Amazon may take on Square and PayPal Here with mobile credit card reader

Web giant Amazon is about to release a mobile-based credit card reader to rival the likes of Square, according to reports on Sunday.

9to5Mac has obtained a copy of a recent Staples (an American office supplies store) inventory, that claims Amazon is planning to launch a device known as the 'Amazon Card Reader' next month.

The internal document says the reader will cost $9.99 (around £5.90, AU$10.60), but adds Staples staff are to hold off on making stock available until August 12.

For those keeping score at home, this isn't the first time such a rumour has manifested itself. Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal reported Amazon was working on a point-of-sale system.

Hip to be square

Currently Square, founded and operated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, dominates the mobile card reader market in the United States, although the PayPal Here rival is also on the scene.

Square provides a small, square (hence the name) reader to vendors, who can plug them into a smartphone's 3.5mm headphone jack in order to take credit card payments via an accompanying app.

Square takes a small cut of the transaction, but offers a far more cost effective solution for small businesses who don't wish to invest in credit card machines or pay inflated fees associated with them.

However, all is far from rosy in the Square garden after it announced losses of $100m earlier this year. Could Amazon capitalise on its perceived weakness?

Amazon is yet to comment on the reports, but with August 12 just around the corner, it won't be long until we find out for sure.

Nvidia's Shield tablet confirmed and available to pre-order

Nvidia has taken the wraps off a new Shield tablet that will work with a Shield wireless controller for on-the-go gaming courtesy of the company's Nvidia Tegra K1 mobile chip.

Built specifically for gamers, the tablet features an 8-inch, 1080p HD screen, front-facing speakers and the same PC streaming feature we saw in the original Shield. It's design matches the leaked images we saw last week.

The tablet will also come with an optional cover that can double as a kickstand and storage choices are the standard 16GB or 32GB variants.

Nvidia has built in LTE-functionality so that gaming doesn't need to be limited to a Wi-Fi connection. And the company states there will be regular, over-the-air upgrades pushed out to keep the Shield tablet on its gaming toes.

It also boasts a new feature called Nvidia ShadowPlay that lets you capture gaming moments and share them using the video platform Twitch. Something that has become increasingly popular and is offered by consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One.

Catering to those with more artistic tendencies, the Shield tablet also makes use of the Nvidia DirectStylus 2 stylus that enables, so Nvidia says, the first GPU-accelerated 3D painting experience.

“If you’re a gamer and you use a tablet, the Nvidia Shield tablet was created specifically for you,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia's co-founder and chief executive officer.

“It delivers exceptional tablet performance and unique gaming capabilities to keep even the most avid gamers deeply immersed, anywhere they play.”

The Shield tablet is available to pre-order now in the UK and comes in with a price tag starting at £239.99 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and going up to £299.99 for the 32GB LTE version.

Unfortunately, that doesn't include the wireless Shield controller, which you'll have to pick up separately for £49.99. The optional cover will set you back £24.99.

Stay tuned to currentbit for latest review of nvidia's tablet.

New self-driving car by Google

You are looking at Google’s very own, built-from-scratch-in-Detroit self-driving car. The battery-powered electric vehicle has as a stop-go button, but no steering wheel or pedals. The plan is to build around 200 of the mostly-plastic cars over the next year, with road testing probably restricted to California for the next year or two. Compared to the fairly aggressive stance of other notable EVs, like the Tesla Model S or Toyota Prius, Google’s new self-driving car is incredibly cutesy, closely resembling a Little Tikes plastic car — there’s even the same damn smiley face on the front. The cutesy appearance is undoubtedly a clever move to reduce apprehension towards the safety or long-term effects of autonomous vehicles — “Aw, how can something so cute be dangerous?”

For the last three years, Google has been retrofitting the Toyota Prius, Audi TT, and Lexus RS450h with the necessary software and hardware to perform autonomous driving. Now, Google has taken everything it has learnt about driverless cars, and built its own prototype from the ground up. Early versions of the prototype (which doesn’t appear to have a name) will still have manual controls for safety, but the eventual plan is to produce a fleet of some 200 completely driverless cars that can nip around California.

Disappointingly, Google’s new car still has a ton of expensive hardware — radar, lidar, 360-degree cameras — sitting on a tripod on the roof. This is to ensure good sightlines around the vehicle, but it’s a shame that Google hasn’t yet worked out how to build the hardware into the car itself, like other car makers that are toying with self-driving-like functionality. (Or maybe it has, but doesn’t want to invest additional money and engineering time until it’s time to commercialize the car.) In the concept art below, you can see that the eventual goal might be to build the computer vision and ranging hardware into a slightly less ugly rooftop beacon.

These first prototypes are mostly of plastic construction, with battery/electric propulsion limited to a max speed of 25 mph (40 kph). Instead of an engine or “frunk,” there’s a foam bulkhead at the front of the car to protect the passengers. Internally, there’s just a couple of seats, and some great big windows so you can enjoy the views (which must surely be one of the best perks of riding in a self-driving car).

Google’s stated goal in the blog post introducing the new car is “improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people.” Driverless cars could definitely revolutionize travel for people who can’t drive. Improving road safety is a little more nebulous, though. While it’s generally agreed that if all cars on the road were autonomous, there could be some massive gains in safety and efficiency (both in terms of fuel usage and squeezing more cars onto the roads). In the lead-up to that utopian scenario, though, there are all sorts of questions about how to effectively integrate a range of manual, semi- and fully self-driving vehicles on the same roadways.

Removing everything except for a stop-go button might sound like a good idea, but it’s naive. How do you move the car a few feet, so someone can get out, or for backing up to a trailer? Will Google’s software allow for temporary double parking, or off-road for a concert or party? Can you choose which parking spot the car will use, to leave the better/closer parking spots for your doddery grandfather? How will these cars handle the very “human” problems of giving way for other cars and pedestrians? Can you program the car to give way to a hot girl, but not an angry-looking trucker?

Plus, is it even sensible to promote a system that will eventually make it easier to cram more cars onto the road? Shouldn’t we be moving towards better, more efficient public transportation? At least until we move away from coal and gas towards cleaner power sources, like nuclear, solar, and fusion.

Google is now safety testing some early units, and will hopefully scale up production to around 200 cars that could be on the road “within the year.”

UK military creates quantum compass that could be the successor to GPS

A quantum compass takes advantage of the 1997 Nobel-winning discovery that lasers can be used to cool atoms to within fractions of a degree of absolute zero. Atoms in this frozen state are extremely sensitive to the magnetic and gravitational field of the Earth. Thus, they can be used to track movement with amazing accuracy. To be clear, this is still a type of inertial “dead reckoning” navigation. The difference is that after getting a solid GPS lock, a sub could go underwater and be exactly on target when it surfaces days or even weeks later.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 GPS began its life as a military technology in the 1970s, then everything changed in the late 80s when the US government decided to allow civilian use of the satellite network. Virtually every mobile device on the planet has a GPS chip built-in that lets you find your way around, but GPS is getting old and doesn’t work well in all situations. The British Ministry of Defence is hard at work developing a so-called “quantum compass” that could become the successor to GPS, and just like GPS, it might land in your pocket one day.

The UK military is investing millions of pounds in the quantum compass mainly for use in submarines. GPS systems require a view of the sky, or at least very little obstruction to get a location fix. A tube of metal sliding through the water 100 meters beneath the waves can’t really get a GPS lock. Subs currently use a type of inertial location system based on accelerometers. Each twist and turn a submarine makes is recorded and used to calculate its position based on the last known coordinates. This is called dead reckoning navigation.

Sandia Labs Is Stepping Up Its Neuro-Inspired Computer Chip Research

 Human ingenuity has given birth to incredibly powerful computers that can plow through more calculations in a second than most people could in their entire lives, but computers still aren’t terribly adaptable. The human brain is a very different kind of computer — a massively parallel processor that has been shaped by millions neuromorphic, computer systems.

of years of evolution to recognize patterns and adjust to changing situations. This is the kind of capability computer science researchers are now trying to unlock, and scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are stepping up their game to design neuro-inspired, or

Sandia isn’t just attracted to the idea of computers designed like brains because of the capabilities, but the human brain is also incredibly efficient. A computer has trouble telling the difference between a picture of a dog and a cat, but it eats up hundreds of watts of power simply trying. A brain, by contrast, operates continuously for decades and only consumes roughly the same power as a 20-watt light bulb.A modern computer is essentially a very powerful calculator — linear and much faster than humans at running the numbers. Scandia is spinning up this long term project to work on the hardware and software that could make a computer more like a biological brain. The first step in doing so, according to Sandia, is to look at the physical architecture of transistors.

A single neuron, like the ones seen above, can be connected to as many as 10,000 other neurons. Then each of those neurons could be connected to 10,000 more, and so on until you’ve got the bundle of nerve tissue between your ears that makes you who you are. Researchers believe this parallel system is what makes the brain so flexible, or plastic inneurology lingo. Most conventional transistors only have connections to four other transistors, but making a computer more interconnected is just the first step.

Sandia isn’t embarking on a quest to crank out an artificial intelligence platform right away, which is actually the approach many researchers take. A neuro-inspired parallel computer isn’t one and the same with AI, but they are closely linked. At Sandia National Labs, scientists are going to work on improved hardware and processing algorithms, and see if artificial intelligence can be developed as a consequence of that.Computers designed from the ground up like a brain could have important applications in robotics and remote sensors. These devices could benefit from the common sense and adaptability the brain imbues us with. They could learn from data and experiences to make predictions about what a human is going to want to know or do without being explicitly programmed for it. This is a bit like taking baby steps toward true AI.

Right now, your computer, phone, and everything else with a microchip works a certain way. There is very little room for error — either you enter commands correctly, and click on the right things, or you don’t. Regular computer systems are beginning to show a little flexibility, for example Google Now can often figure out what data you might want to see. It’s really cool when it works, but that’s because we’re still at the point where a computer guessing anything right is amazing. Sandia researchers want to make that common place.

A Simple Explanation on Why Apple Bought Dr. Dre's Beats for $3.2 Billion

  

On Thursday night, Apple announced its intentions to buy Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion, which would be Apple's biggest acquisition ever. The deal will make Dr. Dre a lot of money, though he won't become, as many have theorized, hip-hop's first billionaire. 

Of course, considering the deal involved Apple (one of the biggest names in personal computing), Beats (one of the biggest names in headphones) and $3.2 billion (well, that's just a lot of money), a lot of people took notice and started to wonder why Apple would spend so much money on headphones. Well, it turns out there's probably a fairly simple explanation, and it doesn't make Apple look too good.          

   Apple is completely out of ideas and unable to inovate   

   Well, that seems to be the most likely explanation at least, considering every other explanation doesn't really make sense. A lot of theories have already been circulating, including the ideas that Apple wants to add a high-profit margin device to its repertoire, that Apple just wants to be cool again, that Apple wanted to acqui-hire Jimmy Iovine, Beats' co-founder with many connections in the industry.

These all have some weight behind them, but for a $3.2 billion price tag, none of them are really reconcilable considering what Apple would be getting. Apple is pretty cool and just as recognizable of a brand as Beats, and Apple could probably find other ways to work with Iovine, or just find someone else like him, for a lot less money. 

"We are struggling to see the rationale behind this move," Gene Munster, an analyst with the firm Piper Jaffray, wrote in a note to investors. "Beats would of course bring a world-class brand in music to Apple, but Apple already has a world-class brand and has never acquired a brand for a brand's sake."      

 So what about buying the headphones themselves and the Beats streaming service?    

   Well, there may be some weight to that. In January, iTunes saw its digital music sales plummet for the first time since its store opened. Plus, Beats are pretty cool and have a proven record of success and sales. However

Will The Surface Pro 3 Really Replace Your Laptop??? With A stylus???

       

Watching the Surface Pro 3 event yesterday, I wryly smiled as Panos Panay finally revealed Microsoft’s vision for the future of mobile computing: The stylus. Snap-in keyboards, friction hinges, and high-resolution displays are still there, of course, but it is the humble stylus that will elevate Microsoft from tablet also-ran to mobile computing greatness. Apparently.

If you haven’t been following Microsoft for as long as I have, let me remind you that the company has been trying to push pen computing since the 1992 release of Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing. Then, in 2000, when Bill Gates was still considered a visionary by the tech press, the company unveiled the Tablet PC — a prototype device that never made it to market, but did set the stage for the Windows XP Tablet PCs released in 2003. A long lull followed after that, punctuated by rumors of the fabled stylus-oriented Courier tablet, and the eventual release (and massive success) of the iPad in 2010. Microsoft provided a stylus with the original Surface Pro and Pro 2, but they were never key, product-defining features. Yesterday, more than half of the 50-minute Surface Pro 3 presentation was dedicated to the stylus and pen computing.

It would seem, after two years of trying and unanimously failing to woo us with masterfully engineered hinges and magnets and dancing school girls, Microsoft has finally got the hint that the success of the Surface Pro 3 will actually hinge on functionality, not form. No one ever argued that the Surface Pro or Pro 2 weren’t terribly impressive hardware-wise. Most reviews praised Microsoft for cramming so much tech into a form factor that small. But beautiful construction and performance were never Microsoft’s problem: The reason no one buys the Surface is because there’s no good reason to.

"This tablet can replace your laptop"

Ever since the arrival of mobile computing dismantled its monopolistic grip on the computing market, Microsoft has really struggled to make its products commercially compelling. Without the Windows-Office-Server triumvirate linchpin, there is very little reason to buy a mobile product powered by Windows, rather than iOS or Android.

As you’re probably aware, Microsoft first tried to pitch the Surface line of tablets as the perfect amalgam of laptop and tablet. Microsoft correctly identified a few years ago that most tablet owners still own a laptop (for, you know, real work) — and so why not sell a single device that’s a laptop when you need to do real work, and a tablet when you want to consume content? It wasn’t a bad idea per se, but it turns out that it’s hard to make a tablet device that is small and light enough to use as a tablet, but still capable of sitting stably on your lap like a laptop.

With the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft is taking a slightly different tack. Instead of being both a laptop and a tablet, the Pro 3 is being branded as a tablet that’s so damn functional and awesome that it replaces any need for a laptop. To this end, it has a new keyboard cover that creases in a special way to provide more “lapability” (hands-on reports say it’s actually quite stable your lap), and the kickstand can now go all the way down to 150 degrees (almost flat). And, of course, the cherry on top — the feature that will ensure that you never long for a real keyboard or all-day battery life — is… a stylus.

Now, to be fair, Microsoft did show off some neat pen computing scenarios — but really, should we really be trumpeting handwriting-to-digital-text recognition in 2014? Bringing the Pro 3 out of standby and directly into OneNote using the button on the stylus was admittedly pretty cool — but really, how often are you going to casually hold an 800-gram (1.76 lbs) tablet by your side, like a pad of paper, waiting to take notes? It seems like a lot of good work has been done to reduce the parallax (distance between the stylus and the screen), the latency (which many people find to be an issue when writing or drawing), and with palm blocking — but it should be pointed out that most of those advances are thanks to N-trig’s DuoSense Active Pen technology, rather than amazing engineering on Microsoft’s part.

Is pen computing the future

I mean, I’m sure the Surface Pro 3 will make a fantastic note-taking or sketching device — and it’s a lot cheaper than the equivalent Wacom Cintiq — but I think it’s a very large logical leap to go from that, to laptop killer. Samsung’s series of Note tablets have been reasonably successful, but even at a much lower price point they haven’t exactly redefined mobile computing (plus we still don’t know how many people are actually buying a Note for the stylus, rather than its larger screen).

But who knows? Maybe pen computing really is the future of mobile computing. With fast, accurate, and pleasant stylus interaction, maybe you really won’t need the dedicated keyboard and increased stability offered by a laptop’s clamshell design. Maybe, for prospective buyers trying to choose between the MacBook Air and Surface Pro 3, the latter’s ability to be used as a tablet will beat out the former’s battery life.

Personally, I just don’t see it happening. The Surface Pro 3 is better and faster and lighter than its predecessors, but it’s still predicated on a deeply flawed premise: That consumers want to compromise with a device that’s a jack of all trades, but master of none. At 12 inches, 9.1mm, and 800 grams, you are not going to use the Surface Pro 3 for hours on end as a tablet — and without a dedicated keyboard and all-day battery life, you won’t be using it as a workhorse either. In my mind, at least for the foreseeable future, the current state of the art for technology and materials science strongly favors divergent form factors that are dedicated to content consumption or content creation. While there is a 150-gram smartphone or 300-gram tablet that lets you surf the web or watch movies for 12+ hours, I simply don’t see a happy future for Microsoft’s 800-gram, twice-the-price Surface Pro 3.

Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Review: A Masterclass of Engineering

Sony has never really been a tablet forerunner. The company has offered some decent slates in the past, but nothing you’d urgently recommend to a friend. The Tablet Z was good—but nobody remembers you for being mediocre. Example: we recognize the Kindle Fire HDX because it offers a solid experience highlighted by a unique service in Mayday; the Nexus 7, meanwhile, is important because of its affordability and powerful specs. The iPad is the obvious tablet emperor, but even that crown has lost some of its sheen, giving way to a relentless Android invasion. That said, can Sony’s latest tablet step up and finally cement its status as a bonafide competitor?

From a hardware perspective, this is absolutely one of the better devices you’re liable to find. It’s elegant, thin, and full of some truly impressive technology. It’s difficult to comprehend the engineering behind Sony’s new darling; it defies logic, and almost doesn’t seem real. But then you start digging through the software, and in one fell swoop it all comes unraveled.

You want fast and smooth? Look elsewhere. Even with today’s super specs, the software is no faster than something from two or three years ago. Such good hardware held back by a sub-par software experience.

HARDWARE

The Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is an immaculate specimen of engineering that’s rare outside of the Apple camp. Other tablets are sufficiently designed, sure. But this: you pick it up and your mind struggles to comprehend how so much technology can be stuffed into such a small chassis. The thinness, the lightness; it almost feels like Sony forgot to add the internal components, as though you’re holding an early prototype that got plucked from the factory. It’s not flashy, but the minimal approach works to perfection, giving users an incredible vehicle to consume content.

Sony has always produced very capable hardware, and we’ve recognized this fact in the past. I’ve been using this particular device for the past several days and every time I pick it up I’m still genuinely impressed. At just 15.5 ounces and 6.4mm thick, the Z2 Tablet is light and durable, weightless and impressively built. And the whole thing is rated IP58, which means you’ll be able to lug this thing to the river (and into the water) without doing any damage. (The precise rating says five feet of freshwater for up to half an hour.)

Compared to its predecessor, the Z2 Tablet largely looks the same. That is: this is a black rectangle with rounded corners and flat edges, which is all kept together by an aluminum border and tempered glass on the front. The backside is a nice matted soft touch that’s not slippery, though greasy fingertips will definitely smudge the heck out of it. And good luck wiping those little splotches away completely; they will refuse to go away. Not a huge deal, just something to take note of.

On the tablet’s left side is a lovely chrome power button, which is a signature of Sony’s mobile products. Below that is a rather forgettable volume rocker—and that’s about it as far as physical buttons go. There’s a headphone jack on the tablet’s bottom left side, and the microUSB and microSD slots sit on the tablet’s head, both of which are covered by flaps. On the back there’s an 8-megapixel camera, and a Sony connection on the bottom for accessories if you’re into that kind of thing. Additionally there’s an IR blaster up top for controlling your TV, which is actually pretty handy on such a wide canvas.

Up front the device frames a 10.1-inch Full HD (1920×1200) TRILUMINOS display with Live Color LED and X-Reality for mobile, ensuring the sharpest possible image. The screen looks fairly nice; colors are relatively vibrant, though the blacks could definitely be deeper. It lags behind an AMOLED screen, that’s for sure, but by no means is the Z2’s display awful. Pictures look wonderful, movies are crisp, and Web browsing is enjoyable. Out in the bright sun you can mostly see what you’re reading, but you might struggle to work your way through a lengthy article or book. Best leave this one for indoor viewing.

Finally, and really important for a tablet: Sony equipped the device with S-Force Front Surround, which is basically a fancy way of saying the Z2 Tablet now has front-facing speakers. That means you won’t be muffling the audio when you grip the device with both hands, which tends to happen when the speakers are placed around back. (If you look real hard, you’ll see the two surround sound speakers on the left and right side, near the bottom corners when the tablet is in landscape; also, don’t hold a widescreen tablet of this size in portrait, because that’s just silly).

One last thing, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the 8-megapixel actually takes some decent shots. I see people taking pictures with their tablets all the time. Seriously, now that I think about it, I see people holding up huge tablets all the time. Like, pretty much every time I go out into a busy public space. Which also makes me think: why are so many people taking their tablets out into public? I guess, take the fact that the Z2 Tablet can take some nice shots into consideration if you’re serious about purchasing this device.

BOGGED DOWN

With Android 4.4 onboard, you’d expect this thing to fly. Android has evolved into a silky smooth experience that’s both efficient and virtually lag free. It still doesn’t quite have the pizzaz of iOS, but pretty darn close. And when you have the specs the Z2 Tablet does, things should purr along like a luxury automobile. Unfortunately, Sony has somehow managed to make the impossible possible. Well, I suppose not impossible. But the software is often sluggish, hampering what had the potential to be the best Android tablet out there.

It’s not that Sony’s skin looks bad, because it doesn’t at all. In fact, it’s one of the more preferable skins out there. But it lacks a smoothness you’d find in an iPad or even a Nexus 7. You know there’s a problem when you’re swiping between homescreens and there’s a perceptible stutter, like it’s hesitating before saying, Yeah, ok, I’ll switch to the next screen now. For hardware that’s so finely tuned, seeing this kind of performance is a disappointment. There’s some sort of disconnect between the hardware and software, a kind of synthesis you’d see in a vanilla version of Android. I did notice a slight bump, however, when I changed the stock wallpaper, so perhaps that’s the main culprit, though it shouldn’t be.

Once things get going, such as playing a game or movie, the device is fast enough, and you won’t really notice any sort of problem. But it’s just in launching applications and scrolling through the OS overall seems to present the problem. For how good of an impression the hardware leaves, the software gives you a nice, swift kick to the shin. Luckily this is Android we’re talking about, and thankfully there are other launchers in Google Play, such as the ever-popular Nova. Just slap that bad boy on and you’ll be good to go; the nightmare will be over. You’ll never have to deal with stutter or lag again. It’s unacceptable you’d have to perform a quick surgery to iron out the kinks. But the hardware makes it worth the effort.

If you were to purchase a Sony device, you’d already know going in that there will be plenty of pre-installed Sony apps, just like you’d find on any other device. However, it does become a bit overbearing. Immediately after setup, you’ll have apps such as McAfee Security, Pixlr Express, OfficeSuite, File Commander, Sketch, Socialife, and many other apps that you probably won’t ever use. Unless you’re very committed to using Sony apps (WALKMAN, Xperia Lounge, Video Unlimited, etc.), you’ll be stuck with plenty of apps just filling up your device.

One of the apps, PlayStation, is pretty handy if you have an active circle of friends and want to keep track of your trophies, but otherwise it isn’t much of a draw and it’s not an exclsuive. If you do actually use the app, pretty much anything you click on will bounce you over to the Web, so you wind up not wanting to use the PlayStation app in the first place. I pretty much stayed away from anything that came pre-installed, though if you’re a big Sony user they’ll more than do the trick. As an added bonus, you can use a DualShock 3 controller to play some games on the Z2 Tablet because of its PlayStation certification, which is a neat little perk.

One great thing about the Z2 Tablet is that Sony makes it easy to hit the ground running. That is to say the company entices users to stay within the confines of Sony’s own ecosystem. So, for example, Sony gives customers access to six free movies, including Captain Phillips and American Hustle, while folks also get a 30-day free trial of Music Unlimited. Finally, Sony offers customers eight PlayStation mobile games, making the task of building up a library of content less painful than it should be.

Overall, the experience of the Z2 Tablet is hit and miss. The skin over Android 4.4 could definitely be zippier, though it certainly isn’t half bad in terms of usability. It isn’t too complicated, and for the most part everything is pretty straight forward: swipe down to see the notification tray, add widgets by long-pressing, etc. I actually like how you add apps, widgets and change wallpapers, and when you’re inside the app drawer, you can swipe from left to right to reveal a little pane to organize your apps and whatnot. It’s a nice little touch. If only things moved at a quicker pace.

Benefit Of a Curved Screen

Curved-screen technology started in movie theaters, and the rationale is simple. When you throw an image onto a flat screen from a projector, the light has to travel farther to reach the edges of the screen than it does to reach its center. This creates a distortion known as the pincushion effect—the picture appears bowed inward, toward the center. Incorporating curvature counteracts this deformity, bringing the edges of the screen closer to the projector to produce an image that the audience perceives as flat. What’s more, people discovered that when they sat in the theater sweet spot—in the central section of the row of seats level with the middle of the screen—they benefited from a more expansive field of view. 

Television manufacturers claim that putting curves on TV displays replicates this field-of-view widening effect in the living room, giving spectators an immersive IMAX-like perspective. The problem is, your living room’s sweet spot is much smaller than a large movie ­theater’s. Only people sitting on your couch directly in front of the TV, with the middle of the screen at eye height, perceive a widened field of view. People sitting off to the sides won’t benefit from the curve—in fact, they’ll actually get a distorted picture. And if you sit beyond a certain point at a wide enough angle, the image cuts off completely at one edge. 

Besides all that, TVs simply don’t need the curvature that theaters do, because they emit their own light. Curvature does accomplish one other thing, though: curtailing ambient light reflection. When living room lighting hits a curved screen, it’s reflected away from viewers instead of bouncing straight back at them. The same advantage exists in a curved smartphone display. If you turn your cellphone screen off and look at that glass display, you’ll see a lot of reflected light. That light washes out the digital image your phone produces, making you enhance screen brightness and drain your battery quicker. 

So, no, curved screens aren’t just a gimmick. But with the cheapest curved TV costing $3000 (­Sony’s 65-inch LED TV), and LG's G Flex smartphone selling for $300 with a carrier contract (the Galaxy Round, from Samsung, is even more expensive), the value manufacturers have assigned to curves may be too high for consumers, at least for now. 

Tire Caps That Change Color When Pressure Gets Low

Most of the times when you ask somebody how's your car's tire pressure? They will go kicking the tire saying everything seems to be right. And they forget about it till something is really wrong.

Here’s a damned clever alternative: tire caps that change color when the pressure gets too low.

While easily forgettable, tire pressure is actually kind of a big deal. When it’s too low, you’re wasting gas (low tire pressure = extra tire touching the ground = extra friction) and potentially overheating your tire. When it’s too high, you’re screwing up your traction and making it harder for your car to come to a stop. Either way is bad news.

Using a spring-loaded mechanism tucked inside of a sealed housing, a ring around the core of the cap changes from red, to black, to yellow depending on your tire’s pressure. Red means too low; yellow means too high. When the cap is black, you’re good to go.

One catch, though: these things have to be tuned for your tire’s optimal PSI before they leave the factory, which means if you want to swap them onto a different car or you buy different tires, you might need a new set. The company claims they can tune the cap to any PSI level, but it can’t be changed post-production.

And what about thieves? Back in high school, a bunch of kids I grew up with would snag each other’s tire caps for fun on a regular basis (Lamest prank in the world? Quite possibly. It was a small town. There wasn’t much to do.) Surely, a cap that’s quite a bit snazzier than the standard 2 cent plastic plug would make for an easy target?

The company is aware of it, and is working on that. For now, there’s a hex nut at the base of the cap that can be tightened to make it tougher to steal without a hex wrench — but that’s not exactly a huge barrier. They’re prototyping a model with a more complicated locking mechanism, but they’re not yet sure how much they’d need to raise (beyond their original $20k goal) to get it done.

The price varies a bit depending on how many you want (Two for a motorycle? Four for a car?), but at $30 for a four pack, they come in around $7 or 8 bucks a cap.

RightPSI set out to raise $20k on Kickstarter, and has raised nearly twice that since launching the campaign around two weeks ago. If they hit that $40k mark, they’re pledging to add a glow-in-the-dark option for folks who want to strap these on their bikes. Either way, they expect the caps to start shipping in July.

First lithium-ion battery that will not explode or burn

Lithium-ion batteries, despite being one of the most important pieces of modern technology, have always had a particularly grievous flaw: they’re highly flammable. If you puncture a lithium-ion battery, or you charge and discharge them improperly, you’ll usually have a pretty bad fire on your hands — or worse, if the conditions are just right, an explosion. Most notably, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was grounded in 2013 due to its lithium-ion battery packs causing electrical fires mid-flight, but there have also been a fair number of stories about exploding smartphone batteries recently. Now, long overdue, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say they’ve built a nonflammable lithium-ion battery.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are prone to be incendiary and explosive for two reasons: because they’re pressurized, and because their electrolyte — the charge-carrying liquid that sits between the positive and negative electrodes — is flammable. The electrolyte in an LIB is nearly always a lithium salt dissolved in an organic solvent, and most of these solvents are highly flammable. Because of these factors, LIBs are generally manufactured to a very high level of quality, but that doesn’t help you if the battery is somehow pierced (as in the Tesla Model S battery pack that was impaled and burst into flames), or if thermal runaway occurs.

Now, if you mutilate an LIB or throw it haphazardly in the trash, you’re asking for trouble. (Always recycle your batteries!) Thermal runaway, however, is a much trickier problem that’s inherent to LIB tech, and which you can’t do a whole lot about. Basically, in the process of charging or discharging a lithium-ion battery, it warms up. This is just the battery chemistry in action, and is completely normal. If it discharges too quickly, though, or you overcharge it, you can rupture one of the battery’s cells. This rupture can then cascade down the line of cells, potentially causing a fire or explosion. This is why the peak power draw from LIBs is fairly low, and why there has been some discussion about whether LIBs are the right technology for high-power applications, such as electric vehicles and grid power storage.

The most common cause of LIB thermal runaway is likely faulty charging circuits. The battery itself could be suffering from a manufacturing fault, too. When the cells rupture in some cases, an LIB will just swell up rather than explode. We still don’t know what caused the Dreamliner battery fires, but it’s probably just a case of Boeing underestimating peak draw, or an inherently faulty battery design (it uses just a few big cells which are prone to cascading failure, rather than Tesla’s approach, which uses lots of smaller cells).

The University of North Carolina’s breakthrough is to replace the electrolyte’s flammable organic solvent with nonflammable perfluoropolyether (PFPE). PFPE is usually used as an industrial lubricant, and the lead researcher – Joseph DeSimone — had originally been looking at using PFPE on the bottom of ships to prevent marine life from sticking, which is a serious problem in the world of shipping. He realized that PFPE had a similar structure to another solvent used in LIBs, so he did what any sensible chemist would do: tried dissolving a lithium salt in PFPE to see what would happen. As luck would have it, it worked just fine. He created a nonflammable lithium-ion battery.

DeSimone and his team still need do more testing to see if the nonflammable electrolyte can withstand the rigors of everyday use, but the research paper puts a pretty positive spin on things: “These electrolytes not only are completely nonflammable, but they also exhibit unprecedented high transference numbers and low electrochemical polarization, indicative of longer battery life.” Moving forward, the team will now begin with the arduous task of bridging the gap between laboratory testing and industrial mass production.

New Xbox 360 brings nothing new to table

Last time Microsoft updated the Xbox 360, it was 2010. The so-called Xbox 360 S added some much-needed upgrades to the 360, including built-in Wi-Fi, a larger hard drive, and a smaller chassis. More importantly, the 360 S was quieter, and incorporated a new hardware design that eliminated the notorious "Red Ring of Death" overheating issue that afflicted the 360 since it was first introduced in 2005.

For 2013, Microsoft has introduced another version of the 360, known as the Xbox 360 E. But with its successor, the Xbox One, hitting stores in November -- along with its arch-rival, the PlayStation 4 -- is there any reason to sink $300 into a new 360? And even if you do set your sights on the 360, is the latest model the biggest bang for your buck? I spent some time with the 360 E, and here's what I found out.

The new 360 vs. the previous 360

A bit smaller than 2010’s Xbox 360 S (I'm talking millimeters here), there's really only a few aesthetic changes to the design of the 360 E. For starters, it's designed to fall in line with stylings of the Xbox 360's incoming successor, Xbox One. The 360 E shares a similar glossy and matte mashup with angled grilles on top and on either side for venting.

On the back panel, the all-important HDMI connection is still there, but there's no longer a multi-AV out port. Instead, what's left is a jack for a 1/8-inch breakout AV cable. A cable for a composite connection (yellow video plus red/white stereo audio) comes in the box, but you'll need to find a component one for HD. The good news is that the cables are no longer proprietary. The bad news? Still, to this day, you cannot play Xbox 360 in HD right out of the box without supplying your own cables.

Microsoft has eliminated some of the versatile connection interfaces that were present on the 360 S -- which is actually kind of a bummer. Gone is the dedicated optical audio-out found on earlier 360 models. That means the only way to get surround sound is through the HDMI connection. If you're like me and have a slightly older AV receiver that can't accept audio over HDMI, you might be in trouble.

If this wasn't enough, the Xbox 360 E actually removes a USB port as well. You're probably not going to feel the impact of only having a total of four ports (two in the front, two in the back) as opposed to five, but when you're paying the same price as a 360 S, one would assume that all the parts would be kept intact.

Another slight difference: the touch power and eject controls from the 360 S have been replaced with more-traditional physical buttons.

There are, however, a few things that survived the trip from S to E. The 360 E maintains the elusive infrared port (so, unlike the IR-less PS3, you can still use standard remote controls) and a replaceable hard drive (you'll still need to use the proprietary Microsoft model, not just a standard laptop HDD).

What else is different? Not a whole lot. The 360 E can stand horizontally or vertically. The power slot is differently shaped, but the inline power brick from the S is still present. Ethernet and Wi-Fi are still onboard for online connectivity, and the dedicated Kinect port remains.

Microsoft debuted the E console saying it would run quieter and cooler. During my few weeks with it I did notice those two things to be true, but nowhere near the dramatic improvement going from a "classic" white 360 (the 2005 version) to the 360 S (2010 version).

Gaming and entertainment options

The Xbox 360 is the top-selling game console of this generation with good reason. The game library is top-notch, with all of the top third-party games you'll also find on PS3 (Madden, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and so forth), plus a handful of key Xbox exclusives, such as the Halo, Gears of War, and the Forza series, as well as the upcoming Titanfall. There’s also a great selection of smaller downloadable indie titles on Xbox Live Arcade.

The Xbox 360 can still only play DVDs and CDs -- Blu-ray movies won't work, as they will on a PS3, and the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One.

Both the PS3 and Xbox offer online multiplayer games, but Xbox Live is arguably a larger, more engaged community. The catch is that in order to play online, you need to upgrade to the Xbox Live Gold plan, which costs $60 per year (though you can often find deals for closer to $40).

Annoyingly, the Gold plan is also required to access any of the Xbox entertainment apps. That’s unfortunate, because Xbox arguably offers some of the best selection of nongaming apps out there, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, ESPN, Fox Now, Crackle, YouTube, and Vudu. In other words, you need to pay the annual "Xbox Live tax" to access any of those services through the 360, including otherwise free ones like Crackle and YouTube. Keep in mind that you can get many of those services at no extra charge on a PS3, Apple TV, Roku, or Chromecast. Indeed, a Chromecast ($35) or Roku LT ($50) can be yours for less than the annual Xbox Live Gold subscription fee.

The Xbox One, so far as we know, will also require Xbox Live Gold for online gaming and entertainment apps as well. The Sony PS4 will require a similar PlayStation Plus subscription for multiplayer online gaming, but PS Plus will not be required to access entertainment apps like Netflix. (Currently, the PS3 requires no extra fees for online gaming.)

Bottom line: if you want to do anything fun on the 360 beyond playing single-player games, you'll want to budget the annual Xbox Live Gold subscription into your plans -- or plan on getting one of those alternatives instead.

The current competitive landscape: 360 E vs. 360 S vs. PS3

Like the 360 S before it, the 360 E comes in a variety of flavors, too: there’s a 4GB version ($199), a 4GB unit bundled with Kinect ($299), and the 250GB version (without Kinect) for $299. Since you're going to need a healthy amount of storage for all of the downloadable goodies owning an Xbox 360 has to offer, I really can’t recommend either of the 4GB versions.

As for the 250GB version of the 360 E -- that’s tough to recommend, too. Consider that some teardowns of the console show that the 360 E is a less expensive system to manufacture, but those savings have not in any way been passed along to the customer. The 360 E will cost you the same $299 that its predecessor did -- despite offering one fewer USB port and no optical output.

In the meantime, the earlier 360 S model -- which has that extra USB and optical digital audio port -- is available for the same price or less, sometimes with far more attractive bundles. For instance, the Spring Value Bundle packs in Darksiders II and Batman: Arkham City for the same price of a new (gameless) 360 E. For an Xbox 360 newbie, it's kind of a no-brainer.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation 3 -- which, again, offers the Blu-ray capability that the Xbox 360 lacks -- is available for $270 to $300, in various bundles with great games like God of War: Ascension, Uncharted 3, Assassin's Creed III, and (in September) Grand Theft Auto V, with hard-drive capacities up to 500GB.

Buy the new 360, stick with the old one, or wait for next-gen consoles?

Yes, the 360 is nearing the end of its life cycle, but there are plenty of new titles planned for the platform from now deep into 2014. Likewise, it's important to note that the Xbox One will not be able to play Xbox 360 games; it'll take years for the Xbox One's gaming library to eclipse that of the Xbox 360's.

Of course, it’s the impending November release of the Xbox One that’s the elephant in the room. Do you get a $300 Xbox 360 now, or put that money toward the $500 purchase price of the Xbox One -- or the $400 PS4? If you've waited this long without buying an Xbox 360, it's probably wise to wait until the Xbox One and PS4 are released to see if they pique your interest. Judging from what I've seen and played so far, next-gen gaming will deliver the graphics and eye candy in the short term, but will take a while to really mature into platforms that significantly distance themselves from what is currently available.

UFO Nearly Crashed Into Passenger Jet

A commercial passenger aircraft flying just West of Heathrow Airport was nearly hit by an Unidentified Flying Object, or UFO as we know them. Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest Airports located outside London, has not been able to find an explanation for the object that had a ‘near miss’ with an Airbus A320.

While flying past the airport, the pilot suddenly noticed a “cigar/rugby ball” shaped bright silver and “metallic” object hurtling towards his plane at 34,000 feet. It was approaching at such an astonishing pace that the pilot wasn’t even able to make any kind of evasive maneuvers with his aircraft and only managed to ‘duck’ and alert the copilot.

The Telegraph mentions an official report into the worrying and spooky incident by British Air Traffic authorities:

“He was under the apprehension that they were on collision course with no time to react. His immediate reaction was to duck to the right and reach over to alert the FO (First Officer); there was no time to talk to alert him.”

While we hear a lot about hoaxes and homemade videos, and there’s certainly no shortage of spooky UFO footage on the web, it’s a different story when the report comes from the captain of a commercial Jet!

The captain of the airplane was braced for a mid-air collision, he was sure that they were going to be hit, and believes that the mysterious object must have passed “within a few feet” above his plane.

The pilot only happened to notice the UFO zooming towards him out of the left hand side window of the cockpit, and he didn’t have a chance to do anything about it. It happened in broad daylight in the late afternoon, and no-one has been able to find out what on Earth, or off Earth this thing was.

At that kind of altitude there really aren’t so many things it could have been, authorities checked, and no weather balloons were released in the vicinity, and toy balloons cannot make it that high anyway.

In 2012, the head of the National Air Traffic Control Services admitted staff detected around one unexplained flying object every month.

Now, that’s quite worrying for regular air travelers because even if it was nothing, and perhaps even just a figment of the Pilot’s imagination, if the pilot would have had the chance to react and take evasive action to avert a mid-air collision, who knows what type of difficulty the plane or the passengers might have gotten into from a sudden, extreme maneuver.

For the approximately 150 passengers on the plane that could have been a real disaster, whereas being killed by an alien spaceship in a mid-air crash has to be the most unlikely way to go.

So, next time you’re flying keep an eye out and a camera in hand, and perhaps a parachute in the overhead compartment in case you have any close encounters with UFOs.

Dear Amazon, What's In This Box?

My, Amazon, what big hands boxes you have!

The better to ship cars with, my dear.

At least, that's what we believe is the purpose of this behemoth box snapped by Reddit user "listrophy" in Madison, Wis. Specifically, we believe the ginormous package holds a Nissan Versa Note. As part of a promotion launched last year, three of the cars sold through the site were supposed to be delivered in oversized Amazon boxes.

"This is something that we don't believe has been done before in the automotive space where consumers can find a vehicle through a consumer retail site like Amazon," Josh Clifton, a Nissan spokesman, told Edmunds in an earlier article about the promotion.

The first 100 customers to buy the car via Amazon were to receive $1,000 Amazon gift cards, Automotive News reported last year. Only three of the vehicles were to be delivered in the comically large brown box.

We've reached out to Amazon for more information but haven't heard back. So, technically, the box could just be holding a bulk order of banana slicers.

What do you think is in the box?

Dell Looks To Set A New Tone For Its Private Life

The story of Dell is business legend: How a kid starting in his dorm room, hiding computer parts in the bathroom when his parents visited, managed to build a computing giant that employs over 100,000 people.

The Dell saga added a new chapter this year, when its founder and Silver Lake took it private, borrowing $2 billion of Microsoft’s foreign cash in the process.

The deal that closed on October 30th valued the company at $24.9 billion. Tucked away from the public eye, and released from the quarterly trial of investor expectations, Dell may now have the flexibility to retool its troubled PC business, and invest in new areas that could sport better margins.

Now that Dell has crossed the public-private Rubicon, it appears ready to recultivate its image. The firm has released a new video that compares its history to that of other well-known technology companies, like Dropbox. The clip has a clear point: Dell was started just like the other technology companies that you respect. The implication is that it retains that DNA.

A large company freed from quarterly earnings reports is a company unbound from many of its prior shackles. Dell bought its freedom, and we now get to see what it will do with it.