When making a convincing mixed reality experience, audio consideration is a must. Great audio can transport the HoloLens wearer to another place or time, help navigate 3D interfaces, or blur the lines of what is real and what is a hologram. Using a location-based trigger (hots ...more
HIV-infected people who are treated long-term with antiviral drugs may have no detectable virus in their body, but scientists know there are pools of the virus hiding there, awaiting the chance to emerge and wreak havoc again. Since scientists discovered these latent pools, th ...more
If you ever imagined turning the surface of your desk into one large augmented computer, well the future might not be far off, my friends. Lampix, the company that transforms any surface into a smart surface, is currently working on a portable and quite fashionable lamp to pro ...more
If you have encountered bed bugs lately, you are not alone. While the pesticides used to fight these pests are losing effectiveness, a fungus shows promise in knocking the bugs out of beds everywhere. Bed bugs, or Cimex lectularius, are parasitic arthropods, part of a broad g ...more
It has become hard to decipher where your digital imprint ends and your true self begins in today's tech-dominated world. Scrolling through news feeds and endless updates is not conducive to a good night's sleep, nor does it help you lead a well-balanced life. An online prese ...more
To keep fungal pathogens at bay in their crowded homes, wood ants mix potions to create powerful protection for their nest and their young. Makes sense, right? Humans mix chemicals all the time to make medicines, household cleaners, and other health and wellness products. But ...more
Most females have had at least one urinary tract infection in their lifetimes. Recurrent UTIs are particularly problematic in young, sexually active women, where about 80% of the infections are caused by the bacteria Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli. Most scientists, ...more
The new Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are two of most head-turning phones we've ever seen, thanks to gorgeous build quality and a seemingly bezel-less Infinity Display. Combine that with flagship-grade internals for top notch performance, and you can almost guarantee that Samsung ...more
Coming up at the end of May is the world's largest conference and expo dedicated to all things augmented and virtual reality, the Augmented World Expo, more commonly known just as AWE. And this year, a few of us from NextReality are going to be there. This year's AWE USA will ...more
The culprit probably wasn't what doctors were expecting when a 57-year-old man in Hong Kong came to the hospital. The patient was admitted to the intensive care unit in critical condition. A clue to the cause of the infection would lie in the man's profession—he was a butcher. ...more
I had the opportunity to speak with the COO of Osterhout Design Group, Pete Jameson, shortly before the announcement of the company's R-8 and R-9 smartglasses models at CES in January. And while I sadly could not make it to CES to test the smart specs out right away, ODG invit ...more
While its direct-selling model echoes brands like Avon and Tupperware, Indonesia's MindStores gives the approach a modern twist—with augmented reality. Recognized as the first partnership store network to use augmented and virtual reality, MindStores equips its store owners w ...more
Over 6,500 waterfowl—mostly ducks—have died in Canyon County, Idaho, stricken by avian cholera. The outbreak started in February, and before it's over, it may not only be Idaho's largest outbreak, but one of the largest in the country. Avian cholera is caused by infection wit ...more
Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment, but it is also one of the most commonly found heavy metals in wastewater, deposited there by inappropriate disposal and arsenical pesticides, for example. Whether by nature or contamination, an estimated 200 million people worldwid ...more
If you're a parent of a toddler (or have a friend that acts like a toddler), you occasionally need to take a break just to preserve your mental health. The perfect way to buy yourself some "me time" in this scenario would be to pull up an episode of Dora the Explorer on Netfli ...more
It won't come as a surprise to hear that your cell phone, tablet, and laptop are loaded with bacteria and other organic material. While most of these bacteria are harmless, there are good reasons to reduce the capability of your mobile devices to infect you—or other people. H ...more
Ecosystem changes caused by agricultural choices in Brazil are creating a dangerous microbe mix in exploding populations of vampire bats and feral pigs. Even as human-influenced climate warming is tipping the tables on ecosystems around the world, choices made by landowners i ...more
If you have a HoloLens, you can now control the lighting throughout your home or office via holographic controls using the free Hue Lights app in the Windows Store. The app, made by California-based AfterNow, works with the Philips Hue colored lighting system and is much more ...more
Even if your cat drives you a little nuts, don't worry, because a new study says that cats pose no risk to your mental health. Media reports in the last couple of years placed emphasis on the danger of your cat to your future mental health, and that of your children. No kiddi ...more
At a global security conference in Munich, philanthropist and businessman Bill Gates spoke about the next pandemic and a dire lack of global readiness. Here's how his statement could come true—and how to be ready when it does. On Saturday, Bill Gates joined hundreds of heads- ...more
Six people have died from fungal infections in Pittsburgh hospitals since 2014—that fact is indisputable. The rest of the situation is much vaguer. A lawsuit has been filed against the hospitals on behalf of some of the deceased patients, alleging that moldy hospital linens ar ...more
Responding to the emergence of Zika in the US, researchers investigated what type of repellent works best to reduce your odds of a mosquito bite from Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species that spreads the Zika virus. Scientists from the Department of Biology at New Mexico State ...more
Although their effectiveness is waning, antibiotics remain a front-line defense against many infections. However, new science reveals using the wrong antibiotic for an infection could makes things much worse. It is common knowledge that overuse of antibiotics has led to the g ...more
It hasn't even been eight years since Candida auris was discovered—cultured and identified from the ear canal of a patient in Japan—and now it's drug-resistant, setting up residence in hospitals, killing patients, and wreaking havoc across the globe. The yeast, C. auris, find ...more
Disengagement report numbers for self-driving car testing in 2016 on public roads in California were just released, and the biggest point we can make about them is that Waymo is very far ahead of their competitors in almost every metric. The California Autonomous Vehicles Tes ...more
In the summer of 1976, 4,000 American Legionnaires descended upon the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a four-day convention. Several days later, many of the attendees experienced symptoms of severe pneumonia. By the beginning of August, 22 people ha ...more
There are all kinds of theories—many supported by science—about what causes Alzheimer's disease. Tangles of protein called ß-amyloid (pronounced beta amyloid) plaques are prominently on the list of possible causes or, at least, contributors. An emerging theory of the disease s ...more
To shine light on the future of the relationship between humans and viruses, a team of researchers from the University of Oxford looked into the dim and distant past. Without the capability to reproduce on their own, viruses infect other organisms, literally inserting their D ...more
We live in a computer world full of file formats. Whether we are talking about images, videos, or text documents, there are dozens of file types for each, and there are new ones added every year to applications. Keeping in mind that many of these formats were created before th ...more
A gold-medal winning entry into the iGEM synthetic biology competition could change the way we look at Esherichia coli, the bacteria better known as E. coli. Often the culprit in food-borne disease outbreaks, E. coli is rarely congratulated for its good work. Recently, studen ...more
You might feel the bite, you might not, but an infected mosquito has injected you with a parasite named Plasmodium falciparum, a single-cell protozoa that quickly takes up residence in your body. You don't feel a thing as the parasite infects your liver and begins to multiply ...more
When a dead body is discovered, finding out when the person died is just as important as finding out how the person died. Determining the time of death has always involved lots of complicated scientific detective work and less-than-reliable methods. However, a study by Nathan ...more
Last week it was announced that Waymo, the former Google Self-Driving Car project, had graduated from Alphabet's X innovation center. This graduation had been in the cards for many months with senior members of the project team and X hinting that it would be soon. John Krafci ...more
Dutch filmmaker Anthony Van der Meer published his 2015 thesis short from Willem de Kooning Academy in South Holland online in December 2016. It's a brilliant piece of work that managed to be touching, alarming, and informative at the same time. His documentary, which already ...more
With any continuously active software, it can start to become fairly complex after a few years of updates. New features and revisions both get layered into a thick mesh of menu systems and controls that even pro users can get bewildered by. If you are new to a certain applicat ...more
Beginners luck is a phrase I have always hated. But really, beginners luck comes down to not letting your experience in something get in the way of the idea. This past weekend, I drove to Atlanta for my first ever hackathon, HoloHack, presented by ThyssenKrupp. Twenty hours a ...more
It's odd to see grown humans attempting to bounce off walls doing parkour. It's another thing altogether to see a robot doing it. University of California Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab has created the world's most vertically agile robot—capable of jumping to unimagin ...more
All day I dream of eggs: scrambled, poached, over easy, hard-boiled, fried, baked, raw... Okay, the last one is a joke (unless you're Gaston, which means that you eat five dozen of them and you're roughly the size of a barge). But eggs are freaking good in just about any cooki ...more
It seems like a new, dangerous Android exploit is uncovered every month or two. The latest headliners are NightMonkey and Chronos from the list of CIA hacks reported by Wikileaks, which have been billed as gaping security holes in the world's biggest mobile operating system. ...more
An app from the development team at ts-apps has the potential to make your Android device smarter than it's ever been. At first glance, you'd think it's just an ordinary home screen folder—but depending on what you're doing at a given time, the folder can show a completely dif ...more
Now that we've got all of our software installed, we're going to proceed with the next step in our HoloLens Dev 101 series—starting a fresh project and building it into a Holographic application. Then we will output the application to the HoloLens Emulator so we can see it in ...more
Maybe you decided to make your own pumpkin pureé because of all the buzz about canned pumpkin actually being squash (which, by the way, is a load of bull: it's made with ugly pumpkins, but pumpkins nonetheless). Or maybe you just wanted to be that person that proudly proclaims ...more
When you do an internet search, you'll see ads that are relevant to your query mixed in with the rest of your results. Nothing surprising there—it's how the internet is funded. But then, when you click one of the search results, you'll also see ads that are related to your ini ...more
We recently covered an app called Fingerprint Quick Action that let you use your fingerprint scanner to expand your notification tray like the Google Pixel, along with a few other actions. It's definitely a useful mod, but there's a similar app can make your fingerprint scanne ...more
I used to brag that I could make a swan out of an apple, but chicks don't dig swans—they dig roses. So now I'm going to brag about making apple roses, because you would, too, if you could get them to look like this: Now that's an apple tart that will win the ladies over. (And ...more
When it comes to modding an Android device, a custom kernel can take you farther than almost anything else. Most offer the ability to overclock your processor for performance gains, change your CPU governor, or even under-volt to increase battery life, among other features. O ...more
Yes, I know it's autumn and the trees are losing their leaves, but the seasons do not decide when I can or cannot enjoy ice cream. No matter how warm or cold is is outside right now, I will remain completely fascinated by rolled ice cream. Yes, rolled. Video: . Don't Miss: Cre ...more
With folks drawing lines in the sand before the upcoming election this November, it's important to know where you stand on some of the most important issues: the economy, foreign affairs, domestic affairs, and apples—caramel or candy apples, that is. Yeah, so one of these thi ...more
Seriously, what's with all of the candy corn hate? I don't care what anyone says, candy corn is and always has been the perfect Halloween snack for me. Only recently did I realize that not everyone gets as hype as I do about small, sugary vegetables. Don't Miss: Killer Cupcak ...more
It's that time of the year, y'all—when the air becomes crisp, the nights grow long, and people crave hearty, warm soups and stews. And of all the season's offerings, my hands-down favorite has to be chili: It's versatile, meaty, and above all else, it's damn easy to make. (Tha ...more
Harry Potter fans got a treat last week when Pottermore, a site created by Harry Potter author, J. K. Rowling, released a test that let users learn what form their Patronus protective charm would take. Does it need to be said? The internet almost exploded. Riding this new wa ...more
Ah, butter—the (literally) heart-stopping star of the dairy world. Everything tastes better with it, from pie crusts and cookies to veggies and steaks. Hell, you can even fry things in butter if you want the best-tasting fried foods of your (short) life. Don't Miss: Compound ...more
Most of us don't get the opportunity to see election coverage first hand, but with virtual reality, we're not as restricted. AltspaceVR has teamed up with NBC News to let you log in on your computer or VR headset and actually take part in the action—just not physically. Video: ...more
Wheat toast. White toast. Sweet potato toast. Okay, one of these things is not like the others... Don't Miss: Screw Sandwiches—Toast Is Where It's At Kelsey Preciado, the blogger behind Little Bits Of, first came up with this so-crazy-it-might-be-genius idea when she didn't ...more
The hatred is almost universal—by now, even late night TV hosts are bashing Apple's move to ditch the headphone jack in the iPhone 7. It's not like the disdain is baseless, either, because there are plenty of problems that come along with removing the iPhone's only analog soun ...more
This is a whole new level of "Paleo," guys. Seriously: there's nothing more primal than a giant hunk of meat cooked in direct flame. Fancy grills and grill masters be damned—this method of cooking your meat is both the past and the future. Don't Miss: 10 Clever Ways to Cook ...more
For me, the smoky brilliance of a good barbecue can't be beat. The way the smoke flavor seems to permeate every part of the meat is, in my opinion, the closest thing we have to food magic. Throw a piece of meat in a smoker with some select wood choices, wait a few hours, and s ...more
When Google released the first Developer Preview build of Android 7.0 Nougat, users were happy to see that a new "Night Mode" was included among the changes. The feature would cancel out any blue light emitted from your screen to help you get to sleep a bit earlier, quite simi ...more
Android 7.0 Nougat has finally arrived—well, technically, it's in the process of arriving on Nexus devices across the globe. Google uses a staged rollout system to prevent excessive server load when issuing Android updates, which means even though Nougat has made its official ...more
When Google issues an Android update, the changes are usually all over the place—fixing issues, adding functionality, playing catch-up with the latest thing Apple added to iOS. It's how the smartphone wars have evolved, where the two competing operating systems continually mat ...more