Pebble update lets you pump up the jam from your wrist

The Pebble smartwatch nicely alerts you to most of your smartphone’s activities, but it’s pretty limited in controlling it — there are just a few functions, like music track skipping. A new 2.2 firmware update finally gives a much-requested feature, however: changing the volume of your phone’s music player. That, along with a new iOS-only track progress bar, will help you avoid reaching for your handset when you’re grooving while running or biking. You can finally rearrange apps directly on the watch too, and will get longer alarm sounds and some bug fixes. You can grab it by going to “support” in your smartphone app, then choosing “check for updates.” Apple users will first need to hit the App Store for an iOS update.

Filed under: Wearables

Comments

Source: Pebble

BBC to test 4K broadcasts of World Cup matches, but you can’t watch them

UHD TVs are starting to make more sense now compatible content’s slowly appearing. Traditional broadcasters can’t react as quickly as streaming services to adopt the new format, but some are showing little interest in being left behind. Korean companies, especially, and now the BBC, which has announced it’ll be conducting 4K broadcast trials this summer. Furthermore, it’ll apparently be the “first time” 4K video will be sent initially by satellite (from Brazil to the UK), and then forwarded on to TVs via the internet (kind of like Sky’s centralized receiver model).

The BBC will be using three World Cup matches filmed in 4K as its test footage, but don’t get your hopes up (even if you have a 4K TV), because the signal will only be accessible to a few of the Beeb’s R&D facilities. These tests aren’t just about getting a 4K signal from Brazil to the UK, and will also look at how the HEVC standard fares over satellite then IP, as well as how adaptive bitrate streaming can deliver high quality video at limited bandwidths. It’ll obviously help the BBC pursue UHD broadcasting in the future, but we can’t help but think the R&D team will be doing way more watching than working while the games are on.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

Comments

Source: BBC (1), (2)

These VR gloves will let you control Oculus and more for $350

With the sale of Oculus Rift to Facebook for $2 billion, virtual reality has officially become very interesting for developers. One of the companies trying to ride that wave is Control VR, which is ready to launch its gesture control gloves on Kickstarter. Though VR gloves have been around for a long time, so far they’ve been prototypes, DIY projects or very pricey devices used for surgery, robotics and other specialized fields. Control VR is aiming wider, however, with an early backer price of $350. It believes it can hit that number using DARPA-designed microsensors which detect small inertial changes in order to finely track your arms, hands and fingers. That’ll let you control virtual objects like game characters and 3D animations, or even physical devices like robots or military hardware.

The development kit will come with 20 free demo apps, and support Windows, Android and Mac operating systems. In addition, the team will supply an open-source SDK to create software for the Oculus Rift, Google Glass and even the Parrot AR drone. As with Oculus, Control VR is targeting consumers as much as it’s targeting businesses. Potential uses include 3D motion capture (including the difficult-to-animate fingers), music composition, design, a control interface for Google Glass and Oculus Rift, a controller for games and apps like Google Earth, and even a drone control interface.

While all of this sounds pretty ambitious, the company believes there’s no similar tech that’s close to the same state of readiness. As such, they’re seeking $250,000 when Control VR launches today on Kickstarter at 12:30 PM ET (that’s the same sum Oculus originally sought, by the way). A $350 pledge will get you on the early backer’s list and net you a one-arm system with a 7-sensor glove, a one-sensor chest piece, an arm sensor, 20 app demos and the SDK. $699 will get you a two-arm system. If you’re among the first 1,000 backers of either package, Control VR says you’ll receive it sometime in December of this year, while later backers will receive theirs in January 2015. You can make your pledge when the Kickstarter page goes live at 12:30 PM ET — at which point you’ll get all the info and a more detailed video.

Filed under: Wearables

Comments

UK plans to lock up cyberattackers for life

The Queen’s speech is that moment when the government asks an 88-year-old to read out its legislative agenda for the forthcoming year. This time out, Her Majesty has got hackers in her royal sights, with harsh punishments promised for anyone caught messing around in someone else’s code. Life sentences will be handed out for cyber attackers who steal industrial secrets, cause death, injury or compromise national security. Unfortunately, the broadly written law also suggests that scanning for vulnerabilities would be treated with similar scorn, which has gotten some security analysts hot under the collar. Governments implementing laws about technology without asking some experts first? Color us surprised.

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Source: The Guardian

Telescopes spot an explosion that took place just after the Big Bang

Space is vast. So vast, in fact, that if a sun exploded shortly after the Big Bang, the light from the fire would have only brushed the Earth’s surface in the last few months. One such gamma-ray burst, believed to be 12.1 billion years old, was detected by Southern Methodist University in Dallas on April 19th. Since astronomers don’t know much about the shape or structure of the early universe, data from the burst will be trawled in order to glean more facts about where we all came from. In many ways, it’s a bit like getting a telegram from a long-deceased relative about buried treasure, except it’s nothing like that.

[Image credit: Southern Methodist University]

Filed under: Science

Comments

Via: Science Daily

Source: SMU