The Morning After: Weekend Edition
Radioactive diamond batteries, the FBI's new rules and dinosaurs in VR.
Letter from the Editor
December's here, and that means the holidays have kicked into overdrive as companies everywhere hope that it's their gear you'll be giving. Google, however, has made the curious decision to ignore one of its more successful products this season: Chromebooks. Nathan Ingraham speculates on why Chrome OS has been de-prioritized despite its momentum in the marketplace.
While Google was ignoring its Chromebook fanboys, however, this week Netflix was giving the people something they've wanted for years: offline playback of video. Devindra Hardawar unpacks the move and explains why it was an inevitability. (Hint: It might have something to do with Amazon having had the feature for years.)
And Tim Seppala spoke to some folks who build VR experiences to find out why dinosaurs were destined to be featured in virtual worlds. Turns out, giving users huge stuff to look at increases their sense of presence in VR, so dinos fill that role well. And c'mon, who doesn't want to wander amongst a herd of behemoth brachiosaurs or get up close and personal with a (virtual) T. rex?
Scientists demonstrate a prototype diamond battery powered by nuclear waste
Diamonds are forever and so is nuclear waste, so why not combine the two? Physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol displayed a prototype "diamond battery." The man-made diamond generates electricity simply by being close to a radioactive source.
Put radioactive waste inside one of the diamonds (which also prevents dangerous short-range radiation from escaping), and you have an energy source. It's a little low on power output (less than a AA battery), but using 1g of carbon-14, it could run for 5,730 years before dropping to 50 percent.
DroneGun jammer disables radio controls from over a mile away
This 13 lb jammer claims to disable drones from a safe distance of up to 1.2 miles away. The DroneGun doesn't destroy unauthorized flying robots, but it does cut off the connection to their operator, which should force the drone to abort its mission and land or return home.
Why are dinosaurs everywhere in VR?
There's actually another good reason we're seeing so many dino-related virtual reality experiences. As it turns out, their massive size and "verticality" are perfect for creating the sense of scale that helps users appreciate VR.
Holiday Gift Guide 2016: The Tinkerer
Even if you don't want to build a gift on your own, you might know someone who does. If they're looking for a 3D printer, try Makerbot's Replicator Mini+ on for size, and if that's too much, there's always Lego Mindstorms or the Pi Zero computer.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is retweeting bad science
This week people noticed a particular US government Twitter account has been tweeting questionably-sourced articles about climate change. The one that brought the scorn came from Breitbart, which has also hosted articles written by the committee chairman, Lamar Smith. While scientists have easily refuted the article's claims with actual data, fellow committee member E.B. Johnson tweeted that "False news & false facts put us all in danger..."
Changes to Rule 41 expand the Justice Department's reach in the digital world
This week a new change to the US' criminal procedure rules took effect, and its impact could affect your privacy. Now, Rule 41 lets the FBI hack computers in any jurisdiction provided they have a search warrant.
Because of the way it's written, the EFF and others argue people using Tor, a VPN or simply turning off location data in a smartphone app could be implicated because they have data "concealed through technological means." It also could let the feds hack IoT devices controlled by the Mirai botnet. Read up -- your computer could be considered a crime scene next.
Now Plex Cloud can connect to Amazon, Google, OneDrive or Dropbox
With its latest update, the Plex Cloud feature has gone from a feature that streamed media from personal storage locations to something more. Instead of pulling from your NAS or media server, now it can access data stored on services from Google, Amazon, Microsoft or Dropbox. The feature is still in beta and you'll need Plex Pass for access.
