Samsung’s cellular smart tag lasts for a week on one charge

Smart products have given us the tools we need to track personal items, and even loved ones. Want to know where your kids are? Buy them a custom smartwatch. Worried about losing your suitcase? Grab some connected luggage. Looking to keep a watchful eye over your pet? Get a webcam-integrated smart toy. But, as useful as they may be, they’re still restricted by their category. Sensing a gap in the market for a versatile product that can do all of the above, Samsung is releasing the Connect Tag.

The manufacturer claims the device is the first of its kind to use narrowband tech (NB-IoT, Cat.M1) — essentially a low-power network for smart products. That means it can last a whole week on a single charge. The square-shaped tag measures in at 4.21cm, and is 1.19cm thick — making it compact enough to clip on to your keys, kids’ backpacks, or dog collars.

The waterproof device boasts a geo-fence feature that alerts you when an item or person has left a set virtual zone. Of course, it also syncs with smart home appliances, allowing you to carry out simple controls, like turning the TV or lights on. However, it does have a few caveats: It only works with an Android app, with no mention of iOS support. Plus, it may not arrive in this part of the world till next year. And, there’s also no mention of price, which could prove critical for those looking to buy several. Its first stop will be South Korea, with Samsung promising to release the tag in more countries soon.

Source: Samsung

Artificial pancreas uses your phone to counter diabetes

If you live with type 1 diabetes, you have to constantly keep track of your blood sugar levels and give yourself just the right amount of insulin. It’s arduous, and more than a little frightening when you know that the wrong dose could have serious consequences. However, researchers might have a way to let diabetics focus on their everyday lives instead of pumps and needles. They’ve successfully trialed an artificial pancreas system that uses an algorithm on a smartphone to automatically deliver appropriate levels of insulin. The mobile software tells the ‘organ’ (really an insulin pump and glucose monitor) to regulate glucose levels based on criteria like activity, meals and sleep, and it refines its insulin control over time by learning from daily cycles. Effectively, it’s trying to behave more like the pancreas of a person without diabetes.

The simulated pancreas isn’t trying to hit a fixed glucose level, we’d add. Rather, it’s trying to keep that level within an acceptable range based on a predictive model.

The trial results were promising. A 12-week test saw “significant” improvements, including reduced levels of a key hemoglobin and less time spent in a hypoglycemic state. And these were already disciplined patients who knew how to take care of themselves — the algorithm was one step ahead of them. This doesn’t mean that diabetics will never have to think about insulin again, and there’s still plenty of testing and approvals necessary before an artificial pancreas like this can reach the market. If it does, though, it could reduce some of the stress in diabetics’ lives.

Source: Harvard, Diabetes Care

Canon’s G1 X Mark III is its first APS-C sensor compact

Canon has unveiled its first-ever APS-C sensor compact zoom camera, the 24.3-megapixel PowerShot G1 X Mark III. It’s much bigger than the last G1 X Mark II model, with a very similar body to the G5 X compact. It also features Canon’s fast and accurate dual-pixel autofocus and an all-new 2.36 million OLED electronic viewfinder (EVF). To get those big-sensor bragging rights, however, Canon had to sacrifice a few key features from the last model and jack up the price significantly.

Gone is the versatile 24-120mm f/2.0-3.9 zoom lens of the last model (which had a smaller 1.5-inch sensor), replaced with a slower and shorter 24-72 mm f/2.8-5.6 model. It’s easy to understand why Canon did this — with a larger image circle, an equivalent lens would likely have been too large and heavy.

During a call, company engineers pointed out that with a larger sensor, the f/2.8-5.6 lens will still be capable of shallow depth-of-field, and is (a bit) faster than its DSLR or mirrorless kit lenses. Photographers will now have to decide, however, whether they want a big sensor or faster lens, like the one on the (cheaper) Sony RX100 V or the stellar f/1.4-2.8 model on the Panasonic LX10.

The 2.36 million dot EVF was a much-requested feature by owners of the last model, and the G1 X Mark III now has a 3.0-inch vari-angle touch display with touch and drag autofocus. With the dual-pixel autofocus and a Digic 7 image processor, the compact can now shoot at 7 fps with continuous AF tracking or 9 fps with fixed tracking. It also has five-axis optical stabilization and a new type of shutter release that Canon calls “more DSLR-like.”

The dual-pixel AF improves focus speed for both still and video images, but with a serious caveat next to its competition. As with other recent Canon models like the M100 mirrorless, the G1 X Mark III is limited to 1080p 60fps video, while rivals like Panasonic and Sony have cheaper compacts (the RX100 V and LX10) that can shoot 4K/30 fps and 1080p at 120 fps.

Other features include a new panoramic mode that can stitch up to seven photos together, either horizontally or vertically. There’s now WiFi, NFC and Bluetooth, making for easy pairing, photo transfers and remote live-view shooting of stills and video. Finally, there’s a new time-lapse mode that can automatically determine intervals and exposure.

The biggest pain-point for potential G1 X Mark III buyers is the price. It’s available in November 2017 for a stunning $1,299, a good $300 more than the RX100 V which, other than the sensor size, offers better specs across the board. If you really want an APS-C compact zoom, however, the G1 X Mark III is currently the only one in the world.

Dutch car ‘Nuon’ wins the World Solar Challenge for the third time in a row

Why it matters to you

Solar power has come a long way in the last 30 years, as the innovative designs of these race cars proves.

The World Solar Challenge is a grueling race through the Australian outback that runs more than 1,860 miles. It can last up to a week, and competitors can only use the power of the sun to propel their cars. This year is the 30th anniversary of the World Solar Challenge, which is held every two years, and the Flying Dutch team “Nuon” racked up their third straight victory in the Challenger class, finishing two hours ahead of their closest rival. Their winning time was 37 hours, 10 minutes, and 21 seconds, with an average speed of 55 miles per hour.

The University of Michigan Solar Car Team placed second, and the Belgian Punch Powertrain Solar Team came in third.

Started in 1987, the World Solar Challenge course stretches from Darwin on the north coast of Australia, all the way to the city of Adelaide on the southern coast. The cars race from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, and there are seven checkpoints along the route where the cars must stop for half-hour intervals. The teams can store a small amount of energy, but the majority has to come from solar power and the vehicle’s kinetic energy.

As the New Atlas noted, this year’s challenge was particularly difficult, with clouds and rain and occasional 60-mph winds. The drivers were advised by the team aerodynamics expert to position their solar car in a way that could take advantage of the winds just like a sailing ship.

In addition to the Challenger class, a Dutch team also took first place in the Cruiser class, which features a more practical blend of high-end technology and everyday functionality. Although the German team HS Bochum was first to finish, the Dutch team Eindhoven took first place due to a point system taking design, efficiency, innovation, and practicality into account.

Their five-seat family car “Stella Vie” had an average speed of 43 mph during the event. “These incredible solar cars have been designed with the commercial market in mind and have all the features you’d expect in a family, luxury or sporting car,” event director Chris Selwood told Phys.org. “This is the future of solar electric vehicles. When your car is parked at home it can be charging and supplying energy back to the grid.”

Someday, we may all be driving electric cars that get all their power from the sun and never need charging.

End of the headphone jack, rise of the audiophile

The end of the headphone jack has spurred an interest in high-quality audio components, but where does the madness stop?

Everything I do revolves around music. It’s always been this way — as a kid I would sit on the floor in my carpeted living room creating hours of mix tapes from my father’s classic rock cassettes, returning to my bed to close my eyes and exist between two worlds.

As a teenager, I spent nearly all of my money on headphones, poring through the Head-Fi forums to discover the best possible combination of music source, headphone brand, and emotional state. I amassed a collection of over-the-ear closed headphones and in-ear monitors, of custom amplifiers, DACs and cables. I paid attention to everything, and nothing was good enough. As I approached college and moved into a tiny dorm room, my headphone collection got sold to pay for textbooks and expensive coffee, for first dates and, inevitably, other technology. Though the iPod certainly catalyzed my regression to lower-quality portable audio, it was a confluence of factors that caused me to leave that addictive, expensive world behind.

I spent a long time building a collection of expensive audio equipment only to sell it and start all over again 15 years later.

That itch stayed dormant until a couple of years ago. I re-purchased a pair of headphones, the Beyerdynamic DT770, that I had worn so much as a teenager, the damn things had fallen apart; to push them, I dusted off a solid-state headphone amplifier that had been sitting in storage for over a decade.

But like the multitudinous reasons I left behind audiophilia in the early 2000s, the itch that caused me to re-up on a devastatingly expensive hobby has its roots in my current job, in reviewing phones. For so long — and I largely blame Apple for this — it was the “headphones in the box” appeal that made it useful to plug those recognizable white earbuds into the standard 3.5mm jack. The thin sound wasn’t necessarily good, but unless someone was curating a collection of high-quality MP3s, either ripped from an increasingly-ignored CD collection, or downloaded legitimately (or otherwise) from a trusted site, the returns on spending much more than a few dollars on a pair of nice headphones were largely wasted.

I’m not going to pretend that no one used good headphones between the years of 2001 and 2016 — that would be absurd. Of course high-quality equipment was popular and, in many cases, ubiquitous in the right circles. Lossless music files offset the potential inconveniences in leaving behind physical media for the digital. And wireless headphones, an expensive pipe dream when I was growing up, began sounding pretty good, even at prices 15-year-old me wouldn’t have balked at.

The iPod made it easy to carry thousands of songs in your pocket, and just as easy to forget what music was supposed to sound like.

But, ironically, the slow death of the headphone jack has, if not facilitated a resurgence in high-end equipment itself, brought the importance of quality components back into the conversation. Phones like the LG V30, Sony Xperia XZ1 and HTC U11 emphasize high-quality DACs and powerful amps as they would impressive cameras and multi-day battery life. The market is also being divided into those companies retaining the classic 3.5mm (Samsung, LG, Sony) and those that aren’t (Apple, Google, HTC).

For the most part, I use wired headphones at home and wireless on the go. Given how often I change devices, I can’t take for granted that a favorite pair of earbuds will work with the phone in my pocket, nor that I can remember to stuff one of the dozen dongles I’ve accumulated since the Moto Z shipped with one in the summer of 2016.

I also don’t stress too much about sound quality when I’m mobile; as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to accept that, unless I am actively reviewing a composition, music is for listening, not scrutinizing. As long as the Bluetooth connection is solid, the seal in my ears good, and the quality good enough to keep me engaged, I don’t much care if they’re $24 Ankers or $350 Sonys. Of course, the more expensive they are, the more I’m able to appreciate the subtleties in my favorite recordings, and the better the sound displacement, the less I am distracted by the outside world.

One of those great expensive headphones is from a Chinese company trying to compete with Sony and Bose in North America. The $350 FIIL IICONs (pronouned “Feel Icons”) are big, plastic, and unabashedly simple, but they have some of the best sound I’ve ever heard from a pair of wireless headphones. An accompanying app lets you tweak equalizer settings and adjust the intensity of the excellent active noise cancellation, too, which is nice, and a gesture area on the right earcup can adjust volume and switch tracks.

These days, I care more about how easy it is to listen to music for a long time than how good that music sounds.

I’ve also discovered — and stay with me here — neckbuds. I had largely dismissed the design after receiving and immediately hating a pair of LG Tone headphones from the G4 launch event in 2015, but I heard such good things about the 2017 refresh that I picked up a pair of the sub-$100 Tone Infinims and immediately fell in love. Neckbuds take the pressure off your head and ears by resting most of the equipment around the neck. They sound great, have easy-to-use controls and, most importantly, are incredibly comfortable to wear for long periods.

I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed testing and comparing the $129 Fitbit Flyer and Jaybird X3 headphones, which I’ve employed during my workouts to great effect. Unfortunately, I seem to have a weirdly-shaped left ear and can’t get a solid seal with either of them despite multiple sizes of tip, wing, and flange.

There’s also the V-Moda Crossfade 2 Wireless, which are currently my favorite wired and wireless headphone alike. At home, they stay in my solid-state amp hooked into my MacBook Pro, and are superb on trips and in places active noise cancellation isn’t necessary.

And, finally, I just indulged and bought myself a pair of dream headphones: the Sennheisher HD600s. Sort of. These are a custom-built version of those venerable open-back headphones from Massdrop, a company that works with brands to deliver improved or modified versions of existing audiophile products. Back when I was 15, all I wanted was a pair of HD600s, but they were way too expensive, and I didn’t have the equipment necessary to drive them properly. Now, a bit older with a fuller bank account — well, here goes nothing.

Here are a couple other things to keep in mind this week.

• The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL launch on Thursday — can’t believe it’s only four days away. These phones intrigue me, and I can’t wait to see whether they live up to their lofty expectations.
• The hardware bug that led to the permanent disabling of the Google Home Mini’s top touch area is unfortunate, but won’t hurt sales. It’s just a silly, silly thing that could have been avoided.
• I think I’m finally getting closer to thinking about maybe kind of buying a VR headset.
• This, from Disney, is an amazing accomplishment. Kudos.
• You’ll be able to read about it tomorrow, but I really, really like the Sony Xperia XZ1. So does Andrew.
• This week’s podcast was really good, and addresses a number of important topics around privacy, security, and beer.
• 🙄
• 🤔

👋

-Daniel

Russia hopes to launch its own digital currency

Russia has been talking openly about the prospect of creating its own cryptocurrency, and it looks like the country might turn those words into action. Local news outlets report that Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov has confirmed plans to launch a state-controlled digital currency. Don’t expect to generate virtual rubles with your PC any time soon, though. While it would use blockchain to decentralize control and improve trust, you reportedly can’t mine it — instead, it’d be issued and tracked like conventional money. This would theoretically let Russia boost its internet economy without tying the fate of its currency to other countries or third-party brokers.

You could readily exchange digital coins for conventional money, although officials would reportedly require a proof of origin if you wanted to avoid a 13 percent tax meant to discourage money laundering and other dirty tricks.

There’s no mention of a time frame for launching this money, but Nikiforov apparently believes Russia can’t afford to wait. If it doesn’t introduce its own currency, neighbors in Asia and Europe will make their own move “after 2 months,” he said. That’s clearly hyperbolic, but there are reasons for Russia to be nervous. China has been cracking down on cryptocurrency in part because it saw speculators selling off the yuan in favor of bitcoins — Russia probably doesn’t want to see that happen on its own soil. Officials have already called for tight regulations on existing virtual cash.

There are concerns that Russia would be effectively profiting from fraudsters with the 13 percent tax: hey, we’ll look the other way as long as you give us a cut. Short of an outright ban on competing currencies, though, there would be nothing to stop criminals from simply relying on a different currency instead. Rather, this would repeat a familiar strategy of keeping technology on a tight leash so that it can’t be used to undermine authority.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: CoinTelegraph

‘Hovering’ antennas promise speedy 5G phone networks

Wireless networks already have to deal with increasingly crowded waves, and that’s only going to get worse when 5G rolls around. Any boost to the signal could lead to a big jump in performance, especially when you’re using very high frequencies that are more prone to interference. But how do you provide that boost? Researchers have an idea: ‘hover’ the antenna. They’ve developed millimeter wave antenna arrays that are almost entirely separated from the substrate you’d usually mount them on, preventing that substrate from weakening the signal like it does with conventional antennas.

They’ll also amplify the signal beyond that: new 3D printing techniques promise “lens” structures that focus and boost whatever signal comes out of the array.

The technology is still young, and there’s no mention of if or when it’ll come to market. However, it could be crucial to 5G and the next wave of broadband. It’ll be particularly vital for cellphones in cities, where a strong signal is crucial to overcoming crowded airspace, but it could also be helpful for bringing gigabit internet access to more homes. Instead of wiring whole neighborhoods with expensive and hard-to-deploy fiber optic lines, you could use these antennas to deliver fixed wireless with relatively little effort.

Source: RF Globalnet

Your home could be powered by solar powered batteries in the near future

Why it matters to you

Though still not widely accepted or utilized, solar power has been proving itself with its use during recent disasters.

Solar power is taking off in a big way as more and more Americans turn to renewable energy sources. However, the tech isn’t without its flaws. One of the main problems is that solar panels only generate power at certain times, and those times aren’t always in line with the needs of homeowners. Some states, such as California and Arizona, see an abundance of solar energy produced during the day, but that production falls off in the evening when power usage is at its highest. This can be a problem for both consumers and utility companies alike. That doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions to this problem. There are consumers who rely on such solutions every day to power their smartphones. We’re talking about batteries, of course.

The Wall Street Journal reported a rise in a number of start-ups supplying solar-powered batteries to utility companies and homeowners. These batteries have the possibility of saving consumers money in the long term, though “for the overwhelming majority of homeowners, the payback on a solar power system with battery storage could take decades.”

That’s not to say that solar-powered batteries are without benefits. The most obvious use for them would be to function as generators in the event that your power goes out thanks to a disaster or other disruption in service. During the fallout from Irma, Fast Company reported on the benefits of such batteries.

“We didn’t have full power — we couldn’t have the whole house running — but we cut it down to the bare minimum, like air conditioning, refrigeration, internet, that sort of thing,” said Andy Green, of Orlando, Florida, who had a Telsa Powerwall battery installed in his home.

Beyond those practical benefits, the WSJ cited the “American” appeal of such batteries, despite the fact that Europe is heavily embracing such technologies, by discussing the fact that these promote independence and decreases people’s reliance on the grid.

While these batteries still have a long way to go, there are some developments that are embracing them. Mandalay Homes has announced a plan to build 4,000 energy-efficient homes that will feature 8 kilowatt-hour batteries from battery make Sonnen. It is clear that these technologies have a long way to go, but they are becoming more and more common.

Get the band back together in the new ‘Call of Duty: WWII’ live-action trailer

Why it matters to you

The live-action trailers for Call of Duty games are always humerous and well-made, and this year’s no different.

The Call of Duty game trailers have settled into a rather predictable routine by now — you’ve got the cinematic story mode trailer, the multiplayer reveal, and of course the inevitable zombies. Always with the zombies. On top of that, there’s the pretty cool live-action trailer, almost a miniature film (some directed by top Hollywood talent, in fact), that contains no game footage at all. Who can forget Jimmy Kimmel’s “n00b tube”?

This time it’s a fairly clever premise, with the theme being “Get your squad back together,” in a montage reminiscent of Ocean’s 11 or The Blues Brothers. Now that the series is returning to its World War II roots, you need to go round up the old gang, grab some controllers, and head back into battle one last time. The trailer is scored by the Royal Blood single Figure It Out.

In an interesting twist, Activision has also released two different versions of the trailer for our friends across the pond. The setup is the same, but it features completely different characters and situations with a European flavor  — that guy in the courtroom looks like someone straight out of a Guy Ritchie film. Check out the British version of the trailer below (there is also a French trailer).

After the poor reception of Infinite Warfare, Activision went back to its glory days with the World War II setting, and that’s probably a good decision. We recently got to spend a few hours in the trenches with Call of Duty: WWII, and found it to be a comforting return to a classic old-school shooter. The squad mechanics in the story mode are an interesting addition, and the objective-driven goals in the “War” multiplayer mode emphasize team goals rather than running and gunning. Here’s everything we know so far, and we’ll have lots more coverage when the game releases in November.

The single-player story mode of COD: WWII takes place in the aftermath of the D-Day invasion and follows the U.S. Army’s First Infantry Division during the march to Berlin in 1944 and 1945. Fans got an early taste at some of the multiplayer aspects with the betas for PlayStation 4 and PC.

Call of Duty: WWII will launch worldwide for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 3, 2017.

Microsoft built a trio of treehouse for its employees on its Washington campus

Why it matters to you

Companies like Microsoft are going to great lengths to ensure their employees are working in the best conditions.

Microsoft is known for offering unique perks to its employees, and now the company has built treehouse workspaces for its employees, as part of its growing “outdoor districts.” Microsoft wrote all about its new outdoor meeting spaces in a recent blog post.

All of the treehouses, three in total, were put together by Pete Nelson of the TV show Treehouse Masters. Two treehouses are currently open and one, which is a sheltered lounge space, is set to open later this year. All are built on on Microsoft’s 500-acre Washington campus and, best of all, they are open to all employees. It’s all part of a new system of technology-enabled outdoor spaces connected to the buildings around the campus.  This also allows employees to work in new and creative ways.

Verified! The Microsoft treehouse is real! (And cool.) #microsoftlife pic.twitter.com/2FF0xhOaVX

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 13, 2017

“People said, given the opportunity, they would work more outside,” said Bret Boulter, who was leading the project and works in Microsoft’s real estate and facilities division. “The first thing when you walk into the space is that everyone is really quiet. You stop talking and are just present. It’s fascinating. People absorb the environment, and it changes the perception of their work and how they can do it.”

This is all based on research that suggests more exposure to outdoor-settings increases one’s work productivity, focus and creativity. So there are indeed some professional benefits to working in nature. A summary of some of these studies can be found on a page from the University of Washington.

The treehouses are more than 12 feet off the ground, and feature amenities like skylights, charred-wood walls, fireplace, at least one gas fireplace, wooden canopies, an outdoor network for Wi-Fi, as well as some hidden electrical outlets. Microsoft employees are even able to get something to eat at an outdoor extension of the indoor cafeteria. The buildings are built to last for at least 20 years, and are made to expand as the trees continue to grow.

Some companies have made the decision to create more green indoor spaces that function much like outdoor spaces. The treehouse spaces that Microsoft put together are truly unique. This is just one more example of Microsoft continuing to push the envelope forward.