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Walyou

Twitch, imgur & reddit team up for ‘DERP’
Swing Copters, the new game from the creator of Flappy Bird
Gyroscopes in mobile devices to be used as microphones
Google Glass Lets You Order Groceries Just By Looking At Them
3D4C 3D Printer Combines Four Filaments for a Wide Range of Colors
Best Buy Admits that It Leaked Moto 360 Specs by Mistake

Twitch, imgur & reddit team up for ‘DERP’

Posted: 19 Aug 2014 10:32 AM PDT

Some of the biggest websites around, reddit, imgur and Twitch, have teamed up for a project called ‘DERP’. And, turns out it’s about science and not memes and cat pictures.

Reddit and Imgur are already staples of the Inteernet, while Twitch is quickly becoming so. These websites of undeniable reach have decided to put some of that reach to a good use, that is, science research for the good of humanity. Along with several other partners, they are launching an initiative meant to help researchers perform studies and share the information they gather on social networks and many other topics. This alliance has decided to call the initiative the Digital Ecologies Research Partnership, abbreviated as “DERP”. Yes, of course it’s called DERP, what else?

Other sites involved in the initiative include Fark, and Stack Exchange, niche sites that are way more focused than the ones mentioned above, and aimed at a more core audience. In the end, it’s a mixed bag of social sites of all kinds and sizes, with some of the most active web communities. The point, though, is ensuring that any research conducted through DERP will see the light of day, and be shared in an open and public manner.

DERP aims to hook up researchers with relevant, publicly available data. As a unified initiative, the idea is to get information for researchers without them having to view and contact sites individually. There are reports of teams at Stanford, Columbia, MIT, and several other universities already benefiting from it.

Via The Guardian

Swing Copters, the new game from the creator of Flappy Bird

Posted: 19 Aug 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Users who enjoyed this year’s maddening Flappy Bird and its million clones will be happy to learn that its creator has a new game incoming. Its title is Swing Copter, and it launches next thursday, the 21st of August.

Vietnamese game creator Dong Nguyen found an unlikely hit with Flappy Bird, and although he ended up hating the game and pulling it down from the app stores, that didn’t stop everyone and their mothers from talking about it. If the story is to repeat itself, Nguyen’s next candidate is Swing Copters, which Touch Arcade claims will release next thursday for free, with an option to remove all ads for 99 cents.

Swing Copters is similar in spirit to Flappy Bird, as it will still have players maneuvering and dodging obstacles. Whereas in Flappy Bird players tapped to move up, in Swing Copters they will have to move left and right. It’s not clear which platofrms it’s going to be available for, but probably we’ll end up seeing it in both Android and iOS. The question remains, though, will it be as addicting as Flappy Bird? If it succeeds, will it piss Nguyen off nearly as much as Flappy Bird did? We’ll see. Maybe it was light in a bottle, maybe Nguyen is the Miyamoto of mobiles creating the most strangely compelling titles.

Via Polygon

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Gyroscopes in mobile devices to be used as microphones

Posted: 19 Aug 2014 06:00 AM PDT

A new use has been found for the gyroscopes in our mobile devices, the part responsible for motion-sensing. Turns out, they can be used as microphones now.

The gyroscopes found in our mobile devices have a new use, according to a new research paper by a group of researchers. Yan Michalevsky, Dan Boneh and Gabi Nakibly found out that besides motion-sensing, they too can act as microphones which is sort of freaky because it’s an accidental feature that mobile apps don’t really have to ask for permission to use.

When the users move their devices, the mass that the gyroscopes detect moves as well so sensors can pick up on changes in orientation or direction. But, as they detail in Gyrophone: Recognizing Speech from Gyroscope Signals, they can also pick up sound. What this implies is that, because apps don’t let you know if they are accessing the devices’ gyroscope or not, it potentially opens the door for remote listening or even recording by using them.

Android users are, allegedly, more vulnerable to this use than iOS users as the difference in the rates at which gyroscopes detect motion is more noticeable. Google has claimed to be aware of this vulnerability, and is working to patch this potential security hole.

Don’t just go dumping your smartphone because of this, though, as even the researchers claim that this data is not all that useful by itself. but via the use of speech processing algorithms or software, who knows. The most likely way to get results, though, would be cross-referencing data from several nearby devices at the same time. Still, sounds pretty 1984-ish, right?

Via Technabob

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Google Glass Lets You Order Groceries Just By Looking At Them

Posted: 19 Aug 2014 05:00 AM PDT

With Google Glass getting into the hands of more developers, one supermarket has found a way to make shopping with Google Glass a breeze.

Shopping in the past used to be a nightmare. First you had to drive to the store, then you had to navigate a supermarket trolley around the aisles, being careful not to knock anything over (try doing this with children under your supervision for a real challenge on 'expert' difficulty) and then you had to keep your inner Hulk occupied save you get frustrated about those long queues. Tablets and smartphones have made that easier, sure, as we can now use apps to do our bidding from in front of the TV at home but even then apps can be a hassle especially when the layout is poor and supermarkets are too lazy to come up with a tutorial. Let's be thankful to UK retailer Tesco for making it easier then, as we can now order our groceries from home, just by looking at them.

According to the video above, you specifically have to look at the barcode listed on the product and, provided that Tesco have the product in their warehouses, they'll add it to your online shopping cart and allow you to have it delivered to your door as and when you might need it.

The benefits are clear on this one as each and every person who has ever bought groceries in their life knows how easy it is to forget to write 'milk' on the shopping list and even then you have to remember that you've written a shopping list at all so now you can just look at the need-to-buy stuff to add it to your basket and for all of the stuff you'd like to try or don't have readily available for barcode scanning, it won't take you long to manually buy that either. Meanwhile, there's the obvious question of 'what if I scan something accidentally by, I don't know, daydreaming or something?' which I'm sure Tesco will answer in due course but for now, it seems like a very neat trick indeed.

Source: Tesco Labs

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3D4C 3D Printer Combines Four Filaments for a Wide Range of Colors

Posted: 18 Aug 2014 01:51 PM PDT

One of the main ways to increase the variety of 3D printed objects is to make sure that the materials used for 3D printing come in different colors. The 3D4C 3D printer achieves that by combining only 4 basic colors, but as with conventional printers, the results are quite variate.

Felix Chan and Cyrus Kuk, the developers of 3D4C, thought that typical 3D printers are unnecessarily complex, despite printing in a single color, most of the time. The two designers draw inspiration from inkjet printers and developed one that employs four filaments to create a variety of colors.

The two developers claim that this is the world’s first CMYK 3D color printer, and since the other devices capable of 3D printing in color take different approaches, I’m inclined to believe their claim.

Researching and developing this 3D printer took Chan and Kuk two years, but judging by the results, I’d say that the time was definitely well spent.

3D4C is currently featured on Kickstarter, where Chan and Kuk are looking to raise £50,000 within the next 26 days. Should the campaign be successful and the project get funded, anyone who pledged £850/899/999 as a Super Early Bird/Early Bird/regular backer, will receive a 3D4C 3D printer in December 2014, just in time to 3D print some gifts for the little ones.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Stratasys’ latest printer, which uses multiple materials and prints in color, and the liquid metals that give 3D printing a twist.

Best Buy Admits that It Leaked Moto 360 Specs by Mistake

Posted: 18 Aug 2014 01:11 PM PDT

The American e-tailer confirms that the previous leak of the Moto 360 smartwatch was just an accident. Since everyone else was trying to keep things secret until the official launch, it would seem that Best Buy spilled the beans.

Moto 360 is the third smartwatch running Android Wear, Google’s version of its mobile OS that’s tailored for wearables. As it has yet to be officially launched, it’s the most anticipated of the series, and its design must have contributed to that a lot. While most smartwatches come with a rectangular face, Moto 360 took the classic route and packs all of its hardware in a round case.

A couple of weeks ago, @evleaks showcased some of the most recent renderings of the Moto 360 smartwatch, in what was to be one of his last contributions to the world of leaked images. This weekend, however, Best Buy made public the specs of the device, and today admitted that it all was a mistake. That’s definitely the case, as the watch is supposed to be launched on September 4, at an event organized by Motorola.

Sporting a 1.5-inch backlit LCD display screen, Moto 360 is said to come with voice-activation abilities and Wi-Fi, something that’s not present in the other two Android Wear smartwatches. It will be compatible with smartphones and tablets running Android 4.3 or newer.

According to Best Buy’s leaked specs (which have obviously been removed in the meantime), Moto 360 will be available in two colors, namely black and gray. The non-metal wristband may make it look cheap, and a lot of people complain about it being too thick, but it remains to be seen how the smartwatch looks in real life before judging it.

One of its main strong points is the price of only $250, a lot less than both the Samsung and the LG Android Wear watches. Most would claim that Motorola is a bit late to the Android Wear game, and that the users of the Moto 360 smartwatch aren’t early adopters of the latest tech, unlike the owners of LG or Samsung Android Wear smartwatches. Still, its shape and UI make it a more attractive option, and the enthusiasm of geeks whenever photos or specs of it are leaked can only confirm that.

As Sherlock would say, the game will be on by the time Apple decides to launch its smartwatch into the world, so the Cupertino company had better come with something truly revolutionary. I kind of doubt that, however.

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