Google is making 360-degree cameras Street View-ready

  It can be a pain to upload your own Street View photos even if you have a 360-degree camera. You may have to stop to take photos every few feet, and then there's the question of getting the spherical shots from your camera to the internet. Google thinks it can help. It's working with hardware partners on "Street View ready" standards that will certify 360-degree cameras based on how easily you can post shots. Street View mobile ready devices let you post directly from an app, with no PC required; auto ready cameras, meanwhile, are designed for capturing high-accuracy shots from your car.

OnePlus 5 leaks with dual front-facing selfie cameras

The OnePlus 5 is official, or at least the name is after the company announced it, but now more details are leaking.
Sketches that appear to be from the design stages of the OnePlus 5 development have leaked on Chinese network Weibo. Of course, being sketches, these must be taken with a pinch of salt. But the timing, right next to the company’s official announcement of the handset’s name, seems convenient.

Robot that performs surgery inside your eye passes clinical trial

  The next time you go under the knife for retinal surgery, it may not be a human hand holding the blade. That's because a revolutionary surgical system developed University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, which just passed its first set of clinical trials, is able to perform these intricate operations better than even the steadiest surgeon.
The problem lies in the pulse. Retinal surgeries rely on creating miniscule holes in the eye to gain access to the retina itself, a 10 micron thick flap of membrane that converts light into electrical signals that the brain can interpret. In the case of issues like an epiretinal membrane, essentially a scar on the retina caused by anything from injury to disease to just growing old, even the flow of blood through a surgeon's hands is enough to throw off their accuracy, raising the odds that they'll cut too deeply and make matters worse.

How to stream your video collection to any device

 As great as Netflix is, movies and shows don't stick around on the service forever. As licensing deals renew or expire, Netflix loses old videos and gains new ones—which means that, on any given day, you might look up your favorite TV show only to find it's gone.

For a more reliable option, you could buy your favorite digital content from portals like iTunes or Google Play. But there is another solution: Set up your own version of Netflix. Simply store the videos you own on your home computer, and from there, you can stream that content to other devices around the house.
In proper technical parlance, you're actually turning your computer into a server, something that "serves up" content for other devices, or "clients." A client might be anything from your phone to the PlayStation 4 connected to your living room TV.
A few years ago, you pretty much needed a degree in IT to get everything connected. Today, the Windows and Mac operating systems, as well as third-party apps, make it relatively easy to set up your own streaming service from the comfort of home.

Getting started

The new iPad review: This is the best couch computer ever

  Apple iPad 1 The last time I bought an iPad was in 2012. It was a good iPad. But increasingly, especially when the iPhone 6 came out with a bigger screen, I found that my iPad started gaining dust.
The bigger iPhone could simply do all the same things as my iPad, and as my iPad's hardware got older — it still used Apple’s old-style charger — I stopped using it.
But Apple’s newest iPad reminded me that for iPhone users, a big tablet that does the same things can be a huge luxury. Browsing the web, playing games, and checking social media is all more pleasant with a bigger screen.
So a few weeks ago, I bought Apple’s newest iPad. Apple just calls it "iPad" but you might have better luck Googling “2017 iPad” or “iPad (5th Generation.)”
Ultimately, it’s not that much different than the other iPads that have been sold over the past two years, except for one big change: It’s cheap. I paid $329 for mine.

The only way to save the smart home hub is to kill it

Five years ago, off-the-shelf smart home hubs were the hottest new automation technology. These devices plugged into routers and translated the wireless signals of countless smart home gadgets into a communication protocol phones could understand. Put simply, they were the glue that would let users easily build a DIY smart home.

But what many hailed as the future of home automation soon faltered. Through a series of buyouts and bankruptcies, the market presence of off-the-shelf hubs began to dwindle. The final catalyst of the hub's destruction was the Amazon Echo, the first Bluetooth speaker to make the smart home truly accessible using voice control.

10 things the Samsung Galaxy S8 can do that the iPhone can't

Samsung's latest phone, the Galaxy S8, is packed with a lot of thoughtful features that you won't find on the iPhone.

While the iPhone still has a slight edge over the Galaxy S8, there are plenty of things that set it apart from its biggest rival.

Here are the most important Galaxy S8 features you won't get from the iPhone.

1. There's an iris scanner that can be used to unlock the phone and access secure folders.

Samsung says it's more secure than a fingerprint sensor. The iPhone only has a fingerprint sensor.

Atom-thin water layers may lead to faster electric cars

So many battery breakthroughs focus on longer battery life (and for good reason), but what about the speed of delivering that energy? That's what North Carolina State University researchers want to solve. They've produced a material, crystalline tungsten oxide hydrate, that uses atom-thin water layers to tune electrical charge transfers for speed. When the team uses this material in a pseudocapacitor (which stores energy by transferring charges between electrodes and electrolytes), the result is a battery that theoretically represents the best of two worlds. It has the high energy density you'd expect, but it's also very quick at shuttling ions back and forth. That, in turn, could lead to performance breakthroughs in devices where rapid power is at least as important as raw capacity.

Charging Stand Turns Your iPhone Into a Mini Macintosh

 

 
 

No matter how convenient the iPhone becomes, nostalgia for the oversized Macintosh computers of the past will never die. According to Gizmodo, the latest reincarnation of the vintage gadget is a pint-sized charging stand for your smartphone.

Tag Heuer's 'modular' smartwatch isn't actually modular

Webster's dictionary may define "modular" as "constructed with standardized units," but in tech, that buzzword has a slightly different meaning. A modular device usually has swappable components that bring additional functionality. But Tag Heuer is going with the original definition of the word for its latest high-end Android Wear smartwatch. The Connected Modular 45 is the follow-up to the company's surprisingly successful debut smartwatch that came out last year. The company's sophomore offering is a highly customizable device that lets you swap out the "smart" module for a mechanical timepiece, turning it into just another analog luxury watch with a multi-thousand-dollar price tag. You can change other components of the watch, too. Starting at $1,600, the Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45 is a refinement of the original and, like its predecessor, will appeal only to a very select group of people.

The iPhone 8 may be very hard to get until 2018

It’s sounding more and more like the iPhone 8 won’t arrive until nearly the end of 2017, a couple months after Apple usually introduces new iPhones.

The latest sign comes from Ming-Chi Kuo, the reliable KGI Securities analyst, who says mass production of the iPhone 8 may not start until October or November, according to 9to5Mac.

There are almost always reports ahead of every iPhone launch saying that Apple is going to have limited supplies of its new phone, but the situation this year seems to be quite a bit different. Apple typically starts mass production of new iPhones several months before they’re announced and still faces supply constraints. If Apple isn’t beginning mass production on the iPhone 8 until October or November, they’ll almost certainly be hard to come by until early 2018.

This is the 'flying car' backed by Google's co-founder

While we all wait for fully self-driving vehicles to make their debut in showrooms nationwide, another hot concept is preparing to take flight later this year: the flying car.

On Monday, Kitty Hawk — the startup earning an investment from Google co-founder Larry Page — unveiled the Kitty Hawk Flyer, an ultralight aircraft launching later this year. Pricing will be revealed closer to launch.

The Flyer basically looks like a giant drone, with the driver sitting on top. It falls under the ultralight category, according to Federal Aviation Administration regulations. However, owners won't need a pilot's license to operate one.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Faces iPhone 8 Delay as Galaxy S8 Shatters Sales Records

At this point in time, it almost seems as though Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and smartphone rival Samsung Electronics (OTCMKTS:SSNLF) have switched positions.  Mere months ago, everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to be hitting Samsung, while AAPL took the smartphone sales crown and rode a wave of optimism about the upcoming 10th anniversary iPhone 8 launch.

But with U.S. Galaxy S8 sales up over last year’s Galaxy S7 pre-orders, and more signs of iPhone 8 delays, momentum seems to have shifted to Samsung.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Samsung confirmed that Galaxy S8 sales are on track to put the Galaxy Note 7 far behind it. In fact, according to Samsung, Galaxy S8 pre-orders smashed the previously record-setting Galaxy S7 pre-orders in the crucial U.S. market by 30%. Samsung told the publication:

iPhone 8: Everything we know so far about the 10th-anniversary edition of Apple's historic phone

After months of speculation, Apple delivered a very modest update of the iPhone lineup back in March. But the new Product Red editions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, and the updated iPhone SE, are just the appetizer. The main course will be a dramatically redesigned iPhone -- coming later this year, according to the rumors.

When will we see the iPhone 8 -- or whatever Apple decides to call it? Frankly, the rumors are all over the place. Fall is a good enough guess, given that Apple has scheduled September introductions for every major iPhone since the iPhone 5 in 2012.

This time, however, things could be different. For the 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone, we're expecting Apple to come out swinging with some real breakthrough innovations. And, according to the most recent rumors, some of these hot new technologies could be making it tough for Apple to deliver the goods by September. More on that below.

Understanding Cybersecurity, Beyond the Russian Hacking Scandal

 

It's difficult for anything to cross international borders faster than digital information. But the convenience of technology that allows more than 2.6 million emails, nearly 60,000 Google searches and 8,000 tweets to be sent each second inevitably puts the estimated 3.6 billion global internet users at risk of hacking.

"Our lives are powered by the technology we use. It's how we communicate with the world and interact with the world," says Gadi Evron, an influential cybersecurity thought leader and founder of the cyberdeception start-up, Cymmetria. "Whatever motive you have to use a tool do something, someone else has the opposite."

Everything we think we know about the iPhone 7S and iPhone 8

 

Apple's annual iPhone launch event has become something you can organise your calendar around, like Christmas or the half-term holidays - every September, usually early in the month, Apple CEO Tim Cook takes to the stage to introduce the year's new iPhones.

This September should be no different and we've already heard plenty of rumour and counter-rumour from the secretive Apple supply chain, suggesting that 2017's event - ten years after the first iPhone launched - is going to be special in more ways than one.

Samsung's Interactive Table is pretty awesome

 

It takes quite a bit to impress me, and while the new Samsung Galaxy S8 is a looker, it was actually an interactive demo that blew me away at the phone's Singapore launch.

The unremarkably named Interactive Table may not sound like much, but it really is a piece of cool tech. The table lets users check out the features of Samsung Galaxy S8 in a pretty amazing way.

You put the phone on the table, which is essentially a large display, and the table then detects where the phone is through the 12 cameras hidden below the screen. Using a round glass marker, you then get to select which of the features of the new phone you want to experience by simply twisting it.

How to switch from iPhone to Samsung

 

Are you ready to give Samsung another shot after last year's exploding Galaxy Note 7 scandal? The troubled electronics giant just released its newest flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy S8. If you've taken an iPhone detour while Samsung worked out its issues and are ready to return to Android with the Galaxy S8, then you'll want to take a few things with you, namely your contacts and calendar, your texts, photos and music.

Before you get started switching, you'll need to sign up for a Google account if you aren't already using Gmail. You can sign up for a Google account here, which you'll then need when setting up the Galaxy S8.

Samsung is reportedly testing a dual-screen smartphone prototype

According to reports from Korean publications ET News and The Investor, tech giant Samsung will produce a number of prototype dual-screen smartphones this year. The company has already begun production on the device, say the reports, and plans to make between 2,000 and 3,000 units in the first half of 2017.

These dual-screen devices aren’t destined for the consumer market, though, and will instead be a test-bed for Samsung to explore the potential of a foldable smartphone. The prototypes will reportedly be constructed from a pair of rigid, 5-inch OLED displays joined by a single hinge — a design we’ve seen in real consumer devices in the past, like NEC’s Medias W N-05E and the Kyocera Echo. 

Toyota shows robotic leg brace to help paralyzed people walk

 

Toyota is introducing a wearable robotic leg brace designed to help partially paralyzed people walk.

The Welwalk WW-1000 system is made up of a motorized mechanical frame that fits on a person's leg from the knee down. The patients can practice walking wearing the robotic device on a special treadmill that can support their weight.

Toyota Motor Corp. demonstrated the equipment for reporters at its Tokyo headquarters on Wednesday.

One hundred such systems will be rented to medical facilities in Japan later this year, Toyota said. The service entails a one-time initial charge of 1 million yen ($9,000) and a 350,000 yen ($3,200) monthly fee.