The market for virtual and augmented reality products has developed slower than expected, but Microsoft is seeking to accelerate the sector by making it much easier for people to connect from different locations and with different kinds of devices. From a report: The ultimate goal of the new effort, dubbed Microsoft Mesh, is to allow, for example, a person in an…
Tag: gadgets
Stretchy bands generate electricity from body heat to power gadgets
Self-healing and eco-friendly devices that generate electricity from body heat could power wearable gadgets, such as a heart monitor for runners Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2267575-stretchy-bands-generate-electricity-from-body-heat-to-power-gadgets/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
10 Years After Its Discontinuation, Some Fans Still Love Microsoft’s Zune Mp3 Player
“It was weird to own a Zune in 2005,” remembers a new article in the Verge. “It is even weirder to own a Zune in 2021 — let alone 16 of them. And yet, 27-year-old Conner Woods proudly shows off his lineup on a kitchen table.”
They come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each can be identified by that…
The Impractical but Indisputable Rise of Retrocomputing
For all the personal technology introduced and popularized in 2020 — upscale fitness bikes, at-home Covid tests, game consoles new and old — the personal computer lands on the list with a bit of a thud. PCs lack the novelty of other gadgets, but they’re practical, essential even, in a year when work, school and social life have come to rely…
New Electric Cars Have Problems In Latest Consumer Reports Survey
schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog, adding: “And CR decides to predict poor reliability on EVs it hasn’t even evaluated yet.” From the report: The latest auto survey from Consumer Reports shows several newer electric cars to be beset with problems, contradicting the conventional wisdom that EVs with their simpler powertrains should have fewer issues than gasoline- or diesel-powered cars. The…
European Parliament Votes For Right To Repair
In a landmark move, the European Parliament voted today to support consumers’ Right to Repair. The resolution was adopted with 395 in favor and just 94 against, with 207 abstentions. iFixit reports: “By adopting this report, the European Parliament sent a clear message: harmonized mandatory labelling indicating durability and tackling premature obsolescence at EU level are the way forward,” said Rapporteur…
HP Replaces ‘Free Ink for Life’ Plan With ’99 Cents a Month Or Your Printer Stops Working’
In a new essay at EFF.org, Cory Doctorow re-visits HP’s anti-consumer “security updates” that disabled third-party ink cartridges (while missing real vulnerabilities that could actually bypass network firewalls). Doctorow writes that it was just the beginning: HP’s latest gambit challenges the basis of private property itself: a bold scheme! With the HP Instant Ink program, printer owners no longer own their…
AI Is Throwing Battery Development Into Overdrive
Improving batteries has always been hampered by slow experimentation and discovery processes. Machine learning is speeding it up by orders of magnitude. From a report: Inside a lab at Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, there are a half dozen refrigerator-sized cabinets designed to kill batteries as fast as they can. Each holds around 100 lithium-ion cells secured in trays that…
Device can harvest wind energy from the breeze made when you walk
A small device can harvest energy from the breeze generated as you walk and could potentially be used to power your gadgets Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2255057-device-can-harvest-wind-energy-from-the-breeze-made-when-you-walk/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Learn how Vishnu went from small village tech hobbyist to IT professional
We’d like you to meet Vishnu Mohankumar from Kerala, India. A tech enthusiast from a young age, Vishnu has always loved helping neighbors in his village by fixing any and all technology-related issues. Today, he is a Desktop Support Engineer at Astreya Consultancy. Below, he shares his learning journey and discusses how earning his Google […]
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