Photographer uses drone to create military-style landscapes of America
Tomas van Houtryve is a photographer with an eye for reframing perspectives — particularly those we’re more used to seeing in modern conflict. The image above is taken from a 16-page photo essay featured in April’s Harper’s Magazine (incidentally, the magazine’s longest photo essay ever). Van Houtryve attached a camera to a small drone “bought on Amazon,” (he doesn’t specify which) and crossed America shooting above weddings, prayer gatherings and funerals — locations van Houtryve solemnly points out are frequent targets during foreign military drone attacks. The essay’s name — Blue Sky Days — was inspired by one such event. “I no longer love blue skies,” is the quote van Houtryve uses on the web page outlining the project. The words come from Zubair Rehman, whose mother was killed by a military drone attack in Pakistan in 2012. “In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”
Source: Tomas Van Houtryve, Harper’s (subscription required)
Windows Phone 8.1’s new apps let you make reading lists and bite-sized movies
The perks for Windows Phone 8.1′s early users just keep on coming. Microsoft has posted versions of two desktop Windows 8.1 apps, Movie Moments and Reading List, that are built solely for its new mobile OS. Reading List is arguably the bigger of the two releases — you can now save articles on your Windows Phone to digest them later on any synced device, whether it’s the handset or your PC at home. Like its full-size counterpart, the mobile app both highlights articles in its Live Tile and lets you pin favorite reading categories to your home screen.
Movie Moments is a tad more straightforward. The app lets you distill recorded videos down to minute-long clips with captions and your choice of soundtrack. After that, it’s just a matter of sharing the resulting masterpiece to Facebook or OneDrive. It’s doubtful that the tool will replace Instagram or Vine in your life, but it may be handy if you’d like to have a little more control over your short-form movie projects.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft
Windows will let you search your computer using everyday language
If you’ve ever searched a computer’s apps or settings, you know how frustrating it can be to guess the keywords you’ll need to get a result — why can’t you just say what you want and let the PC figure it out? Microsoft must have asked itself that same question, as it’s rolling out an update to Windows 8.1 that introduces natural language searches for common tasks. You only have to phrase your statement in a way that a human could understand to get useful links. Gripe that “my screen is too bright,” for example, and you’ll get a shortcut to the display settings. The new search feature won’t help you find everything you’d want, but it could save you precious time when it reaches Windows systems this week.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Microsoft
Source: Bing Search Blog
Nanowires three atoms wide could lead to paper-thin gadgets
What’s that odd shape, you ask? That’s the world’s thinnest nanowire — and it could be the key to a future wave of flexible devices. In blasting single-layered, semiconducting materials with an electron beam, Vanderbilt University student Junhao Lin has created wires that measure just three atoms wide while remaining strong and very bendy. Since there are already transistors and memory gates made out of the same material, Lin envisions circuits and whole devices that are paper-thin, yet can stand up to abuse; in the long run, he envisions rollable tablets and TVs that could fit in your pocket. The technique could help produce 3D circuitry, too. We’re still a long way from either of those becoming practical realities, but the discovery at least shows that they’re technically possible.
Filed under: Wearables, Science
Via: Computerworld
Pebble app updated, brings much needed performance improvements
A quick performance update to the Android’s Pebble app is beginning to push out today. It offers better in app load times and responsiveness, improved Bluetooth connectivity, and the ability to connect to a Pebble when there is no Internet connection.
We normally wouldn’t write about such a small update to an app, but if you’ve ever used the Pebble app store, you’d know that it’s like pulling teeth. For the few minutes we’ve used the updated app store, we haven’t seen the usual 30 second load times to view new watch faces, which is a big step in the right direction. This is a nice update, so go ahead and download it!
Here’s the full changelog to version 2.0.15:
- Improved overall stability
- Improved performance in app load times and responsiveness
- Improved Bluetooth connection reliability, especially for sports and fitness applications
- Support for selecting a Pebble from multiple paired Pebbles
- Ability to connect to a Pebble when there is no internet connection
- Added notifications for firmware updates (when app is foregrounded)
The post Pebble app updated, brings much needed performance improvements appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Google releases standalone apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides
Up until today, Google Drive would be the go-to app to find anything stored in the cloud. Editing documents has always been pretty difficult through the app, and that’s why Google has just released Google Docs and Google Sheets as standalone apps.
These work just like you would imagine. They’re the mobile-friendly version of desktop site, and neither of them are really sacrificing any functionality when it comes to the new apps. They even come with Offline Mode, much like we’ve seen in Google Drive.
Drive will also begin to prompt users to download the respective apps if they try to do any editing from Drive. So, to save yourself some trouble, get to downloading!
Google also note that a standalone Google Slides app is on its way.
Hit the download links below!
Source: Google Drive
The post Google releases standalone apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides appeared first on AndroidGuys.
AIVAnet 