For most of us, thinking about museums and archives conjures up images of physical relics; faded books, paintings and trinkets discovered beneath the soil. But now, the British Library is fighting to preserve something more elusive: sound. With £9.5 …
Lego has something up its sleeve to lure you away from Skylanders and Disney Infinity: future-proofing its toys-to-life-game, Lego Dimensions. Along with the announcement that a handful of new figures will be sold in “Team” and “Fun” packs, the press…
Summer is almost here, and this means that it is time to let your hair hang out, not to mention settle for plenty of ice cold drinks in order to stave off the sweltering heat. Spending your holiday by the beach would definitely be a whole lot of fun, that is for sure, but if you do not happen to live anywhere near the beach, perhaps your lawn or backyard will have to do. Forget about the sound of waves breaking against the shore, as the $129.95 Surfing Water Slide offers its own kind of fun in a different way.
The Surfing Water Slide happens to be the only backyard waterslide which will be able to offer a surfing experience as a rider slides down its 30′ length on an included skimboard. Fret not about its build quality, since it is made from sturdy EVA and is capable of supporting up to 70 lbs., as the 30″-long padded skimboard glides over the thin layer of water which is applied to the slide’s surface through integrated misting jets that are located along the left side wall. There is also an arched pool noodle with half a dozen built in spray nozzles at the run’s start that will deliver a waterfall effect to ensure a complete soaking before a ride ends in a rounded pool. Surely this packs a whole lot more fun than a regular swimming pool?
[ The Only Surfing Water Slide adds a new dimension of fun copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
FOVE, the virtual reality headset that you can control with just your eyes, is now available for pre-order on Kickstarter. The Tokyo-based startup, which launched at Disrupt SF last year as a Battlefield finalist, has already raised more than two-thirds of its $250,000 goal, with 44 days left to go. Read More
Could it be that one day in the future, wearing robotic suits in the military or just going about our everyday lives could become commonplace? Perhaps, and it looks like Samsung wants to help build that future. According to a patent discovered by Patently Mobile, it seems that Samsung is toying with the idea of building their very own robotic suit.
As you can see in the image to the right, this suit isn’t so much a suit like what Iron Man wears, but more like an exoskeleton that would be able to give its wearer enhanced abilities. According to the patent, it mentions how the suit could be attached to different muscles on the leg and through the use of a sensor, it can detect which muscles the user is trying to use and help enhance it with the suit.
The patent also mentions how such suits could come in handy for military purposes, while also mentioning that it could be used by workers in factories where heavy objects need to be lifted. It also states how it could help the elderly walk. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such suits. In fact it wasn’t too long ago that a bank in Japan equipped some of its older employees with such suits to help them in lifting stacks of money.
However as is the case with all patents, it’s really hard to tell if Samsung will eventually make this robotic suit a reality, or if they were simply toying around with the idea, but it is definitely an intriguing direction that company is taking.
Samsung Patents Wearable Robot Suit , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use. 
Most drones we’ve seen these days are pretty big and bulky and definitely nowhere near being able to fit into your pocket. However there are drones which are small but due to their propellers, putting them in your pocket has the chance that you might damage it, but if you’ve been looking for a pocketable drone, two Swiss researchers might have the solution for you.
According to a report from Wired, researchers Stefano Mintchev and Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have managed to create a drone which is small enough to fit in your pocket, and how they did this was by creating a drone whose arms would arm around itself, thus converting itself into a more compact and pocketable solution.
However when users need to launch the drone, its arms will be able to snap out in an instant and be good to go in no time. At the moment the folding mechanism needs to be done by hand, but the researchers claim that they are working on an automated folding system which would no doubt be a lot more convenient.
According to Mintchev, the idea of the drone came from origami. “Compared to traditional multi-joint foldable structures, origami allows us to embed complex folding patterns in a lightweight design. A desired folding behavior can be easily encoded in the crease pattern of the origami.” Unfortunately there was no mention of availability or pricing.
This UAV Is Small Enough To Fit Into Your Pocket Safely , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use. 
Despite Microsoft having their own mobile platform in the form of Windows Phone (soon to be known as Windows 10 Mobile), the Redmond company has not been shy about creating and releasing apps for competing platforms. Now according to a report from ZDNet, it seems that Microsoft is working on another app for iOS called Flow.
The original reference to Flow was discovered by @h0x0d and it seems that based on the app’s description, it is meant to be used as a light-weight email app as an alternative to Outlook for users looking for a quick and easy way to reply emails. “Use Flow with anyone, it’s email: Reach anyone with an email address and all conversations for you and others are also in Outlook. Together, you can use Flow and Outlook interchangeably to participate in the same conversations.”
The description also suggests that the app will display emails like you would expect from a messenger app. “Fast, fluid, natural conversations: No subject lines, salutations, or signatures. Flow is designed for fast, light-weight conversations in real time.” Now we can only imagine how clogged up your inbox can get with so many conversations.
However the app claims that only conversations started in Flow will show up in Flow, and will not cross over into your regular inbox thus keeping things a bit neat. Unfortunately when ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reached out to Microsoft to comment, the company claimed they had nothing to share about Flow, so we guess we’ll just have to keep an eye out for it.
Microsoft Reportedly Developing An App Called Flow For iOS , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use. 
Hollywood producer and author of A Curious Mind Brian Grazer explains his guiding principle — that following our innate curiosity can lead to a bigger life — and how certain questions can help you connect with almost anyone.
1. The Situation: A meeting with your boss where you want to stand out from the average employee
Best Questions to Ask: “What are you hoping for?” “What are you expecting?” “What’s the most important part of this for you?”
Why They Work: A lot of people walk into a room and worry about who makes the most money, who’s the tallest, the best looking, the youngest, the coolest, says Brian Grazer, producer of “Apollo 13,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Splash,” “8 Mile” and “Friday Night Lights.” The better way is to start from a sense of curiosity. “The moment you show interest in someone in a focused way, you won’t be insecure in that room,” he says. During an interaction with a boss, use questions like the above. They surface the boss’s best-case scenario and the crucial element that you’ll be judged on. “If [the question is] set in the world of ‘we,’ people usually can engage more easily. I was just talking to this studio boss. First I said, ‘How much did you like the project?’ He said, ‘I love it.’ I said, ‘Wow, we should be able to do a great job together. What would be your sense of direction?’ I made it a joint issue right away. We’re winning or losing together, so how should we go about it?”
2. The Situation: An office or family meeting about what to spend time and resources on
Best Questions to Ask: “Why this project?” “Why now?” “Why with this group of people?”
Why They Work: Most of us start with the idea — a merger or a vacation to the beach with neighbors — and then ask how long it will take or what might get in the way of starting it, but Grazer begins from a different perspective. “Often you fall in love with ideas and then you have to step back and say, ‘Well, if I were hanging out with my smartest, most judgmental friends, would I be able to say this with pride or is there a hesitation?’ Because I think we all know the difference between better and worse,” says Grazer. That’s why he tried to unearth the seemingly tangential issues that are actually the key reasons to move forward (or not).
3. The Situation: A room full of people you don’t know
Best Question to Ask: “How did you end up here?”
Why It Works: “I used to beat around the bush. I’d say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ and then hope they’d say something.” Because that strategy didn’t always work and because asking how someone might know the host often leads to a go-nowhere answer, Grazer asks a more expansive question. Sure, it might lead to a predictable fact (old college buddy), but it also might lead to a story about a U.S. marshal who met the host when they both snuck into Havana in the ’90s. Grazer says: “I think you’re supposed to do everything possible to help a conversation happen. You can’t go wrong with [this question]. We go wrong by just staring at people. That’s when we have regrets, like someone saying, ‘Why didn’t you go talk to that guy? He runs ESPN.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know.’ Well, you didn’t ask.”
4. The Situation: A room full of 800 rocket scientists (and you don’t know anything about rocket science)
Best Question to Ask: “What’s actually going on?”
Why It Works: “I was at SpaceX to watch this rocket go into outer space just yesterday,” says Grazer. “Even though I produced [the movie] “Apollo 13,” I’m the least knowledgeable about modern space exploration. There were 800 people on the floor watching this rocket go up, and there’s this whole 10-minute rhythm of silence and cheering — and then louder cheering. I was watching and getting emotional, but I didn’t really [get it]. There were these super high-tech rocket nerds next to me, and they’re really talking about it, using language I don’t know. I just said, ‘Hey, I’m Brian, and I’m here for the first time. What is actually going on?'” A rocket nerd ended up explaining each stage, but the point, Grazer says, was that he was curious about the process and willing to let others know he was clueless. “That was kind of hard,” explains Grazer, of saying that. But if you’re going to follow your curiosity, he says, “each and every time you’re disrupting your comfort zone. Whether it’s one-on-one or one-on-800, you’ve got to be willing to do it.”
Brian Grazer is the author of A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life (Simon and Schuster).
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Her career at a standstill, Lee Montgomery put her faith in something invisible, elusive and impossible to predict. (And broke only two toes.)
By Lee Montgomery
Last summer I spent my days — every last one — in the Columbia River Gorge. I watched the water’s surface ripple like crumpled paper; sometimes the wind blew 25 miles an hour, sometimes 30, with gusts in the 40s. And then I waded in, day in and day out, in my wetsuit, helmet and harness, carrying my windsurfing board, knowing the river would hand my ass to me just like it had the day before.
The Columbia is the body of water that divides much of Washington and Oregon, and enthusiasts count it among the best windsurfing locales in the world. For good windsurfers, it’s paradise. But I am not a good windsurfer. I’d wade in and lift my sail, and a gust would rip it from my hands. I would try again, sometimes popping up on the board, hooking into the harness, slipping my foot into the strap, but the wind was often so strong that the board would levitate and I’d find myself airborne, then flung forward and trapped underwater.
Though my friends struggled to understand what I was doing, taking on the gorge was about recovering — from 25 years of crazy ambition that had wreaked havoc on my life. I’d been elevated, then ruined. Powered up, mowed down. I’m it; I’m shit. After a decade at the publishing company I’d helped establish and run, I was fired — on my tenth anniversary, two weeks before Christmas, via email.
In other words, getting my ass handed to me had become something of a theme in my life.
I had worked so hard for so long. I was always doing something — breathlessly, relentlessly, furiously writing, editing, hanging with friends in high places, clawing my way up the ladder. And so what? Doing these things had netted me, in the end, very little of lasting value. I wondered what would happen if I let it all go — didn’t look for a job, didn’t keep mainlining ambition like I had for as long as I could remember.
My husband thought it was a great idea. “Just stop,” he said. “Refill the well.” A serious windsurfer, he suggested I try the sport as a path to clarity. (He always joked that windsurfing was like putting a leaf blower to your brain.) I am 56 years old, 20 pounds overweight (again), and have had back surgery for two ruptured disks. I had windsurfed before, but only in calm water. I didn’t like high winds. I didn’t like going fast — that was scary. I didn’t do scary.
But I wanted to abandon the past. My plan was to do nothing but read and windsurf every day. I wanted to feel the fear and do it anyway. I wanted to learn how to ride the currents, to stay nimble, to lean into whatever came — and I couldn’t think of a better way than to devote myself to the invisible, ever-shifting wind. After all, as the cliché goes, weren’t the winds of change upon me?
Using the wind as a path toward transformation was not a new idea — ancient spiritual teachings are full of exhortations to emulate it. The I Ching counsels that we need to bend like bamboo in the wind without being broken. The Tao says we cannot see the wind but we can observe its force, the way it changes things. The wind powers journeys, moves seeds, enables rebirth. That last one sounded pretty good to me.
I decided to sail at Swell City, a favorite outpost on the Washington side of the Columbia, where a small contingent of sailors spend most of their waking hours sailing, smoking pot and drinking beers. Rock ‘n’ roll blared from trucks and beater vans. Everyone had a nickname: Wolfie. Fucking Dave. Buddha Stan. ChooChoo John. Suzy Hot-Bod. There was good-natured ribbing, and impromptu barbecues, and endless talk about the wind: where it is, where it will be, what it will be doing.
That July turned out to be one of the windiest months on record. The hot, gusty days blurred into one another. The sheer physical effort of the act was addictive. And out in the middle of the mighty Columbia, I remained captivated by its beauty. The snowy hat of Mount Hood looked down from the distance. Egrets and bald eagles dive-bombed for salmon. I marveled: What I was doing accomplished nothing for anyone. It did nothing for my standing in the world. It won me no friends. No admirers. There were only endless reaches of back and forth, the wind and the water, the sky and me beneath it.
Then again, a lot of the time I was terrified. When the winds went wild, I was too frightened to hook into my harness because in powerful gusts I’d be thrown into the air, tethered to my sail, and trapped underwater. The whole system depended on a series of connections: mast to board, harness to person. So when strong winds blew, I’d bounce on the board, holding on for dear life, or get mowed down by the swell. Other sailors were dumbfounded: Why fight the wind?
“Gotta hook in,” they’d say. “Gotta go faster.”
I also couldn’t jibe, which is to turn around, swinging the rig over the front of the board. You have to sail fast, commit wholly, and lean forward into nothingness to drive the board through the turn before flipping the sail in front of you. It’s a masterful move that combines speed, power, grace and timing, and separates the casual sailor from the expert. It seemed impossible to nail. But it was also an apt metaphor for what I needed to do in my life.
So again and again, I did the thing I dreaded: I went fast. Committed wholly. Leaned into nothingness. I sailed until I was exhausted. And I kept going. That summer I broke two toes. My arms ached. My legs, covered in bruises, spasmed at night. And I was happier than I ever remembered being.
I sailed by day, and my psyche went to work at night. I dreamed about bridges crumbling beneath my feet, being tied up with rope, cars unable to accelerate up hills. But every morning I’d awake to the possibility of the jibe, imagining my feet steering the board, my hands pulling up the sail, flipping, catching. Turn around! Turn around! After two hot, glorious months, I still couldn’t jibe — but I learned something just as crucial.
One day a friend and her 15-year-old son came out to the Gorge with me, and after I explained my trials, my long and fruitless journey toward the jibe, he said the simplest, most profound thing: “It’s all in the attitude.” This kid had been windsurfing exactly three times, yet he knew the secret. “If you go out there knowing you’re going to rock it, you will,” he continued. “But if you go out there afraid you’ll get hurt, you will.”
I smiled at him. Wasn’t that precisely the same problem I’d encountered in life? I’d always been terrified I wouldn’t reach the goal, make the grade, land the job or the contract or the deal — and sure enough, I’d watched my worst professional fear come true.
I knew I had to let that fear go. And slowly I did. Even after a particularly bad day of flailing, when I vowed I would never, ever windsurf again, if the wind went up the next day I’d be back at it, driven by the insane memories of the spectacular days when everything clicked perfectly and pure magic took over. Powered by the wind, fully locked and loaded, you push your legs out and hang out over the water, steer with your toes and heels, flying weightless, carried by the elements. There is no other feeling like it in the world.
The wind wanted nothing from me. It cared not at all about my ambition, my accomplishments. It reminded me that the beauty of life is in the trying, day after day. And that’s where I am: still trying for the turnaround, in life and in the wind.
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This is one story from Huff/Post50’s new series “This Will Be Our Year: 15 Women Over 50 Shaking Things Up In 2015.” We’ll be following 15 remarkable ladies throughout the year as they make a radical change in their lives, whether it’s embarking on a 500-mile hike, starting a new career or attempting to find love on the Internet. Start from the beginning here.
Veronica Slater, 52, is breaking into Hollywood as an actress.
“I have been up and down and all around! There is so much happening! And I am learning so much about myself on this journey, which is awesome. I have at least two auditions a week, some weeks I have three or four. But so far, nothing has clicked. I had two films booked but then both projects were put on hold, one indefinitely. But I am learning so much every day about the whole process and everything that happens just reinforces to me that I want to be an actress.
I would say that until I started doing auditions, I had about a 95 percent success rate when I went out on job interviews. But auditions are a different animal. So much of it is outside your control. You can’t take it personally. Sometimes it is something like you have a dimple and they don’t want someone with a dimple. I go on calls for women who are 40 to 50, African-American or ethnic, of solid frame or thin. As an actress, I am a product. And it just might not be the precise product the casting director has in mind.
Yes, rejection is hard. But I take it as a learning process. I capture the moment of ‘disappointment’ and hold on to it, so I know how to call it up when I have a role that calls for it.
I am really learning so much about myself though this journey. And no matter how many times I audition without getting the part, I am not discouraged. I know I am meant to act and I will. I get excited at just having auditions. Many of them are for big projects. When you have the big agents coming after you and want to see your work, it’s a great feelings. I’m focusing on supporting roles. Like everything else, you have to pay your dues. I’ve auditioned for parts that had one or three or five lines.
I did a great video with Erin Kirby, the singer. I’m the singer who grabs the mic and speaks. It’s funny.
Right now, I’m waiting to hear back on two roles I recently auditioned for. For me, it’s fingers crossed and eyes forward on the prize.”
Veronica Slater with singer Erin Kirby.
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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.
