As reported on The Verge. By Chris Ziegler A notorious road rally drops by NYC on the way to Ibiza “Rev it!” screams a man in the crowd. He gets his wish: a McLaren MP4-12C, covered from nose to tail in fluorescent livery, blips its throttle to the delight of a few hundred people gathered in New York City’s historic South Street Seaport. I came here to get a glimpse of the Gumball 3000, an annual…
As reported on TechCrunch. by John Biggs On paper it looks like a win-win: in the past few days, Comcast is quietly turning on public hotspots in its customers’ routers, essentially turning private homes into public hotspots. Comcast customers get free Wi-Fi wherever there is a Comcast box and the company gets to build out a private network to compete with telecoms. Win-win. Fifty thousand users with Arris Touchstone Telephony Wireless Gateway Modems – essentially basic modems that cable…
As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT Microsoft has filed a court challenge to a US government demand that it hand over emails from its data center in Ireland. That appears to be the first time a US corporation has opposed such an order, and Microsoft has been backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and an amicus brief from Verizon. The US prosecutor heading the drug case in question said that if the objection succeeds, tech companies like Microsoft…
As reported on Engadget. BY MATT BRIAN Amazon’s quest for better deals and cheaper prices has seen it squeeze publishers, but it isn’t limiting itself to just books. The New York Times reports that the retailer is refusing to list DVD pre-orders for upcoming launch of many Warner Home Video movies. We’re not talking small releases either: The Lego Movie, 300: Rise of an Empire and Winter’s Tale are just three titles launching in the coming days that Amazon lists but isn’t allowing customers to…
As reported on The Verge. By Jacob Kastrenakes We knew that Han and the rest of the classic Star Wars crew were returning for Episode VII, and now it appears that Han’s ship of choice is coming along for the ride too. TMZ has new photos of a huge prop under construction, and by all means it looks just like the Millennium Falcon. It’s still far from complete — so we can’t say definitively that this is it — but it looks like a…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Frederic Lardinois Google today announced that it will soon release a Chrome plug-in that will enable end-to-end encryption for web-based email services. The plug-in is based on the OpenPGP email encryption standard. Google’s plan here is to make encryption easy enough to use to become widespread among mainstream users. Right now, unless you are fairly technical and can get extensions likeMailvelope to work for you, using Gmail — or any other popular email service — with…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Alex Wilhelm #SatyasMicrosoft Earlier today, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reported that the tablet-touch build of Office for Android will land before the touch-ready build for Windows. Yes, this is the real world. Microsoft declined to comment. Keep in mind that Microsoft building an Office suite for Android tablets isn’t news. This is a timing issue. Of course, Microsoft already offers an app for Android that includes Office capabilities, but Office Mobile — which existed for iOS…
As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON Apparently, 20 percent of patients who need to wear defibrillators don’t actually keep them on at all times — even if they mean the difference between life and death. So, a group of biomedical engineering students from the John Hopkins University designed a new type of wearable defibrillator, which is unobtrusive and comfortable unlike traditional harness designs. The undergrads’ version takes on the form of a stretchable, waterproof vest fitted with sensors. Also, instead…
As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT The wispy atmosphere of Mars is 99 percent thinner than Earth’s — not great for slowing down space ships or metorites. NASA’s testing a way to make it work, however, using a helium balloon, rockets and a Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) vehicle, which looks suspiciously like a UFO. The plan is to launch the LDSD to 120,000 feet using the balloon, then push it to the edge of space (180,000 feet) with…
As reported on The Verge. By Carl Franzen The product of over 30 artists around the world The 1995 anime film Ghost in the Shell is still widely heralded as a modern sci-fi classic, helping define the look, feel and themes of the cyberpunk movement. But few fans are as devoted as the group of artists behind Project 2501, a 4K, live-action recreation of 39 still frames from Ghost in the Shell‘s title sequence that was released this week. The resulting…