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The Morning After: Tuesday, March 21st 2017
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Welcome to the Morning After, and the start of Adult Week here at Engadget. (We mean it in the grown-up sense, not the sexy one.) We also break down Samsung's new, weirdly-named Siri competitor, and introduce the app the world deserves: a selfie rating service. Smile!
The Morning After: Thursday, 23 February 2017
Good Morning After. NASA's big announcement could offer us a future among the stars, Apple's own 'spaceship' gets a boring name and another Instagram feature you might never notice.
ICYMI: Read your dog's mood swings with tech
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A new product out of Japan called Inupathy is giving dogs the Dug treatment, with a light up harness that tracks their heart rate, telling you information about their emotions via changes in color. We've no idea if it works as advertised, but you gotta admit the rainbow pattern signaling 'happy' is the most human expression for happiness in animals we could ever think of. Obviously your dog won't know what it means, since the silly loves are color blind.
ICYMI: Eye exams go DIY and smartfeeding your pets
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A new device can calculate people's eyeglass prescriptions without needing to see an optometrist, though whether that's actually responsible or not is up to you. Meanwhile a cloud-connected smart petfeeder that suffered from downed servers had to send a notice to owners to feed their pets manually, since the machines lost all connection and didn't release food. There's a lot to talk about this week but we recommend reading up on NOAA's three month weather outlook, since everyone will be talking about the DNC this weekend anyway. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
ICYMI: How cancer travels, true hoverboard and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-226789{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-226789, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-226789{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-226789").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT researchers discovered that cancer cells can unclump to squeeze through teeny capillaries, then reassemble as cancer clumps on the other side. Zapata Racing has a prototype of a real hoverboard that can fly just like the Green Goblin's, but only for 10 minutes at a time. And a smart toy for pets called PlayDate will let you play with your cat or dog remotely, by moving the ball around through an app and watching your pet's reaction. We also wanted you to see the video of some construction equipment in a Transformers-like battle, after the humans operating them got into some sort of argument and decided to settle it like Gladiators of road construction. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Watch Google's robot 'Spot' play with Andy Rubin's real dog
The US military recently decided that Google's Alpha Dog and Spot robots weren't ready for active duty, leaving the four legged robots with nothing to do. In the meantime, Google is doing with its battery-powered Spot robot what we probably would -- using it as a dog toy. The company recently unleashed it on Cosmo, the terrier that reportedly belongs to Android co-founder and Playground Global boss Andy Rubin. The adorable result is that Cosmo, clearly the boss of this arrangement, sees the hapless robot as an existential threat that must be barked at and harangued (no butt-sniffing, luckily).
Derby the dog gets better 3D-printed paw prosthetics
Derby, the dog with 3D-printed legs, can walk straight and sit like any other pooch now, thanks to a new set of prosthetics. If you recall, South Carolina company 3D Systems created his initial pair to be close to the ground so he could get used to them without hurting himself. Since merely blowing the old version up didn't work quite as well as the company had hoped, the team decided to design new ones.
The adorable dog in this PlayStation 4 game better not die
Sure, we already have Tokyo Jungle, Nintendogs, Valiant Hearts, Fallout and plenty of other franchises starring adorable pups, but there's always room for more. Home Free is about a dog living on the streets of various cities, searching for food, friends and shelter while trying to stay out of trouble. It features more than 12 dog breeds with customizable colors and markings, and the environments are all randomly generated, so they're unique to each player. As creator Kevin Cancienne puts it, "Shape the story of one dog's survival through your choices and actions. Experience the the world from the perspective a creature who will never quite understand why that world acts the way it does." (Seriously, Cancienne, if the dogs die in this game we're going to be heartbroken.) Home Free just got picked up for PlayStation 4 alongside a planned launch on PC and Mac in fall 2016. Cancienne launched a $50,000 Kickstarter for Home Free on September 30th and it was funded within five days; the campaign is still live now.
Nikon's doggy camera mount snaps when Rover gets excited
Dogs, it's fair to say, are easily excited. Walks, treats, sniffing other dogs' butts -- for man's best friend, life is a non-stop thrill ride. Now, to help you capture these moments of canine euphoria, Nikon has developed a camera mount that reacts to their heart rate. So when your favorite pooch spots something particularly awesome, the shutter will fire automatically, giving you an SD card full of the highlights. Nikon's "Heartography" setup consists of two parts -- an elastic heart-monitoring band and a "SmartCase" for the camera. Heart rate data is transmitted over Bluetooth and shown on the mount's OLED display, where you can also tweak the minimum threshold for each new snap. Unfortunately, this appears to be just a kooky R&D project though, rather than a serious consumer product. In the meantime, you'll have to make do with something like GoPro's Fetch mount -- it's lighter and more flexible, but you'll have to scrub through the footage to find the good bits.
Derby the dog got 3D-printed paw prosthethics, now watch him run
Derby was born with deformations in both of his front legs, making movement and any kind of speed difficult, if not impossible. Now, he can run. The husky mix was fitted out with two prosthetics, custom-made on 3D sculpting software to fit his forearms. With some help from 3D Systems and several iterations later, and the curved prosthetics you see above became the final build. "The great thing about using 3D technology in Derby's case, is having these images on file on a computer, and being able to print them. [It] is a lot quicker than having to hand sculpt every single mold and rebuild these braces five to ten times," explained Kevin Atkins, 3D Systems' Freeform Product Manager. The team settled on these curved designs because there was the fear that more pointed iterations (like running blades seen on humans) would get caught in softer ground.
Dog Days of Summer: The end of Toby's YouTube binge
It's a hot summer day. You're bored, you grab your iPad, and you binge out on cute doggy videos on YouTube. But what happens when you've seen every possible video? Surely you wouldn't stoop so low as to watch cat videos on YouTube... No, it's time to just relax and think about taking a nap. TUAW reader and Toby's dad Eric Matisoff sent us this picture of the pup trying to think about what to do now that he's reached the end of the Internet. If you have a Dog Days nominee to share, let us know via our feedback page (and please remember that the photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple and its products -- don't just send us a photo of your canine buddy). For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link.
GoPro's new Fetch mount lets your pooch capture video in comfort
It's easy to get a dog's-eye view of the world by strapping an action camera to your canine, but making it stable and comfortable is another matter -- you don't want Rover shaking off that costly video gear. That's where GoPro's new Fetch mount should come in handy. The padded harness lets your dog carry up to two cameras (back and belly) in comfort, whether it's a tiny French Bulldog or a bigger Golden Retriever. The add-on includes a camera tether and water resistance, too, so your companion can play rough without losing any equipment. You'll have to spend a significant $60 to make Fetch happen, but it might be worth the outlay if you're eager to record the adventures of a four-legged friend.
Dog Days of Summer: Apps by Jasper
Unlike Rosie from a few weeks ago, who wanted nothing more than to get her human away from programming and go for a walk, Jasper the Vizsla puppy is perfectly content to sit in owner William Smith's lap and help him code. We can't wait to see the apps Jasper's programmed! If you have a Dog Days nominee to share, let us know via our feedback page (and please remember that the photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple and its products -- don't just send us a photo of your canine buddy). For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Thanks, William and jasper!
Warlords of Draenor: Dog may be in our garrisons after all
It's no secret that I love Dog, the farm puppy I rescued from the fields of Halfhill in Mists of Pandaria. I've written about Dog on a couple of different occasions, because he was just a really cool and unique perk to leveling reputation with the Tillers. Does Dog do anything? No, not really -- he just hangs around on the farm, responds to a few different emotes, but he doesn't actively do anything to further the game. He's just Dog, defender of the farm house, digger of holes, and overall good boy. It was with some concern that I wondered what Dog's fate would be when Warlords of Draenor hit -- I didn't like the idea of leaving the poor little guy behind. According to a recent tweet by Cory Stockton, that may not be a worry after all. A certain "Dog" might have just found his way to your Garrison in a future build. - Mumper (@mumper) August 7, 2014
Dog Days of Summer: Stop coding and pay attention to ME
There's nothing more annoying to a dog than being as adorable as Rosie and having your human ignore you while he's coding. "I mean, come ON - it's summer! And there are things to do outside! You're just sitting there staring at that screen and moving your fingers while I'm over here being cute! I want to go outside! NOW!" For Rosie's owner Daniel Bogan, it must be hard to get any work done with that sweet face looking at him. If you have a Dog Days nominee to share, let us know via our feedback page (and please remember that the photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple and its products -- don't just send us a photo of your canine buddy). For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Thanks, Daniel! Photo by Daniel Bogan, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
YouTube Find: Animals go insane over the iPad
We all know how much cats love the iPad, but did you know that dogs, birds and lizards love it, too? Check out this entertaining compilation video below showcasing our furry and not-so-furry friends enjoying some quality time with everyone's favorite tablet.
Yes, this is dog: No More Woof aims to translate canine thoughts into human speech
Head over to Indiegogo today and you'll find a particularly wacky (and risky) project bidding for your investment. It's a device that goes by the name of No More Woof, which admittedly sounds like it does horrible things to dogs' vocal cords, but which actually promises something very different. It's a canine-sized headset that consists of EEG recorders connected to a small Raspberry Pi computer and a loudspeaker, supposedly allowing "ionic current flows" in a dog's brain to be translated into human speech. A $65 model is said to distinguish between three different thoughts, including tiredness and curiosity, while more expensive options will have more sensors and more powerful software. The only hold-up (and it's a big one) is that this project is being offered for crowdfunding while still at the concept stage, and all investment will be kept even if the funding target isn't met. According to a disclaimer on the Indiegogo page: "Yes, we HAVE achieved some results, but we are very far from a mass-producable product. That said, we believe that within a few years the technologies we are working with will revolutionize our relation to pets and animals." Indeed, there's no evidence that ST, the Scandinavian research lab behind No More Woof and last year's equally strange iRock rocking chair, has managed to come up with anything like a working prototype -- or at least there's no sign of one in the long-but-vacant video embedded below. Nevertheless, if dog barks are eventually mistranslated by this sort of "novelty science" (a word ST actually uses to describe its own research), who'll be any the wiser?
What we leave behind
I'm really concerned about Dog. Dog is the dog that I rescued from near starvation in the Heartland over in the Valley of the Four Winds. I was so excited to find and rescue this poor little guy that I even wrote a brief article about him at the time. Since then, Dog has been happily living the life of a king on my farm, and despite the fact that I was never able to name him, he seems to be happy enough to just respond to the name Dog, not to mention a few choice emotes. If you haven't already done so, try using /love, /pet, /bark, or /kiss on your puppy, because the result is adorable. Actually, I kind of love everything on my farm. Shaggy the yak from Farmer Fung, the sheep from Chee Chee, the piggies sent courtesy of Fish Fellreed (who is still my favorite), and of course Luna the cat from Ella. Even the chickens, although they have a disturbing tendency to flop over dead due to phasing. I spent a lot of time building up the farm and making it the nicest little place to hang out, even when I'm not currently farming crops. It's a good farm. I had fun building it. But I'm super concerned about Dog, because I know I'll be leaving soon.
Call of Duty: Ghosts delivers bangs, booms, growls in new trailer
This Call of Duty: Ghosts launch trailer features all of the explosions, wanton gunplay and caucasoid rappers you'd expect, but more importantly, it also gives the game's canine companion a moment in the sun - or that is, a tense few seconds of snarling down hungry wolves in the moonlit snow.
Garmin DC 50 dog collar promises better satellite reception, longer battery life
Your dog can run, but it can't hide from Garmin's latest dog tracking collar. The DC 50 ups the game for the GPS company's satellite-friendly canine wearables, offering a more rugged, waterproof (up to 10 meters) design and improved battery life at 26 hours with the five-second update and up to 54 hours with two-minute update. There's also a Dog Rescue mode to automatically switch the collar to the latter when the charge gets down to 25 percent -- so you'll still get signal should you lose your pooch at the end of the day. And, to make him easier to find, the DC 50 promises more reliable satellite reception, thanks to the antenna's placement at the top of the collar and its utilization of both GLONASS and GPS nav systems. When paired with Garmin's Astro 320, users can track a pack of up to ten pups at once should you have the money to outfit them all with DC 50's. The collar will be available later this month for $230, or $600 if you buy it bundled with the aforementioned Astro 320.
