Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
Conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski survived a primary challenge from the left.
Posted in: Today's ChiliHe’s one of just three anti-abortion Democrats remaining in the House of Representatives.
When all you have is a finger everything looks like a button . But what happens if you’re unable to press buttons or, more likely, we begin using robots and other tools to interact with the real world? That’s what researchers at Aalto University, Finland, and KAIST, South Korea wanted to find out when they started examining how humans tap buttons.
“This research was triggered by admiration of our remarkable capability to adapt button-pressing”, said Professor Antti Oulasvirta at Aalto University. “We push a button on a remote controller differently than a piano key. The press of a skilled user is surprisingly elegant when looked at terms of timing, reliability, and energy use. We successfully press buttons without ever knowing the inner workings of a button. It is essentially a black box to our motor system. On the other hand, we also fail to activate buttons, and some buttons are known to be worse than others.”
During their study, they assessed the push buttons – buttons with actual travel – were more usable than touch buttons and that the best buttons were the ones that reacted at time of maximum impact. The researchers created something called “Impact Activation.” These buttons activate only when they are fully pressed, thereby ensuring that users will know exactly when they are and are not tapping a key on a keyboard or even a musical instrument.
From their release:
The simulations shed new light on what happens during a button press. One problem the brain must overcome is that muscles do not activate as perfectly as we will, but every press is slightly different. Moreover, a button press is very fast, occurring within 100 milliseconds, and is too fast for correcting movement. The key to understanding button-pressing is therefore to understand how the brain adapts based on the limited sensations that are the residue of the brief press event.
The researchers argue that the key capability of the brain is a probabilistic model: The brain learns a model that allows it to predict a suitable motor command for a button. If a press fails, it can pick a very good alternative and try it out. “Without this ability, we would have to learn to use every button like it was new,” tells Professor Byungjoo Lee from KAIST. After successfully activating the button, the brain can tune the motor command to be more precise, use less energy and to avoid stress or pain. “These factors together, with practice, produce the fast, minimum-effort, elegant touch people are able to perform.”
How can we use this information in our daily lives? Well, this research suggests that high-travel, clicky keys with switches from Cherry and other “tactile” keyboard makers could be better for us, neurologically, than keyboards with less precise travel. Further, it shows us that the best interfaces are physical and not touchscreen, something that anyone who has tried to play touchscreen-based fast-twitch video games can attest.
Further, the researchers discovered that button pressing is an acquired skill and perhaps we were right to force ourselves to let Mavis Beacon teach us keyboarding. “We believe that the brain picks up these skills over repeated button pressings that start already as a child. What appears easy for us now has been acquired over years,” said Lee.
HTC is making a lot of noise over at GDC regarding its new VIVE Pro headset. You’d think it would also be making some noise about the new VIVE Trackers that would go along with it. But for reasons still unknown, HTC has not said a peep about the upgrade VIVE Tracker (2018). Which is quite strange considering it is … Continue reading
Back then when it came to filming movies and videos in general, you would need a dedicated video camera to do so. However these days DSLRs come with video recording features which actually can do more than just hold their own. In fact if you’re looking to get into filmmaking, you might be interested in Nikon’s latest launch.
The company has recently launched the Nikon D850 Filmmaker’s Kit in the US. As the name suggests, this is a kit aimed at videographers which will come with the Nikon D850, three prime lenses which includes the AF-S 20mm f/1.8G ED, the AF-S 35mm f/1.8G ED, and the AF-S 85mm f/1.8G, all of which will cover a wide range of shots such as wide-angles to close-ups.
There will also be an included external 4K Atomos Ninja Flame recorder/monitor, a power kit, docking station, and a coiled HDMI cable. Unsurprisingly all of this won’t come cheap as the entire bundle will be sold at $5,499.95 and is expected to be made available towards the end of the month.
However if you’re looking for a way to get your filmmaking endeavors off the ground, this is a good place to start. Granted the D850 isn’t exactly in the same range as other cameras like Panasonic’s Lumix GH5 or GH5S, it should be more than capable of capturing good quality footage. It supports 4K video capture at 24/30fps along with 8K and 4K timelapses, focus peaking, and more.
Nikon D850 Filmmaker Kit Launched In The US , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Given the amount of personal information we post onto Facebook, it’s not surprising that the social media platform is a treasure trove of user data that could be used to sell to marketing companies, advertisers, researchers, and so on. In fact this is something that Facebook recently found themselves in hot water over regarding its data sharing practices.
So much so that WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has decided to join the #DeleteFacebook movement. Posting on Twitter, Acton wrote that “It’s time” to delete Facebook, which is interesting considering that Facebook actually owns WhatsApp in what was one of the biggest acquisitions of all time when Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $16 billion back in 2014.
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
However it should be noted that Acton had left WhatsApp in 2017 and formed his own nonprofit foundation and also invested a good $50 million into Signal, a messaging app designed to focus on user privacy and encryption. That being said, the #Delete movement has been known to cause quite a bit of damage to reputations in the past.
For example there was that time in the #DeleteUber campaign which saw 200,000 Uber accounts deleted, which in turn allowed Uber’s competitor Lyft to see an increase in app downloads. With regards to Facebook’s data collection practices, the company is expected to face a probe by the Federal Trade Commission, but exactly what will become of it remains to be seen.
WhatsApp Co-Founder Joins In The #DeleteFacebook Movement , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Many can probably agree that the Nintendo Switch is seeing the success that its predecessor, the Wii U, never did. The console is regarded as the fastest-selling console ever in the US, managed to outsell both the PS4 and Xbox One in some months, and to top it off, even beat its predecessor’s lifetime sales within its first year.
Now according to data released by the NPD Group, it appears that the Nintendo Switch could very well be considered the best-selling console ever in the US. However we should point out a caveat to this claim and that is the NPD is basing this on first year sales alone. We’re not talking about total sales, but rather this is based on what each console managed to sell within its first year of release.
According to the NPD, the Switch has reached the “highest installed base for a console platform in history.” To give you guys some context, based on Nintendo’s own data from back in December 2017, the Switch has sold about 15 million units which means that by now that number has probably increased somewhat.
Bringing it back down to reality, February 2018 was Sony’s month as the console managed to be the best-selling console for the month and so far appears to be the best-selling console for the year. That being said, Nintendo does have several games up their sleeves that will no doubt drive sales even further, such as Super Smash Bros. and the upcoming Pokemon RPG.
Nintendo Switch Might Be The Best-Selling Console Ever In The US , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Last month Blizzard announced that Overwatch would be getting a new hero in the form of Brigitte. The good news is that if you’ve been looking forward to checking out the new hero, you’ll be pleased to learn that Blizzard has confirmed that Brigitte is now live and playable in Overwatch.
For those learning about this new hero for the first time, Blizzard writes, “The youngest of Torbjörn’s daughters, Brigitte is an adventurer who travels with her godfather—Reinhardt Wilhelm—to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. Previously, she aided Reinhardt by repairing his armor but as time has passed, Brigitte has realized that there is some damage that her hammer cannot fix.”
Brigitte will be a melee hero and will base her attacks using her mace. She will also have a shield whose design is similar to that of Reinhardt, which isn’t surprising given that she is Reinhardt’s god daughter. Her character also has the ability to heal nearby allies over time, and the shield will also help to absorb damage being dealt to the team.
She also has a shield bash ability which kind of reminds us of the Crusader character from Diablo 3. In any case if you have a couple of minutes to spare you can check out the video above introducing the new character and giving us a glimpse at some of her abilities in action.
New Overwatch Hero ‘Brigitte’ Is Now Live And Playable , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Last year Capcom announced the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary collection and for those who are interested in checking it out, Capcom has since confirmed that the game will be released on the 29th of May and that pre-orders have already begun. There will also be pre-order bonuses for gamers that pre-order the game before it is released.
For PC, PS4, or Xbox One gamers, pre-ordering the collection will see a free digital copy of Ultra Street Fighter 4 thrown in. However this will not be the case for Nintendo Switch and will instead be getting an exclusive recreation of Super Street Fighter 2: The Tournament Battle. This will recreate the arcade experience where four Switch systems and eight controllers can be used to create a tournament.
Each winner and loser will be placed in their respective brackets and will take turns duking it out with each other until the last gamer standing. The collection will feature 12 Street Fighter titles which includes, Street Fighter, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition, Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter 2, Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter 3, Street Fighter 3: 2nd Impact, and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.
There will also be support for online play for some of the titles, so if you’re a fan of the Street Fighter franchise, this collection could be worth checking out.
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Set For May 29, 2018 Release , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Ubisoft is finally free of Vivendi. The entertainment titan behind the Universal Music Group and Dailymotion kept buying more and more Ubisoft shares since 2015 to the point that it became the video game publisher’s largest stakeholder. While Vivendi…