Cryoscope forecasts the weather in the easiest way possible
Each morning when my seven-year-old daughter wakes up, the first thing she asks me is how cold it’s going to be. If I tell her a specific number like 50°, she looks at me as if I asked her to solve an algebra equation. The next thing out of her mouth is, “do I need a jacket or not?” That’s all she really wants to know; weather from a child’s perspective can be distilled three basic things – shorts or pants or jacket. I think a lot of us are like that when it comes to the weather.
I would love to have this little gadget called the Cryoscope. It would be the perfect thing for letting a little kid figure out exactly what they need to wear on any given day. The Cryoscope is a cool little DIY gadget that was created by a guy named Robb Godshaw, who is an industrial design student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The device is impressively simple in its construction with only a few parts that anybody familiar with computers will recognize.
The Cryoscope uses a solid little cube, a peltier element, heat sink, cooling fan, and RGB LED. An Arduino controller operates all of those parts. The controller receives the weather temperature data from an app that operates on the web. The way it works is incredibly simple, the controller either allows the aluminum cube to heat up or cool down. The hot or cold temperature created is passed to a simple metal cube that sits over the top of all the parts. All you need to do to know what the temperature is going to be like is simply walk up and place your hand on the outer aluminum cube, and you can feel what the weather will be like. Check out the video to get a better idea about how the thing works.
Cryoscope from Robb Godshaw on Vimeo.
[via CNET]
Cryoscope forecasts the weather in the easiest way possible is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
HTC reports dire Q4 2011 with worse to come
HTC had done its best to set expectations low for its Q4 2011 financial results, and with good reason: the smartphone company saw revenue and margins slump, and expects little good news in the short-term. Revenue for the three month period fell 2.49-percent year-on-year and over a quarter from Q3, to NT$101.42bn ($3.44bn), the company has announced today [pdf link], with profit ditching almost 12-percent year-on-year to NT$27.5bn ($933m).
Meanwhile, gross margins have continued to slide all through 2011, starting the year at 29.25-percent in Q1, but ending it at 27.12-percent. HTC had a relatively strong summer, but lackluster holiday sales soured the year, despite annual revenues being up considerably on 2010.
The problem, it’s generally perceived, is too many “me too” phones and not enough legitimate Apple and Samsung rivals. It’s a shortcoming even HTC has conceded; the company said last month that it planned a return to the “Hero Strategy” in 2012, focusing on quality over quantity.
That won’t happen straight away, however, and HTC warns that Q1 2012 is likely to see even worse news as the company transitions to its new range. Revenues of just NT$65-70bn ($2.2-2.4bn) are on the cards, with a 25-percent gross margin.
“Despite short-term difficulties,” HTC insists, “momentum will resume in the upcoming product cycle driven by HTC’s brand strength, innovation, and design/engineering capabilities.” We’ll see the first evidence of that – with the HTC Ville and HTC Edge - at MWC 2012 later this month.
Story Timeline
- HTC Ville image leaks, reveals ultra thin Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone on Nov 25th 2011
- HTC: Quietly Blundering on Nov 27th 2011
- HTC: 2012 "focus on the product" to avoid Nokia fate on Nov 28th 2011
- HTC revenue dives 30% as phones fail to impress on Dec 6th 2011
- HTC: ITC Apple decision "is a win for HTC" on Dec 20th 2011
- HTC may unveil LTE quad-core Edge at MWC on Jan 4th 2012
- HTC Titan II hands-on on Jan 9th 2012
- HTC to return to Hero Device strategy for 2012 on Jan 26th 2012
- HTC Sense 4.0 previewed: Streamlined UI, 50GB DropBox integration, more on Jan 27th 2012
- HTC Ville caught on video with Sense 4.0 on Jan 31st 2012
HTC reports dire Q4 2011 with worse to come is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Samsung Super Bowl ad skewers Apple with a stylus
Samsung took its current brand of Apple slapping to the Super Bowl this weekend, calling in the stars – some better known than others – to show how the Galaxy Note can help iPhone-addicts find cellular freedom. The 90 second spot, which you can see after the cut, is Samsung’s first Super Bowl ad but revives some of the Korean company’s common themes: that Apple’s brand of queuing, brainwashed automatons can rediscover life if only they grab the stylus or stroke the touchscreen of a Galaxy-series device.
Samsung first started its overt anti-Apple strategy with a Galaxy S II advert back in November, portraying iPhone queuers realizing that the new handset they were waiting for had been bested by an Android smartphone already available. The company followed up with a second spot, highlighting the aesthetic similarities between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S.
For its Super Bowl ad, Samsung didn’t depart too much from its existing script. Set to “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness, it features band lead Justin Hawkins in a candy-cane catsuit, Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr, football star Brian Urlacher and pro skateboarder Paul Rodriguez.
What’s perhaps more interesting than the “celebrities” is the fact that Samsung actually used some of the 1080p Full HD video content shot by the Galaxy Note itself in with its pro-filmed footage. The whole thing was directed by Bobby Farrelly, best known for directing There’s Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin.
So, successful campaign or more of the same? Let us know in the poll below.
Samsung Super Bowl ad skewers Apple with a stylus is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Google Doodle celebrates filmmaker François Truffaut
Google‘s periodic homepage doodles often celebrate tech, but the search company has looked to French avant-garde cinema with a birthday celebration for François Truffaut. One of the founders of the French New Wave style, Truffaut was born on February 6 1932 and is perhaps best known for the 1959 film The 400 Blows, a part-autobiographical story of an illegitimate child and his struggles through adolescence.
Google’s doodle – a three part slideshow of stylized drawings – begins with a sketch reminiscent of the final frames of The 400 Blows, where central character Antoine Doinel stares out at the sea:
Truffaut would have been 80 today, and in his 52 years directed over 25 features and shorts. He also produced screenplays for a number of titles, and was an actor in Steven Spielberg’s famous 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
More on Truffaut in his Wikipedia article.
Google Doodle celebrates filmmaker François Truffaut is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Torrent site btjunkie shuts down
The anti-piracy crusade has claimed another victim, with BitTorrent indexing site btjunkie voluntarily shutting down this weekend. Apparently the fifth most popular torrent site online in 2011, btjunkie had opened its doors to download indexing in 2005. “We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate” the team behind the site said in a statement on Sunday, “but it’s time to move on.”
Rather than actually hosting files, as was the case with MegaUpload, btjunkie crawled the web looking for torrents. Private and public file-sharing sites were indexed, btjunkie serving up possible download links for peer-hosted content and fleshing them out with user-reviews to weed out bad or corrupted downloads.
“This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!” btjunkie
Although they only point to download links, rather than host files themselves, torrent indexers like btjunkie have grown increasingly contentious as the film and music industries attempt to clamp down on methods of acquiring copyrighted content. News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch even described Google as the “piracy leader” after discovering how easily possible download links for Sony-produced movies were to discover using the search engine.
btjunkie has not given any public reason as to why it chose now to shut down. With renewed attention on piracy amid the MegaUpload trial, though, it’s unlikely to be the last site to consider downtime rather than face investigation.
Story Timeline
- Megaupload is down, Piracy indictment to blame on Jan 19th 2012
- Megaupload: Seven charged, Anti-piracy stance a sham say Feds on Jan 20th 2012
- FileSonic and others cease file sharing amid MegaUpload fallout on Jan 23rd 2012
- RapidShare under the microscope amid MegaUpload fallout on Jan 30th 2012
Torrent site btjunkie shuts down is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Droid Bionic soak test coming; probably won’t be Ice Cream Sandwich
Word around the inter webs says that Motorola is prepping a soak test for an upcoming update to the Droid Bionic. But don’t go jumping around just yet, as we do not yet know if this is a minor update or not.
While we surely hope that this update is somehow related to Android 4.0, it just somehow seems unlikely. As our friends from Droid-Life mentioned, it is very likely that the Droid RAZR will see an Ice Cream Sandwich update before any other Motorola device. This is not something that we are sure of, though.
This soak test could also be related to an update that was being tested last month, which includes very minor fixes. For now, let’s just sit tight and wait for more details to show up.
[Via Droid-Life]
Google hires Apple Senior Director for “secret project”
While Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs may have had a “no poaching” agreement before, it seems like it is no longer in place. According to Venture Beat, Google has just hired Simon Prakash, Apple Senior Director of product integrity.
Prakash worked with Apple for eight years, and most recently was in charge of quality control for all Apple products. We do not yet know what Simon will be bringing to the table, though, or if it will be related to Android. Google has hired him to work in a “secret project.”
It is said that this “secret project” is ran by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Sergey has worked with Google on multiple secret projects. With Android being one of the main products for Google, though, we hope this man can work on something related to our favorite mobile OS.
Apple is very well known for product quality, probably making Simon a great asset to the company. Who knows, he might be getting involved in the Nexus program.
Either way, the Department of Justice is investigating both companies, since it seems they might have agreed on not “poaching” each other’s employees (along with other companies). We will have to wait and see how things work out, and what this “secret project” is all about.
We love speculation, though. So hit the comments! What do you guys think this project is all about?
[Source: Venture Beat Via: The Verge]
Aviary gives you yet another photo-editing option
There are dozens of photo-editing options available in the Android Market (I probably have 7-8 installed in my phone). So when I learnt of Aviary releasing an Android version of their app, I wasn’t too interested in checking it out.
I’ve only used it to edit one picture so far, and I’ll come back to share a proper opinion about it after some serious usage. But I felt it deserved some attention over the weekend. So here are my earlier impressions.
The first thing to note is that it isn’t really an app – it’s a plugin. This is the reason why you won’t find it in your app tray.
So, how do you use it? As you browse your photos in your gallery app, choose the image you want to edit, click share and choose Aviary from the options available.The image is now open in the app, from where you can edit using an interface that isn’t very different from competing applications.
The approach is interesting. And I believe it’s the right way to go about it, considering it allows you to quickly jump to the image editor as you browse your photos.
The UI is a beauty, too. There are quite a few filters available in the free version. However, the lack of options to share the image (once fully edited) from the app itself is disappointing. Once you finish, you’re taken back to the gallery with your edited image in focus. All it needs is another tap on “share” to pass it on from there, but the option should be available in the app, itself.
Maybe I’m nitpicking, but I’m hoping they have it planned in their update. To click share once, edit the app, and require another click on share doesn’t seem right to me.
Find those pesky Ad-pushing apps with Lookout
I never use ad-blocks. Not on my phone, or my computer. I completely understand that a developer has put in a ton of effort to create something that I’m using for free, and the least I can do is let them try to make money through advertisements.
But I have one golden rule: Keep those ads out of my notifications. I don’t care how good the app is, if you do that, I am going to uninstall you and give you a 1-star rating.
Only problem is, it can at times get extremely difficult to realize which app, in particular, is sending those notifications. Especially after downloading a substantial amount of them. Luckily enough, Lookout has us covered with their new Push Ad Detector.
The process is quite simple – just install the Detector and run a scan. It’ll give you a list of which apps use push-ad networks. the service also lists the networks used and helps you opt-out of these networks.
However, I don’t opt-out of them. I simply uninstall them. I’m not going to give a service private information, such as my IMEI, to stop them from spamming me.
Could Google’s new Privacy Policy have something to do with Majel?
DISCLAIMER: This bit of news is based from a post on the forums over at The Verge. It is based entirely on rumors. But it just seems worth sharing.
December of 2011 was a very exciting month for Android – No, not because of the availability of the Galaxy Nexus, or the roll-out of Ice Cream Sandwich. Rather, the rumors of a secret project inside of the secret Google X lab, called Majel: a voice-action technology said to be far more advanced than anything we’ve seen so far.
If a post on Reddit by an alleged former Google employee is to be believed, the artificial intelligence behind Majel is so powerful, that it passes the Turing Test (which rates a machine’s capability to exhibit intelligent behavior) 93% of the time. But to make it work accurately at a personal level, it needs a great degree of data.
Where is this data available? Why, with Google of course! Only issue was, Google’s individual services kept their data about a user independent from other services. As is suggested in the forum post on The Verge, this posed as a hindrance for Majel. It would require the provision of permission to Majel explicitly by the user for each and every service.
Now, I’m not going to say this is the only reason behind the new policy. I was honestly surprised that Google hadn’t brought the personal data together earlier, itself. For a company that makes its revenues by an understanding of our nature and our needs, it seemed foolish to have the data separate for so long.
Yet, despite spending quite some time thinking, I couldn’t come up with any current Google service that would benefit from the new policy to the degree Majel would. Maybe Google has something else up its sleeve. I might help them improve their search algorithm or ads.
But I’d like to dream that it’s about Majel. I personally can’t wait to have such technology available soon.