Aug 30
It’s Friday night, and you know what that means: we’ve got a fistful of apps for you and your iPhone. Which is a lot like a fistful of dynamite, without the explosions. A fistful of dynamite apps! Yeah!
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Aug 30
The best weekend of the end of summer is nearly here! Or already here, if you’re the kind of person who knocked off work before 6pm. Or not here at all if you work weekends. Anyway, in honor of Labor Day, we labored all week to find you the best iPad apps. Dig in!
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Aug 30
Hybrid and ZEV car prices could rise by up to $4,000 as battery technology fails to keep pace with dwindling federal tax credits, Toyota has warned, despite aggressive targets for low-emission cars in the US. Development of cheaper, more power-dense batteries are likely to bring down the cost of building cars like the Prius, Toyota’s […]
Aug 30
Transparent gel speaker plays music through the magic of ionic conduction (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili
It may be hard to believe, but that transparent disk in the photo above is actually a fully functioning speaker. A team of researchers at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have pioneered a never before seen application of ionic conductivity by creating a see-through artificial muscle that can produce sounds spanning the entire audible spectrum. While ionic conduction isn’t a novel idea, it’s been considered impractical due to the fact that ionic materials react poorly to high voltage. The team, which included postdoctoral research fellows Jeong-Yun Sun and Christoph Keplinger (pictured above), circumvented that obstacle by placing a layer of rubber between two sheets of transparent conductive gel, allowing the system to work with both high voltage and high actuation, two qualities necessary for sound reproduction. Theoretically, soft machine technology such as this can be used to do much more than play Grieg’s Peer Gynt, particularly in the fields of robotics, mobile computing and adaptive optics. To watch it in action, check out the video after the break.
Via: The Verge
Aug 30
Print Your Own Dinosaur
Posted in: Today's Chili
Thanks to 3D models and printers, anyone will soon be able to print themselves rocks, fossils and perhaps entire dinosaurs. The project aims at offering these models for free for educational and scientific purposes.
Aug 30
If you’re a history buff, or a cinema buff, or a science buff—any kind of buff, really—you will love this comprehensive tour of the evolution of color film and photography.
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Aug 30
The remotely controlled telemedicine bot has allowed doctors to assess and even treat patients from hundreds of miles away for the past several years.
(Credit: Mayo Clinic)
Just a day after the NFL and more than 4,500 former football players reached a $765 million settlement over concussion-related lawsuits, a telemedicine robot will make its debut on the sidelines of tonight’s Northern Arizona University football match against the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Concussions have been a hot topic in high-contact sports in recent years as evidence mounts that they are a chronic problem with long-lasting effects. And with more than 1 million athletes in the US suffering from concussions every year, researchers at the Mayo Clinic hope their sidelined robot on wheels will help assess athletes with suspected concussions quickly so that those deemed unfit to continue to play do not.
“Athletes at professional and collegiate levels have lobbied for access to neurologic expertise on the sideline,” Bert Vargas, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic leading the research, said in a news release. “As we seek n… [Read more]
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Aug 30
Google Bought a Smartwatch Company
Posted in: Today's Chili
According to GigaOM, Google bought WIMM Labs last year to help develop its upcoming Android smartwatch
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Aug 30
Ok, so here’s the deal: WIMM Labs was one of the earliest entrants into the smartwatch space, way back in 2011. While the Android-based WIMM One failed to set the consumer market on fire, it apparently caught Google’s eye. In the summer of 2012, the company put a simple message up on its site declaring that it had entered an exclusive partnership with an unnamed entity for its technology and would thus be ending sales of its devices. Now it appears that partner was Google — a Mountain View spokesperson just confirmed the acquisition to us.
The company’s immediate plans for WIMM are not yet public but, according to GigaOM, most of the staff stayed on board and are now working with the Android team. The obvious use would be in developing Google’s own rumored smartwatch product, which would likely incorporate many of WIMM Lab’s SDKs and existing platform tools. However, it’s worth noting that the company doesn’t consider itself merely a maker of app-running timepieces, but a manufacturer of wearables in general. We wouldn’t be shocked if some of WIMM’s tech and experience was put to good use in Glass.
Filed under: Wearables, Mobile, Google
Via: GigaOM
Aug 30
Earlier this week, Buzzfeed reported that a computer security flaw in has left Army computers vulnerable for at least two years; today, the Army confirmed to Buzzfeed that this was, in fact the case. And that they have no plans to do anything to fix it.
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