Cotton candy and jello could be secret ingredient for growing new organs

Why it matters to you

Dreaming of artificial organs? Researchers may have found a way to make it possible by growing blood vessels.

The regenerative medicine dream of being able to build new human organs from scratch — thereby bringing an end to transplant waiting lists — is serious, life-changing stuff.

So why are researchers from Vanderbilt University spending their time messing about with cotton candy and jello molds? Because, as it turns out, these tools may be our best shot at solving the problem.

One of the bottlenecks that exist with building functioning organs is that cells need to be roughly within a hair’s thickness of a blood vessel to get the nutrients that they need. Put them too far away from a supply of oxygenated blood and they will die. What this means is that if you want to build tissue that is thicker than a human hair, you need to build in artificial vasculature which can provide all the cells in a tissue with the nutrients and oxygen that they need.

The smallest blood vessels are called capillaries, fine branching blood vessels which make up a complex network between arterioles and venules. The size of a capillary? Around 10 times smaller than a human hair.

More: Amazing new 3D printed skin is authentic enough to be used for transplants and scientific testing

That is no good for 3D printing, which is often considered the answer for regenerative medicine thanks to the enormous possibilities of bioprinting. “3D printing certainly has its place for larger features, but I’m not aware of a 3D printing approach that’s able to produce features on the capillary scale in 3D,” Dr. Leon Bellan told Digital Trends.

What he and colleague Hak-Joon Sung have come up with is a novel method of “spinning” capillary-sized polymer fibers using a regular cotton candy machine.

“It turns out that if you take a cotton candy machine and spin fibers from it, that fibrous mesh contains three-dimensional fibers which are roughly 10 times thinner than a human hair,” Bellan continued. “It’s very hard to pattern something at that scale and with that complexity using a 3D printer.”

In terms of where the jello mold comes into play, Bellan said that the polymer fibers are next hardened in a jelly-like material called hydrogel and then dissolved away, leaving just the capillary-style chambers themselves for cells to grow around.

“Getting cotton candy inside hydrogel is somewhat difficult, but it’s important because it’s most similar to the natural cellular matrix that cells like to live in,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time working out how to put cotton candy inside of a jello mold. To do this, we now don’t make the cotton candy from sugar, but instead materials that don’t dissolve in hot water but only in cold water. By playing games with the temperature we were able to achieve our goal.”

New sponsored workshops aim to give photojournalists (drone) wings

Why it matters to you

These actions should accelerate the use of drone photography in journalism, giving the public a better view from the skies.

The FAA’s latest round of drone laws means even photojournalists need to be certified before they fly — and now a partnership between several groups from Google News Lab to DJI is going to help photojournalists get their drone wings.

The Poynter Institute, Google News Lab, the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska, the National Press Photographers Association, and DJI unveiled on Monday a new training program designed to provide journalists the tools they need to safely use drones in their reporting. The Drone Journalism School will be held as a three-day, hands-on workshop, with four locations across the U.S., as well as online availability later this year through Poytner’s News University.

More: What aerial photographers need to know about FAA’s new drone laws

“Drones are purpose-built context machines. They can, in less time and at vastly reduced costs, give a viewer an understanding of the scale and scope of a story unlike anything else journalists have in the toolbox,” Drone Journalism Lab’s Matt Waite said. “Just getting a drone straight up 100 feet in the air has the power to change our understanding of how big, how far, how wide, how massive something is. And it can be done safely and for very little cost.”

Along with covering topics such as drone safety, the workshops will also provide journalists with the information to study for the FAA exam in order to obtain a permit to operate a UAV commercially. “As a certified drone pilot myself, I know how difficult the exam can be for people who have no other pilot training,” said Al Tompkins, the Poynter organizer for the workshops. “Our goal is not to make you ‘test ready’ but to show you what will be on the exam and to give you the fundamental knowledge you will need to study for the test.”

Hands-on flight training will also be a part of the workshop, sponsored by drone manufacturer DJI. A National Press Association Lawyer, Mickey H. Osterreicher, will also be on hand to discuss the legal side of drone flight, helping potential pilots to navigate not only federal drone regulations, but local ordinances as well.

The workshops will be held at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication from March 17 to March 19, Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications from April 21 to April 23, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication from June 16 to June 18, and the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in Portland from August 18 to August 20. The workshop registration is $295, with scholarships available to members of a number of different journalism organizations.

Snapchat now lets businesses create custom Snapcodes that launch their websites

Why it matters to you

Are you a website owner? Snapchat is now letting businesses create custom Snapcodes that launch their website within the Snapchat app.

Snapchat is making its quick response (QR) codes for businesses a little more personal. The company is updating its app to allow websites to have their own QR code. Once scanned, the code will automatically launch the linked website inside the Snapchat app, making it easy for businesses to send users to their website.

An employee of a business looking to use the new feature can simply head to Settings, then select Snapcodes, then hit Create Snapcode. They can then enter the URL for their website, as well as an image that can be pulled from their website or phone, and that image will sit within the Snapchat ghost logo. They can then use the Snapchat QR code wherever they want.

More: Facebook clones another Snapchat feature with the debut of Stories

Individual profiles have had Snapcodes since January 2015. The feature was implemented using technology Snapchat picked up when it acquired Scan.me. What was the point? Well, the codes basically made it easier for users to follow each other without having to type in usernames or search through contacts.

The move makes sense for Snapchat as a way to entice businesses to use Snapchat a little more regularly, and it could help make Snapchat a lot more useful in general for businesses. After all, the easier it is to follow a business and get to its website, the more likely it is that someone will follow that business on Snapchat. Instagram, which is increasingly becoming a competitor to Snapchat, lets verified accounts share URLs within stories, a feature that Snapchat doesn’t currently have — Snapcodes for businesses could be Snapchat’s answer to that.

The new feature comes shortly after Snapchat launched a redesign for its app, which basically made the app far easier to navigate for both iOS and Android users. The Android version of that app was launched early in January, while the iOS version began rolling out on January 23.

Google has open-sourced Chrome for iOS

Welcome to the club, iOS.

After years of being completely separated from the rest of the Chromium project, Google has merged Chrome for iOS into the open-source repository it uses for Chrome on other platforms. The move comes with quite a bit of work on the backend as Apple’s constraints on the iOS platform require Chrome for iOS to be built on WebKit rather than Google’s own Blink rendering engine.

Thanks to a bunch of hard work, all of those hurdles have been overcome and there’s a full upstream flow of the Chrome for iOS code into Chromium. Google says that development speed will also improve now that all of the tests done on Chrome for iOS will simply be part of the larger Chromium community.

If you’re the sort of person who likes to check out the open-source code for massive projects like Chromium, you can do so now and see the inclusion of the iOS code as well. You can even compile the iOS version of Chromium on your own.

How to replace Shield Android TV remote batteries

When your remote batteries finally die, swapping them out is a quick task.

NVIDIA redesigned its TV-style remote that comes with the new Shield Android TV so it’s no longer rechargeable, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In turn, you get a remote that gets one year of battery life with average use, meaning you don’t have to think “is my remote charged?” when you go to turn on your TV.

But after a year of use — or perhaps a bit less if you use it a ton — you’ll want to replace the integrated batteries. Thankfully it’s a job that only takes a few minutes and will cost you just a couple of dollars once you know the right batteries to buy.

The batteries you’ll need

Before you can replace the batteries in your remote, you’ll need to buy new ones. The new Shield Remote requires coin cell batteries that you aren’t guaranteed to find in your local drug store, but you can always find them online or at a specialty electronics store (if one still exists near you). The specific version you need is a CR 2032 3V battery, and you’ll need two for your remote.

You can get a two pack for less than $2 on Amazon, so this is an extremely small investment. A reminder when buying batteries online is to check the expiration date if possible — some specialty batteries can often be old and not work very well.

How to replace them

To replace the batteries in your new Shield Remote, pick it up and look at the bottom for the little circular button in the middle — you’ll press that to open the battery tray. You’ll need to use a pretty small implement in order to press the button — I’d recommend a ballpoint pen or perhaps the tine of a small fork — but once you do it’ll pop right out.

Pull the tray out and gently remove the two batteries. Make note of the direction the batteries sit in the tray — the lettering denoting the battery type will be facing you. Once you have them settled in their slots, slide the tray back in snugly and it’ll click closed.

And that’s it! You now have another year of use in your Shield Remote. It’s that easy.

NVIDIA Shield Android TV

• Read our Shield Android TV review
• The latest Shield Android TV news
• Shield vs. Shield Pro: Which should I buy?
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• Complete Shield Android TV specs

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We’re celebrating 10 years of CrackBerry here at AC!

THE RETURN OF CRACKBERRY KEVIN… ON AC?!

It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago, Kevin Michaluk laced up his boots, walked to the local internet cafe and wrote Matrix levels of HTML to get CrackBerry.com up and running (that is what happened, right?).

Well, CrackBerry is still very much alive, and while its output has slowed with the changing nature of BlackBerry the company, it still has hundreds of thousands of diehard readers visiting every month.

‘Mercury’ is the perfect throwback to the halcyon days of QWERTY phones, but running the most powerful mobile OS on the planet.

Many of those readers now also visit Android Central on a regular basis after BlackBerry made the necessary changes to keep itself afloat, first with the Priv then the DTEK50 and DTEK60 — and soon, the ‘Mercury’!

We’re expecting the BlackBerry ‘Mercury’ to be fully unleashed at Mobile World Congress, almost 10 years to the day that CrackBerry.com opened its virtual doors, and to celebrate this momentous occasion, CrackBerry Kevin — yes, that Kevin — is coming out of retirement! You can expect him to be very active on CrackBerry, of course, but because ‘Mercury’ is an Android phone, AC wants to get involved, too. That means tons of coverage on the home page, through social media, and in the forums, going over every aspect of the brand new phone.

If you haven’t checked it out already, we have a wicked hands-on review of the BlackBerry Mercury from CES earlier this year, and while we don’t know everything about it, we know a few things.

First, that it’s the perfect throwback to the halcyon days of QWERTY phones, this time running the most powerful mobile OS on the planet (sorry, BB10 lovers ❤️).

Second, it’s getting all the fans excited for the renewed BlackBerry Mobile, which is now separate from BlackBerry the software company. Of course, the ‘Mercury’ will run BlackBerry’s homegrown flavor of Android 7.0 Nougat, and we’ll be here to dissect all the subtle changes and improvements over the already-great Marshmallow build.

From CrackBerry:

TEN YEARS is a HUGE milestone, and I want to make sure we celebrate 10 Years of CrackBerry this February in true CrackBerry fashion. To me, and to the many of you that weighed with ideas on how we should celebrate, that means bringing back the same crazy energy we had in our early years, both here on the “blogs” and within the CrackBerry and broader BlackBerry Community. Expect crazy giveaways, crazy podcasts, crazy videos, crazy confessions (untold stories of the years gone by), stories highlighting our amazing community members, and way, way, WAY more.

We’re excited to share some of that love, and a few of those giveaways, here on AC! Because even though we operate independently, all the Mobile Nations channels work very closely to ensure that you get a 360-degree view of the mobile ecosystem. With BlackBerry Mobile exclusively releasing Android phones from here on out, look for AC and CB to work even more closely in the months and years ahead. To start, Kevin will be helping us out with some of the ‘Mercury’ coverage, and the rest of the AC team is looking forward to getting our hands on the phone when it is finally unleashed.

Better start exercising our thumbs again!

The Good ‘Ole Days of CrackBerry Are Coming Back for our 10th Anniversary!

Coin officially shutting down product support by end of next month

Coin will be shutting down product services and support as of February 28.

The end is nigh for Coin cards, secure smart payment devices that allow you to store information from up to eight credit, debit or gift cards onto one, digitally secured, wallet-sized card.

Coin had already begun shutting down all their business operations since Fitbit officially acquired the start up back in June of 2016. Now, just seven months after the sale, the company took to the company blog to officially announced that product service and support would be shutting down as of February 28th:

“Effective from February 28, 2017, the Coin product services will officially be shut down. As a result, support through the Coin website or through social media channels will no longer be available.

“If you have a working Coin device, it will continue to work for the duration of the device’s battery life, which is two years from activation date. Please note that functionality will be reduced as a result of the February services shutdown.

For example, the Coin mobile app will no longer work once product services are shut down. Among other things, this means that you will not be able to add or change the cards that are stored on your Coin device.”

If you’re still using your Coin card, you will definitely want to make your final arrangements and shuffle around the cards you plan to be using before that drop dead date, as you will still be free to continue using your Coin cards at your favorite supported merchants until its internal battery finally bites the dust. However, if anything goes haywire after February 28th, you’re officially out of luck.

Also worth noting is that, as of today’s date (January 31), Coins will no longer be covered by or eligible for warranty exchanges.

Fitbit bought Coin for their compact use of NFC technology for secure in-store payments. While neither the Fitbit Flex 2 or Charge 2 featured NFC capabilities to allow you to pay for things with your fitness tracker, we should hopefully start to see the tech included in the next round of product updates — or perhaps in a brand new Fitbit-branded smartwatch?

Google boosts Snapseed by adding a Curves tool and fixing Face detection

It’s as if Google finally realized that a real photo-editing app has Curves.

Snapseed is getting its first major update of the year. The photo-editing app, which Google purchased from Nik Software back in 2012, finally features a Curves tool, which helps provide precise control over the brightness levels and varying colors of the picture you’re editing. And with smartphones becoming almost as capable as the some of DSLRs, this is a welcome feature for those who may not want to carry laptop with them just to edit photos on the road.

Google has also improved Snapseed’s face detection feature. If Snapseed fails to detect a face, for instance, you can essentially ask it to “try harder.” And if you’re hoping to get a bit kooky with your captions, the Text tool now lets you choose where to wrap lines.

You can read all the details of the Snapseed update at the official Google Plus post on the matter. Or you can wait for the app update to hit your device.

Sky, Discovery Channels agree on new deal at the last moment

After much hubbub, Sky and Discovery have come to an agreement.

The two media companies — hours before their previous contract was set to expire, which would have seen TLC, Animal Planet, Eurosport, and more pulled from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky — have announced terms on a final deal for 12 channels. It’s actually the same one offered to Discovery more than a week ago, but thanks to feedback from its viewers, Discovery has finally accepted the proposal.

• What is Sky Q, how much does it cost and how can I get it?

Discovery Communications confirmed the last-minute contract agreement on Twitter on Tuesday. Also, via a statement on its website, the American company gave credit to “the best fans in TV” for pushing the deal along: “We wanted you to be the first to know that we have reached an agreement which means all your favourite channels and programmes will be staying on Sky.”

Under the pact, channels like Animal Planet, Discovery HD, Discovery History, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Shed, Discovery Turbo, DMAX, Eurosport1, Eurosport2, Investigation Discovery, TLC, and Quest will not leave Sky on 1 February.

Sky, Europe’s largest pay-TV platform, has 22 million customers in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Austria. It also announced Tuesday that it struck a deal with PBS America and is adding over 1,000 hours of programming from channels like History and National Geographic.

GOOD NEWS! All our channels are staying on Sky. We can’t thank you enough for your patience & support. Best fans in TV! #KeepDiscovery pic.twitter.com/twy8PQqBp0

— Discovery Channel UK (@DiscoveryUK) January 31, 2017

‘Witcher’ developer forum hack exposed 1.8 million gamers

If you’re a big enough The Witcher fan to have joined CD Projekt Red’s official forums, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Members signed up to Have I Been Pwned have received emails warning them of a reported hack in March 2016 that compromised over 1.8 million forum accounts. Passwords were encrypted, thankfully, but you’re encouraged to change your login just in case. The issue isn’t so much the actual threat as the lack of notifications — for many, this is the first sign that something went horribly wrong.

As it turns out, the game developer posted about the breach on its forums in mid-December. It touched on many of the details back then, including the encrypted passwords and that it’s a “now-obsolete” database. However, the info stayed tucked away in the company’s official The Witcher news sub-forum, where not many people are likely to go (let alone pay attention to security issues). Even a follow-up complaint on January 31st of this year got moved to a technical support forum where it’s unlikely to be seen. Users are wondering: why didn’t CD Projekt Red email everyone, even if didn’t think the breach was serious?

We’ve asked the company for comment and will let you know if it has something to add. With that said, it’s clear that there’s some room for improvement. Forum hacks certainly aren’t unheard of, but it shouldn’t take several months to put up a forum post, let alone 10 months for most users to find out. If the passwords hadn’t been secure, the damage could have been extensive.

Via: ITPro

Source: CD Projekt Red (1), (2), Have I Been Pwned