Geek News

Today's Deal: Save 50% on LEGO® Worlds !* Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Wednesday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2EGWIPu"

Samsung was awarded a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office last week for what it's calling a "flying display device." The patent, spotted by LetsGoDigital , was filed for in 2016 and describes a drone-like device with a screen that could be capable of streaming video, like, for example, broadcast television, but, as The Verge points out, it could also presumably be used as a hovering advertisement display. According to Samsung's patent, the flying screen would be supported by four propellers and could have features like voice recognition, a vibration system, an obstacle detection unit with a camera or a sensor as well as gyro, motion and accelerometer sensors. And the display could be a range of devices, including a tablet, a laptop or a mobile medical device. Additionally, the proposed design shows that the drone could be able to track a users' eyes, head or hands and would be able to be controlled based on movements of those parts. The system may...

Maybe robot dinosaurs will encourage your kids to code. Mattel showed off a Jurassic World coding toy this weekend, the newest entry in its Kamigami line of educational robots, at the New York City Toy Fair. The robots are essentially the same as the original Kamigami , except the plastic covers you put over the robotic core builds out a dinosaur instead of a bug. You’ve likely seen similar concepts before. The dinosaurs pair over Bluetooth to a new Jurassic World companion iOS / Android app, and kids can drag and drop code to make them do things. The robots can move, light up, make noise, or engage in different interactions. I particularly loved their dancing mode. I’m at the toy fair with dancing raptors pic.twitter.com/ypbptyAC87 —... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2GtT7jZ"

Scientists from Google and its health-tech subsidiary Verily have discovered a new way to assess a person’s risk of heart disease using machine learning. By analyzing scans of the back of a patient’s eye, the company’s software is able to accurately deduce data, including an individual’s age, blood pressure, and whether or not they smoke. This can then be used to predict their risk of suffering a major cardiac event — such as a heart attack — with roughly the same accuracy as current leading methods. The algorithm potentially makes it quicker and easier for doctors to analyze a patient’s cardiovascular risk, as it doesn’t require a blood test. But, the method will need to be tested more thoroughly before it can be used in a clinical... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2C76clc"

The end of Microsoft's Windows Phone project has been a long time coming, and now there's another nail in the coffin. Microsoft is ending support for all push notifications for Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0 starting Tuesday, February 20th. According to Microsoft's blog post , in addition to the discontinuation of push notifications, live tiles will no longer be updated and the find my phone feature will not work. It's important to note that this doesn't apply to newer devices. "Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0 have reached their end of support dates, and thus services for these versions of Windows will be discontinued over time," according to the release. Windows 8.1 phones will continue to have notification services. Windows 10 Mobile phones are still fully supported, though Microsoft is no longer building new features for the platform because it's no longer a "focus." Via: The Verge Source: Microsoft via Engadget R...

Technology HomePod has a problem, robots are adorable, and Bitcoin is just doing what it does. Take a break from cruising mattress sales to catch up on last week's biggest tech stories. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2EEY9Oq"

Nintendo did many things to mark the 30th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. , but there's been one you couldn't usually get your hands on unless you lived in Japan: the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia . You'll be glad to hear that it's coming to the West, though. Dark Horse Publishing has announced that the official guide to Mario's universe will be available in a standard edition in the US on October 23rd for $40. Amazon is also hinting at releases in the UK and Europe, although we don't have official information as of this writing. The 256-page book is full of information and artwork for 17 games in the Super Mario series, including character info, developer interviews and other tidbits. Just don't expect it to be up to date. As the dates above suggest, you probably won't find Super Mario Odyssey or Super Mario Run in the book unless there's an addendum. And this is going to focus on the core Mario games, not offshoots like Paper Mario . Des...

The tiny dot in the center of the screen, between the two metal electrodes, is the light emitted by a single atom . The photo, Single Atom in an Ion Trap , just won the grand prize in the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) science photo and imaging contest. "The idea of being able to see a single atom with the naked eye had struck me as a wonderfully direct and visceral bridge between the miniscule quantum world and our macroscopic reality," said Oxford University quantum physics professor David Nadlinger, who took it. To give an idea as to scale, the gap between the two needlike-like tips is about 2mm, less than a tenth of an inch, so the image is substantially enlarged. Still, it's a scale that we humans can relate to, unlike the nanometer size of the atom itself. Here's how Nadlinger captured the image: A strontium atom was ionized by a laser, then trapped in an ultra-high vacuum chamber (aka, an ion trap) and hit by a blue-vio...

Microsoft is ending support for mobile push notifications on its Windows Phone 7 and 8 software by February 20th. Devices on Windows Phone 7.5 and 8.0 will no longer receive notifications. They will also lose the useful live tile updates that displayed information at a glance, and users will no longer be able to locate devices with the “find my phone” feature. Those phones were initially released to the public in 2011 and 2012, respectively. It’s yet another nail in the coffin for Windows Phone. Microsoft announced in October that it would stop developing new features or hardware for Windows 10 Mobile. Even before Microsoft admitted it, the mobile operating system had pretty much been dead for a year, as it showed dismal market share... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2oaV3HI"

Google tasks its Project Zero time with finding security issues and loopholes within other companies' products, and they're pretty effective at what they do. Now, Google has made public a medium-level security issue within Microsoft's Edge browser. The vulnerability was first discovered back in November. The detail are pretty technical , but the issue has to do with how Microsoft Edge deals with code execution. Thanks to this flaw, a hacker could bypass the Edge browser's security features and place malicious code within the memory of the target computer. Project Zero's policy is to give companies 90 days after the detection of a security flaw to fix it. Neowin first reported that Google notified Microsoft of the problem back in November. Because the company hasn't yet fixed it, Google has made the issue public. It's not likely to make Microsoft very happy , as the company has previously taken issue with how Google handles reports like these . Source: ...

The UK government and the Church of England have formed a partnership to use the Church’s buildings and other properties to “improve broadband, mobile, and Wi-Fi connectivity for local communities.” According to a statement from the government, this would involve placing wireless transmitters in church spires and towers as well as installing aerials, satellite dishes, and fiber cables in church buildings. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport says that there are more than 120 cases of broadband and mobile services already being delivered from parish churches across the UK. The government hopes that the accord will encourage more parishes to consider using church properties to aid digital infrastructure. The Chelmsford and... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2BFf14Y"

Microsoft began introducing ARM-powered Windows devices this past holiday season, and now we have more information on the limitations of these devices. Thurrott noticed that Microsoft published a list of limitations on the ARM version of Windows 10. It appears to have been inadvertant, as the document has since been removed, but The Verge noted that cached versions of the article are still available. ARM is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips; the aim is to deliver more of a tablet experience on these devices, with the promise of all-day battery life. For it to work with Windows apps, it must emulate x86 hardware , so not everything will work perfectly. You can see the full list for yourself over at the Wayback Machine, but some of the most important concerns is that x64 apps are not supported. Developers will either have to create separate ARM apps or rely on x86 versions. Additionally, only ARM64 drivers are supported, which will limit hardware compatibility. Also, any...

Photons are among the most ubiquitous, but loneliest particles in the quantum world -- they're always around us, but never interact with each other. Scientists from MIT and Harvard have managed quite a feat then, by observing groups of three photons interacting and sticking together to create a new weird form of light . The research is purely experimental for now, but could enable researchers to entangle photons, a key part of building quantum computers . When you throw certain elements together like hydrogen or oxygen, they can bond in pairs or even triplets, forming O2 (oxygen) or O3 (ozone), for instance. Shine two flashlights together, however and ... crickets. The photons simply pass through each other like phantoms and there's no reaction whatsoever. That's because they have no mass or charge, though they can become highly energized in the form of X-rays or gamma rays. To get the photons together, then, the researchers beamed a very weak laser through a dense clou...

DIY Get back to basics. Changing your sleep position can reduce pain and help you wake up ready to tackle the day. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2EAN8tq"

Today, Volkswagen debuted a new autonomous concept car called the I.D. Vizzion at the Geneva International Motor Show. The interior of the all-electric car doesn't reflect that of a traditional vehicle; it's been completely redesigned. There is no steering wheel and it does not have visible controls. It's the fourth car in Volkswagen's I.D. line, which is focused on developing electric car technology. The idea behind the I.D. Vizzion is to create the comfort of being inside a chaffeured vehicle, leaving the driving up to the autonomous systems. Drivers and riders can interact with the car using their voice thanks to a virtual assistant. The VI can remember the preferences of each person who uses the car and adapt accordingly. The car uses 111 kWh lithium batteries and has a driving range of 665 km (about 413 miles) when you take into account regenerative braking. The I.D. Vizzion's top speed is 180 km per hour, or about 111 miles per hour. Volkswagen has vowed...