NEWS
Autonomous passenger drone gets testing approval in Nevada EHang, a Chinese drone manufacturer has received permission to test it's passenger carrying drone in Nevada. The plan is to have a passenger hop in the drone, enter a location and the drone autonomously flies there. Will be interesting to see how the FAA handles this. Would a person without a pilot's license be able to use it? If so, damn, that is cool as fuck. Discuss
Google Impact Challenge will give $4.5m to Australian non-profits Google is giving out $4.5m to Australian non-profits with an idea to do cool things with technology as part of the Google Impact Challenge. Four groups will get $750,000 each, plus some Google volunteers, six groups will get $250,000 each plus some mentoring. A panel of important people (David Gonski, Lucy Turnbull, Layne Beachley, Melissa Doyle, Alan Noble, and Jacquelline Fuller) will pick three winners, the fourth will be selected by popular online vote. Nice little thing Google Australia is doing here. Maybe if you work for a non-profit, you can get one of your ideas up and secure some cash for it? Discuss
Sprightly and Planner - two new apps from Microsoft Microsoft's been busy releasing a few new apps - Sprightly and Planner. Sprightly is a little iOS app that is kinda like a riff on Publisher of old and like the Canva and Adobe Spark of new. Take photos from your device and use the built-in templates to create nice designs that you can share on social media, or even print. Use it to make e-cards, coupons, price lists and so on. Planner, is a new product in the Office suite, which looks and acts much like Trello, helping to plan projects. Discuss
Huge planned GPS outage in the USA, probably due to the Navy trying something cool/evil The FAA (America's plane nerds) have warned pilots of GPS outages across California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The outage consumes a 581 mile radius from where the US Navy's Air Weapons Centre is located. The Navy isn't saying shit, of course, so get your tinfoil hats out everyone! Let's try guess what the hell would be going down in order to knock out GPS signals in such a large area at that altitude. Discuss
Bose release Bluetooth version of the QC25 noise cancelling headphones This will please many travelers and cubicle workers - Bose has made a wireless version of its fantastic noise canceling headphones. The new QuietComfort 35s are the same as the QC25s, just with Bluetooth. They'll also work with a 3.5mm cable if you'd rather use that or if you wanna use them with the IFE system on the plane. The built in rechargeable battery lasts around 20 hours. Whenever I go on a long haul flight, I buy a pair of QC25s (then sell them when I get back for pretty much what I paid for them duty free). Now to have them wireless is delicious icing on the cake. They sell for US$349, so expect a price of around $450 locally. Discuss
COOL SHIT
A sane Mac upgrade wishlist WWDC is approaching soon (13th of June @ 3am) and the thinkpieces surrounding what Apple should do are starting to appear. Arstechnica has one that's relatively sane regarding our old friend, the Mac. Lots in here I reckon Apple should do too. Biometrics (Windows Hello is awesome), encryption by default (yeah, it'll fuck up some people but the net effect will be good) and SSDs by default in every Mac (oh god yes, why is the iMac still sold without one). Discuss
PayPal slaps some justice on Twitch donation trolls I don't use Twitch, but apparently sending streamers donations using PayPal, letting them savor the joy of such a large sum of cash entering their life, then using PayPal's refund service to get their money back. Trolls extracted significant joy out of this action, but now the trolls have been put in their place as PayPal has refused to do this and one shithead who sent $50,000 to a Twitch streamer as a joke, can't get their money back, haha. Suck it, stupid troll. Discuss
Google’s Motion Stills app lets you share Live Photos as GIFs Google has a new iOS app too - Motion Stills. The new app will take your Live Photos taken on an iPhone 6s/6s Plus and let ya share them as GIFs wherever you like. It'll also stabilise videos and let you make GIFs of those as well. Google's Motion Stills is free and looks pretty nifty! It's only on iOS by the way. Discuss
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
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