TechNews - Amazon Introduces Siri-Like Assistant - tech
(hx) 04:39 PM CET - Nov,08 2014
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- Amazon Introduces Echo, a Speaker and Siri-Like Assistant - The Amazon
Echo is voice-controlled for hands-free convenience so you can just
say anything you want from anywhere in the room, thanks to voice
recognition technology. It features seven microphones that work as
sensors that utilize a beam-forming technology to hear a person from
any direction. Its noise cancellation feature also allows Alexa to hear
you even when it's playing a song.
Amazon says Alexa will always get smarter because it is connected to
the cloud. It runs on Amazon Web Services so it adds and learns more
information and functionality every time. Amazon Echo also adapts to a
person's personal preferences, vocabulary, and speech patterns.
- Microsoft's new Office touch apps for Windows demoed on video
- Microsoft has announced that they will be
releasing touch apps for Office on Windows and thanks to some
b-roll clips, we can see these new apps in action. The video shows off
PowerPoint and Word running on a Surface Pro 3.
- Microsoft and Dropbox Announce Collaboration - Microsoft
and Dropbox today announced
a new partnership that will make it easier for smartphone and tablet
owners to remain productive. They have agreed to integrate Office 365
and Dropbox for mobile and online document creation and storage.
Android and iOS users will be able to access Dropbox from Office apps
to get to their files and folders; edit Office files directly from
Dropbox and sync them across devices; and share new or edited files
from the Office apps using Dropbox sharing tools. Microsoft said it
will update Office for Android and iOS with these new features over the
coming weeks. Online sharing between Office and Dropbox won't arrive
until early 2015. Interested users will need both an Office and a
Dropbox account in order to access these tools.
- Microsoft Outs New Office Apps for iPhone, iPad, Androids - Microsoft
has announced
a major expansion of its core Office productivity suite across mobile
devices. Microsoft is replacing the limited Office app for the iPhone
with three brand new apps, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The
apps allow iPhone users to create and edit Office content on their
iPhones for free. Microsoft updated the iPad version of these three
apps so there is continuity across them on the iOS platform. Further,
Microsoft announced a new preview version of Office for Android
tablets. This means most people will be able to work with Office
documents on their mobile devices at no cost. Previously, Microsoft
required a subscription to its Office 365 product. Moving forward,
subscribers to Office 365 will have a more robust feature set,
including advanced editing and collaboration tools, unlimited OneDrive
storage, and Dropbox integration. Last, Microsoft said it is working on
a touch-enabled version of Office for Windows 10. The new iPhone and
iPad Office apps are free to download immediately.
- PayPal Officially Launches 'Pay After Delivery' Service - PayPal
has officially launched its Pay After Delivery service, the company
announced at the Money2020 payments event in Las Vegas today. The
payment firm also revealed new partnerships with Burger King and
GoDaddy as well as with Visa firms Authorize.net and Cybersource. For
those who don't know, Pay After Delivery lets PayPal users pay for
their goods up to 14 days after they choose to make a purchase. The
goal, as PayPal puts it, is to give customers "the same level of
confidence whether they shop online or in store." While shoppers get to
buy and pay later, merchants still get paid immediately, meaning PayPal
is essentially offering a two-week loan
- Swedish hacker finds 'serious' vulnerability in OS X Yosemite
- A white-hat hacker from Sweden says he's
found a serious security hole in Apple's Yosemite OS X that could
allow an attacker to take control of your computer. Emil Kvarnhammar, a
hacker at Swedish security firm Truesec, calls the vulnerability
"rootpipe" and has explained how he found it and how you can protect
against it. It's a so-called privilege escalation vulnerability, which
means that even without a password an attacker could gain the highest
level of access on a machine, known as root access. From there, the
attacker has full control of the system. It affects the newest OS X
release, version 10.10, known as Yosemite. Apple hasn't fixed the flaw
yet, he says, so Truesec won't provide details yet of how it works.
- Google Adds Touch ID Support to Drive for iOS - Google
has announced several new features its adding to Google Drive for
iOS devices. Drive now supports extensions in iOS 8, which means users
can more easily share files to and from Drive. The app can now be
locked with Touch ID for security purposes. Last, Drive for iOS now
allows users to save videos from Drive to their iPhone's camera role.
Google Drive for iOS is free to download from the iTunes App Store and
has even optimized for iOS 8.
- A creepy website is streaming from 73,000 cameras - A strange looking website
is letting anyone in the world stream from more than 73,000 IP cameras
whose respective owners have not yet changed their default passwords.
Whether or not this website is highlighting an important security
problem as they are claiming to do, this appears to be a serious breach
of privacy. Insecam has access to more than 73,000 cameras all around
the globe which includes more than 11,000 cameras in the United States,
6500 in Republic of Korea and almost 5000 in China. Even though the
website states that it is trying to emphasize on an important security
issue, it is clearly profiting from advertisements as well.
- Apple iPhone 6 vs Steam Iron - While many people around
the world are skipping dinner and working overtime to save money and
get one of the new Apple iPhones or iPads, the chaps over at TechRax
seem to have got their hands on many new iDevices and they are finding
happiness in destroying all of them! So far they have crushed two
iPhone 6 Plus units by driving a tank over them, boiled an iPhone 6,
managed to crack the screen of an iPad Air 2, and have also tortured
many other devices including the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the OnePlus
One. This
time around they are testing the iPhone 6 with a steam iron :D
- T-Mobile will sell Moto 360 from Nov. 12 - After rival
AT&T announced that it would sell the circular Moto 360 smartwatch,
T-Mobile took to Twitter to announce that it too will be offering the
Android Wear device. Motorola's Moto 360 will be available through T-Mobile
starting November 12th according to T-Mobile's @askdes.
- Russia may block access to iCloud / Apple services from
1 Jan 2015 - Russia
could block iPhone and iPad access to iCloud and Apple services
starting 1 January, due to the storage of the data being overseas. It
was reported recently, that Russia passed a law urging various internet
companies to store user data on local server
- German police searches 121 homes in piracy raid - The
police in Germany have recently
raided 121 homes in a massive piracy crackdown on the popular
linking site Boerse.bz. That site is allegedly offering more than
100,000 files which includes 61,776 movies, more than 13,650 TV shows
and other music, software and e-book files without permission from the
right-holders according to GVU
- Ikea, Pepsi amongst 340 companies with secret Luxembourg tax
deals - Pepsi,
IKEA, FedEx and 340 other international companies have secured
secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing many of them to slash their
global tax bills while maintaining little presence in the tiny European
duchy, leaked documents show.
- Metal Shavings Are Beautiful In Slow Motion - Add this to
the ever-growing list of Totally Pedestrian Things That Are Way
Cooler When Slowed Down
- Inside The World's Biggest Vacuum Chamber - NASA's space
power facility is used to test the conditions of space while still
on Earth by sucking many many tons of air out of the whole facility.
Remember that feather-and-bowling ball trick from middle school? It
actually works here.
- Acura TLX earns top crashworthiness rating from IIHS - Acura's 2015
TLX has earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Top
Safety Pick+ award. The new midsize sedan demonstrated acceptable
performance in the challenging small-overlap test, good ratings for
four other crashworthiness trials, and a superior rating for
front-crash protection.
- Audi wiring cars with cameras to see how ferrets tear them
apart - In this German-language video, we see a batch of
Audi engineers wiring up an A3 Cabriolet with a network of small
cameras. The goal? To help identify where and how stone martens -
small, ferret-like animals - attack cars. The idea is to observe the
animals' behavior around the vehicles, see where they go, what they
chew on, and work to develop solutions. FYI, in Europe it is a common
problem to have wild, ferret-like animals crawl into the engine bay of
cars while parked and idle and bite through brake/power steering and
other lines/hoses. Audi Deutschland's quality control is seeing where
the ferrets go within the engine compartment, which lines they chew on.
Based on the video, they will then look to use different materials that
a ferret doesn't like biting into. Looks totally random, but it is an
issue in Germany and Europe in general.
- Watch this Lamborghini Aventador shoot flames and light itself
on - The driver's Aventador has no problem shooting long flames,
and apparently they're hot enough to catch portions of the supercar's
body alight. However, the driver's reaction might be even more
unbelievable. Watch the video to see what happens - his response
certainly isn't how many people would react to their supercar being on
fire, perhaps because he isn't completely comprehending what's going
on.
- Audi RS Q3 gets snarlier, hits 62 mph in 4.8 seconds - A
mere 20 months after its debut at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show, Audi has
issued a
fairly significant update to its RS Q3 crossover
- Audi A9 Concept teased in video - Audi has just dropped another
teaser for the A9 Concept it'll be displaying at this month's LA
Auto Show.
- Mercedes S63 AMG Coupe vs Porsche Panamera Turbo S - Auto
Express has taken a whack at reviewing the new two-door S-Class, and
for some reason, the British mag is comparing it with a Porsche Panamera
- F-35C Lightning II Makes Long-Overdue First Carrier Landing - The
beleaguered F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has taken forever to get off
the ground, but this week it proved that it can land on the pitching
and rolling deck of an aircraft carrier.
- Into the Woods - Official Trailer #2 - "Into the
Woods" is a modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales,
intertwining the plots of a few choice stories and exploring the
consequences of the characters' wishes and quests. This humorous and
heartfelt musical follows the classic tales of Cinderella, Little Red
Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel-all tied together by
an original story involving a baker and his wife, their wish to begin a
family and their interaction with the witch who has put a curse on
them.
- The Gambler Official Trailer - The Gambler
is directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The
Escapist) and written by William Monahan (The Departed, Edge of
Darkness). John Goodman, Michael K. Williams and Richard
Schiff also star in the film which Paramount Pictures has given a
last-minute, awards season qualifying release on December 19th later
this winter.
- Selma Official Trailer #1 (2015) - Oprah Winfrey, Cuba Gooding
Jr. - Paramount has officially debuted the first
trailer for Ava DuVernay's Selma, one of the last films we're
waiting to see for the awards season, as it hits theaters on Christmas
Day just in time for a qualifying theatrical run.
- The Official Trailer For 'Minions,' The 'Despicable Me'
Spinoff - Meet Stuart, Kevin and Bob as they embark on a
journey for their new master. How they'll communicate with anyone, we
still don't know.
- Chappie TRAILER (2015) Hugh Jackman Movie - Every child
comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he
is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come
under the influence of his surroundings - some good, some bad - and he
will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become
his own man. But there's one thing that makes Chappie different from
anyone else: he is a robot. The first robot with the ability to think
and feel for himself. His life, his story, will change the way the
world looks at robots and humans forever.
- BIRDMAN RETURNS - Official Trailer - Fox Searchlight
released the film on October 17th - now playing.
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Official Main
Trailer - The New Official Trailer for The Hobbit: The
Battle of the Five Armies - In UK Cinemas December 12 2014.
- Fast & Furious 7 TRAILER #1 (2015) Vin Diesel Movie - After
Dominic Toretto and his crew helped take down Owen Shaw, his brother
Ian Shaw now wants revenge.
- Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever - Official trailer of Grumpy Cat's
Worst Christmas Ever.
- Reach For The Stars - Interstellar Space Exploration Movie
Mashup - Here's Reach for the Stars: An Interstellar Space Travel Mash-Up!
- Infomercials - Too Many Cooks [adult swim] - This is part
of a series
of infomercial parodies by Adult Swim.
- Support 'HARDCORE' - The World's First Action P.O.V. Film - I
have no real comment on the cinematic quality of this film but from a
technical perspective it's quite impressive!
- Steve-O Duct Taped Himself To A Wall And Got Shot With
Fireworks - Just because "Jackass" isn't on air anymore isn't
going stop Steve-O from doing really dumb stuff in front of a camera.
This goes without saying, but please don't do this to yourself or your
friends
- Daredevil Nik Wallenda's Blindfolded, High-Wire Stunt - Without
a net or harness, acrobat Nik Wallenda crossed two high wires strung
between two Chicago skyscrapers last Sunday, in a stunt captured
live on the Discovery Channel. The 'Squawk Box' crew reacts to the fea
- Dancing At 60 FPS Is Unreal - Does this
man have any bones in his body? He might not, but he's making it
work for him.
- ISS Astronauts Playing Around With Water And A GoPro -You
might have seen astronauts aboard the International Space Station
playing with water. It seems to be a lot of fun, right? But it appears
to be a whole lot more fun when there's a GoPro involved.
- Late night Suspicious roadblock dash cam - Dash cam
footage, roadblock in the middle of a highway late at night. No
lights or hazards. both lanes blocked off. Suspicious for sure, scary
to think what could have happened.
- Bald Eagle Stealing Fish Off a Fisherman's Line - Bald eagles,
as you might know, are very capable hunters. They can spot a fish
swimming in a sea or a lake from the top of a tree, fly down really
fast, grab its prey with its dangerous claws, and carry the meal back
to its nest. But the bald eagle in the video below seems to be very
clever also. The eagle has understood that there's no need to spend too
much energy to hunt a fish when a fisherman can do the task for the
bird. The bird can be seen flying away with the fish caught by a guy
named Norman Dreger as he is left to enjoy the sound of the unwinding
reel and curse the situation.
- I think a different vehicle might have worked - check it out
- Nailed it! - check it out
- The best pics on the Internet #103 - All pictures
are carefully handpicked!
- Hottest Babes on the Internet #50 - Which one is
hottest? ;-)
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