Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.
As a youngster, you may have been told — and quite rightly so — not to stare directly at the sun. This creates a dillema. It’s the center of our solar system, but how are we to ever gaze upon it with our own eyes for more than a few fleeting seconds? Don’t worry, NASA has that comprehensively covered. This is alt-week.
Time Warner Cable is attempting to combat Google Fiber, or at least suppress the damage Google Fiber will bring to its business, by offering free WiFi hotspots throughout the city of Austin, Texas. The catch is that in order for you to take advantage of TWC’s “free” public WiFi hotspot, you have to already be a TWC internet subscriber. Those that aren’t yet subscribers will be charged a fee.
The free WiFi hotspot is available to Time Warner customers who have a standard internet subscription, or a Business Class subscription. Those who do not have either will be offered a free trial period to test out the hotspots, and will later be required to pay an access fee with packages starting at $2.95 an hour. The hotspots have become available starting today, and customers will be able to find their nearest hotspot using the TWC WiFi app available in both Google Play and the iOS App Store.
Google recently confirmed that it will be deploying its Google Fiber network in the city of Austin, Texas. Its internet service offers customers free internet with speeds of up to 5Mbps as long as the customer is willing to pay the installation fee. Customers can also opt for 1Gbps data speeds for $70 a month, or get both 1Gbps data speeds and the Google Fiber TV service for $120 a month.
TWC stated that due to Google’s announcement, the company has to be more aggressive in deploying its free WiFi networks. Not only that, but AT&T also plans on bringing its own 1Gbps fiber service to Austin, Texas as well. The competition is growing dangerously in the city, and in order to keep its subscribers, TWC knows that it needs to step up its game. But we know that its going to take more than free WiFi hotspots to keep customers from switching over to Google Fiber or AT&T, because contrary to what TWC’s CFO might think, customers do want 1Gbps data speeds.
[via Time Warner Cable]
Time Warner Cable combats Google Fiber with free WiFi hotspots is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Some folks would definitely find a hoodie to be well worth the purchase, especially since most hoodies offer a degree of warmth while ensuring you have that rather mysterious look whenever your hoodie is up. Well, the $19.99 HoodiePillow Case does a whole lot more than an ordinary hoodie, although in its very own way (as you can tell by the name), it too, will be limited in some sense compared to the vanilla hoodie. The HoodiePillow Case is made out of super soft sweatshirt material for the ultimate level of comfort, where it boasts of drawstrings, a phone pocket, and a cable porthole.
As you can tell, the drawstrings work great in ensuring the hoodie would prevent light from entering your eyes when you are trying to sleep and your partner or whoever else in the room decides to leave the lights on because he or she has something else to do. The phone pocket would be handy to keep your smartphone remain in place throughout the night, no matter how much movement you make when you sleep, and the cable porthole, well, that just means you’d best get a pair of headphones that would work great even if you sleep on the side. Any takers for this machine washable HoodiePillow Case?
[ HoodiePillow Case lets you get ghetto in the bedroom copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
No, that’s not a "tobacco pipe."
(Credit: SensAbues)
Some people drive high.
They shouldn’t, but they’re high, so they don’t really know what’s good for them and what isn’t.
Should they get stopped by police, the long nose of the law can sometimes sniff the presence of marijuana in their car.
Should they happen to have nosed their way into some cocaine, there might be traces of white powder around their nostrils.
As yet, though, there hasn’t been a machine that can detect the presence of such drugs on one’s breath, as there is for alcohol.
Scientists in Sweden, however, believe they have made some progress in creating such a device.
As the Smithsonian magazine reports, sober minds at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm decided to use an already available breath sampler (created by them) called SensAbues, which claims to analyze breath samples using chromatography and mass spectrometry.
This, allegedly, offers “legally defensible” results.
So the scientists put together a mouthpiece and a microparticle filter and asked 46 patients from a drug clinic to breathe out.
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Space-gazers and fans of the ringed planet Saturn should keep their eyes upward this weekend, as the planet reaches its highest point above the horizon in its opposition phase. Visible to the naked eye – but all the better with a telescope, since you’ll then be able to see its distinctive rings – Saturn will be most clearly visible late on Saturday or in the early hours of Sunday, and though often visible at other times, will be both brighter and bigger than it usually appears.
That extra degree of clarity is because the planet will be at its closest to Earth as well as at its opposition point: the exact opposite from where the sun is positioned. Saturn will be visible all through the night, with a steady glow, though it will take some tools of the astronomy trade if you want to make out more than that.
For instance, Space suggests, magnification of at least 25 power will show more details of Saturn, with the rings making it appear oval in shape rather than circular as the naked eye might see it. Quadruple that magnification and more of the planet’s details will be picked out, including several of its 62 moons.
The best point to see Saturn is late evening, when the planet reaches its highest point. To actually find it, the LA Times suggests, look for the bright star Arcturus – off along the “handle” of the Big Dipper, away from the bowl – and then to the right, where the star Spica is. Saturn is below and left of that.
If that all sounds complicated, then NASA’s video, below, should give more of an indication as to where Saturn will be in the night sky, as well as what you might expect to see with the naked eye and various types of telescope. Saturn will be at its best on April 28, the space agency suggests.
Look up: Saturn at its boldest and brightest this weekend is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Everyone wants a hoverboard. Everyone. Don’t even try to disagree. But while you can buy a lame-o, non-working Back to the Future-style ‘board, it’s just not the real thing. Crazy optimists can hold out hope for 2015, but in the meantime, this clever little picture by François Dourlen is probably the best we can do. More »
Apple has decided that it will be challenging a ruling made last November that found it guilty of infringing on several of VirnetX’s patents. The ruling required Apple to pay VirnetX $368.2 million in damages. However, in Apple’s recent quarterly report, the company filed Form 10-Q with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stating that it intends on challenging the verdict and has not “recorded a loss accrual at this time.”
Last November, VirnetX stated that Apple infringed on 4 of its patents involving the establishment of virtual private networks (VPN) in order to allow secure communications to take place. The technology was used by Apple for its FaceTime video calling feature. The court ruled in favor of VirnetX, requiring Apple to pay a $368.2 million fine. In addition, Apple also stated that with iOS 6.1 and later, it would change its VPN On Demand feature, removing the “Always” option and replacing it with the “Establish if needed” option. The new option led to less-than-stellar results for users.
However, a report discovered yesterday shows that Apple has decided to undo its changes to the VPS On Demand feature and it will be restoring the “Always” option. In the report, it states that it has issued an update to a previous article due some “potential changes to the behavior of VPN On Demand due to a lawsuit by VirnetX.” It seems that Apple is certain that it will be successful in combating the infringement ruling.
VirnetX has sued many other companies in the past over patent infringement, including Microsoft, Cisco, Siemens, and many more. It has another lawsuit against Apple, accusing its iPhone 5 and iPad Mini of infringing on the same patents its other devices infringed on. It also has another complaint against Apple that is currently under investigation by the U.S. International Trade Commission.
It sued Microsoft back in 2007 and 2010, and won a $200 million settlement from the Windows OS company. It also recently filed another complaint against Microsoft over its Skype software, accusing it of infringing on 6 of its patents. We will keep you posted on any updates regarding Apple’s case against VirnetX, as well as any updates regarding VirnetX’s case against Microsoft.
[via CNET]
Apple to challenge the VirnetX Facetime patent infringment ruling is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
If there is one aspect of portable speakers which should always be there, then size would be it. After all, if it is too large or bulky to tote around, surely it is not considered to be “portable” enough, don’t you think so? Firebox has something up their sleeves with the £59.99 Phoenix Portable Bluetooth Speaker, and it is hoped that you do not judge the device by its size. After all, Firebox claims the Phoenix Portable Bluetooth Speaker to offer a whole lot more bang for your hard earned buck, where it delivers incredibly loud audio despite coming in a small form factor.
Do not be fooled by its exterior at first glance, where it sports tight curves and a shapely figure, this is still one perky little portable Bluetooth speaker. Since it operates using Bluetooth connectivity, there are no cables required to have it pumping out your favorite audio via its pipes, giving you more than an adequate amount of space to dance around the room. Needless to say, it works best with Bluetooth compatible devices within a 20 meter radius, and will come in blue and black shades, depending on your choice.
[ Phoenix Portable Bluetooth Speaker copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Like most of you, I’m patiently waiting for the day when I can buy a robot that will take care of all the irritating things around house I want to deal with. I want a robot to wash the dishes, bathe the dog, mow the lawn, and take out the trash. While this breakthrough might not solve that problem for me yet, a group of scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology have invented something dubbed “smart skin” that could give robots a sense of touch.
The researchers working on the smart skin used a bundle of vertical zinc oxide nano wires along with an array of about 8000 transistors. Each of those individual transistors is able to independently produce electronic signals when subjected to mechanical strain. The researchers say that these touch sensitive transistors, which they call taxels, have sensitivity comparable to that of the human finger. They say that the artificial skin can feel activity on its surface and the sensation could be translated into control signals for robot in the future.
Having a sense of touch is important because it will allow a robot to know when something is in its hand and how hard can grip that object. It wouldn’t do to have a robot breaking all your dishes after all.
[via BBC News]
Betaworks, the company that acquired Digg just last year, has just made a new acquisition. Marco Arment, the creator of the popular “read-it-later” app Instapaper stated on his blog that after much consideration, he has sold a majority stake of the app to Betaworks. He felt that Instapaper had grown “far beyond what one person can do” and decided that he needed to let it go in order for it to prosper.
While Arment could have sold the app to anyone, he thought long and hard about the company that would do his app great justice. He states that he had a sudden realization in the middle of the night, and he immediately hopped out of bed and emailed Betaworks to see if they were interested. Betaworks was immediately on-board because according to Arment, “we both knew it was a great fit.”
There’s a variety of reasons why Arment sold Instapaper. He stated that he isn’t one to lead, but in order for Instapaper to prosper, he needed to hire a full-time staff. He also felt like he wanted to explore more newer creative opportunities. He decided Betaworks was the company that should acquire Instapaper because any other company “would probably just shut it down in six months.”
With Betaworks in control of Instapaper, Arment states that the company will make “Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority”. The deal he made with Betaworks also states that there will be incentives that will ensure that the app will continue to prosper well into the future. Arment will continue to advise Betaworks on the app “indefinitely”, but Betaworks will handle all of the other aspects in growing the app. Just last year, Betaworks acquired the struggling social news service, Digg, and revamped it to the more organized news app it is today. It’ll be interesting to see how Instapaper will evolve now that its in Betaworks’s hands.
[via Instapaper]
Owners of Digg acquire the “read-it-later” app Instapaper is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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