite some time we are in a state where nearly no active team member has access to a Windows XP system for development or testing, which makes maintaining Windows XP support quite a challenge. But the much bigger concern starts to be that ensuring Windows XP compatibility results in turning down reworks and new features our community would highly benefit from. The reason for this is that these features and reworks require functions that are only available in later Windows versions, and the required extra work to maintain Windows XP compatibility would result in a lot of additional and duplicate code, making the changes very complex and error prone. So we decided that in the interest of delivering our community the best Media Center on the Windows platform, the time has come to say “thank you, and goodbye” to Windows XP. MediaPortal 1.4.0 will be the last version which supports Windows XP . Starting with 1.5.0 we will do some large scale cleanups in our code and start to include new features which will require that you run MediaPortal on Windows Vista or later. Installation, Upgrade, Download and Feedback Installation When doing a clean installation of 1.4.0 pre-release there is nothing special to worry about. Upgrade Upgrading from 1.2.x, or 1.3.0 Alpha/Beta/RC/Final to 1.4.0 pre-release All MediaPortal 1.2.x and 1.3.0 Alpha/Beta/RC/Final installations can be upgraded to 1.4.0 pre-release, without losing your settings. Plugins: If you are running MediaPortal 1.3.x , then it is possible that some of your previously installed plugins will be shown as incompatible after the upgrade to 1.4.0 pre-release ! Whether or not a plugin is incompatible depends on the MediaPortal subsystems the plugin uses. If you are running earlier versions of MediaPortal, it is likely that none of your plugins are compatible with 1.4.0 pre-release . If a plugin provides skin files for MediaPortal’s Default skin, then the author should also check the Skin related changes. Skins: Warning ! Due to the new features and changes introduced, none of the 1.3.x skins are compatible with 1.4.0 pre-release ! Please contact the author of the skin you use for further information and updates. Upgrading Extensions: The easiest way to upgrade your extensions is by launching the MediaPortal Extension Installer , and let it check for updated versions. However this only works for extensions that use our MPEI system. If the author of the extension releases it as a stand alone installer, you must contact them for an updated version. Upgrading from 1.2.0 Alpha or earlier to 1.4.0 pre-release All MediaPortal installations starting with 1.1.0 RC1 can be upgraded to 1.4.0 pre-release, without losing your settings. If you are running MediaPortal 1.2.0 Alpha or earlier, then none of your extensions (plugins and skins) will work after the upgrade to 1.4.0 pre-release! You must update your extensions after the upgrade! So, please make sure that 1.4.0 pre-release compatible versions of your extensions are available before you start the upgrade! General note about Upgrades Manually stop TV-Service! On some systems our installer is not able to update the TV-Server installation because its files are locked or the service can not be stopped. For upgrades to 1.4.0 we recommend that you manually stop the TV-Service and make sure, via Windows Task Manager (enable the “all users” option), that the TvService.exe process is really gone before starting to upgrade. Custom TV-Service properties If you manually changed the properties of the TV-Service (like restart on error options) , then you must redo these changes after the upgrade. The installer is not able to save and restore your custom service properties when it installs the new version of the TV-Service. Feedback Bugs If you think you found a bug then please post a detailed report in our Bug Reports Forum . Make sure your report includes all the required information . Incomplete reports will be removed to keep the forum clean. Download Finally – the download. We hope that you took the time to read this release news entirely because it includes vital information about the major changes. If you would like to support MediaPortal, we would be happy to receive a small donation ! The Team wishes you a lot of fun with this new release! .::. Download – MediaPortal 1.4.0 pre-release .::. :: Post a Comment ::
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MediaPortal 1.4.0 pre-release ready for testing!
The tech giant is slapped with a class action suit, which alleges it knowingly sold users iPhone 4 smartphones with power buttons that broke shortly after the 1-year warranty expired. [Read more]
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Lawsuit claims Apple sold iPhone 4 with bad on-off button
Disrupt NY 2013′s Startup Battlefield competition is underway, and now New York native Keen Home is taking the stage to present its first-round pitch. Keen Home is a home automation startup, which aims to follow in Nest’s footsteps by building remote vents for your central air conditioning and heating systems that can be controlled from your smartphone to optimally direct air where you actually need it — and away from places you don’t. Keen just launched its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo . Keen Home is the brainchild of Ryan Fant and Nayeem Hussain, both of whom have experience founding companies in the home real estate and property-management space. The two believe their startup can appeal to consumers who want both more convenience in managing their home’s HVAC systems, and who want to save money and conserve energy. Keen Home’s debut product, the Keen Vent, accomplishes both. The idea came from Fant noticing that when vents were closed in other rooms, heating and cooling the one he was currently in became much easier. The problem is that those vents generally operate separately, and manually, in most homes. Even with some systems that provide a remote, like Activent, they aren’t centrally controlled in a way that makes them individually manageable from an existing device like a smartphone. “We found that just by closing four vents in an average-sized home, we’ve reduced the run time of the furnace by about 30 percent,” Fant explained in an interview. “So not only were we redirecting air to rooms that were actually in use by intelligently closing vents, we were increasing efficiency, as well.” Keen believes that the focus is always on the thermostat when it comes to home heating and cooling efficiency solutions, which is good but it ignores other parts of the problem. The Keen Vent solves that, by providing both a user-guided and automated way of opening and closing vents to change how air flows through a home. A homeowner can set a schedule for individual vents, too, and it can plug into weather data to respond intelligently to changing conditions. Fant says the Keen Vent can provide up to 32 percent reduction in run time for HVAC systems, which means lower monthly bills and less toll on the environment. Most heating and cooling vents in households are around 60 years old, Keen Home said on stage during their Disrupt Battlefield presentation on Monday. Individual vent covers will cost around $40 per vent, Keen predicts, with a $150 charge for the system in total. There’s also a recurring fee of around $4 per month for access to the cloud-based management platform, which also provides monthly reports. But Fant and Hussain plan to partner with utility companies and homebuilders to try to offer the tech initially at a discount price, perhaps with, say, six months of service rolled into a new construction. It’s the same model that satellite radio provider Sirius/XM uses to sell subscriptions with new cars. Keen Home is launching its Keen Vent product on Indiegogo today, and believes that seeking crowdfunding, as well as traditional investment, will help it get the word out and prove product viability. Its biggest challenges will be proving to users that a recurring subscription around centralized vent control is worth the cost, and in making sure that legacy players like Honeywell don’t swoop in and simply build their own similar systems. The team says that being aggressive with partnerships with big utility companies, the way others like Nest and thinkeco have done in the past, will be the key to making sure it can overcome both. Keen said on stage that the majority of its audience would be people who don’t know what a smart home is, so they tried to make sure it was as easy to install as possible. That’s why they’ve made the install process as simple as possible, and setting up the online dashboard involves only entering a code and then doing a roughly 15 question survey. In addition, they’re planning to partner with HVAC contractors to take care of more complicated installs. Battery life is expected to be around a year for the vents, so it’d be roughly equivalent to changing the power source on devices like smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
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Keen Home Launches Crowdfunding Campaign For Its Connected Central Heating And Cooling Vents
Canned food, crackers, MREs, beer—it’s all fun to eat for a little while when the power’s out. Eventually, though, you want actual meals to eat, and that’s when you’ll be glad you found Chef 5 Minute Meals. More »
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Chef 5 Minute Meals are Self-Heating Go-To Power Outage Food