Month: April 2014

Automotive Military

The US military is building a stealth dirt bike

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As reported on The Verge. By Arielle Duhaime-Ross The US military has issued a grant for the development of a stealth motorcycle, reportsDefense Tech. The motorcycle’s “stealthiness” will be a product of its hybrid-electric engine, which will allow soldiers to drive for long periods on rough terrain while emitting virtually no engine noise. And according to Logos Technologies — the company responsible for building the engine — this will be the first hybrid-electric dirt bike ever built.…

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Android Google Interview

Watch this: Android design head Matias Duarte explains why mobile is dead

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As reported on The Verge. By Sean Hollister Matias Duarte helped design the T-Mobile Sidekick, the Helio Ocean, and Palm’s webOS. Now, he directs the look and feel of Google’s Android operating system. He’s probably not the guy you’d expect to say “mobile is dead.” Those were the words that left his mouth, though, at the 2014 Accel Design Conference in San Francisco. There, Vergeeditor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky interviewed him about his thoughts on design and where Android is headed.…

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Google

This anarchist collective is demanding $3 billion from Google

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As reported on The Verge. By Adrianne Jeffries The Counterforce, Kevin Rose, and the fire beneath San Francisco’s growing class gap Around 7AM on January 21st, 2014, a small group of protesters gathered in the driveway of an understated $1 million four bedroom family home in Berkeley and unfurled a hand-painted banner that read “GOOGLE’S FUTURE STOPS HERE.” The house belonged to Anthony Levandowski, a Google engineer best known for leading the self-driving car project. The…

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Space

NASA catches a glimpse of Saturn birthing a new moon

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As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON For the first and perhaps the last time ever, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, whose mission is to orbit Saturn, has captured a new moon emerge from the Jovian planet’s rings. As you might know, the birth of a moon is an extremely rare event, and in Saturn’s case, it might never happen again. You see, there’s a theory that the sixth planet from the sun used to have a much larger…

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Google Mobile

Google’s Project Ara wants to revolutionize the smartphone industry within a year

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As reported on Engadget. BY BRAD MOLEN The night before Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division was supposed to show off the one and only functional Project Ara prototype to a room full of eagerdevelopers, someone dropped the phone and broke the display. At any other product reveal, this worst-case scenario would be a nightmare come true. Not to Google: The company made lemonade out of a lemon by turning it into a selling point for the modular smartphone.…

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Google

Google Glass update improves battery life, removes video calls ahead of one-day sale

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As reported on The Verge. By Rich McCormick Tomorrow, for one day only, anyone in the United States will be able to purchase Google Glass. Where previously interested parties usually had to sign up to waiting lists or get referred by a friend, the company is making a limited supply of its wearable product available for $1,500 from 9AM ET on April 15th. Ahead of the sale, Google has detailed the next round of updates for its device set…

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Automotive

100 Tesla Model S Convertibles Are Headed To China

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Matt Burns Hold on to your hat. The Tesla Model S is about to get more breezy thanks to a drop-top conversion by Newport Convertible Engineering. Both hard and soft top conversions are now available — they don’t come cheap, though. A soft-top conversion costs $29K and a hard-top $49K. Plus, the buyer has to supply the Tesla Model S. But, once converted, there’s no question that you’ll have the raddest…

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Google

Google Acquires Titan Aerospace, The Drone Company Pursued By Facebook

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington Google has acquired Titan Aerospace, the drone startup that makes high-flying robots which was previously scoped by Facebook as a potential acquisition target (as first reported by TechCrunch), the WSJ reports. The details of the purchase weren’t disclosed, but the deal comes after Facebook disclosed its own purchase of a Titan Aerospace competitor in U.K.-based Ascenta for its globe-spanning Internet plans. Both Ascenta and Titan Aerospace are in the business of high…

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Google

Google’s new terms of service tell you that it’s scanning email for ads

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Many Gmail users know that the service scans email looking for ad keywords, but some have been upset that Google hasn’t spelled this out — enough so that there are several privacy lawsuits underway. The company may have just headed off future trouble, though, by updating its terms of service to clearly state what’s taking place. Read through the giant text and you’ll see that the company now explicitly warns that “automated systems…

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Government Security

There’ll be no escape from the FBI’s new facial recognition system

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As reported on Engadget. BY DANIEL COOPER If you thought that the NSA wanted too much personal information, just wait a few months. The EFF is reporting that the FBI’s new facial recognition database, containing data for almost a third of the US population, will be ready to launch this summer. Codenamed NGI, the system combines the bureau’s 100 million-strong fingerprint database with palm prints, iris scans and mugshots. Naturally, this has alarmed privacy advocates, since it’s not just felons whose…

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