Comment Round - I want it round (Score 1) 24
Square watches are so ugly, like my grandfather used to wear. Other manufacturers are making round smart watches - it is really THAT hard to do?
Comment So we're *that* far away from real AR glasses? (Score 1) 66
I was hoping Apple was working on a true pair of AR eyeglasses: they look like a pair of normal (on the big side) eyeglasses, and with your prescription. Wirelessly tethered to an iPhone.
And I'm sure they still are, but they have clearly hit a huge wall: battery size/life. This Reality Pro sounds like a beta test of the UI more than anything. And even if the RP came with the eyeglasses I described, the idea of carrying a brick in my pocket to power it for only two hours is just nuts. I'd say we're 5-7 years away from true AR.
Comment Glasses, Not Goggles (Score 1) 51
Putting AR in a pair of regular-looking eyeglasses will be a game changer. Anything else will always be a niche. This sounds like a half-way there solution that won't please anybody.
Comment I'll get excited when... (Score 4, Insightful) 75
...you can go back any time and find the same signal again. These one-offs are like UFO sightings on earth - they may be fun to speculate about, but that's about it.
Comment So we finally get flying cars... (Score 2) 52
But they can only fly at 5 mph and 10 feet off the ground. Seriously, has anyone EVER seen a demo of a flying car in the last 20 years that did better than that? The pilot in this demo is acting like the thing could fall out of the sky any moment. This is so so so far from any kind of every day use. Hell, self-driving cars and fusion power will come first.
Comment Saw a demo of this tech in 2001 (Score 1) 44
When I worked at the Discovery Channel in Canada. A Waterloo-based firm was pitching targeted ads (mainly by set-top postal code) to us and other broadcasters, now that people had these new-fangled "digital set-top boxes" in their homes. Unfortunately you also have to get cable companies to agree (one by one) and advertisers who care (not many). And who gets what cut of the money now? This only works in companies that are well vertically integrated. So this idea has been around for two decades, and still hasn't happened yet. It's cable desperately trying to sound relevant as the door slowly closes on their entire business.
Comment Re:Umm, no (Score 2) 105
Unfortunately, what you quoted from the article was said by Charles Wang, the founder of Computer Associates, not Bill Gates.
Comment These will be huge (Score 5, Insightful) 109
They are next iPod or iPhone. Looks like there's no camera, which is smart, since that seemed to be what everyone objected to the most about Google Glasses. I'm sure they'll be a choice of frames, and the electronics will be hidden in the frame or behind the ear so that the casual observer wouldn't know you are wearing them. Sure, the software will probably suck for a generation or two, as developers figure out what exactly they want to show on the screen (much as iOS apps had to figure out what to show on Apple Watch screens). But they will sell tens of millions of these a quarter, as fast as they can make them (whenever that's going to get underway, what with a pandemic and all).
Submission + - SPAM: Is NASA Actually Working On a Warp Drive?
schwit1 writes: An internal feasibility report suggests the agency might be, or at least that the idea of traveling through folded space is part of the NASA interstellar spaceflight menu.
In the report, advanced propulsion physicist Harold "Sonny" White explains the ideas of theoretical physicist (and peer) Miguel Alcubierre. He then describes a "paradox" in Alcubierre's work, and how that paradox might be resolved to make a working model.
Link to Original Source
In the report, advanced propulsion physicist Harold "Sonny" White explains the ideas of theoretical physicist (and peer) Miguel Alcubierre. He then describes a "paradox" in Alcubierre's work, and how that paradox might be resolved to make a working model.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Sidewalk Labs cancels plan to build high-tech neighbourhood in Toronto (www.cbc.ca)
Bradmont writes: From the CBC:
Sidewalk Labs, a Google-affiliated company, is abandoning its plan to build a high-tech neighbourhood on Toronto's waterfront, citing what it calls unprecedented economic uncertainty. The project, dubbed Quayside, still didn't have all of the government approvals it needed to go ahead. Many had raised concerns about the privacy implications of the project and how much of the city's developing waterfront Sidewalk Labs wanted to control. The so-called "smart city" was set to feature a range of cutting edge technology, from residential towers made of timber to the use of autonomous cars and heated sidewalks. "As unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed," the company said in a statement.
Submission + - Stephen Wolfram presents a new fundamental theory of physics (stephenwolfram.com)
wattersa writes: Mathematician/Physicist Stephen Wolfram, founder of Wolfram Research and creator of the technical computation program Mathematica, has announced a discovery in the area of theoretical physics. His long-form blog post discusses the emergence of physical properties of our universe from what he describes as simple, universal, computable rules. He claims the emergent properties are consistent with relativity and quantum mechanics through a 448-page technical paper on the subject, which is posted on a completely new website that just went online.
Submission + - The end of handshakes as a gesture (cnbc.com) 1
jmcbain writes: In many societies, handshakes are a gesture of friendliness. How many times have you shaken hands when meeting new engineering professionals? Probably quite a lot. However, given what we've seen with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, it's time for a new way to greet people. According to a CNBC article, Anthony Fauci, the head advisor of the USA's task force on the coronavirus, says "I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you. Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease, it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country." Other scientists agree with Fauci. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Group has been trying to put an end to handshakes for nearly three decades. He suggests tilting or bowing your head to greet another person like people did many decades ago. “When men greeted other people [back in the day], they raised tor tipped their hat,” he says.
Comment Re:what? (Score 1) 69
What they are saying is that all theatres were shut down; then they gave permission for 600 theatres (probably in the 'safest' areas) to open, but a few days later slammed those 600 shut and back to all theatres are shut down. China is showing us what happens when you ease up on the quarantine too soon (which is depressing for the rest of us, knowing that we really could be 3, 4 or more months under this new reality).
Submission + - Facebook is wrongly blocking news articles about the coronavirus pandemic (businessinsider.com)
McGruber writes: Facebook is blocking users from posting some legitimate news articles about the coronavirus in what appears to be a bug in its spam filters.
On Tuesday, multiple Facebook users reported on Twitter that they found themselves unable to post articles from certain news outlets including Business Insider, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, and the Times of Israel. It's not clear exactly what has gone wrong, and Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
Alex Stamos, an outspoken former Facebook security exec, speculated that it might be caused by Facebook's shit to automated software after it sent its human content moderators home. "It looks like an anti-spam rule at FB is going haywire," he wrote on Twitter. "Facebook sent home content moderators yesterday, who generally can't [work from home] due to privacy commitments the company has made. We might be seeing the start of the [machine learning going nuts with less human oversight.
On Tuesday, multiple Facebook users reported on Twitter that they found themselves unable to post articles from certain news outlets including Business Insider, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, and the Times of Israel. It's not clear exactly what has gone wrong, and Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
Alex Stamos, an outspoken former Facebook security exec, speculated that it might be caused by Facebook's shit to automated software after it sent its human content moderators home. "It looks like an anti-spam rule at FB is going haywire," he wrote on Twitter. "Facebook sent home content moderators yesterday, who generally can't [work from home] due to privacy commitments the company has made. We might be seeing the start of the [machine learning going nuts with less human oversight.
Submission + - SPAM: Retired USAF General Makes Eyebrow Raising Claims About Advanced Space Tech
schwit1 writes: Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space. While military leadership rattling the space sabers is nothing new, Kwast’s lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever. Is this mere posturing or could we actually be on the verge of making science fiction a reality?
Around the 12:00 mark in the speech, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete:
Link to Original Source
Around the 12:00 mark in the speech, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete:
"The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour."
Link to Original Source
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