$17 million technology prize lets you choose which of humanity’s problems to solve
Technology prizes are nothing new, but they tend to be focused on specific issues like space travel or security flaws. The upcoming Longitude Prize, funded by the Nesta charity and the UK government, will be a little more… ambitious. The duo is promising a £10 million ($17 million) reward for the best solution to one of six greater challenges that humanity faces today, such as developing eco-friendly flight or giving independence to the paralyzed. While the winning entry will have to help the British economy in some way, this is otherwise a truly global competition; anyone can enter, and the end result will ideally help the world at large.
And unlike many such challenges, you’ll get a say. Longitude’s committee is opening up voting to the public between May 22nd and June 25th, so there’s a real chance that your preferred cause will get the nod. Whether or not your pick wins, the prize may help foster interest in technology as a humanitarian tool — there’s a chance that everyone will benefit in the long run.
[Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]
Filed under: Transportation, Science
Via: The Independent
Source: Longitude Prize
Gmail Updating to V4.8, Brings Rich Account Switching and More [APK Download]
Google is pushing out an update for Gmail this evening. The update moves the app from V4.7.2 to v4.8. That is pretty hefty jump in version number and it certainly bring a number of great changes. Among the changes you will see a number of visual alterations that help move GMail more inline with the looks of the other suit of Google apps. For instance, you now have the richer avatar account look in the left slider. No more little radio button dots to change accounts.
You will also notice that the animation when you pull down to refresh is not clue, but instead the yellow, red, green and blue that you are familiar with in G+ and other apps.
You will also be greeted with a new ‘no conversations’ page that has a sad cloud on it. Google also shifted the Settings, Help and Feedback buttons to the slider at the bottom.
A few other note worthy changes include visually being able to an entire truncated message instead of only part of it and you can directly print an attachment or send it to your Drive account.
All-in-all, a pretty good update and one that was long over due. You can kick back and wait for the typical staged rollout to hit your device, or you can hit the link below to download the APK now and get it up and running.
Source: AndroidPolice
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Must See HDTV for the week of May 19th: Indy 500 and no Game of Thrones
That’s right, we’re taking a week off from Game of Thrones. To help us get through it, the NBA and NHL playoffs have both amped up the pressure while the weekend of racing includes NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600, the Indy 500, and F1 in Monaco. Warehouse 13 has its series finale, while From Dusk Till Dawn, Bones, Revolution and many others have their finales. CW also reviists an old favorite with its Labyrinth miniseries this week, while on blu-ray we have Monuments Men and Pompeii. Check after the break for a list of what’s new this week plus a few trailers, and drop a note in the comments if you see any highlights that we’ve missed.
[Image credit: Joe Robbins/Getty Images]
Blu-ray, Streaming movies & Games
- The Monuments Men
- 3 Days to Kill
- Pompeii (3D)
- Vampire Academy
- Nikita (S4)
- McLintock!
- About Last Night
- Call the Midwife
- Transistor (PS4, PC)
- Wolfenstein: The New Order (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4)
- Drakengard (PS3)
- Mugen Souls Z (PS3)
Monday
- Bones (season finale), Fox, 8PM
- Dancing with the Stars, ABC, 8PM
- Years of Living Dangerously, Showtime, 8PM
- The Voice, NBC, 8PM
- WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
- Friends with Better Lives, CBS, 8:30PM
- 24: Live Another Day, Fox, 9PM
- Mike & Molly (season finale), CBS, 9PM
- Warehouse 13 (series finale), Syfy, 9PM
- The Maya Rudolph Show (series premiere), NBC, 10PM
- Louie, FX, 10 & 10:30PM
- Metal Hurlant Chronicles (season finale), Syfy, 10 & 10:30PM
- The Boondocks, Cartoon Network, 10:30PM
Tuesday
- Coming Back with Wes Moore, PBS, 8PM
- Judge Judy Primetime, CBS, 8PM
- Heat/Pacers Game 2, ESPN, 8:30PM
- ACM Presents: an All-Star Salute to the Troops, CBS, 9PM
- Dancing with the Stars (season finale), ABC, 9PM
- The Voice (season finale), NBC, 9PM
- I Wanna Marry “Harry” (series premiere), Fox, 9PM
- From Dusk Till Dawn (season finale), El Rey Network, 9PM
- Supernatural (season finale), CW, 9PM
- Growing Up Fisher, NBC, 9:30PM
- Freakshow, AMC, 10 & 10:30PM
- Fargo, FX, 10PM
- Playing House, USA, 10PM
- Awkward, MTV, 10PM
- The Listener, ION, 10 & 11PM
- Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan, BBC America, 10PM
- Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10PM
- Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
- Faking It, MTV, 10:30PM
- Small Town Security, AMC, 11PM
Wednesday
- Inside: US Soccer’s March to Brazil, ESPN, 7PM
- Survivor (season finale), CBS, 8PM
- American Idol (season finale), Fox, 8PM
- The Middle (season finale), ABC, 8PM
- Revolution (season finale), NBC, 8PM
- Nature, PBS, 8PM
- Kings/Blackhawks Game 2, NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- Thunder/Spurs Game 2, TNT, 9PM
- The 100, CW, 9PM
- Law & Order: SVU (season finale), NBC, 9PM
- Modern Family (season finale), ABC, 9PM
- Mixology (season finale), ABC, 9:30PM
- Motive (season premiere), ABC, 10PM
- Catfish, MTV, 10PM
- The Americans (season finale), FX, 10PM
- Chicago PD (season finale), NBC, 10PM
- The Ultimate Fighter, Fox Sports 1, 10PM
- Triptank (season finale), Comedy Central, 10:30PM
- Deal With It, TBS, 10:30PM
Thursday
- Labyrinth (mini-series premiere part 1 of 2), CW, 8PM
- Canadiens/Rangers Game 3, NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- Last Comic Standing (season premiere), NBC, 9PM
- Gang Related, Fox, 9PM
- Bad Teacher, CBS, 9:30PM
- Maron, IFC, 10PM
- Real World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV, 10PM
- Black Box, ABC, 10PM
- Comedy Bang! Bang!, IFC, 10:30PM
- Loiter Squad, Cartoon Network, 11:59PM
Friday
- Tumble Leaf (series premiere), Amazon, 12:01AM
- Labyrinth (part 2 of 2), CW, 8PM
- WWE SmackDown, Syfy, 8PM
- Continuum, Syfy, 10PM
- Hannibal (season finale), NBC, 10PM
- Vice, HBO, 11PM
Saturday
- Blackhawks/Kings Game 3, NBC, 8PM
- Pacers/Heat Game 3, ESPN, 8:30PM
- Orphan Black, BBC America, 9PM
- Da Vinci’s Demons, Starz, 9PM
- In the Flesh, BBC America, 10PM
Sunday
- Monaco F1 GP, NBC, 7:30PM
- Indianapolis 500, ABC, 11AM
- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series @ Charlotte, Fox, 6PM
- Cardinals/Reds, ESPN, 8PM
- Canadiens/Rangers Game 4, NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- Spurs/Thunder, TNT, 8:30PM
- Believe, NBC, 9PM
- Nurse Jackie, Showtime, 9PM
- The Normal Heart, HBO, 9PM
- Turn, AMC, 9PM
- Californication, Showtime, 9:30PM
- Crisis, NBC, 10PM
- Mad Men (spring finale), AMC, 10PM
- Penny Dreadful, Showtime, 10PM
- Robot Chicken, Cartoon Network, 11:30PM
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Google’s new Chrome experiment lets you remix the Rubik’s Cube
Sure, you could spend a while trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube in Google’s new Doodle, but that may get a little dry. Google was clearly prepared for that eventuality, though: it has just launched the Cube Lab, a Chrome experiment that lets you build your own internet-based puzzle. So long as you’re good with modern web code, you can produce a unique Rubik’s Cube with its own artwork, effects and even logic. The 808 Cube is all about music-making, for instance. Even if you’re not a programmer, it’s worth checking out the ready-made Lab examples to have some fun. We just wish we’d had this when we were kids — it would have kept us playing with Rubik’s Cubes long after the original got buried in the closet.
Via: Chrome (Google+)
Source: Chrome Cube Lab
Gmail for Android can save attachments directly to Google Drive
Just because you want to save an email attachment on your phone doesn’t mean you always want a local copy. What if you’re running out of space? That won’t be an issue if you’re using the latest version of Gmail for Android; the newly updated app lets you save files to Google Drive, making it easy to fetch them later on most any Drive-friendly device. The upgrade also gets you to the navigation menu through a simple swipe gesture, and there’s both improved right-to-left language support (think Arabic or Hebrew) as well as explanations for why messages land in the spam folder. It may take a few days for the new app to hit your phone or tablet, but it should be worth your patience if you prefer to fetch important documents from the cloud.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Google
Source: Gmail (Google+), Google Play
Scientists make deep-brain implants possible through wireless charging
Stanford researchers have figured out a way to wirelessly charge electronic devices that are deep inside your body. Currently pacemakers and nerve transmitters need to have large receiving coils near the top of your skin to charge up (limiting where you can put them), or periodically have their battery replaced through surgery. This new method, however, would allow devices to be much smaller because they don’t have to tote around such a huge battery. Also since they’re not reliant on charging coils they could live much deeper in the body and brain.
More than just idea, researchers have already created a pacemaker smaller than a single grain of rice that you can charge by holding a small power source above it. While wireless charging isn’t anything new, the ability to send power deep below the skin safely is – and could mean big things for medicine. The availability of such tiny and easily-powered devices could mean that doctors could start prescribing electronics as treatments more often for diseases and chronic pain rather than drugs. Have frequent migraines? You might be able to ditch the Advil for an implant. The group has run a few trials on small animals, and plans to test-drive it on humans soon. However, we’re still a long way from actually using the implants. Assuming those tests are a success, the project has quite a few federal evaluations and hoops to jump through before the technology is readily available to the public.
[Image credit: Shutterstock]
Via: Re/code
Source: PNAS
Rdio is now streaming in nine more locales
Spotify isn’t the only music streaming service looking to blanket the globe. In fact, Rdio has surpassed its primary competition in that tally. The latter outfit is now available in 60 countries after it announced the additions of Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Slovakia And Slovenia. For reference, Spotify currently tallies 56 countires worldwide. “We’re thrilled to have been able to expand from two to 60 countries in less than four years, while also pairing this rapid growth with regular catalog increases reflective of the amazing and distinct music that impacts the culture of each country we serve,” said CEO Anthony Bay. Heck, Rdio even made a playlist to celebrate.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Source: Rdio (Facebook)
AllCast now streams your media to any Android device
Koushik Dutta’s AllCast app can stream media to seemingly any set-top box you might own, but it hasn’t let you stream to (most) Android devices. Today, though, that barrier has come down: Dutta has released AllCast Receiver, an app that turns any supporting Android gadget into a streaming target. You can now send video to a tablet for more for more comfortable viewing, for example, or mirror your screen to walk someone through an unfamiliar app. To top it off, AllCast itself has received an update that will stream Google Play Music to other hardware, provided you get root OS access on the host device first. Whether or not you’re willing to take that risk, you’ll definitely want to grab the newer apps if AllCast is your go-to content sharing tool.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, HD, Mobile
Via: Koushik Dutta (G+), Droid-Life
Source: Google Play (AllCast Receiver), (AllCast)
Researchers maximize your hybrid’s battery by learning your routine
Researchers have figured out a way to make your Prius even more efficient by tracking your route to work. Right now your car uses the battery until its power runs out and then starts dipping into your gasoline supply. It’s a solution that works, but isn’t the best use of power. Viktor Larsson from Chalmers University of Technology developed a system that analyzes that monotonous route you take to work (including that much-needed Starbucks detour), and then determines how to get the most out of your battery. For instance, your car might switch to gas on the highway where it’s more efficient and save your stored power for the stop-and-go traffic in the office park.
It’s a small tweak, but one that could reduce your car’s energy consumption by 10 percent. The technology will work on hybrid vehicles currently in production — it just needs access to the car’s computer to evaluate the route and communicate with the battery and engine. Larsson has been working on the technology with Volvo for the past year, and has already simulated and tested the system on-board its V60 Plug-in Hybrid. What’s more, there’s also the possibility of using a smartphone rather than a server to power the management system. Volvo seems like the obvious candidate to get this in cars first, but who knows when that might be.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Phys.org
GoPro files for an IPO to grow its media empire
Look, it was no surprise that GoPro has been planning to go public for a while now — it said as much back in February. Things are finally getting officially official, though: the company just filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, so you can expect to see the ticker symbol GPRO on NASDAQ in due course. There’s no shortage of financial types digging through the document as we type (bits to note: the company managed to turn a pretty profit last year, and it shipped a net total of nearly 4 million cameras in 2013), but the story is clear — GoPro is a big deal, and it’s going to get even bigger.
It’s (obviously) a big step for the company, and a big milestone for its CEO Nicholas Woodman too. You see, he cooked up the original GoPro concept when he needed something waterproof and capable to take with him while surfing. From there, he embarked on the arduous path of a hardware startup founder (his advice to those who would follow in his footsteps: bootstrapping is a powerful thing) and used cash from his family to fuel growth before locking up a big deal with Foxconn in 2012. GoPro, then, is a sort of startup Cinderella story, and Woodman’s the one with the glass slipper… err, action camera.
And how does a company like GoPro plan to stay ahead of the competition? By pushing new cameras and, more importantly, a brand to go with them. The company expects the amount of money it spends on research and development to balloon going forward, but it’s the cultivation of a sense of identity that’ll really make or break GoPro’s fortunes. After all, it’s not like any of the upstart competitors looking to eat GoPro’s lunch have access to the same Ambarella systems-on-chips that power the popular action cameras… oh wait. A certain chunk of people have already embraced the lifestyle GoPro espouses, but can the company grow that group? Will hardy action cameras ultimately be displaced by beefy smartphones? Will the oft-rumored Hero4 camera ever get here? These are all questions that Woodman and his crew need to answer, and we’re looking forward to seeing how they do.
Filed under: Cameras
Source: SEC
AIVAnet 