Geek News

Google is well-known for offering free bikes on campus to help its employees get around, but those bikes frequently don't stay on campus. Up to 250 go missing per week -- and that's rather ironic for a company that built its reputation on finding information . At last, though, the search giant is putting technology to work to solve the problem. Google has been adding GPS trackers to its bikes as of late 2017, and has been testing smart locks that employees can open with their phones. The company tells the Wall Street Journal that about a third of its bikes have GPS trackers so far, and they're offering insight into just how far the two-wheelers will go. While many tend to stay around Mountain View (some locals treat them like community rides), others have been taken as far as Alaska and Mexico. In many ways, the trackers and locks represent Google's ongoing loss of innocence . Free-to-ride campus bikes might have sounded great in Google's utopian early days,...

If you're not familiar with Coravin, the company makes wine openers that allow you to pour a glass without removing the cork. The devices pierce the cork with a thin needle that doesn't remove any material, so you can have some and then continue to cellar the bottle. So-called Coravin Capsules (similar to CO2 cartridges) filled with Argon gas push the wine out of the bottle and into your glass. At CES 2018 though, the company took its wares to a whole other level with the Model 11. Coravin calls it "the world's first fully connected and fully automated wine preservation opener." In addition to pouring wine like its other models, this unit syncs with the Coravin Moments app. With the added bit of software, you can keep tabs on how much gas is left and other valuable info. It also offers suggestions for a specific event or food pairing based on what you have in your cellar. As you might expect, it can also suggests wines that you make not already own, but that m...

We've seen Innomdle Lab's Sgnl wearable at CES a few times before, but it's worth revisiting because a) it's an absolutely crazy idea that works and b) it's very nearly ready for the masses. In case you missed it the first time around, the Sgnl is a sleek, understated wearable that lets you have full-blown private phone conversations by simply touching your finger to your ear. The wearable — which was originally developed as a concept for Samsung's delightfully nutty C-Lab — transmits sound through your handmeat as vibrations that eventually come out of your finger as sound. In theory, this sounds absurd. In practice, though, it actually seems to work as advertised. Even though Innomdle Lab's body conduction technology isn't specifically meant for music playback, a demo track streamed from a tablet via Bluetooth was piped into my wrist, up through my hand and came out surprisingly audible on through my finger. There's no way you'd want to l...

Massage is good for adults and great for babies, who use the stimulation to bond with their parents, calm down and work out their gas. It's why French startup Caressa is building My Lussya One, a massage oil heater and automatic dispenser that's designed to ensure that rubbing sessions are always a pleasure. The device has been created by Frenchman Sébastien Fauconnier, who was inspired to build it with his wife, a pediatric nurse. He wanted to craft a gadget that not only made massage time easier, but encouraged it simply because of all the positive benefits baby massage offers. Looking like a Henry Moore sculpture, users begin by placing their hands on the head-esque top dome, which is warm. Lifting up the head exposes two slots for massage lotion and aromatherapy oil capsules that look like slightly cuter Keurig pods. Once your hands are warm, you place them beneath the head, where up to three squirts of massage lotion are fired out, much like an automatic soap dispens...

Cycling can be dangerous, especially if you ride at night or in busy metropolitan areas. To help, a startup called Cosmo Connected is working on a smart light that clips onto the back of your helmet. Eight LEDs — four red, four yellow — are positioned in an oval shape. By default, they're set to an "always-on" position so that you're clearly visible in the dark. An accelerometer inside will know when you're braking, however, and warn fellow cyclists, drivers and pedestrians with a more intense light. Cosmo's bike light works with a companion app on your phone. Here, you can trigger a flashing "emergency alert" or make left and right signals by mashing the screen or pressing the company's optional, handlebar-mounted remote control. It will also be possible to enter your journey beforehand and trigger turn signals automatically via GPS tracking. Finally, Cosmo Connected says the accelerometer will double as a fall detector, notifying friends a...

Display startup MirraViz is here in Las Vegas this week for CES to show off a gadget that at first blush looks like some arcane trickery, allowing two off-the-shelf DLP projectors to layer images on top of one another so two people can view two different images simultaneously. The technology, which is actually built into the multilayer projector screen, is now on sale as a standalone product the Fremont, California-based startup is selling for $499. Officially called the MultiView Screen, the product takes advantage of how reflective surfaces handle incoming light sources. “The basic physics principle for one of the key optical layers includes the use of retro-reflection (RR) optical elements which are also used in traffic signage and... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2m5HKGD"

Samsung is unveiling Flip today at the Consumer Electronics Show, a 55-inch digital whiteboard that can be flipped between portrait and horizontal orientations. It’s designed for meeting rooms, and comes with a height-adjustable stand that can be wheeled around offices freely. Samsung isn’t revealing exactly what operating system or software is powering the Flip, but it looks like the company will support note taking, photos, and other collaborative scenarios on its 4K display. Samsung’s Flip also includes wireless connectivity, USB, PC, and mobile ports so you can connect pretty much any device to the display. You can even share the contents of the screen itself to other PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Up to four people can also draw on... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2CPZyk3"

If you've ever wanted your retail shopping experience to include more smells, well... get excited about Sniffy. It's a prototype product meant for stores that want to let their customers smell their products as well as see or touch them -- the obvious examples are food and drink retailers, good for smelling products like spices or coffee. Perfume is another obvious example, but I'm struggling to come up with other situations in which this makes sense. Regardless, here's how it works. The Sniffy Market has a touchscreen display and camera as well as a carousel that retailers will load various scents into. Once that's set, curious passers-by can use the touchscreen to pick a product and then get blasted with the scent in question. Another bizarre but intriguing thing about Sniffy is what the camera is for: it captures people's reactions to the scent and analyzes it to see if that reaction is positive or negative. It's not meant for the consumer to see, but ...

Jabra may have just announced its latest totally wireless earbuds at CES, but I got a hold of a pair early and have been using them as primary headphones for about a week. While the $170 Elite 65t that I've been wearing isn't a final model, they still gave me an idea of what to expect when the final version ships next month. Mostly, Jabra proves that you don't need to spend $250 (or more) to get a pair of earbuds that won't get tangled and still sound really good. You won't find any surprises in terms of design here, as the Elite 65t look similar to other totally wireless earbuds. The in-ear units themselves are small enough to sit nicely in the space just outside your ear, so they don't stick out from your head like some others do (looking at you, Bose Soundsport Free ). The Elite 65t also has controls on both earbuds that make adjustments easy and don't require pulling your phone out of your pocket. On the left side are the volume controls while a shor...

Enhancia consists of a rubber ring that you wear while playing the keyboard, connected to a larger hub. Its purpose is to augment whatever tune you're playing with effects that are common in modern music — often added later in the production stage — with natural gestures and in real time. "We wanted to create the shortest path between musical intention and musical creation" said Damien Le Boulaire, CEO and one of Enhancia's four co-founders from Grenoble, France. The "connected ring" essentially functions as a responsive MIDI controller that can function with or without a laptop. Tilting your hand up and down modulates the volume while rolling it from side to side creates pitch bend or vibrato effects. Combining gestures means the effects combine, too. The team says they'll add more gestures in the future — which are received through nine sensors — while any number of musical effects can be programmed by a user. Presently, the ring is connected to th...

Streaming shows are no strangers to picking up Golden Globe awards , and that trend is continuing at the 2018 ceremony . To start, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale has won awards for both the best TV drama and best TV actress (Elisabeth Moss). The wins weren't completely surprising given the strength of Margaret Atwood's story, Moss' performance and the all-too-timely subject matter, but it's still a significant victory. Not that other services left the Globes empty-handed. Rachel Brosnahan won the best TV actress award for playing the namesake role in Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , for example. We're still waiting on the full list of winners as we write this, but we wouldn't be surprised if Amazon and Netflix scooped up some of the remaining awards. Developing... Never let them grind you down. Congratulations to The #HandmaidsTale cast and crew on your #GoldenGlobes win for Best Drama Series. #Globes75 http://pic.twitter.com/hqvKtPwQec —...

Back in November, longtime rivals Intel and AMD shocked the computing world when the two companies announced that they’d be teaming up to create laptop chips that combined Intel’s Core line of processors with AMD’s Radeon graphics . And now at CES 2018, the first fruits of that partnership have been revealed, in the form of a pair of Intel Core i5 and i7 chips powered by discrete AMD Radeon RX Vega M GPUs. Along with the processor and GPU, each unit also has 4GB of HMB2 VRAM onboard, which Intel says should help drastically save space internally for laptops while increasing battery life. The new chips are part of Intel’s H-series line of eighth-generation chips, designed to be the most powerful processors that the company offers for... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2EhBiUw"

When I wrote about Sony’s wonderful, terrible VAIO P a while back, I wondered if modern mobile technology might enable a more successful take on the tiny laptop. UK startup Planet Computers' Gemini isn’t quite a 2018 VAIO P, but if something closer to a 2018 Psion Series 5 will do, you’ll want to read on. The Gemini is a clamshell Android device with an 18:9 ultrawide 1080p screen and a compact but more-or-less full physical keyboard. It runs on a 10-core MediaTek Helio X27 processor and has 4GB of RAM, a 4,220mAh battery, and two USB-C ports. It’s 15.1mm thick when closed and weighs 308g. There are both Wi-Fi-only and LTE-capable models. The software is pretty much stock Android with a useful customized dock that can be brought up... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2CPOu6v"

Our bathrooms are about to get a lot smarter , if the latest technology being unveiled here at CES 2018 is any indication. Moen, which released its U by Moen smart shower system last year, is adding Alexa and Siri voice control capability to the series this year. With the new skills, you can tell Alexa to turn on your shower at a desired temperature or to a customized setting. Siri compatibility is coming later in the year. The system consists of a digital valve that enables digital, to-the-digit temperature control, shower heads, handshowers, body sprays and other fixtures. You can already use the in-shower control pad or the U by Moen app to adjust your water temperature or pick a different preset, but the new integration lets you start a shower just by talking. The benefit here may not seem obvious, but it should offer an easily accessed method to pre-start your shower, which would be helpful to busy parents chasing after reluctant toddlers. When you tell Alexa (or use the ap...

We've seen our fair share of smart shoes at CES in the past, including a pair you can "lace up" using your smartphone. And today, at CES 2018, we came across some more interesting footwear. What you see above are the "smart shoes with falling alert," created by a French startup called E-Vone. As the name suggests, the kicks feature a system that will notify friends, family or medical services if the person wearing them happens to take a fall. The company says they're designed for older adults (like your grandma or grandpa), as well as construction workers, hikers or anyone who feels like they may require assistance if they're alone indoors or outdoors. Inside E-Vone's shoes, specifically the midsole, there are a slew of sensors: GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope and a pressure system that knows every time someone put on the shoe on and activates the alarm. According to E-Vone, they don't need to be paired to a mobile device because the shoe proc...