Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Google Home prepares for its UK debut - CNET

According to BBC News, Google's smart speaker will be available in the UK by the end of June.

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This touchscreen vibrates, blasts music—and companies like Apple should pay attention

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All those rumors that the next iPhone or Samsung will be all screen in the front have a problem: No one's really sure how to do that. You'd need to remove or redesign the camera lenses, the sensors and the speakers, and while none of it's impossible with current technology, it's still a daunting task to accomplish without major drawbacks. 

A UK-based company called Redux appears to have solved a big part of the problem. During a live demo in Barcelona, where Mobile World Congress is underway, they showed me how their tech can turn an LCD or an OLED screen into both a speaker and a surface that responds to touch with haptic feedback.  Read more...

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Apple is dead set on moving Touch ID into your iPhone screen

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OK Apple, we get it: You really want to move our TouchIDs straight into our iPhones' displays.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted Apple yet another patent Tuesday that focuses on new potential designs to embed fingerprint reading tech directly into a phone's screen. It's just the latest speculative method Apple could someday use to accomplish the job — the company was granted a similar patent earlier this month.  

The design described in this latest filing, which was spotted by 9to5Mac, wouldn't just move the sensor directly into the screen for the same old Touch ID experience — it might also enable near instantaneous user authentication, making transactions and other ID-sensitive tasks much more seamless.  Read more...

More about Biometric, Touch, Patent, Iphone 8, and Apple

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Boston Dynamics reveals 'nightmare-inducing' new robot Handle



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Apple will ditch iPhone's Lightning connector for USB-C: report

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A new report in the Wall Street Journal signals that Apple could be making a huge change for its upcoming iPhone 8 models: ditching the Lightning port, a mainstay since the iPhone 5 released in 2012. 

While much of the report focuses on the likelihood that Apple will be using a flexible OLED screen for at least one of the upcoming phones, as previously rumored, the nugget about the Lightning port might be the bigger news. 

According to the Journal, Apple is planning to include "a USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company’s original Lightning connector."  Read more...

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Bizarre Boston Dynamics robot moves like a world-class athlete

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The glimpses we caught of Boston Dynamics' astounding Handle robot earlier this month didn't tell even half the story.

The cutting-edge robotics company officially unveiled the 6.5-foot-tall Handle on Monday, weeks after a stunning, yet brief, video of it was leaked during a conference early this month.

Now we have the official video and confirmation that Handle brings together everything we love and fear about robots.

Standing full height, Handle looks like what car manufacturing robots might create if asked to build a human. It has wheels for feet and two arms attached to the hip area and extend grotesquely behind it. Its hands, such as they are, are rubber nubs that can be swapped out for a variety of grabbers. There's a torso and chest, but no head.  Read more...

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It's embarrassing how much I suck at playing 'Snake' on the new Nokia 3310

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Before there was Candy Crush or Pokémon Go, there was only one game everyone played on their cellphones: Snake.

The game's concept is simple: Maneuver a snake around the screen as it grows longer and longer and try to avoid eating its tail. 

Having not played the game in over 10 years, I had to try it on the new Nokia 3310 at Mobile World Congress 2017 and see if I still had any of my skills.

At the Nokia booth, Mashable Senior Editor Stan Schroeder and I decided to have a friendly Snake-off battle.

Who emerged victorious? Had years of playing touchscreen games hindered our feeble hand-eye-number-pad coordination skills? Read more...

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