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Our terrifying reliance on GPS, and the need to develop a ground-based alternative Nov 7

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ExtremeTech’s 2014 holiday gift guide: High tech futuristic gift ideas for geeks and nerdsNov 26

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Raspberry Pi, the original $25 PC, now smaller than a credit card and costs just $20 Nov 10

Electronics

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  Microsoft, Apple withdraw from Android patent trolling: Is the patent war drawing to a close?December 24, 2014 at 8:03 am

  After years of relentless litigation, it seems the mobile/smartphone patent war might be drawing to a close. Rockstar, a patent trolling company owned by Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Ericsson, and BlackBerry, has agreed to cancel the lawsuits it had filed against Google and most Android device makers. This follows on from news this summer that Apple and Google had agreed to drop all lawsuits between the two companies, and Apple and Samsung agreed to drop all lawsuits outside the US.
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  The beautiful, transparent Fx0: This is what happens if you put lipstick on Firefox OSDecember 23, 2014 at 2:03 pm

  What has a beautiful transparent-gold chassis, a fairly big screen, decent innards, and almost no chance of getting you to switch from your Apple or Android smartphone? The new Fx0, made by LG, which runs Firefox OS.
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  Google unveils its first built-from-scratch self-driving car December 23, 2014 at 10:42 am

  Google has unveiled the first fully working road-legal prototype of its self-driving car. If all goes to plan, Google hopes to partner with a real car maker to bring a self-driving vehicle to market in the next five years. Whether the commercialized driverless car will look like the overly cutesy Google prototype remains to be seen.
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  Resistive RAM nears launch: Still the most likely candidate to replace NAND flashDecember 22, 2014 at 2:58 pm

  Crossbar has announced that its next-generation resistive RAM (ReRAM or RRAM) memory is ready for commercialization with products expected in 2015. This could be the successor to NAND flash in the long-term with substantially better overall performance and power consumption. 
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  How bright is bright? The difficulty of comparing LCD and AMOLED displays December 22, 2014 at 2:02 pm

  AMOLED screens don’t work like LCDs. There’s no agreed upon way to measure the peak brightness because it varies based on what is being displayed on the screen. This has led to some confusion, but no one’s numbers are wrong. They just lack context. 
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  Tesla starts offering Model S battery swaps, for fast ‘refueling’ at Supercharger stationsDecember 22, 2014 at 11:07 am

  Way back in the summer of 2013, Elon Musk showed off a new piece of tech that could swap the battery of a Tesla Model S in 90 seconds. In one simple move, these battery swap machines made electric cars almost as convenient as their petrol- and diesel-powered brethren. The original plan was to roll out the tech to Supercharger stations in the second half of 2013, but they never emerged. Now, a single Supercharger station in Harris Ranch California has been equipped with the battery swap tech, and Tesla has started inviting some Model S owners to come try it out.
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  Nintendo’s next console will likely use x86 AMD chip, just like the Xbox One and PS4December 22, 2014 at 8:31 am

  After securing both the Xbox One and PS4, it would appear that an AMD SoC will also be powering Nintendo’s next console. Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that Nintendo is working on a possible new gaming system, and AMD has confirmed that it’s got another major design win. Are they one and the same thing? Probably.
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  A taste of the future: Double amputee controls two bionic arms at the same timeDecember 19, 2014 at 1:39 pm

  A Johns Hopkins and DARPA-funded limb has been adapted to give a double amputee control over two bionic arms at once.
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  Elon Musk’s speed-of-sound Hyperloop is actually being built December 19, 2014 at 9:02 am

  Way back in the summer of 2013, SpaceX’s Elon Musk proposed a new transportation system that was equal parts awesome and insane: The Hyperloop. Unfortunately, that was the extent of Musk’s involvement: He gave us his plans in the form of a 57-page white paper, and then told the world to go ahead and build it. Now, a group of 100-odd engineers have banded together to try and actually create a Hyperloop — and they seem to be making pretty solid progress.
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  New brain implant tech from Blackrock is making ‘mind over matter’ a reality December 18, 2014 at 1:20 pm

  Prosthetics researchers from the University of Pittsburg have now been able to finesse an additional three degrees of freedom out of an improved implant-to-arm pipeline by swapping by additional finger motions where previously Jan had only a crude pincer grip. 

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