NASA successfully tests rocket engines designed for deep space

NASA says that its latest tests are a milestone towards the next stage of space exploration — and Mars. It successfully fired a RS-25 rocket engine for 500 seconds on Thursday March 10th. This is the same engine that will eventually send astronauts on the first deep-space mission in more than 45 years. It’s an key part of NASA’s new Space Launch System, aimed at taking humans to nearby asteroids and, after that, the red planet. Four of these engines power the SLS — making up a combined thrust of two million pounds.
The space agency and its contractor, the appropriately-named AeroJet Rocketdyne, ran several tests on the same engine last year, focused on the controller and testing out different operating conditions on the SLS. After this week’s success, the two organizations will start on new flight engine controllers while further testing the engines. NASA is also working on a test stand similar for the rocket’s eventual first flight. The stand will attach to the core stage, while NASA attempts to fire four RS-25es at once.

Steve Wofford, engines manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama said that “… it’s [also] a great feeling that this engine that has carried so many astronauts into space before is being prepared to take astronauts to space once again on SLS’s first crewed flight.” Yep, the engines are flight engines left from the Space Shuttle program before it finished in 2011 — and were first designed back in the 70s.

Source: NASA

BlitzWolf Quick Charge 2.0 and 3.0 chargers review

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it seems like I can’t have too many chargers. When that low battery notification hits, I just want one to be readily nearby. It’s

Watch Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat professional Go player Lee Sedol – twice!

Google is showing off its powerful AlphaGo program by publishing videos and live-streams to its entire Google DeepMind Challenge Match series.

Google bought DeepMind Technologies – an artificial intelligence company – for $650 million in January 2014. The company created a neural network capable of learning how to play video games in the same way as humans. Most people heard of Google DeepMind in early 2016, when the AlphaGo program beat a human professional Go player. Google DeepMind basically taught the computer program the ancient game of Go.

The highly-intelligent computer program is capable of winning the game every time – even when pitted against professional players and champions. Earlier this week, for instance, it defeated legendary Go player Lee Sedol in the first of five matches being held in Seoul, South Korea. Lee, who is competing for a $1 million prize, quit the first match with 28 minutes remaining on the clock. He also lost a second match on 10 March.

The point of Go is to control at least 50 per cent of the board. Needless to say, it’s difficult to do. Now, in order for computers to play, they must be programmed to recognised all the variations. Chess, in comparison, has 10 to the power of 60 possible plays. In fact, chess was mastered by a computer game in 1997, but the first classic game to be mastered by a computer was Noughts and Crosses (also called tic-tac-toe) in 1952.

READ: Google DeepMind explained

DeepMind’s AlphaGo program uses a complex system of deep neural networks and machine learning to beat human players. It defeated European champion Fan Hui last year. Lee will face off against AlphaGo again on 12 March, 13 March, and 15 March. Each game is part of a 5-match series and will be live-streamed and published to YouTube. Videos for the first two matches in which AlphaGo won are available below.

Whether or not Lee beats AlphaGo this weekend, one thing is for sure: these first AlphaGo victories are huge moments for artificial intelligence as a whole. Google has said that research from the entire AlphaGo project could affect how computers search for a sequence of actions as well as further facial-recognition processing and predictive search.

Match 1 – Google DeepMind Challenge Match: Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo

Match 2 – Google DeepMind Challenge Match: Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo

And here’s a playlist to upcoming live-streamed matches…

NEC’s earbuds will identify you by resonating sound in your ear canal

There is an interesting boom happening in the tech world right now. It’s focused on innovating new ways to verify people’s identity.

The latest company to make headway in this space is Japanese firm NEC, which recently announced it is developing earbuds that can confirm identities by playing a sound and then analysing how it resonates in the wearer’s ear canal. This type of verification is called a biometric check. An alternative biometric check would be a fingerprint sensor or eye scanner.

The inside of every person’s ears is unique, and NEC’s earphones use a microphone to record the waveforms generated by an audio noise reflecting around the eardrum, meaning resulting data can be used to identify an individual. NEC said its earbuds can do an ID test in about 1 second and that it plans to launch products using this particular biometric check by late 2018.

BBC

MasterCard is another company exploring biometric checks. It plans to accept selfies and fingerprints as an alternative to passwords and already tested this verification process during a trial in the US and Netherlands last year. An actual rollout of the new system is planned for this summer in the UK, US, and Canada. Google even offers a new verification system called hands-free.

Hands Free is a new Google app that allows you to check-out in stores without needing to grab your phone or wallet. It uses Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, location services, and other sensors in your phone to detect whether you are near a participating store. It also uses visual identification. With this setup, an in-store camera confirms your identity based on your Hands Free profile picture.

That said, according to NEC, its earbuds can conduct reliable checks more than 99 per cent of the time. So, if implemented effectively, they could be a much-welcomed departure from passcodes and fingerprints.

Your web development career awaits: Start with the Frontend JavaScript Coding Bootcamp

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Bosch is building its own Internet of Things cloud network

Like it or not, it looks like the Internet of Things is going to be more than an annoying buzzword or passing fad. The latest proof is that Bosch is offering an end-to-end environment to get your house communicating with the various devices and appliances inside. First up? Building its own cloud service based in Germany, as Reuters tells it. The Bosch IoT Cloud (very creative, I know) has a pretty lofty goal, too: For all of the company’s electronics to be IoT-enabled by 2020.

Bosch says that there are already some five million devices working with its also generically named “IoT Suite” so the wheels are in motion, so to speak. For now there are a variety of gizmos designed to get your home talking including a central hub and things like door-and-window contact sensors. Nothing particularly worth getting excited about, but they’re the staples for anything resembling a smart home. There are also bits for connected parking spots (reserve one before you even arrive) and auto-racing applications for a pit crew to monitor a racecar’s vitals from afar, among other applications.

Reuters also notes that Bosch plans to bring some 50 of its own applications into IoT Cloud in 2016, with it granting other companies access next year. More than that, in the future Germany won’t be the only data center location.

Source: Reuters, Bosch (1), (2)

Nest’s new Family Accounts feature makes your thermostat even smarter – CNET

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

The days of sharing your Nest account credentials with family members are long gone.

The Google-owned company on Thursday updated its iOS and Android apps, adding the option to share access to Nest products through a new feature called Family Accounts. Essentially, users are now able to invite friends and family members to join a Nest account, who can then their own respective log-in information.

To use the new feature, you’ll need to install the latest version of the app (iOS | Android). After updating, the new app will walk you through inviting a family member to share your Nest account. It’s simple; you only need to enter an email address for the individual.

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

If you skip the initial setup, you can always view the settings for your Nest home and tap on Family from the list of options. Each family account is limited to 10 members.

Additionally, each member is able to set up another new feature included in the update called Home/Away Assist. Using your device’s GPS location, Nest can easily identify when someone is home or away and set adjust the thermostat or turn your Nest Cam on when you leave.

Enlarge Image

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

The setup process for Home/Away Assist involves granting the app permission to access your location information, and setting your home address within the app.

Previously, Nest relied upon movement in front of the thermostat or smoke detectors to determine home and away status for its various products.

Trick your iPhone into disabling animations so apps launch faster – CNET

You have probably grown so accustomed to your iPhone’s SpringBoard animations when opening and closing apps that you hardly notice the animation where apps spring onto your screen when you open them and then fade away when you close them. You can reduce this animation by going to Settings > General > Accessibility and turning on the Reduce Motion setting. But this setting only reduces the motion and falls short of getting rid of it entirely.

For a completely animation-free iOS experience, you’ll need to exploit a glitch that a Reddit user found. With it, apps launch instantly and close instantly. Here’s how to go about it:

1. Head to Settings > General > Accessibility. In the Interaction section, open AssistiveTouch and turn it on.

2. Move the little AssistiveTouch menu icon to the lower-right corner of your screen.

3. Swipe down on your screen to call up Spotlight search, which moves the AssistiveTouch menu icon from the bottom edge of the display to the top of the onscreen keyboard.

4. Swipe down or tap the screen to close Spotlight search, which then moves the AssistiveTouch icon back to the bottom edge of the screen. Do this enough times, moving the AssistiveTouch icon up and down, and you will trick iOS into disabling its SpringBoard animations.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

You will know the glitch has worked when the AssistiveTouch icon drops back to the bottom of the screen without a pause when you close Spotlight search. Before this change takes effect, the AssistiveTouch icon pauses briefly before it moves.

On Reddit, the poster says to repeat steps 3 and 4 of opening and closing Spotlight search 20 times. In my experience, it sometimes took up to 30 times to get the change to take effect, and other times it took only four or five attempts. I was able to make it work on an iPhone 6S and iPad Air, with both devices running iOS 9.2. Also, it didn’t work on my iPad Air until I turned off Multitasking gestures, which is noted in the Reddit post. Head to Settings > General > Multitasking and toggle the switch off for Gestures.

After you have disabled animations, you can go back to settings and turn off AssistiveTouch to get rid of its menu icon and still enjoy an animation-free iOS experience. This trick, however, works only until the next time you restart your iPhone; if you turn off your iPhone, the animations will appear the next time you power it back on.

In related news, you can speed up your Android by adjusting animation settings.

(Via 9to5Mac)

Google Docs adds automatic outline feature – CNET

I use Google Docs for all of my writing, from CNET blog posts and other writing for work to quick lists and tried-and-true recipes. I opened up Google Docs this morning to start my daily labor to find an outline panel on the left side of my document. It had recognized the bold headers in my document and used them to create an outline that I could use to jump to different parts of my document without needing to scroll. It’s a convenient time saver for browsing through lengthy documents.

If Google Docs doesn’t offer this new feature upon your next visit, you can enable it by going to Tools > Document outline. The Outline panel sits to the left of your document and lets you jump to different spots with a single click.

I found that the outline feature recognized bold text and all caps, and both the title and the four heading options in Google Docs. If you have a line in your document with any of these formatting options, then that text will show up in the document outline. If bolded text appears within a longer line of normal text, then Google Docs rightly does not include it in the document outline. The outline updates in real time as you add new headers to your document, and you can remove items from the outline by hovering your cursor over them and clicking the X button.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

The document outline feature is also available on Android devices with the Google Docs app. When you start scrolling through a document, a small navigation button will appear. Tap it to see an outline of your document.

Sadly, iOS users looking for outline assistance from Google Docs are out of luck.

(Via Google Apps Updates)

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is the phone gamers have been waiting for – CNET

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 is more than a mere phone, it’s a gaming machine. No, it’s not going to replace your PlayStation or Nintendo 3DS, but for gaming on the go, it’s got all the features you could need or want.

Inside, there is liquid cooling and powerful processors for smooth gameplay. On the surface, there are several features that you can manipulate to customize your experience. Let’s dive into the new game-focused tools that come with the S7 and S7 Edge.

Games all in one place

With the S7, Samsung introduced the Game Launcher, a special folder that organizes your games in one place. But it’s more than just a folder, Game Launcher also includes two settings that improve gameplay. Before you start a game, you can turn off alerts so app notifications won’t interrupt you. The Save power settings adjust the game’s graphics and resolution to save battery while you’re playing.

Game launcher also finds you new games to play. Tap Top Charts to see the most popular games by play time, total number of players and more. The Featured Videos section shows popular gaming videos from YouTube and videos based on the games you have installed.

Game tools

The other killer gaming feature of the S7 and S7 Edge is Game tools. It’s a floating menu that hangs out while you play and offers several tools while playing. Here’s a breakdown of each Game tool:

• No alerts during game: Toggles phone alerts and notifications on or off while you’re playing.
• Lock Recents and Back keys: Disables the recent apps and back buttons on the bottom of the phone so you don’t accidently hit them while playing.
• Minimize game: Pauses the game and shrinks it into a small floating icon so you can do something else on your phone. Tap the icon to return to the game.
• Screenshot: Take a screenshot of your gameplay, which saves to the Gallery app.
• Record: Create a video of what’s on your screen while playing. You can also record game audio or your own voice to narrate what you’re doing.
• Settings: Opens the Game Tools options in the Settings app.

Built-in screen recording is a big deal on the S7 and S7 Edge since they are the first phones to have the official feature as part of the operating system (Android 4.4 KitKat had a screen recording option, but you need the Android SDK to use it). Watching others play games is widely popular and Samsung’s giving mobile gamers an easy way to record and share from their phones.