Moleskine’s latest smart pen saves your writing to download later

Moleskine has valiantly tried to bridge the divide between analog writing and digital files for years. The company released its Smart Writing Set in 2016 as a $200 holistic solution of pen, proprietary smart paper and app that instantly sent whatever you wrote or drew over to your paired device — which worked as long as your smartphone or tablet was nearby. But its newest writing implement, the $180 Pen+ Ellipse, liberates you from the latter need, saving all your scratchings in an offline mode until it connects to your device again.

This could actually be handy for writing in busy situations — trains, outdoors, in low-light — where pulling out your device to sync up is cumbersome. Unlike the pen that comes with the Smart Writing Set, the Pen+ Ellipse also has a little clip on the cap to slide on to your favorite notebook — though, of course, you’ll be using a $30 one from Moleskine’s Smart Writing Set line, since those are the only ones with the aforementioned Ncode smart paper. If you want to make it to the digital note-taking future, you’ll have to pay to get there.

And you’ll literally have to check off terms and conditions boxes to use the system, if our hands-on with the smart planner notebook is any indication of the rest of the product line. But if you’re a believer (with deep pockets) who doesn’t mind playing ball within Moleskine’s small enclosure of proprietary smart products, the Pen+ Ellipse has improved on the earlier smart pen with a consideration we all know: Sometimes your devices just don’t play nice with each other.

Source: Moleskine | Pen+ Ellipse

Facebook removes VR shooting demo from conservative conference

This week at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference Facebook chose to maintain a booth for attendees that includes an Oculus virtual reality demo. Now This writer Sean Morrow noticed that it included a demo of a shooting game, Bullet Train, where players teleport around a train station killing waves of masked enemies. The timing of the demo came into question as it’s so close to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week. After the photos surfaced, Facebook VR VP Hugo Barra said that it’s part of a standard package, but “In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo.”

Bullet Train lead programmer Nick Whiting told Engadget in 2015 that in this game, the player is “badass…you can’t die. You can grab bullets out of the air and throw them back. You can throw guns at people, and then teleport back and shoot the guy next to them.”

While Facebook has been criticized by conservatives over alleged bias, the demo, and its appearance at the conference is interesting. ThinkProgress spoke to attendees who had seen “proof” that students from the school were crisis actors on Facebook, while several conservative leaders including Donald Trump have blamed violent incidents on violent videogames.

Hugo Barra:

There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events. A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place.

Via: Mashable

‘Steve No Jobs?’ Apple founder’s early job application is a mess

Before co-founding Apple Computer Company in 1976, Steve Jobs was just another guy looking for work. And like countless other hopefuls before and since, he had to fill out an 8.5-by-11-inch job application at some point. One of those documents, filled out and signed by an 18-year old Jobs and dated “1973” by another hand, is coming up for auction.

The single sheet of paper is being put up on the block by Boston-based RR Auction, with an expected sale price of $50,000. Jobs was a dropout at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, around the time of this application, auditing courses to save money. This means he was taking classes to expand his knowledge, but he wasn’t receiving grades or credit for the work.

Jobs took classes in Shakespeare, dance, and calligraphy, RR Auction reports. The latter would come full circle in the development of the Macintosh computer.

“If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts,” Jobs said in a Stanford University commencement speech in 2005.

Jobs filled out his application starting with his full name, “Steven jobs,” and listed “reed college” as his address. He jotted down “english lit” for his major and in the space for a phone number, he wrote “none.”

There is no past employment listed, though Jobs did have a driver’s license and “possible, not probable” access to transportation. In the Skills section, he checked off the Computer and Calculator fields, and wrote “design, tech” underneath them.

For Special Abilities, Jobs wrote “electronics tech or design engineer. digital. — from Bay near Hewitt-Packard [sic].” Though spelling and grammatical errors can spell disaster for an applicant, the ones strewn throughout this document didn’t seem to have hindered the future innovator and billionaire.

There is nothing here to indicate what position Jobs was applying for, but we do know that he started working at Atari in 1974. And the rest is history.

The auction site lists the document as being in “very good condition, with intersecting folds, overall creasing, light staining, and some old clear tape to the top edge.” It is accompanied by letters of authenticity from PSA/DNA and Beckett Authentication Services.

Jobs would have turned 63 this weekend on February 24. He died on October 5, 2011 due to complications from pancreatic cancer.

Bidding for lot number 5002, “Steve Jobs Signed Job Application,” will run from March 8 to 15.

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Microsoft and University of Washington show DNA can store data in practical way

The technology industry is always looking for new ways to extend performance and functionality. Sometimes that means pushing contemporary technologies to their max, and other times it’s about accessing materials, concepts, and processes from other areas. One great example of the latter is the use of DNA to store information for archival purposes, where it’s not pure speed but rather longevity that’s most important.

Clearly, DNA can carry data for extremely long periods of time. We have information stored in our DNA that’s millions of years old, for example. DNA can also store massive amounts of information in a very small amount of material. Those two factors make it a great option for archiving information that might not be accessed for decades or even centuries.
Some recent research conducted by Microsoft and the University of Washington has made strides in both saving information in DNA and accessing it later.

Generally speaking, storing data in DNA is done by breaking it up into pieces and then putting it back together in a way that encodes information for accessing it later. Getting the data back out is done by sequencing the DNA, identifying where specific information is being stored, and then decoding the information. The researchers’ contribution is to inject random access in the process, creating a sort of file system.

The value of adding random access is simple: The more data there is, the more difficult it is to convert the four data points stored in DNA — adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine — to and from the zeros and ones that computers can understand. By applying a new algorithm to interpret some data — called “primers” — that’s added to the stored information, the process of decoding the data can be sped up considerably. The process is complex, but the results are simple to understand.

As Microsoft Senior Researcher Sergey Yekhanin says: “Our work reduces the effort, both in sequencing capacity and in processing, to completely recover information stored in DNA. For the latter, we have devised new algorithms that are more tolerant to errors in writing and reading DNA sequences to minimize the effort in recovering this information.”

So far, the team has managed to retrieve 35 files amounting to a record 200 megabytes of information including video, audio, images, and text. That breaks the previous record of 22 megabytes accomplished by a collaboration between the Harvard Medical School and Germany’s Technicolor Research & Innovation.

The research takes us closer to a time when DNA might be the preferred storage tool for things like medical records, but that leap is still in the future. For now, it’s merely an indication that DNA storage is not only a durable and dense option, but it can be practical as well.

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The FCC’s net neutrality rules end in April, but 18 ISPs promise to stay honest

The Federal Register shows that the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules will come to an end on April 23. The killing blow entered the register on Thursday, February 22, stating that the FCC returns to the “light-touch regulatory scheme” that kept America’s public-accessed internet in check since the 1990s. That means internet service providers (ISPs) no longer fall under the government-regulated “utility” umbrella. 

“The Commission restores the classification of broadband internet access service as a lightly regulated information service and reinstates the private mobile service classification of mobile broadband internet access service.” 

The demise of the FCC’s net neutrality rules doesn’t necessarily mean ISPs will go wild and start charging outrageous fees and throttle connections on a whim. They didn’t do that prior to the creation of the net neutrality rules, and likely won’t resort to evil plotting once the rules expire this spring. But the FCC does have a few leashes set in place to keep internet subscribers from quivering in their boots. 

Called the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, the regulation forces ISPs like Comcast to publicly provide their commercial terms of service. They must also keep the public informed about their network management practices and their performance characteristics. The FCC believes this level of transparency will protect the “openness” of the internet versus imposing rules that are “costly” rather than beneficial. 

Yet there is still an uncertainty about what happens next. The big fear is that, with the net neutrality rules now eliminated, ISPs will start regulating internet traffic based on content and price. For instance, an ISP could provide its own video streaming service at full speed, but force Netflix to cough up extra cash if it wants customers to experience identical streaming speeds. That rise in cost would trickle down to subscribers. 

This wasn’t a problem prior to the net neutrality rules, but streaming services are now more abundant, hence the fear that the services we use every day — especially for cord cutters — could end up costing more money now to access the same services they loved when net neutrality rules kept ISPs in check. 

Hopefully, the FCC’s transparency push will help customers understand the pros and cons of what an ISP could offer. Right now, just getting the prices of the several different internet tiers provided via Charter’s Spectrum service feels like pulling teeth. It’s little details like price hiding that has internet surfers up in arms about any lack of regulation. 

Many ISPs such as Comcast, Charter, and 16 other companies have already pledged not to block or throttle internet connections outside the piracy envelope. In the case that throttling and/or blocking does occur, they will be required to report the root cause. ISPs must also answer to the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice. 

Once the net neutrality rules become defunct, customers likely won’t see the aftermath for a few months. Yet with government agencies keeping a watchful eye, ISPs may stay on their best behavior.

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Patent filings suggest Microsoft could be gearing up for a Surface Pen revamp

The trusty Surface Pen, constant companion of Microsoft’s entire Surface lineup, is overdue for an update, and it looks like Microsoft knows that. Over the past few weeks we’ve seen quite a few patent filings sneak their way out of Redmond, Washington. On Friday, we caught a couple more. Microsoft filed patents for two features that could mean we’re going to see a new Surface Pen sooner rather than later.

First up, Microsoft filed a patent for a feature the Surface Pen should probably have already had: The ability to erase. More specifically, the patent outlines a method for using the opposite end of the pen — where you might find an eraser on an actual pencil — as a pressure sensitive eraser. It’s interesting and could end up making the Surface Pen a lot more intuitive in everyday use. Need to erase something? Just flip the pen around like you would an actual writing implement.

The patent details that the problem for such a use-case has been precision. Without sensors in the tail end of the Surface Pen, it wouldn’t have been able to erase as precisely as it should have — especially for creative uses, where a fine eraser is a tool you might need regularly. The design outlined in this patent filing attempts to rectify that by embedding sensors in the tail-end portion of the Surface Pen, so it will be nearly as sensitive as the tip of the pen.

Speaking of which, Microsoft filed another patent that doesn’t seem that interesting on the surface, but could mean we’ll see a more radically revamped Surface Pen than we were anticipating. This patent filing describes an “elastomeric pen tip” for the Surface Pen, in contrast to its current tip which is made out of conductive plastic. The elastomeric tip would be more pressure sensitive, have a smoother feel, and it would be more durable. The patent filing describes that the conductive plastic tip sometimes has a bad habit of breaking when it’s dropped or used too vigorously.

As you can see from the drawings here, this new injection-molded elastomeric pen tip looks more like the soft-touch tip from the competing Apple Pencil, and a lot less like the rigid, fine-point tip on the current Surface Pen. Usually it’s hard to tell whether or not something in a patent filing will end up making its way to store shelves, but given the fact that Surface Pen hasn’t seen a major update since it was launched, and these patents just keep rolling out, it’s clear that Microsoft is spending some time seriously rethinking the Surface Pen.

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Bigelow Aerospace has plans to launch and sell its own space stations

Bigelow Aerospace, LLC

Whether it’s for scientific discovery or recreation, a whole lot of folks have their eyes on the stars — and Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, a company which creates livable inflatable space habitats, is here to help.

This week, Bigelow announced the creation of a new spinoff company called Bigelow Space Operations that will manage and operate space stations built developed by its parent company. What does that mean? Simply put, the company is totally serious about ushering in a world of commercial space living.

One Bigelow habitat, called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), is already connected to the International Space Station (ISS). BEAM demonstrated that the company’s technology not only works in theory but in practice, too. The company next plans to launch additional space stations called B330s, boasting close to 12,000 cubic feet of space when expanded, making them around one-third the size of the ISS. These are planned to launch on two spacecraft in 2021.

After that, Bigelow Aerospace has announced that it plans to manufacture a single space station, launched on a single rocket, containing more than 2.4 times the pressurized volume of the entire ISS.

In all, it’s an enormous undertaking — and something the company is hoping to bank on commercial interest to help support. B330s, it claims, offer an orbiting space which can be used for scientific research that’s far cheaper than the ISS. It’s an intriguing proposition and one which might not just mean another potential entry point for scientific research, but also the possibility of selling space-bound habitats that could be used for low-orbit hotel or other forms of space tourism. Given that Bigeolow Aerospace was founded by hotelier Robert Bigelow, that certainly would appear to be a mission well in the company’s wheelhouse.

The company has also said it’s planning to build a new manufacturing facility, which may be located in Florida or Alabama. Should plans progress as hoped, an additional 400 to 500 employees may have to be recruited to provide support to the various inflatable space stations that will soon be in our orbit.

If you ever dreamed of having your own personal space station, or just a part of one, it may be time to get saving! (There’s no word on the pricing just yet, though.)

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CamSoda’s RubGrub is a pizza-ordering button for your vibrator

CamSoda, an adult entertainment platform, announced a new product this week that aims to satisfy you in a number of ways. The RubGrub is a 3D-printed button attachment made to fit on a Lovense Nora vibrator. And the idea is that when you’re done using the Nora, all you’ll have to do is tap the button and the RubGrub will order you a large pizza. It’s essentially an Amazon Dash Button meant to fulfill your post-coital cravings. However, it orders you a Domino’s pizza, so I hope the time spent with the Nora was more satisfying than your dinner will be.

All you have to do is connect your RubGrub to your phone via Bluetooth and plug in your payment and delivery information. Domino’s is the only option as of now, but CamSoda says that it plans to add Mexican and Chinese food chain options in the future. You can snag the RubGrub alone for $20 or buy it with a Nora for $120.

While RubGrub was developed in collaboration with Lovense, Domino’s appears to have had nothing to do with it. The company told Fox News earlier this week, “This is news to us. We have not worked with this company, nor have we authorized them to use our name in conjunction with their ‘toy.’”

Image: CamSoda

Via: VICE

Source: CamSoda

Nintendo now allows Switch user reviews on game pages

You no longer have to head to a reseller’s site or post a social media diatribe to let others know what you think about a Switch game. Nintendo has updated its website to enable customer reviews on Switch games’ product pages — so long as you sign into your Nintendo Account, you can tell would-be buyers whether or not a title is worth their time. They’re not just the usual star ratings and comments, either. Similar to Steam, you can tag your review with qualities that describe a title (such as “kid appropriate” or “challenging”) to help people find titles with similar traits. You can even summarize your overall experience with games, whether you’re a “core gamer” (read: you play games often) or a parent gauging your child’s reaction.

The reviews aren’t consistently available yet, but they’re listed for at least some first- and third-party releases. We’ve spotted them on Super Mario Odyssey, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Bayonetta 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2, among others.

Nintendo has offered game recommendations for Wii games in the past, but this appears to kick things up a notch. They won’t always be helpful — people tend to leave product reviews when they’re either ecstatic or furious, so you probably won’t see many nuanced, moderate takes. Nonetheless, it’s nice to have an official user review option, whether you’re determined to share your thoughts or just want an alternative to store pages and professional reviews.

Via: Polygon

Source: Nintendo

Twitch’s live game show ‘Stream On’ premieres March 8th

Last December, Twitch announced that it would be making a live-streaming reality show, Stream On. In it, Twitch creators who need a boost to make streaming a full-time gig compete against one another in a series of challenges, Survivor-style, for a grand prize of $60,000, delivered across 12 months. Now the details are out, with the live game show set to debut with 14 competitors on March 8th at 3:00 pm PST.

With Stream On, you’ll get to see up-and-coming Twitch Partners judged on their ability to perform various essential skills for streaming, like motivating viewers with a call to action. You’ll also be able to take part via a custom interactive overlay, which will let you vote on who to eliminate after each round. The 14 participants include competitive gamers, of course, but also chefs, musicians and other creative artists, including 88bitmusic, Banzaibaby, CiraCorellia. CookingforN00b, FerociouslySteph, GlanFM, Koibu, MajinTaj, Suchikuchi, thaButtress, TheOnlyRyann, TheStaceyRoy, Wavy and Xmiramira.

This isn’t the first original programming for the streaming platform, of course, with Twitch Weekly, FreshStock and the mini-documentary Ironsights already in place. The idea with the new game show is to help expose the contestants to Twitch viewers as well as teach everyone how to successfully stream via the Twitch platform. “Our mission at Twitch is to enable creators to make a living doing what they love,” said Twitch’s Marcus Graham in a statement. “With Stream On our goal is to help not just these 14 streamers, but show the thousands at home how to turn their passions into a career.”