Tag Archives: technology

Google Patents “Pay Per Gaze”

This is more than a little bit freaky. Google claims a system that can provide a reliable, low cost, and unobtrusive, eye tracking system could have a variety of useful everyday applications. In particular, it outlines a method for billing advertisers based on the number of times users look at an advert – either online or offline, via a billboard, …

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Google Launches Web Streaming Device

Google today began selling Chromecast, a dongle for streaming web videos directly to your television.  Forbes reports: Practically giving away the device (it’s only $35 and comes with $24 worth of Netflix, even for current Netflix customers) could turn out to be a brilliant move for Google if it results in a massive uptake in customers turning to the search …

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Pay With Your Face

Minority Report. It’s here. In Finland, at least. Finland-based company Uniqul is preparing to release a payment system that uses facial recognition software to link a customer with his or her bank account. Instead of swiping a credit card to purchase goods (which is so painfully last-century), now you can just gaze into a camera.  A Uniqul tablet at check-out …

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Apple Announces iTunes Radio

At today’s developers’ conference Apple announced the launch of iTunes Radio, a streaming service that will compete with Pandora and Spotify.  Via Gizmodo: Apple has finally announced its online streaming and music discovery service. This is how millions of people will listen to music from now on. What we’re looking at here is a Pandora-like radio service that’s built directly …

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Porn Industry Eyes Google Glass

You knew this was coming. Because Google Glass is worn just like a regular pair of glasses at eye level, it allows users to take videos and photos from a distinctly first-person perspective and upload them directly to the Internet. Porn shot from that vantage point, POV style, has, according to Boyer, been popular for quite some time. “Obviously a …

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Google Unveils $10/Month Music Service

At today’s Google developers conference.

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Sen. Schumer: Ban 3D Plastic Guns

After a Texas company claimed to have made the first working plastic gun by using a 3D printer, Sen. Chuck Schumer yesterday held a press conference calling for a federal ban. Defense Distributed, a collective of gun access advocates headed by self-described “free-market anarchist” Cody Wilson, has announced it made such an untraceable gun with the new plastic-making technology. The …

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Amazon To Launch Streaming Video Device

Amazon is readying a new video streaming device similar to Roku and Apple TV. The e-commerce giant is planning to introduce a device this fall dedicated to streaming video over the Internet and into its customers’ living rooms, according to three people familiar with the project who aren’t authorized to discuss it. They say the box will plug into TVs …

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Black Boxes In Every Car By 2014

Associated Press: “Over 90 percent of new cars are being made with a black box. Similar to a flight cockpit recorder, it is called an Event Data Recorder -EDS. It records everything that is happening in your car. At issue is your right to privacy.”

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Russia Considers Moon Mission

It was 52 years ago today that cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. According to this Russia Today report, Russia is ramping up their space program and is considering an attempt to establish a lunar base.

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PC Sales Down After Windows 8 Release

According to reports released yesterday by two firms that analyze the computer market, PC sales have dropped steeply since the release of Windows 8. The ailing personal computer market is getting weaker, and it’s starting to look like it will never fully recover as a new generation of mobile devices reshapes the way people use technology. As if that news …

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Fox Threatens To Go Cable Only

In response to a court ruling that backs the makers of a device that allows subscribers to stream local television from the airwaves to their computers, Fox executives have threatened to stop broadcasting their signal over the air and go cable only. A top executive with the owner of the Fox broadcast network on Monday threatened to convert the network …

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NYC Subway Launches Touchscreen Maps For Maximum Germ-Spreading

New York City’s subway system is launching interactive touchscreen maps that will tell riders the best route, where to transfer, and an estimated travel time. The cost of the screens, of course, will be covered by video advertising. Dozens of 6-foot-4-inch stainless-steel kiosks are to be installed in 19 subway stations in the next few months in what the Metropolitan …

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Introducing Google Nose

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Today In Creepy Realistic Animation

From a company called Activision: This animated character is being rendered in real-time on current video card hardware, using standard bone animation. The rendering techniques, as well as the animation pipeline are being presented at GDC 2013, “Next Generation Character Rendering” on March 27. The original high resolution data was acquired from Light Stage Facial Scanning and Performance Capture by …

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Blackberry Launches iPhone Challenge

Long-foundering Research In Motion this week launches its first competitor to the iPhone and tech sites are rather excited. Note that commmenters at Gizmodo are quite suspicious of the above rendering of what the new Blackberry actually looks like.

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NYPD To Plant GPS Chips In Pill Bottles

As part of their campaign against the black market for prescription narcotics, the NYPD will today announce a plan to hide GPS tracking chips in “bait bottles” to be placed on pharmacy storage shelves. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was expected to unveil the plan Tuesday at a La Quinta, Calif., conference on health issues hosted by former President Bill Clinton’s …

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Paper Computer Debuts At CES

Just a prototype, but very Minority Report.

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World’s Longest High-Speed Rail Line

Launched in China, of course. It used to take the best part of 24 hours to travel by train from Beijing to the southern boomtown of Guangzhou. But as of Wednesday, when the world’s longest high-speed rail line opened for business, the 1,428-mile journey has been cut to a mere eight hours. The trains travel at an average speed of …

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Obituary Of The Day

Details.

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