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Blackphone to test new waters with privacy-minded tablet

After turning an ambitious plan into reality, the people behind the privacy-focused Blackphone are ready for a new adventure. During an interview with BBC Newsbea t, Jon Callas, co-founder of Silent Circle , which made the privacy-focused device in conjunction with Geeksphone , let it be known that the company will have a tablet in the near future. “Blackphone as it is, is our first device not our last device, ” Callas said. While he didn’t reveal any more specific details, Callas did mention such tablet is already in the works and set to be coming “soon.” The bigger hardware would likely bring similar features to the $629 Android phone , most of which is done with user privacy in mind first and foremost. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be interesting to see what Blackphone does next. Filed under: Misc , Tablets Comments Source: BBC Newsbeat

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Blackphone to test new waters with privacy-minded tablet

Researchers manipulate electrical signals to give prosthetic limbs a sense of touch

Adding the sense of touch to prosthetic limbs could significantly improve an amputee’s quality of life, so there’s a long list of researchers trying to make it happen . Some of those scientists make up one team out of Cleveland, who — according to their paper recently published in Science — have successfully recreated the sense of touch for two men missing an arm in a lab setting. Just like a recent experiment conducted by a team from the EU, this group implanted electrodes around three main nerves in the test subjects’ arm stumps. A machine then sends electrical signals between the electrodes and the prosthesis when it’s attached, something which, the subjects said, felt like electric tingles at first. After a while, though, the researchers learned how to control the patterns and intensities of those signals. Doing so allowed the subjects to recognize the texture of cotton and even sort berries without crushing them — a really big deal, since many other studies are still stuck at the “tingling” stage. Sadly, the researchers still need to better understand how they can manipulate the signals before they can make prostheses that can feel everything: even their two subjects only get to use their high-tech limbs once or twice a month, and only inside the lab. For now, you can watch some of the experiments they’ve conducted in the video below. Filed under: Science Comments Via: Popular Science , AP Source: Science

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Researchers manipulate electrical signals to give prosthetic limbs a sense of touch

The Tempescope shows you tomorrow’s weather by physically creating it

Another very cool item hidden within CEATEC, Japan’s biggest tech show, was the Tempescope. The team behind it call it “an ambient physical display that visualizes the weather, inside your living room” — it’s an elaborate lit-up box that shows you tomorrow’s weather in a very classy, oddly relaxing, way. To work out exact what kind of weather it should summon, the Tempescope pulls hourly forecasts from a wireless connection from a PC (future models could pretty easily pluck similar information from your smartphone), and once the ‘scope knows what’s happening, it’ll try to create those meteorological conditions inside the sealed cuboid you see above. A combination of water and ultrasonics creates the cloudy vapor inside the box, while water can also be gathered at the top, and dripped down to create rain. LED lights at the top attempt offer up an estimation of either thunder or sunshine, depending on what’s going down tomorrow. The product of after-hours and weekend tinkering by a small team of three, it’s been in development for a few years and now they plan to launch crowdfunding campaign early next year which, if successful, will pave the way for a professionally-finished, thoroughly modern weather vane. You can check their site for all the details — and even the whole schematics for the thing, if you’re feeling particularly productive. Filed under: Misc Comments Source: Tempescope

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The Tempescope shows you tomorrow’s weather by physically creating it

Tesla D: Model S with second motor and AWD, new driver assist tech

Tesla’s “D” unveiling hasn’t quite started yet, but USA Today has taken the wraps off for Elon Musk & Co. Fitting into some of the rumors, speculation and a car spotted a few days ago, Tesla is rolling out new all wheel drive equipped versions of its Model S. The top of the line dual-motor equipped P85D has a measured 0 – 60 time of 3.2 seconds, which puts it among the fastest sedans ever when it starts shipping in December. Developing… [Image credit: Shutterstock] Filed under: Transportation Comments

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Tesla D: Model S with second motor and AWD, new driver assist tech

Turn your text messages into comic strips with this app

Regardless of which platform you’re on , text-message windows are pretty boring. The folks behind comiXchat think they have the solution to that, however, with an app that turns your 160-character correspondences into comic strips. More than just throwing avatars onto a static background, though, the app promises real-time changes to character position, facial expression and camera angles among other things, based on implied emotion, tone and attitude. And if any of that goes horribly wrong, you can share the comics either per-pane or the entire conversation via your social media network of choice. For it to work, you need to rope your friends into downloading it too. Ad-supported, free versions are available on Android , iOS and Windows Phone and if you’d like a preview of what it all looks like in action, there’s a dubstep-accompanied video just below. Filed under: Cellphones , Software , Mobile Comments Via: comiXchat Source: ComiXchat (Google Play) , (App Store) , (Windows Phone)

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Turn your text messages into comic strips with this app

Samsung wants to kill hard drives with new high-efficiency SSDs

For the first time, Samsung has starting producing SSDs using (wait for it) 3-bit multi-level-cell, 3D Vertical NAND flash memory, better known as TLC V-NAND. So, who in the actual hell cares? You might, if you’re planning on buying an SSD or computer soon. Samsung’s current V-NAND technology has resulted in models like the 850 Pro SSD , which topped all benchmarks and has a 10-year guarantee. But combining V-NAND with 3-bit tech has more than doubled wafer yields, which should result in even cheaper, faster and higher-capacity SSDs. The disks aren’t on sale yet, but there’s a good chance that one of the first available will be Samsung’s recently leaked 850 EVO. Filed under: Storage , Samsung Comments Source: Samsung

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Samsung wants to kill hard drives with new high-efficiency SSDs

Volvo’s big rig continuously scans surroundings to prevent accidents

If Volvo has its way, truck accidents could be on the way out. The automaker is working on system for the haulers to help drivers avoid wrecks, aiming to combat low visibility as one of the primary causes of wrecks. In order to keep an eye on things, the company is developing tech that continuously monitors surroundings with a 360-degree scan. A smattering of sensors, radar and cameras are placed around the truck to boost safety — especially in urban areas full of pedestrians and cyclists . Once the data is collected, the system interprets the details to communicate warnings, and it can even take control of steering and braking if the driving doesn’t respond in time. That all sounds quite good, but Volvo says the system won’t be market-ready for another 5-10 years. Filed under: Transportation Comments Via: Autoevolution Source: Volvo Trucks (YouTube) , (PR)

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Volvo’s big rig continuously scans surroundings to prevent accidents

Laboratory-grown penises will be available in five years, say researchers

No snark here, dear readers: We sincerely hope you never lose a body part, especially not one of your reproductive organs. In the event that do you suffer a terrible accident, or if you were born with some kind of abnormality, there’s a team of researchers dedicated to making sure patients not only recover these organs, but go on to live normal lives. That group comes from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where scientists there are not only working on lab-grown vaginas , but also testing laboratory-made penises. If all goes according to plan, they should be ready for use in about five years. That’s an optimistic claim, that it could take just five years for this technique to reach real-world patients. Incredibly enough, too, the scientists’ research is based on studies of rabbits, of all things. In their trials, the researchers cleansed the donor penis in detergent to remove all the living cells, leaving behind a collagen frame where scientists then seed penile cells harvested from the patient himself. These include smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells, which are necessary for erectile function. The entire process took several weeks, but in tests, the rabbits who received transplants were later able to mate and even reproduce. Now, after years of testing , the team is ready to try this procedure on humans. If successful, this would mean a higher quality of life for men unfortunate to be born with an abnormal penis, or to suffer a catastrophic injury. As Vice notes, penile replacement surgeries currently involve encasing a prosthetic with skin taken from the patient’s arm or thigh. Only with this new procedure would men be able to regain erectile function. It’s worth noting, however, that precisely because this method requires the use of the patient’s own penile cells, it won’t be of use to transgendered female-to-male patients hoping to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Image credit: UIG via Getty Images Filed under: Wearables , Science Comments Via: Vice Source: The Guardian , Wake Forest School of Medicine

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Laboratory-grown penises will be available in five years, say researchers

NVIDIA’s Maxwell architecture brings desktop-class performance and improved battery life to notebooks

Read through NVIDIA’s Maxwell desktop GPU announcement , and you might think you were looking at a feature set designed for laptops: lower power consumption, new anti-aliasing technology and a downsampling feature that can force any monitor to display 4K content. It sounds almost like a dream feature set for a portable gaming machine and, well NVIDIA agrees — today it’s officially launching the GeForce GTX 980M and 970M GPUs. If you didn’t read up on the company’s flagship GPU announcement, let us break it down for you: NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPUs are all about power efficiency with a hint of overkill graphics performance on the side. This is a combination of lower performance per watt, and implementing new technologies like Multi-Frame Sample Anti-Aliasing , the aforementioned technology that promises to boost performance by as much as 30-percent with no visual concessions. NVIDIA says it’s also made significant gains with its BatteryBoost feature, which limits in-game framerates and balances system performance to boost on-battery play time by 20 to 30-percent. As for that side of performance, well, not only do the new GPUs promise to perform better without being plugged into a wall outlet, but Maxwell’s new Dynamic Super Resolution (NVIDIA’s branded and optimized downsampling solution) is designed to put 4K-quality content on lower resolution screens. It’s kind of like lying to your computer’s monitor: the game is rendering itself at a 4K resolution and is filtered down to your laptop’s native 1080p display. NVIDIA’s new chips (and new GPU features) will be available in NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M and 970M-equipped laptops, starting today. Machines rocking the new hardware can be had from all the usual suspects: MSI’s GT72 and GS60 will have it, for instance, as well as the ASUS G751, Gigabyte Aorus X7 and the Clevo P150 (which will likely be rebranded under Origin PC or Maingear flags). How do these machines perform in practice? We’ll let you know as soon as one crosses our review desk. Filed under: Gaming , Laptops , NVIDIA Comments

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NVIDIA’s Maxwell architecture brings desktop-class performance and improved battery life to notebooks

Microsoft’s Project Spark game creator comes to Xbox One and PC

If you enjoy the creative part of building games but not so much the coding, Microsoft’s Project Spark is now available for Xbox One and PC (Windows 8.1 only). That marks the end of a six month beta period that saw over a million testers create 70, 000 game levels, according to Microsoft. As a reminder, Spark lets you build games with relative ease by using onscreen tools to add monsters, geography, game dynamics and logic. You can also use a Kinect HD on either platform to capture your own movements and facial expressions for game characters. Download it now for Windows 8.1 and Xbox One for free, or as Microsoft helpfully suggested, buy a starter disk with content for $39.99. Otherwise, fresh content has to be earned during gameplay or by purchasing tokens. Filed under: Gaming , Microsoft Comments Source: Xbox

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Microsoft’s Project Spark game creator comes to Xbox One and PC