As if there were any doubts that the future of aviation doesn’t involve humans at the controls, Boeing’s Unmanned Little Bird is the first helicopter to take off and land autonomously, choosing a safe landing site using an on-board laser LIDAR—a combination of light and radar—scanner.
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Grand Theft Auto V sales topped $800m in the game’s first day of availability, publisher Take-Two Interactive has confirmed, setting a record for the series in the process. GTA5, released on September 17, was Take-Two’s fastest selling title of all time, in fact, helped by no shortage of pre-release hype and some retailers opening at […]
Well, the iPhone 5S and 5C are coming out this week, so we can finally stop talking about what colors they’ll come in (lots) and whether the 5S might have a fingerprint scanner (it does).
Don’t worry, my Apple-rumor-loving friends: iPad announcements are probably just around the corner, and you know people have already started putting together their iPhone 6 wish lists.
But until then, let’s take a little break from Apple, and round up a few other rumors that’ve been making the rounds the last couple weeks: Samsung might release a Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatch before the first Gear is even on people’s wrists. HTC might strike gold, if some leaked photos are to be believed.
And Twitter could revamp its iOS apps to make it more appealing for mainstream users. The revamp could even possibly include a stream dedicated… [Read more]
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It’s not just iOS and BlackBerry 10 users getting new Evernote apps this week; the company has now also released an updated version of its Mac app with one fairly big new feature. An all-new Presentation Mode will now let you share your notes with others and possibly eliminate the need to jump into Keynote or PowerPoint. Clicking the Presentation Mode button will naturally switch things to a full-screen mode, and give you the ability to move ahead in your presentation by tapping the spacebar; another new feature will let you use your mouse or trackpad as a laser pointer of sorts, with your cursor movement displayed as a glowing blue light. The only catch is that you’ll need to be a Premium Evernote user to take advantage of the feature, although Evernote is offering a 30-day free trial in the hope that you’ll pay up. There’s no word yet on the feature making it to other platforms just yet, but Evernote does say that it’s “available first” for Mac, so we’d presume others can expect it eventually.
Filed under: Software
Source: Evernote
Tau lesions and senile plaques — hallmark indicators of Alzheimer's disease — are visible via fluorescent compounds.
(Credit: Maruyama et al/Neuron)
Deep within the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s, tau proteins huddle together and get all tangled up, while bits and pieces of another protein called amyloid beta form plaques. These are telltale signs of the development of the disease, but they’ve proved tricky to spy on.
Now, researchers are hoping that their newly-developed class of imaging agents that affords them a clear view of these tau protein aggregates will shed light on the progression of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases in living patients.
In their latest work on mice and humans, researchers were able to develop fluorescent compounds that bind to the tau proteins and then view them using positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Reporting in the Sept. 18 issue of the journal Neuron, they write that they were able to watch the spread of tau tangles in the brain and that this spread correlated directly with the progression of moderate Alzheimer’s disease.
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Back on schedule this week after TechCrunch Disrupt, me and Chris Velazco catch you up on the latest in Android news. We’re somewhat distracted by another mobile operating system that has some news this week, but we get ourselves under control pretty quick.
The Nvidia Tegra Note is a reference tablet design that the company is saying could retail for $199 and boast some decent specs, and there’s Cyanogen’s big raise and news that they’ll offer their software conversion tool in the Google Play store. Also the Nexus 4 looks perhaps permanently sold out ahead of a Nexus 5 unveiling, and Jolla reveals it goes both ways with Android.
We invite you to enjoy weekly Android podcasts every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern and 2:30 p.m. Pacific, in addition to our weekly Gadgets podcast at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific on Fridays. Subscribe to the TechCrunch Droidcast in iTunes, too, if that’s your fancy.
Intro music by Kris Keyser.
(Credit: Blue Brick)
As independent gaming development grows, so too are we seeing the proliferation of game jams where developers are tasked with designing a game in a short time. Last month saw 7DFPS, a game jam where the only requirement was to create a first-person shooter within seven days.
Now, we’ve seen some pretty cool games come out of these jams. Some have gone on to become hugely popular — and one of those is currently in the making. Called Superhot and created by Polish studio Blue Brick, it brings something wickedly fresh and new to the arguably predictable FPS.
It plays out in a very cool, minimally designed white environment whose only purpose is to provide a backdrop to the gameplay. To that end, there are no textures or additional artifacts: it’s just you and your enemies, depicted in red, with zero distractions.
The aim, of course, is to take out everyone else on the level. But here’s where it gets interesting: When you’re not moving, time slows right down to a crawl, which means you have to carefully plan out your moves. And, just as you can dodge a bullet fired at you by stopping, watching its trajectory, then throwing yourself out of the way, your foes likewise have time to dodge your shots, which means you have to calculate your own trajectories accordingly.
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iOS is out
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It’s not just the heaviest of the internet heavyweights pushing for greater government transparency. LinkedIn has filed its own petition with the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asking for the ability to publish the exact number of national security requests that it gets. The social network argues that restricting data request numbers to vague ranges is not only pointless, but misleading — the figures imply that the government wants as much data from LinkedIn as it does from larger firms. There’s no certainty that the court will grant the company’s wish, but its petition adds volume to an increasingly louder chorus.
Filed under: Internet
Source: LinkedIn
The team at Biolite, who brought you the ingenious Camp Stove that also charges gadgets
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