Новости за 16.03.2017

Weird as it might sound, there are competitive rememberers out there who can memorize a deck of cards in seconds or dozens of words in minutes. So, naturally, someone decided to study them. It turns out that practicing their techniques doesn't just improve your memory — it can also change how your brain works.

The race to combine old-school luxury brands with modern technology is well and truly on, as today Montblanc joins Tag Heuer in rolling out its own Android​ Wear watch. The Montblanc Summit is the company's first venture into the digital timekeeping world, bringing with it some of the expertise Montblanc has for crafting mechanical timepieces. I got to see and wear this fancified Android Wear watch in London today, sitting down with Montblanc's director of new technologies, Felix Obschonka, to discuss the thinking behind the Summit. Читать дальше...

Spotify will soon concede on one of its most controversial policies — that all music on its platform be available to both free and paid users. As it works to renegotiate its now expired licensing deals with music labels, Spotify has agreed to restrict some new releases to its premium tier, The Verge has learned.

Google’s making a small but helpful change to desktop Gmail today that’ll be useful for anyone who sends or receives video attachments: from now on, you’ll be able to stream them on the page, rather than having to download the file first.

Today some Google Home owners are hearing something extra when they ask for a summary of the day ahead from the smart speaker: an advertisement for the opening of Beauty and the Beast. Several users on Reddit have noticed the audio ad and Bryson Meunier posted a clip to Twitter. The ad is delivered using the regular Google Assistant voice, so it blends in seamlessly with the other information — but some people still aren’t happy about it.

Passengers waiting for a train in Rhinecliff, New York on Tuesday had ample time to realize that the tracks they were standing near were covered with mountains of snow. They also had, presumably, long minutes to do the complex math necessary to figure out what would happen if the snow were to be hit by the fast-moving train.

I’ve always been a fan of squigglevision, the animation effect in which lines oscillate to make static scenes feel more dynamic. It involves animators drawing the same image multiple times and looping the drawings in a sequence to create depth and movement. Mathematician and comic artist Olivia Walch is a fan as well, and her latest app Squigglish makes this effect easily achievable for even the most casual doodler.

Sephora is joining multiple other companies in recognizing the importance AR is going to play in future beauty product shopping.

Microsoft surprised everyone with its unveiling of the Surface Book laptop with a detachable display, but the software maker might not bring this tablet feature to its Surface Book 2. DigiTimes reports that Microsoft’s new Surface Book has entered mass production and could be unveiled by the end of the month or April. The timing is hardly surprising given persistent rumors about the Surface Book successor over the past year, but DigiTimes also claims Microsoft will adopt a clamshell design for... Читать дальше...

Asking a pal to tether over some data when you’re running close to the cap (or at least, the throttle cap) is trying enough, but soon you might have something else to test the limits of your friendships. According to a new patent by Sony, published earlier this month, the Japanese giant wants you to be able to mooch battery power wirelessly from nearby devices.

Amazon is bringing Alexa to the iPhone today right inside of the company’s main app.

In a blow to Android Wear, massive watchmaker Swatch Group is choosing to develop its own smartwatch operating system rather than go with Google’s OS designed for the wrist. “There’s a possibility for wearables to develop as a consumer product, but you have to miniaturize and have an independent operating system,” CEO Nick Hayek told Bloomberg in an interview today.

Turntable.fm was a social music site that let users join together in a virtual room and listen to music together (right up until it died because apparently licensing music is super expensive). But Vevo is taking another shot at social listening with a new Watch Party feature in an effort to try and expand its service beyond being just a music video provider, according to a report from TechCrunch.

Anyone who frequently uses ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft knows the frustration that can come from a driver and rider trying to find each other. Sometimes the driver is on the wrong side of the street, or misses their turn — and sometimes the rider gives terrible directions over the phone.

A new academic report examining a deal between Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind and the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has said that the US tech giant made “inexcusable” errors in terms of transparency and oversight when handling sensitive medical information.

Microsoft is starting to roll out a new game chat transcription feature that will convert your game voice communications into text. The new pilot feature will be available on Xbox One and Windows 10 shortly, and the first game to support it will be Halo Wars 2. It’s designed to convert in-game voice communications into text, or typed text into audio.

The OnePlus 3T is a hell of a flagship — of that we’re certain — but OnePlus does go a bit overboard with its attempts to hype the brand sometimes. The latest example is a new limited edition version of the 3T developed in collaboration with Parisian retailer Colette. The handsets costs €479 ($510), looks incredibly slick with a new all-black colorway, but will be rarer than hen’s teeth. Only 250 units will be available to buy from the Colette store in Paris on March 21st from 11AM local time.

A federal judge in Hawaii has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump Administration’s revised travel ban from taking effect, according to The Washington Post. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson, froze the travel ban before it was scheduled to take effect at midnight.

Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt said in a briefing today with journalists in San Francisco that the company plans to explore streaming mobile-specific cuts of its original movies and TV shows, to satisfy what he said was a growing audience of mobile Netflix watchers.

Wrensilva is back with its latest record console, as first noted by Highsnobiety, and this time it comes with a notably smaller footprint. The Wrensilva Loft is the companies’ newest creation, coming in at less than half the size of previous consoles built by Wrensilva.

Robots are inevitably going to automate millions of jobs in the US and around the world, but there’s an even more complex scenario on the horizon, said roboticist Matt Rendall. In a talk Tuesday at SXSW, Rendall painted a picture of the future of robotic job displacement that focused less on automation and more on the realistic ways in which the robotics industry will reshape global manufacturing.

A passenger on a February 19th flight from Beijing, China to Melbourne, Australia was burned when her headphones caught fire. The incident was detailed in a report released today by the Australian government’s Transport Safety Bureau, which stated that the headphones’ batteries were the likely the cause of the fire. The passenger’s name, the name of the airline, and the brand of the headphones were not released.

Tesla will raise a little more than $1 billion to fund the launch of its upcoming Model 3 electric car and to strengthen its balance sheet, the company announced today. Last year, Tesla made a similar stock offering to fund Model 3 production, although without the convertible notes, and another back in 2015.