As reported on Wired. BY PRANAV DIXIT Photo: Josh Valcarcel/WIRED I’ve been on the fence about Chromebooks for a long time. Their speed, simplicity, and ease of use makes them extremely tempting. And yet, it’s hard to shake off the nagging feeling that you’re using a browser attached to a keyboard. You never know when you’re going to run up against a wall and have to pull out a “real” laptop to get something done. And…
As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris 19th-century animation is trippy. For years enthusiasts have been transforming the artworks created for early animation devices like the zoetrope and phenakistascope into grotesque yet wonderful GIFs, and it was only a matter of time before these revived animations were repurposed elsewhere. Film-making duo The Brothers Lynch dug up a number of animations from Victorian-era phenakistoscope discs, blending them together to create a music video for the Carly Paradis…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Ingrid Lunden Those with a sharp eye who visited the Geneva motor show or who own a Model S in Europe may have already noticed a connection between Telefonica and Tesla by way of the “car connected by Telefonica” signs on the sides of cars, or through the in-car navigation system that played Spanish ads. Now the two are making it official: Telefonica says that it will be providing the wireless connectivity for Tesla…
As reported on Engadget. BY RICHARD LAWLER Microsoft only just revealed it would test new TV remote features on the Xbox One and its associated SmartGlass apps, and Windows Phone Central points out that right now anyone can give them a try. All you need is one of the game systems and a device running Android, Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8. We tried out the apps and they install right alongside the standard Xbox One Smartglass apps, although there…
As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Kerbal Space Program is the closest you’ll get to running a space agency. The game lets you build and launch everything from orbital stations to interplanetary explorers, all in the name of collecting scientific data. It’s only fitting, then, that the studio behind the title has teamed up with NASA to release its Asteroid Redirect Mission add-on. The patch gives you both equipment based on the Space Launch System as well as enough giant…
As reported TechCrunch. by Frederic Lardinois After Google’s drastic price cuts for its cloud computing services, Amazon quickly matched them. Given that Microsoft always promised to match prices, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the company todayannounced its own round of massive price cuts. Prices for compute on Microsoft Azure (previously known as Windows Azure) dropped by up to 35 percent and Microsoft cut storage prices by up to 65 percent. With these changes, Microsoft matches all of Amazon’s prices and…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington The Oculus Rift and its creator Oculus VR have been purchased by Facebook, and that’s causing some, including Minecraft developer Mojang, to reconsider their projects for the platform. But others are doubling down on their Oculus investment, including Technology Transfer Services (TTS), a company that designs training software for workforce education. This is another story today where I had to check to make sure it wasn’t an early April Fools’ joke,…
As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Ever wanted to see what New York City’s maps looked like before skyscrapers took over… or before Americans took over, for that matter? It’s now easy as pie. The New York Public Library has published more than 20,000 of its historical maps under aCreative Commons public domain license. You can freely download, manipulate and publish cartography created between 1660 and 1922, a large chunk of which explores New York City’s neighborhoods in…
As reported on Engadget. BY RICHARD LAWLER We double checked the calendar too, but no, it’s not an April Fools joke — Verizon’sFIOS Media Server is finally available in a few areas as a part of the new Quantum TV package. The VMS1100 upgrades the standard cable boxes used by Verizon and other providers by shoving six tuners and a 1TB hard drive into a box that then feeds TV to other smaller set-top boxes in the…