The folks at MegaBots Inc. dream of making humongous machines: 15-foot-tall, 15,000-pound piloted robots to be exact. And they don't want to build them for rescue missions or military use -- nope, these robots are designed to duke it out in an arena à la Real Steel, except instead of using fists, they shoot each other with high-powered paint guns. A now-defunct convention called RoboGames used to have a real-life robot combat event, but this startup's plans are obviously a lot grander in scale. Each MegaBot is big enough to carry a pilot and a gunner within its body (just like in mecha anime), with the latter in charge of firing paint-filled projectiles going at 120 mph at their opponents.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

It's a great time for technology journalism, with hundreds of sites all working very hard to bring you exhaustive coverage of their specialist field. Verizon, however, clearly doesn't feel that it's getting enough attention, which is why it's launched SugarString, a tech news site that covers "humanity's climb towards the new next." There is, unfortunately, a catch, which is that Big Red hasn't been able to stop itself from ensuring that some pretty big technology topics are strictly off-limits. The Daily Dot received an email, purportedly from new editor Cole Stryker, that claims that two subjects can't be discussed on the site: spying and net neutrality. "Wait," you ask us, "aren't they the two areas where Verizon's got plenty of dirty laundry?" to which we simply nod.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

It's not hard to find microwave-friendly recipes, but it's another matter to both find the right recipes and cook them properly. However, SectorQube may just take care of all of those challenges at once if its crowdfunded MAID (Make All Incredible Dishes) smart microwave takes off. The 1.3 cubic foot oven gives you access to a crowdsourced recipe store and will automatically prepare many dishes at the right time and temperature, but its real highlight is a recommendation feature that suggests meals and activities based on your cooking habits and fitness. It may offer a dinner that complements your diet, or suggest a run if you've been indulging in a lot of calorie-rich food. There will be gesture and voice commands if you'd rather not touch the 6-inch screen with sticky fingers, and a smartphone app will let you know when the cooking is done.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

When CVS and Rite-Aid shut off their NFC-based payments to prevent customers from using Apple Pay, we heard it was because they're part of a large group developing rival technology CurrentC. Now, The New York Times has shed more light on the issue, and it turns out they did it not just to stifle the competition, but also because they're contractually obligated not to offer Apple Pay in their stores. The whole Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) group, including these two drug stores and big-box retailers Walmart and Best Buy, signed a contract years ago that binds them to Current C. That contract, signed way before anyone knew if Apple Pay was ever going to materialize, prevents them from supporting rival technologies, as doing so will earn them outrageous fines.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

Think your completely isolated, internet-disconnected "air gap" computer network is secure from wireless infiltration? Think again -- security researchers at Ben-Gurion University in Israel have found a way to lift data from closed networks using little more than a standard computer monitor and FM radio waves. It's a pretty clever trick: researchers have created a keylogging app called AirHopper that can transmit radio frequencies by exploiting the PC's display. A companion app on an FM-equipped smartphone can decode those transmissions and record the host machine's keystrokes in real-time.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

Apparently Mayor Giuliani's defense worked: Former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega's case against Activision for including his likeness in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has been dismissed by a California judge. As Kotaku spotted, Activision issued a press release stating that this was an important win for not just video games, but historical fiction in general."This was an absurd lawsuit from the very beginning and we're gratified that in the end, a notorious criminal didn't win," Giuliani says. So there's that! Anyone who wants to bend the history books a bit to suit their narrative needs should be pretty much in the clear from here on out.

0 Comments Share

Step aside, Gionee, as your record for the world's slimmest smartphone has just been beaten by a fellow Chinese manufacturer. Oppo's R5, the successor to the Asia-only R3, comes in at just 4.85mm thick, thus beating the 5.15mm-thick Elife S5.1 from Gionee. Despite the crazy thin metallic body, the R5 still packs a handful of goodies: a 5.2-inch full HD AMOLED screen, an octa-core (quad 2.1GHz and quad 1.5GHz), 64-bit Snapdragon 615 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 5MP/13MP cameras (both with f/2.0 aperture), LTE radio and a 2,000 mAh battery. All of this comes in at just 155g heavy. Of course, there's bound to be a trade-off: You only get 16GB of internal storage, no microSD expansion and, unlike the Elife S5.1, no 3.5mm headphone connector here -- you'll need to use the bundled micro-USB adapter or Bluetooth (there's an optional O-Music Bluetooth clip for your headphones and for triggering the camera).

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

If you thought Oppo was done with making eccentric selfie phones, you're wrong; the Chinese company is back with a new model dubbed the N3 to replace the N1 from last September. The iconic swivel camera at the top is here to stay, but this time we have a 16-megapixel f/2.2 module and it's motorised! It's actually much cooler than it sounds: You can quickly flip the camera with a flick gesture on the screen or on the fingerprint sensor on the back -- more on that later. In addition to that, the N3 comes with a new O-Click Bluetooth remote that not only acts as a remote trigger, but it also lets you adjust the camera's angle using the extra buttons.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share

You'd think that YouTube would launch a subscription video service ahead of its rivals given its love of original content, but someone might just beat it to the punch. Vimeo's Kerry Trainor tells Recode that his company already has a subscription option in development. He's not providing details of how it will work, but it would be a logical extension of Vimeo's successful On Demand option. Viewers want to pay for a "whole world of content" that wouldn't reach them any other way, he says. However it pans out, Vimeo might want to hurry -- YouTube is openly toying with the idea of its own subscription service, and it could easily steal the thunder from competitors if it's first out of the gate.

[Image credit: Brian Crano, Vimeo]

0 Comments Share

Huawei's Honor series of smartphones are designed to pack a punch without punching a hole in your wallet, but these devices typically don't see the light of day outside of China and other select markets. Today, that changes, with the announcement of the European launch of the Honor 6, a high-powered Android phone with an attractively low price tag. The handset may look like a relatively generic square with rounded corners, but the spec sheet tells a different story. A 5-inch, 1080p display adorns the front of the device, while a 3,100mAh battery allegedly keeps the thing going for more than two days with normal usage. It also packs in 3GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel primary camera with f/2.0 aperture, and a 5MP front-facing shooter with wide-angle lens. The real star of the show, though, is Huawei's Kirin 920 octa-core chip, which also includes a Cat 6 4G radio capable of tapping into LTE-Advanced networks that support maximum download speeds of 300 Mbps (Vodafone has one of those in the UK, by the way). The Honor 6 will be available on Amazon's regional portals from 9AM GMT today for £250 in the UK and €300 elsewhere in Europe.

Read the Full Story 0 Comments Share