Moto X Gets New Spring Time Boot Animation [Video]
If you are a Moto X user, go ahead and reboot your phone, because apparently Motorola has updated the boot animation for the Spring season. I am sure a lot of you in the Eastern portion of the United States are extremely happy that this dreadful winter is coming to an end. Motorola posted the video below to let everyone know that there is a new boot animation for the Moto X, so if you still aren’t seeing the new animation, just be patient. I am sure it will get to your phone sometime soon. In the meantime, check the new animation below and let us know what you think.
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Developer and Unlocked Edition HTC One M8 receives update with Extreme Power Saving mode and more
Those lucky owners of the HTC One M8 developer and unlocled editions have an update floating around for their device today. The update brings v1.54.1540.9 and packs in a few goodies. Most notably is the Extreme Power Savings Mode. This feature helps save you a ton of power throughout the day, or at least when it is enabled, by shutting down everything on your device and giving you access to calls, text, email, calendar events and your calculator. That is it.
The update also brings in soe updates to the camera and gallery apps as well. The update is rolling out and weighs in at a modest 118MBs. Be sure you have over 50% battery life and a little time to kill on a good wi-fi network.
Via AndroidPolice
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Those glow-in-the-dark roads? They didn’t fare well in the first public trials
The pilot project that looks to replace streetlights with video game-esque glow-in-the-dark lane markers in the Netherlands has hit a bit of a snag. If you’re in need of a refresher, the lines absorb ultraviolet light during the day before glowing through the night. So far, performance has been less than consistent. The markers don’t give off a uniform amount of light, and more importantly, they’ve been disappearing with heavy rainfall. In a press release earlier this week, Dutch engineering firm Heijmans Infrastructure said that it’ll address the issues for the next iteration that’s slated for more widespread testing this summer, pressing pause until then. “We will use these insights to introduce an update to the Glowing Lines 2.0 version. In the meantime we have temporarily faded out the lining to prevent any confusing situations for road users,” the statement read.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Fast Company
Stream: Jonah from Tonga
Now that the BBC is killing off BBC Three, the corporation is pushing viewers over to iPlayer. Auntie is testing the waters by letting users binge-watch (Netflix-style) Chris Lilley’s comedy Jonah from Tonga over the weekend. The spin-off from Summer Heights High sees young Jonah Takalua try to navigate school, and will be available to watch on BBC Three in the old-fashioned way from next Thursday. We haven’t seen the show yet, but we figure that if you’re already a fan of Lilley’s unique sensibilities, then this will be a must-watch.
Jonah from Tonga is available to stream in its entirety for the next 48 hours on BBC iPlayer.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Via: BBC Media Centre
Source: BBC iPlayer
NY State to launch a patient portal that gives residents access to health records
If you’ve ever wished you had more immediate access to your health records beyond just asking your doctor for a copy, then you might want to consider a move to New York State. Dr. Nirav Shah, NY state’s commissioner of health, has announced that New York will be the first state in the country to launch a new patient portal that’ll give you access to your health records from the comfort of your home. Created by Mana Health and the New York eHealth Collaborative, the portal will incorporate information from the Statewide Health Information of New York (SHIN-NY) plus the state’s All Payer Database. Shah also promises that all data will be interoperable so that records from different doctor’s IT systems will play nice together. You won’t just be able to view them either; Shah says that said data can also be plugged into third-party apps and services in case you want to manage your health in more detail.
Additionally, as part of a new New York State Immunization Information System Blue Button initiative, pediatric immunization records will be offered online to parents so that they can keep track of their child’s health history, and offer it up to schools or daycare centers if needed. It’s all part of a larger nationwide Blue Button initiative that calls for easier access to your health records — the White House, Veteran Affairs, the Department of Defense and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are already on board. Of course, this is hardly the first time there’ve been efforts to release patient data — previous efforts like Google Health have failed in the past. Still, there’s potential here for this to take off, as long as privacy remains a top priority.
[Image credit: UIG via Getty Images]
Source: StateScoop
The BBC’s World Cup Rewind will let you stream classic matches ‘live’
Like us, you might be unreasonably excited for the start of the 2014 World Cup. The BBC knows this more than anyone, so it’s banking on the streaming technology it used for the 2012 London Olympics to deliver full “live” coverage of some of the home nations’ biggest World Cup matches from years past. The BBC World Cup Rewind will include the 1966 England vs West Germany World Cup Final, Archie Gemmill’s super goal for Scotland against The Netherlands in 1978 and Northern Ireland’s famous win against tournament hosts Spain in the 1982 group stages. The Beeb says it will pull out all the stops when broadcasts begin on May 30th by including additional text commentary as well as insight and comments from Gary Lineker and other “special guests.” As usual, everything will be available across smartphone, tablet, laptop and connected TVs, letting you experience (or painfully remember) Diego Maradona’s infamous ‘Hand of God’ moment as if it happened today.
[Image credit: diamond geezer, Flickr]
Via: Pocket-Lint
Source: BBC Media Centre
Google Now’s info cards will stick around when your phone goes offline
One of Google Now’s biggest quirks has been its inability to cope with going offline — go through a subway tunnel and you risk losing those important directions or your parking place. You won’t be left hanging after today, though, as Google has brought offline support to Now on Android phones. So long as you’re using the latest version of the Search app, all your information cards should hang around whenever you’re cut off from the rest of the world. It’s a small change, but it could make a big difference if it keeps you informed while you’re off the grid.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Google
Source: Google+
America’s next fleet of spaceships will have to double as lifeboats
Right now, there are six people living and working in the International Space Station as it hurtles around our little oasis among the stars. That thought alone is astonishing/freaky enough until you realize the sheer number of things that could go wrong (Gravity, anyone?). That’s why it’s no surprise that NASA wants the new ships that’ll ferry people and supplies to the ISS to act as lifeboats in case things up there take a turn for the worse.
Via: SlashGear
Source: NASA
2014 MacBook Airs Demonstrating Slower Flash Storage Speeds Than 2013 Models
The newly released 2014 MacBook Airs are seeing improved processor performance thanks to updated Haswell chips, but storage performance appears to have declined.
In a series of performance benchmark tests performed by Macworld, tests of the flash storage suggested the new MacBook Airs are performing slower than the 2013 MacBook Airs. The comparison, which included a 2013 11-inch MacBook Air with a 256GB SSD and a 2013 13-inch MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD vs. a 2014 11-inch model with a 128GB SSD and a 13-inch model with a 256GB SSD, found that the 2014 models were twice as slow as the 2013 models at some tasks.
Copying 6GB of files and folders took 28 seconds on last year’s 11-inch MacBook Air, but took nearly twice as long (54 seconds) on this year’s 11-inch model. With solid-state storage, lower capacity drives are often slower performers, and last year’s 11-inch had the higher capacity 256GB of flash. However, the new 11-inch model was also slower than last year’s 13-inch model with 128GB of flash storage.
Compressing 6GB of files also took longer on the 2014 MacBook Air, and Macworld described unzipping as “just plain slow” with the new 11-inch version taking three times as long to unzip files as the 2013 model.
Using fewer but larger files, the performance difference narrowed between the two models, but the 2014 11-inch MacBook Air still performed 35 percent slower copying files than the mid–2013 13-inch MacBook Air with the same storage capacity and 53 percent slower when uncompressing files.
The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test also showed the new models running slower than the older models, with write/read speeds as follows (in MBps):
– 2013 13-inch with 128GB SSD: 445/725
– 2013 11-inch with 256GB SSD: 687/725
– 2014 13-inch with 256GB SSD: 520/676
– 2014 11-inch with 128GB SSD: 306/620
All four of the drives in the MacBook Airs tested came from different manufacturers, with two from Samsung, one from Toshiba, and one from SanDisk, which accounts for the performance discrepancies. Speed differences between SSDs used within Apple’s MacBook Air computers have been highlighted before in previous models and as suggested in the past, while the speed variations may be noticeable in some high-intensity tasks, they are unlikely to be noticed during day-to-day usage.
Released earlier this week, the new MacBook Airs are available from Apple’s website beginning at $899.
Apple Acquires Low-Power Display Company LuxVue Technology
Apple has purchased LuxVue Technology, a company that develops low-power microLED-based displays, reports TechCrunch, citing sources with knowledge of the acquisition. Micro-LEDs have the potential to improve battery life while offering brighter screens than competing technologies.
Little is known about LuxVue, which appears to operate largely under the radar. The company appears to create LED displays that use little energy for use in various consumer electronic products. Back in December of 2013, LuxVue raised $25.2 million in funding for to pursue its micro-LED technology. The company has also filed several patents on micro-LEDs, and one of LuxVue’s investors said the company had “a technical breakthrough in displays.”
LuxVue’s VP of technology, Kapil Sakariya, has ties to Apple, having previously worked as a Display Architect and iPhone Operations and Procurement Manager at Apple. Sakariya was employed at Apple from July of 2006 until November of 2011, when he joined LuxVue.
According to TechCrunch, Apple has made the acquisition to add to its hardware innovations area, which the company has been aiming to bolster in recent years. Apple has purchased several other hardware companies in an effort to bring more of its hardware production in-house, including Renesas Electronics and Passif Semiconductor.
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