Tag: public-access

Ultimate Hacking Keyboard splits in half, is fully programmable

If you want to go a step beyond mechanical keyboards, you’ll inevitably end up looking at the wild variety of ergonomic options. Now we have a new challenger: The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard by the Hungarian startup Ultimate Gadget Laboratories. It’s a mechanical keyboard that can be split apart for better ergonomic placement on your desk, and, true to its name, it also lets you completely remap the keys as you see fit. The company even included mouse support within the keyboard (which also lets you mimic touch gestures on smartphones and tablets). The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard is launching today on Crowd Supply with a funding goal of $200, 000, and it’ll start at around $200. It’s slated to begin shipping in the second half of 2016. Slideshow-330012 Laszlo Monda, the founder and lead developer of the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard project, says he focused on making the device portable when it’s in one piece. In a brief hands on time with a prototype unit, it didn’t feel as heavy as most mechanical keyboards, and it’s also compact enough to fit into most bags. The actual keys felt pretty great too, with just the amount of feedback you’d expect from a solid mechanical keyboard. Monda notes that the keys will be durable enough to last 50 million presses. You’ll also be able to choose from a variety of different mechanical switch options once the keyboard starts shipping. The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard feels just as sturdy split apart, as it does when it’s joined together. Its metallic connectors give it a particularly satisfying click when it comes together. Both halves are connected by a standard telephone cord along the top of the keyboard — you can also switch that out with a longer cable if you need any more room. While I didn’t get to spend any time with the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard’s configuration application, Monda describes it as something that will let you create application-specific key layouts, complete with fully customizable layouts. For the most part, the keyboard is targeted at people who just want to be more productive. It’s not exactly something meant for gamers, since it doesn’t have a dedicated row of function keys (they’re alternate options for the top number keys). That could make it tough to play games that rely heavily on function keys (though it’ll be just fine for most shooters). Source: Ultimate Hacking Keyboard

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Ultimate Hacking Keyboard splits in half, is fully programmable

6 flying cars that let you soar over traffic

By Cat DiStasio The dream of flight has entranced humans for centuries, and modern innovators won’t quit until the flying cars of sci-fi movies are realized. Although today’s traffic jams still happen on the ground level, plenty of engineers have their eyes and minds on the sky. It’s fascinating, if not intoxicating, to dream of the day when we might one day be able to take to the skies in a vehicle of our own, but until then, we can revel in prototypes built by dreamers with the capital to turn their high-flying ideas into a reality. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.Slideshow-329306

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6 flying cars that let you soar over traffic

August unveils a Homekit-enabled lock, keypad and doorbell camera

August Home Inc, makers of the August Smart Lock , announced the forthcoming release of three new products as well as a new service at a press event in San Francisco today. The new product lineup includes a second-generation Smart Lock, a Smart Keypad and a Smart Doorbell Camera. The lock itself offers a number of design improvements over its predecessor including a magnetic faceplate that won’t pop off every time you manually engage the lock as well as a stainless steel indicator on the lock sleeve. Plus, being Homekit-enabled, the new Smart Lock will allow users to issue voice commands through Siri rather than opening the app itself. It’s available for order today and will retail for $230. The older generation locks will be discounted to an even $200. The weather-proofed keypad will make granting temporary access to service providers (say, the delivery guy or your dog walker) much easier. Instead of forcing folks to download the August app just to use a one-time Bluetooth code, users will be able to program a 4 – 6 digit PIN into the keypad themselves and then share the code via text message or what-have-you. And, like the older shared BT codes, these PINs can be set to last for as many hours, days or uses as you’d like. The keypad will retail for $80 when it becomes available in the next few weeks. The Doorbell Cam is also weather-proofed, Wi-Fi enabled and pretty darn clever. It’s equipped with a standard motion detector but will also turn on the camera when it detects movement near the door. So instead of issuing a push notification every time a car drives past your house, the motion detector will also turn on the Wi-Fi camera (which is equipped with human-detection software) to ensure that the movement is actually a person standing on your stoop, not just parking at the curb. The camera will retail for $200. What’s more, the camera integrates with the rest of the August devices allowing you to remotely unlock your door for the delivery guy and record both him entering and exiting the residence. This ensures that he doesn’t swiped stuff from your house while dropping a package in the foyer. Plus, this way, you’ll never miss a delivery. The only drawback is that the camera is powered by your existing doorbell wiring so if you don’t have a doorbell already installed on your door (like me) you are SOL. Finally, August is expanding the scope of its temporary access system to allow services, not just individuals access to your door. “We’re announcing a new service that we call Access, ” August co-founder Jason Johnson told Engadget . “Probably the best way to describe it is, much like, new transportation apps like Uber helps consumers find service providers [in this case, drivers for hire – ed.] are in third party transportation logistics, we’re in third party service logistics. We help consumers find services that have integrated with our platform and we help them connect in a trusted and secure way.” The company announced 12 initial launch partners today including Sears, Postmates, Pro.com, Handy, Fetch, Shyp, BloomNation, Envoy, Rinse, HelloAlfred, Wag!, Pillow, and Doorman. Instead of having to give partial access to a delivery person every single time you order from Postmates, users will be able to grant access to Postmates the company. This may seem like a security issue however it’s not that far off from what many August users already do with trusted service partners like these. Plus, the lock maintains copious logs about who opened which August-locked door with which access code so tracking down the responsible party should your valuable go missing during a delivery will be a piece of cake.

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August unveils a Homekit-enabled lock, keypad and doorbell camera

Facebook’s ‘On This Day’ feature has controls to filter out sad times

Facebook’s On This Day tool is a nice feature when it recalls good times that may have slipped your mind. It has a tendency to bring up events and people that you might prefer to forget, though, and the social network added preferences to curtail the sadness. On This Day now has controls that’ll let you filter out specific people and dates so the feature doesn’t remind you of those bits of nostalgia you’d rather not revisit. Facebook has come under fire for toying with our emotions and digging up the past before, and there’s already been some criticism of On This Day since it launched in March. By adding preferences, Zuckerberg & Co. are offering a way to keep those bad memories at bay. It’s a nice touch, since you never know exactly when the memory machine will pop up in your News Feed. If you’ve noticed On This Day posts there, the new controls should be available for you to tweak. Via: The Verge

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Facebook’s ‘On This Day’ feature has controls to filter out sad times

The company behind Relish wireless broadband makes a big loss

Relish’s dream to connect London homes with wireless broadband, rather than traditional landlines, could be in trouble. UK Broadband, the company behind the service, has reported losses of £37.5 million for 2014 — almost four times what it was the year before. To make matters worse, turnover slipped from roughly £2 million to £1.5 million over the same period. Relish was launched in June 2014 as a simpler, but capable broadband alternative to the likes of BT, Sky and Virgin Media. Instead of copper and fibre cables, the company relies on 4G connections to deliver the internet to its customers. The advantages are plentiful — you don’t need to pay for a landline, and because Relish’s network is already up and running, you don’t need an engineer to install anything. Once you’ve signed up, a router is sent round within the next working day and you can instantly get online. The concept is similar to the mobile broadband packages offered by EE, Three and other UK carriers, although here there are no restrictive data allowances. So what’s gone wrong? Well, it should be noted that the figures filed by UK Broadband aren’t just for Relish. The company also offers consultancy services and the “provision of wireless solutions, ” including design and the supplying of equipment, for instance. Even so, it’s evident that Relish hasn’t been a runaway success. At least, not in the six months following its launch, anyway. The company has been pushing its offering with ads on the Tube, but Relish still doesn’t feel like a household name. There’s also something of a stigma attached to wireless broadband at the moment. Adopters often tell stories of slow or unreliable connections, similar to those experienced on their phone. Relish promises “up to 50Mbps” speeds, but that’s also dependent on you being inside their catchment area. The company is focused solely on London, but its network doesn’t cover every household — to find out if you’re eligible, you’ll need to submit your postcode into its coverage checker first. Home broadband is still a messy quagmire in the UK, but traditional ISPs are pushing hard to improve speeds and coverage. Relish is an intriguing competitor, and could appeal to Londoners who move a lot and just want a decent, easy to cancel broadband package. Early demand appears to have been low though. Relish hasn’t failed just yet — business could have picked up in 2015 — but this is a worrying sign from the company. Via: ISPreview , The Telegraph Source: Companies House

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The company behind Relish wireless broadband makes a big loss

LastPass gets acquired by remote desktop service LogMeIn

The popular password manager LastPass will soon have a new home at LogMeIn , which runs a remote desktop management service, the companies announced today . But don’t fret if you’re an existing LastPass user: LogMeIn says it’ll keep the service and brand alive, while also adding in technology from Meldium, another password service it recently acquired. The news comes amid a busy year for LastPass. Back in June, the company announced that it was hacked , and a few months ago it added free mobile password support . For the most part, the acquisition seems to be about making LogMeIn a more desirable choice for businesses who want to give employees a simple way to secure their many passwords, across a variety of online services. Via: The Next Web Source: LogMeIn

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LastPass gets acquired by remote desktop service LogMeIn

Firefox will stop supporting web plugins (except for Flash) by the end of 2016

Horrible browser plugins used to offer extended multimedia features for website, often at the cost of a much worse overall experience — thankfully, they’re going the way of the dodo. Chrome recently banished plugins like Java and Silverlight (and made auto-playing Flash ads disabled by default ), and now Firefox is doing the same. Mozilla just announced in a blog post that nearly all old-school plugins will not be supported in Firefox by the end of 2016. That’s a long ways away, but it’s still good news. Naturally, the impossible-to-kill Adobe Flash platform is exempted from this doom, but everything else will be completely disabled. Mozilla also noted that new platforms, like the 64-bit Firefox for Windows, will launch without plugin support since they don’t have to support a legacy base of users. Let’s take a moment of thanks for standards like HTML5 making the web a better place to browse and start counting down the days until Flash can join Java in the internet’s trash pile. Via: PC World Source: Mozilla

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Firefox will stop supporting web plugins (except for Flash) by the end of 2016

DNA nanomachine detects HIV antibodies in minutes, not hours

Current methods for detecting the antibodies that indicate HIV infection are agonizingly slow and cumbersome. However a new DNA nanomachine developed by an international team of researchers (and funded, in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) could shorten the process to a matter of minutes. The DNA-based nanomachine is designed and synthesized to recognize and bind with a specific target antibody, even within biologically-dense and complex samples like blood. When these “machines” do bind with the target antibody, the joining causes a structural change that generates a little burst of light. A test that used to require hours of careful, complex and downright expensive prep-work could now take as little as five minutes. And the sooner that doctors are aware of the infection, the sooner they can start treating it . What’s more, these nanomachines can easily be customized to detect a wide variety of antibodies. “Our modular platform provides significant advantages over existing methods for the detection of antibodies, ” Prof. Vallée-Bélisle of the University of Montreal, a senior co-author of the paper, said in a statement. “It is rapid, does not require reagent chemicals, and may prove to be useful in a range of different applications such as point-of-care diagnostics and bioimaging.” The team hopes to further develop the technology, making the signals even easier to detect. “For example, we could adapt our platform so that the signal of the nanoswitch may be read using a mobile phone , ” Simona Ranallo, University of Rome PhD student and first-author of the paper, said in a statement. “This will make our approach really available to anyone! We are working on this idea and we would like to start involving diagnostic companies.” [Image Credit: lede – LightRocket via Getty Images, inline – Marco Tripodi] Source: University of Montreal

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DNA nanomachine detects HIV antibodies in minutes, not hours

Google is purging hacked spam from your search results

It’s bad when your web searches include sites that are mainly marketing fluff , but it’s much worse when that fluff has been hacked into legitimate sites that you wouldn’t visit otherwise. Well, Google has had enough of this attempt to game the system. It’s tweaking its algorithms to “aggressively” cull hacked spam from results, leaving you only with sites that intended to include the content you’re looking for. While the changes will only affect about 5 percent of searches when all is said and done, that could mean a lot if it helps you avoid compromised pages and the malware that might be lurking inside. [Image credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan] Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog

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Google is purging hacked spam from your search results

Android Marshmallow begins rolling out to Nexus devices today

As expected , Nexus owners are in for a treat this week as Google’s latest OS revisions begins rolling out to select devices. According to a post on the Official Android Blog , the Nexus 5, 6, 7 (the 2013 model), 9 and Player are all in line to receive the over-the-air software update starting today. The newly released Nexus 5x and 6P handsets, of course, come with Marshmallow already installed. [Image Credit: Shutterstock] Source: Android Blog

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Android Marshmallow begins rolling out to Nexus devices today