Court tosses lawsuit that sought gadget ban during takeoff and landing
Next time you absolutely need to be on the phone while your plane’s landing or taking off, make sure to give a silent thanks to the United States Court of Appeals. A Washington DC appeal court has thrown out a lawsuit challenging the FAA’s 2013 decision to allow passengers to use gadgets during all phases of flight. That lawsuit was filed in 2014 by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which accused the FAA of failing to follow standard procedure before issuing its ruling. The union complained that passengers now barely pay attention to pre-flight safety demos, because they’re glued to their gadgets. It also argued that electronic devices could become projectiles during turbulence.
Unfortunately for the union, the court has determined that the FAA has the authority to change its rules, including those for electronics on planes, when it wants to. As you can see in the court documents obtained by Ars Technica, the court has dismissed the case as such:
…because the [FAA’s rule change] does not determine any rights or obligations, or produce legal consequences, it does not reflect “final action” by the FAA. Therefore, this court has no jurisdiction to consider AFA’s challenge…
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Ars Technica, Court ruling (PDF)
OPPO R7 and R7 Plus revealed in new TV ad
In China this weekend, OPPO started the official marketing of two new devices scheduled to be announced on May 20th. The OPPO R7 and the OPPO R7+ took centerstage on Chinese television when a couple ads for the devices started airing.
According to the Chinese Anzhou site, the OPPO R7 is the successor to the OPPO R5 and will come with a 5-inch 1080p HD screen, 3 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. The device is expected to only be 4.7mm thick, making it one of the thinner smartphones that will be available on the market. At present, it appears the OPPO R7 will come with a retail price of 2,999 yuan ($483 USD).
The R7 Plus is a larger version of the device with a 5.5-inch screen and a built-in fingerprint sensor on its back. For the OPPO R7 Plus, OPPO is not only giving it a large screen, it will get the company’s 2.5D technology that curves the edges of the screen creating the illusion that no bezels are present.
http://player.youku.com/embed/XOTUxMzcwMjY0
Come comment on this article: OPPO R7 and R7 Plus revealed in new TV ad
Rhino Slider Evo is a modular camera motion tool
We don’t cover a ton of pro-level camera gear here at Engadget (though it’s far from unheard of). But, a cool gadget is a cool gadget whatever it’s for — and this new motorized slider system from Rhino is one of them. For the uninitiated, sliders are what allow videographers and photographers to get those smooth, gliding shots. As for Rhino, they came to my attention through their GoPro accessories — in particular the 360 swivel mount which is about the most fun way to wear your action camera. While camera gear can get pretty expensive (and complex) very quickly, my experience with Rhino’s GoPro kit has been that is sits right in the “prosumer” sweet spot, so when I heard the company was making a motorized slider, I was particularly keen to try it out. The Rhino Slider Evo is currently launching on Kickstarter (it’s fully funded already), but I managed to get some time with a pre-production unit to test it out.
This isn’t Rhino’s first Kickstarter, and the working unit I tested shows that all the design and development heavy lifting has been done already. The system itself is modular depending on your needs (more on this later), and the price is $1000 for the basic slider plus the motion control system. This isn’t pocket money, but if you’ve looked at similar options from the likes of Kessler, you’ll know this is where things start for something solid.
The model I tried is the 24-inch carbon-rail version. I already have one of Rhino’s regular/non-motorized sliders, and am a big fan. You might prefer metal rails (this is an option too), but for me, the added ruggedness of the carbon fiber is actually a bonus. I strap my current slider to the outside of my backpack when I head out without a worry. Perhaps not something you want to do with the Evo though, as the motion system throws in a few more delicate parts (like a rubber belt), but all that to say, the carbon fiber rails are great for outdoor use.
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My biggest frustration with all manual sliders though, is that I kinda suck at keeping a steady hand. It’s something you have to practise, so that you get a perfectly smooth motion, but I struggle. Also, more advanced moves like starting fast then slowing down, or vice versa, are difficult (for me, at least). Oh, and if you want to do those time lapses that include a bit of gliding motion? That’s pretty much impossible with a manual slider too. The Evo is hardly the first one with motion control (a motor to move the camera), but it definitely solves all the above problems, along with some other neat tricks.
The basic slider is good to go out of the box. It has a brake, and adjustable feet for uneven surfaces. Just put your camera on top and you’re sliding. The motion control part isn’t much more complex. There’s a motor that clips on one end, and a controller unit that plugs into that (the controller’s also magnetic, so it can stick to the motor). And that’s it for setting up. The magic is in the controller itself. There’s a decent size display, a large, clickable dial and a simple UI that lets you select different modes for video or time lapses. The basic controls include distance, duration and any “ramp” in or out speed for a custom slide. I had a motorized slide going in about three minutes after opening the box. The first thing I noticed? It’s surprisingly quiet.
Perhaps the features that interest me most, are the ones I likely actually need the least. Example: you can accessorize the Evo with a “parallax” mount that will rotate the camera on an axis as it slides, or skip the motor completely, and use an optional “inertia” wheel for judder-free slides that require no power at all. This is a great compromise for me, as I love the power-free convenience of a manual slide, but the smoothness that the wheel provides. Battery life isn’t too much of a concern though, in an afternoon of testing, (and plenty of slides) there was still well over 50-percent remaining. If, like me, you don’t really need the extras, the basic kit has everything you’ll need, plus easily updatable firmware means new features could come at a later date. You can also make the slider longer just by slotting in more poles. There’s a lot of flexibility here.
I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a motorized slider pretty much since I first tried a manual one. I just love the smooth results that a motor provides, and I’m a sucker for moving time lapses. If your camera is compatible, Rhino’s controller can trigger your shutter, too, which is especially handy for night time lapses, as it only takes a picture when it’s not moving (so avoids blurring).
The Evo’s biggest selling points for me are how easy it is to use, and that it’s pretty rugged. The option to be able to upgrade it with other accessories (and to some degree, it’s also backward compatible with previous models) is also an indicator that you might get more life out of it than you expect. A thousand bucks is certainly a chunk of cash for the initial investment, but if you’re teetering on the edge of doing professional work, or already earning a living from you camera, these numbers shouldn’t be daunting. Rhino Slider Evo is planned to ship by August.
Filed under: Cameras
Source: Kickstarter
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Concept kitchens and Google’s crabots
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Hardly a week passes when Tesla doesn’t make the news, and this past week the company had two big announcements that are getting people all riled up. First, Tesla is planning to debut a $35,000 electric car in March 2016 that will begin production in 2017. CEO Elon Musk also just announced that barely a week after the Powerwall home battery was unveiled, they’re already sold out through 2016, and the company will have to expand its factory capabilities to meet the insane demand for batteries.
In other green transportation developments, the Solar Impulse airplane is about to embark on a five-day flight across the Pacific Ocean, beginning in China and ending in Hawaii. We also took a sneak peek at New York City’s train station of the future as Santiago Calatrava’s epic Oculus World Trade Center Transportation Hub opened for the first time.
NASA’s Earth Science program is the gold standard for studying our planet, providing valuable data on the climate collected from orbiting satellites. But House Republicans are pushing a bill that would slash funding to the program by up to $500 million. If we’re going to slow climate change, renewable energy is going to play a key role. Last week, Bill Clinton toured a Solar Sister site in Tanzania, which is providing microfinancing to women to help them sell solar-powered lanterns and cookstoves. And the next generation of wind turbines may not have blades at all. The Vortex looks like a gigantic straw, and it oscillates in the wind to generate energy without harming birds and bats.
Refrigerators are such a fixture in kitchens across the world, it’s hard to imagine life without them — but that’s exactly what IKEA is doing. In its Concept Kitchen 2025, IKEA suggested that a decade from now, the fridge could be replaced by a “modern pantry” that uses smart tech to keep fruits and veggies cool. And more than 200 leading scientists have confirmed what many already suspected: Nonstick pans are bad for us. The chemicals used in nonstick pans have been connected to liver toxicity and immune and endocrine disorders. We kicked off New York Design Week by reporting live from BKLYN Designs, where designers showcased the future of low-energy lighting. Urban Chandy gave energy-sucking incandescents a run for their money by launching a line of Edison bulb-inspired LED fixtures, and Dyad wowed us with its ultra-modern LED light tubes.
Google is planning to expand its Silicon Valley headquarters, and new documents reveal that the tech giant plans to use crab-shaped robots, or “crabots,” to construct the new buildings. Regardless of how Google plans to build the project, it sounds like the company will have to scale back its ambitions. Mountain View’s city council has granted the company just a fraction of the land it originally requested. In other architecture news, the 2015 Milan World Expo just kicked off, and it’s a showcase of architectural innovations with an emphasis the future of sustainable agriculture. The American Food 2.0 pavilion features a 7,200-square-foot vertical farm, which is packed with 42 varieties of veggies, grains and herbs. The Republic of Belarus built a building that’s shaped like a grassy hillside with a large wooden wheel situated above it to symbolize the importance of biodiversity. The Austrian pavilion is a multi-sensory experience featuring a small urban forest that produces enough oxygen for 1,800 people in just an hour. The Vanke Pavilion, which was designed by Daniel Libeskind, is clad in red tiles that suck pollution from the air.
Filed under: Misc, Transportation, Science
CHIP is a $9 Raspberry Pi killer
The Raspberry Pi was definitely a game changer when it hit shelves at only $35. But CHIP is hoping to make the Pi look positively pricey by comparison. The Kickstarter campaign has already blown way past its $50,000 goal. In fact, at the time of this writing its approaching $500,000. Like the Pi, CHIP is a fully functional computer. The tiny board is home to a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage, all of which power a full-fledged (if light-weight) Linux desktop. Even more impressive is that there’s both WiFi and Bluetooth on board. It’s mostly aimed at tinkerers and DIYers, hence the I/O pins waiting for your attention, but you could certainly use it as an inexpensive general purpose computer… so long as you’re not particularly demanding.
Now, to be fair, if you want a VGA adaptor or HDMI adaptor you’ll have to shell out a little more ($19 and $24 respectively), but you could hook it up to most TVs with the built-in composite video port. The $50 PocketCHIP, however, is truly impressive. It’s the same versatile board, but it comes with a case that’s home to a battery, a keyboard and 4.3-inch touchscreen. Yes, your smartphone is definitely more powerful, but for $50, this is incredibly impressive for something no bigger than an OG GameBoy.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer/widget/video.html
Filed under: Misc
Via: TechCrunch
Source: CHIP (Kickstarter)
Rumour: 3rd Gen Moto X to come with 16MP camera and OIS
It’s early days yet, but we are beginning to see some interesting factoids about the rumoured Moto X 3rd Gen appear. A couple of days ago it was leaked that the next model of the Moto X series will sport a Snapdragon 808 processor (ala the LG G4) as well as a higher resolution display (1440 x 2560), and now we have news that it will carry a 16MP camera module .
On top of the bump in megapixels, the camera will also come with Clear Pixel technology as well as optical image stabilisation (OIS). Besides being able to record in slow motion, it will also support 4K video capture. While 1080p can be recorded in 120FPS. If that isn’t enough, the Moto X 3rd Gen should manage to record 720p video in an amazing 240FPS. Naturally, this is a leak, so it can’t be taken as gospel that the camera specifications here will be the same when the handset is officially announced by Motorola, which is expected to be in September. Just another 4 months or so to go though and I’m sure there will be many more rumours and leaks before the official unveiling.
Source: STJS Gadgets
Via: PhoneArena
Come comment on this article: Rumour: 3rd Gen Moto X to come with 16MP camera and OIS
MetroPCS shuts off its old phone network on June 21st
You’d better move quickly if you’re holding on to an older MetroPCS cellphone. The T-Mobile-owned carrier has posted a Frequently Asked Questions warning that its outgoing CDMA network will effectively shut off on June 21st. Any legacy phones are “not guaranteed” to work after that, the contract-free network says. It’s no secret that the end was nigh given that MetroPCS began winding down CDMA last year. However, we won’t blame you if this early transition is catching you off-guard. T-Mobile only said it was turning off MetroPCS’ old network sometime in the second half of the year — it’s clearly eager to conduct some spring cleaning, even if it means asking people to upgrade sooner than expected.
[Image credit: Jim Carroll, Flickr]
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile
Via: FierceWireless, Android Central
Source: MetroPCS
Google adds pre-registration and alerts for Android apps
Starting with Glu’s Terminator Genisys: Revolution mobile game, you can now pre-register for apps from the Play store. Now if a developer wants to drum up some interest before an app release, they can stick a placeholder page in the store where users can sign up and receive an alert on their phone when the app is actually released. This is obviously handy for users, but it can also help devs gauge interest in their apps before they’re released.
Filed under: Software, Mobile, Google
Via: Android and Me
LG G4 International Giveaway!
Welcome to the Sunday Giveaway, the place where we giveaway a new Android phone or tablet each and every Sunday.
A big congratulations to last week’s winner of the Galaxy S6 Edge giveaway, Ko D., from UK.
This week we are giving away the new LG G4!
LG’s G4 hits the sweet spot for a lot of potential people with its arguably best in class camera quality, Quantum 2k display, removable battery, microSD support and its interchangeable back. It earned our Editor’s Choice award, and is one of the best smartphones of 2015.
- Mini version of LG G4 coming, reportedly called the G4c
- LG G4 Review: a phone that attempts to do everything
- LG G4 trial program coming to the US, lucky participants will receive a free LG G4
- Sorry Samsung: The LG G4 better fits what I’m looking for (opinion)
- LG G4 – Camera Focus
- LG G4 Color Comparison
- LG G4 vs HTC One M9 Quick Look
- LG G4 – Top Features
- LG G4 vs Apple iPhone 6 Plus Quick Look
Join Now!
LG G4 International Giveaway!
You might like: Beats PowerBeats 2 giveaway at Sound Guys
Terms & Conditions
- The giveaway is an international giveaway (Except when we can not ship to your Country.)
- If we can not ship to your country, you will be compensated with an online gift card of equal MSRP value to the prize.
- We are not responsible for lost shipments.
- You must be age of majority in your Country of residence.
- We are not responsible for any duties, import taxes that you may incur.
- Only 1 entry per person, do not enter multiple email addresses. We will verify all winners and if we detect multiple email addresses by the same person you will not be eligible to win.
- We reserve all rights to make any changes to this giveaway.
- The prize will ship when it is available to purchase.
Full terms & conditions and FAQ | Past giveaway winners [Gallery]
Good luck, everyone!
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Bright House Networks and Charter deal looking less likely
According to Reuters Bright House Networks may look to kill its impeding merger with Charter Communications. After pressure from regulators put an end to Comcast’s effort to purchase Time Warner Cable, rumors started circulating that Charter wanted to resurrect its bid for the beleaguered company. Comcast backing out of the TWC deal triggered a clause in the Bright House / Charter agreement that would allow the two to renegotiate the terms of their merger. The 30 day window for the renewed contract talks ends in roughly two weeks, and sources have suggested that Bright House may want to put the kibosh on the acquisition. According to the Reuters report, Bright House appears to have decided that its in the company’s best interest to remain independent. Part of that decision is likely fueled by an existing agreement with Time Warner, where the larger provider negotiates programing rates for Bright House and shares its technology with it. A merger with Charter would kill the existing arrangement and weaken its negotiating position.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Reuters
AIVAnet 