Google Docs finally adds multitasking tools for iPads
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides’ most recent iOS updates make them play a whole lot nicer with multitasking on iPads. The patch feels a little overdue at this point, but hey, we’ll take support for iOS 9’s tablet features like Split View and Slide Over whenever we can get ’em. Supported models include the iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 4 and both sizes of iPad Pro, and if the update hasn’t hit your device yet, that’s what the source links below are for.
Via: Apple Insider, The Verge
Source: iTunes (1), (2), (3)
Regional Rare Pokemon: What they are and how to get them – CNET
Tauros, a Regional Rare Pokemon found in North America.
Alina Bradford/CNET
On your quest to catch them all, some Pokemon are impossible to find, unless you travel. This is because it seems some Pokemon only spawn in certain continents in Pokemon Go.
These Pokemon are called Regional Rare Pokemon. Even though they may not be found where you live, you still need them to fill your Pokedex. Luckily, there is one way to still get these elusive Pokemon.
The Regional Rare Pokemon
The Regional Rare Pokemon are believed to be:
- Mr. Mime, a psychic and fairy type, found in Europe.
- Tauros is a normal-type Pokemon found in North America. I’ve found that it appears in rural areas as well as cities.
- Kangaskhan, a normal type that looks like a kangaroo, can be found in Australia and New Zealand.
- Farfetch’d is a flying and normal-type Pokemon that is found in Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea.
Why do people think these are Regional Rare Pokemon? So far, each Pokemon has only been caught in these specific regions.
How to get Regional Rare Pokemon
If you can’t afford to travel around the world in search of these rares, there is one way you can catch them from your own hometown: Hatch eggs. Players around the world have reported being able to get these rare Pokemon from eggs, even if they haven’t traveled.
Need some hatching tips? Read the best hatching tips for Pokemon Go.
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Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker review – CNET
The Good The Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker is affordable, easy to use and a snap to clean, and uses fewer beans to create tasty iced coffee. It’s also small enough to conveniently fit inside refrigerator doors.
The Bad Though it uses less coffee grounds per batch, the Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker brews a weaker drink than other home cold-brew gadgets.
The Bottom Line While the Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker won’t satisfy drinkers of strong coffee, its low price and solid brewing chops will make budget shoppers happy.
The $25 Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker is both easy to use and affordable. Priced at half as much as competing products such as the $50 Oxo Cold Brew, and $15 less than similar devices from Toddy and Filtron, Takeya’s cold-brew gadget is extremely budget-friendly. Despite its low cost, the Takeya Cold Brew has the chops to make quality coffee with little mess or hassle.
Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker is simple and…
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Essentially a plastic pitcher, the Takeya Cold Brew consists of just four parts: the pitcher, a handle and spout section that screws down around its lip, a mesh filter and an airtight lid.
The Takeya Cold Brew consists of a pitcher, mesh filter, lid and handle.
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
To kickstart the brewing process first pour 32 ounces (1 quart, 0.95 L) of water inside the pitcher. Next add 14 to 16 tablespoons (8 ounces, 227 grams) of coarsely ground coffee to the filter (what Takeya calls the “infuser”) and attach it to the lid. Finally screw the lid (and linked filter) securely into place, give the whole apparatus a couple good shakes, then slip it into the refrigerator. After 12 to 24 hours, roughly overnight, remove the brewer from the fridge, pour and serve.
The LG V20 will be the first phone with a 32 bit Quad DAC
The LG V20 not only will be the first phone to run Android 7.0, but news from Seoul tells us it will also be the first smartphone to feature a Quad DAC.
While the actual model isn’t yet revealed, we do know LG is once again partnering with ESS to bring premium audio to the V20. ESS also provided the excellent 32bit DAC in the V10, which received pretty rave reviews for its audio performance.
Higher quality audio is simply the natural evolution of the smartphone, as the industry moves toward a more holistic multimedia consumption experience.
— Juno Cho, president of LG Electronics and Mobile Communications Company.
LG says that they know users are now looking for more than a fast processor and a big display when they buy a high-end phone, and they aim to provide it with the V20. We’ll know more — and hopefully get to put our hands on a V20 — on September 6 when LG unveils the whole package in San Francisco. In the meantime, we can read the press releases. This one is below.
LG V20, WORLD’S FIRST SMARTPHONE WITH QUAD DAC FOR BEST IN CLASS AUDIO
LG and ESS Technology Collaborate to Deliver One-of-a-Kind Audio Experience
SEOUL, Aug. 11, 2016 ― LG Electronics (LG) announced that its forthcoming flagship smartphone, LG V20, will be the first smartphone in the industry to feature 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC (digital to analog converter) capabilities, bringing a superior audio experience to mobile for the very first time.
A Quad DAC delivers a crisp and clear sound that comes closest to a live performance when using compatible wired headphones. The sound is superior to that produced by a traditional DAC as it can reduce up to 50 percent of ambient noise levels. Videos taken with the V20 are accompanied by a soundtrack that can capture the roaring sound of waves crashing on a beach or conversations among two individuals at a noisy party.
LG worked closely with ESS Technology, a leader in high-performance analog and audio devices, to ensure that the Quad DAC, delivered the best audio experience for owners of the LG V20. The Quad DAC is the lynchpin of the many cutting-edge multimedia features included in the LG V20. ESS Technology previously provided its 32-bit Hi-Fi DAC in the V10, LG V20’s predecessor.
“As smartphones mature, we’re seeing more and more customers looking beyond just fast processors and big displays in their devices,” said Juno Cho, president of LG Electronics and Mobile Communications Company. “Higher quality audio is simply the natural evolution of the smartphone, as the industry moves toward a more holistic multimedia consumption experience. We’re pleased to continue this long-term partnership with ESS and bring best in class audio to LG V20 users.”
“We are extremely excited that our Quad DAC technology will be featured in the V20, LG’s latest flagship smartphone for consumers who demand the best media experience,” said Robert Blair, president and chief executive officer of ESS Technology. “As a technology more typically available in high-end audio equipment, Quad DAC on the V20 will make users feel as if they are carrying around a professional home-audio system on their smartphone.”
Yelp will virtually line up for you at restaurants
Yelp already provides a list of places you can go to, as well as a treasure trove of hilarious one-star reviews, but it’s about to become even more useful. The company’s app will soon give you a way to virtually get in line at thousands of casual dining restaurants that don’t typically accept reservations, thanks to its partnership with a service called Nowait. According to TechCrunch, Nowait’s mobile app can put your name in the waitlist of over 4,000 restaurants, including Chili’s. You’ll get a text when your table is ready, and you can even tell restos that you’re running late by texting back. They might not always hold the table for you, but you at least get a shot at convincing them to do so.
Since the partnership involves integrating Nowait’s services into Yelp, you can expect a similar setup. Nowait CEO Ware Sykes told TC that they don’t have a specific deadline, but the integration will happen “in the coming months.” When it does, Yelp could offer reservations for even more locations. It has also invested $8 million into Sykes’ company, which he plans to use to expand its repertoire.
Source: TechCrunch
Latest Tesla Autopilot-related crash occurs in China
Once again, Tesla’s Autopilot driving assist feature is at the center of another car crash, this time due to a collision that occurred on a highway in Beijing. Reuters reports that a Tesla owned by Luo Zhen hit a car parked on the highway shoulder. Both Luo and Tesla confirmed to the news outlet that Autopilot was engaged at the time, and based on Luo’s dashcam footage above, it’s quite clear that his car didn’t react to the parked vehicle. This resulted in the Tesla grazing the side of the car, knocking off a side mirror and scraping up both vehicles.
A Tesla spokesperson informed Reuters that a key problem here is that Luo did not have his hands on the wheel to avoid a situation like this. This is a condition Tesla requires when using Autopilot, and the company has iterated this before. Luo confirmed to Reuters he didn’t have his hands on the wheel and was checking his phone at the time. But he also said the feature was sold to him as a self-driving function.
This is a chief complaint from Luo, and Reuters heard from four other people that Tesla sales staff portrayed the system as fully autonomous. Tesla, as in many times prior, said the feature is a driving assist, and not for completely autonomous driving. Both Reuters and Financial Times suggest the capability of Autopilot may get misconstrued based on how Autopilot is translated, which makes sense. Both sources report the feature is translated as “zidong jihashi,” a term frequently used for airplane autopilot, and Reuters says it also translates to “self-driving.” Zhong Shi, a Beijing automotive analyst, told Financial Times that the term “wuren jihashi” is more commonly used to describe a “self-driving” system, but added that, regardless, China doesn’t have the clearest terminology for autonomous and semi-autonomous automotive tech.
However, even when taking mistranslation out of the equation, organizations have voiced concern about how clearly Tesla explains the capabilities of Autopilot. Following a fatal crash caused by an Autopilot failure, Consumer Reports called on Tesla to change the name of the tech to prevent misconceptions. For its part, Tesla has said that it’s committed to Autopilot even in the face of setbacks.
Related Video:
Via: Automotive News, YouTube
Source: Reuters, FT
Scientists see gene activation in human brain for the first time
When it comes to neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia, along with addiction and depression, a certain enzyme has gotten a lot of attention as a major actor in each: histone deacetylases (HDACs). Scientists recently developed a new imaging technique to see them in action, witnessing changes in gene activity in the brain for the first time.
Dysfunction in epigenetics, or alterations in gene expression that affect organism function, is responsible for many neurological disorders, including those above. Scientists know HDACs are involved in changing those expressions, but lack specific information.. To study the difference in the molecules’ activity in healthy brains versus the afflicted, researchers spent seven years creating a compound, [11C]Martinostat, that would help examine them at work in the brain.
As they explain in their paper released in Science Translational Medicine, the scientists had deployed their compound in rats and primates, but this first group of eight subjects would be its first human test. Martinostat successfully attached to the HDACs, allowing the scientists to track the molecules using PET scans of the subjects’ brains. This showed the researchers where the molecules are in the brain — and the results were surprising, says The Verge.
The HDAC levels were high in the cerebellum, which controls motor functions, and much lower in white matter, the amygdala and the hippocampus. More shocking was the consistency in these assortments between patients, who all had more or less the same amount of the molecule in the same places in the brain, an intriguing connection between the HDACs and gene expressions related to neurological disease.
But it’s still a first step: this version of Martinostat only binds with three of the eleven known HDAC types, leaving the activity of the absent eight uncertain. In addition, it’s unknown how the molecule itself changes its way of affecting gene expression as humans age, if at all.
Via: The Verge
Source: Science Translational Medicine
There’s something weird going on beyond Neptune
Past Neptune, in the outer solar system, astronomers have recently discovered a new mystery object orbiting the sun on a plane nearly perpendicular to the rest of the planets. Adding to the weirdness, the trans-Neptunian object, which has been nicknamed “Niku,” is also spinning around the sun backwards, in the opposite direction of the rest of the planets. So far, astronomers have little idea what could cause such abnormal celestial behavior.
Planetary systems are defined by the flat plane of dust and gas that forms around a star. Thanks to angular momentum, all of the object circle around the sun in the same direction. But as the astronomers who discovered Niku using the Pan-STARRS telescope on Haleakala, Maui noticed, the object is currently above the plane of the solar system and moving upwards. That means some other force must have acted upon the object in order to set it on this path.
“It suggests that there’s more going on in the outer solar system than we’re fully aware of,” Matthew Holman, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center told The New Scientist. Although Holman’s team initially thought the other mysterious object beyond Neptune, Planet Nine might have influenced Niku’s orbit, further analysis showed Niku is too close for any possible Planet Nine to have an impact. The team did, however, discover that Niku, which is estimated to be less than 200 kilometers in diameter, is actually a part of a group of objects, all of which are circling the sun backwards on the same 110-degree plane.
Although this data is all just hinting towards some unknown conclusion for now, Konstantin Batygin, one of the researchers who first theorized about a Planet Nine, is excited by the new trans-Neptunian object. “Whenever you have some feature that you can’t explain in the outer solar system,” Batygin told the New Scientist, “it’s immensely exciting because it’s in some sense foreshadowing a new development.”
‘Futurama’ gets its own quote search engine
Ever since The Simpsons got an encyclopedic search engine through Frinkiac, many TV fans have been wondering one thing: where’s the Futurama version? Relax, it’s here. The creators of Frinkiac have launched Morbotron, a quote search tool that lets you dig through every season of Fry’s adventures (complete with 861,414 screenshots) to create meme-worthy pictures and animated GIFs. You can find every moment that Professor Farnsworth has good news, Morbo proclaims doom for the human race, or Bender invites someone to bite his backside.
The new site also reflects an upgrade to the team’s search code. It can now pluck dialogue from videos in multiple aspect ratios (good for titles like The Simpsons Movie), and it’s more of a generic search platform than a Matt Groening-specific engine. There’s a “show or two more” that will get similar treatment — this isn’t the end by a longshot.
Source: Morbotron, Langui.sh
Canadian court ruling on SMS privacy means you shouldn’t be using SMS
Having nothing to hide doesn’t mean you should ignore your privacy. Especially when keeping messages secure and private is so easy.
An Ontario Court of Appeals has ruled that your SMS messages are not private and once “sent to the ether” are no longer under your control. Vice has a full write up about the decision that interested parties should read, but the short version is this: SMS messages are like email and not subject to the same protection that voice calls have. They aren’t a private conversation, and you shouldn’t keep thinking they are private.
An Ontario Court of Appeals has ruled that your SMS messages are not private and once “sent to the ether” are no longer under your control.
This has some far-reaching implications for some folks, while others won’t care because they “have nothing to hide” or don’t care what happens in a Canadian court. But we all should be concerned, and now is a perfect time for you and the people you talk with to switch to something else. Preferably something that’s cross-platform and offers encryption. I’ve got nothing to hide either, but I still expect and demand a little bit of privacy.
We don’t have the perfect suggestion for a messenger app. Different people will want different things, after all. But we do know there are more than a handful of cross-platform (iOS and Android, sometimes Windows as well) messenger apps that can be used to keep private conversations private regardless of what a judge thinks. WhatsApp comes to mind, as does Signal or Telegram.
We should all be concerned about this ruling, and now is a perfect time for you and the people you talk with to switch to another form of messaging.
If you’re the go-to person for all things tech in your circle of family and friends, have a look and see what you like and would recommend. If you’re not, point them here.
Stay safe. And stay private.
AIVAnet 