Hasta La Gadget!

BMW never built a hardtop version of its iconic Z8 grand touring sports car, but a startup automaker is making headlines for creating the Z8 coupe that enthusiasts never got. SVE or Smit Vehicle Engineering is an American restorer that specializes in modifying and tuning BMW vehicles. SVE’s latest masterpiece is the Oletha, a hardtop tribute to the BMW Z8 … Continue reading

Researchers have created a winged microchip around the size of a sand grain that may be the smallest flying device yet made, Vice has reported. They’re designed to be carried around by the wind and could be used in numerous applications including disease and air pollution tracking, according to a paper published by Nature. At the same time, they could be made from biodegradable materials to prevent environmental contamination. 

The design of the flyers was inspired by spinning seeds from cottonwood and other trees. Those fall slowly by spinning like helicopters so they can be picked up by the wind and spread a long distance from the tree, increasing the range of the species. 

The team from Northwest University ran with that idea but made it better, and smaller. “We think we’ve beaten biology… we’ve been able to build structures that fall in a more stable trajectory at slower terminal velocities than equivalent seeds,” said lead Professor John A. Rogers. “The other thing… was that we were able to make these helicopter flyer structures that are much smaller than seeds you would see in the natural world.”  

They’re not so small that the aerodynamics starts to break down, though. “All of the advantages of the helicopter design begin to disappear below a certain length scale, so we pushed it all the way, as far as you can go or as physics would allow,” Rogers told Vice. “Below that size scale, everything looks and falls like a sphere.”

The devices are also large enough to carry electronics, sensors and power sources. The team tested multiple versions that could carry payloads like antenna so that they could wireless communicate with a smartphone or each other. Other sensors could monitor things like air acidity, water quality and solar radiation. 

The flyers are still concepts right now and not ready to deploy into the atmosphere, but the team plans to expand their findings with different designs. Key to that is the use of biodegradable materials so they wouldn’t persist in the environment. 

“We don’t think about these devices… as a permanent monitoring componentry but rather temporary ones that are addressing a particular need that’s of finite time duration,” Rogers said. “That’s the way that we’re envisioning things currently: you monitor for a month and then the devices die out, dissolve, and disappear, and maybe you have to redeploy them.”

The EPA rule targets an 85% reduction in hydrofluorocarbons, a class of potent greenhouse gases, by 2036.

Discord hosts quite a number of bots, but these bots are useful for things like informing newcomers to a server about the rules. Some of these bots were also rather entertaining and could even play music from YouTube at the requests of users, but presumably due to licensing concerns, YouTube pulled the plug on them.

However, there is some good news because it seems that while the bots were pulled, it turns out that Discord and YouTube have been working on a partnership. According to a report from The Verge, both companies are testing out YouTube integration inside of the app. This new integration will result in a “Watch Together” feature which as the name implies, lets users in a Discord channel watch YouTube videos collectively.

According to The Verge, this was something Discord and YouTube were working on almost a year ago, but due to the bots being pulled, they have reprioritized it again. It’s actually a pretty cool feature and might be a better alternative to the screen sharing feature. This feature apparently will also allow the broadcaster to enable a remote button that lets other members of the server control playback.

There’s no word on when the feature will be rolled out, but apparently it is being tested on friends and family servers, but the beta is expected to expand in the coming weeks, with plans to eventually make it available to all users by the end of October.

Discord Testing YouTube Integration

, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Have you ever opened up a food delivery app like Uber Eats and spend an hour trying to decide what to eat? With so many restaurants at your fingertips, you can feel very spoiled for choice. However, the next time you’re stuck, maybe trying inserting an emoji to help Uber Eats recommend some places for you.

In what feels like a rather novel update to its platform, it seems that Uber Eats will now allow users to search its mobile app using emojis. This means that if you’re craving a burger, just type in the burger emoji and Uber Eats will pull up burger joints that are around your area that you can pick it up from or order. You can also try other emojis like the pizza emoji, and so on.

We’re not sure how this is supposed to be easier since typing “burger” or “pizza” would produce the same results, but like we said, it is a fun update. It might also come in handy if you’re in a foreign country and want to look for food but don’t know how to type it out in the local language, so that’s probably one of the more useful ways of taking advantage of the update.

This feature will be available in the new pickup maps inside of the Uber Eats Android and iOS app, as well as its website.

Uber Eats Will Now Let You Search For Food Using Emojis

, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.