Never mind controlling a modular synth by twiddling knobs. If one modder has his way, one of Nintendo’s legendary controllers is the way of the future. Look Mum No Computer (aka Sam Battle) has hacked an NES Power Glove into a gesture controller for his modular synth setup. All he has to do is bend his fingers to adjust the filter cutoff, pitch, pulse width and volume. Yes, the result is just as strange and beautiful as it sounds — Battle just has to wriggle his fingers to add an extra flourish to an electronic tune..
To top it off, the inventor even created an animatronic hand that takes input from the synth to control the glove, which in turn controls the synth. It’s a one-of-a-kind feedback loop, to put it mildly.
Texas Instruments’ graphing calculators have a reputation as hobbyist devices given their program support, but they just lost some of their appeal. Cemetech has learned (via Linus Tech Tips) that Texas Instruments is pulling support for assembly- and C-based programs on the TI-84 Plus CE and its French counterpart, the TI-83 Premium CE. Install the latest firmware for both (OS 5.6 and OS 5.5 respectively) and you’ll not only lose access to those apps, but won’t have a way to roll back.
The company explained the move as an effort to “prioritize learning and minimize any security risks.” It’s to reduce cheating, to put it another way. In a chat with Cemetech, EdTech President Peter Balyta hoped that the community would shift its focus to advancing Python development and suggest ideas that would satisfy the needs of schools, students and developers.
There are still plenty of mysteries, but the pen-toting phones are expected to have less curvy designs than the S20 series. Samsung also tends to provide slightly more performance than the Galaxy S phone from that year, so don’t be surprised to see more RAM or possible CPU upgrades.
Samsung in recent years has introduced Galaxy Notes in August, with a release a few weeks afterward. With that said, it’s not certain how the pandemic will play into the release. Even if the situation has improved by August, a splashy launch isn’t likely in the cards — and that’s assuming there are no production issues.
Officials initially wanted to track the location of virtually every infected person with the technology, which was originally intended to fight terrorism. It theoretically helped Israel determine if people were isolating properly, and would help determine who might have been exposed. Privacy advocates quickly objected, though, and the Israeli parliament put a stop to it after determining that the drawbacks outweighed the benefits.
The decision could influence how other countries approach COVID-19 tracking. While demands for direct surveillance have been rare, there’s still concern over the privacy protections for measures like contact tracing. Other nations may be reluctant to ask for location data if they expect those requests to be shot down.
One of the longer chapters of the International Space Station has come to a close. NASA has sent the last of its 11 ExPRESS (Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station) science racks to the orbiting facility, 19 years after sending the first two. They don’t look like much, but they provide the power, storage, climate control and communications for up to 10 small payloads — they’re key to many of the experiments that run aboard the ISS and will help the station live up to its potential research capabilities.
This last rack was carried aboard a Japanese cargo ship and should be installed and functioning by fall 2020.
Activision is ready to show what all-pro Call of Duty: Warzone tourneys are like. The gaming giant is debuting the first Call of Duty League Warzone Weekend today (May 24th) at 3PM Eastern, marking the start of private lobby Warzone competitions. The 48-player event is pre-recorded, but it will show just what the league’s dozen teams can do when they square off against each other, not the public.
The company is sweetening the pot with a beta that provides in-game rewards for watching League matches, such as double XP tokens and themed cosmetics like sprays and calling cards.
The ECG sensor on the Galaxy Watch Active 2 has gone unused for the better part of a year, but it’s finally close to fulfilling its original purpose… in one country, anyway. Samsung has received approval to use the ECG feature for measuring heart rhythms from South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Much like on newer Apple Watch models, you just need to launch an app (Samsung Health Monitor, in this case) and put your finger on a button for long enough to get a one-lead ECG reading. From there, your watch can warn if there are signs of atrial fibrillation and encourage you to see a doctor for a full diagnosis.
Samsung also received clearance to conduct blood pressure measurements through the Health Monitor app, potentially providing a clearer picture of your well-being than an ECG alone.
Apple’s efforts to discourage iOS jailbreaking have typically left enthusiasts waiting a while until code sleuths discover a flaw that lets them bypass safeguards and break some of the platform’s rules. Not this time around, though. The Unc0ver team has released (via TechCrunch) a jailbreak that works with every iPhone that runs iOS 11 or newer, including iOS 13.5 — yes, Apple’s days-old release is already eligible. This may be appealing to fans willing to take the risks associated with jailbreaking (don’t do this unless you’re aware of what could go wrong), but the effect is a mixed bag that says as much about Apple’s security concerns as anything else.
Lead developer Pwn20wnd told Wired that this only really “adds exceptions to the existing [security] rules.” It should maintain user data protections, preserve Apple’s sandboxing (to prevent apps from accessing unauthorized info) and allow secure features like Apple Pay and iMessage. However, it’s based on a zero-day exploit. The same flaw that allows derestricting iOS could also be used for malicious purposes, and it may take a while for Apple to patch the vulnerability. Jailbreaking can also the number of conduits for attacks simply by removing some barriers, and there hasn’t been enough time to asses just what added security risks there are, if any.
Tech companies have been getting battered left and right by the economic downturn the COVID-19 pandemic has brought along in its wake. Magic Leap especially was hemorrhaging cash and was facing the prospect of laying off 1,000 of its workers. But thanks to a fortuitous and perfectly-timed investment infusion, the company is currently on more sound financial footing and the layoffs are currently off the table.
Engadget
Due to social distancing requirements, people have found themselves stuck indoors for weeks at a time. So it should come as little surprise that video games are having a bit of a moment while console sales are seeing record sales. But all that extra traffic could put the squeeze on existing ISPs so its a good thing that a team of Australian researchers have managed to pump a whopping 44.2 terabits of data per second through existing fiber optic cables. That’s, oh, only around a million times more than what Google Fiber can currently deliver.
Engadget
While it may not have quite the same pedigree as Pac-Man, Microsoft’s Solitaire has been a “screwing off at work” staple for decades. It may not have the same addictive qualities of Candy Crush or the career-ending implications of spouting off on Twitter, but anyone who worked in an office in the last 30 years can attest to the fist-pumping exhilaration of watching four neatly stacked towers of cards go bouncing around the screen.
Engadget
While it may feel like a bit of a dig, Samsung releasing an outdoor flat screen in the middle of a pandemic quarantine like this — especially when nobody in the marketing materials is even pretending to physically distance themselves. But just think of how much you’ll have with your friends at whatever coastal villa this was shot at, doing the exact same thing you’re doing right now.
There’s still plenty of opportunity for astronomers to discover strange new objects. Researchers using the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) have found (via Gizmodo) a Trojan asteroid, 2019 LD2, that not only follows an odd orbit ahead of Jupiter but also sports an icy tail — it’s a unique “crossover” between asteroid and comet. It only appears to have been active for less than a year, too, which is unusual when Jupiter Trojans are often billions of years old and should have lost their ice a long time ago.
More data will be needed to determine just what led to this one-of-a-kind finding, but the university’s Institute for Astronomy suggested that Jupiter might have recently captured the asteroid from a distant (and thus colder) orbit, or that a collision with another space rock might have exposed ice that was previously ‘safe’ from the Sun’s heat. Either way, this revelation could offer more insights about the nature of the Solar System and its history.
