Geek News

A rolling stone gathers no moss, but a crawling baby picks up hella dirt — or, more specifically, a bunch of bacteria, dead skin cells, and maybe even some fungal spores. In order to better understand just how much of these gross particles babies are inhaling, researchers over at Purdue built a “simplified robot crawling infant.” This tinfoil-wrapped cyclops, spotted by Boing Boing , mashes its golf club-like — arms? — arms onto the floor to simulate how much dust a real baby would kick up. According to Purdue’s findings, which were published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology , not only did this filth child stir up a cloud of nasty particles with a concentration as much as 20 times greater than geographically higher spots... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2n4UK0p"

Dom Hofmann, one of the co-founders of shortform video platform Vine, has been hard at work on a successor to the now-defunct mobile app he’s simply calling just v2. Since announcing his intentions at the end of November “without a plan” and to “force the issue,” former Vine fans, users, and those who just want to see the app’s more innocent and comedic spirit resurrected have offered feedback and seemingly endless enthusiasm for the project. Hofmann, whose day job includes running a secretive virtual reality startup called Interspace , seems to be developing v2 on his own time, but that hasn’t stopped him from delivering near-daily updates via Twitter . The creator also opened a community forum for the product in early January , and he’s... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2F8t1lU"

Pioneer 's DJ mix recording app is now available for your iPhone and iPad . Cleverly named DJM-REC , the free-to-download app connects to any mixer with a USB send/return channel to record, archive and even livestream your mixes. The app gives you a 30-day trial, after which you'll need to purchase the full app for $10. You'll need a digital send/return style mixer , like Pioneer's DJM-TOUR1 , DJM-900NXS2 , DJM-750MK2 and DJM-450 models. There's a firmware update you'll need to apply to your mixer so it can work with the new app. Once you connect your iPhone or iPad to your mixer via the same lightning/USB cable you use to power your iOS device, the DJ-REC app is ready to go. In addition to recording and streaming, you can edit the time-stamp that's automatically created from the data sent from the mixer to the app, which will let you create track lists more easily. There's a peak limiter, too, to ensure you don't clip out at high volume. The...

Ahead of the National Association of Music Merchants show (NAMM), Alesis has announced the second generation of its legacy keytar, the Vortex Wireless 2. The keytar, which has 37 velocity-sensitive keys with aftertouch, features a new fader interface on the front and comes bundled with more software than its predecessor. Alesis first came out with the Vortex keytar in 2012, and the first generation of the wireless version debuted in 2014. While it wasn’t the first USB-connected keytar (that nod can go to Roland with its AX-Synth and Lucina models), the Vortex Wireless had fun features like eight velocity-sensitive pads that could be used to play samples or trigger clips, a tilt-sensor in the neck for translating gestures into effects... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2BobMLt"

Google has announced today that it’s expanding the Voice Match feature on Google Assistant to support separate Netflix profiles, via Android Authority . Now, you’ll be able to attach individual Netflix profiles on your account to the various Google profiles you have set up on a Google Assistant device (like a Google Home). Just like Assistant can offer personalized information through Voice Match for bringing up calendars or commute times, now, (at least in theory), when you ask Google Home to play Netflix on your Chromecast, it’ll pick up where you left off in the middle of your Friends marathon, and not your sibling’s Altered Carbon binge. To set up the new feature, you’ll need to go into the Google Home app and dive into the “More... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E5hnt2"

If you treat YouTube like a jukebox, you know how confusing it can be when your favorite artists have multiple channels. You may have to go to one channel to get the pure album cuts, and another to watch the music videos. Mercifully, YouTube is reducing that clutter -- it's launching unified Official Artist Channels that put all of a musician's content in one place. In theory, you just have to search for an artist by their name to find everything they've posted to the site. If you've subscribed to an artist's unofficial channel, YouTube will automatically switch you over to an official source when available and will unsubscribe you to the old one. It's not clear whether or not this will eliminate one of the bigger annoyances for music fans on YouTube: having to switch to a Vevo-branded channel to watch music videos. We've asked the company if this changes the situation and will let you know if it does. This could create problems for fans who want to li...

Apple just announced that its HomePod smart speaker is set to ship February 9th of this year. What didn't make the large print is that it won't support multi-room audio or stereo pairing on that date. These are pretty big features of all other internet-connected speakers these days, which really shows how down to the wire Apple is on getting HomePod into your living room. Before. After. Checking archive.org , Engadget found that a new "coming later this year" stamp has quietly been placed on the main HomePod page . The verbiage was not visible on the most recent snapshot of the page, dated January 18th. It was, however included in Apple's current press release . Sure, you'll likely be able to buy a second (or third) HomePod at some point in the future to enable a stereo or multi-room mode. Not having these two features ready now, however, can only hurt Apple's hoped-for sales of the late-to-the-game smart speaker. Source: Apple via Engadget RS...

Technology Cameras, IR sensors, gyroscopes, and more help prevent you from smashing this aircraft. Take a look at the sensors DJI uses to keep its new Mavic Air drone in the sky and away from obstacles. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2DBtW1d"

Even as senators try to halt the FCC's gutting of former internet protections and tech companies express their frustration with the new rules, net neutrality is dead . Sure, there was an extension to the period of public comment on the matter when it was found that more than half of the comments were fake, but that didn't stop Ajit Pai's commission from killing it. Now there's even more evidence showing just how fake submissions to the governmental site were, including the fact that over one million bulk submissions used fake email addresses from pornhub.com. As reported by Ars Technica , Gravwell security researcher Leah Figueroa and her team analyzed the more than 22 million comments submitted to the FCC to figure out which were real and which were not. The analysis separated "organic" comments sent by real humans from automated comments from bots. Hundreds of comments were filed with identical time stamps, while many others were submitted at a stea...

Today, Apple released updates that will protect some older operating systems against the Meltdown vulnerability. Patches for High Sierra were released earlier this month and now Sierra and El Capitan will be protected as well. The Meltdown and Spectre bugs have been a massive and ongoing issue for the industry. Intel has pledged to patch all recently made chips by the end of the month and faces a number of lawsuits over the vulnerabilities and its handling of them. Congressional leaders have also requested briefings from Intel, AMD and ARM. You can see the details of Apple's updates here . Via: The Verge Source: Apple via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2Dy2PF7"

If you want to buy a drone, your best bet has long been DJI. But even while it apparently has the market cornered, DJI seems intent on filling it up with incrementally better models so that no one else can squeeze in. The introduction of the Mavic Air today gives DJI an even tighter hold on the sub-$1,000 space. As of last year, DJI’s drone lineup started at $500 (since reduced to $400) with the Spark . But now, instead of forcing you to jump straight up to $1,000 for something more capable like the Mavic Pro , it has the Mavic Air between them, at $800. While DJI is mostly absent in the huge space below $500, the drones in that price range — at least so far — typically don’t have a lot of the safety and ease of flying features built into... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2n271CT"

Science The motion of the ocean(ic crust). It started in the early hours of the morning, 31 minutes after midnight in Alaska. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2F6cO0H"

Siri's news reading feature is no longer limited to the beta testing crowd. Apple has officially released iOS 11.2.5, and the centerpiece is the ability to ask Siri for the latest happenings. If you're in the US, UK or Australia, you can get a briefing from a slew of local sources, such as NPR and the Washington Post in the states or the BBC and Sky News in the UK. And it doesn't have to be general news, either -- you can ask for business, music or sports news as well. Not surprisingly, 11.2.5 is also key to unlocking support for the HomePod speaker . If you happen to score Apple's Siri-savvy device, you can set it up and transfer all your account details in one fell swoop. The release comes alongside a slew of updates for the Apple TV, Apple Watch and macOS, although they're mostly minor. The biggest improvements come for Mac users: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 fixes a number of security issues (such as running code when playing malicious sound files), while tho...

We're nothing if not helpful here at Engadget and we're always looking out for your wellbeing. So today we have a little bit of advice for you -- don't bite your iPhone battery . One man found this out the hard way, Appleinsider reports, causing a minor explosion at an electronics store in China. You can check out a video of the incident here . It shows the man bringing an iPhone battery up to his face, then biting it, and as he removes the battery from his mouth, it explodes. Taiwan News reported that the customer was at the store buying a replacement battery for his iPhone and that because Chinese electronics stores often carry fake Apple products, the man was probably biting it as a way to test its authenticity. Apparently nobody was hurt and the video -- CCTV footage posted to Miaopai.com -- is nearing five million views. However, that no one was injured by the blast is probably just a major stroke of luck, so please don't go repeating it just for fun. We don...

Yann LeCun, the head of Facebook’s internal artificial intelligence research division, is stepping down from his role to take on a more dedicated research position as chief AI scientist. LeCun has been an outspoken voice in the industry and a frequent critic of what the research community feels is unwarranted fear mongering around the technology. He will be handing his position over to Jérôme Pesenti, the chief technology officer of IBM’s Big Data group. The news was reported first by Quartz , and confirmed independently to The Verge today. LeCun, a French computer scientist based out of New York City, has been instrumental in developing modern approaches to AI, including uses of convolutional neural nets for analyzing the visual data... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DCNlil"

It's been nearly two years since Sony announced it would revitalize the God of War franchise , and now we finally know when Kratos' next adventure will arrive. The next game in the series, simply titled God of War , will be available on April 20th. To go along with the release date, Sony has also detailed some extremely lavish and expensive pre-order bundles and released a new trailer. The latter will likely be more exciting to fans, so let's start there, shall we? The trailer gives us more detail about the game's plot than any preview we've seen thus far. As we already know, Kratos will be journeying through the world of Norse mythology with his son -- it seems that the pair are on a mission to bring the boy's mother's ashes to a far-off location as her last wish. But along the way, the fact that Kratos is a god (which also appears to make his son some sort of immortal being, as well) will cause some problems between the pair. The trailer features many...

Apple has rolled out a new security update to protect older operating systems against the Meltdown bug, the most easily exploitable of the processor vulnerabilities made public earlier this year . Patches for macOS High Sierra were released on January 8th , but the patch did not apply to older versions of the operating system. Today’s update brings the same protections to Sierra (version 10.12.6) and El Capitan (version 10.11.6). It’s the latest in a string of patches Apple has released in response to the industry-wide processor failures. The company also developed patches to Safari and WebKit to protect against a separate exploitation of the Spectre vulnerability. It’s still unclear whether Apple plans any updates to its A-series... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E0bSvv"

Elon Musk's Boring Company hasn't finished digging its first LA-area tunnel , but it's already talking about a second... and it's facing some resistance. The startup has pitched Culver City's council on a 6.5-mile "proof of process" tunnel between the town and LA that would gauge its ability to build across jurisdictions, which is rather vital when you're planning large-scale transportation systems. This wouldn't be as focused on individual cars, however -- rather, the emphasis would be on mass transit that it has previously hinted at in vague terms . The Boring Company devoted its attention to the Loop, a system of small multi-passenger pods (8 to 16 people each) that would shuttle you across the city. This wouldn't be a direct subway equivalent. While it would have numerous stations, a pod would carry everyone aboard to one station instead of pausing at every station along the way. The autonomous electric skates carrying these pods would ...

Tinder isn’t using encryption to keep your photos safe from strangers who are sharing the same coffee shop Wi-Fi as you, security researchers found in a report today . Researchers from the Tel Aviv-based firm Checkmarx found that Tinder’s iOS and Android mobile apps still lack basic HTTPS encryption, meaning that anyone sharing the same Wi-Fi as you can see your Tinder photos or add their own into the photostream. The firm built a proof-of-concept app called TinderDrift, demoed on YouTube , that can reconstruct a user’s session on Tinder if that person is sharing the same Wi-Fi. Although swipes and matches on Tinder remain HTTPS-encrypted, potential hackers on the network can still tell encrypted commands apart due to the specific... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DZ9bKB"

Apple’s latest iOS beta release, under version number 11.2.5, arrived today with support for the company’s new HomePod speaker. More importantly, for those who don’t intend to buy Apple’s $350 Sonos competitor, this newest iOS release is also bringing a Siri-delivered news briefing. Now, iPhone and iPad owners can ask Siri to read the news and get a daily podcast briefing from The Washington Post , which is the default. Other options include Fox News, NPR, and CNN. News of the Siri update was first reported by 9to5Mac and has been confirmed with the public beta release notes out now. It’s not a huge change, but news briefings have become one of the most basic functions for voice-based artificial intelligence with the rise of Amazon’s... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2rxoAzs"

Last year, Susan Fowler , a former Uber employee, penned an essay detailing rampant sexual harassment and sexism at the company as well as a complete lack of interest on the part of administrators to do anything about it. That report led to an investigation , a handful of firings and eventually a new CEO . The investigation into Uber's toxic culture, conducted by Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran and shared with the company last June, recommended the company establish a chief diversity and inclusion officer position and now Uber finally has. As Recode reports, the new position will be filled by Bo Young Lee who is currently the global head of diversity and inclusion at professional services firm Marsh & McLennan. Uber confirmed the hire to us and said that she will be based in New York and will join the company in late March. "As I was interviewing for this role, it became very clear that Uber is taking its cultural transformation seriously and truly wants to create a c...

Iconoclasts is now available on Steam! Join renegade mechanic Robin and uncover the secrets of a dying planet. Explore a big world filled with intricate puzzles, interesting characters and menacing bosses in a beautiful platform adventure that tells a personal story about faith, purpose and the challenge of helping people. via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2G944s8"

Fans of Blizzard games might have dodged a bullet. Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy has revealed that virtually all the developer's titles (including Overwatch and World of Warcraft ) were vulnerable to a DNS rebinding flaw that let sites hijack the Blizzard Update Agent for their own purposes. Intruders had to do little more than create a hostname their site was authorized to communicate with, make that resolve to the target of their choice (such as the victim's PC) and send requests to the agent. From there, they could install malicious files, use network drives or otherwise create havoc. Thankfully, the emphasis here is on the past tense. Blizzard's communication was inconsistent, but it applied a short-term fix in recent days. It also responded to Ormandy's concerns with with promises of a "more robust" fix that whitelists internet hosts, so only those sites Blizzard explicitly approves will get through. We've asked Blizzard for comment a...

Save 66% on Tyranny during this week's Midweek Madness*! *Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2F5ptku"