Virginia opens up 70 miles of highway for driverless car testing

Google and other companies developing self-driving vehicles now have another state to consider for public road testing: Virginia. It has earmarked 70 miles of highway in the northern part of the state — now called the “Virginia Automated Corridors” — for the project, which will be overseen by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Any car slated for testing in the Mother of States must first undergo an initial trial on the institute’s smart roads before they’re unleashed in public. VTTI director Myra Blanco told Richmond Times-Dispatch that the state will make the process easier for interested parties compared to other states. But if the car does pass the trial, it will still have to be manned by a driver during the actual tests, just in case the vehicle’s system malfunctions.

The institute will provide license plates and insurance for any approved vehicle, while the Virginia Department of Transportation could be in charge of keeping lane markings visible for them. In addition, Nokia’s HERE maps division is developing 3D mapping tech for the test roads, which will feed real-time info to the self-driving car and give them a way to recognize their lane position. Blanco believes the first self-driving cars to undergo public road testing in Virginia will arrive within a year, though it’s unclear at this point which companies are showing internet. It’s worth noting that the Old Dominion serves as home to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, though, which makes it ideal for any corporation wanting to collaborate with either of them.

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: 9to5google

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch

Tumblr replaces ‘Ignore’ with a more robust ‘Block’ feature

Tumblr has made it easier to keep trolls out of your account. The feature has been renamed “Block” — “A proper, muscular name,” the Yahoo-owned company said — and it’s accessible from several locations on the website. To shake off haters and weirdos, you can click on their avatar on your dashboard to load a right-hand side menu, where you can find block under the human-shaped icon. If you want to hit someone with the banhammer straight from your Inbox, you can also do so: just click the big X on mobile or find block under the ellipsis’ drown-down menu. Finally, you can go to your settings page and manually enter the user you want to keep out.

Anyone you block won’t be able to see your posts on their dashboard anymore, and vice versa — plus, they can’t send you PMs or Asks, or Like and reblog your posts. Your account also won’t show up in their search results. However, they can still see your blog if it’s public, so consider setting everything to private if you seriously want to hide your activities from someone. Since they won’t be blocked from your other blogs if you have more than one, prepare to repeat the process if necessary. The Block feature works even on anonymous users’ IP addresses (just ban them straight from your inbox), but note that you won’t be able to unblock them later on.

[Image credit: Shotgun Spratling/Neon Tommy/Flickr]

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Tumblr (1), (2)

Another Galaxy S6 Active press render leaks, this time with a black and dark grey color scheme

The Samsung Galaxy Active line of devices aren’t for everyone, but those that lead active outdoor lifestyles who don’t want a bulky case the device is a pretty attractive offer. Over the last few years Samsung has provided the Active line to AT&T here in the stats with the S4 Active and S5 Active. It was pretty safe to assume that there would be a Galaxy S6 Active in the pipeline somewhere. There have been a number of leaks that portrayed a black and white camo variant that brought to mind some Battlefield 4 to me. A new image has recently surfaced that brings a more traditional color option to the forefront in a simple all black, maybe a dark grey depending on your monitor, phone or personal take on colors.

It should come as no surprise that the new leak comes from @Evleaks once again. A recap of the spec leaks show the same details as the current Galaxy S6 with the Exynos processor, 3GB of RAM and so on. However, the Active is said to carry a battery that packs 900mAh more power inside which boosts it to 3500mAh. In my humble opinion that would be a good move since active users are generally nowhere near a power source more often.

Any current or would be AT&T subscribers holding off on hitting the NEXT program for the Galaxy S6 Active when it rolls out? Which my guess should be rather soon.

Source: @Evleaks Via 9to5Google 

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Sync Your Memories to the Cloud with the Google Photos app for PC

Since its Inception, Google Photos has been my drug of choice when it comes to online backup and cloud storage. The ability to take a quick photo or video with my phone and instantly have it backed up to my Google account is priceless. Throw in a few cool features, like Auto-Awesome — recently changed to Assistant — and I’ve found no reason to look elsewhere for my digital photography and scrapbooking needs.

One thing that was missing, however, was a simplified solution for backing up photos to your account from your PC. Of course, you could always load up Google+ and manually upload them, but the process was somewhat tedious, to say the very least.

Now, that problem is solved thanks to Google releasing the first version of its Photos Auto-Uploader software for Windows computers. A simple download of a .exe file and a hassle-free installation is all that stands between you and the ability to sync your photos to Google Photos — and with the recent announcement at I/O that grants users unlimited storage of photos at 16MP and video at 1080P, as well the ability to save photos and videos at their original size, up to the amount of Drive Storage you have available in your account, there’s no reason to NOT take advantage of this awesome service.

Once you have the uploader installed, you can set the program to automatically upload photos from designated folders,or from devices and SD cards attached to your computer. You can also set the app to upload in high quality (free unlimited storage) or full resolution that counts against your quota. You can also set it to upload RAW files, which will eat up your storage even quicker, considering how much larger they are than your average .jpg or .png file.

From there, you’re all set to go. Start taking some pictures, add them to your computer, and let the work be done for you, courtesy of El Goog. Like magic, you’ll find your memories waiting for you at the Google Photo website and on any of your devices with the Photos app installed.

Download Google Photos for PC here.

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