Extreme Tech- Other News

• The new Moto X, with high-end specs, metal frame, and leather back, is a real contender September 5, 2014 at 7:42 am

  Motorola has unveiled its second-gen flagship phone: the Moto X. It keeps the same name as last year’s offering, and also the same kind of factory-level customization as its predecessor, but everything else is much better. The new Moto X has much better, flagship-level internals, a glorious Super AMOLED 1080p display, and the chassis now has a metal edge. The Moto Maker customization tool remains, but the second-gen Moto X now has the option of having a real leather back — and according to early hands-on impressions, it feels fantastic. In short, the new Moto X is now a bona fide flagship phone that actually stands a chance of competing against the likes of the HTC One M8 and the upcoming iPhone 6.
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  Digital game downloads are worse for the environment than Blu-ray discs September 4, 2014 at 12:41 pm

  You would think that the world would be a less polluted place if everyone switched to digital downloads, lessening the number of physical objects — and factories to produce them — in the world. A recent study suggests that even though removing physical objects lowers the potential for future for garbage, going digital isn’t the best answer to cleaning up the planet.
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  How L1 and L2 CPU caches work, and why they’re an essential part of modern chips September 4, 2014 at 10:54 am

  Ever been curious how L1 and L2 cache work? We’re glad you asked. Here, we deep dive into the structure and nature of one of computing’s most fundamental designs and innovations.
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  Real-time emotion detection with Google Glass: An awesome, creepy taste of the future of wearable computers September 4, 2014 at 9:11 am

  The wily geniuses at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have created the world’s first real-time emotion detection app for Google Glass. The app (glassware, as Google prefers to call it) can also accurately detect someone’s age or gender. Real-time emotion detection could be of great use for people with disorders such as autism, who often struggle to interpret facial expressions, or simply for people who struggle to divine their partner’s true emotional state when they say that they’re “fine.’
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  Dyson 360 Eye: Dyson’s ‘truly intelligent’ robotic vacuum cleaner is finally here September 4, 2014 at 6:00 am

  Dyson, the British company that created the cyclone vacuum cleaner, AirBlade hand drier, and the bladeless fan, is finally stepping out onto the bleeding edge of high-tech suction and blowing: The Dyson 360 Eye, the first ‘truly intelligent’ autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner that can see its entire environment and then plan a route around it, rather than just bumping algorithmically from obstacle to obstacle like a Roomba. Dyson claims that it has more suction power and is designed so that it can actually “clean properly” unlike other robotic vacuum cleaners. Oh, and did I mention that it has tank tracks?
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  The first human brain-to-brain interface has been created. In the future, will we all be linked telepathically? September 3, 2014 at 2:27 pm

  International researchers are reporting that they have built the first human-to-human brain-to-brain interface, allowing two humans — separated by the internet — to consciously communicate with each other, directly from one brain to another. In short, the researchers have created a device that enables telepathy. In the future, rather than vocalizing speech — or vainly attempting to vocalize your emotions — your friend/lover/family member might just pluck those words and thoughts right out of your head.
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  Google begins developing its own quantum computer chips, to prepare for the future September 3, 2014 at 11:18 am

  Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence team, not content with merely sharing a D-Wave kinda-quantum computer with NASA, has announced that it will now be designing and building its own quantum computer chips. Rather than start from scratch, Google will absorb UC Santa Barbara’s quantum computing group, which recently created a superconducting five-qubit array that shows promise for scaling up to larger, commercial systems. Google, probably just behind IBM, now appears to be one of quantum computing’s largest commercial interests.
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  How were the celeb nude photos leaked, and can we prevent it from happening again? (Updated) September 2, 2014 at 2:36 pm

  As you may have heard, a large number of private, mostly nude, celebrity photos were leaked onto the internet on August 31. Despite an impressive number of stories dedicated to unproven theories about various potential attack vectors, there is still no clear evidence of how the private photos were obtained. Let’s discuss how the celebrity nudes might’ve been obtained — and, more importantly, how to prevent such a debacle from happening again in the future.
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  The ultimate remote admin: NASA will reformat Opportunity’s dodgy flash memory from 125 million miles away September 2, 2014 at 11:56 am

  It would seem, despite being outfitted with the finest flash memory that money can buy, even Mars rover Opportunity isn’t immune to worn-out NAND cells. After a dozen unplanned reboots in August, most likely caused by the faulty flash, NASA is moving ahead with a complete reformat of the rover’s volatile memory. Back in 2004, Opportunity’s sibling rover — Spirit — was brought back from the brink of death with a similar reformatting maneuver. Considering Opportunity has now been roving the surface of Mars for over a decade, and all it has required is some small software updates and now a format, I’d say the little rover has done rather well.

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