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Submission + - Emotionally Aware Apps That Respond To Feelings Are On The Horizon (hothardware.com)

Submitted by bigwophh
bigwophh writes: Machine learning has helped a multitude of different technologies become a reality, including emotion-detection. Most examples to date have been rather simple, such as being able to detect a smile or a frown. But with today's super-fast computers, and even mobile devices, we're now able to detect emotion with far greater accuracy and nuance. Facial recognition expert Rana el Kaliouby recently gave a talk at TED to highlight just how accurate emotion-detection has become, and depending on your perspective, the result is either amazing, or downright scary. To accurately detect someone's emotion, Rana's software detects eight different factors, which include frowning, showing disgust, engaged, and raised eyebrows, among other things. Through research with this software, a couple of interesting factoids are revealed. In the United States, women are 40% more likely to smile than men. But the technology is ultimately destined for software that will detect the user's emotion and react accordingly.

Submission + - Marshall Amp Cranks It To 11 With First Android Smartphone Called 'London' (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Marshall may be better known for its music equipment, but that isn't stopping the company from bringing a better audio experience to the smartphone market with its London handset. Given its highly customizable nature, it should come as no surprise that London runs Google's Android operating system (Lollipop 5.0.2). The London features dual front-facing speakers, a Wolfson WM8281 sound processor, Bluetooth atpX support, and a gold-tinged scroll wheel on the right side of the device that handle volume control, which Marshall says offers "tactile precision [that] allows you to find that sweet spot of sonic goodness." Once you get past the audio-centric functionality, there's a lot of lower-end hardware under the hood of the London. You'll find a 4.7-inch 720p display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, LTE connectivity, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, and a removable 2500 mAh battery. In other words, those specs make the London more in line with the Moto G.

Submission + - Lenovo ThinkPad W550s 5.5 lb Mobile Workstation Delivers 18 Hrs Of Battery Life (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Mobile workstation notebooks typically offer a fair degree of performance but usually at the expense of battery life. It comes with the territory for machines that are configured with higher-end processors with discrete graphics chips, as well as high-end displays that take more power to light up. Lenovo, however, seems to have found a way to strike a better balance with their new ThinkPad W550s machine, that comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-5600U CPU, an NVIDIA Quadro K620M GPU and a 15.5 inch IPS display that sports 2880X1620 native res. With that kind of horsepower and that many pixels to push, you would think untethered up-time wouldn't be its strong suit but Lenovo configured a snap-in extended battery for the W550s. The 6-cell extended battery, in combination with its 3-cell internal battery was able to power them machine for over 18 hours of light duty web browsing in real-world testing (Lenovo claims up to 20 hrs of battery life). The machine also lasted over 5 hours under heavy load Battery Eater testing and the extended battery is unobtrusive, tilting the keyboard up slightly toward the user but keeping well inside the machine's footprint. As is standard for workstation-class ThinkPads, it's not the sexiest machine style-wise but the ThinkPad W550s offers the performance high-end components and battery life too boot, along with classic ThinkPad workhorse build quality.

Submission + - Why a Chinese Buyout of Micron Is Not Likely to Succeed (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: A reported $23 billion offer to purchase U.S.-based Micron, one of the largest DRAM and memory makers in the world, by a Chinese state-owned chip maker isn't likely to succeed for several reasons, not the least of which is that the U.S. government is unlikely to approve it and Micron has no reason to sell. Tsinghua Unigroup, a somewhat enigmatic company that is funded by Tsinghua University in China, offered $21 a share for Micron, which is a 19.3% premium over Micron's closing price on Monday. Micron's market cap is currently $20.7 billion. Micron has denied it received an offer from Tsinghua, but a Wall Street Journal report claimed the offer was real. Industry analysts however, believe Tsinghua may have used the WSJ as a trial balloon for an offer. Analysts also say rumors of a deal for Micron have been floating around for more than a month. Still, the possibility of a deal surprised some in the industry who expected China to organically grow its own DRAM and memory businesses. By acquiring Micron, however, China would instantly become a big player in what is a robust market. Fang Zhang, an IHS memory analyst, said Micron will not likely accept a buyout offer because the company has been performing well and expects to continue to do so. Additionally, the U.S. government considers chip technology vital to national security, so approval of the deal would at the very least take months if not more than a year during a time when the Chinese economy is at risk of collapse.

Submission + - Air-Cooled AMD Radeon R9 Fury Arrives For $100 Less With Fury X-Like Performance (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: When AMD launched the liquid-cooled Radeon Fury X, it was obvious the was company willing to commit to new architecture and bleeding edge technologies (Fiji and High-Bandwidth Memory, respectively). However, it fell shy of the mark that enthusiasts hoped it would achieve, unable to quite deliver a definitive victory against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti. However, AMD just launched their Radeon R9 Fury (no "X" and sometimes referred to as "Fury Air"), a graphics card that brings a more compelling value proposition to the table. It's the Fury release that should give AMD a competitive edge against NVIDIA in the $500+ graphics card bracket. AMD's Radeon R9 Fury's basic specs are mostly identical to the liquid-cooled flagship Fury X, except for two important distinctions. There's a 50MHz reduction in GPU clock speed to 1000MHz, and 512 fewer stream processors for a total of 3584, versus what Fury X has on board. Here's the interesting news which the benchmark results demonstrate: In price the Fury veers closer to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, but in performance it sneaks in awfully close to the GTX 980 Ti.

Submission + - OCZ Toshiba Breaks 40 Cent Per GiB Barrier With New Trion 100 Series SSD (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: OCZ is launching a brand new series of solid state drives today, dubbed the Trion 100. Not only are they the first drives from the company to use TLC NAND, but they're also the first to use all in-house Toshiba technology with the drive's Flash memory and controller both designed and built by Toshiba. That controller is paired to A19nm Toshiba TLC NAND Flash memory and a Nanya DDR3 DRAM cache. Details are scarce on the Toshiba TC58 controller but it does support Toshiba's QSBC (Quadruple Swing-By Correction — a Toshiba proprietary error correction technology) and the drives have a bit of SLC cache to boost write performance in bursts and increase endurance. The OCZ Trion 100 series is targeted at budget conscious consumers and users still contemplating the upgrade from a standard hard drive. As such, they're not barn-burners in the benchmarking department, but performance is still good overall and a huge upgrade over any HDD. Pricing is going to be very competitive as well, at under .40 per GiB for capacities of 240GB, 480GB and 960GB and .50 per GiB for the smallest 120GB drive.

Submission + - NVIDIA Shakes Its Flowing Mane With Life-Like HairWorks 1.1 Demo (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Previously, you might not have thought much about a wig on a manikin, but checking out NVIDIA's latest tech demo, as a gamer or 3D graphics artists, hair can be pretty interesting. The video is of NVIDIA HairWorks 1.1, a simulation and rendering tool for creating lifelike hair and fur in video games. In the clip, NVIDIA shows off a Fabio-style hairdo with about 500,000 hairs that bounce and sway as the camera circles and forces move the hair. If this was a real wig, it might unseat one of the most boring videos ever. However, as an example of what modern 3D graphics can do with hair physics, it's pretty darn cool. Previous demos of HairWorks showed up to 22,000 strands of hair, making the jump to half a million much much more significant. The video was recorded with ShadowPlay on a GeForce GTX 980, which has some serious muscle, though it's not the most powerful card in NVIDIA's lineup. What's cooler than making life-like human hair? Putting flowing manes on vicious monsters, of course. Apparently, NVIDIA HairWorks simulation technology also plays a role in bringing more than a dozen creatures to life in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Submission + - The IRS and Obama administration planned to criminally prosecute its opponents

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New Justice Department documents released today show that in 2010 the Obama administration and the IRS were conspiring to criminally prosecute opponents of the Obama administration.

Judicial Watch today released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official "DOJ Recap" report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.

The newly obtained records also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress. Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit social 501(c)(4) welfare groups — or nearly every 501(c)(4) in the United States — as part of its prosecution effort. According to a letter from then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, "This revelation likely means that the IRS — including possibly Lois Lerner — violated federal tax law by transmitting this information to the Justice Department."

This bears repeating: It is illegal for the IRS to give the confidential tax returns of citizens to anyone, including the Justice Department. Worse, having done so the IRS has given the very partisan Obama administration a giant treasure-trove of data it can use to smear and destroy its opponents.

Submission + - Beam Me Up, Scotty: Real Life Star Trek Communicator Pairs With Your Smartphone (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: If you're a fan of Star Trek (and what self-respecting geek isn't?), The Wand Company has just announced what could possibly be one of the greatest smartphone accessories you've seen in quite some time. The company has built a true-to-life Communicator — yes, that Communicator which we saw Captain Kirk whip out on numerous occasions when leading his away team on the surface of uncharted planets. Part of what makes the Communicator so special is that it acts as a Bluetooth handset that connects to your smartphone (hands-free calling and music streaming is supported). So even though the Communicator is after all a prop modeled after an object from a nearly 50-year-old television sci-fi series, it at least is actually useful for something.

Submission + - How Light Is Too Light For A Laptop? Lenovo LaVie Z Breaks 2 LB Barrier (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Ultralight notebooks or "ultrabooks" have become the norm, with the demand for thinner and lighter frames that are still capable of delivering full-featured notebook performance. With the advent of solid state storage and faster, lower-powered processors that require less complex cooling solutions, the average mainstream notebook is rather svelte. Recently, however, Lenovo announced their LaVie Z and LaVie Z 360 ultrabooks and at 1.87 and 2.04 pounds respectively, they're almost ridiculously light. Further, with Core i7 mobile processors and fast SSDs on board, these machines perform impressively well in the benchmarks and real world usage. If you actually pick one up though, both models are so light they feel almost empty, like there's nothing inside. Lenovo achieved this in part by utilizing a magnesium--lithium composite material for the casing of the machines. Though they're incredibly light, the feeling is almost too light, such that they tend to feel a little cheap or flimsy. With a tablet, you come to expect a super thin and light experience and when holding them in one hand, the light weight is an advantage. However, banging on a full-up notebook keyboard deck is a different ball of wax. Which begs the question: Are ultrabooks getting too light? Microsoft's Surface 3 is 1.37 pounds, but it's a tablet doubling as a notebook (a 2-in-1 device). What about full-up business or consumer class notebooks? Do they really need to be that light?

Submission + - Army MAXFAS Exoskeleton Arm Enables More Proficient Soldiers With Deadly Aim (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Building exoskeletons to aid persons or animals is nothing new, and in recent years, we've seen examples of them being built with the use of 3D printing. For those who need them, they can reintroduce some lost capability back into their lives or introduce new-found capability. However, as the US Army has now proven, they can be used for enhancing soldier combat skills as well. Mechanical Engineer Dan Baechle's MAXFAS system is a mechanical arm exoskeleton that's designed to improve the accuracy of a person's gun aim. MAXFAS can help them refine marksmanship skills quicker, which ultimately revolves around reducing arm and hand shake. A good example of seeing this in action is holding out a laser pointer at a target at the other side of a room. Most people are going to have noticeable shake, and that's where the MAXFAS comes in to help out. Its motors will automatically alter the exoskeleton to correct the aim. What's interesting is even after trainees had the exoskeleton removed, their aim was still improved. It's as if MAXFAS trained their muscles to better respond aiming.

Submission + - Turing Near Ready To Ship World's First Liquid Metal Android Smartphone (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Liquid Metal is an alloy metal (technically, bulk metallic glass) that manages to combine the best features of a wide variety of materials into one product. Liquid Metal also has high corrosion resistance, high tensile strength, remarkable anti-wear characteristics and can also be heat-formed. Given its unique properties, Liquid Metal has been used in a number of industries, including in smartphones. Historically, it has been limited to small-scale applications and pieces parts, not entire products. However, Turing Robotic Industries (TRI) just announced pre-orders for the world's first liquid metal-frame smartphone. The Turing Phone uses its own brand of Liquid Metal called Liquidmorphium, which provides excellent shock absorption characteristics. So instead of making a dent in the smartphone casing or cracking/chipping like plastic when dropped, a Turing Phone should in theory "shake it off" while at the same time protecting the fragile display from breaking. The Turing Phone does not come cheap, however, with pricing starting at $610 for a 16GB model and escalating quickly to $740 and $870 respectively for the 64GB and 128GB models, unlocked. Pre-orders open up on July 31.

Submission + - SlideN'Joy Extender Adds Up To Two More Screens For A Multi-Monitor Laptop (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Nothing beats the portability of a notebook when it comes to getting work done while on-the-go, but with that portability comes a number of caveats like a smaller keyboard and being forced to use a touchpad if you don't want to lug around a portable mouse. Then there's also the limitation of a single display, for those who need more screen real estate for certain tasks. Enter Sliden'Joy, a Kickstarter project that's set to launch on July 6. There's not a lot of technical detail given about it so far, but the basics are easy to understand. Sliden'Joy effectively hooks onto your notebook to allow you to extend one or two screens out of either side, giving you an effective dual or triple monitor setup. Two models of Sliden'Joy are going to be produced, offering either 1 or 2 displays, and sizes of 13, 15, and 17-inch are all going to be supported. There's no word on pledge levels quite yet, but the ultimate goal is to reach 300,000€ ($~332,000 USD) in 30 days.

Submission + - Mario Running In Unreal Engine 4 Is Strangley Satisfying And Awesome (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: You no longer have to wonder what Super Mario would look like if he was rendered in 3D using the Unreal Engine 4. Did the thought ever crossed your mind? Well it did for YouTube user aryoksini, the same cat who showed off samples Super Mario 64 remade in HD using the Blender engine. As nifty as that was, his newest project is even better. Using the Unreal Engine 4, aryoksini created a 3D world in which you see Mario like you've never seen him before. Not that we haven't seen Mario in 3D before, just not as well rendered as this. Here we see Mario running in Unreal Engine 4 with all the environment assets taken from the Unreal marketplace, all the character actions scripted using blueprints only, all animations were re-created from scratch as well as the PBR ready textures. Unreal Engine 4 supports advanced DirectX 11 & 12 rendering features such as full-scene HDR reflections, thousands of dynamic lights per scene, artist-programmable tessellation and displacement, and physically-based shading and materials.

Submission + - Oxford Professor Says AI Could Enslave And Sustain Humans With 'Heroin Drips' (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn't the only one envisioning a world where artificially intelligent systems rise up and rule over mankind. Dr. Stuart Armstrong, an academic at the Future of Humanity at Oxford University feels we're precariously close to creating computers that will ultimately wipe out mankind, though if it comes as any consolation, they'll have good intentions. The future Dr. Armstrong envisions is one where machines have an incredible amount of computing power, and they'll be able to access all that information at speeds that would boggle the human mind. These machines will become so smart and sophisticated that they'll create their own global network to communicate with each other without the aid of pesky humans, who would only slow them down. This will mark the beginning of the end. At some point, Dr. Armstrong sees these super intelligent machines doing something incredibly dumb because of nuances in human communication. For example, a command such as "keep humans safe and happy" might prompt this network of machines to "entomb everyone in concrete coffins on heroin drips," Dr. Armstrong says.

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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