ASUS ZenWatch 3 review
Not long after Android Wear’s inception, ASUS entered the smartwatch market with the original ASUS ZenWatch. Although it didn’t quite offer the same level of appeal as the circular Moto 360, it marked the beginning of one of the best Android Wear lines to-date.
Two years and one iteration after its debut, the ZenWatch line is going circular with the ZenWatch 3; but does ASUS’ latest smartwatch offer a better experience than its competitors? Let’s find out with our comprehensive ASUS ZenWatch 3 review!
Design
The ZenWatch 3 is available in three color options: Rose Gold, Silver, and Gunmetal (pictured above). Perhaps the most compelling design aspect is the watch face; a circular display is surrounded by an accented, diamond cut bezel, which meets with the device’s housing. Unlike the Moto 360, the ZenWatch 3 manages to pull this circular design off without a “flat tire.” There’s also still an ambient light sensor for automatic brightness.
Encased in a 316L stainless steel body, the ZenWatch 3 certainly gives off a premium vibe from a material perspective. Its lugs may appear a bit unusual at first glance, but they actually compliment the rest of the design quite nicely with their subtlety. The wrist strap attachment mechanism is easy to use with its quick release pin, although it is proprietary, so you won’t be able to easily use third party bands. ASUS is planning to sell both leather and rubber bands separately, each available in dark brown and beige.
With that said, the leather wrist strap that comes with the watch is surprisingly good, offering a good deal of both comfort and style. It may, however, be a tad too small for those with very large wrists. Despite having relatively small wrists myself, the ZenWatch’s band fit around the middle notch. If you’re worried about this, you should consider trying on the watch in a retail store before purchasing to make sure it fits well.
ASUS has also included three side buttons on the ZenWatch 3, all of which are satisfyingly tactile. Functionally speaking, the bottom button turns on airplane mode, the center button functions as a back button, and the top button can be set to launch an app of your choice.
I would have preferred just a single customizable side button
However, I very rarely found myself using these buttons, and often opted to interact with the touch screen instead. Quite frankly, three individual buttons feels excessive from a design perspective and overly complicated from a user experience perspective, so I would have preferred just a single customizable side button. Still, the buttons that ASUS has included both look and feel very premium.
All things considered, the ZenWatch 3 offers a unique and stylish design. Some may argue that the gold bezel accent is a bit tacky, but I think it fits in well with the rest of the watch’s aesthetic. For what it’s worth, many of my friends commented on that aesthetic, and the general consensus was quite positive.
Display
The ZenWatch 3 features a 1.39″ circular AMOLED display, with a resolution of 400 x 400. This is very likely the best display on a smartwatch to date.
The ambient light sensor allows for auto brightness, too, so you won’t have to worry about constantly fine tuning the brightness manually. My only gripe with this is that the ZenWatch tends to lower auto brightness levels, which can be a bit problematic in bright environments. Hopefully a software update can tweak this a bit.
Sunlight readability is great
There also isn’t a proper low brightness mode, so the watch’s “theater mode” just turns the display off completely. Sunlight readability is great though, and probably some of the best you’ll obtain from this form factor.
Performance
One of the ZenWatch 3’s key advantages over last year’s Android Wear devices is its use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100. This chip has been touted to offer better performance and battery life since it’s designed specifically for smartwatches.
The better performance claim seems to hold water, too, as the ZenWatch 3’s performance was excellent during my testing. Swiping between cards and panels is very smooth, and it’s generally difficult to find an appreciable amount of lag throughout the interface. There’s also 512 MB of RAM, which is pretty much standard for Android Wear smartwatches.
Hardware
With IP67 certification, the ZenWatch 3 is dust proof and water resistant, meaning that it can be submerged in up to one meter of water for thirty minutes. While we wouldn’t recommend taking a shower with it, you won’t have to worry about it getting wet when washing your hands or sweaty when exercising.
You’ll be missing out on standalone Wear apps that use GPS as the potential for Android Pay
For connectivity, the watch primarily uses Bluetooth 4.1 to connect with your phone, but also supports Wi-Fi as a fallback. Unfortunately, it lacks GPS and NFC, so you’ll be missing out on standalone Wear apps that use GPS as the potential for Android Pay, which will likely be coming in an upcoming update to Android Wear.
It’s also lacking a heart rate monitor, which is fairly disappointing considering many competing Android Wear options include one. It does, however, include both a microphone and speaker, meaning that you’ll be able to place and receive calls on the watch directly. In my testing, both functioned about as well as I had expected.
Battery Life
ASUS claims the ZenWatch 3’s 340mAh battery should last one to two days, depending on your usage. With moderate usage, I was able to get around twenty four hours per charge, which is about average for an Android Wear device.
What makes the ZenWatch 3 particularly strong in this category is that it supports fast charging, for up to a 60% charge in fifteen minutes. In fact, the ZenWatch 3’s fast charging speed made it possible to fully charge it while I got ready each morning, which usually means about forty minutes on the charger.
The included charger connects to the watch magnetically and transfers power through the watch’s underside pins; it generally works quite well, too.
I would have liked to see a longer charging cable, however, as the one included in the box is a bit short at around a meter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that you can currently buy a longer or even extra charging cable for the ZenWatch 3, so you’ll want to keep this in mind.
Software
There’s not much to say when it comes to software. Shipping with Android Wear, the ZenWatch 3 provides an identical core experience to other Android Wear smartwatches. I did notice a few minor bugs while using the ZenWatch 3, but those can most likely be blamed on Google. The good news is that it looks like this watch will be updated to Android Wear 2.0, so the software experience will likely improve over time.
The software experience will likely only improve over time
With that said, the general interface today sounds complicated but is actually quite easy to use. The watch’s “home screen” is simply a watch face of your choice. From there, you can swipe up to see and act on different cards, which are added as you receive notifications on your phone. So, for example, if you receive a text message from a friend, you can simply swipe up on your watch to read it and have the opportunity to respond with your voice.
Since it is running Android Wear, the ZenWatch 3 is compatible with both Android 4.3 and higher as well as iOS 8.2 and higher, although features will vary by platform. Still, if you’re using an iPhone, this is a great, cheaper alternative to the Apple Watch.
ASUS has a ZenWatch Manager app, which adds over fifty different exclusive watch faces. That’s an impressive number of options, but unfortunately there’s only a few really good ones. Do keep in mind that you can always download third party watch faces from the Google Play store, however.
There’s also ASUS ZenFit, a built-in app that tracks steps, workouts, and sleep. I found it to work very well overall, too, and was happy to see that includes Google Fit integration.
Gallery
Pricing and final thoughts
The ASUS ZenWatch 3 is now available from various retailers for $229. That’s a great bargain for what ASUS has brought to the table. It’s very difficult not to fall in love with the ZenWatch 3 with its beautiful design, great display, excellent performance, and solid hardware. If you’re looking for what is likely the most well-rounded smartwatch to date, look no further.
With that said, smartwatches largely still feel like a novelty. As much as I love the ZenWatch 3’s hardware, the overall experience isn’t enough for me to keep using it. Currently, it simply doesn’t do enough more than my smartphone, which I always keep on me. I understand that some will absolutely love having notifications on their wrist, but I personally find it too distracting. I also don’t request much more than my daily step count in terms of fitness, which my phone can also keep track of.
Also read:
Three things Android Wear needs to succeed
4 days ago
Here’s the thing ― smartwatches, at least in their current form, aren’t for everyone. If, however, you know the smartwatch concept is for you, the ZenWatch 3 is a great choice and you almost certainly won’t be disappointed.
Feds investigate police body cam footage in New Mexico
The US Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into claims that the Albuquerque Police Department edited and deleted footage from officers’ body cameras in an effort to remove scenes that might damage the department’s reputation. New Mexico In Depth reports federal officials have received “several requests” for a criminal investigation, according to a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque.
Former APD records supervisor Reynaldo Chavez said in a sworn affidavit in October that officers and higher-ups engaged in a campaign to edit or delete potentially damaging body camera footage, and to not mention these videos in police reports. Chavez alleged that videos depicting two lethal officer-involved shootings from 2014 — one of 19-year-old Mary Hawkes and the other of police informant Jeremy Robertson — had been altered or deleted.
Additionally, in November, APD Detective Frank Pezzano testified in a sworn, video-taped deposition that he had edited officers’ body camera footage and other evidence, including surveillance videos, NMID says. Pezzano said he altered footage of the 2014 Hawkes case.
The APD’s log sheet is missing body camera videos from the ex-officer who shot Hawkes, Jeremy Dear, and two other officers who witnessed the shooting or arrived directly after. Both of these officers said they believed their cameras were on, NMID reports, and a city-commissioned analysis by Taser found Dear’s camera was functioning at the time. There’s no record of footage from any of these officers.
The City Attorney said an initial review of the APD revealed no wrongdoing, NMID says. However, Mayor Richard Berry has opened an independent investigation into Chavez’s claims, separate from the federal inquiry.
The federal investigation in particular casts a shadow over officer body camera programs across the nation. Body cams are supposed to be a technical solution to issues around police transparency and violence, allowing officers to document their actions in high-pressure, lethal encounters. However, if police departments are tampering with the footage, body cameras aren’t a solution at all — instead, they become part of the problem.
Via: The Atlantic
Source: New Mexico In Depth
MrMobile on the Sennheiser PXC 550: Better than Bose?
The Sennheiser PXC 550 can keep your ears closed off to the rest of the world. A must-have for those of you with long holiday travels and long holidays with family. They’re good-looking and long-lasting, just like everything you’d want in a … pair of noise-reducing headphones. With the added luxury of a touch-sensitive panel to help control what you’re listening to, you’ll really drive your … headphones wild.
MrMobile, in his infinite wisdom, will help you decide if these cans are what your ears have been looking (listening?) for, or if you’re better off with the Bose QC35. Take Michael Fisher’s advice, and you’ll be ready for all that December has to offer.
Stay social, my friends
- YouTube
- Le web
- Snapchat
Make your space fortune in ‘Astroneer’ on December 16th
If you felt a little let down by No Man’s Sky, perhaps Astroneer can restore your faith in procedurally generated universes. System Era’s space exploration game is finally nearing completion, and will be released on Steam Early Access, as well as Xbox One and Windows 10 Game Preview, on December 16th. The title actually has a lot in common with No Man’s Sky, apart from the third-person viewpoint reminiscent of Lifeless Planet. You are an explorer out to make your fortune, but to do that you must hunt down the resources required to build vehicles, bases and conduct research needed first for survival, then for prosperity.
Luckily, you have one invaluable tool at your disposal to conquer the many unforgiving and diverse worlds you’ll find yourself on — the ability to manipulate the terrain as you wish. You can build mountains and just as easily level them, create bridges across vast canyons and dig up long-lost ships to further your goal. You won’t have to Mark Watney your way through the harsh storms tearing across the somewhat lo-fi landscapes, though. Instead, you’ll be able to recruit up to three other explorers in co-operative multiplayer to survive the final frontier together.
Source: System Era
Inside the factory building GM’s game-changing Bolt EV
At CES earlier this year, GM CEO Mary Barra announced, to much fanfare, that the Bolt EV would have a range of over 200 miles, cost less than $30,000 (after tax credits) and ship by the end of the year. So far, two of those three proclamations have come true. Fortunately for would-be owners, though, the automaker insists it’ll deliver on that last one too, promising that the car will begin shipping by the end of the month. Getting the Bolt out on the street isn’t just important for Chevy, but also for the future of motoring, and it’s all coming together in Detroit.
Thanks to Tesla, most people associate car tech with Silicon Valley — not Detroit. And to be fair, most people would be right. Most major automakers have “innovation” centers just south of San Francisco, hoping to recruit from the area’s talent pool. But the most important feature of Bolt EV — an impressive range — didn’t happen in an office park wedged between two startups; it occurred in good ol’ Motor City.
Nestled in the middle of its Warren Tech Center in Michigan, Doug Drauch, lead engineer for GM’s Global Battery Systems Lab, has been testing and fine-tuning power packs since the the company’s first foray into electric vehicles, the EV1. He feels the sort of excitement for battery chemistry and electronics that most people reserve for sports teams.
Drauch and his fellow engineers have built a facility capable of testing battery packs in about 99 percent of the environments a car will encounter. While there are individual machines for environmental stress tests and power cycling, the main attraction is the “Shaker,” a giant machine that can re-create the X-,Y- and Z-axis vibrations of a vehicle driving on various types of roads. In addition, the company has built a custom chamber for the giant mechanical beast for environmental and power cycling trials.
The machine is so well customized, GM could re-create the charge and power draw of a Bolt EV driving on a cobblestone road in a rainforest if it wanted. If that seems like overkill, bear in mind it’s part of a process that helped contribute to the car’s remarkable range. “Every time we run a test, we learn something new,” Drauch said.
All those findings have helped the company create a battery pack with its partner LG that will push the Bolt to a 238-mile range. Right now its biggest competitor is the Tesla Model 3, which won’t be shipping until the end of 2017. Of course, technology doesn’t mean anything if it’s not being implemented, and 25 miles down the road in Lake Orion, GM’s future is being put together.
The Orion assembly plant is pumping out the Bolt EV for the US as well as for the European market (where it’s known as the Opel Ampera-e) in anticipation of deliveries later this month. It’s being built alongside the Sonic and Sonic four-door. In my tour of the facility, the thing that struck me most was how seamless adding the electric vehicle is.
Alongside two gas-powered Sonics, assembly workers add the motors, battery pack and other parts to Bolts as they pass by. Autonomous sleds deliver the large essentials and lift them into place while the employees secure them. Bolt launch manager Yves Dontigny said that this system allows the company to ramp up production if needed.
If the Bolt is a hit, the automaker can just add more of them to the line, instead of the current allotment of one EV for every two gas-powered cars. Even the spark-producing body shop built specifically for the car isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Dontigny said that the company creates one for every car it manufactures.
But the Bolt isn’t like other cars. For one thing, it’s new from the ground up — not just in terms of design and technology, but in the way automakers bring a vehicle to market. The high-range EV went from design to introduction in three years. That’s a process that usually takes five years. And yet, because GM has been making cars for 108 years, even when it produces a high-range affordable car that beat Tesla to the market, inside the factory, at least, it feels like business as usual.
As one of the Bolts ends its journey along the assembly line, it’s fired up, the wheels are attached and it’s lowered onto the ground. It’ll join a growing fleet of cars being prepped to land in showrooms before December comes to a close. Nearly a year ago, CEO Barra took to the CES stage to share GM’s vision of the future and made a pledge that the future would appear in 2016. The workers at Orion are making sure that promise is kept — now the company just needs to sell those cars.
Teens love vaping, much to the Surgeon General’s horror
We know that smoking is bad for you, which is why so many people have switched across to vaping as a (theoretically) safer alternative. But that hasn’t stopped the Surgeon General from objecting to the rise in e-cigarette use, especially amongst young people. Dr. Vivek Murthy has posted a report saying that the devices are a public health issue because they’re not a cure for the real problem of nicotine addition.
It’s a thorny issue, because e-cigarettes are less likely to cause lung cancer and other forms of obvious physical harm. But just because people aren’t inhaling smoke doesn’t mean that vaping is somehow healthy in itself. The vapor, for instance, contains various volatile organic compounds that you’d not otherwise put into your body. There’s also some research saying that the flavors used in specific blends are toxic to the lungs that could be as equally harmful as real cigarettes.
Murthy’s biggest concern, however, is that introducing nicotine to young minds will increase their propensity to become addicts. The neural pathways that are built in adolescence shape how we behave as an adult, including our impulse control. The FDA currently blocks sales of the devices to under 18s, but the report claims that a proportion of sixth graders have tried it. That means that the kids, who are vapin’ away like nobody’s business, are forming addictive pathways that could lead onto harder stuff when they’re older.
What’s likely to cloud this issue even further is that even big tobacco are likely to transition its core business toward electronic smoking. Philip Morris has already begun selling a tobacco vaporizer in Japan, and has submitted it to the FDA for approval. That may, at least, push plenty more people away from cigarettes and toward their digital equivalents. But clearly that’s only a step towards a smoke-free future, and one that doesn’t go far enough for health chiefs.
Via: WSJ
Source: Surgeon General
The inventor of Bluetooth on where wireless is going next
Bluetooth has come a long way. It’s gone from being a frustrating standard that only businesspeople used for mobile headsets to something that millions rely on daily for wireless speakers and headphones, syncing with wearables and more. And now, with Apple and other companies pushing consumers toward wireless headphones (and away from the tried-and-true 3.5 headphone jack), Bluetooth finally has a chance to shine.
Jaap Haartsen, who spearheaded the design of the standard in 1994 while working at Ericsson and currently serves as a wireless expert at Plantronics, was recently inducted into the Consumer Technology Association Hall of Fame. I had a chance to sit down with him to talk about the development of the format and get a sense of where things are headed.
So what have you been working on recently?
I’ve been working on getting a different kind of function over radios like Bluetooth by determining distance because location and communication together will be a very strong formula for features. By knowing what devices are close to you, or further away, you know in range what functions they have. But if you don’t know how far they are away, that’s a disadvantage.
What would the use case be for that?
Well, for example, you have your laptop and want to print out something. You can search for printers and get a list of names, which don’t mean anything to you. But if it says printers are 5 meters and 10 meters [away], that would be at least my vision on how to use these. And there are a lot of things where just being able to determine distance in addition to the contextual awareness. It brings one parameter extra, which can greatly benefit users.
This seems to be an interesting time for Bluetooth. Apple gave up on the headphone jack, and other companies are following suit. How do you see the current ecosystem, especially around wireless audio?
I started it [working on Bluetooth] in 1994, and at that time the audio was limited to mono headsets. The second wave, I think — around 2003 — we brought in stereo audio by increasing the data rate. But still, the momentum wasn’t really there. We started to bring it up to the market. Now we see the market is booming. And with the announcement of Apple taking away the normal 3.5mm jack, that, of course, would give it a great boost. Either you go with a proprietary Lightning connector or you go with wireless. So I think the market as a whole has increased quite considerably.
Are you at all sad about losing headphone jacks? There’s still a difference in audio quality.
People have always said you should have CD quality, so that’s always what they’re complaining about to me: That you should have a multimegabit data link. But I’ve always said, if I do that, that’ll drain your battery and it’ll drain the capacity you can share with each other. So we’ve been relying on codecs [to compress audio data]. Of course, if you’re an audiophile, wireless will never beat the 3.5mm [jack] with its high data rates.
Bluetooth has gotten a bit better, quality-wise, with AptX [a high-quality codec], at least.
I have a different opinion about that. Also, if you use the proper settings with SBC [the default Bluetooth audio codec] I don’t think AptX will be so much better. But that’s another thing. And encoding is always lossy. If you want lossless, you’ll need a few megabits per second. And, of course, as technology progresses we get better codecs. I think the majority of the people we look at, they still listen to MP3s that are compressed.
Are there good ways and bad ways to implement Bluetooth today? And do you think some companies are doing better than others? I’ve liked what Plantronics has been doing, for example.
I know for a fact that the codec they’re using is programmable. So you can put in more bits used for coding or less. If you’re going to change that, you can go from 128 to 320 kilobits per second. And if you go to the lower rate, you’ll hear more deficiencies in your audio. From our perspective, we also want to have good audio, and that’s not just encoding technique. It’s the whole chain. If you have a bad speaker, it doesn’t help you to have a very lossless link.
What are you working on outside of Plantronics?
I also do consulting in the wireless area. Of course, I have a large background not only in Bluetooth, but I’ve also worked for a mobile phone company [Sony Ericsson] for a long time. If you look at all the wireless fields, like WLAN and also mobile, I have experience. And the interesting thing has been to look at all these different systems and how they keep their place in the world.
A lot of people have asked me, “Can we just have one [wireless] system that solves everything for every use scenario?” And I’m still not convinced about that. I still see three different parts when it comes to mobile: large coverage, wireless LAN and ad hoc personal area networks like Bluetooth. Each of those systems has been optimized for their sweet spots. So it’s very difficult to find one system that has all the features you’d have in that.
It sounds a bit like you’re talking about “5G” and all the things that’ll represent.
Yeah, 5G, but we also talk about the Internet of Things. We’ll have millions of devices within a square kilometer, and we’ll have to think about how those things will connect with each other. Has the system really been optimized for that? How are they going to share spectrum? Because that’s a scarce resource, and there’s quite a limited area in the radio spectrum where you can have communications.
What are your thoughts on gadgets like Cassia’s Bluetooth router? Do you think we’ll be seeing more products like that, with companies using the standard in different ways?
If you look at the Internet of Things, we need these kinds of aggregated devices, because there are so many slave devices around you that you’d want to connect to. You need aggregators to combine the signaling. It’s no surprise to me that these kinds of devices have arrived in the marketplace.
Can you delve into what it was like to build and release Bluetooth?
At the time it was 1994. I was in Sweden working for a large manufacturer of mobile phones [Sony Ericsson]. They wanted to increase the value of the phone so, of course, we were using things like wires and also infrared, but those were cumbersome. If you want to have real freedom, you want to do that wirelessly. So one part was voice-driven because we were in the professional market for the businessman. In 1994, mobile phones weren’t really a consumer product yet. It had to support voice, and it also had to support data in order to get rid of the infrared link.
I was asked to come up with a system that was wireless, digital and should be able to support both voice and data. I got a kind of blank sheet, and just made it. I looked at existing systems. I knew about the many mobile systems, but those were too heavy and too complicated for these really short-range technologies. I looked at cordless systems like DECT — digitally enhanced cordless telephony — but that was very much based on an infrastructure with base stations and cordless devices around it. And with Bluetooth, what I was asked to do was really a peer network, a point-to-point ad-hoc network between devices that were just in range.
There was nothing there. The only thing that was close was walkie-talkies, and those were two devices that just talked to each other. When I explained Bluetooth to people, I said it was a walkie-talkie done on a world-scale, because all of the devices could potentially talk with each other.
How long did it take to put it together?
In 1994, I started laying out the foundation on the system level. But pretty soon I got people involved who were more into radio-technology implementation and silicon. Pretty soon, we were talking about doing everything in a single chip, which had never been done before. So on the one hand, they told me what the limitations of that are — no external components with coils and resistors, because everything had to be integrated — and then I had to look at my system protocol and specifications to facilitate building it all on a single chip. I think that went on for three years.
I did a lot of computer simulations, and my colleagues worked on the implementations with radios. I worked out the protocol on the lower level, so that’s the physical layer and the data-link control layer. After a certain point, the managers controlling our division were impressed with what we did. But they also knew they couldn’t bring it to the market themselves because they were only a mobile-phone company. We needed to create an entire ecosystem. So in 1997, I think in the summer, they went out and looked for partners willing to bring this to the marketplace as a de-facto specification.
They approached a number of companies like Nokia and Intel. Intel was very interested, because they are looking at a laptop division, and they couldn’t connect yet with infrastructure. We didn’t have wireless LAN back then. So they wanted to use the mobile phone to get to the internet. But they wanted to have a wired link between mobile phones and laptops. Intel also started to look with Ericsson for other partners. We also got IBM and Toshiba. So we had five companies, and the idea was that we’d have a mix of people from the communications side and PC side. Since we had both Sony Ericsson and Nokia, we couldn’t have one company dominating, and the same on the PC side.
The idea was also to get Microsoft on board, but due to legal reasons they weren’t willing yet to take the step. And then they came in with the second wave. In 1998, the five companies created the Bluetooth SIG, and the whole idea was to finalize the specification. I wrote the initial spec, but then everyone has to agree and have a say.
Then the idea was the Bluetooth SIG would also bring it to market. People didn’t just understand what it was. We called it evangelizing, to tell the consumer what do with it. That took a long time, actually. It was 1999 when we launched the entire Bluetooth system to the world. And then we had the internet bubble [crash] in 2000, 2001, so it really didn’t catch on until 2003, 2004. Then we saw the first billion devices in the world, and that was the point we could say it wouldn’t vanish anymore.
Flickering LED lights could treat Alzheimer’s disease
Twinkling lights aren’t just pretty — if they’re flickering at a specific frequency, they could also treat Alzheimer’s disease. A group of researchers have tested the effectiveness of LED lights flashing at 40 hertz as a treatment for Alzheimer’s on mice genetically engineered to develop the condition. They found that exposing mice in the early stages of Alzheimer’s to the lights for an hour lowered the beta amyloid protein levels in their brains. Beta amyloid accumulates to form plaques that interfere with normal brain function. Further, when they used the same technique on mice already in the advanced stages of the disease for seven days, they found that the method “markedly reduced” the plaques in their brains.
The flickering lights work by stimulating gamma oscillation, which is believed to be impaired in people suffering from the illness. Gamma oscillation transforms immune cells called microglia, which become inflamed and secrete toxic chemicals in Alzheimer’s patients, back to their old self. Since microglia are in charge of clearing out amyloids, turning them back into functioning immune cells fights off the formation of plaques.
Despite these findings, the team still has to find out whether the technique will work on actual Alzheimer’s patients. They need to perform additional tests to see how long the method’s effect can last, since using it on early stage mice only lowered the animals’ amyloid levels for 24 hours. The scientists also need to check whether using the technique to clear out plaques that are already there leads to behavioral changes. In short, it’ll take a long time to know whether it’s a feasible treatment. But since the neurodegenerative illness still has no cure, keeping an eye out for the future findings is definitely worth it.
Source: MIT
Michigan embraces our self-driving future
Michigan isn’t just America’s high five, historically it’s the heart of the auto industry as well. And now the state looks to be preparing for the future. Today, Governor Rick Snyder has signed four bills into law regarding autonomous vehicle repair, research, driving networks and accident responsibility.
For the latter, Michigan recognizes that with autonomous vehicles, when it comes to following traffic laws, the automation system is responsible — not the driver. That bill, SB 995, would also allow driverless vehicles to lawfully operate on Michigan streets and highways. This effectively ends the ban on autonomous cars in the state.
Senate Bill 996 (PDF) allows auto manufacturers to essentially create on-demand taxi services. But it has already come under fire for how it’s worded. Some, like Google, have read it to mean only the likes of General Motors and Ford could do this. The Michigan Department of Transportation told Recode that Apple and Google wouldn’t fall into the “motor vehicle manufacturer” classification until they had vehicles on the open market that meet the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The thing is, one of Google’s self-driving cars already meets said standard.
Another law (PDF) will expand what’s considered lawful as far as autonomous driving testing facilities, like the one that recently broke ground at the historic Willow Run manufacturing campus. What’s more, if you take your self-driving car into the shop, so long as the vehicle is repaired to manufacturer specs, a new piece of legislation says that the garage is exempt from any product liability lawsuits.
This turnaround is certainly a good move forward, especially given Michigan’s place in the auto industry. But as always with bureaucracy, there are kinks to iron out and it’s highly likely that not everyone who this affects will walk away happy.
Ubisoft executives fined millions for alleged insider trading
In addition to a looming hostile takeover, Ubisoft corporate has to deal with over a million Euros in fines for alleged insider trading. The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) has levied a combined €1.27 million (almost $1.4 million) fine against Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat and VP of corporate affairs Francis Baillet. Executive director of worldwide studios Christine Burgess, Ubisoft Montreal VP of executive operations Olivier Paris and Damien Moret, who’s the director of brand development for the company were also named.
According to French publication Les Echos (translated), the country’s stock market regulators found that those named sold stock in the company prior to the announcement that Watch Dogs and The Crew would be delayed out of the holiday release window in 2013. The news of those delays sent Ubisoft stock plummeting some 26 percent.
In a statement, Ubisoft told Engadget that it believes its employees acted in good faith and that the company is “convinced” that no one intentionally committed any “acts contrary to market regulations.” The firm says that the AMF’s move “represents a serious misunderstanding” of the game development and publishing process, saying that this sort of thing is “common” to the video game industry.
“Given the processes and timetables involved in the production of major games at our company and within our industry in general, we believe that at the time they carried out their transactions these employees could not have been aware of or anticipate the subsequent decision to postpone the game that would be taken by Yves Guillemot on October 11, 2013,” the statement said.
“Each major game requires the involvement of multiple teams across the company, but ultimately only the company’s CEO can make an exceptional decision such as changing a game’s release date.”
Mallat said that the accused employees will appeal this decision.
“We remain convinced that the whole process is unjustified, unfounded and illegal,” he said.
These allegations almost makes you wonder if the company actually did know what it did was illegal. Hence, pushing Assassin’s Creed: Unity out the door the next year despite some seriously horrific and performance-affecting bugs.
Via: Kotaku
Source: Les Echoes (translated)
AIVAnet 