Author: admin

Automotive

Volkswagen’s Golf GTE is the fast plug-in hybrid you might actually buy

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS There aren’t many quick plug-in hybrids with reasonable price tags, but Volkswagen may just lower the cost of eco-friendly performance with its newly unveiled Golf GTE. The hot hatchback mates a 148HP gas engine with a 101HP electric motor, giving the Golf enough combined power to reach 62MPH in 7.6 seconds — pretty brisk for a plug-in that should still be affordable and practical. If you’re not always in such a…

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Application Google

Google offers its help to monitor deforestation in near-real-time (video)

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As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA Google is no stranger to humanitarian work, and its latest effort is helping keep an unflinching eye on the world’s trees. For its part in the Global Forest Watch, the search giant is providing tech (namely, Earth and Maps) that allows virtually anyone to monitor deforestation on a massive scale. Let’s say you want to peek at how much of Brazil’s rain forest has been clear-cut in since 2008. You can do that. Even better,…

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Google

Google tells Glass users not to be ‘Glassholes’

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As reported on The Verge. By Chris Welch There’s been plenty of fierce debate around Google Glass and general etiquette for using the device, and now Google is finally stepping in with its own take. The company has posted a list of do’s and don’ts for participants in its Explorer program. “Our Glass Explorer community, which consists of people from all walks of life, actively participates in shaping the future of Glass,” Google says. But these suggestions don’t…

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Apple Automotive

Apple And Tesla Had A Spring Fling

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Greg Barto Reports are out today in The San Francisco Chronicle, and just about every other techpublication, that Apple could be in preliminary talks to buy electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. With the mobile phone and tablet markets becoming increasingly competitive, Apple is interested in expanding to other markets to increase growth. But would Apple want to buy a company valued at $25 billion at closing? With nearly $160 billion in cash, money probably wouldn’t be the primary…

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Apple Business

Apple Patents iPad Smart Magnets For Attaching Controllers, Cameras, Other iPads And More

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington A new Apple patent application published by the USPTO today describes a magnetic connector not unlike the one used to attach Smart Covers to the current iPad, but designed to be far more flexible with a variety of possible accessory combinations. It’s a smart connector system that could recognize the attached peripheral and change functionality accordingly. The types of peripherals described in the patent are many and varied, and include things…

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Application Microsoft

Microsoft rebrands Office Web Apps as Office Online because it’s an online version of Office

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As reported on Engadget. BY JAMIE RIGG Use Office Web Apps much? Us neither, which is probably why Microsoft’s answer to Google Docs felt it needed a makeover. Following SkyDrive’s recent rebrand to OneDrive, Office Web Apps has received similar treatment, and now asks you to call it Office Online. Microsoft hopes this new title more accurately reflects what Web Apps was/is: an online version of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and others, free to SkyDriveOneDrive users. Furthermore, Office Online is now located…

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Application Entertainment

Make the world your instrument with Mogees and a smartphone (video)

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As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA It’s been awhile since we heard from the Mogees camp, but the device has finally hit Kickstarter. As a refresher, Mogees is a musical tool that uses a special mic to pick up surface vibrations and translate them into sounds via a mobile app. It’s sensitive enough to register everything from light finger drags on glass and coins moving around on a table, it comes in Android and iOS flavors…

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Application Google

How to Use Your Google Maps — Offline

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As reported Wired. BY PRANAV DIXIT Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired   To access one of Google Maps’ best hidden features, you have to know the magic word. Well, it’s a phrase, really, and that phrase is: “OK Maps.” Enter this phrase into the Google Maps app and the portion of the map that’s currently visible on your screen will be saved directly to your device. Once saved, you can access that map even without a data connection.…

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Film

In this new ‘Transcendence’ trailer computers are the future of evolution

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As reported on The Verge. By Bryan Bishop Cinematographer Wally Pfister has been realizing the worlds of director Christopher Nolan since Memento, and this year he’s going to be taking his own turn behind the camera with Transcendence. While we’d already gotten a glimpse, this latest trailer gives us a better sense of what the plot of the film will be. Johnny Depp plays a scientist whose consciousness is uploaded into a computer system after he’s attacked — with…

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Application Games

The weird world of ‘Flappy Bird’ clones

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As reported on The Verge. By Andrew Webster The end is just the beginning Flappy Bird is gone. The mobile gaming sensation was pulled from both the iTunes App Store and Google Play by creator Dong Nguyen, but in its place an army of clones has arrived. A quick search for “flappy bird” in the App Store, for example, brings up names like Splashy Fish, Fly Birdie, City Bird, and Flying Flappy Unicorn Bird. Most of these games are simply reskinned…

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