If you’re worried about what exactly Amazon’s Echo-connected speaker has been recording in your home, there’s an easy way to find out. Amazon makes all recent recordings available for listening in the companion Alexa app for iOS and Android. Amazon has said consistently that the Echo speakers only listen in and record after you use […]
Music-streaming pioneer Pandora (NYSE:P) has just released a new tier for its on-demand Premium music streaming service. Premium Family plans are now available for $15 per month and can include up to six users. The new offering largely resembles comparable plans offered by rivals Spotify Technology (NYSE:SPOT) and Apple. Both of those larger competitors have […]
Airbnb’s launch of a new Stories feature this week wasn’t just about jumping on the latest social media innovation — it was more importantly a way to market its expansion into travel services, a move to set itself apart from the new competitors in home rental space. The Stories feature was quietly rolled out to […]
Apple is supposedly developing a new kind of laptop or tablet device that features a touchscreen display, an ARM processor, and 4G LTE connectivity. The device is called Star internally, and a few prototypes have already been manufactured in China. Recent rumors did say that Apple is looking to put ARM chips inside MacBooks, and […]
After a two-month delay to resolve a technical concern, Rocket Lab plans to launch its first commercial mission as soon as June 22, U.S. time, from the company’s rocket base in New Zealand, the company announced Friday. Rocket Lab has four-hour launch windows available during a 14-day period extending from June 22 through July 5, […]
Researchers at NASA’s Eagleworks advanced-propulsion lab have been working on a technology that can theoretically bring humans to Mars in just 70 days. Technology Can Theoretically Make Space Flights Cheaper, More Efficient The rocket propulsion engine known as EmDrive is supposed to generate thrust by bouncing microwaves inside a cone-shaped chamber without any propellant. It […]
In a first-of-its-kind finding, a new stroke-healing gel helped regrow neurons and blood vessels in mice with stroke-damaged brains, UCLA researchers report in the May 21 issue of Nature Materials. “We tested this in laboratory mice to determine if it would repair the brain in a model of stroke, and lead to recovery,” said Dr. […]
Researchers have developed new technology for decoding neuromuscular signals to control powered, prosthetic wrists and hands. The work relies on computer models that closely mimic the behavior of the natural structures in the forearm, wrist and hand. The technology could also be used to develop new computer interface devices for applications such as gaming and […]
Communication using quantum states offers ultimate security, because eavesdropping attempts perturb the signal and would therefore not remain undetected. For the same reason, though, long-distance transmission of that information is difficult. In classical telecommunication, the increasing attenuation of the signal is counteracted by measuring, amplifying and re-sending it in so-called repeater stations, but this turns […]
Many natural organisms have the ability to repair themselves. Now, manufactured machines will be able to mimic this property. In findings published this week in Nature Materials, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a self-healing material that spontaneously repairs itself under extreme mechanical damage. This soft-matter composite material is composed of liquid metal droplets […]
Now that Apple changed the iPhone schedule with X, a new wave is in store for 2018. But what’s the size set going to be – and will there be three phones, or just two? This morning a set of blueprint-like plans landed on our tip desk with the suggestion that they’d close the gap. […]
At Google I/O 2018, Google announced that its digital assistant was getting upgraded with more natural-sounding speech in addition to six new alternate voices. Then, Google promptly scared the hell out of everyone by using the Google Assistant’s new skills to mimic a real voice so well, people on the other end of a phone […]
