Kwikset’s latest smart lock lowers the price by ditching the frills

Kwikset is no stranger to connected locks, but the $219 price for its Kevo lock might put you off if you’re used to securing your door with cheaper conventional locks. That might not be a stumbling block for much longer, though: the company has trotted out a Traditional Signature Series Deadbolt lock with an easier-to-swallow $150 price tag. It’ll still talk to any Z-Wave home automation network that supports locks (such as a Wink hub), giving you a way to remotely unlock the door or get alerts. The cost-cutting mostly comes thorough the absence of extras you might not need, like a gateway device or a keypad. This won’t be the cheapest lock if you’re starting fresh, in other words. However, it’ll definitely make more sense if you’re already living in a smart home and just want the entryway to match.

Via: TechHive

Source: Kwikset

Bills could rise as Ofcom triples UK carriers’ licence fees

After toying with the idea of quadrupling the amount providers must pay for mobile spectrum for almost two years, UK communications regulator Ofcom has finally arrived at a decision. It announced today that the big four — EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three — will now pay a total of £199.6 million annually for their allocations of the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz frequency bands, more than triple the £64.4 million they currently have to hand over.

EE, which holds the most spectrum following the Orange/T-Mobile merger and successful 4G bid, will see its rent triple from £24.9 million to £75 million. Vodafone and O2 will both see their current fee raised from £15.6 million to £49.8 million, while Three (which owns the least amount of spectrum) will pay £25 million, up from £8.3 million.

The increase comes after the UK government instructed Ofcom to revise licence fee charges to “reflect full market value.” Although it received notice in December 2010, Ofcom began a proper consultation following the 4G auction back in 2013, but was forced to go back to the drawing board when providers rejected an original five-fold increase. Don’t forget, the government and the regulator anticipated more than £3.5 billion from the auction, but the total figure fell well short at £2.4 billion.

Overall, the final fees are lower than what Ofcom considered back in February. This was helped by a recent 4G auction in Germany. Using that as a marker, the 1800 MHz band was priced 3 percent lower than original estimates, while the 900 MHz band saw 24 percent reduction. Of course, the operators will have no choice to pay them, and warn that the rises could result in higher bills and limit 4G rollout.

“We have listened carefully to the arguments and evidence put forward by industry, and conducted a complex and comprehensive analysis to determine the new fees,” says Philip Marnick, Ofcom’s Group Director of Spectrum. “The mobile industry has not previously had to pay market value for access to this spectrum, which is a valuable and finite resource, and the new fees reflect that value.”

[Image Credit: Kevin Foy / Alamy]

Source: Ofcom

Chevy owners have to wait until March 2016 for Android Auto

Earlier this year Chevrolet announced that they would offer Android Auto in 14 different 2016 models. Today they announced that Android Auto would come by way of an update to their MyLink system starting in March 2016.

Here is the complete list of Chevrolet vehicles due to receive Android Auto.

Of course with automakers like Honda and Hyundai already selling vehicles equipped with Android Auto, Chevrolet owners must be feeling a little left out. What do you think? Is the promise of Android Auto enough to persuade you to purchase a Chevrolet? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Chevy owners have to wait until March 2016 for Android Auto appeared first on AndroidGuys.

NASA uses the Sun and Moon to photograph shockwave structures

High speed photography techniques have the ability to capture some pretty incredible stuff. We’ve seen “compressed ultrafast photography” used to track light before and NASA is showing off new pictures of shockwaves taken using the “schlieren technique.” To capture images like the one above, scientists took a carefully timed shot from the ground as an aircraft passed the edge of the sun or moon at supersonic speeds. The resulting image is then further refined and cleared up using NASA derived code, but once that has been done, the result is equal parts fascinating/beautiful as evidence by the images provided by NASA.

The method used to capture these images is called Background-Oriented Schlieren using Celestial Objects or BOSCO and has been used to capture things like air density gradients. “Using a celestial object like the sun for a background has a lot of advantages when photographing a flying aircraft,” said Armstrong principal investigator Michael Hill. “We would like to try to use the BOSCO system on things other than aircraft. We could potentially perform schlieren photography on anything we could get between our camera and the sun.”

Hill also noted that these images were captured using consumer grade astronomy equipment, adding that anyone interested will be able to produce similar images with a setup that costs around $3,000. Amateur photography just got a little more interesting.

[Image credit: NASA]

Source: NASA