When you think about how you would deal with a zombie invasion, the weapons that come to mind probably don’t include slingshots. But if the story of David and Goliath has taught us anything it’s that slingshots are pretty deadly. Plus that whole underdog thing. Whatever. More »
Before making any major choice in life, I gift myself with time to sit and contemplate. I bring myself into a meditative state and bring myself into the stillness of the silence.
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Tim, an exceptionally impressive male elephant, is 43-years-old. Because males wander, Tim has not been seen for weeks. Now he is here, and he is in a heightened breeding condition called musth, dribbling a pungent-scented urine that tells the ladies and the guys alike that he’s the man.
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More on Elephants
The folks over at iFixit regularly post detailed teardowns of the most latest gadgets. Naturally, the Samsung Galaxy S4 was to go under their knife as well, and so it has. Their teardown reveals that the device is actually much more easier to repair than its counterparts such as iPhone 5 and HTC One. It is this way because the Galaxy S4 has a battery that can be removed and standard screws, that once unscrewed, give access to the internals. The S4 may lack design aesthetics of its competitors, but it is easier to repair, this could be an added plus for prospective customers who like to pop open their smartphones once in a while.
The internal specifications have already been talked about at length, you can catch up on all of the information by reading our Samsung Galaxy S4 review. Inside, crucial components such as the processor, RAM and storage can be found alongside a host of sensors. These include the temperature and humidity sensors as well as the Air Gesture and Air View sensors that are placed on either side of the earpiece. Head on over to iFixit if you want to see more of Samsung’s latest flagship from the inside.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Blackberry Q10 Sells Out In 90 Minutes At Selfridges, LG Optimus GK Comes With 5-Inch Display, 
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It seems that the Samsung GALAXY S 4 now uses a BCM2079x NFC controller instead of the NXP PN544 NFC controller, making it incompatible with the original Samsung TecTiles. The current TecTiles are MIFARE Classic 1k tags, which are unreadable by the BCM2079x controller, meaning that those of you who plan on getting a GALAXY S 4 and want to use TecTiles will have to replace your current tags with Samsung’s upcoming TecTile 2 tags.
Samsung stated that it will be introducing the next-gen TecTile 2, which is set to be released within the coming weeks. TecTile 2 will be using the standard NFC Forum tag types, which are readable by a variety of NFC-enabled devices, like the Nexus 4. Samsung says that TecTile 2 will also be usable by other NFC-capable Samsung devices currently on the market. In the statement it released, Samsung says,
“TecTile 2 will use the current NFC technology on the market, allowing Samsung customer to further incorporate NFC into their daily lives and to use with the latest Samsung Mobile products and services, including the GALAXY S 4. As industry standard continue to evolve, Samsung remains committed to meeting those standards and adapting its technologies if necessary.”
TecTiles are NFC stickers developed by Samsung. Using the Samsung TecTile’s app, a user can program the tags before they are used. Users then place the stickers anywhere they feel convenient, such as their night stand. In order to active the TecTile’s action, all the user has to do is place or tap their NFC-enabled phones onto the tag. There can be a variety of actions performed with TecTile tags, including setting alarms, switching a phone to silent mode, starting up media players, and more.
Luckily for current Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II owners, TecTile 2 tags will still be usable with your device. Unfortunately for TecTile users looking to purchase the Samsung GALAXY S 4, you’re going to have to replace your tags. While the pricing hasn’t been released for the TecTile 2 tags, it should be relatively the same as the current TecTile prices. Samsung has taken down their TecTile’s purchase page to prepare for the launch of its new tags. Also, if you’re still deciding whether or not to purchase the Samsung GALAXY S 4, you can check out our review of the phone here to see if it’ll meet your needs.
[via AnandTech]
GALAXY S 4 abandons original Samsung-made NFC tags for second-gen is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
As Google Glass Explorers continue to tinker with their units we get to read some exciting details about this gadget, almost on a daily basis. It is also interesting to note that one Explorer has already rooted his Google Glass. Earlier this month Google revealed some specifications of Glass Explorer Edition. The units comes with a 5 megapixel camera with 720p video recording capability, 16GB internal storage, 802.11b/g and a display equivalent to the size of a 25 inch HD screen if the person is standing 8 feet away from it. The company didn’t list CPU and RAM specs, though one Explorer has gone deep enough to uncover that information.
Jay Lee and Liam McLoughlin found USB debugging settings of Google Glass and connected it to ADB. According to them, the Explorer units have an dualcore OMAP 4430 processor with 682MB of RAM. The unit runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. They’ve not been able to determine the exact clock rate of the processor and also say that the RAM might be 1GB because Kernel messages suggest so. Specifications of the final Google Glass unit could change, however those units aren’t due until next year. This is the best information to go by at the moment.
[Image via Selfscreens]
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Last month Pinterest rolled out a new look for all of its users. This new look was first tested by a select group of pinners in January, while it was still under development. The focus was on new discovery features which were aimed at making it easier for pinners to discover things of interest that they didn’t previously know about. However the new look wasn’t appreciated by majority of users, which is why Pinterest has brought back many of the old features it had removed in the March redesign. These features include @ mentions and “via” links.
They’ve also improved notifications, which are Facebook-esque and are located in the upper right corner. Pinterest now also has predictive search functionality. This latest design update is being gradually rolled out for all Pinterest users, however if you’ve not gotten it yet, simply click on the “Get it now” button which sits at the top of the home feed. What do you think of this design update? Were you fairly satisfied with the March update or do you think that the user experience is substantially better after this update?
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: US Ambassador Hopes Australians Will Stop Game Of Thrones Piracy, The White House Now Has An Official Tumblr Page, 
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You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which will be released sometime in 2014 for next-gen consoles and the PC, will forgo both multiplayer capabilities as well as quick-time events. Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and CD Projekt RED (the developer of The Witcher 3) spoke with Forbes about The Witcher 3 and they stated that the game had no place for multiplayer. He also stated that quick-time events were being left out because all they resulted in was frustration for players.
There were some talks previously that multiplayer was being considered for the game, however, Tomaszkiewicz stated that instead, the final saga of Geralt will be focus on an “epic, story driven, single player, open world RPG experience.” He assures players will get at least 50 hours of gaming from the main storyline as well as 50 hours of gaming from doing side quests or exploring the new open world.
Tomaszkiewicz said the team decided to remove quick-time events altogether from the game due to all of the negative feedback they received from gamers. He also said that while quick-time events fit in with some games, like Uncharted, it didn’t fit too well with The Witcher. He says that the only way to implement quick-time events into games is to make it simple to the point “where you don’t even realize that you’ve just finished a QTE sequence.”
Also, to the gratefulness of gamers everywhere, The Witcher 3, as well as CD Projekt RED’s future games, will always be DRM-free. We all know the nightmare DRM can cause, and so does CD Projekt. Tomaskiewicz says that DRM “is the worst thing in the gaming industry.” Like many gamers have said, DRM limits their rights to play the games they paid for. Tomaskiewicz says, “What if you lose your connection beacuse of your internet provider? You can’t play anymore.” He says that DRM punishes users more than it stops online piracy.
CD Projekt RED will release The Witcher 3 in 2014 for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox 720 all at the same time, something they hadn’t done before with previous Witcher releases. It will be the final chapter in Geralt’s story, however, there may still be a chance that The Witcher universe will return and with new characters. Unfortunately, Tomaszkiewicz says that there are no promises of them adding character customization to the game.
[via Forbes]
The Witcher 3 forgoes multiplayer and quick-time events is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jacksonville, Florida’s huge crowdsourcing event for inventors,
innovators and creative dreamers has come and gone, leaving me to
showcase the most popular ideas of the One Spark event.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
