MS Recalls Some Surface Pro Power Cables; Nanoparticles May be Able to Kill Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Posted: January 20, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Microsoft is recalling some Surface Pro power cables. ZDnet.com says they have overheating concerns. The cords are apparently wound too tightly, and as they are twisted or pinched over time, a small number of people have reported the heat issue. The recall does not affect the Surface Pro 4, or non Surface Pro models. If you have a Surface Pro, Pro 2, or Pro 3 bought before March 2015, you should be getting a new power cord.

Researchers at University of Colorado Boulder have found that light activated therapeutic nanoparticles may one day be used to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to bgr.com, the so-called ‘quantum dots,’ 20,000 times smaller than a human hair, can act directly on the infection without affecting the healthy tissue around it. The key these researchers have discovered is to taylor the dots to specific infections by activating the tiny particles with certain light wavelengths. Previously, the quantum dots had been known to kill bacteria, but also damaged the tissue around the area. In tests, the light activated ones killed 92% of the drug resistant bacteria! If perfected, the treatment could also be effective therapy for HIV and cancer.

Apple Investigates Li-Fi for Mobile Devices; GM Quietly Buys Sidecar

Posted: January 19, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Not long ago, we reported on Li-Fi, and how it could use light to replace Wi-Fi, only with much more speed and bandwidth. Now, thenextweb.com has found a reference to Li-Fi compatability in Apple’s iOS 9 code and iOS 9.1 firmware. This, along with an Apple patent dug up from 2013 that appears to be a Li-Fi transmitter point to Cupertino baking it in to iOS devices. Don’t look for it by the iPhone 7, though…the infrastructure doesn’t even exist yet…no one’s built a Li-Fi router, for example.

Recently, General Motors dropped $500 million into Uber rival Lyft. The plot thickens, and now it’s been revealed that they have quietly purchased failed rival Sidecar for $30 million. Most of the employees are moving over to GM. It looks like their plans to build autonomous vehicles specifically for ride sharing are heating up. Ford and Mercedes are also working on similar projects. Uber has lots of valuation and a head start, but it looks like the car makers are getting serious about not going the way of the buggy whip.

German Car Makers Heating Up on Hydrogen; Samsung New Smartwatch/Fitness Tracker?

Posted: January 18, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Audi and Mercedes are getting excited about hydrogen fueled cars. For Mercedes, it’s back to the future…they first had a fleet of them in 1980, but with a 150 mile range and 45 minutes to fuel up, killed the project. Now Audi has showed it’s h-tron Quttro fuel cell SUV at the North American International Auto Show, and according to arstechnica.com, Mercedes has green-lighted production of it’s fuel cell version of the GLC SUV to sell in 2017. BMW has showed an i8 and a 5 series with fuel cells, but neither is set for production so far. General Motors has partnered with the Army to investigate suitability of fuel cell EVs for military use. Toyota and Honda are well along in hydrogen fuel cell tech, too. Toyota has the 2016 Mirai that’s actually for sale. California…where you can buy a fuel cell EV, has now increased the subsidy on them up to $6500 on top of any federal incentive. A combination of hydrogen fuel cell and electric may be the wave of the automotive future…along with driving by Jarvis, apparently.

Details are sketchy, but Samsung may be about ready to launch new wearable, possibly to replace the less than exciting Gear Fit. It’s called SM-R150 for now, and a watch version has a rotating bezel like the Gear Fit. The interesting thing is a picture with one on a shirt…like a removable that you don’t have to keep on your wrist. Engadget.com points out that leaks so far don’t indicate if it will be a full blown smart watch or something more like a Fitbit, but expect it to be revealed in the coming months.

Netflix From Outside Your Country Going Away; 300 Hyatts Hit By C-Card Skimmers

Posted: January 15, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

If you’ve been catching up on Netflix shows while traveling abroad, you’re about to get a rude surprise. 9to5mac.com reports that Netflix is going to start blocking proxies in the coming weeks. That means users tunneling in with proxy apps like VPN Unlimited will be out of luck. Netflix indicates the content owners are pressing them to do so. Many of the agreements are based on the old fashioned system where content providers sold to local TV networks, and so don’t cover other countries.

Hyatt said last year that malware had been found in its systems that could grab credit card names, numbers, verification codes, and expiration dates. This went on between August 13th and December 8th, according to engadget.com. Most of the skimming took place at restaurants in Hyatt hotels, but now we find it affected over 300 Hyatt locations! Hyatt claims it has upped security, and has the infected locations listed on its website, but check your credit card bills if you stayed at a Hyatt between August and December!

Samsung Looks Like Apple’s Primary OLED Screen Supplier; Microsoft Planning 2 New Flagship Phones

Posted: January 14, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s been a lot of buzz that Apple will move to OLED screens, like a number of Android phones have and as Apple uses in the Apple Watch. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that a deal is all but signed for Samsung to supply the bulk of OLED iPhone screens. Don’t look for a screen with the more vivid color and deeper blacks in the iPhone 7, though…they’re unlikely to get the new screens into a phone before 2018.

Every now and again, Microsoft does something to remind the world that they still make smartphones. According to businessinsider.com, Redmond may be planning a pair of flagship phones, which they’ll show next month at Mobile World Congress. The Lumia 850 would replace the 830, and there’s a 750 to take over for the 735. Microsoft appears to be keeping the 950, which came out in October. No details on the 750, but the 850 will have a 5.5 inch screen, Qualcomm processor, and 2 gigs of RAM.

Apple Owns Smartwatch Market; Skype Adds Mobile Group Video Calling

Posted: January 13, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Most of 2015, we heard about Apple’s big fail with the Apple Watch, and it’s lackluster sales…all the while Apple claimed it was doing fine. A Juniper Research report picked up by mashable.com shows that Apple was right…fine doesn’t even describe it…Apple grabbed 51.5% of the world smartwatch market in 2015. The numbers aren’t large compared to the 10s of millions of iPhones…only 8.8 million shipped, but over half the market is nothing to sneeze at. Android Wear watches were just 10%. Note that the smartwatch category does NOT count Fitbits.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve had 10 years of free video calling over Skype. Now, the verge.com says Skype has added mobile group video calling to the mix over iOS, Android, and Windows 10 Mobile. Look for it in the coming weeks, but you can preregister now on the company’s dedicated 10th anniversary website to check out an early version. Google Hangouts has had the feature for a while that handles up to 10 friends, but Skype says their group calling can handle up to 25.

Periscope Live Video Tweets in Twitter Stream; Lenovo’s Moto Plans’ Musk on Apple Car

Posted: January 12, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter bought Periscope a year ago, and now the live video is available in your feed…in fact, you can broadcast live video directly into your feed without leaving the Twitter app. Businessinsider.com reports that Periscope…which only launched in March 2015…is consistently one of the top 20 social networking apps on iPhone. Twitter hopes this will help engagement, like Facebook has done with Facebook Live Video.

Lenovo is killing the Motorola name for Moto, and now, we hear that all Moto phones in 2016 will have at least 5 inch screens and fingerprint sensors. That’s according to Chen Xudong of Lenovo, in a story from 9to5google.com. For now, at least, Lenovo will use its Vibe brand for smaller and low end phones, and keep Moto as the flagship oriented line. The only down side is they plan to stop using the pure version of Android for a custom version…like almost everyone else.

Elon Musk is on a roll…in an interview yesterday covered by appleinsider.com, he says the Apple electric car is an open secret in Silicon Valley. Musk points out that they’ve hired a thousand engineers, including a number they have poached from Tesla. Musk claims that whatever Apple does automotive-wise won’t hurt Tesla. Apple now holds the domains apple.car, apple.auto, and apple.cars.

Musk: Coast to Coast Driverless in 2 Years; State of Union Streams on Amazon

Posted: January 11, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On the heels of showing the ability to summon your car from its parking spot and dispatch it to park, the other shoe dropped yesterday. Engadget.com reports that Elon Musk predicts that the Summon feature on Teslas will work anywhere by 2018. Musk says you could summon your car from New York City to pick you up in Los Angeles…provided you have a couple days to wait around. Tesla’s snake-like automatic chargers would keep the car juiced up for the trip. It remains to be seen if states coast to coast will allow self-driving cars…right now, only a handful do. Musk did concede the cars will need a lot of redundancy to be able to do this.

From the tech right now department, Tuesday’s State of the Union speech will be streamed by Amazon. With more and more cord-cutters, the White House wants to reach people where they are, according to gizmodo.com. The stream should work with any Amazon product like the Fire TV stick. It probably won’t pick up millions of views, but it’s nice to see the White House embracing the tech.

More iPhone 7 Rumors; Nest Thermostats Have Battery Problems

Posted: January 8, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We just reported yesterday about the possible dual rear cameras iPhones may be getting, and have also covered the likely loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack and waterproofing…as the commercial goes…’but wait…there’s more!’ Apparently, there’s a method to their madness in ditching the headphone jack and making people use the lightening port…and therefore buying new headphones…Apple is working on baking in noise reduction tech for both music and phone calls. Bgr.com says another possible killer feature may be coming…wireless charging! If you are like the 200,000 people mad enough to sign a petition demanding Apple not drop the headphone jack, go ahead and join them…but Apple will surely ignore it and do as it pleases. THAT’s one thing left over from Steve Jobs that will never change!

Lately, my Nest thermostat showed up with a low battery reading, and disconnected from the web. I now find that I’m not alone…there’s apparently a software bug that’s causing this. According to gizmodo.com, Nest has admitted that some people have the problem, and that they are working on it. Nest suggests a manual restart until a fix in in place. I did a modification of this…plugged it into my computer USB port for a hour to charge, then reset the date and time. Interestingly, it loses connection with my wi-fi network and wants to join an unprotected one, so you might check that out, too.

Apple Patent Reveals Possible Two Rear iPhone Cameras; Polaroid Shows 3D Printer

Posted: January 7, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

An interesting patent application points to Apple’s possible inclusion of two rear cameras on iPhones. 9to5mac.com reports that they would allow several cool photographic possibilities. One is effectively optical zoom…so you wouldn’t have to crop pictures and degrade the shot. Another is that one camera could shoot still shots at regular resolution while the other could roll on video at the same time. Right now, stills saved out of video have lower resolution. Shooting regular video and slo-mo at the same time is another angle, as is picture in picture. As usual, no idea on when or if Apple will include this feature.

Polaroid, the granddaddy of instant photography…think of the old Land Camera that took instant pictures that popped out and developed before your eyes on old school prints…showed a 3D printer at CES. Sure, 3D printers are popping up like mushrooms, but according to thenextweb.com, this one is particularly user friendly. It’s designed to need far less adjustment than others. Makerbot, for example, needs hundreds of settings rejiggered for every new item. This Polaroid ModelSmart 250s makes most of the adjustments itself. It’s designed to print wood as well as plastic resin…actually 60% real wood, and 40% glue to hold it together. It estimates time for completion, too. Polaroid is shopping for a US distributor, and if they get one, expect it to retail for $2200.

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