Laser chip could turn smart phones into handheld 3D scanners

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 04/08/2015 - 17:17

LOS ANGELES, Kalifornia (PNN) - April 7, 2015 - Taking 2D photos with your phone is rather popular these days, but thanks to Caltech scientists, soon you may be able to wave your phone at an object and capture a 3D scan of it. You could scan a particularly nice coffee cup, and then instantly send the 3D scan to a 3D printer and produce an exact copy.

A Navy diving suit that recycles wasted oxygen and helium

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 04/08/2015 - 17:08

WASHINGTON (PNN) - March 26, 2015 - The Hindenburg wasn’t brought down by lightning, static, or sabotage. History’s most famous airship was destroyed by helium. Or rather, the lack thereof. The zeppelin’s Nazi builders balked at the price of this rare, lighter-than-air gas. So instead, they filled the blimp with hydrogen, which is much less expensive, just as buoyant, but way more explosive. So no matter what chain of events led up to the explosion, it was helium’s scarcity that killed the airship. Today, the same gas - rare as ever - is putting a major cramp in deep-sea diving operations.

Commentary: The future of AI is scary and very bad for people

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:37

By Steve Wozniak

March 24, 2015 - We should all be getting a little nervous: the robot apocalypse is brewing.

Or at least, that's what a growing number of tech visionaries are predicting. In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, I my own grave predictions about artificial intelligence's detrimental impact on the future of humanity to warnings from the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking.

TV ads are about to start watching you

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:35

March 24, 2015 - Google is about to make ads on television work just like ads on the Web. Through Google, advertisers will know how many times their ads were viewed. They’ll be able to target audiences based on location and viewing history. In other words, TV advertisers will have access to the same audience intel online advertisers take for granted.

Finally, after all this time, your TV is going to know as much about you as your web browser.

New car will force you to obey the speed limit

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:32

DETROIT, Michigan (PNN) - March 24, 2015 - Much as we'd like to emulate our NASCAR heroes, breaking the speed limit often comes at a price. Ford is hoping to prevent accidents and speeding tickets by introducing cars that can see what the speed limit is and preventing heavy-footed motorists from driving any faster. Ford's Intelligent Speed Limiter tech will first appear on the new Ford S-Max that's launching in Europe that could just change the way that we drive.

Living in Google's brave new world

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:31

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Kalifornia (PNN) - March 22, 2015 - There are 48,000 Google searches every second. That translates to 3.5 billion per day, and 1.2 trillion per year worldwide. That's twice as many as there were just six years ago. Every six out of 10searches on the Internet are through Google's engine.

A clever way to tell which of your emails are being tracked

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:20

SAN FRANCISCO, Kalifornia (PNN) - March 20, 2015 - While you’ve likely never heard of companies like Yesware, Bananatag, and Streak, they almost certainly know a good deal about you. Specifically, they know when you’ve opened an email sent by one of their clients, where you are, what sort of device you’re using, and whether you’ve clicked a link - all without your awareness or consent.

Solar powered membrane separates water into hydrogen and oxygen without exploding

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/18/2015 - 18:44

LOS ANGELES, Kalifornia (PNN) - March 17, 2015 - Hydrogen powered cars are slowly accelerating in popularity with boosts from infrastructure development and car manufacturers. But getting eco-friendly hydrogen is still a bit of a challenge. Right now, a lot of hydrogen is produced through mixing steam and natural gas. An alternative to using natural gas is electrolysis, using an electric current to pull apart the oxygen and hydrogen in water, but current methods use way too much energy to make it worth it. Scientists around the country are working on making the process simpler, using AAA batteries, chemical reactions and other methods to make hydrogen a greener choice.

New optical fiber material could pave the way for computers that think

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/18/2015 - 18:39

SINGAPORE (PNN) - March 16, 2015 - Researchers at the University of Southampton and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have found that fiber optics can be used to build low-power, high-bandwidth artificial neurons that mimic their biological counterparts. Used inside a properly designed chip, this technology could lead to computers that think and learn like a human.

Neptune Suite shows a taste of what computing should be in 2025

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 03/18/2015 - 18:37

MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada (PNN) - March 16, 2015 - When Neptune launched its grand idea for upending the smart phone ecosystem, many responses boiled down to: Huh?

Sure, the idea sounded downright radical: Instead of a smart phone streaming to devices like a smart watch, the Neptune Hub and Pocket were created with the opposite relationship in mind. There was Hub, a smart watch powerful enough to run apps, take calls, and send messages; and there was Pocket, a relatively dumb screen that fit in your pocket, like a smart phone, but was little more than an input device. Many people didn’t get it. “Most of the negativity was from people that don’t see this as a first start,” says Simon Tian, Neptune’s 20-year-old founder. “They thought we were just going to stop at the pocket screen.”