Spectra electric skateboard packs self-learning AI, emergency braking

Why it matters to you

Electric skateboards are fun and convenient. With AI built in, the Spectra is one of the smartest boards on the market.

Skateboarding can be a fun way to travel a short commute, but the experience can leave riders sweaty on a hot summer day. Electric skateboards are a great alternative, but many require users to hold onto a wireless remote acceleration. on Tuesday, Walnutt has announced a better alternative.

Described by Walnutt as the “Tesla of electric skateboards,” Spectra is the first board on the market with a self-learning 3D posture control system. Without a remote, the the board accelerates and turns based on the rider’s movement. The more a user rides, the more the board understands a rider’s behavior and preferences.

To obtain the completely hands-free experience, Spectra uses a series of sensors and an integrated gyroscope. A differential speed motor control and electromagnetic AMS braking module makes it very user-friendly no matter what level of experience. While riding is completely hands-free, users have the option to control it with the Walnutt Go app. Here users can also see the battery level, choose a driving mode, find places and other riders, and more.

Powering the board is a system of small motors integrated into the wheels. Despite their size, these motors can push Spectra over 15 miles per hour and up to a 15-degree incline. When coming down a hill, the board will use the kinetic energy to partially recharge the battery. A full charge takes 90 minutes and will last users just over 12 miles. Battery power is clearly indicated using front LEDs or the app.

In addition to displaying battery power, the forward- and rear-facing LEDs keep night riders safe. Other safety features include the ability to activate its automatic braking system when Spectra senses something is wrong.

Spectra is available for preorder now on IndieGoGo with early bird prices starting at $269. Boards are expected to ship in July. Aside from the board, backers will also receive the Walnutt Commuter Backpack for free. This bag is designed to easily carry the 12-pound device.

The real beauty of this stylish ring lies in its emergency contact capabilities

Why it matters to you

You never know when you may find yourself in an emergency situation, but if you keep this ring on at all times, you can easily reach emergency contacts.

When it comes to keeping yourself safe, you don’t have to don a Kevlar vest. Sometimes, a simple ring will do the trick. Not just any ring, of course, but rather the Loop. The wearable comes from cleverly named company Be Wear, and promises to be a fashion-forward connected device that pairs with any smartphone in order to discreetly notify your inner “security Loop” of emergency contacts when you need help.

The ring features a button on its side that lets you immediately notify up to five friends and family members of your GPS coordinates should you find yourself in an unsavory situation. So don’t worry if you can’t reach your phone — just reach for your ring instead.

Constructed with lightweight, water-resistant, and hypoallergenic metal, the Loop looks like a trendy piece of jewelry. But this accessory’s beauty is more than skin deep — it operates via Bluetooth signal, using just 5 percent of a phone’s average usage, in order to reach a connected mobile device up to six feet away. So no matter where you are, you should be able to stay connected to your emergency contacts.

“Emergency situations are not always what you expect,” said Carlos Zamorano, founder of Be Wear and creator of Loop. “One winter morning, my wife slipped when walking down the stairs. She was carrying my then-infant son, who fell headfirst onto the ground. Completely panicked, my wife ran to the emergency room without taking the time to warn me. Thankfully, my son turned out okay, but I couldn’t be there for him or my wife when they needed me the most because I didn’t find out about it until hours later. That’s why I created Loop.”

The Loop launched on Kickstarter today, with a funding goal of $50,000. If you’re interested in becoming an early adopter of the technology, you can get one today for 50 percent off the retail price at $75, with an estimated shipment date of September 2017. The companion app is free and already available on both iOS and Android.

Tiny, light-powered device sucks in polluted air, churns out hydrogen power

Why it matters to you

The future of humanity on Earth depends on clean energy and clean air. This device may help us have both.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could solve two problems facing humanity with a resource that’s practically inexhaustible? Let’s say, for example, a device could turn air pollution into energy using only sunlight. Wouldn’t that be great?

Researchers at the University of Antwerp and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) may be onto just that. The team has developed a small device that purifies air on one side and produces hydrogen gas on the other. All it takes is a bit of light to power the process.

The device spawned out of a discovery at KU Leuven, where researchers realized they didn’t need clean liquid water to create hydrogen gas. Their small device could instead pull water molecules directly from the air. Taking that one step further, Sammy Verbruggen and his team began to use polluted air, which, he told Digital Trends, “seems to work even better.”

Basically, what the engineers did was separate two primary reactions by a middle membrane. “On one side you have the purification of air by converting small organic molecules to less harmful compounds using a nano-material that is activated by light,” Verbruggen explained. Hydrogen atoms split from those molecules, pass through the middle membrane, and react to H2 gas on the other side. This hydrogen can be stored and used later as fuel for vehicles like buses or rockets.

The more pollution, the more hydrogen gas is produced. “In that way the application potential of this technology is probably most evident in industries that cope with heavily loaded waste gas streams,” Verbruggen said. “The paint and textile industry, or other activities that involve large quantities of organic solvents, are some of the examples that immediately come to mind.”

In its current form the device is only a few square centimeters and uses artificial light to power the reaction, so the researchers now hope to scale it up for industrial applications and tweak it to work with sunlight.

A paper detailing their study was recently published in the journal ChemSusChem.

This 56-minute video was constructed entirely with AI and a single photo

Why it matters to you

This video isn’t enough to ditch the video camera but it does offer a glimpse of what the future could be.

Videos are made up of thousands of still images per minute, but what if all you have is a single image and artificial intelligence? That is the question artist and Google developer Damien Henry asked in his latest project, where, outside of the first frame, the entire nearly hour-long video is constructed by an algorithm designed to predict the next frame. The result? Well, it is not going to make you ditch your camera anytime soon, but considering it was generated almost entirely by AI, the bad-Fantasia-remake-meets-view-from-a-road-trip-window is rather impressive.

Henry says the entire video was generated by an algorithm in one try, with no retries and no editing or post-processing. The only thing Henry did was to feed the system the very first frame. From that single image, the platform predicted the next frame and then the one after that over and over again around 100,000 times. It created a rather abstract-looking footage of clouds that is reminiscent of what you see if you strapped a GoPro to your window during an uneventful road trip, with the computer generating a drive-by view of scenes with trees, power lines, and buildings.

The video is far from perfect — some treetops appear to hang in mid-air, for example — but the project demonstrates what AI is capable of, even when it comes to creative projects. Skipping further into the video (you’re probably not going to watch in its entirety unless you need some help falling asleep) you can see that drive-by view change to a rural drive-by with what looks like cornfields to an urban view more populated with buildings.

The video itself wouldn’t be impressive under the typical standards, but the technological feat of asking a computer to generate an hour of footage from a single photo is either incredibly cool or shows just how long the tech has to go, depending on your view and tolerance of the footage’s oddities.

Henry has worked with Google on several projects, according to his website, including Google Cardboard as well as Arts and Culture VR projects.

The ZTE Nubia Z17 could come with a massive 8GB of RAM

Why it matters to you

ZTE is looking to push the boundaries in its next release — which will make for more powerful options available for you to buy.

It has been a while since ZTE has launched a major high-end smartphone, but that could change at some point in the near future. While ZTE launched the Nubia Z17 Mini last month, the company could be looking to release a standard version of the Z17 at some point in the near future.

The news comes in the form of a screenshot allegedly from the company’s internal website, which shows that the ZTE Nubia Z17 will start with a whopping 6GB of RAM, with options ranging up to 8GB of RAM. If accurate, the Nubia Z17 would be among the first in the world with 8GB of RAM, and that should help make the phone among the more powerful out there, if coupled with a high-end chip. The screenshot, which was posted on Weibo, also notes that the device will start with 128GB of storage, which is also a high starting point.

Previous reports indicated that the phone would come with 4GB of RAM, so it is somewhat surprising to see variants with as much as 8GB.

The screenshot also reveals some aspects of the phone’s design. By the looks of things, the device will look a little different than the Z17 Mini, and will boast a dual rear-facing camera and fingerprint sensor on the back. It will also be available in three colors — gray, blue, and gold. And it looks to have an edge-to-edge display with almost no bezels on each side of the device.

Unfortunately, at this point it’s difficult to verify the accuracy of the report, and it is a little strange that ZTE would launch the “mini” version of the device before the “standard” version. Still, stranger things have happened. Perhaps more unfortunate is the fact that the Nubia Z17 will likely only see a China release, like the Mini.

Synthetic soft-tissue retina may help revolutionize bionic implants

Why it matters to you

These synthetic, soft-tissue implants may offer a safer solution to partially restore vision for visually impaired people.

Given how fragile the windows to our souls are, it’s a wonder our eyes don’t fracture more often. And because they’re such sensitive and sophisticated things, when they do get damaged, it takes a great deal of care to fix them.

New research out of the University of Oxford may offer a safer way to bring vision back to visually impaired people. Led by doctoral student Vanessa Restrepo-Schild, the team developed a synthetic, biocompatible, soft-tissue retina that is a step forward for bionic implants.

“Previous artificial retinal research has used only rigid and hard materials,” Restrepo-Schild told Digital Trends. Due to the inherent sensitivity of our eyes, hard materials are less than ideal for implants, since they don’t suit the fluid, flexible environment of our eyes and can often lead to inflammation. By combining biological cell-membrane proteins with droplets of water and a hydrogel scaffold, Restrepo-Schild created an artificial retina that functions much like our natural ones.

“It is designed like a camera, the cells act as pixels, detecting and reacting to light to create a grey scale image,” Restrepo-Schild said. “The synthetic material can generate electrical signals, which might stimulate the neurons at the back of our eye just like the original retina.”

Restrepo-Schild explained that, while other labs typically turn to genetic engineers to adapt natural living cells, she and her team decided to stick with synthetic cells. “We are not trying to build living tissues exactly like those in the body,” she said. “We think our simplified tissues made from synthetic cells may be safer and more easily controlled than those made from living cells.”

Moving forward, Restrepo-Schild and her team will use a larger replica retina to study whether it can identify colors and shapes before conducting animals tests. A paper detailing the team’s work was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Phase One now has a 100-megapixel drone monitoring the friendly skies

Why it matters to you

Phase One’s 100-megapixel aerial camera is a bit lighter than others, which could mean longer flight times.

Hasselblad’s 100-megapixel drone was almost expected after rumors that DJI invested in the medium format company but now, that’s not the only high-resolution sky beast around. On Monday, Phase One announced that the 100-megapixel Ixu and Ixu-RS cameras are now directly compatible with DJI’s M600 and M600 Pro drones.

Unlike Hasselblad’s drone package, Phase One’s new compatibility is not created through a partnership with DJI, but with DJI’s software development kit that allows third-party companies to integrate their products with DJI software. That means the camera and drone are still sold separately, not as a package deal.

Pushing the resolution of an aerial camera up to 100 megapixels allows drones to see details smaller cameras can’t. “Using the Phase One Industrial IXU camera with the new Integration package for our DJI M600 drone, the results were extraordinary,” UAV Flight Systems Manager Tobias Wentzler, of Lufthansa Aerial Services, said in a press release. “We achieved millimeter per pixel accuracy, allowing us to inspect the required objects in exquisite detail and lift our mission results and accuracy to a new, high-end level, identifying the subtlest cracks or imperfections that were not visible to conventional inspection methods.”

While both the Ixu and Ixu-RS were previously available, the new compatibility allows the camera to be used with support for DJI Ground station Pro for planning aerial shoots, including triggering the camera at pre-set waypoints as well as shooting at a fixed distance or fixed time. The camera is controlled with a separate controller, splitting the controls between a pilot and a photographer. The new Ix Capture Mobile from Phase One also integrates several DJI features into an app, including controlling the camera using the drone company’s Lightbridge 2 dials. The position of the camera, including both the gimbal’s position and GPS data, can also now be embedded into the image’s exif data.

Phase One says its cameras are known for their lighter profiles — with an 80mm lens, the Ixu weighs a touch more than three pounds while Hassleblad’s H6D-50c weighs more than 4.5 pounds with a lens. Mounted on a drone, lighter payloads tend to increase the flight time on a single charge.

The DJI integration is being added to Phase One’s list of other industrial grade drone compatibility, including Coptersystems, AerialTronics, Pulse Areo, UMS Skeldar as well as Pix4D, Agrisoft and SimActive software. The camera, not including the cost of the $5,000-plus drone, starts at $29,000.

Close to the Metal Ep. 42: Batten the hatches, your system is under siege

Our systems have been under attack for the last week. Well, they’re always under attack, but with three major security incidents, one of which was a widespread problem, and a targeted political attack on the French presidential election, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening to protect your digital life.

First, a Google Doc scam caught untold numbers in its web. Midday on Wednesday, May 3rd, users began seeing emails advising them a friend wanted to share a Google Doc with them. Unannounced files should always raise a red flag, but this seemingly simple phishing attempt slipped past Google’s defenses, and the only sign it wasn’t a legitimate email was a string of the same letter as the email address in the cc field.

Then, Intel confirmed a rumor swirling around for the last week or two, after a supposedly massive issue in the company’s chips had been found that affected every modern Intel CPU for the last ten years. The fixes are already on their way to OEMs, but countless machines are affected by the issue, and only an update will solve it.

Yesterday, Google Project Zero researchers took to Twitter to announce a massive remote code execution they had found in Windows. That was all the information they shared in their fire emoji-laden Tweets.

I think @natashenka and I just discovered the worst Windows remote code exec in recent memory. This is crazy bad. Report on the way. ????????????

— Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) May 6, 2017

The report has yet to show up in public, but late last night Microsoft issued a patch addressing a potentially dangerous remote code execution that slipped straight past Windows Defender. It has since been identified as the hole Project Zero found, and the implications for non-updated systems are sever.

Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy,  we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We broadcast the show live on YouTube every Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.

SolarGaps blinds protect your home from the sun and draw from its power

Why it matters to you

You may not want to sun’s rays beating into your home in the hot summer months, but you can block them while harnessing their energy at the same time.

Don’t block out the sun. Embrace it.

Or rather, do both with SolarGaps, heralded as the “world’s first solar smart blinds.” These guys don’t just keep out the powerful rays of everyone’s favorite star, but they also generate electricity from the sun’s energy. All you have to do is plug in SolarGaps and allow solar energy to begin powering all the devices in your home. Better still, you can take whatever energy you do not use over the course of a day and store it in a battery as an emergency power source. So if you are looking for relief from the heat and from a high electricity bill, this may just be the product for you.

According to the SolarGaps team, just 10 square feet of these blinds are capable of generating up to 150Wh, enough to power 30 LED light bulbs or three MacBooks. What is more, SolarGaps promises to help you use up to 40 percent less energy on air conditioning — key during the upcoming summer months. So even if you cannot afford to put solar panels on your roof, you can add a green solution to your home.

Because these blinds are self-adjusting, SolarGaps will always be able to absorb the maximum amount of light (and therefore, energy) from the sun. If you opt for the motion sensor, SolarGaps will even open automatically whenever it detects someone entering a room so that your house always seems bright and cheery.

Of course, SolarGaps can be controlled by your smartphone and the blinds are connected to the app via Wi-Fi. You will be able to raise or lower your blinds, change the slats’ angles, and check to see how much electricity is being generated, all from your phone. And don’t worry — whether you live in the desert or the tundra, SolarGaps ought to be able to stand up to the elements. The outer shell of SolarGaps is constructed with durable aluminum and fiberglass and can withstand temperatures between negative-40 and 176 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lastly, you do not need a professional to install the blinds — rather, the plug-and-play setup promises to be user-friendly and starts at $385 for 10 square feet. You can pre-order them on Kickstarter here with an estimated delivery date of August.

Redux’s ultrasonic speakers turn your phone’s screen into a speaker

Why it matters to you

This technology could render your next smartphone truly waterproof by eliminating the need for speakers and buttons.

Water-resistant smartphones aren’t all that uncommon these day — Samsung’s Galaxy S8 can last up to thirty minutes underwater. Truly waterproof devices, though — i.e., phones that can survive hours-long dunks in the pool — are mostly fantasy. But Redux, a London-based startup, may have the solution: Eliminating the speakers, earpieces, and physical buttons susceptible to water damage with ultrasonic speakers embedded beneath a phone’s display.

Redux’s technology relies on sound. By employing an array of “micro-speaker” actuators embedded beneath a smartphone touchscreen, it produces “bending waves” — sounds and vibration — that effectively convert the screen into a high-quality loudspeaker. The result is loud, clear audio without the need for exposed speakers. Even better, the sound isn’t directional– even if you flip a Redux-equipped smartphone upside down or turn it sideways, the volume won’t change.

Redux claims the quality is far superior to the “tinny, low-quality” speakers that smartphones usually pack. And while that may sound like a bold claim, at least one major manufacturer — Sony — is already using a similar technique to conceal speakers behind the display of its new A1 Bravia OLED series televisions.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In addition, Redux’s technology can simulate physical buttons, delivering sensations that feel like physical button presses. In applications that support it, you’ll feel a mechanical switch, a moving slider under your fingertips, or even two different tactile sensations during a multi-touch gesture with two fingers.

Redux thinks its buttonless, speakerless technology is the key to waterproof smartphone designs. Without the need for exposed buttons and ports, phones could be truly sealed.

But this advance could lead to better battery life and thinner devices, too. “Our technology enables smartphone manufacturers to reclaim valuable space within phones, which could be filled by a bigger battery,” Redux CEO Nedko Ivanov said in a statement. “Moreover, our surface audio technology is more power efficient than traditional micro-speakers, which means people can play music and watch videos on their phones for longer between charges.”

Redux’s solution is compatible with both LCD and OLED screens, and it’s already built into several in-car infotainment systems and PC products. The startup said it’s working with several smartphone makers about integrating the tech, but isn’t ready to name names just yet.

“The next challenge for us was to make it available for smartphones, where there’s a huge opportunity to enhance the user experience with better sound and touch,” Ivanov said.