Welcome to Spritz, a new spin on reading. By using speed, conditioning, and optimal recognition point science, you can learn how to read up to 1000 words-per-minute. Available on the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Gear 2, will Spritz change the way we read as humans, or, will it need to wait until other technologies catch up first?
Looks like the creative class is next on the robotic chopping block: according to the folks at IBM, the best way to determine new recipes for human consumption is to use a supercomputer. The natural next step, of course, is to apply that theory to everything else – including writing.
Today Seattle’s City Council voted to put a cap on ride-sharing services — specifically, on the number of drivers services like Sidecar, UberX, and Lyft can have in operation at … Continue reading
We’ve featured a couple of PC casemods that incorporated a computer’s hardware into a desk. If Lian-Li pushes through with its prototype, you won’t need to be a modder to have a desk and PC case in one.
The DK01 is basically a tower case with legs. It has all of the features of an enthusiast PC chassis, including LEDs, a transparent glass panel and tool-less mounting. Lian-Li also said that the monitor mount shown in the image above will be included with the desk if it goes into production.
Head to Lian-Li’s blog for more images of the DK01 prototype.
[via Ubergizmo]
Netflix recently held a Hack Day for its engineers to come up with tweaks to the popular streaming video service. Even though the activity was made primarily for fun, one of the resulting hacks is quite promising: a hack that uses information from a Fitbit to detect when you fall asleep and then pauses the video in response. It could give lazy people a reason to buy a fitness tracker.
Made by Sam Horner, Rachel Nordman, Arlene Aficial, Sam Park and Bogdan Ciuca, the Sleep Tracker not only pauses the video but also makes a bookmark of that point. And then it’ll report the boring video to Netflix. Just kidding. It should though.
Netflix makes no guarantee that the hack will make it into their software, specially since not everyone has a Fitbit or fitness tracker in general. But wouldn’t it be nice if all displays had this technology built in? Check out the Netflix blog to see more hacks from their engineers.
[via TechCrunch]
Charge up your smartphone with the power of the Dark Side of The Force with this limited-edition Star Wars Darth Vader ProMini 9000 charger. This black charger is engraved with the image of your favorite Sith Lord, Darth Vader.
Vader will keep your iPhone, iPad, iPod, tablets, smartphone, and more, all juiced up. It is compact and easy to carry, just like a lightsaber. The ProMini 9000 measures 122mm x 67mm x 16.2mm and weighs only 200g. The charger takes about 12 to 13 hours to fill up and comes with a poweful 9000 mAh Lithium Polymer battery and Dual USB outputs.
The Darth Vader ProMini 9000 also comes with “Over-Charge, Over-Discharge, Over-Load, and Short circuit” protection, though it won’t protect your from being Force-choked. It sells for $89.90(USD).
May the Force (and the battery power) be with you.
[via New Launches]
Ever since trying out professional quality headphones with a digital audio converter (DAC) and headphone amp, it’s hard for me to listen to music without them. Unfortunately, the amplifiers in most computers are woefully underpowered – and most headphones are designed to operate at a low impedance to make up for this shortfall. But most headphones prefer to be driven with more power than most consumer electronics can muster. Additionally, the DACs built into most computers are sub-par in my experience.
I recently had the opportunity to test out a combination DAC/headphone amp from Cambridge Audio called the DacMagic XS.
This pocket-sized device is easy to tote around wherever you go, and provides a significant boost to headphone sound quality on your PC or Mac. Measuring just 2.1″(h) x 1.2″ (w) x 0.4″(d), and weighing only 3.5 oz., it’s definitely teensier than I expected it to be.
The DacMagic XS plugs into your computer’s USB port, and bypasses its internal audio output. Its 24-bit ESS9023 DAC is capable of handling audio bit rates from 44.1 to 192kHz, and its amp puts out up to 150mW of power. It’ll work with headphones with impedances as low as 12 Ohms, but will also work with higher impedance studio quality ‘phones. In my case, I tested the unit primarily with my current favorite cans, Beyer Dynamic’s DT990 Pro 250Ohm headphones.
To test the DacMagic XS, I first connected my headphones to the headphone jack on my 2011 iMac, and cranked up some high-quality digital tracks from iTunes and some medium quality tracks from Pandora. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the miniscule box pushed out nearly as much volume as my much larger and less portable FiiO system.
Thanks to it’s almost non-existent 0.004% total harmonic distortion, sounds are clean and crisp at any volume level. I definitely found sound to have crisper highs and much clearer lows when listening via the DacMagic than via the iMac’s built-in headphone jack. One of my favorite audio test tracks is Donald Fagen’s 1980s jazz fusion classic New Frontier, because it’s got huge dynamic range both in instrumentation and vocals, and most cheaper sound systems fail to extract the brilliance of the track. On this track, I found audio from the DacMagic XS to be significantly cleaner than the computer’s built-in DAC and amp. It’s especially deft at producing clean sound at lower volumes which cheap amps don’t do well.
To mix things up, I also tried out my trusty old iPhone earbuds with and without the DacMagic XS. Connected directly to my computer, sound was harsh – almost unlistenable at higher volumes. With the XS in place, sound is more evenly rounded and not as harsh – though it can’t do much to aid the lack of low end in earbuds. Still, sound was decidedly better with the XS connected.
For my final test, I tried tracks on my Marshall Monitor headphones, which offer very even and natural sound but at a low impedance. Sound has a tendency to be a bit muddy and lacking in definition plugged right into the iMac, but with the DacMagic connected, sound is wonderfully rich and well balanced. Again, a clear win for the little guy.
There’s really not much to dislike about the DacMagic XS. Certainly it’s a winner in terms of sound quality, size and portability. You can really take it anywhere. I have a couple of gripes, but they’re fairly minor. First, when connected to my iMac, I could no longer use the keyboard volume controls, and could only use the face buttons on the DacMagic. For comparison, this isn’t a problem with my FiiO DAC/amp. And while the tiny MicroUSB/USB cable is good for many situations, I think they should have included either a longer cable or a coiled version, in the event you don’t want the DacMagic dangling from the back of your computer and want it to sit flat on your desktop. Plus, a longer cable would be good if you’re using a workstation and not a laptop or all-in-one. Still these issues are very small, and the DacMagic XS does exactly what it promises – dramatically improve sound quality in a tiny package.
The DacMagic XS is available from Amazon for $189(USD).
Any Netflix user will know there are times you doze off mid-show or movie, leaving it to continue playing after you’ve stopped watching — an annoying reality that results in … Continue reading
Volvo is a car company that has built its reputation around on safety for the most part. The company is talking a bit about its new in-car experience and that experience revolves around a big touchscreen. I happen to think this is a bad idea for safety.
While touchscreens look cool and modern, anyone who has driven in a vehicle where the physical buttons have been replaced with touch will tell you that touch is not as easy to use while driving as old-fashioned buttons and knobs. With a touch system, you have to take your eyes off the road and look at what you are pressing.
Stealing a page from Tesla, Volvo is using a big tablet-like touchscreen in the center console to replace the buttons and switches we are used to. The screen is in portrait mode and each section has its own theme with navigation at the top. While the new UI certainly makes for a clean look, usability might suffer.
Perhaps Volvo has figured out how to make its system easy to use without constantly looking at it, we will have to wait and see.
Washing clothes shouldn’t be rocket science, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that when you look at the controls of modern washing machines. So when cloud services company Berg set out to create a prototype for an Internet-connected washing machine, they didn’t want to smarten it up just so it can tweet which socks you prefer. Berg knew that smart doesn’t mean needlessly complex.
Berg’s Cloudwash prototype is built on four premises. The first one is that, for all the intricate settings on conventional washing machines, most users only ever use a handful of them. That’s why Cloudwash only has a few, easy to understand physical controls.
The first set of options lets you choose from your three most used wash settings. You’ll then use its companion app if you want or need to tweak these settings. Which brings us to Berg’s second premise: the early examples of smart appliances are not really smart.
Berg noticed that the current crop of Internet-connected appliances mainly have two ways of distributing controls or options. Some smart appliances have all of their controls thrown to a mobile app, rendering the appliance nearly useless if you don’t have a mobile device on hand. On the other end are appliances that come with a touchscreen or mobile device tacked on, with few if any remote controls.
Berg opted for a middle ground. The Cloudwash app has all of the controls and options so you can control everything remotely if you wish, but the most used controls are also on the machine itself.
Berg’s third premise is that Internet-connected appliances should be able to adapt to your lifestyle. That should be part of why they’re called “smart.” Thus the second set of controls on Cloudwash lets you delay the washing machine’s final rinse.
This can also be adjusted through the mobile app, so you don’t have to hurry home to take out your clothes before they get wrinkled. It’s about making the machine adjust to you and not the other way around.
The third set of options includes a button to toggle notifications, but the other two buttons are more interesting. They’re manifestations of Berg’s fourth premise: subsidized washing machines might become a thing, just like what Nestle did to coffee machines with Nespresso.
See, you can set the two buttons to either send a reminder on your phone that your conditioner or detergent is running low. Or you can use them to make one-click purchases. Berg thinks that online retailers like Amazon or laundry product manufacturers may be willing to give away free machines or at least subsidize them to reel in customers.
Check out Berg’s case study on the Cloudwash for more information. I think its mobile app is a bit over designed and cluttered – there’s a freaking washing machine calendar, and it still uses vague washing machine terminology. I also don’t want a future where my appliances are cheap but will only work with a certain brand of detergent or brand of popcorn (because what else will it ultimately lead to?). But I do love the attempts to make machines more user-friendly and flexible.
[via Gigaom]
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.
