var-current – Page 8 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Quickly add the Google Play store to your new Amazon Fire 10HD

Last time I bought an Amazon tablet adding the Google store was a real pain! It takes about 3 minutes and one reboot on the new Amazon Fire HD 10 . In order to get the most out of my new 7th generation Amazon Tablet, I needed the Google Play store. GMail, Chrome and a few other apps were not available via Amazon’s walled garden. Used to be Amazon made this hard. Now it is very easy! To add the Google Play store follow these steps: STEP THE FIRST Enable apps from UNKNOWN SOURCES! Settings > Security > Enable Apps from Unknown Sources This will trigger a warning. Read it, then ignore it. THE SECOND STEP Download and install four Google apps in this specific order: Google Account Manager Google Services Framework Google Play Services Google Play Store STEP THREE Reboot the device. FOURTH Open the Google Play app. Login and start installing apps. It was that easy. I’m just getting into playing with the new tablet, but thus far it is great. I’m pretty sure this’ll work for all 7th generation tablets regardless of screen size. All-New Fire HD 10 Tablet with Alexa Hands-Free, 10.1″ 1080p Full HD Display, 32 GB via Amazon

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Quickly add the Google Play store to your new Amazon Fire 10HD

Equifax: we doxed 400k Britons, erm, make that 700k, erm, we mean 15.2 million

Oh, Equifax : “Equifax says that for approximately 14.5 million of the 15.2 million affected, the stolen records contained only a small amount of information, limited to name and dates of birth.”

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Equifax: we doxed 400k Britons, erm, make that 700k, erm, we mean 15.2 million

London’s amazing underground infrastructure revealed in vintage cutaway maps

Londonist’s roundup of cutaway maps — many from the outstanding Transport Museum in Covent Garden — combines the nerdy excitement of hidden tunnels with the aesthetic pleasure of isomorophic cutaway art, along with some interesting commentary on both the development of subterranean tunnels and works and the history of representing the built environment underground in two-dimension artwork. (more…)

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London’s amazing underground infrastructure revealed in vintage cutaway maps

Adding a bit of asphalt speeds lithium battery charging by 20 times

A Rice University chemist found that a dding asphalt to lithium batteries allowed the battery to go “from zero charge to full charge in five minutes, rather than the typical two hours or more needed with other batteries.” The Rice lab of chemist James Tour developed anodes comprising porous carbon made from asphalt that showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles. A high-current density of 20 milliamps per square centimeter demonstrated the material’s promise for use in rapid charge and discharge devices that require high-power density. The finding is reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano .

Equifax: we missed 2.5 million people when we counted the size of our breach

Turns out that the total number of people whose lives Equifax ruined by doxing them and then dumping all their most sensitive personal and financial data is 145,500,000 , not 143,000,000. The company’s new CEO apologized for the misunderstanding, and persisted in calling the people his company destroyed “customers” despite the fact that the vast majority of them were not Equifax customers, just random people whom Equifax compiled massive dossiers on, and then lost control over.

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Equifax: we missed 2.5 million people when we counted the size of our breach

Watch this real-time creation of a glass flower encased in a sphere

John Kobuki demonstrates the remarkable patience, dexterity, and craftsmanship required to spend 40 minutes shaping a clear glass sphere with a flower inside. (more…)

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Watch this real-time creation of a glass flower encased in a sphere

Biologists find new hermit crab that uses living corals as shells

A new species of hermit crab with feathery antennae has been discovered off the coast of Japan. What’s especially cool is that they use living corals as shells. (more…)

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Biologists find new hermit crab that uses living corals as shells

A typography historian shares his favorite typefaces

Paul McNeil just published his comprehensive typographical overview, The Visual History of Type . To celebrate, he also published a list of his six favorite faces for It’s Nice That, starting with the first compact italic: The Aldine Italic / Griffo’s Italic / 1501 Few typefaces have had as great an influence on Western culture as Francesco Griffo’s Italic. At the end of the 15th century, when most books were large and heavy, Aldus Manutius commissioned Griffo to cut this compact, inclined letterform. Easily legible at small sizes, the Aldine Italic permitted the production of small, affordable, portable books suited to the requirements of an educated, mobile class of literate individuals. Over the next three centuries, the practice of publishing changed everything. By allowing texts to be reliably reproduced and disseminated in an almost limitless time frame, it triggered new ideas that profoundly challenged all forms of institutional control, leading to dramatic religious reforms, radical socio-political changes, and to the scientific worldview that initiated the modern era. • The Visual History of Type (via It’s Nice That ) Image via ilovetypography.com

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A typography historian shares his favorite typefaces

Beyond the big five, humans have dozens of senses

The five traditional senses are tied to visible sense organs, but depending on the definition, humans possess dozens of senses , including thermoception (temperature), proprioception (bodily spatial relations), nociception (pain), equilibrioception (balance), and mechanoreception (vibration). (more…)

Google buys $1.1bn piece of HTC

Rumored for some time, Google’s purchase of a significant chunk of handset-maker HTC was announced today . The WSJ: Google said an HTC team that helped develop Google’s flagship Pixel smartphone will join the company. The Mountain View, Calif., company will also get a nonexclusive license to HTC intellectual property. HTC was hired by Google to be the contract manufacturer for the Pixel, a high-end smartphone that was launched last year, in part to better compete with Apple Inc. $1.1bn in cash is probably most of HTC. The company’s market share evaporated over the last half-decade but it remains a well-respected manufacturer. Alternative Betteridge headline: “Will Google buying HTC go better than Google buying Motorola?”

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Google buys $1.1bn piece of HTC