Jun 07
The NFL player’s silent message could be heard loud and clear in the wake of the canceled White House visit with Trump.
Jun 07
The “Queer Eye” guys return to Netflix on June 15.
Jun 07
From their wheelchairs, wearing hoodies and baseball caps, the men shared stories of death, pain, regret and resilience.
Jun 07
Devices like smartphones ought to help people feel safer, but if you’re in real danger the last thing you want to do is pull out your phone, go to your recent contacts and type out a message asking a friend for help. The Women’s Safety XPRIZE just awarded its $1 million prize to one of dozens of companies attempting to make a safety wearable that’s simple and affordable.
The official challenge was to create a device costing less than $40 that can “autonomously and inconspicuously trigger an emergency alert while transmitting information to a network of community responders, all within 90 seconds.”
Anu and Naveen Jain, the entrepreneurs who funded the competition, emphasized the international and very present danger of sexual assault in particular.
“Women’s safety is not just a third world problem; we face it every day in our own country and on our college campuses,” said Naveen Jain in the press release announcing the winner. “It’s not a red state problem or a blue state problem but a national problem.”
“Safety is a fundamental human right and shouldn’t be considered a luxury for women. It is the foundation in achieving gender equality,” added Anu Jain.
Out of dozens of teams that entered, five finalists were chosen in April: Artemis, Leaf Wearables, Nimb & SafeTrek, Saffron and Soterra. All had some variation on a device that either detected or was manually activated during an attack or stressful situation, alerting friends to one’s location.
The winner was Leaf, which had the advantage of having already shipped a product along these lines, the Safer pendant. Like any other Bluetooth accessory, it keeps in touch with your smartphone wirelessly and when you press the button twice your emergency contacts are alerted to your location and need for help. It also records audio, possibly providing evidence later or a deterrent to harassers who might fear being identified.
It’s not that it’s an original idea — we’ve had various versions of this for some time, and even covered one of the other finalists last year. But they haven’t been quantitatively evaluated or given a platform like this.
“These devices were tested in many conditions by the judges to ensure that they will work in real-life cases where women face dangers today. They were tested in no-connectivity areas, on public transit, in basements of buildings, among other environments,” explained Anu Jain to TechCrunch. “Having the capability to record audio after sending the alert was one of the main differentiators for Leaf Wearables. Their chip design and software was also easy to be integrated into other accessories.”
Hopefully the million dollars and the visibility from winning the prize will help Leaf get its product out to people who need it. The runners-up don’t seem likely to give up on the problem, either. And it seems like the devices will only get better and cheaper — not that this will change the world on its own.
“Prices will come down as the sensor prices drop. In many countries it will require community support to be built,” continued Jain. “These technologies can act as a deterrent but in the long term culture of violence again women must change.”
Jun 07
It’s been a long time coming, but we finally have a release date for Days Gone. Many PS4 owners are probably familiar with Days Gone at this point, as the post-apocalyptic survival game was announced back in 2016 and made a big splash at Sony’s E3 presser in 2017. After multiple delays that ultimately pushed the game back to 2019, … Continue reading
Jun 07
ZTE was just handed a deal by Wilbur Ross, Trump casino investor** and current Trump-appointed Secretary of Commerce. In the year 2012, ZTE broke US embargo with Iran and North Korea. ZTE pled guilty in a US court, and agreed to several penalties – only to one of which it actually complied. Having broken agreement to NOT deal ship products … Continue reading
Jun 07
Lenovo has a second-generation Yoga Book 2 coming later in the year, the company has teased, and chip partner Intel may have given us a big preview with its Tiger Rapids reference design. Revealed at Computex 2018 this week, the dual-screen ultraportable is Intel’s vision of what its new 8th Generation Core processor can do when paired with both traditional … Continue reading
Jun 07
By Sven Gustafson
Volkswagen has released a new video showing driver Romain Dumas piloting its I.D. R Pikes Peak prototype up the namesake Colorado mountain in its first practice run ahead of an assault on the race’s EV record.
The video shows the…
Jun 07
After being pushing the game into next year, Sony has announced when its zombie apocalypse game, Days Gone, will be released. Come February 22nd you’ll be able to pick the PlayStation 4 game up at your favorite retailer (or download it online). To ce…
Jun 07
Even though Siri’s getting a massive update in iOS 12 later this year that makes it far more versatile, it’s not quite the most powerful voice assistant around at the minute. Until now, it was the only one available on Apple Watch. If you’ve wanted t…
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