Новости за 08.01.2018

Over the weekend, Twitter users — including some climate scientists — were upset by a plaque at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, which seems to be spreading misinformation about climate change. The panel, titled “Recent Climatic Changes and Extinctions,” misstates the role that human emissions of greenhouse gases play in causing global warming. It also says that, although we’re currently living in one of Earth’s warm periods, “there is no reason to believe that another Ice Age won’t come.” But it turns out... Читать дальше...

On the first day of CES, JBL has announced several new headphones, earphones, and speakers, including the Everest headphones that are compatible with the Google Assistant. JBL, known for making pretty decent headphones, is actually owned by Samsung through parent company Harman International.

It’s not terribly easy to go to a casino in Las Vegas and come back without losing any money, but this week I pulled it off. The trick? I never even got out of the car that brought me there.

The dream of whizzing through an airless tube that is hundreds of miles long from one city to the next at near-supersonic speeds just got a little more real. Today, Virgin Hyperloop One unveiled its new app, promising an end-to-end passenger experience when (and if) it ultimately opens its first high-speed commercial transportation service.

The fourth season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on December 29th, 2017. In this series, six writers will look at each of the fourth season’s six episodes to see what they have to say about current culture and projected fears.

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) has mustered the 30 votes necessary to force a vote on the FCC’s decision to repeal net neutrality. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) announced that she’s signed onto Markey’s request to overturn the new rules, under the Congressional Review Act — which lets Congress nullify recently passed regulations with a simple majority.

Last week, Hisense announced that it’d be bringing Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant to some of its 2018 TV lineup. But here at CES 2018, Hisense has taken the wraps off its new products, and with a surprising twist: while several TVs in the lineup are getting Amazon’s virtual assistant, it’ll be joined on the company’s two most premium models — the H10E and the H9E Plus — by Google Assistant, which unlike Alexa will actually get a dedicated button on those model’s remotes.

Celina Mikolajczak, a senior manager for battery pack development at Tesla, has been hired by Uber to help the ride-hail company’s “flying car” project get off the ground. It’s an important hire because it signals that Uber plans to get more involved in the engineering aspects of this outlandish-sounding project.

The author of the controversial memo that upended Google in August is suing the company, alleging that white, male conservatives are systematically discriminated against by Google.

In the weeks leading up to last night’s Golden Globes, the organized “protest” planned by the actors and creatives set to attend the ceremony seemed halfhearted at best, and at worst, downright stupid. More than 700,000 female farmworkers instigated a laudable, coordinated campaign called Time’s Up to express their solidarity with the women of Hollywood, following scores of revelations of harassment and abuse by some of the industry’s most powerful players. And in response, 300 celebrities who... Читать дальше...

Anker is exiting the last stage of its crowdfunding campaign for its Zolo line of wireless earbuds with a final consumer retail release of the Liberty+ headphones, which go on sale later this month for $149.99. The news, announced today at CES, means that consumers who’ve been holding off on buying Anker’s standard Liberty wireless earbuds, which have been available for some time for $99.99, can pay the extra premium for the more advanced version.

Jabra has announced a trio of headphones to kickstart a brand new “Elite” franchise. These are the Elite 65t, a completely wireless in-ear pair; an “active” version of the Elite 65t, specially optimized for sport; and a Bluetooth — but not fully wired — variant, dubbed the Elite 45e. (The “e” stands for earphones; the “t” for truly wireless.)

Electric scooters and skateboards are a big draw at the mini-exhibitions that happen within big trade shows like CES. At this year’s CES Unveiled, two of them stood out.

Ring started out with video doorbells and lots and lots of security cameras, but now the company is expanding into a related but less obviously security-focused field: lighting.

In one of CES’s stranger announcements, Nanoleaf has introduced what’s essentially a giant 12-sided die that controls your home. You just set the die down, and it’ll set your smart home gadgets to some predetermined configuration.

Segway-Ninebot, which owns Segway Robotics, first showed off its Segway Advanced Personal Robot back in 2016, and the product has slowly evolved since then. The Lego-style arms are gone, the bot is now known as Loomo, and there’s a version for developers that’s already shipping. Now the consumer version of Loomo is about ready to ship (“in the weeks following CES”) and it still sounds fun after two years of incubation — although price is still a big question mark.

There’s no Google Assistant device with a screen like the Echo Show, but Philips has hacked together the next best thing at CES this year, grafting a 24-inch Android TV panel onto a Bluetooth speaker with an integrated microphone that’s meant to live on your kitchen counter. And if you squint at it really hard, you can pretend its sort of like a big Echo Show that happens to still be able to play YouTube.

Postcards, delightful as they are to receive, take a lot of time and effort for the sender. If I go on vacation and want to send one to my friends, I have to find the perfect card, figure out the local postage fees, and search for a post office to send it from. (That, or I bring the cards back home and forget they exist!) French startup Postmii is offering an ingenious solution to this overwhelming obstacle for lazy people, by printing and sending your postcards for you from a solar-powered tricycle. Читать дальше...

After commercially launching its wallpaper OLED TV at least year’s CES, LG’s 2018 showing was bound to be a little less flashy. And yes, the TVs themselves look largely similar to their 2017 predecessors. The best one you can buy is still the Signature “wallpaper” TV that mounts to your wall with most of its guts in a soundbar that sits beneath the ultra-thin screen.

Google just announced that it’s combining all of its different payment services, including Android Pay and Google Wallet, into one unified service, simply called Google Pay.

GoPro has announced that it’s exiting the drone business, citing the challenges of turning a profit in an “extremely competitive” market. The company revealed the news during its earnings report today, saying that its Karma drone would be the last it would make. The company is also laying off hundreds of staff and reducing the pay of CEO Nicholas Woodman to $1 as it struggles with rocky financials.

For those who only spend time in the kitchen out of necessity rather than a love for cooking, Whirlpool has added an integration with recipes app Yummly to help making meals a bit less stressful. At CES 2018, the appliance company has unveiled a new line of smart kitchen range and microwave that pairs with Yummly so you can select recipes you’d like to make and the appliances will automatically preheat, cook, and turn themselves off when the meals are done cooking.

NextVR, a platform that specializes in recording sports, concerts, and other live events for viewing later in virtual reality, announced today at CES that it’s adding a new technology to make its recordings feel much more realistic. Called six degrees of freedom, or “6DoF” for short, the addition will make it so users of NextVR’s app can experience events with more freedom of movement than before.

As we enter into the first day of CES, headphone brands like House of Marley and Sol Republic are releasing a whole bunch of wireless headphones and portable wireless speakers.

Canary is introducing a new indoor security camera — the Canary View — that's essentially the same as its original, self-titled device. The only differences between the two cameras are their price tags and the fact that the View doesn't support HomeHealth, which monitors your home's temperature, humidity, and air quality. (HomeHealth is also not available on the weatherproof indoor / outdoor Canary Flex.) The View records footage in 1080p Full HD and is available through Canary's website today. Читать дальше...