Are you excited about trying out the new features coming up with iOS 11? If so, Apple just released the first public beta of iOS 11 now available to download for everyone. You don’t need to pay $99 for a developer account to download it. But remember, it is still a beta. While the company still plans to release the final version of iOS 11 this fall, Apple is going to release regular… Read More
Sooner or later, our children will be raised by robots, so it’s natural that Disney, purveyor of both robots and child-related goods, would want to get ahead of that trend. A trio of studies from its Research division aim at understanding and improving how kids converse with and otherwise interact with robots and other reasonably smart machines. Read More
Having a variety of prime, telephoto, macro, sport and the like, all with distinctive shooting characteristics is what give lenses their charm. However, Sony just took Nikon’s spot as number two in the full-frame camera industry — Canon holds pole position. Currently, only 24 full-frame E-mount lenses exist compared to the dozens that Canon has in each category. Still,… Read More
I’ve been following the multiple “easy” brewing systems available online for a while now and have never found one that truly spoke to me. Devices like the Minibrew seem great but price and shipping problems have always kept them out of my boozy little hands. So, rather than wait for the perfect automatic system, I decided to look at the Catalyst Fermentation System, a $199… Read More
If you’re anything like me, you spend a significant portion of the day wondering about the paths viruses take when they’re cruising around your internals. Luckily for us, a newly developed microscope from Duke researchers can show the exact path taken by the little critters (?), down to the micrometer. Read More
Today in odd apps I present Smell PGH, an app that lets you report weird smells in Pittsburgh. Why would you do this, you ask? Well hold on. “If you smell something bad in the air, chances are that air isn’t good to breathe,” said Beatrice Dias, project director for the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute’s CREATE Lab. “Smell PGH provides a way for citizens to… Read More
Researchers at the University of Calgary have released the latest version of their “Wearable Microsystem for Minimally Invasive, Pseudo-Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring,” a watch-like wearable that “bites” you every few hours to draw blood and test your glucose levels. The system uses a shape memory alloy actuator which contracts when heated and then snaps back into… Read More
In a hole in your pants there lived a wallet. Not a nasty, dirty, wet wallet, filled with the receipts and cigarette papers and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, boring wallet that fit nothing and there nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Baggizmo wallet, and that meant lots of gadgetry. It had a perfectly flat folder design, with a programmable NFC chip installed. The wallet… Read More
Dust off your Google Glasses, those who still have them — the $1,500 face computer is back in the spotlight today with a few updates. In its first update since September 2014, Google Glass got a “MyGlass” companion app update, some bug fixes and now supports Bluetooth. Read More
Watchmaker Robert Forsey, co-founder of Gruebel Forsey, isn’t worried. This plain-spoken creator of some of the most complex and beautiful watches in the world sees the Swiss Watch industry to be in turmoil but not in peril. “They made too many watches,” he said simply. And now they can’t sell them. When asked about the rise of the smartwatch, Forsey laughs. His… Read More
