Apple iOS 10 will add new emoji – like a water gun instead of a pistol

Apple has announced a new feature in its upcoming iOS 10 software, and it could be considered politically correct.

The Cupertino, CA-based company on Monday revealed that more than 100 new and redesign emoji characters will be available this autumn, with the consumer release of iOS 10 to iPhone and iPad users. The update, which is currently being tested by both developers and the public before it officially rolls out, will add more gender options to existing emoji, including new female athletes and professionals, according to Apple.

But one of the most obvious emoji changes is the removal of the pistol emoji. Apple has instead replaced it with a green water gun and has promised to work closely with the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organisation that governs the Unicode Standard and determines which emoji are accepted, to “ensure that popular emoji characters reflect the diversity of people everywhere”.

The pistol has long been a controversial emoji character. A French court even ruled that it could equal a death threat, sentencing a man to three months in prison for texting the emoji to his ex-girlfriend, according to The Telegraph. A group called New Yorkers Against Gun Violence also started a campaign last year to have Apple replace the pistol emoji, though Google, Facebook, and Twitter all use realistic pistol emoji too.

Apart from the toy gun, iOS 10 will introduce redesigns of the rainbow flag and more family emoji options.

IBM’s new virus filter could lead to home diagnostic tools

The best way to treat any disease, beyond avoiding getting sick in the first place, is to catch it early. You can always go to the hospital and have expensive tests run, but we can do better: New research from IBM could lead to lab-on-a-chip virus detection technology that would enable let patients monitor their health by analyzing saliva or urine samples at home.

Specifically, IBM has made a breakthrough in nanoscale deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) — a method of separating viruses and other health threats from DNA in fluid samples. The process kind of works like a pachinko machine, albeit less random: Fluids are filtered through a series of tiny pillars that separate elements by size. The technology has been used in the past to isolate parasites and other larger targets. Now, IBM has used silicon technologies to build a nanoscale DLD process capable of targeting exosomes, demonstrating that a DLD can be used to filter obects in the 20 to 110 nanometer scale. That’s small enough to detect viruses or markers that could be associated with potential cancers.

Naturally, it’s pretty early in the research, and IBM says it will need more time to figure out if this kind of technology could feasibly and reliably be used to analyze fluids. If it can, however, it could lead to more affordable, compact methods of detecting illnesses — and possibly in-home devices for self-monitoring, and open the door for new early-treatment options. Check out the full paper for yourself at the source link below.

Source: Nature, Spectrum

New Frank Ocean Album Coming Exclusively to Apple Music on Friday

R&B singer Frank Ocean’s next album, “Boy’s Don’t Cry,” is set to be released this Friday through an exclusive deal with Apple Music, reports The New York Times. The release will include a major music video and a printed “Boys Don’t Cry” publication to be distributed at Apple retail stores.

According to a source who spoke with The New York Times, Frank Ocean’s album will be an Apple Music exclusive for two weeks before it becomes available on other music services.

“Boys Don’t Cry” is Frank Ocean’s first album since his 2012 release “Channel Orange,” which won a Grammy Award for best urban contemporary album. The album has seen several delays so far and The New York Times warns that its release could potentially be put off. Ocean’s website was, however, updated this morning with a new promotional video hosted by Apple Music.

In addition to “Boys Don’t Cry,” Apple has secured a number of high-profile exclusive releases for Apple Music in the past, debuting content like Drake’s “Views” album, Taylor Swift’s “1989 World Tour LIVE” film, and Katy Perry single “Rise.”

Apple Music, now over a year old, boasts more than 15 million subscribers as of June 2016.

Tag: Apple Music
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CDC warns against visiting a Zika-hit Miami neighborhood

Reports of the first active Zika transmissions in the US are leading to some far-reaching precautions in Miami. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are warning both pregnant women and their partners to steer clear of the city’s Wynwood neighborhood (including The Shops at Midtown Miami) out of concern that they might be infected. The CDC is also asking future mothers to get Zika tests in their first or second trimesters if they’ve been in the area from June 15th onward, and to use condoms (or other barrier-based contraceptives) if they have sex.

The warning extends to couples even thinking about having children. You should wait at least 8 weeks to try if you’ve been in the area, the CDC says. And if you’re a man who has exhibited symptoms, you should wait a minimum of 6 months.

Disease control experts don’t expect to see American Zika outbreaks on the scale of those seen in Central America, the Caribbean and South America. Better overall sanitation and anti-mosquito protections (such as window screens) should reduce the odds of infection. However, it’s clear that the CDC isn’t taking any chances — it wants to contain even the slightest hint of Zika before it becomes a serious crisis.

Via: Associated Press

Source: CDC

The lab-made Impossible Burger is a meatless treat for everyone

Every October two vegetarian friends of mine from Michigan spend a week at my place while they attend New York Comic Con. Because I take my hosting duties very seriously, I always try to find good places for them to eat here in New York. It’s not too hard, as you can find vegetarian and vegan restaurants for pretty much every major cuisine here. But one thing that I haven’t been able to locate is a good meat substitute. That changed last week when a restaurant here in the city became the first and (so far) only location to offer the Impossible Burger, a lab-developed patty that claims to replicate the taste and texture of real beef using similar proteins found in plants. I dropped by for lunch to test this assertion — and to scope it out for my friends, of course.

The Impossible Burger was created out of a desire for more environmentally friendly food production. You see, it takes a lot of resources to raise animals for consumption. That includes obvious assets like land and water, but also the fuel needed to run the various machines that make farming possible. You can produce a lot more food from a crop of wheat than you can from a herd of cattle.

However, it’s hard to shake the habit of eating meat; it’s such a big part of various cultures’ cuisine, and it just tastes good. Meat substitutes have arisen to try and bridge that gap, and while products like tofu and seitan can function as a protein in many dishes, they just don’t impart the same amount of oomph as red meat or poultry in a dish.

The team at Impossible Foods spent five years in a lab trying to unlock that secret, studying every facet of the burger experience including its look, smell and taste. Eventually they were able to isolate heme protein as the root of the meat’s flavor. It’s abundant in animal flesh — the word comes from the Greek for ‘blood’ — but it also occurs in plant matter as well.

Plant heme protein makes up less than 2 percent of the Impossible Burger, but it’s a vital 2 percent. What makes up the rest of it, nailing down other essentials such as smell and texture? Protein from wheat and potatoes, coconut oil and various vitamins. Apologies to Celiac sufferers and other non-gluten-eating people: Even without its bun, the Impossible Burger isn’t gluten-free. It also contains some soy protein, a common allergen. Happily for my tree nut and peanut allergies, those ingredients are absent here.

The Impossible Burger is currently being served at Momofuku Nishi, the newest of chef David Chang’s “New Asian” family of restaurants. Most of the menu consists of traditional Asian dishes like kimchi and ramen, so the $12 Impossible Burger stands out — it’s listed under “buns & noodles,” as there’s no other place to put it. According to Impossible Foods’ spokesperson Lance Ignon, David Chang was chosen for this initial run of the burger due to being “one of America’s most respected, innovative and creative chefs.” The values that govern Momofuku also mesh well with Impossible Foods’ own, most notably the chain’s support for sustainable, responsible food sourcing.

While waiting outside for the restaurant to to open, I heard various other diners describe the product as “a new vegan burger” or “new fake meat,” neither of which really imparts the full depth of the accomplishment. Additionally, Lance Ignon wants this to be absolutely clear: “We don’t make imitation meats. We make meat from plants.”

I didn’t have to wait long to find out how true this was, as my friend and I got our food about 10 minutes after placing our order at the bar. That’s a fairly standard wait for a burger, which makes sense because the plant-based beef cooks just like cow meat, starting out pink and slowly browning on the griddle.

Each burger came on a metal tray with a side of thin fries and a little cup of ketchup. The fries were fairly standard and I only munched on a few. As for the burger, it came on a soft potato bun topped with a fairly standard compliment of lettuce, tomatoes and dill pickles. The bottom of the patty is slathered with a good helping of “special sauce.” The Impossible Burger can be ordered with cheese as well, though you need to specify if you want a vegan option. I opted for regular cheese: Not just because I like the taste of dairy, but because vegan cheese tends to use nuts like cashews and almonds so I can’t eat it.

At first blush the Impossible Burger looked like a regular burger. There was one small annoyance in my particular helping: Some of the cheese appeared to have burned on the grill, leaving a crispy wafer sticking out from the side. After poking and prodding at my food for a bit I finally took a bite of the burger. There was some initial weirdness with the texture — a bit of extra chewiness that surprised me because to all my other senses, this was a piece of beef. So I can’t say with total confidence that it’s completely indistinguishable from cow flesh. However, if you were to give it to someone without revealing that it’s plant-based, there’s a good chance they’d never know (unless they are allergic to soy or have sensitivity to wheat, so don’t do a blind taste test without checking first).

I admit it was hard to stop and take photos, because it was delicious and all I really wanted to do was stuff it in my face. The nice thing is that Momofuku Nishi didn’t dress up the Impossible Burger in any particular special way, so you aren’t judging it based on its dressings. The simple toppings made it taste akin to some of my favorite burgers in the city, like Five Guys or Petey’s in Queens.

The one thing missing from the Impossible Burger is fat. It’s generally acknowledged as the ingredient that makes meat taste good, but the burger seemed to be doing just fine there thanks to the plant heme. However, researchers at Purdue University have postulated that there might a sixth taste besides sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami called “oleogustus,” which means “oily taste.” And that was definitely absent from the Impossible Burger, though that wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. You see, usually after eating a burger I feel kind of greasy and overstuffed; I usually crave a long walk and a good shower. I decided to walk back to the Engadget office for that exact reason, only to realize after a block or two that I felt fine. For some the absence of the fat might be a negative, but it was a huge positive for me because I don’t enjoy feeling gross because of something I ate.

Momofuku Nishi’s price of $12 is a bit high compared to something like Five Guys, but that’s more because of where you’re eating than what: It’s actually one of the lower-priced items on the restaurant’s menu. (For contrast, a Shake Shack burger will run you $5.29, while high-end joint Park Avenue will sell you its copy of an In-and-Out burger for $23. They’re both good, but you’re paying more for the latter place’s image and ambiance.) The cost to consumers of the plant-based Impossible Meat should be fairly low once it’s more widely available — especially compared to previous attempts at lab-developed meat, which cost as much as $325,000 a patty and didn’t even taste very good.

For now New York is the only place you can buy an Impossible Burger, with a location in San Francisco to be announced soon. And due to limited quantities and high demand (some customers have asked for 10 to go), each diner is only allowed one burger. Let’s hope that changes soon, because the first thing I wanted to do when I finished mine was to eat another one.