‘Dynamic defrosting’ tech promises to clear your windshield 10 times faster

Why it matters to you

Nobody enjoys having to defrost their car windshield in winter, but new superhydrophobic surfaces can dramatically accelerate the process.

One of the absolute worst things about winter living in a cold place is having to defrost your car windshield every morning. Fortunately, researchers from Virginia Tech are here to help, courtesy of new technology that’s capable of defrosting surfaces 10 times faster than normal. Remember who to thank when this tech lets you get an extra half-hour of shut-eye in deepest, darkest December!

“What we have developed is a water-repellent aluminum surface that traps millions of tiny air pockets underneath a sheet of frost growing atop the surface,” Jonathan Boreyko, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics (BEAM) department, told Digital Trends.

“Picture a person lying on top of a bed of nails, but now replace the person with a sheet of frost. Surfaces that trap air underneath water drops are called superhydrophobic and have been well known for about two decades now. But what makes our findings so exciting is that we extend the concept to frost, instead of just liquid water. This is exciting because during defrosting, the underlying air pockets enable the melting ice to rapidly roll down the surface, even at very low tilt angles.”

The researchers call this “dynamic defrosting” — and say it could be used for everything from the aforementioned midwinter car windshields to airplanes to heat pumps. The work is described in a paper published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Boreyko says that the work builds on previous research he has carried out regarding superhydrophobic surfaces. Like some of the most significant discoveries, it also came from a deeply personal place.

“My breakthrough regarding the dynamic defrosting idea was realizing that frost is nothing more than frozen dew droplets,” he continued. “So if we could trap air underneath dew droplets to make them highly mobile, it followed that we should be able to trap air underneath frost to make it mobile upon melting. This first occurred to me in the wintertime when I was running late to work, and was getting frustrated at how long it took to defrost my car.”

From here, the plan is to develop the work for possible commercialization, although Boreyko acknowledged that there’s still work to be done in this regard.

“Namely, the nanostructured superhydrophobic surface required for dynamic defrosting is quite delicate and prone to degradation under real-life conditions,” he said. “Other researchers have been investigating self-healing superhydrophobic coatings, so one approach for future work is to attempt a self-healing superhydrophobic defroster. Another possibility is focusing on applications that don’t require long-term durability, such as a RainX-type spray that can be reapplied as needed.”

Once things are ready, though, this is totally a Kickstarter we’re on board for!

Microsoft quietly ends support for Windows Phone 8.1

Why it matters to you

If you’re still rocking a device on Windows Phone 8.1, you’re no longer going to receive software updates.

Microsoft has officially ended support for Windows Phone 8.1, the third iteration of the company’s operating system built specifically for mobile that arrived on the scene in 2014. As of today, it will no longer receive updates going forward, according to Microsoft’s support site.

Every year it seems another aspect of Windows Phone is quietly killed off, and this news leaves only Windows 10 as the remaining active platform for the few handsets capable of running it. The last phone Microsoft released was the midrange Lumia 650 in February 2016.

About this time last year, Microsoft heavily scaled back its mobile group by roughly 1,850 jobs. The bulk of the cuts came to those at the division’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland. Formerly Nokia’s home, Microsoft completed its acquisition of that team in 2014, renamed it Microsoft Mobile, and adopted the Lumia brand while licensing the Nokia name out to HMD.

However, for Windows Phone owners, the death of version 8.1 is perhaps the most serious blow to the platform yet. An estimated 76.3 percent of phones running Windows are still on 8.1 according to figures from AdDuplex. Many of those devices are presumed stranded on 8.1, though analysts add it’s just as likely users abandoned those phones for Android and iOS.

Meanwhile, it is estimated only 17 percent of mobile devices made the leap to Windows 10, which is slated to reach end of life in the fall of 2018. Microsoft unified the Windows Phone brand with Windows 10 in 2016, but the Creators Update released earlier in the year left out any major feature additions for phones.

Combined with the platform’s historical lack of the same breadth of apps available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store, it seems Windows 10 has been condemned to languish on phones for another year and a half, with perhaps the only updates coming in the form of security patches and bug fixes.

Instead, Microsoft has turned its attention to supporting devices it used to compete with. Cortana is now available on Android and iOS. Sprinkles, the company’s machine-learning-powered camera app, is exclusive to iPhone. Even Garage, Microsoft’s hub for unique projects that operates similarly to Google’s Area 120, is routinely pumping out interesting apps that never make it to the Windows Store.

While the fate of Windows Phone appears to be all but sealed, its developers are making sure their best ideas reach the public in one form or another — even if they’re on devices without the Microsoft name printed up top.

Pick up an AMD system? Be sure to check out AMD4U for free games, software

Why it matters to you

If you’re considering an AMD-based system, or already bought one, then don’t miss out on your AMD4U benefits.

AMD has been making some noise lately, introducing its increasingly popular line of Ryzen CPUs based on its new Zen architecture and giving Intel some real competition. And, the upcoming and hotly anticipated release of its Radeon Vega consumer GPUs is keeping gamers on their toes. Now, AMD is looking to build on its momentum with the introduction of its AMD4U program.

AMD4U is designed to highlight games and creative applications that are optimized for AMD CPUs and GPUs. The program is being kicked off with some special offers from Square Enix and Adobe and offers some serious benefits for anyone who is thinking of buying a new system based on AMD technology.

First up is Square Enix, which is offering up to three free games from its Square Enix Collective portfolio of indie titles — estimated to be worth a cool $40. As Phil Elliott, the creator of the Square Enix Collective, put it:

“With AMD’s commitment, as part of the AMD4U program, we are able to provide gamers with access to an amazing array of new gaming experiences from these handpicked indie developers. The games available as part of the offer will showcase the variety and depth of the Collective portfolio, and bring fresh perspectives and new ideas, taking full advantage of AMD’s powerful systems.”

Next up is Adobe, which is offering free subscriptions to a couple of its cloud creative solutions, including up to two months of Adobe Creative Cloud (a $100 value) or three months of the Creative Photography plan (a $30 value). Sue Skidmore, Adobe’s head of partner relations, describes the company’s participation saying:

“Adobe Creative Cloud and the Creative Cloud Photography plan offered in the AMD4U program provide an amazing opportunity to discover the best creative tools available, like Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe InDesign CC, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe Lightroom CC, and a wealth of personalized learning resources.”

Qualifying AMD-based systems include those using Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 desktop processors and Radeon RX 500 series GPUs, along with some older components so nobody is left out. If you already picked up an eligible system, then you can redeem your AMD4U perks here. If you are in the market for a new AMD-based system, then be sure to check out this list of eligible systems before pulling out your credit card.

Carnegie Mellon taught a computer to read human body language in real time

Why it matters to you

Technology could unlock new ways to interact with machines, play games or musical instruments, or produce content.

Technology like the Microsoft Kinect camera can already carry out simple motion sensing and use this as a way of interfacing with software. However, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have gone much further with the development of a new computer system that is capable of recognizing the body poses and movements of multiple people in real time — right down to someone’s facial expression, or the pose of an individual person’s fingers.

“The technology has the potential to unlock new ways for us to interact with machines, to play games, play musical instruments, or produce content,” Yaser Sheikh, an associate professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon, told Digital Trends. “It will help us diagnose and treat behavioral conditions such as autism, depression, and dyslexia. It has the ability to create new monitoring systems for physical therapy and rehabilitation. It will allow us to build safer systems, such as self-driving cars and home robotics. Perhaps its most exciting potential — and the one that motivates me — is that machines would be able to enter our social spaces and become collaborative partners in our daily lives, instead of passive tools.”

While the technology was developed with the aid of a two-story dome embedded with 500 video cameras, called the Panoptic Studio, the technology can be used by anyone with a single camera and a laptop computer. With this setup, they can potentially carry out some extraordinary recognition tasks — such as monitoring every member of a sports team during a game or building self-driving car technology that might offer early warnings about pedestrians based on their body language.

The work is being presented at CVPR 2017, the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference, scheduled to take place later in July in Honolulu, Hawaii. However, the Carnegie Mellon team is not keeping it locked up as simply a research project. The team open-sourced it on Github, allowing anyone who wants to take advantage of the technology the means by which to access the code. Already, it is being used by various research groups and interest has been expressed from major commercial research and development labs — including in the automotive industry.

Sheikh does warn against misuse, though. “[As exciting as this kind of technology is, it also] tremendous negative potential in enabling broad-based surveillance and monitoring for specific behaviors,” he said. “There are still ways to go before that happens, of course, but our human community needs to start thinking about its implications.”

Carnegie Mellon taught a computer to read human body language in real time

Why it matters to you

Technology could unlock new ways to interact with machines, play games or musical instruments, or produce content.

Technology like the Microsoft Kinect camera can already carry out simple motion sensing and use this as a way of interfacing with software. However, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have gone much further with the development of a new computer system that is capable of recognizing the body poses and movements of multiple people in real time — right down to someone’s facial expression, or the pose of an individual person’s fingers.

“The technology has the potential to unlock new ways for us to interact with machines, to play games, play musical instruments, or produce content,” Yaser Sheikh, an associate professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon, told Digital Trends. “It will help us diagnose and treat behavioral conditions such as autism, depression, and dyslexia. It has the ability to create new monitoring systems for physical therapy and rehabilitation. It will allow us to build safer systems, such as self-driving cars and home robotics. Perhaps its most exciting potential — and the one that motivates me — is that machines would be able to enter our social spaces and become collaborative partners in our daily lives, instead of passive tools.”

While the technology was developed with the aid of a two-story dome embedded with 500 video cameras, called the Panoptic Studio, the technology can be used by anyone with a single camera and a laptop computer. With this setup, they can potentially carry out some extraordinary recognition tasks — such as monitoring every member of a sports team during a game or building self-driving car technology that might offer early warnings about pedestrians based on their body language.

The work is being presented at CVPR 2017, the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference, scheduled to take place later in July in Honolulu, Hawaii. However, the Carnegie Mellon team is not keeping it locked up as simply a research project. The team open-sourced it on Github, allowing anyone who wants to take advantage of the technology the means by which to access the code. Already, it is being used by various research groups and interest has been expressed from major commercial research and development labs — including in the automotive industry.

Sheikh does warn against misuse, though. “[As exciting as this kind of technology is, it also] tremendous negative potential in enabling broad-based surveillance and monitoring for specific behaviors,” he said. “There are still ways to go before that happens, of course, but our human community needs to start thinking about its implications.”

Facebook set to begin testing Messenger home screen ads worldwide

Why it matters to you

With Facebook expanding the Messenger ads beta globally, you might soon see ads appear on your home screen while scrolling through the app.

After launching a small test to place ads onto its Messenger app, Facebook revealed the global expansion of the beta on Tuesday. Any advertiser in the world will soon have the option to purchase ads in Messenger and some users will start to see them. The blog post explains the ads will give users more of an opportunity to discover brands and business straight from the Messenger home tab.

When Facebook first announced the test back in January, it only targeted a small group of users in Thailand and Australia who were able to see the promotional items. The ads are in a format similar to Facebook’s News Feed, popping up as you scroll through the messages tab. Since they’re placed in between your recent conversations — and clearly labeled as sponsored content — the company is confident it will enhance the experience of finding brands and items through a more seamless process.

Once you click on a particular ad, you’re brought to the brand’s site and can shop or browse around as you please without ever exiting the messenger app itself. Businesses can also choose to direct people to a Messenger window for a more conversational experience. With 1.2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is clearly looking to monetize what it feels is an untapped market on its own platform.

Users are limited in terms of control over the ads on their home tab and can only choose to hide and/or report particular ads using the drop-down menu. The ads won’t disrupt your private messages, but — thanks to Facebook’s update last year — companies can send customers sponsored messages if a conversation took place in the past.

When talking to brands directly through Messenger, the company can provide you with a unique and more personalized experience — whether it’s sending you links to items or answering questions. In terms of convenience, this new feature will always keep consumers in the loop about products and brands while also keeping users on Facebook’s apps. However, it is yet to be determined whether users will react well to receiving random messages from companies after the initial interaction is long over.

For now, only a small percentage of people will start to see ads in their Messenger Home tab by the end of the month as the company builds ad inventory and collects data on how to improve the new ads.  It will continue to extend the beta gradually to more people over the upcoming months.

Large, edge-to-edge displays are coming to the Wacom Cintiq Pro line

Why it matters to you

Designers and retouchers will have more surface space to work with in Wacom’s new, larger pen displays.

Wacom’s line of pen displays for artists and designers is about to get a whole lot bigger. On Tuesday, Wacom announced that two tablets nearly double the size of the existing Pro line are in the works for 2018. The Wacom Cintiq Pro line will gain a 24- and 32-inch option alongside the existing 13- and 16-inch pen displays.

Both new tablets will use 4K, edge-to-edge displays to make the most of the larger footprints. The screen also boasts a billion colors for the accuracy that artists need, Wacom says.

The upcoming pen displays will also bring the Pro Pen 2 technology available on the existing Cintiq Pro line with 8,192 different levels of sensitivity to pressure — or four times the company’s previous pen system. The pen offers tilt response as well, creating a design interface that is virtually lag-free, the company says.

Wacom designed the Cintiq Pro line not as a stand-alone tablet (though the company does offer tablets like the MobileStudio Pro) but as a tool to use alongside a desktop computer, bringing touch controls for drawing without losing power to the smaller processors of dedicated tablets. The series is compatible with both Mac and PCs.

While exact details are slim, the Cintiq Pro’s smaller family members also get a color boost as the size increases, with the portable HD 13-inch option hitting an 87 percent Adobe RGB color rating and the 4K 16-inch offering a 94 percent color rating.

While the Cintiq Pro line has a smaller 13-inch and 16-inch option, the company does have a few larger screens outside that “Pro” designation. With the announcement, the company is dropping the price on their existing large-screen pen systems, with a $100 drop on the Cintiq 22HD Pen Display and $400 off both the Cintiq 27HD Pen Display and the Cintiq 27HD Pen & Touch Display.

Wacom is taking a different approach to announcing the large options, revealing details on the new options over time. The company will slowly be sharing details over the next six months with a series of teasers. Users interested in the upcoming pen displays can sign up for email updates on Wacom’s website to stay up to date on the news.

The larger Wacom Cintiq Pro pen displays are expected in January, with a price range between $1,999 and $3,299.

Large, edge-to-edge displays are coming to the Wacom Cintiq Pro line

Why it matters to you

Designers and retouchers will have more surface space to work with in Wacom’s new, larger pen displays.

Wacom’s line of pen displays for artists and designers is about to get a whole lot bigger. On Tuesday, Wacom announced that two tablets nearly double the size of the existing Pro line are in the works for 2018. The Wacom Cintiq Pro line will gain a 24- and 32-inch option alongside the existing 13- and 16-inch pen displays.

Both new tablets will use 4K, edge-to-edge displays to make the most of the larger footprints. The screen also boasts a billion colors for the accuracy that artists need, Wacom says.

The upcoming pen displays will also bring the Pro Pen 2 technology available on the existing Cintiq Pro line with 8,192 different levels of sensitivity to pressure — or four times the company’s previous pen system. The pen offers tilt response as well, creating a design interface that is virtually lag-free, the company says.

Wacom designed the Cintiq Pro line not as a stand-alone tablet (though the company does offer tablets like the MobileStudio Pro) but as a tool to use alongside a desktop computer, bringing touch controls for drawing without losing power to the smaller processors of dedicated tablets. The series is compatible with both Mac and PCs.

While exact details are slim, the Cintiq Pro’s smaller family members also get a color boost as the size increases, with the portable HD 13-inch option hitting an 87 percent Adobe RGB color rating and the 4K 16-inch offering a 94 percent color rating.

While the Cintiq Pro line has a smaller 13-inch and 16-inch option, the company does have a few larger screens outside that “Pro” designation. With the announcement, the company is dropping the price on their existing large-screen pen systems, with a $100 drop on the Cintiq 22HD Pen Display and $400 off both the Cintiq 27HD Pen Display and the Cintiq 27HD Pen & Touch Display.

Wacom is taking a different approach to announcing the large options, revealing details on the new options over time. The company will slowly be sharing details over the next six months with a series of teasers. Users interested in the upcoming pen displays can sign up for email updates on Wacom’s website to stay up to date on the news.

The larger Wacom Cintiq Pro pen displays are expected in January, with a price range between $1,999 and $3,299.

Do I need more than one Google Home?

Having more than one Google Home just adds benefits.

Google Home makes it easy to control your connected home. So what do you do when multiple people in the house all want to use your Google Home at the same time? Well, you pick up a second — or third! Having multiple Google Homes only increases your benefits, and we have the details for you here!

• Do I really need more than one Google Home?
• What are the benefits of having more than one Google Home?
• What if I only want one Google Home?

Do I really need more than one Google Home?

The first question that you might have is whether investing in more than one Google Home is actually worth it. Depending on the size of your living space (and how many people inhabit it) one Google Home may be more than sufficient. This is especially true if you don’t really have much by way of connected home hardware.

However, if you’ve got a decent-sized house, then having a different Google Home in your living room, kitchen, and bedroom can seriously pay off. That’s because connecting your smart home devices and using an app like IFTTT means that you can pull some added capabilities off of your accessory.

So if you have Hue lights in your bedroom, you want Google Home to read you a recipe while you’re making dinner, and your partner wants to jam out to Spotify in the living room, all of those things are possible at the same time. The need for more than one Google Home is definitely personal, but if you want to get the most out of your technology, then having more than one is definitely a solid option.

What are the benefits of having multiple Google Homes?

If having more than one Google Home seems like the answer to your prayers, then you aren’t on your own. Being able to play music in one room, while doing something entirely different in another room can make a pretty big difference. Especially if you are one of the people who get used to asking Google about the weather, your commute, and other information before you even leave the house.

Being able to have a different Google Home in each major room of your house means that no matter where you are, you have access to the information you need with just a question. This also means that if one person is listening to Spotify or an audiobook, they don’t need to be interrupted if you need to know just how hot it actually is outside.

What if I only want one Google Home?

If you’re really happy with your single Google Home, then strictly speaking there isn’t any necessary reason to pick up another one. While you can only really do one thing at a time with Google Home, you should be pretty solid. Thanks to multi-user support, you can have several people connected to Google Home, and it will recognize their voices separately.

Google Home can support up to 6 users at a time and is able to tell who is speaking to it. This means it can also access specific accounts linked to a user without needing a separate accessory. While you can’t play music and get a recipe for dinner at the same time, Google Home will remember background tasks you asked it for. This means you can set a timer while your partner listens to Spotify, and Google Home will pause the music when your alarm goes off.

For folks who live in smaller residences, live by themselves, or lack Smar thome hardware, then a single Google Home ought to be more than enough to help you keep track of everything going on in your life.

Questions?

Do you still have questions about whether or not more than one Google Home is a solid idea? Have you picked up a second Google Home? Let us know about it in the comments below!

Google Home

• Google Home review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

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