Remember way back in March 2012, when a robot cheetah designed by the Pentagon’s finest minds failed to outrun Olympian sprinter Usain Bolt? Remember how the metal creature’s mere 18 miles an hour — when compared to Bolt’s all-time high of 27.79 mph — provided humanity with some shred of dignity and self-assurance? Okay, maybe you don’t remember all of that. But if you do, forget it. Because the cybernetic cat is back — and it just beat Bolt’s best time. The Cheetah, as it is officially known, was created by a company called Boston Dynamics and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the same group of military minds that brought us the Internet. In a video DARPA just released, seen above, the Cheetah laughs off Bolt’s challenge. Loping strangely along on four metal legs, the creature reaches 29.3 mph before its need for speed trips it up. What’s more, Bolt could only sustain that pace for 20 meters (and he had a little tailwind action, if truth be told). In theory, the Cheetah could complete an entire marathon in less than an hour. DARPA hopes this strange device could help foot soldiers on the battlefields of the future, like some kind of invincible sniffer dog on speed. But given that its inventions tend to have peacetime implications — you may have noticed that Internet thing isn’t just for defense scientists any more — we expect plenty of unintended consequences. Will robots compete in the Olympics of the 2020s and take all our medals? Will they challenge us to street races and laugh as we cough and splutter in last place? I, for one, would like to welcome our new superfast overlords. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/09/05/robot-faster-usain-bolt/
If you’re hungry, you better smile: Researchers at the University of Toyko have developed a smile-activated refrigerator, which requires users to flash a grin before entering. The system, which is called the “The Happiness Counter,” aims to naturally encourage smiling in our every day lives. Equipped with built-in Sony CyberShot digital camera that features smile-recognition technology and an attached light sensor, it can sense when a smile has been flashed and unlocks the refrigerator door. Although you would think this could cure late-night food-binging for those feeling down, it’s still possible to open the refrigerator if you don’t smile — you just have to tug at it harder. “We feel that the happiness counter will naturally encourage the act of smiling in the multitude of daily frustrations, thus enhancing a positive mood and the communication of people,” a spokesperson said in a product video. The fridge might actually make smiling easier, too: researchers conducted a series of trials to test its effectiveness and found participants were more likely to smile forcefully in the first few days of using the system, compared to day 10 when people were much more likely to smile naturally. The team also believes this type of smile-activated technology has potential to boast productivity and morale in the workplace. For example, a “Happiness Counter” could be installed outside a meeting room, and only those who smile are allowed to enter. “Increasing the number of smiles in the workplace will enhance the atmosphere for everyone and they might be able to produce some nice ideas,” a spokesperson said in the video. Are you intrigued by the concept? Do you think it could really make a difference in your overall mood and outlook? Let us know in the comments below. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/10/smile-refrigerator/
Bluefin-21 is in the water after being craned over the side of Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield to begin using its side-scan sonar in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on April 14.Image: Leut Kelli Lunt/Getty Images If wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is ever discovered, an underwater drone could very well be the first thing to spot it. The Bluefin-21 was contracted by the U.S. Navy to dive into the southern Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia and scan the ocean floor for pieces of the plane that went missing on March 8 with 239 people onboard. The drone was forced to resurface on April 16 due to a technical issue, according to a press release provided to Mashable by the Joint Agency Coordination Center, a search organization the Australian government created to help find the missing Malaysia airliner. Officials downloaded the drone’s memory once it was above water but, so far, Bluefin-21 has turned up nothing significant. Built by Bluefin Robotics but owned and operated by Phoenix International, this autonomous underwater vehicle takes instructions from a ship’s radio before diving up to around 2.8 miles underwater. The remains of flight MH370 might be much farther down, but at that depth Bluefin-21 can blast the ocean floor with a sonar beam. Data picked up from the sonar will be delivered once the drone resurfaces. Jim Gibson, General Manager of Phoenix International, told Mashable that if Bluefin-21 finds what might be a debris field, someone will switch out the vehicle’s sonar instruments with photo-taking equipment and send it back down to see if the clutter comes from the Malaysia Airlines plane. Bluefin-21 scans from side-to-side, and can spend about 16 hours at the bottom before coming up to re-juice. The ability to swap equipment is key to why this particular drone wound up searching for flight MH370. “It’s easily transported, unlike a lot of the other AUVs that are one piece,” Gibson said. “You can’t disassemble them, you need a special launch and recovery system to get them in and out of the water and everything else, and they’re quite heavy.” The ’21’ refers to the drone’s 21-inch diameter, according to the Bluefin Robotics website. It’s a little over 16 feet long and weighs around 1,650 pounds when it’s not in the water. Once it hits its lowest depth, the vehicle travels about three nautical miles per hour and can scan about 15 square miles of ocean floor per day. It stores all that information into its four gigabytes of memory. Despite the technical hiccup early on April 16, Bluefin-21 was redeployed later that day. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/04/16/underwater-drone-mh370/
Google has updated Google TV with several important features, including a voice search and a new TV guide called PrimeTime. The voice search option enables you to start watching TV shows, movies and YouTube videos simply by speaking to your TV. You can also open apps, go to websites and perform searches. Google’s search engine will even recognize various natural language search queries; for example, saying “how to tie a bow tie” will get you an instructional video on YouTube. As far as PrimeTime goes, it’s a renamed TV & Movies app which Google launched last year. It enables you to access favorite channels, see recently watched shows, browse for best live shows or find suggestions based on content you like. Google is on fire lately when it comes to Google TV updates. Only last week, Google announced it would start offering music and movies to Google TV owners in some European countries. And yesterday, Google launched an updated Google TV and Android YouTube app which enables you to play videos you’ve found on your Android device on a Google TV with one click. The update will be rolling out to LG devices “this week,” followed by other devices, Google claims. Check out an overview of the new features in the video above. Get Your Tickets to Mashable Media Summit The Mashable Media Summit 2012 will explore the impact that technology is having on media, and how digital media is affecting our lives and changing the world. This one-day conference will bring together the brightest minds in media, including content creators, technology leaders, entrepreneurs, social media executives and journalists. Date: Friday, Nov. 30, 2012 Time: 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Location: The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street, New York, NY 10036Tickets: Purchase early bird tickets on Eventbrite. A Look Back at Last Year’s Mashable Media Summit Mashable Media Summit 2011 Media Summit 2011 The Mashable Media Summit on Nov. 4 at the Times Center in New York City attracted professionals in digital, tech, advertising, sales, marketing, mobile and publishing from all over the world. Media Summit 2011 We had a packed house in attendance for this year’s Media Summit. The Future of Social Media Pete Cashmore, founder and CEO of Mashable, speaks on the future of social media, its current landscape and what trends to expect for 2012. Media Summit 2011 This year’s Media Summit was located at the Times Center in New York City. Social Media Grows Up: The Evolving Role of Social Media in News Organizations Mashable‘s community manager Meghan Peters chats with Katie Rogers, social media manager at The Washington Post; Anthony De Rosa, social media editor at Reuters; and Drake Martinet, social media editor at AllThingsD. Teaching – and Learning From – The Old Grey Lady Brian Stelter, a media reporter and blogger at The New York Times speaks at the Media Summit. The Filter Bubble: How to Fix Content Curation Eli Pariser, author and chairman of the board at MoveOn.org, discusses how human editors and algorithms […]
Here is a list of devices from which you, dear readers, claim to send emails: Commodore 64, carrier pigeon, homing pigeon, courier pigeon, fountain pen, rotary phone, hammer and chisel, tin can via the string network, typewriter, abacus, Apollo Guidance Computer, Atari, car phone, shoe phone, 1984 Samsung car phone, difference engine, Game Boy Color, IBM Selectric, pocket rocket, Remington SL3, souped-up TV remote, steam powered digital telegraph, TI-83 Plus, TI-89, toaster, UNIVAC, Coleco Adam computer, Moleskine notebook, Pony Express, Skynet, space-age phonograph and smoke signals. Phew. That’s a lot of retro. And a lot of Wikipediaing for the uninitiated. This data derives from Thursday’s request for edits to that line of text that phone companies so gauchely added to mobile emails: “Sent from my iPhone” and the like. I know I promised you a best-of list, but… Instead, I wrote you an essay breaking down the data! (Bum trade, sorry.) What really caught my attention is that people saw a basic grammar to iPhone signature witticisms. You put a single line of text in front of millions of people, and they start — en masse — to decompose it into playable components. Here’s the general form of the message (explicit stuff is in brackets): Apology/Location/Status [Communication] from [My] [Device] The surface content of the message is that you’re receiving a message from a device. But the type of device conveys an implicit status message, while the presence of the line provides an in-advance apology for any errors as well as an indication you’re mobile out there in the world (or at least not at your computer). Using this general form, we can create a loose taxonomy of the signature edits. (Yes, I know I’m taking this too seriously. Sent from a nerd in data heaven. Expect overthinking.) Sent from a rotary phone. Image: Alexis Madrigal Look, you can check for yourself (I’ve scrubbed the names and backstories): Image: Alexis Madrigal Most people only played with one of the elements. Obviously, the list at the top of this post shows people toying with the idea of the device itself, which (unintentionally or not) also changes the status message that gets delivered. They get all the other benefits of the line, but get to associate with a device that’s “more them.” Others liked to highlight the device’s “deviceness,” as in Nathan Tsoi’s “I typed my text above on a smallish quadrilateral of aluminosilicate glass, a task that would have been unimaginable to most people even a few short years ago. Mistakes are inevitable” or Marcus Himmel’s “Sent from a toy that has more computer power than all of NASA back in 1969 when it sent two astronauts to the moon” or Don D in Peoria’s, “Sent from the first great invention of the 21st century.” The other popular way to personalize the signature was to play with the implicit apology. These come in two flavors. The first is to actually apologize with words: Typed with big thumbs on small phone iPhone. […]
Want to buy a specific camera for someone for the holidays, but can’t find it in your budget range? A new website called Greentoe is bringing price negotiation to the consumer electronics world — think Priceline for gadgets. The website, which launched in October, allows shoppers to name their price on anything from brand name TVs to camera lenses. Here’s how it works: After finding a product, users can submit an offer for what they would pay. Greentoe then notifies its network of retail partners to see if a merchant will accept. If a deal is made, the item ships to consumers directly from the retailer, which can be anything from a small to big-box company. “When you walk into a Best Buy, you can’t haggle with employees for the price you want,” Joe Marrapodi, CEO and co-founder Greentoe, told Mashable. “There wasn’t a way to ask for a lower price, so we wanted to develop a way to do it digitally.” One example highlighted on the e-commerce site is that a shopper recently shaved $50 off a Fujifilm camera, bringing the price from $263 to $213. Not a bad deal. So could this be the new Priceline for the tech world? Maybe. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below. Image via SevenWafflz Gamer Gifts 1. Triforce Lamp Know a Zelda fan in need of some power, wisdom and courage? This beautiful wood and acrylic lamp can be hung or shelved. The pixelated carvings on each side warm the room with dappled light. Price: $95.00 2. Portal 2 Graphic Poster The best part of this stylish turret-themed poster is the tiny print at the bottom: “hello.” It’s impossible not to hear that depressive little robot voice. Price: $32.82 3. NES Moleskine This hand-stamped stocking stuffer is great for students or journos with retro roots. Price: $10.00 4. Skyrim iPhone Stats Case Elder Scrolls fans will enjoy adding this clever case to their inventories. The iPhone obviously has magical properties. Using it will add +10 to your speechcraft skill. Price: $37.20 5. Xbox 360 Bullet Buttons Hardened shooter fans (think Call of Duty) might enjoy this Xbox controller hack. Etsy seller DiselLaceDesign provides bullets that fit perfectly, but you’ll need a special screwdriver to put it all together. Price: $11.98 6. Chrono Trigger Zeal Mousepad SNES time travelers will recall the floating kingdom of Zeal and the abuses that lead to its downfall. Memorialize the mysterious realm with this snazzy mouse pad. Price: $14.00 7. Goomba Cufflinks Perfect for that Nintendo-themed wedding you have coming up. Or something. Price: $28.00 8. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Punchout! This pixelated print packs a one-two punch in terms of geeky cultural references. The Internet’s favorite astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was memeified last year as a “reaction face,” used to mock Internet arrogance. Mix that with a reference to the 1987 Nintendo game Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!, and you’ve got one hell of an Internet inside joke. Price: $11.00 9. The Reterners (Final […]
What’s the sturdiest smartphone on the market today? Among the most popular flagships, it appears to be the HTC One M8, which survived drops that proved catastrophic to its contemporaries, the Samsung Galaxy S5 and iPhone 5S. The gang at TechSmartt did a thorough test, dropping all three phones from waist height, head height and even over-the-head height to see who would survive. First to die was the iPhone 5S. Apple’s phones did very well in previous drop tests (probably aided by the relatively small screen), but it landed on its face in this one, cracking the screen from only head height. Going over the head, the Galaxy S5 was next to go, suffering a fatal screen crack while the HTC One kept on ticking. Only when the HTC fell from an unlikely 10-foot drop did it, too, get smashed. Does this mean the HTC One M8 gets bragging rights as the hardiest device you can buy? Not necessarily — after all, as the tester notes, there was no way to ensure the phones all fell the same way. But the One, with its solid metal casing may have a slight advantage over its rivals. In any case, these tests are fun to watch. HTC One M8 Review One Is the Safest Number The new HTC One may be a little larger and more refined than the previous version, but the experience is fundamentally the same. It’s still an excellent Android phone, though, with a killer camera. It’s available on all major U.S. carriers. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Versus the Old One The new HTC One has a 5-inch screen to the old version’s 4.7-inch display. The design sports more metal, with softer edges, and even louder front-facing speakers. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker BlinkFeed Gets Color BlinkFeed — the homescreen that’s filled with a feed of “snackable” data — gets an upgrade with more sources and an SDK for developers. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker BlinkFeed Settings You can also add specific topics to your feed. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker App Screen You can customize your app screen with three or four columns. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Dot View Case The optional Dot view case works with the screen to convey basic information. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Colors The M8 comes in silver, gun metal or gold. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Left Side The left side has the microSD card slot. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Right Side The right side has the SIM card slot and the volume buttons. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Top View The top of the phone has the power button, which doubles as an infrared blaster for controlling a TV. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Bottom View The bottom has the microUSB port and headphone jack. Moving Parts The headphone jack jumps from the top to the bottom for the new One. Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker Duo Camera The new HTC One has a Duo Camera and a dual-LED flash. The second camera captures depth information, enabling focus […]
In the latest video of our Ask a Dev series, Consulting Architect Conrad Stoll discusses the newest features of the latest iOS upgrade. Our developer experts are from Mutual Mobile, a leading development and design firm that builds mobile strategies for top companies such as Audi, Google and Citigroup. The team is eager to answer your questions about mobile, so ping us with your top queries on Twitter, using the hashtag #AskaDev. Don’t forget to check out our Ask a Dev YouTube channel and subscribe. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/03/17/ios-7-1-ask-a-dev/
Qualcomm’s Toq smartwatch got the Dick Tracy treatment on Monday with a new feature dubbed “Toq Talk.” Powered by Nuance’s voice-to-text technology, Toq Talk lets owners create and respond to text messages using their voices. Nuance is one of the industry leaders in in speech recognition and natural language processing. It powers Siri on iOS and is embedded in many other systems spanning various industries. Nuance also powers the voice-input on the original Galaxy Gear smartwatch. For now, the feature is restricted to the text messaging app. You’re also limited to nine seconds of speech input — but that should be enough to compose a quick message or send a quick reply. It’s important to remember, however, that Qualcomm isn’t selling the Toq through traditional consumer channels. It’s designed more as a reference point so other manufacturers can see what’s possible in the wearable space, rather than a fully-realized product. It’s not hard to imagine that this sort of technology — especially aligned with some of the cloud-based systems Nuance is investing in — powering a wide array of voice-controlled interfaces for the wearable market. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/05/05/toq-smartwatch-voice-text/
If Windows 8 is a shape, it’s a rectangle. The iconography and design of the new user interface (what used to be called Metro) emphasizes right angles and shapes that line up edge to edge. Even the Surface, Microsoft’s new prize tablet, hits the rectangle hard, particularly with its kickstand and Touch Cover. The thing about rectangles is that they work well in perspective. And the Lytro camera, with its magical focus-after-the-fact abilities, does perspective in a very unique way. We had a Lytro on hand when we covered the the event and the armada of Window 8 devices on hand. The Lytro camera, of course, uses what’s called light-field photography to capture photos where you can choose which part is in focus when you’re viewing them. The company recently released new manual controls for the camera that give users more options when taking pics. Check out the Lytro photos we captured at Microsoft’s big party below, and let us know which one’s your favorite in the comments. Surfaces in a row Touch cover Using the Surface That Start screen Up close with the UI Surface tablets everywhere Windows 8 poster Windows 8 laptops Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/25/lytro-windows-8/
