Gene editing discovery might treat many more diseases

In theory, gene editing could eliminate genetic diseases by correcting the flaws in your DNA. However, there’s one big obstacle: the current CRISPR technique has trouble modifying individual DNA letters. As most genetic conditions revolve around mutations of those single letters, that leaves most conditions untreatable. However, Harvard researchers might have just made a breakthrough that turns gene editing into a true disease-ending weapon.

Their newly discovered approach modifies CRISPR to avoid breaking both strands of a DNA double helix. Rather than let a key enzyme (Cas9) snap DNA, the team neuters it and links it to another enzyme that converts DNA letters. After that, a guide RNA just has to steer the enzyme pair to its objective and make the necessary letter change.

The technique is far from ready. Even with modifications, it’s currently 75 percent effective at correcting genes in mouse cells and a mere 7.6 percent effective in human cells. It’s not yet ready for tests in live animals, let alone people. With that said, the existing CRISPR system doesn’t work at all — the very fact that this modified CRISPR produces any results is significant. So long as the scientists can refine their method and expand it to work against many mutations, there could be a day when eliminating disease is simply a matter of making the right tweaks.

Via: The Verge

Source: Nature

Review: SanDisk’s New Lightning/USB 3.0 iXpand Flash Drive Offers Easy Transfers and Backups in a Slim Package

SanDisk’s iXpand Flash Drive, which is able to transfer files between an iPhone and a PC, has been around since 2014, giving iPhone and iPad users a simple way to back up their photos, offload extra content, and expand the storage space on their devices.

Today, SanDisk is ready to debut a second-generation iXpand Flash Drive, introducing the same file transfer functionality in a smaller package with faster USB 3.0 transfer speeds and a revamped app that makes it easier to use. Available in 16, 32, 64, and 128GB capacities, the iXpand can back up a full photo library and store a wide range of media files that can be viewed directly from the drive.

Design

The new iXpand Flash Drive, made of metal and a flexible rubber, material, has a curved design with a Lightning connector on one end and a USB connector on the other end. When plugged into an iPhone, the USB connector wraps around the back, allowing the iPhone to be used as normal while it’s plugged in.

Design wise, the iXpand Flash Drive works well. When plugged in, the iXpand sticks out from the Lightning connector about an inch, but it doesn’t seem to interfere with normal usage. It makes it more awkward to hold an iPhone or stick it in a pocket with the dongle plugged in, but it’s not difficult to adjust to.

Plugging the iXpand into the iPhone requires bending the flexible casing forward to get the connector to line up with the Lightning port. I was able to use the iXpand with an Apple iPhone case and most other cases should work fine, too, due to the amount of flex. The iXpand can bend quite a bit to accommodate a thick case.

On a Mac or PC, the iXpand fits into any USB port and features USB 3.0 transfer speeds for moving files between devices. Neither the USB side nor the Lightning side are protected with caps, something that could potentially be an issue if the iXpand is tossed into a bag or backpack.

Aside from that, the iXpand is small enough to carry in a pocket or clip to a keychain. The design of the iXpand isn’t the prettiest I’ve seen, but it’s functional and portable, two qualities desirable in an iPhone dongle.

App Interface

SanDisk doesn’t ship the iXpand with directions and it was initially unclear which app I needed to download, but plugging the iXpand into my iPhone let me know which app I needed through a popup that took me right to the App Store.

The iXpand Drive app is required to use the iXpand because it enables all of the iXpand’s backup and file transfer/management functionality. There have been apps for previous versions of the iXpand, but with the launch of the second-generation iXpand Drive, there’s a newly revamped app. I’m not familiar with the older versions of the iXpand app, but the new app is feature rich, with a simple layout for managing files and support for transferring and sharing files.

There are tools for creating backups and menus for copying files, viewing files, and restoring from a backup. The card-based interface offers quick access to the main features of the iXpand, including automatically backing up, and an overview displays how much storage is remaining on the iPhone and the iXpand device.

Interfaces for file management are straightforward, making it easy to find photos, music, or other files stored on the iXpand or the iPhone, and there’s a built-in camera option. With the camera, photos and videos taken through the app will be stored directly on the device, but the photo taking tools are rudimentary with no control options beyond a timer and a flash.

In the granular menus for managing files, there are multiple view options and separate sections for Music, Photos, Videos, and other file types, along with dedicated menu buttons for quick access to each section. Files are organized logically by default, with photos set up by date taken and music available by song, album, or artist.

In the Settings section of the app, there are help files, options for clearing the cache, and a privacy feature that will lock files with a password. Files can be locked on a selective basis, so it’s possible to lock select folders while leaving others unlocked for sharing purposes.

The iXpand Drive app supports 3D Touch, so there are Home screen quick actions for making a quick backup, taking a photo, playing a video, or browsing photos.

Backup Functionality

iXpand can automatically back up photos and videos on the camera roll, but there are no options for selecting specific folders or images — it’s all or nothing. It can also back up images you’ve uploaded to social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, and Picasa, again with all or nothing options. Contacts can also be backed up through an automatic process.

Setting the iXpand up as a backup for my iPhone photos, videos, and contacts took just a few taps, and my collection of more than 2,000 images and videos transferred over in approximately 30 minutes. After the transfer, the iXpand asked if I wanted to delete all of the existing photos on my device to save space. I didn’t accept that option, but it’s good to have for users who want to transfer their photo libraries over to the iXpand entirely.

I ran into a few errors suggesting the iXpand wasn’t connected to my iPhone during the transfer process, even when it was, and at several points, the upload stopped and I had to remove the iXpand and shut down the app.

Once a photo library has been backed up the first time, new photos added to the library (or new contacts) will be automatically backed up each time the iXpand is connected to the iPhone and the iXpand Drive app is opened up.

The iXpand Drive app isn’t able to differentiate between different backups, so this isn’t a device that’s going to be able to back up multiple photo libraries. I gave that a try with iCloud Photo Library turned on and I ended up with duplicates of every photo with no real organizational structure or way to separate them between devices.

That said, you can back up an iPhone or iPad and then plug the iXpand into a different device to view all of your photos and videos. All of the content backed up to the iXpand is also accessible on a Mac when plugged into a USB port.

File Transfers and Supported Media

Video and audio files transferred to iXpand can be viewed directly within the iXpand Drive app. I tested .MOV, .AVI, .MP4, .MKV, .OGG, .FLAC, .WMA, .WAV, and .MP3 files, all of which I was able to watch or listen to in the iXpand app. I was also able to transfer these files to other apps and send files to other people via AirDrop, Messages, Mail, and more.

Music purchased from iTunes is supported and can be played alongside music stored on the iXpand Drive and playlists can be created directly in the app. Movies and television shows purchased from iTunes can’t be loaded on the iXpand Drive, nor can music downloaded on an iPhone from Apple Music.

The iXpand app can’t open files from apps like Pages added to the device through a PC or Mac, but when these files are tapped within the app it opens up a share sheet. The share sheet lets files be copied to an appropriate app or be sent to another person. Through this method, it’s possible to transfer documents to iXpand and use them in third-party apps, and this is also the way files can be uploaded to a cloud service like Dropbox.

Transferring files from my Mac to the iXpand was quick thanks to USB 3.0 connectivity. According to iXpand, file transfer speeds can reach 70MB/s, and it didn’t take long to get my entire photo library from my iPhone to the iXpand and then to my Mac. Transferring files from the iXpand to my iPhone over Lightning wasn’t quite as quick, but it was by no means glacial.

Bottom Line

The iXpand is useful for people who don’t have enough storage space, whether due to a 16GB iOS device or a media collection that exceeds the available space even on a device with more storage.

If you have an iPhone or iPad and need additional storage for photos, videos, or music, the iXpand is a solid choice. Files need to be viewed and managed within the iXpand app, but the interface is easy to use and content can be shared with other people and opened in other apps. iXpand’s video and audio playback capabilities are robust, so it’s possible to have an entire music or video library stored on the device.

iXpand is also useful for quickly transferring files from an iPhone or iPad or a PC and it’s a good solution for backing up content like photos and contacts. Photos and contacts can be backed up at little to no cost using iCloud, but multiple backups are always good to have.

All in all, the iXpand works as advertised. It’s a fully functional media storage and file transferring device, and while it isn’t super cheap, the iXpand is a worthwhile purchase for those who need the features it offers.

Pros:

• Compact
• Support for a wide range of media files
• Fast transfer speeds
• Automatic backup functionality
• Built-in security features
• Can play iTunes music

Cons:

• No cap to protect USB/Lightning connectors
• Photo taking capabilities are limited
• No easy way to wipe the iXpand
• App crashes and needs to be restarted occasionally
• Drive isn’t recognized and needs to be re-plugged in occasionally
• Needs better tools for accessing Dropbox and other cloud-sharing services
• No selective backup tools
• Restricted to iXpand app

How to Buy

The iXpand Flash Drive is available in 16, 32, 64, and 128GB capacities at the following prices: $49.99 (16GB), $69.99 (32GB), $89.99 (64GB), and $129.99 (128GB). It can be purchased from the SanDisk website or through third-party retailers like Best Buy and Amazon.

According to SanDisk, the iXpand works with the iPhone 5 and later, the iPad Air and later, the iPad mini and later, and the 5th generation iPod touch.

Tag: SanDisk
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B&O Play’s new $249 Bluetooth speaker looks absolutely gorgeous

B&O Play has a new Bluetooth speaker called the BeoPlay A1. The $249 speaker is the vendor’s smallest to date, but it comes with a battery that lasts all day and has a built-in microphone that allows you to take calls. While there are several Bluetooth speakers in this segment that offer similar capabilities, the A1’s design is its differentiator. Like all B&O Play’s products, the A1 looks gorgeous, sporting an aluminium dome with perforations for the speaker grille and a soft-touch rubber base.

There are no buttons on the A1, but you do have power, volume, and Bluetooth pairing controls on the outer edge. The 2200mAh battery charges through a USB Type-C port, and there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on the side.

The speaker also comes with a feather cord that lets you attach it to a rucksack, or hang it from a hook. However, unlike Logitech’s UE Boom 2, the A1 is not water resistant, so you won’t be able to hang it in the shower. The tabletop design of the speaker allows for 360-degree sound, delivered by a 30 watt woofer and tweeter.

The A1 is offered in matte silver and moss green, although the latter color option is not yet available on B&O Play’s site. If you like the design and are in the market for a Bluetooth speaker, check out the BeoPlay A1 from the link below.

See at B&O Play

Could this be the Android games console we’ve been waiting for?

There have been plenty of Android devices dedicated to gaming. Many even believed that an Android games console could rival dedicated machines from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft one day.

However, while plenty have tried, all have seemingly failed. Ouya, for example, might have made millions on Kickstarter originally but it was buggy and sales were poor. Its support by games developers was also disappointing.

Razer ended up buying the company.

Nvidia has come the closest to getting an Android games machine to be taken seriously. Its Shield tablet and Shield Android TV box are both excellent devices that excel when it comes to playing quality games as well as be fully-featured entertainment kit.

Anybody who has played with the latest Shield Tablet K1 will tell you how the Tegra K1 processor makes quality gaming possible on a portable device.

Now a handheld gaming tablet plans to exploit the chip for a gaming handheld that will also come packed with retro emulators aplenty.

Funstock

The Nvidia JXD S192 Android Retro Gaming Tablet is a handheld device powered by the an Nvidia Tegra K1 quad-core processor and the 2GHz ARM Cortex-A15 chip. There are 192 GPU cores and it is supported by 2GB of RAM.

The screen features a 7-inch Full HD (1920 x 1200) display with 323ppi. There are stereo speakers built in, a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel snapper on the front.

An ergonomic gamepad is built around the screen, with Xbox-style controls. You can even use separate USB or Bluetooth controllers.

Impressively, there is a 10,000mAh battery on board. That means up to 30 days of standby time, 57 hours of wireless internet access or up to six hours of constant gaming.

It comes with Android 4.2.2 pre-installed, Google Play, plus emulators for 18 different computers and consoles, including MAME, Dreamcast, SNES, NES, N64, Megadrive, PSOne and more.

Funstock has opened for pre-orders of the device now, with an expected shipping date of 6 May. It costs £219.99.

B&O Beoplay A1 Bluetooth stylish speaker lasts a whopping 24-hours

B&O Play has gone back to the drawing board to create a small speaker that’s portable but doesn’t compromise on sound or power, the result is the Beoplay A1.

The Beoplay A1 is co-created by designer Cecille Manz meaning it’s not only functional but attractive and stylish too. Its creators say the compact speaker is able to produce the usual quality signature sound you’d expect from B&O despite being in such a small form.

One of the crucial selling points for any Bluetooth speaker is battery life. This little fella has a 2200mAh battery couple with smart algorithms that are able to keep churning out tunes for a hefty 24-hours, says B&O. All that and it also has a microphone built in so it can be used as a speakerphone with a connected smartphone too.

The A1 weighs in at 600g and sports a 133mm by 48mm aluminium body. Inside are custom woofers including an aluminium cone mid woofer, silk dome three quarter inch tweeter and bass to as low as 40hz, plus a DSP algorithm that offers 360-degree sound.

There is also a button on the speaker’s side that allows for quick connection to the last device it was hooked up to. This button will have more uses in future when software updates roll out, says B&O.

The B&O Play Beoplay A1 is available in “moss green” and “natural” colours for £199 now.

READ: What is Magic Leap and why might it kill all screens?

Next at Acer: Watch the Predator and laptops live-stream here

It’s Acer time. The Taiwanese company is all set to unveil new products at its global press conference, starting 16:00 BST (that’s 11:00 EST in New York City where the conference is taking place), and you can watch it via the stream live below.

So what to expect? Our bet is it’ll be going big on Predator gaming kit, having just announced its range will be hitting India later this year. 

Since Jason Chen took the reins as Acer CEO in 2014 the focus of the company has shifted. At its 2014 global press conference its core focus was on education, with the desire to shift Chromebooks and budget laptops in volume.

But that hasn’t stopped the company exploring other avenues. And we’re not talking about the what-the-heck Aspire R7 Star Trek themed laptop of 2013. No, the likes of Acer Revo Build, a modular mini PC, has captured the imagination and interest of many, while its affordable Aspire R11 laptop has shown what can be achieved on a small budget.

The real critical strike, though, was the unveiling of the Predator 8 gaming tablet back in 2015. That’s what set to blood pumping of our readers and was a direct push into Nvidia’s tablet territory. Will we see a 2016 update? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Pocket-lint is at the Next@Acer global press conference in New York City, where we’ll be bringing you the latest. It also happens to coincide with Acer’s 40th year, so maybe there’ll be cake and candle-blowing too.

Nanowire battery can extend your phone battery life by hundreds of thousands of times

Science has done it again. Another battery breakthrough is here to change batteries forever, this time by extending life thanks to nanowires.

The battery advancement, made by researchers at the University of California Irvine, means these batteries can offer longer lives than current lithium-ion units. In fact these nanowire batteries can withstand hundreds of thousands of charges without showing any signs of degradation.

That could mean future batteries last a lot longer – ideal for electric cars. Imagine buying a car or phone in the future where you never have to worry about battery damage or how you charge it to protect that. These could even be used in future spacecraft.

Nanowires, which are thousands of times thinner than a human hair, have a high conductivity and large surface area, making them ideal for future batteries. The issue has always been that they easily broke down after several charges.

The Irvine researchers coated the gold nanowires in manganese dioxide shells encased in an electrolyte of gel. The result is no loss of power even when recharged 200,000 times over three months.

Now we simply need nanowires to get manufactured en masse, while advancing capacity and there could be a viable alternative to current battery options. We say simply.

READ: Future batteries, coming soon

Facebook Messenger gets group calling with up to 50 friends

While Facebook is obsessed with bots, it’s not the only new feature the company has been working on for Messenger. The app will soon be getting group calls which, as its name implies, allows you to have an audio-based conversation with multiple people. With the latest version of the Messenger app, it’s just a matter of tapping the phone icon while you’re inside a group chat. Once you’ve done this, Facebook will give you a secondary screen to manage the people on the call. TechCrunch reports that you can have a maximum of 50 friends on a single group call.

Facebook hasn’t talked about group video calling, although it stands to reason the feature is in its long-term roadmap. Unlike WhatsApp, which seems content to be a simple and secure SMS replacement, Messenger is being developed as a more advanced, helpful and socially integrated chat application. Group video calling is one of the few ways that Skype and Google Hangouts continue to trump Messenger — removing that differentiator would likely extend Facebook’s dominance on mobile.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: David Marcus (Facebook)

Windows 10 Mobile preview lets you text from your PC

Microsoft is trying hard to unify Windows 10 across devices, so now your PC can act like a phone. The latest Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview update features an app called “Messaging Everywhere” that lets you send and receive cellular text messages from a Windows 10 PC. You’ll need to have a supported Windows 10 Preview mobile device, like a Lumia 650 or 950, and activate the feature from your Microsoft account, as below. That will sync up messages on all your selected Windows 10 devices, so you can send and receive SMS messages without pulling out a phone.

In the same update, Microsoft has eliminated Skype Integration from Windows Mobile messaging in favor of an upcoming Universal Windows Platform (UWP) version of the app. Microsoft was originally keen to integrate the widely used video and voice chat app with Windows 10’s messaging service, and released a preview late last year. However, it abandoned that idea last month, saying folks “want to eliminate app clutter,” and removed integration from both mobile and desktop preview versions of Windows 10. It recently released a UWP preview for PCs, but mobile insiders who want Skype will need to use the existing Skype for Windows Phone app for now.

Meanwhile, Windows 10 preview desktop insiders just received an update to that very UWP version of Skype, bringing it more in line with the regular Windows app. It now has group features, letting you message, call or video chat with multiple folks. Other new features include the ability see multiple video callers at once, delete messages and mark any group as a favorite. As for the Skype UWP preview app on Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft says it’s coming “soon.”

Source: Microsoft (1), (2)

Google is bringing TV listings to search results

In its quest to bring more valuable information to search, Google will soon add live TV listings to results, allowing you to find out exactly when and what channel your favourite film or TV show is on next. The new module won’t just include cable or over-the-air availability, the search giant will also display which apps and websites also host the content you’re looking for, whether it’s on Google Play, YouTube, iTunes or another streaming service.

Google is staying quiet on when we can expect the new feature to roll out — noting that it’s “coming soon” — but when it does, you’ll be able to select your TV service provider to personalize your results. It will display cards describing what the movie or TV show is about, who stars in it and other relevant information, which might save you from clicking through to sites like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes.

Although the company has included a selection of streaming providers, there’s no word on whether subscription services like Netflix or Amazon Video will be included. We’ve contacted Google for more information on its partners and enquired as to whether it’ll be available internationally.

Via: The Verge

Source: Google Search Blog