Fly over the red planet with this stunning video built from actual Mars images

Why it matters to you

Humans won’t be setting foot on Mars in the immediate future — but you can still get a glimpse of how an artist might view the planet with this incredible project based on actual NASA images.

Photographer Jan Frojdman is familiar with devising creative ways to overcome obstacles — he once built a hot air balloon out of brown package paper to get an aerial view in his youth.  So when he set out on his latest project, he wasn’t about to let travel hurdles get in the way of his vision of a new type of aerial view — on Mars. The audiovisiual artist instead took thousands of images from NASA’s HiRISE camera to stitch together a video of what it would likely look like to fly over Mars.

The images from HiRISE are publicly available from NASA, JPL, and the University of Arizona. The images of the Martian topography allowed  Frojdman to create a 3D digital replica of the planet’s surface using the anaglyph process of superimposing multiple images to create a 3D effect. Frojdman had to manually set 33,000 reference points to create the anaglyphs. Stitching together multiple anaglyphs into panoramas allowed him to create realistic flyover effects.

More: Get your Sagan on with these 33 awe-inspiring photos of the final frontier

The topographical images are, however, in grayscale, so first Frojdman color graded the images. While the photographer used NASA research to simulate colors in the image, he says the video is a fictional work based on real images, designed for art not science.

The video took about three months to create between sorting through photos to pick the most interesting locations, creating the anaglyphs, stitching the 3D images together, and then creating the flyover effect.

“I would love to see images taken by a landscape photographer on Mars, especially from the polar regions. But I’m afraid I won’t see those kinds of images during my lifetime,” Fröjdman wrote on his website.

Fröjdman has used similar techniques to enhance video he shot from a regular airplane, using a similar 3D-mapping technique to add flyover effects different than the flight path of the actual airplane. For more details on Frojdman’s work, visit his website or Vimeo page.

Lexar’s new USB thumb drives can survive being run over by a car

Why it matters to you

Designed to protect your data from a variety of threats, the new JumpDrive is waterproof, shockproof, and includes 256-bit encryption.

As cloud storage becomes more common, the need for portable, removable drives has diminished, but for photographers, travelers, extreme athletes, or anyone working in remote locations, a hands-on physical solution for transporting important files is sometimes the only option.

To address the needs of such users, Lexar today unveiled its latest USB thumb drive, the JumpDrive Tough. Built to withstand the elements and survive a wide range of adverse conditions, it is waterproof, shockproof, and includes EncryptStick Lite software to provide 256-bit AES encryption that protects files and guards against corruption, loss, and deletion.

Whether you work in extreme conditions or are simply accident prone, the JumpDrive Tough has you covered. It is waterproof down to a depth of 98 feet, so if for some reason you want to carry your family memories with you on your next scuba diving trip, you can.  Or, you can just rest easy knowing if you drop it in the mud you can wash it off without fear of damaging it. Plus, if you’ve ever wanted to wear stiletto heels around the house or office but didn’t for fear of stepping on and destroying a stray USB flash drive, fear no more: the JumpDrive Tough can withstand up to 750 PSI of pressure.

More: SanDisk announces development of the only SD card you’ll ever need

Lexar didn’t just build this new thumb drive to be strong, they also made it fast, with a transfer speed of up to 150 megabytes per second and a read speed of up to 60MB per second over USB 3.1 connections. Lexar says that’s roughly four times faster than a USB 2 thumb drive, with the ability to transfer a 3GB file in less than one minute. Naturally, the drive is reverse compatible with older USB standards, albeit at slower speeds. 150MB per second isn’t as fast as many of Lexar’s other consumer memory products. The 1800x Professional MicroSD card transfers data at 270MB per second — but it probably wouldn’t survive being stepped on by an elephant or run over by a tank.

The JumpDrive Tough is available now in three different sizes: 32 gigabytes for $20, 64GB for $35, and 128GB for $60.

Buy now from:

Amazon

Google Maps now lets you share your location with your besties

Why it matters to you

Tapping out your current address is time consuming. The new Google Maps makes it easier with real-time location sharing.

Whether your navigating the Adirondacks or tracking down that hip new bar everyone’s talking about, Google Maps has your back. It’s packed to the brim with useful features like a speed indicator, turn-by-turn navigation, and parking reminder. And starting today, it’s getting location sharing.

Location sharing isn’t novel. Waze boasts location-sharing features, as does Glympse. And Google’s own Latitudes app, which the search giant retired in 2013, let you share your real-time whereabouts with friends. But there’s something to be said for convenience. With close to 95 million users (according to ComScore), Maps is Google’s most-used app after YouTube and the fourth most used app overall.  In other words, you likely know a friend who’s used it once or twice.

More: Google’s new and improved Maps does away with the clutter to make finding places easier

And sharing your location with that friend is now as simple as a tap. Within Maps, touching the blue “Share location” icon via the app’s side menu will serve up a menu from which you can specify with whom you want to share your location. You can broadcast your whereabouts for a set period of time (between 15 minutes and 3 days) or indefinitely. And if you opt for the latter, you’ll receive an email every two or three weeks to remind you that it’s on.

You’re not restricted to people in your Google contacts list. You beam a link to your location via email or text, but links are restricted to time-based sharing — they expire once a specified amount of time has elapsed.

Once you’ve shared your location with a privileged circle, you’ll be able to see which folks you’ve granted access to in the app’s Location Sharing screen. When someone shares their location with you, you’ll have the option of reciprocating by sharing your own location, or pulling up directions to the person’s address.

More: Never run for the bus again with Google Maps’ real-time commute update

There’s more. You can hide friends on the map who’ve shared their location, and “unhide” them when you choose. Obsessive types (and parents) can pin a person’s location to their home screen for speedier access. And if you’re navigating to a spot using Maps’ turn-by-turn features, you can send friends your real-time location and expected arrival time.

The new Google Maps also brings the number of supported ridesharing apps to 14 across 70 countries, up from 9 in January.

Where real-time location’s involved, there’s an obvious privacy concern. But Jen Fitzpatrick, vice president of Google Maps, said that sharers are in control.

More: A future version of Google Maps may feature location sharing, more new goodies

“Our goal is guiding and assisting users in the real world everyday,” Fitzpatrick told Engadget. “We’re stretching people’s perceptions on what maps can do for them, and the real-world tasks that we can help them with.”

Google further noted that it’s working with the Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA), a domestic abuse agency, to figure out the best way to protect the privacy of people dealing with abusive relationships.

Location sharing is rolling out to iOS, Android, and desktop users worldwide in the coming weeks.

Mouse’s facial recognition camera is a cost-effective way to use Windows Hello

Why it matters to you

If you want to drop the password for your PC in favor of facial recognition, this camera is the cheapest way to do so.

Windows Hello, introduced as part of Windows 10, is a great way to secure your PC with biometrics, but purchasing the necessary hardware to take advantage of its functionality can be expensive. However, Japanese manufacturer Mouse Computers offers a camera that can do the job without breaking the bank.

The company is fielding the Mouse facial recognition camera for Windows Hello, a cost-effective peripheral that is available on Amazon. The camera only costs $70, which is substantially cheaper than other devices that offer the same support for logging in via a facial scan.

Windows Hello allows users to log into their PC using biometric credentials, eliminating the need for a conventional password. The functionality supports fingerprint scanning, but in this case, a small camera would be attached to the monitor in order to carry out a scan of the user’s facial features.

More: Microsoft’s Windows Hello makes headway, with almost 100 supported devices

Mouse’s camera apparently supports all the same features as Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Hello camera, according to a report from MS Power User. This includes one-second hands-free login, support for multiple users logging into the same system, and the ability to distinguish between a real user and a photograph of their face.

We all know the importance of keeping our devices secure and Windows Hello could help many users do just that. While passwords can be guessed or stolen, it’s much more difficult to falsify someone’s biometrics, so fingerprint scans and facial recognition could prove to be very popular going forward — if the necessary hardware isn’t prohibitively expensive.

It seems that Windows 10 users are already jumping on Mouse’s camera, as Amazon is listing the device as out of stock until later this week at the time of writing. If this particular camera strikes a chord with consumers, expect to see plenty more manufacturers release their own inexpensive peripherals for use with Windows Hello.

Cinemood, the pint-sized projector for your pint-sized kids, now coming to U.S.

It may seem like retro technology, but there’s nothing antiquated about this pint-sized projector. After a successful Indiegogo campaign last year, the Cinemood, a mini-projector designed specifically with families in mind, is coming to brick and mortar stores in the U.S. Beginning in April, parents who want to give their children an “alternative interface for technology” will be able to check out this 21st century storytelling machine.

While you may not want your youngsters spending too much time with their eyes glued to a television or laptop screen, the Cinemood may be the alternative that lets users tap into the addictive and hypnotic qualities of the TV while determining what sort of content their tots are consuming.

Cinemood boasts swappable smart covers that are meant to turn a plain wall or ceiling into a theater of sorts. From there, parents can choose from cartoons, digital books, or even creative play environments to be projected for the enjoyment of young viewers. This, the Cinemood team hopes, will allow “watching television” to become more of a shared experience that transcends the typical zombie-like state that arises from sitting in front of a monitor for hours on end.

Related: Lazertouch is a projector that lets you turn any surface into a touchscreen

From blocking unwanted content (you can control everything your child sees from Cinemood) to a brand new way of telling children their bedtime stories (by projecting them on the ceiling) to connecting to cloud storage for your own enjoyment, Cinemood says that there are a wide variety of applications that make this portable projector an ideal addition to any family. The projector runs on Android KitKat and has 1GB of RAM storage, with a DLP optical engine. It weighs in at just 250 grams and fits in the palm of your hand.

Since its successful Indiegogo campaign, Cinemood has made quite a few changes. For one, it has introduced a new iOS app that allows you to control the mini projector from your iPhone, and which you can download here. Moreover, the team is looking to strengthen its content creation platform, helping young users develop and exercise their creativity. And speaking of content, Cinemood is putting the finishing touches on its Content Subscription package, which will “aggregate external content libraries and show the best content based on our recommendation system algorithms,” the company told Digital Trends. 

The 777 folks who backed the projector during its crowdfunding days have already received their own Cinemoods, and you can now order your own on the Cinemood website for $449.

Article originally published in May 2016. Updated on 3-22-2017 by Lulu Chang: Added news of Cinemood’s upcoming availability in the U.S.

Everything you need to know about LG Pay

Apple has Apple Pay, Samsung has Samsung Pay, Android has Android Pay, and now LG has LG Pay. Long rumored, it now seems as though LG Pay is finally almost ready for launch.

Presumably, it will use near-field communication (NFC) technology  just like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. Using the popular NFC system would make it easier for LG to gain support, since it can latch onto all the same retailers whose payment terminals work with other types of mobile payments.

Launch date: June

The launch date for LG Pay has undergone quite a few changes over the past year, but the latest news comes from Reuters, which notes that LG has confirmed that the service will finally launch in June of this year in South Korea. It’s not yet known if the service will launch outside of South Korea — and if so, when. Initially, the service will only be available on the LG G6 — however, it’s expected to come to more devices soon after.

More: Read all the LG G5 rumors and news

Previously, it was rumored that LG would launch the service alongside the LG G5 at MWC 2016, however that didn’t end up happening. Then, the company announced that it was delaying the service to the second quarter of 2016 — which didn’t happen again. The company denied that it delayed the launch of its mobile payments service because of limited support from U.S. credit card companies.

LG Pay may include mobile payments and a smart credit card

While LG has confirmed that it will launch LG Pay sometime in the future, it’s unclear whether it will be a mobile payment solution or a physical card. Or both.

The Korean company said on Facebook that it has deals with two major credit card companies in the country — Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card — but did not mention a specific launch date for the service or details about how the system works.

Back in November 2015, ET News reported that LG’s plan for LG Pay would be a White Card similar to Plastc or the Coin card. In other words, it would be a plastic card similar to a credit card, but it would store several credit cards and possibly connect to an app on your phone.

In late January 2016, the same site leaked images of the said card along with unconfirmed claims. ET News is reporting that the card is about the same size as a credit card, but it’s slightly thicker. Users will be able to store information for several credit cards and cycle through them using the LCD display and navigation controls. The card can also be locked so no one else can access the stored information.

Supposedly users would supposedly be able to use the White Card in ATM machines as well.

The White Card may also include metal pins for charging, and a charging accessory is rumored to ship with it. The images show what appears to be a battery life indicator on the LCD display of the White Card.

According to a representative of one of LG Pay’s partners, transactions won’t go through LG’s servers, so they are still controlled by the credit card companies. This means that banks are more likely to partner with LG Pay.

Allegedly, the White Card will come with a magnetic stripe at the back when launched, so it won’t work with chip readers. However, sources indicate that chip support will arrive at a later date.

It’s unclear whether LG will also include some sort of mobile app for those consumers who would rather make payments with their smartphones instead of the White Card.

According to ET News, the White Card will be officially unveiled at Mobile World Congress in February.

It’s official! We have partnered with Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card to prepare for the launch of LG Pay. (From left:…

Posted by LG Mobile on Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Related: Read our LG V10 review

Would LG block Android Pay?

The announcement of LG Pay won’t necessarily mean that LG will block Google’s Android Pay.

Related: The $380 LG Nexus 5X is the Nexus 5 successor you’ve been waiting for

Once LG does introduce its own mobile payments platform, it’ll be following the trend of LG tagging onto the things its larger and more successful regional rival Samsung does. The Galaxy S6 maker launched Samsung Pay, a new intuitive payments service that works with any card reader, regardless of whether it supports contactless cards or NFC-based mobile payments.

LG Pay doesn’t sound like a huge advancement in the mobile payments market, but LG might be able to bake in more payment support than Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, to make LG Pay more versatile.

Updated on 03-22-2017 by Christian de Looper: Added news that LG has confirmed June launch date in South Korea.

Huawei wants to come to the U.S., and it might be looking to AT&T for help

Why it matters to you

Huawei has become quite a major player in the smartphone space, but it hasn’t been available in the U.S. That could change with an alleged partnership with AT&T.

It’s not just people hoping to immigrate to the U.S. — smartphones are looking to cross the ocean as well. Namely, smartphones from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, who has quickly become one of the fastest growing mobile device makers in the world. In fact, Huawei is the third-largest seller of mobile phones, a huge step up from just five years ago when it barely managed to eke out 1 percent of the market share.

But in order to grow further, Huawei realizes it needs to find its way into one major market — the United States. Now, The Information is reporting the Chinese company is hoping to work with American cellphone service provider AT&T to bring Huawei’s proprietary Kirin mobile phone chip to the network, and then, perhaps, its phones.

More: Huawei P9 vs. P10: Which stylish Huawei phone is best for you?

Of course, just because Huawei hopes that AT&T might approve such a request doesn’t mean that it will come to fruition. As Fortune noted, the cell phone provider is often approached with such propositions and doesn’t always agree to the terms. Even if things did progress smoothly, the process would still be a rather lengthy one, involving terms negotiations, stocking discussions, and more. So far, neither Huawei nor AT&T have commented on the alleged deal.

This isn’t the first time Huawei has tried to partner with an American company in order to make its way into the country. Previously, the firm attempted to work with Google, both the make the Nexus 6P and to manufacture the Pixel phones. Neither proposition, however, ultimately came to pass. But who knows — perhaps a relationship with AT&T will prove more successful and will finally be the key Huawei has been looking for to open the door to the U.S. market.

Adobe wants to improve complex photo cutouts with deep learning software

Why it matters to you

Clipping a background out of an image is a time-consuming process, particularly with objects with fine details, but new research is bringing automatic clips via artificial intelligence.

Clipping out objects from photos and videos is often a time-consuming process — but Adobe is looking for new ways to change that with deep learning software. Published earlier this month, the research for Deep Image Mapping by Adobe, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign aims to improve on software-based clipping solutions.

Researchers have developed a number of different artificially intelligent programs to automatically subtract a background from an image, but most are based on colors. When presented with an image with similar colors such as the greens in a landscape photo, those programs tend to fail, Adobe says. Similar applications also use a very narrow set of data points to train the software, the researchers say, which makes the system biased to only certain types of images.

More: A new tool could dramatically change selfie editing

Adobe’s latest method, however, relies on the structure of the objects in the photograph, not the colors. The program requires the image and a trimap, or a rough sketch of what should be cut from the image that labels the foreground, the background, and a range in between to enable the computer to find the edges.

The program works by learning the structure of alpha mattes, or the “color” channel that contains all the transparencies in an image. Common alpha mattes include hair and fur as well as semi-transparent objects or even optical blur created from a slow shutter speed. The research team used 49,300 images to train the deep learning program and 1,000 images to test its accuracy. By recognizing the structure instead of separating by color, the program has achieved accurate results even in images with similar tones.

Adobe’s process puts the image through two rounds of encoding, the first to find those edges and the second to refine the details for more accurate clips.

While artificially intelligent image clipping methods are still under research, Adobe’s latest look into the process could mean better clipping tools will eventually make their way inside programs like Photoshop and Premiere Pro — and even the possibility of eliminating the traditional green screen if the feature is robust enough.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 demolishes the competition in new benchmarks

Why it matters to you

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 is fast and that’s a good thing when it could power your next phone.

It wasn’t all that long ago that chip maker Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 835, a next-gen processor designed to power the next generation of smartphones, tablets, and personal computers. But despite the impressive theoretical improvements the firm touted at the chip’s launch event, it wasn’t clear just how the Snapdragon 835 would compare to last year’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon. New benchmarks published by Android Police on Wednesday, though, paint a clearer picture.

At Qualcomm’s San Diego headquarters, the company pitted a Snapdragon 835 reference device against two Snapdragon 821 devices, the Google’s Pixel XL and OnePlus OnePlus 3;  the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, which pack Samsung’s Exynos processor; and Huawei’s Kirin 960-powered P10.

More: Chip maker Qualcomm spends $39 billion to buy NXP Semiconductor

The results spoke for themselves. In Geekbench and PCMark, apps which test processor performance, the Snapdragon 835 outperformed the aging Snapdragon 821 by close to 40 percent in multithreaded tasks. In Geekbench, its single-thread performance wasn’t quite as impressive but the chip still managed to best every processor by at least 10 percent. In PCMark, it scored 10 percent higher than the Huawei P10’s Kirin 960.

Two other benchmarking apps, GFXBench GL and 3D Mark, put the 835’s Adreno 540 graphics chip, and the results were no less impressive. On average, it maintained around a 30 percent lead on the Snapdragon 821 in GFXBench GL’s suite of tests and did 30 percent better than competing graphics chips in 3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited test. In 3D Mark’s OpenGL ES3.0 Slingshot Unlimited, it fared better, maintaining a consistent 50 percent lead on the Snapdragon 821.

Antutu, a holistic suite that factors RAM, GPU, CPU, and storage speed into benchmarking tests, showed the 835 well ahead of the immediate competition. Web tests, which show how well the 835 handles graphics-heavy pages, told a similar story. Google’s Octane test showed a 40 percent advantage over Samsung’s Exynos processor, and 50 percent over the 821. Sunspider and Kraken, meanwhile, awarded the 835 similar wins.

More: Hands on: Qualcomm Snapdragon VR820

There is more to the Snapdragon 835 than raw performance improvements, of course. Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4.0, the next iteration of its rapid battery charging tech, features a 20 percent improvement in speed and a 30 percent improvement in energy efficiency. That translates to five hours of extra battery in about five minutes of charging, or 50 percent of a battery’s capacity in 15 minutes.

It also packs a wealth of protections against the sort of catastrophic heat buildup exhibited by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7. One, the latest generation of the company’s Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage software, monitors power transfer in real time to ensure it does not exceed safe operating temperatures. Four levels of thermal protection — some at the chassis, others at the battery, and several inside the chips itself — sense the type and quality of plugged-in charging cables. New features extend the longevity of the battery — Qualcomm said it will maintain at least 80 percent of its original capacity after 500 charge cycles.

The 835 is shaping up to be Qualcomm’s best chip yet and the initial Snapdragon 835 devices are expected to in the first half of 2017.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 demolishes the competition in new benchmarks

Why it matters to you

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 is fast and that’s a good thing when it could power your next phone.

It wasn’t all that long ago that chip maker Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 835, a next-gen processor designed to power the next generation of smartphones, tablets, and personal computers. But despite the impressive theoretical improvements the firm touted at the chip’s launch event, it wasn’t clear just how the Snapdragon 835 would compare to last year’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon. New benchmarks published by Android Police on Wednesday, though, paint a clearer picture.

At Qualcomm’s San Diego headquarters, the company pitted a Snapdragon 835 reference device against two Snapdragon 821 devices, the Google’s Pixel XL and OnePlus OnePlus 3;  the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, which pack Samsung’s Exynos processor; and Huawei’s Kirin 960-powered P10.

More: Chip maker Qualcomm spends $39 billion to buy NXP Semiconductor

The results spoke for themselves. In Geekbench and PCMark, apps which test processor performance, the Snapdragon 835 outperformed the aging Snapdragon 821 by close to 40 percent in multithreaded tasks. In Geekbench, its single-thread performance wasn’t quite as impressive but the chip still managed to best every processor by at least 10 percent. In PCMark, it scored 10 percent higher than the Huawei P10’s Kirin 960.

Two other benchmarking apps, GFXBench GL and 3D Mark, put the 835’s Adreno 540 graphics chip, and the results were no less impressive. On average, it maintained around a 30 percent lead on the Snapdragon 821 in GFXBench GL’s suite of tests and did 30 percent better than competing graphics chips in 3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited test. In 3D Mark’s OpenGL ES3.0 Slingshot Unlimited, it fared better, maintaining a consistent 50 percent lead on the Snapdragon 821.

Antutu, a holistic suite that factors RAM, GPU, CPU, and storage speed into benchmarking tests, showed the 835 well ahead of the immediate competition. Web tests, which show how well the 835 handles graphics-heavy pages, told a similar story. Google’s Octane test showed a 40 percent advantage over Samsung’s Exynos processor, and 50 percent over the 821. Sunspider and Kraken, meanwhile, awarded the 835 similar wins.

More: Hands on: Qualcomm Snapdragon VR820

There is more to the Snapdragon 835 than raw performance improvements, of course. Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4.0, the next iteration of its rapid battery charging tech, features a 20 percent improvement in speed and a 30 percent improvement in energy efficiency. That translates to five hours of extra battery in about five minutes of charging, or 50 percent of a battery’s capacity in 15 minutes.

It also packs a wealth of protections against the sort of catastrophic heat buildup exhibited by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7. One, the latest generation of the company’s Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage software, monitors power transfer in real time to ensure it does not exceed safe operating temperatures. Four levels of thermal protection — some at the chassis, others at the battery, and several inside the chips itself — sense the type and quality of plugged-in charging cables. New features extend the longevity of the battery — Qualcomm said it will maintain at least 80 percent of its original capacity after 500 charge cycles.

The 835 is shaping up to be Qualcomm’s best chip yet and the initial Snapdragon 835 devices are expected to in the first half of 2017.