Google wants to help symptom-searchers find the right diagnosis

It’s easy to search for medical advice on the internet and to come away from it thinking you’re dying.

If you have a headache or a weird rash or stomach pains, the first thing you’ll likely do is search for your symptoms and their likely causes on Google, but because the internet is a strange and wonderful and awful place, you’ll end up with tonnes of misleading results. Well, Google thinks it can do better, because it’s rolling out a new symptom search feature that’s supposed to show you better results.

So, in the future, when you use the Google app for iOS and Android to search for a symptom like “headache”, you will see a card-like list that shows related conditions (“migraine,” “tension headache,” “cluster headache”, etc), an overview description, information on self-treatment options, and advice about what might warrant a doctor’s visit. Google is curating this list from health conditions mentioned in web results.

But it’s gone a bit farther: Google checks those health conditions against medical information it collected from doctors for its Knowledge Graph: “We worked with a team of medical doctors to carefully review the individual symptom information, and experts at Harvard Medical School and Mayo Clinic evaluated related conditions for a representative sample of searches to help improve the lists,” Google explained.

Google’s card-like lists might also include illustrations, stuff you can swipe on, or drop-down menus that you can tap to see more information. Also, Google said it plans to expand this feature from US- and English-only to other countries and languages. It will also bring the feature to desktop. The company has likely developed this feature because more than 1 per cent of Google searches are symptom-related.

Keep in mind all medical information on Google should only be used for informational purposes. You should consult a doctor for medical advice.

This Microsoft video shows what Chrome does to a laptop battery

If you’re like us, you have a love-hate relationship with Chrome.

Google’s web browser is fast, secure, and loaded with powerful features – so, naturallt, it’s one of the most popular browsers today. However, it’s becoming clear that it isn’t exactly the most efficient browser available. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence online as well as some tests that show Chrome has a negative effect on your laptop’s battery life.

But nothing has driven that message home better than a new battery test video by Microsoft. The Redmond-based company wanted to prove that its Edge browser lasts longer than other browsers when used specifically for video playback and basic surfing. In Microsoft’s video, for instance, Chrome lasted 4 hours and 19 minutes during a streaming video test.

Microsoft Edge, on the other hand, lasted 7 hours and 22 minutes. The test also showed Opera and Firefox use more battery than Edge when playing video, opening sites, scrolling articles, opening new tabs, etc. To further show how Edge offers lower overall power consumption, Microsoft published data it collected from “millions” of Windows 10 PCs.

Keep in mind most people don’t watch web video for hours on end, so Microsoft’s battery test video is a little extreme. Also, Microsoft conducted this test using Surface Books, and we suspect browser efficiency varies by hardware.

Still, it’s obvious that Google should do more to improve Chrome’s battery efficiency.

Is this Samsung’s new Gear S3? Leaked pics seem to reveal watch

It’s time for the Gears S3 rumours to start up, apparently.

A recent leak suggested that Samsung’s follow-up to the Gear S2 smartwatch is codenamed Solis and will run Tizen, but now, overexposed images posted to Twitter (and spotted by SamMobile) have given us a first look at the upcoming watch. It’s hard to tell if they’re real. All we can see is a round smartwatch with a Rolex-like design, including a metal bracelet and fluted bezel.

The images are also stamped with the brand “Gear S3”. These could be fakes or a bad Photoshop job, but either way, it’s safe to assume that Samsung is developing a Gear S3 and might even launch the watch at IFA 2016 in Berlin. That show will kick off in early September. We’ve assumed the Gear S3 will make an appearance then because Samsung launched the S2 at last year’s IFA.

There’s not much else to go on for now, but stay tuned to Pocket-lint’s Gear S3 hub for all the latest news, including more leaks and rumours.

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Single-molecule switch gets us closer to light-powered computers

The computer and gadget industries have boosted the power of components by shrinking them to near-microscopic scale. One radical field, molecular electronics, takes this to its logical extreme: constructing circuits and devices from single molecules. Researchers at the Peking University of Beijing have just created a switch that can be dependably flipped on and off when hit with one photon, clearing the way for infinitesimally small applications in systems that use light instead of electricity.
Researchers are diving into the field of optical electronics for obvious reasons: light moves faster than electricity, which means faster computations. Shrinking those components results in even faster speeds, which could be useful in systems like solar panels, light sensors or biomedical applications, suggests Scientific American.

Previous attempts to create this single-molecule component were finicky, resulted in switches that got stuck in the “on” position or couldn’t be activated by different types of light. The Peking University researchers used different materials that allowed the switch to stabilize in either binary position yet still be activated by light.

This switch could last for up to a year, which is a vast improvement on the shelf lives of earlier attempts. “In many cases, molecular junctions have lives of minutes, hours, or in fortunate cases days,” Ioan Bâldea of the University of Heidelberg, Germany told Scientific American. While we’re still years from seeing these switches deployed in commercial products, it’s an important step to building stable components at a microscopic scale.

Source: Scientific American

China made the world’s fastest supercomputer using its own chips

There’s a new computing champion… and unlike past years, this one doesn’t depend on any Western tech to crunch numbers. Top500 has declared that China’s Sunway TaihuLight, a 40,960-node system powered entirely by Chinese processors (the 260-core ShenWei 26010), is the world’s fastest supercomputer. And it’s leading by a wide margin, too. At 93 petaflops of processing power, it’s nearly three times more powerful than the previous record-setter, the 33.85-petaflop Tianhe-2.

The new system uses a custom interconnect format to link its nodes, and there’s a custom Linux variant that serves as its software foundation. The technology isn’t especially exotic (the interconnect is based on PCI Express), but it doesn’t need to be to achieve a breakneck pace. It’s even more power-efficient than Tianhe-2 at a relatively modest 15.3 megawatts of energy consumption.

The irony? As Top500 says, a 2015 US embargo may have helped TaihuLight’s chances of claiming the top spot. Many expected Tianhe-2 to get an upgrade to Intel’s Xeon Phi processors and push 100 petaflops, but the trade restriction prevented that from happening. The embargo also persuaded China to step up its processor development, so any successors to TaihuLight might be that much faster. Having said this, TaihuLight may solve engineering and science problems for everyone — we’re not going to knock a supercomputing breakthrough if it’s useful well beyond its native soil.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: Top500

What’s on your HDTV: ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Mighty No. 9’

As usual, the season’s penultimate Game of Thrones episode was explosive, leaving us to wonder what’s left for the season finale this week, along with the season finale of Silicon Valley. Before we get there however, we’ve got the series finale of Person of Interest, and a special episode tonight laying out Mr. Robot before season two of that show kicks off on USA. Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune’s crowdfunded project Mighty No. 9 is finally ready to roll on several systems, while Midnight Special is coming home on Blu-ray. Fans of Bill Simmons can check out his HBO show on Wednesday night, while fans of Weeds, Breaking Bad and Narcos may want to check out Queen of the South. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).

Blu-ray & Games & Streaming

• My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
• Midnight Special
• The Crush
• The Wave
• Rollercoaster
• The Brothers Grimsby (4K)
• Mighty No. 9 (PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox One)
• Fallout 4: Contraptions Workshop DLC (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Star Wars Battlefront: Bespin DLC (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Grand Kingdom (PS4)
• Umbrella Corps (PC, PS4)
• Lumo (Xbox One)
• N.E.R.O. (PS4)
• Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U)

Monday

• So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
• WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
• Reign (season finale), CW, 8PM
• American Ninja Warrior, NBC, 8PM
• The Fosters (season premiere), Freeform, 8PM
• American Dad, TBS, 8:30PM
• Suited, HBO, 9PM
• Guilt, Freeform, 9PM
• Rizzoli & Isles, TNT, 9PM
• Angie Tribeca, TBS, 9PM
• Top Gear, BBC America, 9PM
• 12 Monkeys, Syfy, 9PM
• Triptank (season premiere), Comedy Central, 10PM
• Major Crimes, TNT, 10PM
• Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge, NBC, 10PM
• Mistresses, ABC, 10PM
• Turn, AMC, 10PM
• Extra Gear, BBC America, 10:30PM
• Mr. Robot Decoded (special), USA, 11PM
• Scream, MTV, 11PM
• Hunters, Syfy, 12AM
• After the Thrones, HBO, 1:15AM

Tuesday

• Powers, PSN, 3AM
• The Mindy Project, Hulu, 3AM
• Casual, Hulu, 3AM
• America’s Got Talent, NBC, 8PM
• The BET Life Of: Ciara, BET, 8PM
• The Greeks (series premiere), PBS, 9PM
• Animal Kingdom, TNT, 9PM
• Uncle Buck, ABC, ABC, 9PM
• Inside the Label: Slip-n-Slide, BET, 9PM
• Coupled, Fox, 9PM
• 60 Minutes Sports, Showtime, 9PM
• Containment, CW, 9PM
• Deadliest Catch, Discovery, 9PM
• Inside the Label: Terror Squad (season finale), BET, 10PM
• Feed the Beast, AMC, 10PM
• Maya & Marty, NBC, 10PM
• Person of Interest (series finale), CBS, 10PM
• Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10PM
• Wrecked, TBS, 10PM
• Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, Comedy Central, 10:30PM

Wednesday

• Chelsea, Netflix 3AM
• Big Brother (season premiere), NBC, 8PM
• Unsung: E-40, TV One, 8PM
• Serena, Epix, 8PM
• Young & Hungry, Freeform, 8PM
• In A Perfect World, Showtime, 8PM
• Baby Daddy, Freeform, 8:30PM
• Dual Survival, Discovery, 9PM
• Kingdom, DirecTV, 9PM
• Maron, IFC, 9PM
• Wayward Pines, Fox, 9PM
• Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons (series premiere), HBO, 10PM
• Another Period, Comedy Central, 10PM
• Royal Pains, USA, 10PM
• The Night Shift, NBC, 10PM
• The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV, 10PM
• The Ultimate Fighter, Fox Sports 1, 10PM
• Cleverman, Sundance, 10PM

Thursday

• Chelsea, Netflix, 3AM
• Battlebots (season premiere), ABC, 8PM
• Bones, Fox, 8PM
• WWE SmackDown, USA, 8PM
• Big Brother, CBS, 9PM
• Beauty and the Beast, CW, 9PM
• Aquarius, NBC, 9PM
• Home Free, Fox, 9PM
• Streets of Compton, A&E, 9PM
• Beauty and the Beast, CW, 9PM
• Live from Daryl’s House (season finale), MTV Live, 9PM
• Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge, NBC, 9PM
• Red Nose Day, NBC, 9PM
• Alone, History, 9PM
• Queen of the South (series premiere), USA, 10PM
• Aquarius, NBC, 10PM
• Lip Sync Battle (season finale), Spike TV, 10PM
• Thirteen (series premiere), BBC America, 10PM
• Ladylike, MTV, 11PM

Friday

• Annedroids (S3), Amazon Prime, 3AM
• Dreamworks Dragons (S4), Netflix, 3AM
• The Fundamentals of Caring, Netflix, 3AM
• Justin Time Go! (S1), Netflix, 3AM
• Chelsea, Netflix, 3AM
• Kimbo Slice, Spike TV, 7PM
• The Ranch: Home of an American Sports Dynasty, NBC, 8PM
• Masters of Illusion, CW, 8PM
• Outcast, Cinemax, 10PM
• ELeague, TBS, 10PM
• Wynonna Earp (season finale), Syfy, 10PM
• Comedy! Bang! Bang!, IFC, 11PM
• Vice, HBO, 11PM

Saturday

• Center Stage: On Pointe, Lifetime, 8PM
• US Olympic Trials: Diving, NBC, 8PM
• People’s List, ABC, 8PM
• Showtime Boxing on CBS: Porter vs. Thurman, CBS, 9PM
• US Olympic Trials: Men’s Gymnastics, NBC, 9PM
• Hell on Wheels, AMC, 9PM
• In An Instant, ABC, 9PM
• Outlander, Starz, 9PM
• American West, AMC, 10PM
• Being, Centric, 10PM
• Deon Cole: Cole-Blooded Seminar, Comedy Central, 11:59PM

Sunday

• Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life, Fox, 7PM
• 2016 BET Awards, BET, 8PM
• Shark Week: Tiger Beach, Discovery, 8PM
• US Olympic Trials: Swimming, NBC, 8PM
• Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
• The Girlfriend Experience, Starz, 8PM
• Vicious, PBS, 8PM
• US Gymnastics Championships: Women’s, NBC, 9PM
• The $100,000 Pyramid (series premiere), ABC, 9PM
• Ray Donovan (season premiere), Showtime, 9PM
• Shark Week: Return of the Monster Mako, Discovery, 9PM
• Endeavour, PBS, 9PM
• Preacher, AMC, 9PM
• Game of Thrones (season finale), HBO, 9PM
• The Last Ship, TNT, 9PM
• Match Game (series premiere), ABC, 10PM
• Motive (season finale), USA, 10PM
• Roadies (series premiere), Showtime, 10PM
• Shark Week: Isle of Jaws, Discovery, 10PM
• Ride with Norman Reedus, AMC, 10PM
• Feed the Beast, AMC, 10PM
• Silicon Valley (season finale), HBO,10PM
• Declassified, CNN, 10PM
• Murder in the First (season premiere), TNT, 10PM
• Tunnel, PBS, 10:30PM
• Veep (season finale), HBO, 10:30PM
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM

(All times listed are ET)

BitTorrent to launch peer-to-peer streaming news network

BitTorrent is looking to expand its live streaming offerings by launching a TV news network in time for the November election, Variety reports today. The news network would be an expansion of the OTT News app the company released for Apple TV, iOS and Android earlier this year, as well as its BitTorrent Live offerings. According to Variety, the San Francisco-based peer-to-peer company’s in-house network will be called “BitTorrent News” and the company is currently hiring a news director and a team of journalists to round out the offering.

Whereas OTT News was “a test case” for live streaming, BitTorrent News looks to be a legitimate grassroots competitor to cable news, albeit without the nonstop, 24/7 coverage of CNN or MSNBC. According to the job listing, the network will stay focused on breaking news events like “political campaigns, sporting events, tech and cultural events.” Overall, BitTorrent has been shifting focus from file sharing into a media company, starting with music and movie releases. Earlier this month, Variety also reported BitTorrent would be spinning off its enterprise file sharing software Sync into a separate company dubbed Resilio, led by BitTorrent’s own former CEO Eric Klinker.