Day: January 24, 2017

Scientists have finally filmed what’s known as a “sonic boom” being created by light. But the breakthrough with the most immediate potential may be the camera itself.

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Homebrew-friendly boards like the Raspberry Pi are great for do-it-yourself projects, but they seldom have the oomph needed to handle intensive tasks. That’s where ASUS hopes to do better — it quietly released its own device, the appropriately named Tinker Board. It’s almost the same size as the Pi, but its quad-core Rockchip processor has the power to play 4K video and 24-bit audio. This might be your ideal hardware if you’re building your own mini media center.

The board touts other perks you don’t usually see on these boards, including 2GB of RAM (twice as much as the Pi), gigabit Ethernet and the latest generation of SDIO for add-on boards.

ASUS’ hardware is not surprisingly more expensive than its rival at about £55 ($68). However, the bigger question is software. Like the Raspberry Pi, the Tinker Board runs on a variant of Debian Linux and supports Kodi for around-the-home media streaming. As Liliputing notes, though, ASUS doesn’t have the Pi’s years of developer support and fandom behind it — you can accomplish more, but you won’t have as much help getting started.

Via: Hexus, Liliputing

Source: CPC

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Chinese authorities block access to big-name websites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and numerous others, and to thwart these restrictions, many residents on the mainland use virtual private networks. Starting this week, that could be a crime. Use of VPNs and special cable connections in China must now be approved by the government, essentially making these services illegal in the country.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the new rules on Sunday, as reported by the South China Morning Post. Calling it a "clean-up" of the country’s internet connections, the Ministry said the new rules would go live immediately and be in place until March 31st, 2018.

VPNs are already subject to government scrutiny and interference in China. The most recent, large-scale crackdown on VPNs happened in March 2016, during the National People’s Congress meeting in Beijing, SCMP says.

As The Washington Post points out, China’s new VPN and cable regulations are purposefully vague. It’s unclear how the government will implement or enforce these rules, but the language in the announcement suggests Chinese officials are taking aim at companies who provide VPN services to individual citizens, rather than professionals working for multinational corporations in the country.

Last week, in stark contrast to the Ministry’s new VPN rules, Chinese leader Xi Jinping defended the tenets of globalization at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"We must redouble efforts to develop global connectivity to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share prosperity. … Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will also block light and air," he said.

China isn’t the only country that censors internet access: Authorities in Egypt, Russia, Cuba, Bahrain, Turkey, Vietnam and other nations also routinely interrupt connections, particularly during times of political strife. In July, the United Nations Human Rights Council condemned the state-sponsored disruption of internet access and upheld online privacy as an essential facet of freedom of expression.

Via: The Washington Post

Source: South China Morning Post

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University of Michigan researchers have developed a technique for a new ‘metamaterial’ that can change its level of solidness, but without damaging or changing the material itself. Metamaterials are man-made materials whose properties come from the way it’s constructed rather than what it’s composed from. Scientist can then tinker with its structure to affect its properties. Those effects can be very broad: researchers were able to create a camera that doesn’t require a lens to work using different man-made materials. This one’s different again.

This time, researchers in Michigan have made something that can be easily manipulated to increase the stiffness of its surface, and the difference could be significant: the researchers say it’s comparable to the difference between rubber and steel. Even better, because the property comes from the total structure, shifting between hard and soft states doesn’t damage the material.

It’s all to do with structural hinges inside the metamaterial which, as any sensible group of scientists would (or should), they decided to macro-model from a kids’ toy — some K’nex:

This demonstrates what’s happening inside the material: depending on the forces that come in touch with the sides (and how the material is constructed, or its "topological polarization"), it’ll give or it won’t. The unusual hinges within the metamaterial are what gives it this unusual property — you can watch the whole, slightly confusing, video here, hosted by Nature.

Xiaoming Mao, Assistant Professor of Physics, says the way an object comes in contact with the edge of the metamaterial changes the geometry of the material’s structure, and how it responds to stress at the edge. Because this all happens at the surface, the inside of the metamaterial remains damage-free. The team suggests cars or rocket launch systems as possible future uses, helping to absorb damage from collisions and crashes. It could even prove useful for bicycle tires that self-adjust depending on the surface you’re riding on. It certainly won’t look like a bunch of K’nex at that point.

Via: University of Michigan

Source: Nature

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Netflix pushed an update out to Android devices today that gives you some flexibility in where you store your offline content. Adding to the November release that allowed you to download shows for later viewing, Netflix is now letting you choose whether you want them stored internally or on an SD card.

The update also fixes some bugs. It should be live for all right now. 

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Netflix Update on Android Adds SD Card Storage of Offline Content is a post from: Droid Life

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