As reported on The Verge. By Andrew Webster An M.C. Escher-inspired video game for your iPad I just spent 10 minutes rotating a floating castle in the sky while soft piano music tinkled in the background. This particular structure is surrounded by a series of disconnected staircases. When I turn it just right, they connect in ways that don’t quite make sense, but let me proceed through the level anyways. I can see the sun about…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Greg Kumparak It’s that time of year again, friends. The day when “up” becomes “down”, lies become truth, dogs become people, and when the Internet becomes a liiiittle bit unbearable for a day or so. It’s April Fools’ Day! Yay. As is something of a tradition around these parts, we’re keeping a big running list of the best (/worst?) of today’s gags from around the vast Internets. Check back throughout the day for the…
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 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 MARIELLA MOON The R/C Bullet might be tiny, but it’s so fast it can leave some supercars in the dust. The 1:10 scale model with four-wheel drive was recently timed at 188mph, beating its own 171.96mph world record (as shown after the break). The spaceship-like speeder is the brainchild of Nic Case, already a savant in making radio-controlled cars and breaking records. He built a Schumacher Mi3 R/C before the Bullet, which also held the Guinness World…
As reported on TechCrunch. by John Biggs I actually checked to see if today was April Fool’s but, seeing as how it wasn’t and seeing as how it would be quite simple to recreate this cool piece of hardware, I figured we could check it out. Basically it’s a DIY tattoo machine that uses a Makerbot base with a needle attached to the extruder. To use it you simply strap your arm to the platform (!!!) and wait…
As reported on Engadget. BY EDGAR ALVAREZ As meaningful as GarageBand’s mobile life is to Apple, the tune-making app is still considered a valuable piece of real estate on the desktop. However, last yearGarageBand for Mac lost MP3 exporting as a feature, something which unsettled some of its users. The good news: today’s release brings that back, once again allowing you to export those music creations as MP3 files. Additionally, Apple’s thrown in a few Drummers and drum packs from various genres, including songwriter,…
As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA With the amount of NSA-related information that’s been leaked to the press, one may wonder if the feds will have anything new to share whenever the agency’s firsttransparency report releases. The latest info is that the NSA was targeting foreign network administrators to gain access to the networks they control, as late as 2012.Edward Snowden gave The Intercept a handful of screengrabs from an internal agency message board that, among other things, detail how…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington Motorola hosted a live Hangout with Jim Wicks, the lead designer of the Moto 360 Android Wear-based smartwatch, and the discussion started with the inspiration for the product and moved to its specifics. Motorola wasn’t yet sharing that much about specs and details for the hardware, but the smartwatch actually works as Wicks used it on camera, proving this isn’t just an ambitious render, and that’s a big load of the…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Catherine Shu Though nearly 20% of adults in the U.S. has some form of hearing loss, there are very few options available for them in terms of hearing aids. They can either spend thousands of dollars on a prescription hearing aid or buy a cheap device with pre-settings for a couple hundred dollars. In fact, about 75% to 80% of adults with hearing loss don’t have devices, due in large part to lack…