AMD has delivered some of the best (or at least fondly remembered) processors to the computer industry since its founding. They were the first company to develop a dual-core x86 processor, and from 2008 and onwards quickly improved the concept with their tri-core and quad-core designs before stunning us with their octa-core chips in 2011. Yesterday the company took another leap forward, and announced their desktop and laptop chip called Kaveri, which is a glorious amalgamation of up to four CPU cores and eight GPU cores. AMD has given the setup a large degree of computing independence, which is why AMD…
Author: Nic Boerma
Bringrr is the gadget made for people who tend to forget things, especially when you might be on your way to somewhere, such as work, and being late due to missing items isn’t really an option. Originally launched in 2010, the phone charger, which fits into your car’s cigarette lighter port, could only track your phone. Seeing as nobody can breathe unless their phone is within reaching distances these days, the gadget has been remade to keep tabs on all the other things we might forget. Bringrr now keeps tabs on your other stuff via Bluetooth LE tags that are…
The poaching of endangered animals is nothing short of tragic, and very few safeguards seem to be having a huge impact on the state of things. In the past, drones have been utilised to combat the situation to great effect, and yesterday startup Airwave announced the results of a successful field trial conducted at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, which is the largest Black Rhino sanctuary in East Africa. Airwave used specialized drones during their field trial that can monitor huge areas of land to ultimately help protect rhinos against poachers. Throughout the course of the two-week trial two types…
Junqiao Wu, a physicist who heads up a group at Berkeley working on material science, and his research team have developed a robotic micro-muscle that is a 1000 times stronger than any human muscle, and is capable of launching objects 50 times heavier than itself over distances five times its length. So… a bit like ants then? It can perform this feat within 60 milliseconds. The muscle is made from vanadium dioxide, which is a rock star in the materials world. It can change size, shape and physical identity given specific stimuli, allowing it to function as both an insulator…
Last week saw the launch of OckCorp’s TEO padlock on Kickstarter, the world’s first smart padlock. Now we know that there are other smart locks already out there, but what makes the TEO a first is the fact that it is, well, a padlock that you can unlock with your smartphone. The TEO is the brainchild of Gord Duncan, who envisaged the piece of tech when, according to an interview he had with Apple Insider, he had rented an SUV in Costa Rica and was haunted by the idea of losing his keys. The lock works via its dedicated TEO…
According to the BBC, Valve might just release a software development kit next week that aims to give developers a standard way to implement controls for VR games. The details are sparse, though it is believed that the company will make the SDK official at the Steam Dev Days event later this month. Valve has stated in the past that it plans to reveal a prototype that will show what VR tech will be capable of in the coming years and this could be a precursor to their virtual reality tech. Valve’s VR-specific developer kit will be launched as part…
For most (or some) of us this has been the first week back at work, and we’re sure it’s been tough. So to make you feel better and get ready for the weekend, here are some dancing drones. There’s not really any point to the video, aside from the awesomeness of seeing a set of synchronised drones performing a series of stunts in time to some music. Try not to think about how hard it must have been to get this video to fit the backing tune. Source: Engadget
Smart eyewear is definitely part of the soon-to-be-revolution in wearable smart tech, with Google Glass ahead in the race. Yesterday we reported on GlassUp and their response to the Google Glass, but today at CES 2014 Innovega announced what can be seen the logical expansion to smart glasses, high tech iOptik contact lenses. The ground breaking tech is called the Innovega eyewear system and consists of two parts, namely glasses and contact lenses. The contact lenses will supposedly give you augmented focusing abilities, which will allow you to see things up close and at a distance in ways outside the…
We’ve written some posts about IBM’s Watson in the past, and it seems that the computer that has been wreaking havoc with “Jeopardy!” contestants has been given some money to help IBM realise its return to growth. IBM is ready to fund the newly-formed Watson Business Group to the tune of $1 billion, funds which will be focused on “…the development and commercialization of cloud-delivered cognitive innovations.” The business division will be housed in Manhattan, and will use Watson to develop apps for a selection of fields, some of which include healthcare, finance, travel, telecommunications and retail. Imagine Watson telling…
Today Venice-based company GlassUp unveiled their first take on augmented reality glasses. The prototype looks to be an combination of Google Glass with a typical heads-up display. The difference is in the way GlassUp works. It projects an image onto a lens that sits in front of your eye, and not on an offset prism the way that Google Glass does. The reason for this is the folks at GlassUp envision a more functional role for their product. The prototype is aimed at giving drivers, doctors and fighter pilots, among others, access to text-based info that does not necessitate them…