Latest News - Page 3012

Caltech engineers have developed a cheap X-ray technology that will allow it to see through solid materials. The engineers, Ali Hajimiri and Kaushik Sengupta, have tweaked silicon microchips to emit terahertz waves. These high power waves can go through solid materials and send back an image of what is inside.

The wave used by the engineers is also quite a bit safer than ionizing X-rays, and has actually been used for a while now. Current systems, however, are bulky and costly. This new chip uses a microchip like you would already find in your phone, making it cheap and compact and able to be put into a mobile device.

"We are not just talking about a potential," Hajimiri said. "We have actually demonstrated that this works. The first time we saw the actual images, it took our breath away."

Most Arrested Development fans know that Netflix has commissioned two more seasons of the hit TV show to be produced before they make a movie. The production has been put on pause and is set to resume in late January. But, the good news is that Mitch Hurwitz has reportedly shot more material than originally planned.

Netflix originally ordered 10 new episodes, but Hurwitz and the producing studios have reportedly approached Netflix and gotten them to increase the order to 12 to 15 episodes. Filming was originally scheduled to end before Thanksgiving, but with the increased order, they have filmed for an extra few weeks.

Hurwitz has taken the existing footage and is reviewing it to figure out just who he will need to film in January and how to incorporate the extra ideas. Netflix is planning to release all of the episodes at one time in spring, so they still have time to finish up production without delaying the planned release.

Samsung isn't missing a chance to take a shot at its fierce rival, Apple. A marketing campaign has popped up in Australia, where the police have issued a warning that Apple Maps may put your life in danger, at least if you're trying to reach the city of Mildura.

Apple Maps instead leads you to the middle of a national park, which just happens to be in a really hot part of the country with limited water. With it being summer Down-Under, this is a bit of a problem. As you can see in the picture above, Samsung has placed a 4x4 SUV in Sydney, Australia, with a tent and sign next to it.

"Oops, should have got a Samsung Galaxy S III. Get navigation you can trust," the sign reads. Is this a good marketing campaign? What are your thoughts on it?

FreedomPop made waves by producing a case that provided an allotment of free 4G data to iPhone and iPod Touch users, with the option to purchase greater amounts of data. The case, a rather cheap device, used the Clearwire 4G network to provide the internet. Now, FreedomPop is doing it again, this time with home internet.

The company has just announced pre-orders for its new device called the FreedomPop Hub Burst, a modem that uses the same 4G network to provide internet for your home. The modem could ship as early as next month and will come with 1GB of free 4G data per month, again utilizing the Clearwire WiMax 4G network.

For $10 a month, users can get 10GB of data, or a pay-as-you-go option that works out ot be $5 per GB. Here, the choice is clear that anyone using more than 3GB of data should opt for the $10 plan. Since it relies on a wireless connection, the ping may not be as great as your DSL or cable connection, but it sure is a heck of a lot cheaper.

Meet the Arduino Esplora, an open source Arduino Leonardo based gaming pad that can be used in DIY Gaming projects, to control robots or just about any other project where a hand held controller is needed. Sporting an Atmega32U4 AVR microcontroller with 16 MHz crystal oscillator and a micro USB connection capable of acting as a USB client device, like a mouse or a keyboard.

With 32 KB of memory (with 4 KB used for the bootloader) and a 3 axis acceleration on board we are sure that there will be some awesome games configured to support this controller. The Esplora can appear as a generic keyboard and mouse, and can be programmed to control these input devices using the Arduino Keyboard and Mouse libraries.

"To facilitate writing sketches for the Esplora, there is a dedicated library that contains methods for reading the sensors and writing to the outputs on-board. The library offers high level methods which provide pre-processed data, like degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius from the temperature sensor. It also enables easy access to the outputs, like writing values to the RGB LED." We can't wait to see someone playing Angry Birds on their 10" tablet using the Arduino Esplora as the control device!

The Nintendo Wii U has been out for a few weeks now, and there have been some more interesting tests run on Nintendo's next-gen console. With no increase in actual processing power over the current-gen Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, where can we see some improvements? Efficiency.

Performance per watt numbers show Nintendo have the lead, where the Wii U offers some of the same graphical capabilities and gameplay experiences that the current Xbox 360 and PS3 offer, but at much lower power consumption numbers.

The Wii U is slimmer than the just-released PlayStation "Super Slim" model, but offers the same performance (and sometimes better) in terms of resolution support, and lower power consumption numbers by a decent amount. During the FIFA 13 Demo, the Wii U only consumes 32w of power compared to the Xbox 360S and PS3 Super Slim with 76.5w and 70w, respectively.

Another week, another ad from Microsoft trying to push their latest operating systems. The latest ad is titled "Windows 8: Introducing a New World of Apps", which goes for two minutes and tries to show off the fact at just how powerful their new OS is, and can be for the future, all while swiping their claws at Apple and Google.

There are some quotes MS use within the ad, such as "A worldwide app store with over 1 billion potential users!". Yes, Microsoft, welcome to all the other app stores. Also, "Over the last 2 years, more Windows licenses have been sold than Android, iOS and Macs combined". Again, a great statement - but MS are hurting compared to Google and Apple's complete stranglehold on the mobile market right now.

The video seems suited to developers, so much so that if they weren't already coding for Windows, they should because there's endless possibilities with the platform.

It looks like the US skies are about to get a little scarier, with next-generation military drones being unveiled by a top US manufacturer. These new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will sport an ultra-light laser, which is capable of reportedly destroying an object at the speed of light - yikes.

Someone close to the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) told Time magazine "it would give us an unlimited magazine".

The Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA), over the last four years, have handed contractor General Atomics over $60 million to develop, and then scale the HELLADS project, which contains a very powerful 150kW laser. Lasers available at that strength contain the power to destroy an incoming rocket or plane, but are very big and heavy - meaning they're only capable of being deployed on stationary defense systems.

Google experienced a bit of downtime across a few of its services today, a rare occurrence for the web giant. From about 9:30a.m. to 11:30a.m., Google's Mail service experienced a "Service disruption" meaning that some were able to access the service and some couldn't. I happened to be in the group that didn't experience any issues.

Alongside the Gmail outage, Google Drive experienced a very brief piece of downtime from 9:42 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. About an hour after Gmail was fixed up, Google's Admin control panel / API experienced an outage from 12:50 p.m. to 2:34 p.m. The control panel is that of the Google Apps and is mostly used by businesses.

Some reported that Google Chrome crashed while this outage was affecting Google's services. People who experienced the crash said that they were signed into Google Chrome. It's not clear how the two are related, but usually programs are designed to not fail if another component does. Clearly, this isn't the case with Chrome.

Thanks to a bit of collaboration between Google, NASA, and NOAA, everyone can now browse around the Earth at night using Google Maps. All of the typical controls work just like they do in Google Maps and the image is built on top of Google Maps. If you zoom in too far, you'll see the normal Google Maps.

The image is from the same angle as NASA's Blue Marble photo and is composed of imagery taken over nine days in April 2012 and 13 additional days in October 2012. According to NASA, "It took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands."

It doesn't look like an official Maps feature, and Google hasn't indicated any plans to make it such. If you want to check out the awesome map, or maybe what your city looks like at night from above, you can head over to Google's website and scroll around.

With the release of Android 4.2, Google started including a malware scanner that was designed to warn users if an app tested to be a possible malware app. A computer scientist at North Carolina State University decided to put the scanner to the test and found some interesting results.

Xuxian Jiang found that just 15.32 percent of samples were detected as malware. Jiang used a new Nexus 10 tablet and exposed it to 1,260 different malicious apps. Sadly, the built-in detection system detected just 193. He then pitted the Google system against anti-virus apps from the big names: Avast, Symantec, and Kaspersky .

He found that the third-party apps detected 51 percent to 100 percent of samples picked from the 49 malware families. Google's service found just 20 percent of the same samples. He notes that Google's method of detection can be easily bypassed. Google uses a cryptographic has signature of the app to identify those that have been found to be malicious. .

Tim Cook has said that Apple is investing $100 million to build one of its Mac lines exclusively in the US. But just which Mac line will it be? Cook didn't specify, but there are certainly some clues that lead us to a likely candidate. Apple will most likely build (drum roll please!) the Mac Pro line of Macs in the US.

First off, $100 million for a factory will yield a factory with about 200 people and be capable of building around 1 million units a year. Apple sells less than 1 million Mac minis and less than 1 million Mac Pros every year. Tim Cook et al has indicated that a new Mac Pro line is coming in 2013.

The Mac Pro is much heavier, and thus more expensive to ship, than the Mac mini. Also, the profit margin on the Mac Pro is much higher as they retail from $2,500 to $3,800. This higher profit can easily absorb the increase in costs to produce. They are also the easiest Mac to produce and customize.

For those who would be interested in this news, or know about NZBMatrix itself, I'm sure you've already found out - but for those who don't know, NZBMatrix has been shut down.

The site were slapped with a "very large takedown request" from a company called Wiggin LLC who represent some of the industries biggest companies: Federation Against Copyright Theft Limited ("FACT"), Paramount Home Entertainment International Limited; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Limited; The Walt Disney Company Limited; Twentieth Century Fox Film Company Limited; Universal Pictures (UK) Limited; Warner Bros. Entertainment UK Limited.

This will pain hundreds of thousands if not more all around the world, Sickbeard users, SABnzbd users, NAS users and oh-so-many more. With Newbin being taken down recently, reappearing and disappearing again, it's not good for Usenet users.

I've just come back from a 2 hour drive with my family to see my niece for her 7th birthday, and between getting home and going out again to drop my wife off to a friends house so they can go to the J Lo concert (ugh), I thought I'd sneak in some weekend news - little did I know I'd stumble across this bad boy.

As soon as I read the article, the inner-kid in me got incredibly excited, so here we go. At the VGA's on the weekend, Valve's Gabe Newell confirmed that you'll be able to buy a living-room-friendly PC package next year that will be a competitor to the next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony.

You might know I'm a little bit passionate about Valve, as I really think they're about the only company that can firstly, save PC gaming and secondly, change gaming in general. Gaming right now is stuck in this pathetic cycle where developers have all but abandoned high-end, or even now mid-range systems, and run off to the consoles. We see yearly releases of the same games (COD) and we don't really get anything exciting anymore.

Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed that auto manufacturers be required to install "black box" data recorders into all new cars and light trucks beginning on September 1, 2014. However, this proposal isn't fully needed as most manufacturers already include these in some form.

The real issue is the protections of this data. If the government is requiring logging of all this data, there needs to be protections put in place, argue some. The information gathered usually only consists of the last 5 to 10 seconds before a crash and includes information such as speed, whether the brake was applied, steering inputs and a variety of other metrics.

The information can be used to help design safer vehicles as well as determine fault in an accident. However, these black boxes don't tell the full story because they don't record what's going on outside, such as weather, animals, or other potentially dangerous events.

Apple's patents are key to their legal successes against Samsung and other companies. But what happens when one of those patents is ruled invalid? Well, not only does Apple lose the right to sue over that patent, any patents based upon that patent could also be ruled invalid.

The patent that Steve Jobs is best known for, 7,479,949, has been preliminarily ruled invalid. The patent covers a touchscreen device and input derived from apply heuristics. The patent, if you speak legal and engineering, probably does a better job explaining than I can:

Stand alone MP3 players have all but gone the way of the dinosaurs with the surge of smart phones that have built in MP3 playback. The problem for this is most of us like to listen to our tunes while we work out or do other activities where large smart phones get in the way. Samsung has just launched the new Galaxy Muse MP3 player that should solve this problem.

The Galaxy Muse pairs up with Galaxy smart phones, allowing one to use their purchased music during times when a large smartphone is not ideal. Users simply have to sync the Muse with their Galaxy smartphone eliminating the need for a PC to sync with.

Measuring in at 1.7 inches tall by 1.25 inches wide and weighing a mear .48 ounces, the Galaxy Muse will fit comfortably almost anywhere. Unlike most small portable MP3 players the Muse requires no special case to attach it to your clothing thanks to a small clip on the back side. In addition the Muse offers 4Gb of storage space to hold your entire workout music collection! The Galaxy Muse is available now and is offered in white or blue to match your new Galaxy S III.

This is a story that could completely wreck Yelp's business, if the company isn't careful. A women in Virginia is facing a lawsuit from a contractor over allegations that her negative Yelp review caused him to lose work. Sound a bit ridiculous? We thought so too, until we found out a bit more.

In the review, Jane Perez listed out a bunch of accusations, which included damage the contractor reportedly did to her home, an invoice for work that was reportedly not done, and missing jewelry. She finished out the post by saying, "Bottom line do not put yourself through this nightmare of a contractor."

The contractor, Christopher Dietz, has now filed a $750,000 Internet defamation lawsuit against her, claiming that the Yelp post, along with some Angi's List postings, were false and caused him to lose business. He's also seeking a preliminary injunction to keep her from writing even more reviews.

Everyone's getting excited about the upcoming cloud storage locker known as Mega. The new service by Kim Dotcom, formerly the owner of MegaUpload, will be launched on January 19, which will mark the one year anniversary of the police raid upon his New Zealand mansion.

The first screen shot, seen above, shows that the new cloud locker will use 2048-bit RSA encryption for files uploaded to the service. Mega will be encrypting every uploaded file so as to make sure that the site is squarely within the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions.

The file manager, seen above, features everything you would expect, with folders being supported. It shows modification date and time, file/folder name, size, and file type. The bottom of the file manager features the upload portion, which contains information on upload speed and other details.

Samsung are going to roll on with a great 2013, as the Galaxy S IV is already being teased to sport an unbreakable display. The news comes from Reuters, who reports that Samsung "is likely accelerating the launch of it's next-generation flagship Galaxy smartphone - which may come with an unbreakable screen".

The new phone has a cool codename of "Project J", after the mobile division chief JK Shin. Development of the Galaxy S IV could see the light of day in April, according to analysts and tech blogs, reports Reuters.

An unbreakable screen would surely set Samsung apart from the competition - which tout unscratchable screens sporting Gorilla Glass 2, or similar tech. The Galaxy S IV is also set to boast an even bigger display, 13-megapixel camera and a faster quad-core processor. Pixel density on the display should push numbers up to 441 pixels per inch (ppi), which is a massive improvement from the current Galaxy S III which features a pixel density of 306 ppi, and blows the iPhone 5's 326 ppi out of the water.