LAPD embraces the clean and silent electric motorcycle
If we were ever asked to ride an electric motorcycle, our first instinct would be to make NYEEEEAWWWW noises to compensate for the vehicle’s silent engine. That’s precisely why we’re not employed by the Los Angeles police department, which has just bought an electric motorcycle for stealth operations. The department has only ordered one of the vehicles so far, purely as a test of its potential, but given that it produces no emissions and can be charged for less than a dollar, shouldn’t displease the force’s bean-counters. Of course, the lack of a tailpipe also makes this ideal for activity within buildings, so expect police chases in the near future to be a lot more exciting than the average freeway dash.
Unfortunately for everyone else, the Zero MMX in question isn’t available on general sale, since it’s tailored for special forces units and police departments. That’s just as well, since it’s capable of fording rivers of depths up to three feet, goes from 0-to-60 in under five seconds and has a top speed of 88 miles per hour. In fact, this electric superbike only has one real flaw: it’ll only run for two hours before you need to plug it in again. Perhaps, if you’re planning to do a crime in Los Angeles, you should be to go get a full tank of gas before you begin.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Wired
Source: PRNewsWire
Path spins out dedicated messaging app that’ll let you text businesses too
Today, Path has joined the likes of Facebook by splintering off one of its most popular features — messaging — into its own app. Simply called Path Talk, the standalone messenger comes just a year after the introduction of private messaging into the social network. But that’s not all. In concert with Path Talk’s launch, the company has also announced the acquisition of TalkTo, a service that lets you text any local business like you would a person and get a response. And, you guessed it, one of the standout new features of Path Talk will include the ability to do exactly that.
But before we delve into that, let’s begin by explaining what Path Talk brings to the table. When Path started in 2010, its aim was to be a social network unlike any other. It was focused on close personal friends instead of just random acquaintances or high school classmates you hardly remember. It’s why the app initially restricted the friend list to just 50 people, to force you to be selective in what and to whom you share your life’s private moments. Since then, the niche network has evolved, loosening that restriction to 150 and most recently, it’s released that limit entirely. Now you can have as many friends on Path as you want, and it’s reporting as many as 4 million daily active users. As other social networks like Facebook and Twitter are gaining more traction, it seems it’s a good time as any to seek out new ways to grow.
“We feel that breaking out messaging into its own app was by far the best way to go about delivering it to users,” Dave Morin, CEO and co-founder of Path, tells us. Additionally, Path Talk is just the first of many apps the outfit plans on breaking out from its main offering. “We want to break Path up into multiple applications […] Our vision really is to be an application company.” Indeed, that’s why Path Talk and Path can be used independently. If you don’t want to use the Path app, but want to use Talk, you can do that.
When you first download Path Talk, you’re prompted to log in with your Path credentials. “Path is this umbrella, and you have these two apps under that,” explains Cynthia Samanian, a Path product manager. Indeed, Path Talk looks and feels a lot like the main Path app, and maintains a similar design language throughout.
If you’re already a Path user, the people list will have all your friends already on it. You can also give the app access to your address book, which will tell the app who among your contacts has a Path account, and those people will also be added. If your friends aren’t on Path, you’re able to add them by sending them a SMS invite to download the app.
Just like Snapchat and Slingshot, Path Talk messages are ephemeral — they expire after 24 hours. “Most conversations aren’t recorded and saved forever,” explains Cynthia Samanian, a Path product manager. “We’ve all opened up message threads only to find a conversation that happened two weeks ago and gotten confused,” says Morin. “Thinking about context is really important — we want you to have the best possible conversation you can have as soon as you enter a messaging thread with somebody.”
To that end, one of the key features of Path Talk is something called ambient status. It essentially lets your friends know a little something about you based on the data it gleans from your phone. When enabled, ambient status can display your location (along with weather, if applicable), whether you’re nearby, the name of the song you’re listening to, if you’re low on battery, if you’re working out or even if you’re in transit, say in a car or a bus. There’s a special ambient status tab that lists them all, or you can simply figure it out based on the icon or colored dot on the Friends or Messages tab.
“Most people start a messaging app thinking they need to start a conversation with someone for a reason,” says Samanian. “What this ambient status thing does is give some information about him or her beforehand, to act as kind of a conversation starter.” Morin says, for example, that different status types can lead to different interactions. If you see some friends are nearby, you can text them to meet up. A low battery status would indicate the person you’re texting is likely about to drop out. “How many times are you just about to tell someone you love them and then their phone dies?” asks Morin. “This makes sure that’s never a problem.”
Music sharing has always been a key feature of Path’s core app, and it’s the same with Talk. If you see a friend is listening to a song, you’re able to tap the music icon to see what he’s playing and get a short preview of the tune. The app will display the song that’s playing in the default Music app if you’re using iOS, but if you’re on Android, songs played on any app — say Rdio or Spotify — will show up. However, Morin says that might change with the arrival of iOS8 in the next few months.
If you happen to have all of these ambient status options turned on, Path Talk has a prioritization system that figures out which status to best display. For instance, a low battery status is probably more important than where you are or what music you’re rocking out to, so that’ll show up next to your name over all the other options.
As for actual messaging, it works much the same way it did on the Path app. With Talk, you’ll just have to tap the top to open a new conversation tab with either one or more people. Just as before, you’re able to incorporate stickers, photos, song embeds, voice messages and location pins mid-conversation. If you’re short on time, you can also choose to drop in a green check as a quick “Yes” response. If you hold down on the check, you’ll see three other options: an X to indicate “No,” a question mark as a sort of ping and a phone icon. When selected, it’ll drop a “Call me” link that opens up the phone dialer complete with the sender’s phone number.
Now, back to the acquisition of TalkTo. A three and a half year old service, it essentially lets you send a text to a phone number of a place instead of having to call it. So rather than calling up a restaurant to see if it has reservations or phoning Best Buy to find out if it has a particular item, you can just send a text message to the phone number via TalkTo. Acting as a broker, TalkTo will then figure out the best way to get that request across, either by email or sending an actual text to someone’s cell phone. If a place isn’t yet responding on their own, well, TalkTo actually has a call center with agents to make an actual phone call on your behalf.
“In every case that you’re asking the question, in the same way you text a friend, you’ll get a response,” says Stuart Levinson, CEO and co-founder of TalkTo. “This is the service — you’ll never have to worry about if it’ll work for this store or that. It’ll be ubiquitous.” This very feature will be added to Path later this summer, and it’ll be called Place Messaging.
“We really envision messaging as a hub for your life,” says Morin. “Not just friends and groups, but also businesses […] Having all of it in one central messaging hub is a very powerful idea.”
Aside from Path Talk, the company is also making a few interface changes to its main app. Obviously, the messaging function is now gone from Path — tapping on a message bubble will simply kick you over to Talk instead. The UI has improved as well, with a new tabbed navigation bar for quicker access to various sections and a new chooser that’s more intuitive.
Path Talk is available for Android and iOS, and should be ready to download from both app stores starting today.
Source: Path
What you need to know about 3D-printed organs
Sure, 3D printers that can spit out chocolates, create shoes, handcraft cars and help astronauts sound fun and magical, but a lot of scientists are working to make models that aren’t just fun. They’re developing 3D printers that can also save and change lives by printing out functional human organs. Think about it: If we can make organs on demand, patients don’t have to wait as long for transplanted organs. In the United States alone, 78,837 patients are waiting for organ donations (at the time of publication), but only 3,407 donations have been made since January 2014. Machines capable of creating functional human parts could significantly shorten — or nullify — that line. Sadly, we’re still at the early stages of the technology. As it turns out, printing working human organs is a lot more complex than printing out plastic toys.
WHAT IS IT?
Researchers have been looking into growing organs in labs for a long time, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that bio-printing was thrust into the limelight. It was all thanks to the scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who 3D-printed the synthetic building blocks they needed to grow human bladders. They didn’t print the actual bladders; it was only in the early 2000s that Clemson University bioengineer Thomas Boland started modifying ink-jet printers to dispense biological ink and make 3D objects.
In 2010, one of the first bio-printing companies was founded: Organovo. At the moment, Organovo’s printing out liver tissue samples used for drug testing and research. The company’s hoping to develop a functional liver in the near future. We’re getting close, but we’re not quite there yet.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Let’s get this straight: while there’s a huge gap in complexity between printing an organ and printing a typical plastic figurine, the processes are quite similar. The machines used for both have cartridges and nozzles that squirt out ink (biological ink, in this instance), layer-by-layer on a platform. But, they do have a few key differences:
- We know what most organs look like, but to be able to create them for individuals, scientists need to perform CT scans or MRIs on the patient. Then, they need to run the results through computer software to create a blueprint that’ll serve as their guide on how cells are positioned in each layer.
- Instead of PVC plastics or metals, bio-printers use human cells of whatever organ they’re making, along with binding agents to keep everything together. Aside from the actual organ’s cells, printers could also use stem cells, bioengineered materials (like a polymer called Alginate that was previously used to make aortic valve tissue) and other substitutes the human body won’t reject. For instance, in 2012, a 3D-printed titanium jaw was implanted into an 83-year-old woman, while a man in the US has been walking around with a 3D-printed plastic skull since 2013.
- Once a specimen is printed, it needs to go into the incubator so the cells can fuse and start working together like a real organ.
That last part is where the real issue lies, and is mostly the reason why we don’t have organ creation machines in hospitals worldwide yet.
WHAT’S THE HOLD UP?
According to Anthony Atala (who led the Wake Forest team that created those famous lab-grown bladders), it’s a combination of several issues. Prime among them those issues is finding materials that can be used to create body parts, and then getting them to grow adequately outside the body. Most of all, though, you can’t just stick an organ fresh from a 3D printer inside a patient. As we’ve mentioned, real organs are complex, and just because the printed cells fused together doesn’t mean they’ll work as intended. In the words of Cornell engineer Hod Lipson:
“You can put the cells of a heart tissue in the right place together, but where’s the start button? The magic happens after printing has taken place.”
Lipson also notes that there’s still no software powerful enough to make very detailed organ models that researchers can consult before printing.
Aside from difficulties making a 3D-printed organ’s cells behave like the real thing, scientists also find it hard to create blood vessels. Organs need arteries, veins and capillaries to pump blood through them and deliver the nutrients they need to stay alive, but these are long, thin, tubular and… hard to print.
Still, it’s not like nobody’s trying: just this June, a team from Brigham and Women’s University used sugar-based molecule agarose as blood vessel templates. Fraunhofer researchers have also been developing their own technique since 2011, and Harvard scientist Jennifer Lewis is looking into printing organs that already come with tiny spaces from the get-go for blood and nutrient flow.
THE FUTURE OF 3D-PRINTED ORGANS
Thus far, there’s been quite a number of semi-successful attempts at printing organs. We say semi-successful, because most of them aren’t functional, or they survive just a few days. Organovo, for instance, created a mini human liver that actually works — except it lasts only 40 days. A team from the University of Louisville, on the other hand, successfully printed heart valves and small veins in April, with hopes of making a functional heart using a patient’s cells in the future. Let’s not forget those Cornell bioengineers who crafted that faux ear (which works just fine, by the way) out of living cells and injectable gels.
According to Atala, though, roughly 90 percent of the patients in the organ waiting list are looking for kidneys. Maybe that kind of demand is what fueled a group of Chinese scientists to develop small, working printed kidneys, which unfortunately only stay alive for four months. Atala himself is looking for ways to make a kidney via 3D printing; he even showed off a non-working model on stage during his TED talk (seen below).
During that same presentation, the surgeon shared how the technology could mature. He spoke of a future where flatbed scanners could look at and assess a patient’s wounds and then go back up to print directly on the patient’s body. Before we get there, bio-printed tissues and organs are headed to labs and med schools, followed by perfect specimens that can be transplanted into the bodies of waiting patients soon after.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Watch this excellent TED talk from Anthony Atala, for starters:
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Mark Crawford wrote a piece about creating valve tissue with 3D printing that informed this piece, as Anthony Atala’s study (which is published here) did. And finally, CNN‘s got a relatively up-to-date piece right here.
AnTuTu benchmark leaks supposed Samsung Galaxy Note 4 specs including Snapdragon 805
It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the AnTuTu benchmark database because you never know what will turn up. The latest discovery from the depths of the database is what appears to be benchmarks from two different variants of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 4. With the release of the Galaxy S5 LTE-A earlier this week, we know that Samsung has Quad HD displays and the new Snapdragon 805 processor ready for use in its devices, and sure enough, at least one of these benchmarks come from a device with just that.
The other device also sports a Quad HD display, but instead has what will be Samsung’s new octacore Exynos 5433 processor; presumably, the different variants will be available in different regions and markets depending on the availability of LTE services. Along with those headlining specifications, the Note 4 looks like it will also have 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, will be running Android 4.4.3 (presumably at least Android 4.4.4 by release), and a 16MP rear camera paired with a 3.68MP front camera. The Note 4 is expected to make its annual appearance at IFA in September, however as with all leaks of this nature, it’s best taken with a grain of salt.
What do you think about these Samsung Galaxy Note 4 specs if they were real? Are you going to get the Note 4? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source: AnTuTu via Phone Arena
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Google adds new market availability for Play Books, Play Movies
Google this week expanded the number of countries offering its Play Books and Play Movies apps and services. The former picks up nearly a dozen new markets while the latter gets almost twice as many new areas. There are quite a few countries left for each property however we’re glad to see Google pushing forward with these. Below is a breakdown of the new markets.
Google Play Movies
- Albania
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Estonia
- Greece
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Lao People’s Democratic Republic
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Moldova
- Poland
- Slovakia
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
Google Play Books
- Bolivia
- Costa Rica
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Guatemala
- Honduras
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Uruguay
Click here for a full list of all of Google’s Play services and their respective availability.
The post Google adds new market availability for Play Books, Play Movies appeared first on AndroidGuys.
EE and Three will soon change the way you make calls and send texts
Mobile dead spots can be a right headache, whether you get them at home, at work or a place you visit often. Luckily, EE and Three may soon be able to help. Earlier today, the two operators confirmed they’re going to let customers make high-quality calls and send text messages, even when there’s only a WiFi connection available. The good news is that if you’re an EE customer, you won’t notice a thing, even though the company is exercising its technological prowess silently in the background.
It works like this: once you connect your smartphone to WiFi, EE immediately hands off communication from its voice network to the broadband provider. Incoming/outgoing calls or texts are then broken down into packet data and routed back to EE’s core network, completing the circuit. Because EE utilises tech (IP Multimedia Subsystem or IMS if you’re interested) already supported by many of the latest smartphones, calls are automatically encrypted and can’t be eavesdropped upon by a public WiFi provider. You won’t need to launch an app or tweak settings on your phone either, as calls can be made through the phone’s native dialler and will be deducted from your allowance accordingly.
Three, on the other hand, plans to do things a little differently. In “early August,” the operator will launch Three inTouch, which operates much in the same way as EE (offering calls and texts over a WiFi connection). However, like O2′s TU Go, Three’s service requires the use of an app.
EE also revealed that it’ll soon start enabling VoLTE services, expanding its high-definition voice service across its networks and extending coverage to rural areas that had previously been unconnected. In regards to its WiFi plans, EE tells us that it has already tested the service on a Samsung Note 3, which was enabled by a simple over-the-air firmware upgrade sent by the carrier. Ahead of its autumn launch, the provider says it intends to test “hundreds” of public WiFi services to ensure they are capable of delivering “high-quality” calls. If they are unable to, EE says it will simply not allow customers to use them.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Scientists may have worked out how to defeat antibiotic-resistant superbugs
It’s been known for a while that bacteria are rapidly becoming immune to the current range of antibiotics humanity has available. That’s why it’s harder to get hold of pills now than it was a few years ago, simply because if we don’t learn to get by without them, we’ll probably all die of some hideous mutated strain of MRSA in a few years’ time. Rather than simply developing new antibiotics to throw at the problem, however, a team of researchers from the University of East Anglia claims to have discovered a way to undermine a bacteria’s ability to develop drug-resistance in the first place — causing them to wither and die before it even becomes a problem.
It turns out that the reason bugs like Staphylococcus aureus are capable of resisting antibiotics is because they develop a lipid-based outer membrane. Essentially, a defensive wall surrounds the outside of the cell, preventing antibiotics from attacking the vulnerable parts inside. The team found that these walls are created by pushing building blocks (lipopolysaccharides) to the outside along a biological path. If that pathway is blocked, however, the cells begins to weaken, and eventually dies. What’s more, because the treatment weakens and disrupts the structure of the bacteria, the team hopes that the bacteria will not “be able to develop drug resistance” against it in the future. Then again, this breakthrough — if that’s really what it is — is still trapped within the confines of a lab in Norwich, England, so there’s a long way to go before immunologists can sit back and relax.
Update: Finer minds than ours have pointed out that, eventually, bacteria will be able to mutate a resistance to this in the same way they do against penicillin.
[Image Credit: UEA / Diamond Light Source]
Via: Motherboard
Quantum computing firm calls ‘bullshit’ as scientists undermine its technology
How do you evaluate a quantum computer you just bought from D-Wave for $15 million? It’s not easy, especially since no one can really understand how the machine — with its ones, zeros and superpositioned “one-and-zeros” — actually functions. Instead, all you can do is throw increasingly complex questions at it, and hope that it answers them quicker than a top-end classical computer. This quest for evidence of so-called “quantum speeedup” has been going on for a while, with little in the way of positive results. Now, a freshly-published collaborative study involving Google (owner of a D-Wave box), Microsoft (owner of some very advanced traditional tech), and a team of university scientists, has achieved new results that are equally disappointing. Science magazine describes the study as “the fairest comparison yet.” D:Wave’s founder, meanwhile, has described it as “total bullshit.”
The dispute partly arises over the choice of questions that were run through each type of machine. The latest study deliberately used questions that both computers could readily answer, and D-Wave claims that these were too simple. The company has also pointed out that it’s a “scrappy startup,” whereas the rival classical machine had the benefit of decades of research and trillions of dollars of investment, so it’s pretty remarkable that the quantum computer was even able to keep up. By contrast, the university-backed researchers say that their comparison was based on challenges that were tailored to be extremely easy for qubit-based processing, so there could and should have been evidence of speedup if quantum mechanics are truly being exploited.
It’s not clear where things will go from here. The study has a conclusive-sounding tone, as does one of its lead researchers, Matthias Troyer from the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Zurich, who simply says “we don’t see quantum speedup.” Then again, Troyer acknowledges that other sorts of tests may reveal the phenomenon “eventually.” Perhaps the onus is now on D-Wave to find some way to silence the skeptics, not just by keeping up with standard technology, but by surpassing it in a meaningful way. Whatever happens next, it sounds like relations between D-Wave and the scientific community are becoming fractured — and that sort of tension will either speed progress up, or slow it right down.
Via: Science (paywall)
Source: Microsoft Research [pdf], Wired
Super cheap Smart Home kit brings automation to the masses
If you’re wondering when home automation might tip into the Walmart-level mainstream, here’s a sign: Archos’ Smart Home starter kit is now on sale. Along with two cameras, two movement tags and two weather tags, they’re throwing in a controlling tablet, all for $250 — or $25 each for the cameras and sensors. Archos says they’re the first to use the Bluetooth Smart tech in connected homes and engineered it to work at double the normal distance (65 instead of 32 feet) and with up to 13 devices. That’ll permit it to take a photo when a movement-tagged door is opened, for instance, using its scenario editor and the Tasker Android app. Archos also has controllable plug sockets, alarm sirens, motion-detectors and even a pet tracker planned for the future. The kit should hit its online shop soon, but fair warning — Archos is known for low-priced, but not exactly high-end goods.
Filed under: Household
Source: Archos
Blumoo Entertainment System Controller and Bluetooth Streamer
How many times do you look around your home and see a huge pile of controllers lying around. One for your TV, one for the cable box, one for the audio receiver and who knows what else you may have. Many of these manufacturers claim to support multiple devices, but you always end up with something not being fully controlled, or not being able to program the multi remote in the first place. Blumoo is trying to get rid of these remotes and give you a single controller for all your devices. They are not only providing remote control, but also Bluetooth audio streaming in a single sleek little box.
There have been a few devices released that allow you to control your entertainment devices from your Bluetooth enabled smartphone and Blumoo, from Flyover Innovations Inc, is another attempt at ultimate home entertainment integration. The big question is; Does it do whats it’s supposed to do and does it do it well enough to warrant the price tag. Find out more in the full review on ThesavvyTechs.
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