[TA Deals] Score a discounted car charger and vehicle locator for 40% off

Zus is a unique little device that does a lot for its price tag. It’s primarily a high-speed car charger, great for anyone that needs a fast charger for their smartphone or tablet in a vehicle. But it also doubles as a tracking device, and using its companion smartphone app, will let you find wherever you left your car.

It uses GPS location, so there’s no need for WiFi and 3G/4G connectivity, and it’s extremely easy to use thanks to the simple interface in the Zus app. The charger normally costs $50, but right now you can pick one up for 40% off the list price, which is only $29. Not a bad price considering you’ll never forget where you parked again.

[Talk Android Deals]

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Starbucks now delivers coffee in Seattle thanks to Postmates

We’ve known about Starbucks’ plans to offer delivery, starting in its hometown, since this spring. The coffee purveyor promised the service would go live this year, and it’s keeping its word. Customers in the Seattle area now have the option of delivery when placing an order through the Starbucks iOS app. Simply input your address, create that beverage of choice and a Postmates courier will be dispatched to pick up the order from the location closest to you. You’ll also be able to track your cup of joe in real time.

Source: Starbucks

NASA’s Space Cups help astronauts drink like they do on Earth

Astronauts can’t really enjoy beverages the way you do here on Earth. They have to drink from a pouch through a straw, which is about as glamorous as sipping from a juice box. NASA and IRPI are giving those spacefarers their dignity back, however. They’re experimenting with Space Cups that, as the name implies, let astronauts drink as they would at home. The vessels use a mix of their unique geometry, surface tension and wetting to keep the liquids headed toward your mouth. As you’ll see in the clips below, it’s very hard to spill anything… at worst, you can shake loose a couple of globules that are easy to recapture.

Via: SlashGear

Source: NASA

GE researchers invent a 7-dimensional heart scanner

While conventional MRI scans can produce highly detailed images of our internal organs, the process can take up to 45 minutes — not the sort of delay you want when suffering from a heart attack. However, a new scanning technology from GE promises to cut that time by up to 30 minutes and deliver near-real time videos of the heart in unprecedented detail.

Via: GE Reports

Source: GE Healthcare

The Logi Circle connected camera is simple, yet limited

Logitech isn’t the first company you’d think of when considering potential Nest/Dropcam competitors, but it’s aiming to change that with its new Logi Circle connected camera. On top of the usual ability to stream video of your home to mobile apps, the $199 camera stands out with two things: 24 hours worth of free cloud video recording, and a built-in battery for several hours worth of wireless surveillance and video chat. On paper, that puts it a step ahead of Nest, which still doesn’t offer any video recording without an additional subscription. After testing out the Logi Circle for a few weeks, I’ve found it to be relatively easy to use — but that simplicity also severely limits its capabilities, especially compared to more feature-rich rivals.Slideshow-345232

Super-sharp 3D cameras may come to your smartphone

Many 3D cameras and scanners produce rough images, especially as they get smaller and cheaper. You often need a big laser scanner just to get reasonably accurate results. If MIT researchers have their way, though, even your smartphone could capture 3D images you’d be proud of. They’ve developed a technique that uses polarized light (like what you see in sunglasses) to increase the resolution of 3D imaging by up to 1,000 times. Their approach combines Microsoft’s Kinect (or a similar depth camera), a polarized camera lens and algorithms to create images based on the light intensity from multiple shots. The result is an imager that spots details just hundreds of micrometers across — you’d be hard-pressed to notice any imperfections.

Source: MIT News

Pandora CEO claims free, on-demand music is what’s killing the music industry

Pandora’s CEO has a pretty brutal opinion about free, on-demand music streaming from the likes of Spotify and YouTube, and it echoes what big music labels have been saying; free music is killing the industry. By making music “free” it devalues the art and makes it hard too difficult for artists to continue to thrive.

It’s an old-school line of thinking that uses terrestrial radio as a reference point, and it’s exactly the kind of mentality Pandora needs if it wants to buddy up with those giant music labels that still have a lot of clout when it comes to who gets access to what music. Pandora wants to bring back an older model of music, where you listened to songs on the radio to discover new music, then went out and bought the album if you wanted to hear more of a band.

This would play into Pandora’s new business model that they’re planning, with a free-tier internet radio service and a paid, on-demand streaming service, but it’s moving against the grain of where the internet and the music industry is heading, whether Pandora and record labels like it or not.

The music industry is in a weird position, because its business model has been completely turned upside down thanks to the internet, and most record labels have been slow to adapt. But trying to force things to go back to how they were in the 1990’s isn’t a good solution, and Pandora is probably going to find that out.

source: Business Insider

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