The Big Picture: Mix precision drinks with this delightful CAD drawing
Being the bartender sounds fun, until you realize you have to crack a cocktail recipe book. Engineering to the rescue! This drawing — originally used to test plotters — was converted into an AutoCAD file by Florian Römhild, who later colorized it. You can see it contains all the info needed to mix classic drinks — the volume of each ingredient (with a handy key), type of glass, garnish and whether to shake or stir. It also lets wannabe drink-slingers visualize each libation at a glance. The best part? You can stick it up on your bar for reference and a touch of geek chic. For a PDF version, hit the source.
[Image credit: Florian Römhild]
Filed under: Misc
Via: Fast Company
Source: Florian Romhild
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GitHub’s free student bundle gets you started on writing code
It’s harder to score student discounts on programming tools now that many of them are subscription services, but GitHub has just launched a bundle that could make it far less expensive to get cracking. Its new Student Developer Pack gives you free access to the kind of tools you’d typically need to get a serious coding project off the ground, including the Unreal game engine, cloud hosting and GitHub’s own code repository service. How much you get for free varies. Some partners simply offer credit, while others will give you a subscription — in a few cases, for as long as you’re still a student. The hope is that you’ll like the tools enough to pay for them later, of course, but it’s hard to knock an offer that leaves you with fewer school-related bills.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Via: TechCrunch
Source: GitHub Education, GitHub Blog
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Apple’s Ultra-Slim 12-Inch Notebook Reportedly Entering Production in Small Quantities
Quanta Computer has begun production on Apple’s ultra-slim 12-inch MacBook and will look to ramp up its efforts beginning November, reports Digitimes. Despite these newest efforts however, the report also states that the notebook will not be ready in time for this holiday season.
Since initial production of 12-inch MacBook Air has not yet reached a satisfactory yield rate, component makers and Quanta are making efforts to hike yield rates for the time being, the sources said. As initial production is in limited volumes, 12-inch MacBook Air may not be able to hit the store shelves in time for Christmas, the sources indicated.
Specifically, component makers are reportedly having issues with the new MacBook Air’s ultrathin chassis, which is said to be slimmer than the current 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air. The supply chain sources also add that the 12-inch MacBook Air will come with a touch-enabled Retina display.
Rumors of an ultra-slim 12-inch MacBook from Apple have gained traction throughout the past few months, as reports from Jack March last month indicated that the notebook would launch in multiple color options and feature fanless internals. A fanless machine would also suggest that the machine would adopt an ultra low-power processor, such as the Broadwell-Y Core M processors recently announced by Intel.
However, a touch-enabled Retina display seems less likely for the 12-inch MacBook, as the inclusion of one would greatly increase the cost of the machine. A multi-touch 12-inch MacBook would also likely conflict with Apple’s rumored 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which is said to be launching early next year.
March’s report previously indicated Apple appears to be aiming for a mid-2015 launch for its 12-inch notebook. The notebook will reportedly come in silver, gold, and space gray options.
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HTC exec Mike Woodward leaves ahead of a big unveiling and jumps to Amazon
Just a couple of years ago, Mike Woodward left a position as AT&T’s phone portfolio VP to join HTC, and now Bloomberg reports he’s moving on again, to Amazon. At HTC, he was President of the North American division and President of Global Emerging Devices, which would have put him in charge of products like the action camera we’re expecting to see HTC reveal tomorrow. The timing makes this move even more interesting, and he confirmed to Bloomberg that it occurred within the last month or so. Beyond the frequent executive shuffling we’ve seen from HTC over the last few months and years, rumors just last month pinned AT&T as the complication that prevented HTC from building a phone for Amazon.
It’s not clear what Woodward will be working on at Amazon, but it seems unlikely for the company to just give up after the Fire Phone’s disappointing launch earlier this year. It also wouldn’t be surprising if the retailer is considering own-brand wearables and/or cameras to go along with all of the other devices it’s now selling, but for now we’ll be keeping our eyes firmly on HTC. The “Double Exposure” event should kick off around 4PM — we’ll be covering it live and you can expect a video stream on YouTube here.
Tomorrow, we’re focusing on the future. Join us for the announcements at http://t.co/QeL9kwowKs #HTCLive http://t.co/nQZn330xK9
– HTC (@htc) October 8, 2014
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC, Amazon
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The BBC can now tell you when your favourite artists are playing live
While Songkick’s live event listings are already featured in some of the most popular music services on the planet, none are as illustrious as the BBC. To help the Beeb with the giant task of cataloging and listing every artist that appears on one of its TV or radio programmes, Songkick has been brought in to do what it does best: supply BBC Music’s new performer pages with every upcoming concert across the UK. The good news is that the startup doesn’t just catalog A-list events, meaning you’ll be able to follow upcoming artists as they perform their first gigs. To access the BBC’s new Songkick-powered concert listings, head on over to the new BBC Music and simply select the artist you want to see (or just download the official Songkick app).
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet
Via: Songkick Blog
Source: BBC Music
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Plastc wants to be the only credit card you’ll ever need
There’s plastic, and then there’s Plastc — an electronic card, which its manufacturers claim can store several credit/gift/loyalty card details and assume the form of each one. The device pairs up with an app via low-energy Bluetooth, which serves as unlimited storage for all your cards (Plastc itself can only store up to 20) and can also show your transaction history. Does this sound so familiar that it feels like reading old news? That’s because you’re probably recalling a similar device called Coin launched back in 2013.Just like Plastc, it can store various card details that you can switch up, depending on which one you want to use. The bad news is that Coin, which promised to ship the first units this year, moved its ETA to spring 2015 (though there’s a beta test going on), something pre-order customers obviously weren’t happy with. So, one has to wonder if an unknown company will be able to do what Coin couldn’t and release such an ambitious product on time.
See, in addition to being able to switch up card details through the e-ink touchscreen panel, Plastc can also show loyalty or gift cards’ barcodes and remotely wipe your data in case it gets lost or stolen. The panel displays your name, picture and signature along with your card number as a form of identification, and it even flashes a message to return the card back to you if you lose it. Its accompanying app, on the other hand, is supposed to come with a security pin and facial authentication.
If both Plastc and Coin do make it to market, though, the former might have the upper hand, as it’ll come embedded with a computer chip that makes it difficult to clone. The US will start encouraging retailers to only accept cards with those chips by 2015, making Coin obsolete almost as soon as it’s out. Plastc’s now available for pre-order from its website for $155 each — $55 more expensive than the $100 Coin — and might be out as soon as the summer of 2015.
Source: Plastc
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Kinect for Windows can track individual finger movements
Microsoft’s new Kinect sensor is a lot of things, but absurdly accurate isn’t one of them. To that end, Redmond’ Research division is showing off some recent advancements its made with Handpose — a way to fully track finger movement with its do-all gizmo in a variety of conditions. The video we’ve embedded below shows off the $150 PC peripheral analyzing and capturing intricate finger and hand movements seemingly pretty easily both from close-range and further back. Changes in lighting don’t affect the fidelity either, as the tracking is all performed by the Kinect’s depth sensor, not its camera. As Kotaku notes, however, this looks very much like something that’ll be used for applications outside of gaming, rather than as a boost for your Dance Central skills. We’d like to imagine that its extra accuracy would probably come in handy in the operating room.
Filed under: Desktops, Cameras, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Peripherals, HD, Microsoft
Via: Kotaku
Source: Microsoft Research (YouTube)
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New Apple Pay Setup Screens Unearthed in iOS 8.1 Beta 2
Hours after Apple seeded the second iOS 8.1 beta to developers, developer Hamza Sood has located the Apple Pay setup screen in the Passbook app, the Apple Pay setup screen in the initial iOS 8.1 setup and Apple Pay setup on the iPad. Previously, Sood had found the Apple Pay setup screen within the Settings app.
The setup prompt within Passbook is similar to the setup prompt to add passes, educating potential users on what the service is before providing a link to where users can input and scan their credit cards for use. Potential users have the choice to either input their credit card numbers via the keyboard or to take a photo of their card and have it inputted automatically.
The iPad gets the same setup screen as the iPhone version, but does not mention the ability to use Apple Pay in a retail store as no current iPads contain the NFC technology required to use the feature and it is uncertain whether it could be included in future iPads.
iOS 8.1 is likely to be the update to include Apple Pay, although Apple has not yet flipped the switch within the betas seeded to developers. Instead, the company seems to have been preparing the features behind-the-scenes. Alongside Apple Pay, iOS 8.1 is expected to include a host of bug fixes for issues in iOS 8, including a fix for Bluetooth connectivity problems.
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Warner Bros is building a holographic Batcave for the Oculus Rift
Like comic books? Then you’re probably familiar with the style of Bruce Timm, the father of the DC animated universe — a specific era (and style) of DC Comics animation projects that started with the 1992 Batman: The Animated Series. If you missed it, it was a fantastic series: Batman had an incredible voice, Robin didn’t deal in cheesy catch phrases and Mark Hamill was the Joker. Seriously. Now, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment is bringing Timm’s vision of Batman back as an interactive holographic video designed for virtual reality displays: they’re building an animated Batcave for the Oculus Rift.
Although Warner Bros’ announcement focuses largely on the Batcave experience, the announcement is more than your run-of-the-mill VR demo – it’s a testing ground for OTOY’s holographic video technology. The technology was announced at SIGGRAPH earlier this year as a next-generation entertainment solution. The format is designed to allow 3D rendered spaces with dynamic lighting to be streamed through the internet, loaded on local machines or viewed through HTML5-capable web browsers. Particularly large demos will leverage cloud processing, too. It’s still early for the technology, but the company hopes that it will be ready for the mass market in 2015, after there are more commercial VR headsets available to consumers.
In any case, the group is hard at work at recreating the Batcave, circa 1992 — and has apparently conscripted Timm to ensure that every detail of the dark knight’s underground lair is accurate to his original vision. Warner Bros. hasn’t announced when the Batcave will be open for tours, but it should be available to users of the Oculus Rift and Samsung GALAXY VR. It’s too early to say if OTOY’s vision for holographic video will be a long term success, but at least its first commercial project sounds like fun.
Filed under: Misc
Source: OTOY
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San Francisco creates a new legal framework for Airbnb-style home rentals
If you’re wondering how many cities will eventually grapple with the legal issues surrounding Airbnb and other internet-based home rentals, you may not have to look much further than San Francisco. Its Board of Supervisors has passed a law that lets these services run, but regulates them to both prevent abuse and give the municipality its due. Hosts not only have to limit whole-home rentals to 90 days per year, but register with the city’s Planning Department (which costs $50), pay hotel tax and keep records that prove they’re respecting the time restriction. There should also be companion legislation in the future that prevents landlords from evicting tenants to turn their buildings into makeshift hotels. If implemented, it’ll let housing non-profits sue to stop these turnovers rather than wait for officials to respond.
Airbnb is fine with the new rules, and it will start collecting the hotel tax this month. The new regulation won’t satisfy everyone; no matter how well it prevents excessively long rentals and evictions, it won’t do much to protect neighbors from shady guests. However, it suggests that local governments can strike a reasonably happy balance between controlling rental rates and letting tenants earn some cash while they’re not using their homes.
Filed under: Household, Internet
Source: SFGate
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AIVAnet 