Asus goes around the bend with a new 34-inch curved monitor

Why it matters to you

You now have another, relatively affordable option if you’re looking for a larger curved PC monitor.

Curved displays are all the rage lately, with both TVs and PC monitors jumping on the bandwagon. Asus has a few new options, and the firm has started shipping its latest model that aims to provide more of a wraparound experience for PC users.

The Asus Designo Curve MX34VQ was announced in 2016, and it’s now making its way to the market, as Anandtech reports. The monitor’s primary claim to fame is an 1800R curvature with 178-degree viewing angles in both directions, combined with thin bezels for a classy look and immersive experience.

More: Rise of HDR and 4K on display in the top 5 monitors at CES 2017

In terms of other specifications, the MX34VQ is fairly typical. It’s a 34-inch UWQHD panel at 3,440 x 1,440 resolution with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Brightness comes in at 300 nits, with a 3000:1 contrast ratio and support for 16.7 million colors. Gamers should be generally pleased with the monitor’s 100MHz refresh rate and 4 ms response time.

Asus packs in support for picture-in-picture (PiP) and picture-by-picture (PBP) for multiple inputs, while a blue-light filter mode and flicker-free design help ensure that eye fatigue is kept to a minimum. Audio support is provided by 8-watt stereo speakers with Harman Kardon and Asus SonicMaster technologies supporting four different audio modes for gaming, movies, music, and user preference.

Connectivity is provided by three HDMI 2.0 ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, and a 3.5mm audio jack. One unique feature is the Qi-compatible wireless charger built into the base of the monitor to provide a place to charge a smartphone or other compatible device, and the “aurora lighting” lets users know when the charging process is ongoing.

The monitor is available at retailers such as Amazon for an apparent price of $799, and will be shipping soon. If that pricing holds out, then it’s a relatively attractive value compared to some of the competition. No firm ship date is available, but it’s likely to be sooner rather than later.

Amazon

Biologists tag dolphins with cutting-edge cameras to study their secret behaviors

Why it matters to you

By studying dolphin behavior, researchers can learn about the health of the ocean and better protect its species.

Custom-made cameras are showing marine biologists what dolphins do when humans aren’t around. From playing with kelp to rubbing each others flippers, the footage is the first time these intimate behaviors have been captured away from direct human contact. A paper detailing the study was published last week in the journal Marine Biology.

“I’ve been studying dusky dolphins for thirteen years using traditional surface-based observations from a boat, but I wanted to understand more about what they do when they are below the surface and out of sight,” Heidi Pearson, University of Alaska Southeast researchers and corresponding author of the study, told Digital Trends. “As dolphins spend just ten percent or so of their lives at the surface, we are missing quite a bit by just observing them at the surface.

A couple years ago, Pearson was developing a suction-cup tag that could track the dolphin and capture data about its diving behavior. When she shared the device with Gabriel Machovsky-Capuska of the University of Sydney, he suggested they incorporate a camera to record even more detailed information. “I immediately became very excited by the idea,” Pearson said.

More: With tiny hats, elephant seals help researchers study Antarctica’s melting ice

Attaching the camera was no easy task. Riding in a boat alongside the dolphin pod, a researchers would have to kneel in the bow holding an extendable painter’s pole with the suction-cup at the end. When a dolphin would get near enough, the tagger would “spear” the dolphin as it breached the surface, and the camera would stick.

“It definitely took a lot of patience to wait for that exact moment when the dolphin surfaced close enough and in a parallel direction to the boat,” Pearson said.

“This footage reveals the subtle intricacies of a dolphin’s social life such as flipper rubbing, mother-calf interactions, playing with kelp, and even mating,” Pearson added. “The unique aspect of our study is that we are seeing these behaviors for the first time from the dolphin’s perspective and on its own terms without interference from people. With the time depth recorder in the tag, we are also able to correlate how these behaviors change as the dolphin is diving.”

Dolphins are top predators in their ecosystems. “As a result,” Pearson said, “dolphins are also powerful ‘bioindicators’ of ecosystem health.” By monitoring dolphins in this way, the researchers hope to learn more about the important species, while monitoring the balance of the ocean.

Oscars gift bags are worth over $100K each: Here are all the tech gadgets inside

Why it matters to you

Stars are not just like us, and these $100,000 Oscars gift bags stuffed with opulent items prove it.

You’ve probably heard about the over-the-top gift bags given to Oscar nominees, but you may not know that the company that hands them out, Distinctive Assets, isn’t actually affiliated with the Academy. Also, despite their title, the “Everyone Wins” Nominee Gift Bags don’t go out to everyone — just the 25 nominees in the acting and directing categories. That’s probably because the bags’ price tags are in the six figures.

In 2016, the cost of all the items was over $200,000 each. After the Academy and Distinctive Assets reached a settlement, the company scaled back its ostentatious offerings this year. But the gift bags are still worth over $100,000 apiece; “nowhere close to the inaccurate reports that hit the internet this week,” the company said, according to Forbes. The Guardian priced everything out at closer to $200,000.

More: Oscars VFX contenders down to 10 films, including ‘Arrival’ and ‘Rogue One’

In addition to a $40,000 stay at the Lost Coast Ranch and skin care items, there are a few tech items included in the bag. First, there’s the Oomi ($599), a smart-home kit that includes light bulbs, an outlet, and a tablet to help connect and control the devices. You can read more about it here.

Next is the Haze Dual V3 Vaporizer ($250), which the manufacturers describe as an “upscale, portable vaporizer that is known for being the first and only dual-chamber vaporizer on the market.” Its draw is that you can use “dried herbs, concentrates, and oils within the same session.”

If you’ve ever wanted a personal kegel trainer, then look no further than Elvie ($199), which trains your pelvic floor and has an app. You can read more about it here.

Last year, recipients got a Noon Virtual Reality headset, an LG Tone Infinim Stereo headset, a Krystal Klear Whole Home Water Filtration system, and Phantom Glass, an impact- and scratch-resistant screen protector for phones, cameras, and tablets.

We’ll have to wait until Sunday, February 26 to see who’s celebrating and who’s drowning his or her sorrows in Chubby Chipmunks chocolates.

‘Cloudbleed’ bug may have leaked your personal data all over the internet

Why it matters to you

It’s likely that a service you use is a Cloudflare customer, so your personal informatin may have been a subject of this leak.

Another day, another data leak — though this one might turn out to be a little more monstrous than the rest. Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has admitted that a bug in its system caused user information to randomly leak across the internet — information that includes cookies, login information, API keys, and more.

The bug, which has been dubbed “Cloudbleed,” was actually first discovered by Travis Ormandy, a Google Project Zero vulnerability researcher, on February 17. It was revealed, however, that the data breach may have begun as far back as September 22. In some instances, the Cloudflare platform randomly injected user data from any of the company’s 6 million customers — which include the likes of Fitbit and Uber.

More: Cloudflare is fighting off a DDoS attack that started the day before Thanksgiving

According to Cloudflare, most of the information wasn’t leaked on high-traffic websites, and even the information that was leaked to high-traffic websites was hard to find. Still, as the service was leaking information all over the web, that information was being recorded in the caches of search engines like Google, making it easier for those with potentially malicious intent to find it and use it.

Thankfully, it seems as though Cloudflare has acted quickly in an attempt to remedy the situation. A preliminary fix was pushed less than an hour after it learned of the issue, and it was permanently patched in under seven hours — exactly the type of response that would be expected from a large internet company like Cloudflare. In the cleanup, the company says that 3,000 customers in total were triggering the bug while it was active.

“The industry standard time allowed to deploy a fix for a bug like this is usually three months; we were completely finished globally in under seven hours with an initial mitigation in 47 minutes,” said the company in a blog post.

While cleanup was quick, it’s recommended that to mitigate risk you should change your passwords. Yep, all of them — although pay special attention to things like online banking and other highly sensitive services. The Cloudbleed bug could have exposed anything, and unfortunately you may not know that your information was leaked until it’s too late.

‘Cloudbleed’ bug may have leaked your personal data all over the internet

Why it matters to you

It’s likely that a service you use is a Cloudflare customer, so your personal informatin may have been a subject of this leak.

Another day, another data leak — though this one might turn out to be a little more monstrous than the rest. Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has admitted that a bug in its system caused user information to randomly leak across the internet — information that includes cookies, login information, API keys, and more.

The bug, which has been dubbed “Cloudbleed,” was actually first discovered by Travis Ormandy, a Google Project Zero vulnerability researcher, on February 17. It was revealed, however, that the data breach may have begun as far back as September 22. In some instances, the Cloudflare platform randomly injected user data from any of the company’s 6 million customers — which include the likes of Fitbit and Uber.

More: Cloudflare is fighting off a DDoS attack that started the day before Thanksgiving

According to Cloudflare, most of the information wasn’t leaked on high-traffic websites, and even the information that was leaked to high-traffic websites was hard to find. Still, as the service was leaking information all over the web, that information was being recorded in the caches of search engines like Google, making it easier for those with potentially malicious intent to find it and use it.

Thankfully, it seems as though Cloudflare has acted quickly in an attempt to remedy the situation. A preliminary fix was pushed less than an hour after it learned of the issue, and it was permanently patched in under seven hours — exactly the type of response that would be expected from a large internet company like Cloudflare. In the cleanup, the company says that 3,000 customers in total were triggering the bug while it was active.

“The industry standard time allowed to deploy a fix for a bug like this is usually three months; we were completely finished globally in under seven hours with an initial mitigation in 47 minutes,” said the company in a blog post.

While cleanup was quick, it’s recommended that to mitigate risk you should change your passwords. Yep, all of them — although pay special attention to things like online banking and other highly sensitive services. The Cloudbleed bug could have exposed anything, and unfortunately you may not know that your information was leaked until it’s too late.

Soundshield is a snowboard helmet with integrated headphones and mic

Why it matters to you

With its detachable wireless headphones this snowboard helmet allows you to listen to your favorite music and take phone calls on and off the slopes.

Over the years, we’ve seen a number of helmets designed to allow action sports athletes to wirelessly listen to their favorite music while skiing, snowboarding, or skating. Most of those options looked promising on paper, but in reality they often came with a few compromises, including a clunky interface for controlling your tunes, or the inability to continue listening after you’ve taken the helmet off. But a new product called Soundshield looks to change all of that, bringing modular design and simplicity to an audio-enhanced helmet at long last.

The concept behind the Soundshield comes from a company called Unit 1, which recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to get the product off the ground. At first glance, the Soundshield looks a lot like just about any other helmet you might find a skier or snowboarder wearing, but look a bit closer and you’ll find some interesting features integrated into its design.

For instance, it comes equipped with a set of built-in headphones that allow the wearer to listen to music, podcasts, or audio books while skiing or skating. But when they’re done, those headphones can be undocked from the helmet itself and worn completely independently. When you’re ready to return to the slopes, just snap them back into place, put on your helmet, and go.

More: Direct-to-consumer outdoor gear is win-win for consumers, manufacturers

Those same headphones also feature a single button on the side that allows the wearer to control the audio they are listening to. A single tap pauses or plays the current playlist, while double tapping skips a track and triple tapping jumps back to the previous song. A single tap also picks up any incoming phone calls, with a built-in mic allowing users to chat with friends and family without having to take the helmet off.

Users can also use a voice-activated dialing system to place calls of their own. The headphones are equipped with Bluetooth technology for easy pairing with a smartphone, but also include a standard 3.5mm audio jack. Unit 1 says they have a battery life of 16 hours in wireless mode and come with customizable ear pads for improved comfort, too.

Unit 1 is hoping to raise $50,000 to get the Soundshield into production, and as of this writing it is about halfway to that goal. If successful in its crowdfunding efforts, the helmet/headphone combo should go into production late in 2017 and begin shipping by December. The retail price for the device is expected to be $299, but early-bird supporters can actually order them now for as little as $169.

New lawsuit could restrict game sales for the Oculus Rift

The suit would also affect titles for the Samsung Gear VR.

The saga continues in the great copyright infringement battle between Facebook’s Oculus contingent and ZeniMax.

ZeniMax, which earlier this month won a verdict of half a billion dollars against Oculus, has now asked the federal judge to block Oculus from using the code in its products, according to Reuters. For its part, Oculus has asked the judge to set aside the verdict, citing it as “legally flawed and factually unwarranted.”

If the injuction is granted, it could limit the number of titles sold for the Oculus Rift VR headset. This would also affect any games meant for Samsung Gear VR, which is developed in part with Oculus. If this happens, Facebook’s best bet would be to settle, lest game sales and subsequent marketing for Oculus products become severely limited.

We’ll update you when we hear more on the matter. For now, the injunction has been filed to the same Dallas court that ruled in favor of ZeniMax.

Arctic seed vault grows as defense against food crisis

In light of President Donald Trump’s rise to power, some people are seriously worried about the planet’s health. Count The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists among that group, since they recently pushed the Doomsday Clock to two and half minutes to midnight. Even if they think humanity is closer to extinction than it was just a couple months ago, we’re now better prepared to respond to a food crisis.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a gene bank located about 800 miles from the North Pole, is largely to thank for that. It bolstered its reserves two days ago when it received nearly 50,000 seeds, according to Crop Trust, a nonprofit that works closely with the vault.

Institutions from the US, the UK, Mexico, Benin, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, the Netherlands and Belarus deposited seeds, bringing the vault’s sample total to 930,821. The crops included potato, rice, wheat and other critical food sources. While depositors still own their seeds, they’re only permitted to withdraw them in emergency situations.

For example, the International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) made a withdrawal in 2015 during particularly trying times, Crop Trust said. The institution was previously located in Syria, and following the attacks in Aleppo, it requested seeds so it could breed crops more safely in Morocco and Lebanon. With that mission complete, reconstituted samples (over 15,000, says MSNBC) were returned to the vault as part of this week’s 50,000-seed influx.

The Arctic gene bank is seen as an insurance policy against wars and natural disasters destroying food crops: If something major goes down, we’ll still have our seeds. With people across the globe concerned about the political climate’s impact on our planet’s future, now seems like a good time to make sure we’re prepared to handle whatever the world throws at us.

Source: The Crop Trust

Sling TV launches new Extra channel bundles

It’s no secret that Sling wants to overthrow the sluggish cable providers. But as more an more people start cutting the cord, Sling is finding out that some of them aren’t quite ready to ditch the channel packages that they’re used to. Now, to cover the middle ground between broadcast TV, streaming services and a complete cable replacement, Sling is introducing new channel bundles for fans of Comedy, News, Lifestyle or Children’s programming.

The four new “Extras” bundles, as Sling is calling them, cost $10 per month a la carte,or $30 per month for all four plus Sling Orange service. With Sling Blue plus Sling Orange service, you’ll end up with 90 channels total for $50 per month.

For the curious, the Kids Extra package expands on Sling’s extensive children’s lineup with the addition of Boomerang. Lifestyle Plus Extra includes programming from VH1, the Cooking Channel and the Hallmark Channel. News Extra includes CNN, HLN and the BBC, while Comedy Plus Extra adds Spike, MTV and the Gameshow Network.

Source: Sling

Solar-powered drone switches from helicopter to plane mode

Ever since the wobbly autogyro went out of fashion, engineers have tried designing a craft that gets the vertical lift of a helicopter’s blades with the horizontal thrust of a plane is difficult to pull off. Popular successes, like the AV-8 Harrier series and V-22 Osprey, angle thrust down for takeoff and behind during flight. Researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis are building a drone that similarly transforms and is stocked with solar panels to prolong its deployment.

That longer flight time should make it viable for farmers to use it for aerial surveying of their land, pinpointing spots to irrigate or fertilize. The Solar Unmanned Air Vehicle: Quad (SUAV:Q), as the drone is named, takes off vertically and unfolds to a six-foot wingspan for flight. It needs to be that large to carry its multispectral camera for measuring crop health, as well as provide flat space for more solar cells, but can be folded up to fit in the back of a pickup truck.

Unfortunately, there’s no sweet videos of the SUAV:Q lifting into the air and switching to plane mode (with appropriate sound effects), so we can only presume it’s still being tested. But extending flight time is a perpetual goal for drone makers, which continue to boost battery life and try out hydrogen-cell alternatives.

Source: New Scientist