For everything from family to computers…
https://www.popsci.com/how-many-avocados-it-would-take-to-kill-you?dom=rss-default&src=syn
You really can have too much of a good thing.
via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://ift.tt/2k2uJQn
March 23, 2019 at 08:49AM
https://www.popsci.com/aurora-supercomputer-quintillion-operations?dom=rss-default&src=syn
Understanding Aurora, by the numbers.
via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://ift.tt/2k2uJQn
March 21, 2019 at 04:23PM
https://offspring.lifehacker.com/how-to-automate-parenting-with-ifttt-1833498110
IFTTT, the tool that lets you automate your digital life, can help any parent whose mental load has reached max capacity—and you kind of feel like a tech magician every time you use it. Here are some great IFTTT applets that can make parenting easier. (If you’re new to the service, check out our beginner’s guide to understand the basics.)
You can see if they brought home a friend (or five).
Uses: Date & Time, Manything
When you use the word “kids” in a calendar event, a text with the event URL will be sent to your spouse, co-parent, ex, nanny or whomever else you choose. It gives them an extra heads-up, which helps if they’re not the type that will constantly check a shared calendar.
Uses: Google Calendar, Android SMS
After work, when you are exiting the freeway and close to home, the applet will trigger your Philips hue lights to flash. Your kids will squeal in excitement—or possibly scramble to put away that game they weren’t supposed to be playing.
Uses: Location, Philips Hue
It’s hard to negotiate just five more minutes of Mario Kart when the lights say it’s time to start their night routine.
Uses: Date & Time, Philips Hue
Just type in “Report on the world’s grossest bugs due on April 10″ and the event will show up on your calendar.
Uses: Note widget, Google Calendar
If your child calls 911 for whatever reason, you’ll know immediately.
Uses: Android Phone Call, Android SMS
They’ll know to get ready and meet you at their designated pick-up spot.
Uses: BMW Labs, Android SMS
Your soundly sleeping children will never again be accidentally woken by your “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard …” ringtone.
Uses: Date & Time, Android device
When you come across a neat park, museum or hike and think “I should bring the kids here one day,” email yourself a photo and the location. Then, on those days when you need to get out, you’ll know where to go for ideas.
Uses: Camera widget, email
via Lifehacker https://lifehacker.com
March 22, 2019 at 01:41PM
https://gizmodo.com/all-the-game-streaming-services-google-stadia-is-up-aga-1833457411
This week Google announced Stadia, a gaming service that runs from the cloud rather than a console in your living room or a souped-up gaming rig in your study. The concept of streaming games over the web isn’t new though—these are the other services that Stadia is going up against, and what they offer.
First, let’s quickly recap what Stadia is. Essentially, it runs games on Google’s servers, then streams them to your device of choice at up to a 4K resolution. It will work on basically any device that can run Chrome or supports the Chromecast protocol.
Running games from the cloud to a device means Google can promise some pretty cool tricks—like being able to easily swap between devices, and being able to easily share game states with other people—but we’re still waiting on quite a few of the details, like how much it’s all going to cost.
For this to work, it needs a fast internet connection and a way of minimizing lag between inputs and responses—something Google is looking to do with its own dedicated controller (it connects to the cloud directly via wifi). We’ll have to wait and see just how polished Stadia is when it finally goes live, but in the meantime, this is what it’s up against.
Nvidia launched its GeForce Now platform back in 2015, and it’s still in beta—perhaps a sign of just how difficult streaming video games is. The principle is the same as Google Stadia, with Nvidia GPUs and other hardware running the games, and then streaming them to your devices over the web.
Here the video is capped at 1080p at 60 frames per second, but at least it’s already live, unlike Google’s offering. For that top speed, Nvidia recommends a 50 Mbps connection and will knock the stream down to 720p for connections of 25 Mbps and under. You are limited to four hours of gaming per session however, at which point you’ll have to save the session and come back later.
Originally offered only on the Shield Android TV box, GeForce Now has since been expanded to PCs and Macs—you get access to a full remote Windows PC in the cloud, where you can install any game from a selection of over 400 and stream them to another computer or a Shield. That’s on top of the original Shield package, which focuses on a more limited list of less advanced titles.
Saves are handled in the cloud and enable quick swapping across different devices, and as well as the several hundred (usually older) games that come free with GeForce Now, you can also choose to bolster the selection by buying new games. Online multiplayer is supported for those games that include it.
As we’ve said, GeForce Now remains in beta, and has evolved since it first appeared—like everyone else, Nvidia is still figuring out just how this game streaming stuff works. There is a waiting list to sign up, but it’s free for now until the full commercial launch happens (which might be soon, now Stadia is coming): You can access it in North America and Europe, once you reach the front of the queue.
Like what the GeForce Now service has morphed into, Shadow from French company Blade gives you your very own high-powered Windows 10 machine in the cloud—but in this case you can use it for video editing and other intensive tasks, as well as gaming, and Blade says it’ll work with an internet connection as slow as 5 Mbps.
It’s basically a remote desktop setup, with a 720p, 60 fps stream the maximum you can get on a 5 Mbps connection (15Mbps is recommended for the best experience, especially if you’re gaming). Blade says Shadow uses a secret AI sauce to predict problems in connectivity ahead of time, and make adjustments accordingly.
Pay month-to-month, and Shadow costs $35; stump up for a year at once, and it works out to $30 per month. In both cases, there’s a 30-day free trial available. If you need other stuff besides gaming, then it may be the best option out there at the moment: The service is available in selected regions in the US, as well as the UK, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany.
In terms of the features you get, it’s just like having a Windows 10 PC in front of you, although we’ve noticed a few limitations (using VPNs is discouraged, for instance, and mining cryptocurrency isn’t allowed either). The Shadow app runs on Windows, macOS, Android (including Android TV), and iOS.
Most recently, and perhaps most pertinently when it comes to Stadia, Blade launched the $140 Shadow Ghost: A set-top box that focuses exclusively on the gaming aspect of its service. Instead of using the app on a computer or phone, you plug the Ghost straight into your TV, attach a controller, and get going.
The big two players in consoles, Sony and Microsoft, won’t have been at all blindsided by Google’s Stadia unveiling—despite the question marks over bandwidth and latency we’ve got today in 2019, streaming seems to be the future (or at least part of the future) for gaming going forward, and Sony and Microsoft aren’t going be caught out.
Indeed, it’s Google playing catch up. Sony’s PlayStation Now subscription service has been streaming games since 2014—albeit a limited number of games to a limited number of devices. Today, you can stream games to a PC (through a dedicated app) or a PS4, and use your DualShock controller for an input device, with streaming resolution capped at 720p (Sony says a minimum 5 Mbps connection speed is required). Multiplayer is available too.
At the time of writing, you can pick from over 750 titles from the PS2, PS3, and PS4, and the selection continues to grow. The emphasis is on older titles rather than new AAA blockbusters, but some PS4 games can be downloaded and played locally if you don’t trust your broadband connection. PlayStation Now costs $20 a month if you pay monthly, $45 if you pay for three months in advance ($15 a month), or $100 for a year (a little over $8 a month), with a free trial available.
The service is live in the US, Canada, the UK, Japan, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden right now. Online multiplayer is available as normal for the games that support it, and you can switch between titles on PlayStation 4 and a separate Windows machine.
It feels like a more cautious, limited attempt at what Google is trying (it did once support more devices, including Bravia TVs, but has now been scaled back). The service has its critics and isn’t always reliably stable, but it’s more or less what you would expect from a company with an established gaming business that wants to test the waters with something new.
And what then of Microsoft’s Project xCloud? From what we’ve heard so far (which isn’t all that much), it sounds very Stadia-esque. “Our vision for the evolution of gaming is similar to music and movies—entertainment should be available on demand and accessible from any screen,” wrote Microsoft’s Kareem Choudhry back in October.
Promising “state-of-the-art global game-streaming technology” when it eventually arrives, Project xCloud is going to put Xbox games in the cloud without any extra work needed from the developers, so it’s already got one advantage over Stadia. Of course, Microsoft already has plenty of experience in console and server building to draw on too.
Public trials are starting this year, Microsoft says, with input provided by Xbox Wireless Controllers or “game specific touch input overlay” for some titles on mobile. The company has also revealed that private testing is working over connection speeds of 10 Mbps, so it might not be as demanding in terms of bandwidth as Stadia.
With its existing cloud and gaming services—Azure, Xbox, and Windows—Microsoft might be best placed to take on what Google is offering. We don’t know how much Project xCloud is going to cost, or when and where it’s going to be available, but it sounds like it’ll tie in quite closely with the $10/month Xbox Game Pass.
We’re still waiting to hear more on features, pricing, availability and so on, but expect to hear a lot more when E3 rolls around in June. Like Sony, for the time being Microsoft will be supporting both traditional gaming and the streaming future. It is talking about keeping the Xbox console as a “flagship experience” while at the same time providing an experience that works on any device (like Office or Skype).
via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com
March 22, 2019 at 09:06AM
https://gizmodo.com/i-tried-google-maps-experimental-walking-directions-of-1833225629
The perfect scenario for Google’s new Visual Position System, or VPS, is one you’ve probably been in already: Emerging from a subway station in a strange city. You’ve got your route planned out on your phone, but you don’t know which way is which, or the names of the roads—if you set off in the wrong direction initially, you can lose a lot of time retracing your steps.
Way back at last year’s Google I/O conference we caught a glimpse of this new augmented reality layer coming to Google Maps. It’s designed to overcome the limitations of GPS in heavily built-up areas and remove confusion when you’re following walking directions. It’s not publicly available yet, but we’ve been able to try it, and here’s what’s coming.
VPS pulls its data from the buildings and landmarks around you rather than relying on satellite location alone. By combining VPS with Street View data and some machine learning, Google Maps can work out where you are (and where you should be headed) even if your GPS lock has you placed three blocks north.
It does have some quirks in it that you might not have spotted from Google’s brief demo last year. It’s also worth pointing out that it’s still labeled as an Alpha release—you should expect plenty of bugs at this stage, and plenty of improvements to come down the line.
For access on Android or iOS at the moment, you need to be one of Google’s Local Guides at level 5 or above (that’s someone who leaves a lot of reviews and feedback on Google Maps). As yet, there’s no word on when it’s going to go live for everyone, but here’s how it works from our testing.
Fire up some walking directions as normal, and alongside the usual Start button you’ll also see a Start AR option—choose this to jump straight into augmented reality mode. You can also switch to AR later on your journey by tapping the little cube icon (bottom left) when you’re navigating normally.
Open up the AR interface, hold your phone in front of you, and Google Maps asks you to point your phone’s camera at the buildings opposite. This works separately to the GPS lock, and helps the app get its bearings when GPS might not be reliable.
Most of the time, the scene is recognized in a second or less, and you’re then into the AR mode proper. We did come across a few hiccups when buildings were particularly close (on narrow streets) or far away (on park greens) but by and large it was reliable enough—and remember this is still at the alpha stage, so we’re not even at beta yet.
When Google Maps knows where it is, you can really start to make use of the augmented reality features. Directions appear as either a discreet blue dot at the side of the screen, a blue sign confirming you’re on the right road, or (when you get close to a turn) huge animated arrows pointing you down the next road you need to make a turn on.
This being AR, these giant floating pointers move around as you move yourself and the camera, and they work really well at helping you work out where you should be going. The AR removes all doubt about whether you’re facing the right way or whether you’re at your turn, and having the map also on screen underneath (in a smaller semi-circle) makes the directions even easier to follow.
When you need to be going straight ahead, again this is clearly shown in the app, and street names are included so you can double-check them against signs. When you get close, you’ll see your destination marked with a red Google Maps pin.
This isn’t a mode you keep enabled and open all the time though—it’s something you activate every few minutes to get your bearings again. Tilt the phone down, and you go back to the normal view; tilt it back up, and the AR mode comes back into play. (You can adjust this behavior in the settings for Maps).
The app itself will warn you not to keep your phone up in front of you for too long—the warning appears after only a couple of seconds or a few steps of walking, and it’s really not for extended use. The idea is you stick to the traditional navigation view and turn to AR only when there’s some confusion about where you’re headed next.
In fact, it’s more for when you’re standing still rather than when you’re walking. Considering how unreliable GPS can be when you’re stuck between giant skyscrapers or other towering urban developments, we reckon this is something we’re going to be turning to a lot in the future.
Think of it as an added bonus to walking navigation, rather than an alternative mode you’re going to spend a lot of time in: It’s something you’ll fire up at tricky intersections, or when you’re coming out of the subway, or when your phone’s GPS lock is getting seriously confused about where you are.
Unfortunately, there’s no sign of the fox yet—the digital creature that appeared in Google’s demo at I/O 2018. Google must still be thinking about how best to guide people using the new technology, but it’s already impressive, and something you should switch on if you find it pushed out to your phone.
via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com
March 23, 2019 at 08:06AM
https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/22/mit-ai-automated-neural-network-design/
In an effort "to democratize AI," researchers at MIT have found a way to use artificial intelligence to train machine-learning systems much more efficiently. Their hope is that the new time- and cost-saving algorithm will allow resource-strapped researchers and companies to automate neural network design. In other words, by bringing the time and cost down, they could make this AI technique more accessible.
Today, AI can design machine learning systems known as neural networks in a process called neural architecture search (NAS). But this technique requires a considerable amount of resources like time, processing power and money. Even for Google, producing a single convolution neural network — often used for image classification — takes 48,000 GPU hours. Now, MIT researchers have developed a NAS algorithm that automatically learns a convolution neural network in a fraction of the time — just 200 GPU hours.
Speeding up the process in which AI designs neural networks could enable more people to use and experiment with NAS, and that could advance the adoption of AI. While this is certainly not uncomplicated, it could be a step toward putting AI and machine learning in the hands of more people and companies, freeing it from the towers of tech giants.
Source: MIT News
via Engadget http://www.engadget.com
March 22, 2019 at 02:03PM
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1478303
AT&T’s “5G E” service is slightly slower than Verizon’s and T-Mobile’s advanced 4G LTE networks, a study by OpenSignal has found.
As Ars readers know, AT&T renamed a large portion of its 4G network, calling it “5G E,” for “5G Evolution.” If you see a 5G E indicator on an AT&T phone, that means you’re connected to a portion of AT&T’s 4G LTE network that supports standard LTE-Advanced features such as 256 QAM, 4×4 MIMO, and three-way carrier aggregation. All four major carriers have rolled out LTE-Advanced. But while Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile accurately call it 4G, AT&T calls it 5G E.
Sprint sued AT&T, alleging that AT&T is gaining an unfair advantage by making false and misleading claims to consumers.
AT&T’s network name change may well trick consumers into thinking they’re getting better service than a 4G operator, but they aren’t. We already knew that 5G E has no technological advantage over LTE-Advanced, because they are the same thing with different names. But actual speed tests could reinforce that point.
Such data now comes from an OpenSignal report that is scheduled to go live at this link today at 9am ET. After comparing user-initiated speed tests from more than 1 million devices, OpenSignal found that AT&T’s “5G E” phones get average speeds of 28.8Mbps, which is less than T-Mobile’s 29.4Mbps and Verizon’s 29.9Mbps but higher than Sprint’s 20.4Mbps. The AT&T average of 18.2Mbps on non-advanced LTE was also slightly behind T-Mobile and Verizon but ahead of Sprint:
For each network, this shows the average speed of LTE-Advanced (“5G E”) phones versus the average speed of other 4G phones.
OpenSignal
In other words, AT&T’s 5G E speeds are typical LTE-Advanced speeds. It is a real upgrade over the older portions of AT&T’s 4G network, but that’s true for all four carriers.
“Our analysis shows that AT&T customers with 5G E in their status bars are receiving up to a 60 percent boost in speeds over AT&T customers without it,” OpenSignal CEO Brendan Gill said in a statement to Ars. “Of course, our analysis also shows that the same is true for the equivalent Verizon and T-Mobile customers even though they don’t see a ‘5G E’ label on their device. Bottom line, if one service is offering a meaningful boost over another, it probably should be labeled differently, just not with a name that confuses customers.”
OpenSignal data is based on crowdsourced speed tests that can be performed by anyone using OpenSignal’s apps for iPhone and Android. OpenSignal told us today’s report is based on tests on 1,057,522 devices nationwide, across all four carriers, between January 28 and February 26.
The tests don’t automatically distinguish between LTE-Advanced and regular 4G LTE networks. But OpenSignal is able to distinguish between phone models, and it compared the phones that AT&T says are 5G E-capable to those that aren’t. The resulting data thus compares LTE-Advanced phones to non-LTE-Advanced phones, regardless of whether the tests were conducted in a location where the network supports LTE-Advanced features.
When contacted by Ars, AT&T argued that this limitation invalidates the results.
“OpenSignal’s note reveals their methodology is flawed,” AT&T told Ars. “Speed-test data purporting to show the ‘real-world experience of 5G Evolution’ without verifying the capable devices were tested in a 5G Evolution coverage area as shown by the indicator does not accurately represent the 5G Evolution user experience.”
But all four carriers were measured the same way, and the resulting data may reflect the breadth of each carrier’s LTE-Advanced deployment. Carriers that have deployed more LTE-Advanced coverage across the US would likely get higher speed-test results than carriers that haven’t upgraded their networks to the same extent.
We don’t know exactly how much LTE-Advanced coverage each carrier has. But AT&T has repeatedly boasted about the size of its 5G E/LTE-Advanced footprint, saying it covers more than 400 markets across the United States. If AT&T’s 5G E was significantly faster or more widespread than other carriers’ LTE-Advanced service, the OpenSignal tests probably would have found a big speed difference in AT&T’s favor. Instead, the results showed higher average speeds for Verizon and T-Mobile.
AT&T offered no further comment.
The new results are consistent with OpenSignal’s previous testing. OpenSignal’s overall data on consumer 4G experiences, released in January, showed that AT&T lagged behind Verizon and T-Mobile in 4G availability, video quality, and both download and upload speeds.
OpenSignal’s testing doesn’t yet tell us what speeds consumers can expect when they get real 5G. But the data shows “the extent to which LTE, or 4G, networks have improved since LTE’s original launch,” OpenSignal wrote in today’s report. Deployment of LTE-Advanced technology has created “a much faster experience than the initial version of 4G that was launched back in 2009-2011” but no real advantage for AT&T over its top rivals.
If you’ve been following the AT&T 5G E story, the OpenSignal results won’t surprise you. But if you know anyone who’s confused by AT&T’s misleading marketing, now you’ve got some data to help clear things up.
via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com
March 22, 2019 at 08:03AM
