Tag: the-end

Which fitness bands are worth buying?

We spend a lot of time in front of our computers, which could be why we’re so keen to track all the times we actually step away from our screens and get a little walking or running done. To that end, every manufacturer seems to be coming out with a fitness band to brandish on your wrist. But when one wearable looks like the others, and they each operate in different ecosystems, it’s hard to know which will best suit your needs. We’ve taken a look at a few recent releases and their reviews, narrowing the field to six of the better models out there — plus one you should avoid. Frank Spinillo contributed to this report. Filed under: Wearables , Sony , LG Comments

See more here:
Which fitness bands are worth buying?

New Razer Blade has a 4K touchscreen that won’t kill battery life

Beating last year’s Blade is a tall order, but Razer hopes throwing a fancy new 14-inch, 4K touch display into its 2015 gaming laptop will help it do just that. The outfit’s using an Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO, for short) panel, and all those pixels are powered by NVIDIA’s GeForce 970M GPU that runs on Maxwell architecture . In terms of memory, there’s 16GB of RAM (double that of last year) in addition to a maximum 512GB of solid-state storage. All that to say, much like our laptop buyer’s guide choice from last year, games will almost assuredly look gorgeous and perform incredibly well here. While we decried the 2014 unit’s battery life, it looks like Razer might’ve found a way to address that: the new Blade swaps between the aforementioned graphics factory to Intel integrated graphics automatically — a similar trick to what MSI’s GT72 Dominator does. The difference here is that you apparently won’t have to power-cycle the machine to do so. Until we get one for review, how all that’ll affect the 70 Wh Li-ion polymer battery’s life is anyone’s guess. You can order one right now either factory direct or from the Microsoft Store. Or, should you want to give yourself a little something post Valentine’s Day, you can pick one up at select Microsoft Stores on February 16th. How much will one set you back? Well, starting price is $2, 199. Of course, if dinner, chocolates, roses and a pair of tickets for 50 Shades of Grey left you a little cash-strapped, you can always opt for the 1080p model. A bit of screen resolution isn’t all it sheds: It loses some weight and $200 off its sharper sibling’s base price, too. Filed under: Gaming , Home Entertainment , Laptops , HD , NVIDIA Comments Source: Razer

See more here:
New Razer Blade has a 4K touchscreen that won’t kill battery life

Sprint promo gives you an iPhone, an iPad and service for $100 a month

Are you the sort who has to have the latest phone and tablet? Sprint might have a deal for you. It’s extending its aggressive For Life deals with a promotion that gives you an iPhone 6 , an LTE iPad mini 3 and service for both at $100 a month, or about $17 less than what you’d pay to get them separately. While you only get 2GB of data on the iPad, that could be enough for family vacations or regular trips to a WiFi-less coffee shop. The big caveat (besides the conspicuous lack of an Android equivalent) is that the offer ends on April 9th. If you’re all-in on Apple gear, you’ll want to act quickly — Sprint’s determination to win new customers with cut-rate pricing isn’t going to last forever. Photo by Will Lipman . Filed under: Cellphones , Tablets , Wireless , Mobile , Apple , Sprint Comments Via: GigaOM Source: Sprint

View the original here:
Sprint promo gives you an iPhone, an iPad and service for $100 a month

Entangled photons on a chip could lead to super-fast computers

Photon entanglement is one of the odder properties of quantum physics, but it promises a lot for computing — if one photon can instantly affect another no matter how far away it is, you could make super-speedy computers and communications that aren’t easily limited by physical distances. It hasn’t been easy to get entanglement tech down to a manageable size, however, and that’s where Italy’s Università degli Studi di Pavia might just come to the rescue. Its researchers have developed a tiny emitter that could pump out entangled photons as part of an otherwise ordinary silicon chip. The device, which uses a ring shape to both rope in and emit light, measures just 20 microns across. That’s hundreds of times smaller than existing devices, which are comparatively gigantic at a few millimeters wide. You probably won’t see whole processors built around this technique, at least not for a while. Chip makers usually work on the nanometer scale — Intel’s new 14nm processors are far more intricate than this ring. Moreover, there’s some refinement left to make sure this part produces a reliable stream of tangled photons. If everything falls into place, however, you could see entanglement rings boosting performance in certain tasks. You might also see an entanglement-based component that handles jobs which aren’t otherwise possible, like spy-proof quantum cryptography . This breakthrough isn’t going to change semiconductors overnight, but it could make quantum computing more of a practical reality. Filed under: Science Comments Via: EurekAlert , SpaceDaily Source: OpticsInfoBase

Taken from:
Entangled photons on a chip could lead to super-fast computers

Your BMW just downloaded a security patch

Have a BMW, Mini or Rolls Royce with the ConnectedDrive feature parked in your driveway? Maybe all three? Well, it turns out there was a bug that allowed ne’er-do-wells to manipulate it — entirely wirelessly. According to Reuters , by simulating a fake phone network researchers at German outfit ADAC (essentially Deutschland’s AAA) were able to gain access to systems governed by the platform’s SIM card by spoofing a cell tower. They’ve even put together a video describing the gap in security which you can check out after the break — if you speak German. While the vulnerabilities didn’t include anything related to steering, acceleration or braking, the ConnectedDrive does have access to traffic information, air conditioning and… door locks. For its part, BMW says it hasn’t seen any reports of compromises to vehicle security, and now it’s using HTTPS to encrypt all data transmissions. Perhaps best of all? Owners of the 2.2 million affected vehicles didn’t need to hit the dealership for this patch — it was already delivered over the air. The update pushed automatically once the system connected to BMW’s servers recently, but those who keep a car stored may want to hop in and hit the “Update Services” button. Good thing, because taking all three of your rides in for service (like they did in 2012 to fix a problem with the ODB port that thieves actually used to steal cars , and as of 2014 were still using on unpatched vehicles) would probably be kind of inconvenient. Affected models: BMW 1 Series Convertible, Coupé and Touring (E81, E82, E87, E88, F20, F21) 2er Active Tourer, Coupé and Convertible (F22, F23, F45) 3 with Convertible, Coupe, GT, Touring and M3 (E90, E91, E92, E93, F30, F31, F34, F80) 4p Coupe, Convertible, Gran Coupe and M4 (F32, F33, F36, F82, F83) 5 Series GT and Touring (F07, F10, F11, F18) 6 Series Gran Coupe Convertible (F06, F12, F13) 7 Series (F01, F02, F03, F04) I3 (I01), I8 (I12) X1 (E84), X3 (F25), X4 (F26) X 5 (E70, F15, F85), X6 (E71, E72, F16, F86), Z 4 (E89) Mini Three-door and five-door hatchback (F55, F56) Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe and Drophead Coupe (RR1, RR2, RR3) Ghost (RR4) Wrait (RR5) [Image credit: BMW – AFP/Getty Images, control unit – ADAC / Uwe Rattay] Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Reuters , BMW , ADAC (German)

More:
Your BMW just downloaded a security patch

Tesla’s long-delayed Model X SUV is testing in California

It may look like a Prius that’s been vomited on by Mad Max, but the vehicle you see in the clip below is probably Tesla’s long-delayed Model X SUV . You see, when companies begin stress-testing vehicles, they dress them down with a dodgy paint job and go riding out a deserted airfield, like the one at the old naval base in Alameda. No amount of weird paint, however, could disguise the latest all-electric vehicle to roll off the production line, especially one as long-awaited as the X. It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. The Model X was originally announced back in 2012 , but by the start of 2014, issues with the battery meant the date was pushed back to early 2015. Then, back in November , Elon Musk revealed that the company was having difficulty mass producing components for the falcon-winged vehicle, pushing the launch date back to the tail-end of 2015. If the company is feeling bullish enough to let its high-riding whip out in public, then perhaps he’ll make that deadline. It looks like, despite the heftier build, that the Model X will still be mightily fast, let’s just hope that the company puts Insane Mode as a button right on the steering wheel. Filed under: Transportation Comments Via: TechCrunch

View article:
Tesla’s long-delayed Model X SUV is testing in California

Reddit posts its first transparency report

Reddit may not be subject to as much legal scrutiny as tech giants like Google or Microsoft , but there’s enough of it that the internet community has published its first transparency report . The site says that received 55 demands for user info through subpoenas, search warrants and emergency requests in 2014. That’s a tiny amount compared to the 174 million total redditors , but that makes it a bigger target than Dropbox and other services that you’d think would be more conducive to secret activity. The site had a bigger problem on its hands with 218 copyright and trademark takedown requests, although it’s not clear if that includes any calls to pull celebrity photos stolen in last year’s iCloud breach . Not that cops or lawyers got as much as they’d like. Reddit notes that it denied just under half of all data requests, and over two thirds of takedowns — in many cases, the copyright notices were overbroad attempts to censor entire subreddits or less-than-flattering (but still legal) material. The site’s main challenge is simply getting permission to tell people what’s going on. Gag orders prevented it from giving a heads-up for 13 data requests, so the company can’t always be as forthcoming as it would hope. [Image credit: Eva Blue, Flickr ] Filed under: Internet Comments Via: TechCrunch Source: Reddit Blog

Read the original:
Reddit posts its first transparency report

Tesla Model S is getting even quicker through a software update

If you didn’t think that Tesla’s Model S P85D was bonkers enough , you’re in for a treat. Elon Musk has revealed that the already speedy electric sedan is getting a software update that will improve its 0-60MPH acceleration time by a tenth of a second, to 3.1 seconds. That may not sound like much, but that makes the Model S as quick off the mark as McLaren’s MP4-12C supercar. The ‘regular’ P85 will also get a boost, Musk says , although it won’t be “quite as much.” No, this won’t be news to aftermarket tuners used to wringing out more performance through code, but it’s fun to think that a factory firmware upgrade could be the key to winning a drag race. [Image credit: Free Photos, Flickr ] Tesla P85D 0 to 60mph acceleration will improve by ~0.1 sec soon via over-the-air software update to inverter algorithm – Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2015 Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Elon Musk (Twitter 1) , (2)

Excerpt from:
Tesla Model S is getting even quicker through a software update

Google X Labs made synthetic skin to test a cancer-detecting bracelet

If someone asks you to name a Google X Labs moonshot, you’d probably say Glass , self-driving car or maybe even Project Loon . But as you might remember from the WSJD Live conference last year, it also has a flourishing Life Sciences division that employs 100 doctors and scientists, and one of their main projects is a Fitbit-like bracelet that can detect cancer cells . Now, The Atlantic has taken a peek into the division’s headquarters in Mountain View. The publication’s video (below the fold) also explains why the team has to create synthetic human skin mixed with the real thing to cover disembodied arms. See, those arms serve as testers for the Labs’ cancer-detecting bracelet project. For that to make sense, though, you need to understand how the system works: first you’ll need to take pills packed with nanoparticles that circulate throughout the body looking for cancer cells. If they find any, they’ll bind to those cells, which then literally light up. After that, the cell-particle combos make their way underneath the bracelet, since it has a magnet that attracts the nanoparticles. Since the team wants to make sure that an illuminated clump of cancer cells is visible through human skin, they created those practice arms. They’re covered in skin exhibiting different properties (thickness, etc.), as well as skin mimicking those of different ethnicities and skin tones. The bracelet probably won’t be sniffing out cancer in the real world anytime soon, though, so watch the interview for now to see what it’s like inside Google X Labs’ Life Sciences department. Filed under: Science , Google Comments Source: The Atlantic

Read the article:
Google X Labs made synthetic skin to test a cancer-detecting bracelet

Government raked in $44.9 billion from wireless auction

The FCC’s latest wireless auction brought in far more money than anyone expected. The Chairman, Tom Wheeler, set a goal of raising $10.6 billion by selling off 1, 600 licenses to blocks of wireless spectrum. In the end, the government not only blew past its goal, but also its previous record of raising $19.1 billion in 2008, when it auctioned off significant pieces of the 700Mhz band that delivers LTE for a number of carriers. This auction ended with the government raising $44.9 billion, which surprised many observers, especially since even smaller markets like Portland, ME received sizable bids worth tens of millions of dollars. Who won which pieces of spectrum in the 1, 700Mhz and 2, 100Mhz bands is unknown right now, but we do know that 70 different companies and organizations submitted bids. Obvious players were involved, like AT&T and Verizon, but Dish also participated, as did some private equity firms, like Grain Management LLC. Interestingly, Sprint sat this one out, though the company does have what the Wall Street Journal calls , “largest stores of spectrum” in the industry. Part of the reason people were shocked by the high price tag, is that these higher frequencies are actually considered less valuable than lower bands. That’s largely because they’re unable to cover as much distance or penetrate buildings as easily. But, since they’re able to carry large amounts of data over short distances, they can be very useful in cities. Hopefully we’ll have more information about who won what soon, but for now lets just enjoy the cash windfall for the government and the American tax payer. [Image credit: Shutterstock] Filed under: Wireless , Verizon , AT&T Comments Source: Wall Street Journal

Excerpt from:
Government raked in $44.9 billion from wireless auction