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Having a tripod always on hand can mean the difference between a mediocre or a great shot, but only if you can get it set up in time. By eliminating knobs, buttons, and gangly extending legs, Edelkrone has created an interesting tripod alternative that can be easily positioned in seconds.

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Some judges might think you’re allowed to shoot down drones that encroach on your turf, but don’t tell that to the Federal Aviation Administration. In response to Forbes‘ questions, the agency says that shooting down a drone is a federal crime. You’re still damaging an aircraft, according to the FAA — it’s just that this one doesn’t have a pilot onboard. You could face up to 20 years in prison as a result, which is bound to make you think twice about blasting that drone peeping at your backyard.

If that opinion holds up in court, it raises all kinds of thorny questions. If a drone threatens your safety, does shooting it down count as self-defense? What about state measures that let authorities shoot down problematic drones, such as a proposed law in Utah? And what about alternatives that use birds or even other drones to take the machines down? Those decisions may have to wait until there’s a case that creates legal precedent, and any incident like that is bound to be messy.

Via: Popular Science

Source: Forbes

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I can trace my computing history along a path of display milestones. The 10-inch VGA monitor that came with my Packard Bell desktop in the ’90s was a huge leap forward from the low-res Apple II displays I used in school. Then there was the 20-inch Sony Trinitron flat CRT that I brought to college with my first custom-built desktop, which served as my dorm entertainment center for years. These days, I rock two 24-inch 1080p LCDs at home, and I’m eyeing an ultra-wide screen upgrade at some point. After spending several hours with Virtual Desktop, a $15 app developed by Guy Godin for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive that brings the full Windows experience to VR, it seems like we’re close to yet another display revolution.

Imagine having your entire Windows desktop projected on a movie theater screen while sitting in the best seat in the house, and you’ll have some idea of what Virtual Desktop offers. Instead of a darkened theater, though, the display floats atop your choice of backgrounds (I really enjoy the detailed space environments). It brings to mind fantastical interfaces from science fiction — in particular, the trippy augmented reality setup from the game Heavy Rain.

There’s a definite “wow” factor to Virtual Desktop. After installing and running the app, I just slipped on my Rift headset and was presented with an impressive recreation of my Windows setup. Once you’re in virtual view, you can resize the size and distance of the desktop, from the equivalent of sitting six feet away from a 60-inch display, to having it tower before you as if it were on a enormous IMAX screen. I found it most comfortable to have the virtual screen completely fill up my field of vision, even though that also involved occasionally moving my head around to focus on specific things.

SteamVR’s “desktop theater mode” on the HTC Vive also lets you use Windows in VR, but in my testing it was hard to actually read text and use Windows as you normally would. It’s mainly meant for playing non-VR games and movies in your headset. In comparison, I had no trouble going through my email, browsing the web and reading long articles with Virtual Desktop. It was so comfortable, in fact, that I was able to use it for hours on end.

Virtual Desktop is particularly impressive when it comes to watching videos, since you can freely make the screen larger for a more cinematic experience. Of course, you won’t get the full resolution of 1080p HD videos, since both the Rift and Vive are limited by their displays, which only offer a resolution of 1280 x 1080 pixels per eye. Videos still looked sharp and clear in full-screen mode though. And after being underwhelmed by the virtual theater apps on both the Rift and Vive, which seem more focused on reminding you that you’re in a VR environment than actually making videos look good, I was surprised to find I actually enjoyed watching things with Virtual Desktop.

There’s also support for viewing 360-degree videos and photos with the app, which is useful for quickly jumping into an immersive clip from YouTube. This is one area that the app needs to improve on, though. To plug in a video, you need to copy a URL to your clipboard and insert that into Virtual Desktop’s settings app. It’ll then proceed to download the video and play it instantly. You can also open up 360-degree videos already on your computer, but it’s far more likely you’ll be grabbing content from YouTube and other sites.

The big problem with the app? You still have to rely on your keyboard and mouse to navigate Windows, which will definitely be an issue if you don’t touch-type well. Remember, you can’t easily see what’s going on in front of you. Virtual Desktop shows why something like the Vive’s webcam, which lets you quickly view the outside world, is essential for all VR headsets. I did most of my testing with the Oculus Rift, so I was forced to either type very carefully, or remove the headset if I needed to hit a specific key. (Function keys, in particular, are hard to touch-type.)

I was able to write several lengthy emails while wearing the Rift, but it always took a few seconds for my fingers to readjust to the key positions after taking my hands away. That ended up being a bigger issue for entering web addresses or numbers of any kind, since those involve hitting keys that aren’t in my normal touch-typing range. (My slim wireless keyboard doesn’t have a number pad, though that probably would make my life easier.) Mousing around Windows in Virtual Desktop was fine, and the app also made something mundane like photo editing feel like a revelatory experience. Cropping and recoloring a giant image felt akin to working on a giant Jackson Pollock-esque canvas.

I won’t be giving up my dual monitor setup anytime soon, but I was surprised by how well my workflow transferred to Virtual Desktop. I could see creative types preferring it to a restrictive monitor setup, especially for things like video and audio editing, where you normally have dozens of tracks to juggle at one. Just like the first batch of VR hardware, the app feels like a sign of things to come. It won’t be too long until we can just slip on a pair of glasses to have a full desktop environment emerge from our smartphones.

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Google finally added podcasts to Google Play Music this week, but the episodic content is still rolling out to the music service’s Android app. While you’re waiting to have all of your listening content in one place, the folks in Mountain View are giving you another option in the main search app. Starting today, you’ll be able to fire up a podcast right from the search results in the Google app on Android. Once you start a show, a player appears at the bottom of the window with play/pause controls and options for skipping ahead 30 seconds and skipping back 10 seconds.

Need to do something else on your phone? The podcast will continue playing from the Google app if you leave, and those controls are easily accessible by swiping down on the notifications menu — similar to other audio apps. What’s more, some podcasts that aren’t available through Google Play Music are with this new feature in the main Google app. For example, searching for Serial or Fresh Air produces the last few episodes, but those two popular podcasts don’t show up in Music’s web-based desktop app. The opposite is true as well: some of the podcasts in Music on the desktop don’t immediately pop up when I search for them in the Google app.

The initial search results show you the three most recent episodes with a play button beside each one. If you need to go back further, tapping “more episodes” will display the podcast’s description and a longer episode list. In the case of Serial, you see all 26 episodes, but for one that’s been around longer, like Fresh Air, Google will let you browse the last 50. If you don’t mind streaming podcasts, this is a handy add-on to an app you already have on your phone. However, if you prefer to take your listening offline, you’ll need to look into options like Pocket Casts, Spotify and others.

Source: Google

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Interested in building and programming your own robot? You might want to give Antbo a try. Billed as the “insect robot designed for anyone with an inquisitive mind,” it’s a programmable entry-level kit for beginners or anyone with a casual interest in robotics.

DFRobot’s Antbo is geared toward children and teenagers, meant to impart coding and robotics knowledge. The ant-like bot can navigate mazes and even fight with other Antbo units.

Antbo can be programmed using Scratch, Arduino IDE, and DFRobot’s visual programming app WhenDo. Scratch is a great gateway drug to more advanced coding, while Arduino’s wide usage and support is great for programming newcomers to get accustomed to.

Antbo is unique in that it possesses impressive learning qualities that allow it to analyze its surroundings, interact with other Antbo devices and more. Its thirty “neurons” make it capable of learning, similar to real living things. It can also learn and mimic emotional responses to stimuli. For instance, it might tremble if frightened by something, or respond by looking back and forth to signify it’s feeling inquisitive.

The hope is that kids will be attracted to Antbo’s lighthearted design and simple assembly. But, expansion and additional programming is encouraged, which should keep them engaged and tinkering for a long time.

This diminutive insectoid is now live on Indiegogo, and you can go ahead and secure a pre-order for just $59. Units are expected to ship this November. Buy a couple Antbo units and you can make them fight each other, or simply fetch snacks.

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While Facebook is obsessed with bots, it’s not the only new feature the company has been working on for Messenger. The app will soon be getting group calls which, as its name implies, allows you to have an audio-based conversation with multiple people. With the latest version of the Messenger app, it’s just a matter of tapping the phone icon while you’re inside a group chat. Once you’ve done this, Facebook will give you a secondary screen to manage the people on the call. TechCrunch reports that you can have a maximum of 50 friends on a single group call.

Facebook hasn’t talked about group video calling, although it stands to reason the feature is in its long-term roadmap. Unlike WhatsApp, which seems content to be a simple and secure SMS replacement, Messenger is being developed as a more advanced, helpful and socially integrated chat application. Group video calling is one of the few ways that Skype and Google Hangouts continue to trump Messenger — removing that differentiator would likely extend Facebook’s dominance on mobile.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: David Marcus (Facebook)

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If you’ve wanted to use a virtual private network to improve your web privacy or (let’s be honest) dodge content restrictions, you’ve usually had to either install a third-party client or use a relatively niche browser with the feature built-in. As of today, though, you have a more mainstream option: Opera has released a developer version of its desktop web browser with native VPN support. You only have to flick a virtual switch to get a 256-bit encrypted connection that hides your connection details and prevents sites or governments from blocking content they don’t want you to see.

The preview version only gives you three simulated locations for the VPN (Canada, Germany and the US), so this won’t give you access to a whole lot until the finished browser is ready. However, the VPN is free. If all you want is to access a forbidden streaming service or make it harder for snoops to monitor your traffic, this might be your easiest and most affordable solution.

Source: Opera

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