3D-printed silicone heart beats like the real thing

Advanced 3D printing and manufacturing techniques that can produce soft machines could save a lot of lives in the future. They could be used to make not just soft robots for search and rescue, but also temporary organs for people on the transplant waiting list, like the artificial heart created and tested by a team of researchers from ETH Zurich. The researchers have developed a silicone heart that beats like the real organ does using a 3D-printing, lost-wax casting technique.

In the future, it could be used as an temporary heart instead of the blood pumps hospitals use today for patients waiting for a heart transplant. Since it’s a single solid silicone structure, it doesn’t have the usual disadvantages associated with typical pumps’ metallic and plastic mechanisms, which are susceptible to complications. That’s why when the team set out to create an artificial heart, they made it their goal to develop one that “is roughly the same size as the patient’s own one and which imitates the human heart as closely as possible in form and function.”

The team stayed true to their mission and developed a silicone heart that has a right and a left ventricle like its real counterpart. But instead of a wall in between the two, they’re separated by an extra chamber inflated and deflated by pressurized air in order to mimic contractions and pump blood. It’s definitely a promising creation that could change lives, but it’s unfortunately far from ready.

Based on the series of tests the team conducted, its current iteration only lasts for 3,000 beats, enough to keep someone alive for 30 to 45 minutes. It begins breaking apart after that. The researchers now need to find or develop a more durable material and improve the artificial organ’s performance so that it can last much, much longer than that.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: ETH Zurich

Nintendo’s New 2DS XL is the closest you’ll ever get to a ‘3DS XL Lite’

When most of us think about Nintendo hardware, we think about the gimmick. The motion controls of the Wii, the second screen of the Nintendo DS, the stereoscopic visuals of the 3DS and the duality of the Nintendo Switch. These innovations define Nintendo’s brand — but it’s not the only hallmark of Nintendo hardware.

The company is as much of a house of iteration as it is innovation, particularly when it comes to portable gaming. Almost every one of its handheld consoles — from the original GameBoy to the Nintendo DS — has been revised, retooled and released in a new form. Nintendo has made five versions of its original 3DS hardware, and it’s about to release one more: The New Nintendo 2DS XL.

If the name sounds familiar, it should — two years ago Nintendo released two revised 3DS models (in both standard and XL sizes) with Amiibo support, a faster processor, a second analog input and face tracking features to help stabilize and improve the 3D effect. The New Nintendo 2DS is basically a revised version of that handheld with one primary, obvious difference: it doesn’t play games in 3D.

This isn’t the first time Nintendo dropped the stereoscopic handheld’s namesake feature. The original 2DS traded in both the 3D gimmick and the traditional clamshell design for a sturdier body and lower price-point. Likewise, the new model forgoes the 3DS’ digital depth perception and passes the savings on to the consumer — and this time, it retains the iconic hinged design.

Nintendo didn’t just copy the New Nintendo 3DS’ design and turn off the stereoscopic screen, however — this is a completely new chassis. In fact, the New Nintendo 2DS XL is the smallest large-screen portable Nintendo has ever made. It still has the same 4.88-inch primary display as other XL models, but its footprint is a quarter inch shorter than the 3DS XL.

Despite the smaller size, the 2DS XL feels roomier. Smaller bezels around the screen and a repositioned hinge allowed Nintendo to move the controls down a few millimeters. It’s a seemingly small change, but it adds just enough space above the right-hand analog stick to keep my thumb from brushing up against the hinge.

It’s little refinements like this that make the New 2DS XL special. Minor tweaks to the shape of the shoulder buttons that make them just a little bit more comfortable. The matte, fingerprint resistant texture on the back of the handheld’s lid. The small, flexible door that protects the cartridge slot. Nintendo even moved the microSD card reader to an easily accessible slot next to the cartridge port — making it possible to transfer screenshots and photos without removing the handheld’s battery cover. The streamlined 2DS design answers almost all of my minor complaints with the New 3DS XL… but that doesn’t mean it’s better than Nintendo’s fully fledged portable.

There’s a lot to love about the 2DS XL, but it definitely has its flaws. The console’s stylus, for instance, measures just two and a half inches — making it just barely long enough to be useable, but short enough to be frustrating for any game that requires drawing or heavy touchscreen use. The console’s speakers are a disappointment, too.

The New Nintendo 2DS XL is not only quieter than its 3D counterpart, but the speakers have been moved from the top screen, where they faced the player, to the console’s bottom edge. This doesn’t just muffle the handheld’s sound output, but at higher volumes you can actually feel the audio vibrate through the controls. It’s a little weird.

Mediocre audio and a short stylus are mildly disappointing, but they both qualify as manageable shortcomings. If the 2DS XL has a real fault, it’s battery life. In my standard battery test (an endless CPU battle in Super Smash Bros with console brightness set to minimum, battery saver activated and WiFi disabled) the 2DS XL lasted just six and a half hours. That’s not terrible for a modern handheld, but it’s an hour and a half less playtime than the New Nintendo 3DS XL managed in the same test.

Hardware foibles aside, playing the 2DS XL isn’t inherently different from other Nintendo handhelds. It uses the same operating system as other 3DS consoles, has the same controls and plays all the same games. It even still has two cameras for taking 3D photos — you just can’t see the results on the 2DS’ own screen. At worst, this makes a few optical illusion-based puzzles in games like Super Mario 3D Land a tiny bit harder to decipher, but it doesn’t render any game unplayable.

If you don’t already own a handheld in the Nintendo 3DS family and you don’t care about the console’s namesake gimmick, the 2DS XL is a good option. It’s $50 less than the fully fledged New Nintendo 3DS XL, plays all the same games, and has the bonus of being lighter and smaller. If you’ve been waiting for a revision that adds up to being a “3DS lite,” this is as close as you’re going to get.

Unfortunately, “lite” isn’t always best. The 3DS family of consoles is entering its twilight years, and this very may well be the last hardware revision the handheld receives. If you’re buying your first 3DS handheld and want the absolute best experience, invest the extra $50 in the fully fledged New Nintendo 3DS XL.

Not just because it can still pull off Nintendo’s stereoscopic gaming gimmick (though that is nice), but because it has notably longer battery life and offers a significantly better audio experience. If you just want access to Nintendo’s portable game library for a good price, however, go ahead and look at the New Nintendo 2DS XL. It’s not perfect, but it’s exactly what it promises to be. That’s enough.

Sweetgreen’s iOS app logs calories directly to Apple Health

To this day, Apple Health still lacks a food database, leaving health-conscious iPhone owners with few options. Most people just end up relying on an Apple Health-integrated app, like MyFitnessPal, to tally all their meals. But, let’s face it, that can be a pain, especially when it comes to searching for stuff you eat on the fly. However, Sweetgreen has come up with a nifty idea to make life easier for calorie-counters. In what seems to be a first, the restaurant chain’s iPhone app lets you send your order’s dietary data to Apple Health from your cart.

The new option (spotted by AppleInsider) essentially cuts out the middleman. It also lets you rest easy in the knowledge that you’re logging the exact calorie count taken from the source. These things matter when you’re on a strict regimen. Frankly, it’s surprising more restaurant and food delivery apps don’t offer the feature. Then again, do you really want UberEats to track the calories in that late-night kebab?

Via: AppleInsider

iOS 11 Will Expand Your iPhone’s NFC Capabilities Beyond Apple Pay in Several Ways

Apple at WWDC 2017 last month introduced Core NFC, a new iOS 11 framework that enables apps to detect Near Field Communication tags.

Similar to Apple Pay, iPhone users are prompted with a “Ready to Scan” dialog box. After holding the iPhone near an item with an NFC tag, a checkmark displays on screen if a product is detected. An app with Core NFC could then provide users with information about that product contained within the tag.

A customer shopping at a grocery store could hold an iPhone near a box of crackers, for example, and receive detailed information about their nutritional values, price history, recipe ideas, and so forth. Or, at a museum, a visitor could hold an iPhone near an exhibit to receive detailed information about it.

Core NFC will expand the iPhone’s NFC chip capabilities beyond simply Apple Pay in several other ways.

A bottle of wine with an NFC tag similar to CapSeal
Cybersecurity company WISeKey, for example, today announced that its CapSeal smart tag will now support iPhone thanks to Core NFC. CapSeal smart tags are primarily used for authentication, tracking, and anti-counterfeiting on products like wine bottles. Many other companies offer similar solutions.

When placed on a bottle of spirit or a bottle of lubricant oil, for instance, and tapped by an NFC phone, the chip is able to securely authenticate and track the bottle like an ePassport does. It offers the same certified security level. It also allows the brand to broadcast personalized messages to the phone-holder detecting whether the bottle has been open or not.

Core NFC is currently supported by the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, and the framework is read-only for NFC tags of types 1 through 5 that contain data in the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF).

Developers interested in learning more can read Apple’s documentation or watch the Introducing Core NFC session from WWDC 2017.

Related Roundup: iOS 11
Tags: NFC, Core NFC
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Google wants more Google Earth content via your local stories

Google is planning to make Google Earth a lot more social. In the next few years, you will be able to share personal images and videos to the platform. As a result, Google envisions millions of public “stories” populating the tool. Viewers will then be able to spend even more time procrastinating by dipping in and out of the clips as they explore the global simulation.

It’s interesting to see Google embracing “stories.” The short-form mobile storytelling format has become commonplace since Instagram pinched it from Snapchat. It also conjures images of horrifying face-swap selfies and people donning virtual dog masks — which doesn’t seem appropriate for Google Earth now, does it? It does seem likely, however, that any future updates will be part of Google Earth’s “Voyager” feature. Launched in April, Voyager already boasts VR tours, city guides, and live-streams.

According to Google, the planet visualization tool will be better suited to more outdoorsy material. “The story of your family history, the story of your favorite hiking trip – it could be anything. It doesn’t have to be profound,” Google Earth Director Rebecca Moore told Reuters. Staying with the social media aspect, virtual maps that let you tune into global broadcasts are also integral to Twitter’s Periscope, Facebook Live, and Snapchat.

To give you a taster of what “stories” will look like, Google Earth is launching the “I Am Amazon” series on Voyager. Spread across 11 sites, the interactive project documents the relationship between the rainforest and its people. The stories are told using a mixture of video, text, and 360-degree VR. No one expects user uploads to match this kind of production value, and many of them will look amateurish at best — but that’s part of the charm.

Source: Reuters

Gudak turns your $1,000 iPhone into a $20 disposable camera

With their simple controls and lack of preview, disposable cameras are fun to use and let you relive the party once the film is developed. Gudak wants to give you that feeling with its iPhone app — it has a number of features that are pretty bizarre at first glance, but make sense if you get into the spirit of things.

You’re limited to 24 photos per day, and a “processing laboratory” tells you when the images are “developed.” That might seem weird if you’re used to taking 24 digital photos of one subject, but it does force you to choose the best moments. There’s also a tiny, simulated viewfinder that’s impractical as hell, but again, it means you can only do basic composition chores, rather than micromanaging the shot and spoiling the moment.

You also have to wait three entire days before you can see the images. Here, the app is really pushing it with the Kodak impression, trying to be the Daniel Day-Lewis of disposable camera apps. However, that was part of the charm of those cameras — you shot it and forgot it, then after developing the film, get your pals together, have some laughs and relive the party all over again.

There are even simulated “light leaks” randomly introduced into shots, along with the reddish, over-saturated color wash you remember. Sure, it’s a bit gimmicky, but it’s cute as hell and for $0.99, could be fun for awhile. It’s now on the iPhone app store, but not yet on Android.

Via: Petapixel

Source: Gudak (iTunes)

Oculus permanently discounts Rift and Touch bundle to $499

If you can’t spare $399 for the Oculus Rift and Touch bundle while it’s still on sale, don’t worry. The Facebook-owned company is permanently dropping the all-in-one package’s price to $499 once the sale ends in around six weeks. A bundle would’ve cost you almost $800 when the VR headset first became available until it got a $200 price cut (repriced to $598) in March. Another $99 off is a pretty sweet deal if you really can’t buy the package anytime soon, considering a standalone Rift and a pair of Touch controllers will already set you back $400 and $99, respectively.

Each Rift + Touch bundle includes the headset, two sensors, a pair of Touch controllers, cables and six free VR games/experiences — Lucky’s Tale, Medium, Toybox, Quill, Dead and Buried and Robo Recall. You can get the package from Oculus’ official website or from retailers where the device is sold. In case you’re not in a hurry to own a VR headset, though, and don’t want to invest in an Oculus-ready PC, you may want to check out Bloomberg’s latest report. The publication says Oculus is currently developing a $200 wireless VR headset that doesn’t need a PC or a phone slated for release in 2018.

Source: Oculus

ZTE’s Blade Spark raises the bar for $100 smartphones

If you’re wondering what $100 will get you in a smartphone nowadays in the US, ZTE has a solid reply with the Blade Spark. Available for AT&T Prepaid customers, it offers some nice things like a 5.5-inch HD display and 13-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front camera. That’s well and good, but there are some other surprising touches for such a cheap device: a rear fingerprint sensor, dedicated selfie button, Gorilla Glass 3, Dolby audio and Android 7.1.1, the very latest version.

The Blade Spark also looks kinda nice with a simple black front and grippy-looking dark gray back. You’re not going to be playing graphics-intensive games with the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chip and 2GB of RAM. But this is more aimed at folks that want a solid selfie camera, convenient access via the fingerprint sensor and a big screen and Dolby sound for reading, videos and photos. To help that, it also supports up to 128GB of microSD storage, on top of the 16GB built in.

It’s nice that the Blade Spark is up to the minute, security and features-wise, with Android Nougat — even recent flagship devices often aren’t. With malware coming at smartphones from all angles, that guarantees users should at least have the latest security patches. Since this device could end up in the hands of kids or teens, they’ll be a little better protected.

Source: AT&T

Disney’s ‘Star Wars’ theme park is taking shape

Universal Studios Japan recently released the first trailer for its in-construction Super Nintendo World attraction, and now Disney has gone one better by building an actual physical model showing off its upcoming Star Wars Land (unofficial title). Due to open in 2019 at both Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida, the new area “will transport guests to a never-before-seen planet” — which just happens to look like every weathered, forgettable world characters from the films briefly touch down on to get a ship part or intel or what have you.

There should be plenty to do at the “remote trading port” once you’ve filled your boots with expensive merchandise and your bellies with Yoda burgers. Ride specifics are pretty hazy, but Disney has revealed that visitors will control the Millennium Falcon on a secret mission as part of one signature attraction, while the other main draw will drop guests “in the middle of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance.”

Star Tours, a Star Wars-inspired flight simulator, and several other attractions were up and running at various Disney parks long before the company waved a check in front of George Lucas he couldn’t pass up. Now Disney owns the rights to the extremely popular franchise, it makes sense to create a more elaborate live experience for fans to visit — especially after the shot-in-the-arm that was the last two movies. Though a few years off completion, anyone visiting Disney World in the future will be able to kill two film-inspired birds with one stone, diving into the mind of James Cameron through the new World Of Avatar experience.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Disney

Cops in Texas just rescued ‘a guy stuck inside an ATM’

Why it matters to you

It’s clearly wise to keep your phone on you at all times.

Imagine you’re at an ATM. You go through the motions, hitting the appropriate buttons to complete your transaction, and collect your cash. Just as you turn to leave, you spot a piece of paper slide through the receipt slot with what appears to be a note scrawled on it. You grab it to see what it says.

“Please help. I’m stuck in here and I don’t have my phone. Please call my boss on …”

You’re probably going to react in one of several ways. You might take a quick look around to check there isn’t some YouTube prankster filming you from afar. Or you might consider visiting the doc for a full health check. Then again, you might actually believe that there’s someone trapped inside the machine and decide to call the number.

The ATM user in Corpus Christi, Texas who recently experienced the above scenario opted for none of the above, instead choosing to grab the attention of a passing cop.

The pair approached the ATM, leaning in to confirm whether or not there really was someone stuck inside. To their surprise, they could hear “a little voice” coming from within.

Corpus Christi cop Richard Olden later confirmed what’s thought to be a world first — a human trapped inside an ATM.

“We have a once in a lifetime situation that you’ll probably never see or hear about again,” Olden told local media.

Hear from @CorpusChristiPD Senior Officer Richard Olden about an unusual incident Wednesday afternoon.https://t.co/oEMBi5xQAs pic.twitter.com/SJIOVLwZf7

— KRIS 6 News (@KRIS6News) July 12, 2017

Olden said the individual, who perhaps luckily for him hasn’t been named, was a contractor working to install an electronic lock on the bank’s ATM room. The lock apparently malfunctioned, leaving him stuck inside the small space behind the machine. He’d left his phone in the truck, but luckily had a pen and paper so was able to push notes through the machine calling for help.

“The officers that got here were actually yelling to him through the ATM machine as if a little guy was stuck inside the machine,” Olden said.

The cops called the trapped man’s supervisor but they were unable to unlock the door, leaving them with no choice but to knock it down.

“You’ll never see this again in your life,” Olden said, adding, “It was just crazy.”