Municipal broadband is now available. The FCC today ruled — via a 3-2 vote — that municipalities across the country can build their own broadband Internet service. Keep in mind, broadband was recently reclassified to reflect a 25Mbps download and 10Mbps upload speed. The decision was prompted by the petition of two communities with gigabit Internet service who were prevented … Continue reading
Littering is a problem all around the world and with the number of cups of coffee sold each day, I would imagine lots of litter is thrown out in the form of disposable coffee cups. KFC is testing a new coffee cup that won’t add to the litter on city streets or in landfills.
These coffee cups are edible. Once you drink your hot Joe, you eat the cup. KFC calls it the “Scoff-ee cup” and it’s made from a biscuit, wrapped in sugar paper and heat-resistant white chocolate. It looks more like an ice cream cone to me. The cup can also be given aromas like coconut “sun” cream, freshly cut grass, or wild flowers. That is really weird, why would you want something you are drinking or eating to smell like a mowed lawn?
KFC isn’t a place I would have ever thought about buying coffee. Then again, I loathe coffee and one of my culinary oddities is that I don’t eat anything off the bone. That means KFC isn’t exactly a place I frequent. Never mind the fact that the only place you can get these edible coffee cups is at select KFC locations in the UK.
[The Telegraph via Kotaku]
SolarCity, the solar power startup whose chairman is the seemingly ever-present Elon Musk, has announced a new $750 million fund created to help fund residential solar projects, including defraying the upfront costs of solar panel installation at homes in 14 different states across the U.S. and in D.C. The new fund includes a contribution of $300 million, or just under half the total value,… Read More
Encrypted comms company Silent Circle, one half of the SGP Technologies joint venture behind the pro-privacy Android smartphone Blackphone, has just announced it’s reached an agreement to buy out its hardware partner, Spanish smartphone maker Geeksphone. Read More
Some women are totally obsessed with shoes and end up with huge collections of them in every shape and style. How many of them would go for these odd-looking high heels which were designed to resemble meteorites — or space debris that has fallen to Earth. The idea behind these shoes came from the recent landing of the Philae lander on Comet 67P.
For those of you are still in the dark, since 2011, Facebook has been playing a role in curbing suicidal risk among its 1 billion users. However, the method of conducting has been rather extensive if not lengthy deemed by many. Previously, concerned friends who would like to use the feature would have to upload a link to Facebook to ask for help. Facebook has however pledged that they will boost new efforts to offer supports by improving its tools for the concerned party.
Teaming up with mental health organizations such as Forefront, Now Matters Now, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Save.org, the social network are about to make it easier for friends and relative to show their concern. The feature, which will be rolling out his week in the US (initial stage) is a new option inside post that allows other users to flag a friend or a love one that they suspect to be within suicidal risk.
The concerned party can then click on a little arrow provide (at the top right of the status) and then click on“Report Post”. According to a Facebook post written by Product Manager Rob Boyle and Safety Specialist Nicole Staubli, a trained team will then review if the report are indeed suicidal and if necessary will offer option to contact the person directly, afterward enlist the help of another friend or put them in contact with suicide helpline such as National Suicide Prevention Lifeline hotline.
Facebook has been very clear that the update is not a replacement for local emergency services.
Facebook Steps Up Its Suicide Prevention Support , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
It is matter of days before the first Hollywood film ever to be edited with Apple’s editing software, Final Cut Pro X, will be shown on the silver screen. “Focus” starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie will goes down in history book as the first ever film to be edited with FCPX.
The film’s director, Glenn Ficarra has spoken to USA today on his many reasons why he chose to edit the film in FCPX, even with so many names in the industry showing disconcerting trust towards the software of its lack of heritage, and lack of features. Many of the editors and directors has choose to revert to more reliable App of Adobe or Avid instead.
Soon after its launch, nearly 4 years ago, Apple had addressed the criticism coming its way with an FAQ site, and promised that more features would slowly be woven into the newer version of the software. True to their promises, Apple had a series of updates that restored many functionality, as well as a campaign that bring users back to the app in March of 2013.
According to Ficarra, the speed of the new FCPX enabled the directors and editing team to be on their toes editing the film as the shooting carries on. Not in a traditional sense that editing needs to be done in dark room post-production.
The first Hollywood film edited in FCPX is set to be released this week on February 27th. To showcase the movie debut and FCPX’s role in the film, Apple has launched a microsite detailing the production.
‘Focus,’ First Hollywood Film Edited With Final Cut Pro X, Releases This Week , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Google has created an AI system that spends all its time playing and mastering video games. Google introduced the system on Wednesday and has described it as ‘the first significant rung of the ladder’ for more complex computing system to be built upon.
However it wasn’t the company’s intention to create a mere gamer that only provides us with solution with levels that we might be stuck on. The ultimate goal however was principally for the AI to find best solution for any given task that can be applied to real life scenarios.
The research project is by a London startup called DeepMind Technologies that Google acquired last year. They’ve exposed AI software to retro Atari games. The machines were shown 49 games on the Atari 2600 without any direction on how to play.
It is the Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind and vice president of engineering at Google, wish that one day, Google’s self-driving cars could learn how to drive based on experience, rather than needing to be taught. ‘This is the first time anyone has built a single learning system that can learn directly from experience and manage a wide range of challenging tasks,” he says.
Though it’s the first step of something bigger Hassabis has admitted that the world is still long way from an AI tech that can think independently. “It’s mastering and understanding the structure of these games, but we wouldn’t say yet it’s building conceptual knowledge or abstract knowledge,” he says. “The ultimate goal here is to build smart, general-purpose machines, but we’re many decades off from doing that.”
The next frontier for the AI is to navigate complicated three-dimensional worlds in games at least that came after the 1990s. By exposing the system to more complicated games, the team hopes to eventually achieve their goal. “If this can drive the car in a racing game, then potentially, with a few real tweaks, it should be able to drive a real car,” Hassabis says. “That’s the ultimate aim.”
Google Invents AI System That Plays Games on Its Own , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
For the company that was known for its ‘minimalistic nature’, it sure seemed to have step out of its comfort zone when Apple Watch’s advertisement campaign kicked off with a 12-page glossy print spread in Vogue. As style doesn’t come cheap, a single-page ad in the magazine could easily fetch up to $189,888 as Vogue rate card dictates.
While neither Apple nor Vogue would comment on the advertisement spending, this isn’t the first time Apple has gone for the excess. It is clear that the tech conglomerate is trying to position this product as more of a fashion accessory.
The campaign, appearing in the March issue of the glossy fashion magazine will features all three versions of the watch, namely: the stainless-steel or leather bound standard model, the rubber-banded sport version and the luxury 18-karat gold Edition photographed on a contrasting white backdrops. Apple has confirmed all three models.
It was only a week ago that the Apple Watch had received editorial treatment in Self magazine, a Vogue sibling, where Candice Swanepoel had on a white-banded version wrapped around her wrist. The company’s public relation has then reported it to be Apple Watch’s first U.S.cover.
In fact, the Apple Watch appeared on the magazine’s third page. No advertisement for the Watch were booked to appear in Self, a spokeswoman for the magazine said.
Apple Watch Adorns 12 Page Spread In Vogue , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Google’s ad products are what generate much of the company’s revenue. There are ads in search results, ads in YouTube videos and ads on almost every other website on the internet that are powered by the company’s AdSense service. Safe to say one can assume that Google would expand its ads products to some of its other offerings as well when it feels that the time is right. That’s precisely what the company is doing with search results in Google Play Store.
Over the next few weeks Google is going to roll out ads in Google Play Store searches from a “pilot group of advertisers” that already pay the company to promote their apps in Google search results.
It won’t be that different from sponsored results in search. Just like those links show at the top of a search on Google, sponsored apps will show up at the very top once you’ve searched for an app on Google Play Store.
Google is testing this new program at a small scale right now so it says that only a “limited set of users” will see sponsored app results. It will look at the results and feedback from users before disclosing further plans for this program.
The company believes that search ads in Google Play will be a useful addition for both users and developers. Google also mentioned in its blog post today that in the past year it has paid out more than $7 billion to developers that distribute their apps and games through Google Play.
Ads Are Coming To Google Play Store Search Results , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
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