Tag: scaling-fix

Google Now awarded Popular Science’s Innovation of the Year

Popular Science has given Google Now its “Innovation of the Year” award, putting it alongside past winners like the Large Hadron Collider , the Toyota Prius and the Mars Curiosity Rover . It’s august company to be sure, and the reasoning behind the decision is that it’s “the first virtual assistant that truly anticipates your needs.” The service has grown quite a bit since its initial launch — from personalized recommendations to public safety alerts and the addition of a pedometer , it seems that these are early days yet for the context- and location-aware app. Hit the Android G+ source link to read a Q&A between PopSci and part of the Google Now team to get some behind-the-scenes insight of the award-winning service. Filed under: Cellphones , Internet , Google Comments Source: Android (Google+) , Popular Science

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Google Now awarded Popular Science’s Innovation of the Year

Researchers stumble onto ‘lava’ generated quantum dots, could power future peripherals

Have you ever been playing around with molten metal salt, when you accidentally created hollow, soft-shelled particles that could one day increase hard disk storage or power future QLED displays ? Us neither, but that’s exactly what happened to scientists at Rice University when they were researching “tetrapods” to make solar panels more efficient. Through an apparently wacky coincidence, they removed a single ingredient from the tetrapod stew, which left behind tiny droplets of cadmium nitrate. Selenium then melted around those drops, which completely dissolved away, leaving a melted selenium ball with a hole in the middle. It turns out that those selenium “doughnuts” can be packed tightly onto a metal surface without touching, thanks to their soft shells, which could allow more bits to be packed onto a hard drive, or be used in quantum computers and next-gen displays. Since the dots are smaller than a living cell, it took the researchers an entire year to figure out what they’d made and how they did it — luckily they didn’t just bin the whole thing and start over. Filed under: Displays , Storage , Science , Alt Comments Via: Extreme Tech Source: IOP Science

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Researchers stumble onto ‘lava’ generated quantum dots, could power future peripherals

Recon updates its HUD tech, adds new view modes to MOD Live

Heads-up MOD Live lovers: Recon’s ready to update that ski slope tech with a fresher look. Available now on the company’s dedicated Engage site, is a software package that enhances the goggle’s current feature set with the addition of three view modes. Leveraging the unit’s inbuilt GPS, the new Radar setting allows users to gain more accurate positioning info, keep close tabs on fellow skiers, as well as access interactive resort maps. Users keen on a more up-close look at the surrounding slopes can shift into Perspective mode, which handily tracks head orientation. And lastly, for a pared-down experience, there’s a compass overlay that provides users with a more “traditional” means of navigation. If you haven’t already jump started your HUD-infused mask with this latest OS, you can head to the source below to get started. Continue reading Recon updates its HUD tech, adds new view modes to MOD Live Filed under: Wearables , Software Comments

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Recon updates its HUD tech, adds new view modes to MOD Live

Harwell Dekatron revived as the world’s oldest working, original digital computer

Over 60 years since the first digital computers switched on, the chances of seeing one of these pioneers in action have grown incredibly slim as time (and recycling) takes its toll. Take a visit to Britain’s National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park as of today, however, and you’ll see one working. A finished 3-year restoration effort lets the Harwell Dekatron — at one point renamed the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computation from Harwell, or WITCH — claim the title of the world’s oldest functional digital computer still using its original design. Aside from its room-filling dimensions, the 1951-era mainframe may be worth the trip just for recalling a time when there were no hard and fast rules in computing: the Dekatron operates in its namesake decimal system, not binary, and puts most of its components on full display. The computer is part of the regular exhibit lineup and should be easy to see; the daunting part may be realizing that virtually any chip in a 2012 smartphone could outmuscle the Dekatron without breaking a sweat. Filed under: Desktops , Misc , Alt Comments Via: Slashdot Source: National Museum of Computing

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Harwell Dekatron revived as the world’s oldest working, original digital computer

Firefox 17 heads out of beta, officially drops support for OS X 10.5

We’ve just seen an update to Firefox for Android , but that’s not the only revision that Mozilla has had in the works. Today also sees the release of version 17 of the desktop browser, which brings with it a number of changes and one noticeable omission. The latter is a lack of support for Mac OS X 10.5 (a.k.a. Leopard), which Mozilla first announced last month — those on Leopard can of course continue to use Firefox 16, they just won’t receive any updates. Otherwise, you can expect a new “Awesome Bar” with larger icons, more than 20 promised performance improvements and a new click-to-play functionality for dealing with outdated or potentially vulnerable plug-ins. Also receiving the bump to version 17 is the Extended Support Release (or ESR) version of the browser, which disables the automatic updating to cause less headaches for those dealing with mass deployments. You can find the full change log at the source link below. Update: As TechCrunch notes , version 17 also adds the new Social API to Firefox, although Facebook is the only site to take advantage of it so far — it now lets you add Messenger to the browser’s sidebar. Filed under: Internet , Software Comments Via: WinBeta Source: Mozilla

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Firefox 17 heads out of beta, officially drops support for OS X 10.5