Retail Sales TV

Sharp’s near-4K TVs are now available, starting at $2,500

As reported on Engadget. BY EDGAR ALVAREZ Even though CES 2014 is long gone, some of the stuff announced there is just now starting to become available for purchase. Case in point: Sharp’s Quattron+ lineup, a series of 2014 AQUOS televisions featuring the latest and greatest, including a revamped SmartCentral platform. But that’s not what’s interesting here. Instead, it’s the Quattron+ technology, one that Sharp describes as being able to “accept a 4K signal and play it back at near-4K resolution, with an effective…

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Legal

Judge rules that flying commercial drones is legal, for now

As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS The Federal Aviation Administration may want to go through some rigorous testingbefore it allows commercial drone flights on a broader basis, but the National Transportation Safety Board isn’t willing to wait that long. One of the Board’s judges has determined that the FAA currently has no authority to regulate drones; the move effectively makes drones legal, and it spares a pilot from a $10,000 fine for shooting a commercial with his unmanned aircraft.…

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Business

The world’s largest photo service just made its pictures free to use

As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom Getty Images is betting its business on embeddable photos If you go to the Getty Images website, you’ll see millions of images, all watermarked. There are more than a hundred years of photography here, from FDR on the campaign trail to last Sunday’s Oscars, all stamped with the same transparent square placard reminding you that you don’t own the rights. If you want Getty to take off the watermark,…

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Science

‘Particle Fever’ takes you inside the epic search for the Higgs Boson

As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom On July 4th, 2012, the particle physics laboratory CERN announced the news. After more than 20 years of research and preparation, they’d finally found the Higgs boson, or a particle that looked an awful lot like it. It was touted as the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle of modern particle physics, justifying decades of theory and billions of dollars in experiments. The 17-mile, $4.4 billion Large Hadron…

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Apple Business Google

Is Jawbone Apple And Google’s Biggest Threat?

As reported by TechCrunch. by Leena Rao Long before there were wearable devices, there wasJawbone. The brainchild of founder and CEO Hosain Rahman, the hardware and gadgets manufacturer is now a multi-billion-dollar company that is becoming a personal electronics powerhouse and brand. Which is why we’re thrilled to announce that Rahman will be speaking at Disrupt NY in May. There’s been more attention on Jawbone of late as wearables gain traction among consumers — the company just released its high-powered…

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Android Application

You can now mirror your Android screen on Chromecast, if you have a Nexus 5

As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Cyanogen’s Koushik Dutta has been teasing the prospect of mirroring your Android screen on Chromecast for a few weeks, and today you can finally try the feature — if you have the right smartphone, that is. An updated version of the Mirror for Androidbeta includes early support for mirroring to either a Chrome browser or Chromecast, but only if you have a Nexus 5. Google’s phone is the sole device with the hardware video decoder needed for…

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Culture Social Networking

Facebook and Instagram step in with age limits on firearms ads, new rules for sellers

As reported on Engadget. BY SEAN BUCKLEY For most, Facebook’s “Look Back” videos were a whimsical retrospective covering a decade of social networking. For Moms Demand Action, an advocacy group that supports gun control laws, the nostalgic campaign was a opportunity to be heard. The group published a parody Look Back video highlighting pages and posts that use the social network to set up gun sales between private parties, some of which violated Facebook’s community standards. Now, Zuckerberg and Co.…

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Automotive

Ural Gear-Up Sidecar

As reported on Wired. by WES SILEREMAIL Unstoppable Soviet Motorcycle Now Comes With Bourgeois Luxuries ADVERTISEMENT 1 / 7  VLADIMIR PAVLENCO     WIRED Old-school, unstoppable off-road capability now paired with modern ease-of-use. Improved stability makes the handling almost safe. Will carry your dog anywhere on the planet you’d like to take him. TIRED Performance is incredibly limited by modern standards. At $16,000, the Gear-Up is solidly in the realm of luxury goods. New, folding shovel…

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Culture

Doc Brown and Tony Hawk show off a real-life hoverboard (or not)

As reported on The Verge. By Chris Welch Seemingly out of nowhere, a major promotional campaign for a “real” hoverboard known as HUVr has launched online today. It all began with a pair of bizarre video clips featuring testimonials from celebrities including Tony Hawk, Moby, and Back to the Future‘s own Christopher Lloyd. One clip shows Lloyd delivering the HUVr to Hawk, followed by demonstrations that are “completely real” — at least if you believe whoever is…

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Business PC

The PC Market And The 300 Million Mark

As reported on TechCrunch. by Alex Wilhelm Today IDC predicted that the PC market will contract by 6% in 2014, and will continue to decline at least into 2018. Unit volume according to IDC would slip from 315.1 million units in 2013, to 291.7 in 2018. The figures include traditional PCs — laptops, desktops, and so forth — but exclude Surface devices, Android tablets, and iPads. In short, IDC’s predictions now expect PC sales to fall under the 300…

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