If you are in the market for external storage you may be interested to know that LaCie has unveiled its new 2019 USB storage at CES 2019 this week offering up to 5TB of USB storage.

Seagate has also unveiled the new FireCuda 510 is a gamer-oriented NVMe drive that mates up to 2TB of solid-state storage with sequential read and write speeds of 3,400MB/s and 3,100MB/s respectively.
The Ultra Touch arrives in late January as wither 1TB priced at $70 with a 2 TB version available for $90. The Slim and Portable Storage systems will be available in late February, with 1TB price at $60.02 terabytes priced at $80 for the Slim. While the Portable will be available in 4TB sizes priced at $110 and 5TB priced at $130. For more details and full specifications jump over to the official LaCie website.

Today’s digital world impacts businesses and consumers globally. Companies are increasing digitization and consumers are embracing personalized, real-time data interactions. With these changes come higher expectations for managing data,” said Jeff Fochtman, vice president of marketing for Seagate. “With over 40 years’ experience in data management, Seagate is continuously innovating to prepare customers for this new era of data resilience. Our new lineup of data storage solutions empower consumers to efficiently manage their video, photos, and documents, at home, in the office, or on-the-go

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The practical and impractical uses of the Raspberry Pi knows no bounds. The Robofun-Create team has created a keyboard that instead of emitting the classic ‘clacking’ sound of computer keys, it makes the sound of snapping open a cold brew. This is because the entire keyboard is made up of beer cans. Unfortunately, there’s no chance of you actually having the option to buy one, it was simply a demonstration at the 2012 Webstock Conference in Bucharest, Romania as a project sponsored by Prague-based brewing company Staropramen.

Robofun placed capacitive controls under each key, errr- beer. The 44 cans represent the letters and functions of a regular QWERTY keyboard and are label above. When pressing a key, a signal from the capacitive controls is processed using and Arduino board to get the desired output. From there, the signal is sent to a plasma display using the Raspberry Pi as an interface. The entire contraption could be used as a regular plug and play keyboard on any computer, if there is any keyboard leftover.

Visitors to Webstock 2012 used the beer keyboard to input their emails and enter a Staropramen contest. In my opinion a more entertaining contests would have resulted from taking off the labels and having the contestant enter their email after having drank some of the “keys."

Robofun is the largest open0source store in Romania. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by.

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It’s true, Uli Kilian is a genius. Earning a Guinness World Record in 2011 for solving 100 Rubik’s cubes during the London Marathon, the man is hailed worldwide for his wit. His newest project, however, is what he calls rudimentary – a Lego robot that plays free-to-play games for him while he sleeps.  It all began when Kilian was playing Jurassic Park Builder, an F2P iPad game that requires the gamer to tap the dinosaurs on the screen every few minutes to earn in-game currency. For gamers who don’t want to waste precious time better-spent-doing-anything-else-really, they can dish out real-world dollars to advance in the game to higher levels. Kilian, instead, decided to take a different route.

 

 

He decided the required tapping could easily be automated, as the screen needs to be tapped every few minutes. The Rubik’s cube genius thus built a Lego robot to do his F2P game bidding during the night while he got his beauty sleep.

The robot was build using an older iPad, mounted on top of a Technics wheel. The entire unit is powered by an Arduino board, connected to a nearby laptop with a Windows OS. Atop the board sits a Lego robot, which nods back and forth, tapping the iPad screen every so often with an Arduino ground pin wrapped in tin foil, simulating human touch.

Put simply, while Kilian sleeps, a motor slides the iPad screen back and forth, positioning it so when the Lego robot taps the screen, it taps the desired area. In the game, Killian has a row of 11 dinosaurs, which each generate game money every five minutes. By the time the 3D artist wakes up in the morning, the Lego has collected hundreds of thousands of coins for him. Good boy. Kilian said he heard about the Arduino board only two weeks before he built his Lego robot and assures everyone that its the type of simple design that anyone can do (anyone that’s smart enough to solve a Rubik’s cube maybe)

 

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There are literally thousands of Raspberry Pi projects that have been posted on the internet since the device was introduced to the market as a learning tool way back in 2012 and while some border on the mundane (using it simply as a PC) others are truly unique. Case-in-point- programmer/photographer David Hunts do-it-yourself Pi-based PiPhone project, which turns the popular single-board computer into a cellphone.

 

The phone, as it is at this point, doesn’t rival current smartphones or even cellphones for that matter, however it IS a cellphone essentially and does function as any cellphone should. David created his PiPhone using off-the-shelf parts and makes use of the Raspberry Pi as its foundation, a hub of sorts that binds everything together. Connected to the Pi is a SIM900 GSM/GPRS communications module, which is attached VIA UART, allowing the device to send AT commands in order to make phone calls, send text messages, hang-up, etc. The module features a SIM slot that allowed David to insert his prepaid SIM card to initialize his device in order to make calls over his preferred network. The phone is outfitted with a rechargeable LiPo battery (complete with on/off switch) with a DC-DC converter, which transitions the native 3.7 volts to a beefier 5 volts needed to power the phone. An Adafruit TFT touchscreen display (320 X 240) was used as the phone’s input panel and is programmed to display simple numbers and a phone icon to answer calls as well as hanging up. That’s it. That’s all there is to the PiPhone, which is all that it was meant to be as David created it as a cheap, proof-of-concept device

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One of the biggest features of Apple's mobile OS is its voice recognition tool, Siri. Siri allows users to ask questions such as “are there any taco restaurants around” and will process the question and give the user an appropriate answer - we know the deal. Most impressively, Siri is good at understanding people's everyday language. Users can speak how they normally would to another person and Siri can interpret the meaning correctly or will ask questions to get a better understanding of what was asked. This is a demonstration of the recent technological advances in the area of speech recognition.

Since Siri has been so successful it is only natural for Apple's competitors to come with their own versions of personal assistants for their mobile products. The latest versions of Android software now comes equipped with Google Now, Google's very own intelligent personal assistant. Google Now comes as part of the Google Search application and can learn and adapt over time to a user's search habits. Now, Microsoft is set to soon join the voice recognition competition by releasing its  own personal assistant, currently known as Cortana.

The name Cortana stems from the popular Halo series on Microsoft's Xbox consoles. Cortana is a fictional AI character who feeds information to the main character. With Window's newest phone update Cortana will take the form of an animated circular icon which will change shape when speaking or processing information. Additionally, much like Google Now, Cortana will be capable of keeping track of user's previous search requests and use this information to better process requests in the future. Cortana will also attempt to learn a user's schedule and goals. Using this information it will then find and offer useful information to the user

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The new Raspberry Pi Compute Development Kit enables design engineers
to harness the power of the Raspberry Pi for embedded applications.

• Small and Powerful. SODIMM sized (6.5cm by 3cm) Raspberry Pi board contains the BCM2835 chip with 512MB RAM with an on board 4GB eMMC Flash memory for booting the OS.
• Flexible and Rapid Prototype Development. A fully functional IO board is part of the development kit which supports an extensive GPIO and multiple connectors to help foster rapid prototype development with access to all of the BCM2835 functionality.
• Custom Hardware and Software Solutions. Benefit from fully functional Linux server running on your ‘design-in’ hardware solution. This unique combination of services will help define the next generation of the ‘Internet of Things’        
• Compute Module Development Kit Technical Specifications:
  Compute Module:
• SODIMM sized 6.5cm by 3cm board
• BCM2835 chip with 512MB RAM
• On board 4GB eMMC Flash memor
• 200 pin edge connector

IO board:

• Multiple GPIO interfaces
• 1 x micro USB connector type B
• 1 x USB connector type A
• 2 x CSI ports for camera boards
• 2 x DSI ports for display boards
• Full size HDMI port

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The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom was launched recently, and now we have an unboxing video of Samsung’s latest camera smartphone that give us a good look at the handset.

The Galaxy S4 Zoom comes with a 4.3 inch qHD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels, the device features a 1.5GHz processor and Samsung says that there will be different versions of the processor in different countries.

Other specifications on the device include Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and the handset comes with 4G LTE and 3G, it also comes with 1.4GB of RAM and 8GB of built in storage, around 5GB of this is useable and it also features a microSD card slot with support for 64GB cards.

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Intel certainly rules the roost when it comes to processors for traditional computers such as desktops and notebooks, it is far from the biggest name in mobile chips. Traditionally Intel’s processors use too much power to be competitive in the mobile market for things such as smartphones and tablets, but the chipmaking giant wants to change that. Intel is teasing a new generation of low-power Haswell chips specifically designed for tablets.

Intel has announced a new Y-series chip that has a 4.5 watt scenario design point. This is different than a processors TDP. Intel says that its new chip will be able to be used inside a chassis designed to cool only 4.5 watts of heat. When distilled down that means the chip is designed for tablets that are too thin to have a fan of any sort.

This new chip will be available in limited quantities, which seems to indicate that no device makers have picked up the tablet chip in bulk. It’s nice to see Intel working still to compete against ARM in the mobile chip space and that is good news for tablet fans.

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Samsung has announced that it has put its new 3GB LPDDR3 RAM into production, the RAM is designed to be used in smartphones, and is also designed to use low amounts of power.

“Three gigabyte mobile DRAM will be adopted in the most up-to-date, high-end smartphones starting in the second half of this year − an initial adoption that will expand to most high-end smartphones worldwide next year,” said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. “We will develop a new 3GB LPDDR3 solution based on four 6Gb LPDDR3 DRAM chips by symmetrically stacking two chips on each side, which will boost smartphone performance to the next level by year-end.”

There are no details as yet on which devices will be the first to get this new Samsung 3GB RAM, we wonder if it will launch with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which is rumored to come with 3GB of RAM

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Samsung are expected to announce the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 on the 4th of September at their IFA press conference, and now it would appear that they may also announce their new Samsung Galaxy Gear Smart Watch at the same event.

According to a recent report by Patently Apple, Samsung are looking to reveal the Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch before Apple’s September press event.

As yet we do not have many details about the Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch, although we suspect it will be able to perform a number of talks in conjunction with Samsung’s Galaxy range of smartphones and tablet.

Samsung are obviously looking to announce the new Samsung smart watch before Apple releases the Apple iWatch, although that is not expected to launch until next year.

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Major services on the internet don’y usually announce that they will be shutting down for hours at a time, but that is what is happening here. Flickr announced today that tomorrow it will be shut down for six hours. Yep, that’s six hours that the service won’t be available on the web and through mobile devices.

This is so that Flickr can undergo “planned maintenance” from 4pm to 10pm PDT on July 25th. A site wide notice will be go out an hour before the service is shut down to make sure that none of the users are caught by surprise while they are looking at neat pictures.

During that time, Flickr’s API will also not be available. No word on just what they hope to accomplish from this maintenance.

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If you thought Google Glass was creepy then some of the new products being worked on by the Google owned Motorola are certainly a lot creepier, they include a password pill and a digital tattoo.

Former DARPA head, Regina Dugan, who now runs special projects at Motorola revealed at D11 that the company is working on an electronic tattoo than can be used to authenticate a user instead of a password

On top of that Motorola are working on a Password Pill, which is basically a pill shaped device that you swallow, it features a built in battery that is charged by your stomach acid, it then produces an 18 bit internal signal which acts the same as a password.

There are no details on whether either of these products from Google and Motorola will make it to market.

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I still think one of the coolest DVRs on the market is Dish Network’s Hopper DVR. The Hopper DVR is a whole home DVR system that allows you to record your favorite programs on any TV in the home and play them back on any other TV in your house. Dish Network has announced that it has added a new Hopper App that makes the whole home DVR system more social.

The new app is called Social and gives users the ability to join social conversations about their favorite shows directly from the TV screen. Dish says that this is the first set-top box application capable of providing contextually relevant social feeds. The app allows viewers to watch a show and follow social posts about it on the same screen.

The application can be accessed using the Dish quick launch bar, which is accessed by pushing the blue button on the remote control. Users can link up to four Twitter and four Facebook accounts to the application. The app offers three different types of content that can be displayed in the status bar located on the right side of the TV screen when the app is open. The content includes Now Watching, showing the show or channel the user is currently looking at. My Twitter displays the user’s favorite twitter feed when logged in and provides full Twitter functionality. My Facebook displays the user’s personal Facebook feed allowing them to post status updates or select a pre-drafted status update from within the app.

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The Samsung Galaxy S4 will launch on two new carriers in the US next month, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, although neither carrier has revealed how much the Galaxy S4 will retail for on their networks.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is powered by a quad core 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, it comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and features a 5 inch Full HD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.
Other specifications in the device include a 2,600 mAh battery, the device also comes with dual cameras with a 2 megapixel front facing camera and a rear facing 13 megapixel camera, plus a choice of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of built in storage and a microSD card slot
As soon as we get some more details on the price of the Samsung Galaxy S4 on both Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, including some exact launch dates for the device in June we will let you guys know.

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Google Chrome is one of the most widely used browsers in the world at present. Its strength lies in the (initial name, of course!) various apps provided in the browser. And recent modifications are aimed to make these apps function even better.

Quite recently, push alerts have been added into the Chrome Operating System. Cloud Messaging is a unique way of apps interacting. The Cloud Messaging is aimed at letting apps receive notifications externally and to reply back to them efficiently. Previously, the Chrome apps had to contact the server to check for available spots. This led to an increased delay in time consumed, higher power consumption and more data usage. Even a small news alert or simple message would end up causing losses.

But now, the system has positively changed. In the new notification settings, developers have gone with the token system. Each app will now request for a token, which will help it to post the message via a server. Cloud Messaging, thus, just got simpler for the user. As long as you are signed into Chrome, the app will be able to instantly deliver the notification or message. This saves the time, data and power consumption.

It also ensures that the Chrome apps run only when they are needed. The energy saving factor is one which will definitely help Chrome get rated above others. The upcoming Google I/O event will showcase the new features in all the Google products. This will be one of them too.

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John McGinnis has spent more than two decades teaching himself aeronautical engineering and thinks he has the answer to the flying cars dilemma. After reading a NASA research paper that challenged the traditional equation for aerodynamic drag, McGinnis believed he finally found the answer for making a flying vehicle that’s cheap, safe, efficient, quiet, and can comfortably seat a family of four

John McGinnis has spent more than two decades teaching himself aeronautical engineering and thinks he has the answer to the flying cars dilemma. After reading a NASA research paper that challenged the traditional equation for aerodynamic drag, McGinnis believed he finally found the answer for making a flying vehicle that’s cheap, safe, efficient, quiet, and can comfortably seat a family of four.

He calls the plane Synergy. Its major innovative leap is in its box shaped wings that are designed for minimum drag and maximum efficiency to make gliding easier than ever before. The wings remain in box formation while taking off and extend once the vehicle is in flight. When you’re ready to land the vehicle, the wings contract back into place. The plane is coupled with an autopilot computer that can land the craft for you and a ballistic parachute just in case of emergency.

McGinnis claims to be working on the plane ninety hours a week, and believes he’ll have a working prototype by the end of this year. We might all finally get the flying cars that science fiction movies have been promising for decades.

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On May 9^th, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission said they’re planning on auctioning the right to use new airwaves that would improve in-flight Wi-Fi connections. The overall goal is to provide Wi-Fi that is equal to – or even better than – the connection most people experience in their own homes.

The new method of in-flight works by allowing better contact between the plane and the ground, and would allow internet service providers to share airwaves with satellite communication companies. The vote to move forward with auctioning off such licenses ended up unanimous, although it’ll still likely take years for better Wi-Fi to actually get off the ground.

Currently about twenty-five percent of all US flights offer Wi-Fi service, with another twelve percent currently testing or undergoing a trial run of the service on some of their flights. Offering a Wi-Fi service in-flight costs a company a lot of money and – to be completely honest – is not really worth the trouble due to how crappy the Wi-Fi is.

The main problem now will be cost. The Federal Communication Commission did not mention how much they planned to sell the licenses for and are still unsure about how many they plan to sell. While the current transition to a world that is always online has left many people desperate for an internet connection during their flights, many people already opt not to use the service simply because of the cost.

How much would you be willing to pay to be able to connect to the internet in-flight?

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Some of our readers will remember the Samsung Evolution Kit for their Smart TVs that was announced back in January, the kit is now available in South Korea, and it brings all the features of Samsung’s latest smart TVs to older models.

Samsung’s Evolution Kit is compatible with select 2012 Samsung Smart models, including ES7000 and ES8000. The Smart Evolution Kit is packaged with the 2013 Smart Touch Remote and will be available next week. Owner’s of Samsung’s ES8000 and ES7000 TVs can use the coupon provided to them and receive 50% off the Smart Evolution Kit for a price of 300,000 won. Alternatively, ES8000 and ES7000 owners can register their TV’s serial number at www.samsung.com/sec to receive 50% off the Smart Evolution Kit.

You can find out more details about the Samsung Evolution Kit over at Samsung, there are no details as yet on when it will launch in other countries.

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What if you could drive your scooter to work, then instead of parking it somewhere, just fold it up and carry it like a suitcase that rolls on wheels. Well, now you can my scooter loving friend.

After five years of development by the hungarian non-profit antro group, the ‘moveo’ has arrived. This scooter is a lightweight electric scooter with folding capabilities. That means you can drive it, then collapse it like a rolling suitcase and be on your way.

It weighs just 25 kilograms (55 lbs) and has a top speed of 45 km/h (28 mph), with a battery range of 35 kilometers (21.75 miles) per charge. Not bad. Hopefully we can buy one soon. No one will steal your scooter if it is safely in your office.

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We have featured a number of amazing creations using the $35 Raspberry Pi mini PC, but this new portable version of the Raspberry Pi, using a low cost LCD TFT display, and 12v power supply, pushes the boundaries once again.The new Portable Raspberry Pi has been created by SK Pang Electronics and features a QWERTY keyboard complete with touchpad and it owns portable power pack, which has all been mounted on to a transparent base with a carrying handle.

Its creator explains how he supplies the correct power supply to the LCD display: “The monitor requires a 12v input but the battery pack only gives out 5v. Inside the monitor there is a 5v regulator. This need to be by bypass and connect straight to the 5v line. The red supply wire is removed from the plug and soldered directly onto the 5v line.”

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