This $14 ODB2 reader can tell your phone what’s wrong with your car

Save some money while figuring out what’s wrong with your car thanks to our pals at Thrifter!

No one likes seeing their check engine light pop on, and it’s even worse when you don’t know what the cause of it is. Sure, there are some places that will scan your car for free to tell you what’s up, but most of them charge for the service. Stop throwing money away having your car scanned, and start doing it for yourself.

Right now you can pick up Kobra’s Wireless ODB2 reader for just $14.39 with the coupon code 83ZIWPVF. This is a savings of nearly $6 from its regular price, and one of the best features of it is that you can connect it right to your smartphone to decipher the cards.

• THE MOST EFFECTIVE OBD SCANNER AND CAR CODE READER YOU HAVE EVER TRIED: Diagnose Your Car – Like a Pro and instantly transform your car into a Smart Car! KOBRA has created a top quality auto diagnostic scanner. This OBD2 Scanner can read generic and manufacturer-specific trouble codes and its database includes over 3000 code definitions.
• CONNECTS TO ANY IOS, ANDROID AND WINDOWS DEVICE VIA WI-FI: Unlike other Bluetooth OBD Scanners available on Amazon, this amazing car code reader OBD scanner can connect to any device including Apple, Android and Windows smartphones and tablets. You just need a Wi-Fi connection and you can diagnose any car problem and unlock massive amounts of data on your car’s performance in real time!
• VARIOUS FREE AND PAID APPS AVAILABLE! Supports OBD Fusion, DashCommand, OBD Car Doctor, etc for iOS and Torque Pro for Android, OBD Auto Doctor for Windows as well as many other ELM327 Apps that require a WiFi OBD2 adapter. Do not worry about compatibility. The KOBRA OBD2 wireless car code reader works with all 1996 to 2018 cars and small trucks in the United States
• UPGRADED VERSION: Thanks to user feedback we have released the new version of the WIFI OBD2 Scanner and Check Engine Code Reader. Upgrades include improved WIFI signal range, enhanced app compatibility, upgraded components, and NO CD. Don’t be fooled by other brands who sell cheaply made obd2 elm327 scanners. Our OBD Diagnostic scanner and Check Engine Light Eliminator is made with top quality materials for optimal performance and durability.

This is a great addition to any garage, and at just $14 it’s hard to pass up. Don’t get caught wishing you ordered one, and instead grab one for yourself now! There is also a Bluetooth-only option for $9.06 with coupon code 2WQM8IBW.

See at Amazon

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• What does Amazon’s takeover of Whole Foods mean for you?
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For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

‘Super Meat Boy Forever’ lands on Nintendo Switch next year

Super Meat Boy Forever, the sequel to successful twitch platformer Super Meat Boy, will hit Nintendo Switch with a squishy, bloody splat in 2018.

Super Meat Boy Forever features all of the rapid-fire leaping, sliding and dodging of the original game, but with added moves, daily challenges and a ranking system. It stars Meat Boy (an adorable block of bleeding tissue), Bandage Girl (she’s built out of Band-Aids) and their sweet baby, Nugget. Nugget is captured by the evil Dr. Fetus (you get the idea by now) and players have to platform their way around increasingly treacherous levels stacked with spinning blades, spikes, poison and other deadly traps.

Super Meat Boy Forever lands on Switch in 2018, and it’s also due out for PC and tablets at some point. Nintendo revealed the Switch release date during today’s indie-focused live stream. The original Super Meat Boy was a runaway hit for the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade program when it hit that system in 2010.

Team Meat is bringing their beefy sequel, @SuperMeatBoy Forever to #NintendoSwitch next year! #Nindies pic.twitter.com/SrGpBTp6AX

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) August 30, 2017

MIT’s latest robot politely weaves through crowds

We’re still trying to get robots to walk through difficult terrain (or gallop like ostriches), but sooner or later they’ll need to master another important skill: Not getting in our way. MIT researchers have built a wheeled ‘bot that can safely navigate through crowds of people.

It’s not just staying out from underfoot: The robot is programmed to follow subtle social rules too, like passing on the right and speedwalking past people on their left. The ‘bot uses a suite of RGB cameras and a LiDAR array paired with face-detection tech to recognize humans and situate itself accordingly. Then it anticipates where they’re going and, polite little robot that it is, weaves patiently around pedestrians so as not to get in their way.

That would make it ideal for busy areas with a lot of foot traffic, like malls or hospitals. The robot’s goal isn’t just to stay in its lane but to prioritize human walkers — think of it as a prototype robot butler that’s hyperaware of social cues. It runs a proprietary algorithm to navigate and respect particular traffic rules (passing on the right, which is the preference in the US), but those could easily be reprogrammed to adapt the bot to other cultures’ walking norms. The MIT team, whose research was funded by Ford, will present their findings in a paper at the IEEE Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems next month.

“The knock on robots in real situations is that they might be too cautious or aggressive,” The paper’s co-author Michael Everett told MIT News. “People don’t find them to fit into the socially accepted rules, like giving people enough space or driving at acceptable speeds, and they get more in the way than they help.”

Sure, there are more pressing navigational priorities when some of our robots can’t help throwing themselves into fountains. But respecting the subtleties of how we walk around and between other humans is downright civilized. The next time someone cluelessly stops moving in front of you on the sidewalk or passes on the wrong side, you can say, ‘A robot would have done better.’

Via: TechCrunch

Source: MIT News

First FDA-approved genetic therapy fights leukemia

The first gene therapy treatment has been approved for use in the United States. The FDA greenlit a procedure that uses a patient’s own cells to combat a particular type of leukemia, but will only permit it for children and young adults up to age 25.

This procedure, known as Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), works to combat acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer in the US with over 3,000 new cases diagnosed every year. Kymriah extracts a patient’s autoimmune T-cells and sends them to a facility, where they are modified to include a new gene that directs the T-cells to target particular leukemia cells. Then the genetically-modified cells are sent back to be re-inserted in the patient.

“Kymriah is a first-of-its-kind treatment approach that fills an important unmet need for children and young adults with this serious disease,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), in the FDA’s post. “Not only does Kymriah provide these patients with a new treatment option where very limited options existed, but a treatment option that has shown promising remission and survival rates in clinical trials.”

One study cited in the FDA’s announcement treated 63 children and young adult patients with Kymriah, which saw an 83 percent remission rate after three months. The agency granted approval of the gene therapy to Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.

Source: FDA