Welcome to the (almost) holodeck We've all seen basic 3D pictures before. There are those distorted picture-globes you can take with your phone, or Google's Street View photospheres. They're impressive in their own way, but they're just 2D images arranged in a slightly 3D-ish manner. Pretty, but ...
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/29/windows-holographic-windows-10-apps-hololens/
When Microsoft debuted its Windows Holographic software and HoloLens headset a few months back, Windows 10 apps were mentioned as a possibility. Well, at Build 2015 today, the folks in Redmond offered a look at Windows 10 Universal apps in holographic action. During the onstage demo, apps could be placed on walls or set to float in space, and resized based on the user's needs -- something we'd only seen in videos up to this point. Of course, this means that users in different locations can collaborate on 3D models without having to be in the same room. Any Windows 10 app can be used as a hologram with the headset, so getting work done at a place other than your desk will soon be a possibility.
With those apps in play, you can overlay a hologram on top of a physical object and make tweaks without heading back to the keyboard. Just like the real and virtual robots we saw onstage, you wrangle simple changes, like the color of an LED, with gestures and the projected UI. Microsoft partnered with Case Western Reserve University to develop medical solutions for the platform, and those were shown off, too. Up-close examinations of the nervous and skeletal systems are now possible without the use of cadavers, and each of the body's systems can be displayed as a separate model in seconds. For architects, Windows Holographic brings the ability to walk through buildings without leaving the office, or through those projects that are still just blueprints. Of course, we'll have to wait and see what the final version looks like, but Microsoft's vision for how we'll work in the near-future is pretty enticing.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/29/3-atom-thick-transistor-promises-ultra-thin-electronics/
Researchers from Cornell University announced a breakthrough in transistor technology in the latest issue of the journal, Nature. The team has reportedly developed a novel and highly efficient method of producing an experimental material known as transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD). TMD is an exceedingly thin (but highly conductive) film, which makes it useful in many high-tech applications -- everything from solar cells to flexible, wearable gadgets -- but also makes it a huge pain to produce in appreciable quantities. That is, until now.
"Our work pushes TMDs to the technologically relevant scale, showing the promise of making devices on that scale," Saien Xie, one of the paper's lead authors. TMD, like the similarly touted wonder-material graphene, could help extend Moore's Law by providing a stable and compact substrate onto which engineers can pack an ever-increasing number of circuits. However, since it's only three atoms thick, TMD production typically suffers from a high rate of breakage and failure. The new method from Cornell, which mixes diethylsulfide and a metal hexacarbonyl compound atop a silicon wafer and then bakes them for 26 hours in hydrogen gas, has proven far more successful.
Out of a batch of 200 such wafers created for the study, only two failed -- that's a 99 percent success rate. With these results in hand, the research team hopes to streamline the manufacturing process as well as improve the consistency of the resulting film. The technology is still at least a few years away from being commercially viable but when it is, we could see it usher in a new era of paper-thin, super-powerful electronics.
Filed under: Science
Via: The Verge
Source: Nature
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/30/windows-10-preview-raspberry-pi-2/
Day one of Microsoft's Build 2015 conference is in the books, but that doesn't mean the news has stopped. The Windows 10 IoT Core Insider developer preview (phew!) has launched for small devices including the Raspberry Pi 2. Redmond admits that it's still pretty rough around the edges, but it's hoping that the maker community can provide feedback for how the platform's turning out along the road to a full release. What's more, the software giant is partnering with Arduino for a series of "Arduino Certified" products to bring the ubiquitous DIY boards into the Windows family and take advantage of all that the software has to offer. For example, cloud computing, a familiar user interface, image processing and a ton more. It follows the theme of bringing everything under one roof that Nadella and Co. have been so vocal about lately, and should hopefully help tinkerers develop some pr! etty pow erful stuff in their garage.
The Windows IoT shell is a Universal app like any other on Win10. That's all your RPi will do :D pic.twitter.com/GwVkUxUCPA
- Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) April 30, 2015 This is what your Raspberry Pi 2 running Windows 10 will boot up to (you can run the x86 version on your desktop): pic.twitter.com/td1qonbdhX
- Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) April 30, 2015 Filed under: Desktops, Microsoft
Source: Windows Blog, Steve Troughton-Smith (Twitter) (1), (2)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/23/take-notes-on-your-wrist-with-google-keep-and-android-wear/
Keep, Google's cloud-based note taking app, has always been pretty handy. But having to pull out and unlock your phone, then launch the program, open a new note and finally type in your thought is often enough to make anybody yearn for a pencil and pad of paper. Luckily, Google has a newly updated means of jotting down ideas as easy as talking to the back of your hand -- you just need to shell out a couple hundred bucks for an Android Wear watch to use it.
According to the official Google Android Blog, Android users with devices running Ice Cream Sandwich and newer will be able to access the Note app directly from their wristwatch while leaving their phone in their pocket. Users can activate the app with "OK Google, open Keep" or jump directly to dictation with the command "OK Google, take a note." Existing features like swipe-and-tap navigation and adding reminders to existing notes directly from the watch are still supported.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Internet, Google
Source: Official Android Blog
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