Author Archives: Carol Edwards

There’s still hope for Google’s gesture-sensing radar tech, Project Soli.

The project, which Google first showed off in 2015, uses a combination of radar and sensors to create gesture controllers for everyday objects. So instead of controlling a smartwatch by tapping on a display, for instance, you could quickly rub or tap your fingers together.

The product of Google’s secretive Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) lab, Google has teased a few prototypes over the years, but hasn’t said much about Soli publicly since its last update at Google I/O in 2016.

But now we know the project is still alive. Despite its relative silence over the last two years, Google has been working behind the scenes to get FCC approval in order to test its sensors at higher power levels than what’s currently allowed. That permission has now been granted, with the FCC giving Soli its sign-off last week in a filing that was first spotted by Reuters. Read more…

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General Motors’ electric goals are catching up to Tesla.

The American car company reportedly reached 200,000 electric vehicle sales in the U.S. since it started selling the zero-emission vehicles. A company spokesperson said official numbers would be released Thursday. That number is significant, because once a car maker reaches 200,000 electric vehicles sold, a hefty federal tax credit starts phasing out.

Tesla hit the threshold in July, so the $7,500 began to phase out on Dec. 31. As of Jan. 1, buyers can apply for the credit for only $3,750. For GM, the subsidy will fully disappear in April 2020, according to Reuters. For would-be GM car buyers, now’s the time to buy an electric vehicle to apply for the full $7,500 tax credit. It will be halved by July. Read more…

More about Tesla, Electric Vehicles, Gm, Tax Credit, and Tech

Start your year off with a dose of wholesomeness. 

Redditor u/bork1138 took a picture of their parents’ heartwarming tradition of competing in Mario Kart 64 to decide who has to make the daily tea. According to bork1138, they’ve been doing this “religiously” for the past 18 years. 

Here’s a photo of the couple in an almost identical position in 2014:

The OP says their father’s go-to character is always Toad, and their mother mains Wario for battle and Yoshi for Grand Prix. 

“Just a collision can lose a balloon,” bork1138 wrote about their mother’s love for Wario.

The parents usually play a round of Grand Prix and then a “best of 3” on Battle before choosing who has to make the tea. Read more…

More about Games, Reddit, Culture, and Web Culture

In 2009, Disney paid $4 billion to acquire Marvel. Less than 10 years later, in 2018, Marvel movies accounted for more than half of Disney’s $7.3 billion box office haul.

I’d say that was a good investment, wouldn’t you?

In Disney’s final box office tally of 2018, just three movies accounted for slightly more than $4 billion in global ticket salesAvengers: Infinity War and Black Panther account for the lion’s share with $2.05 billion for the former and $1.35 billion for the latterAnt-Man‘s global box office of $623 million brought in the rest. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Box Office

New year, new you. Or, in the case of Apple, new drastically reduced revenue projections for the first quarter of 2019 — leading to a temporary pause in the trading of Apple stock. 

In a Jan. 2 letter to investors, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained that things aren’t exactly going as the company had hoped. Specifically, it expects to rake in a smaller pile of cash, and says that the Chinese market is partly to blame. 

“While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” writes Cook. “In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.” Read more…

More about Apple, Iphone, Tech, and Big Tech Companies

Filing your taxes can be complicated and tedious. While April 15 may still feel like the distant future, the truth is that many people will wait until the last minute to finish their taxes just under the wire. 

However, there are some people who finish their taxes within weeks of the new year so they can get their tax return in the mail as soon as possible. This is a smart move — especially when you consider all the early deals on tax software that are already floating around.

We know doing your taxes isn’t the most glamorous way to spend your time, but we found amazing deals on tax software from Quicken, Intuit, TurboTax, H&R Block, and more to guide you through the mind-numbing process. The faster you submit your tax return, the faster you’ll get your money back. Read more…

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We can all appreciate a handmade gift, but this is on another level.

Designer Chris Patty was challenged by his family to create something that wasn’t store-bought, and so he made a nifty jukebox for his dad this Christmas.

It’s no regular jukebox, obviously: To play songs, you pick a card — which features a song title and the artist it’s by — and swipe it in the slot on the box. Patty posted a video of the jukebox in action back on Dec. 27, which soon went viral on Twitter.

Patty told The Verge the interest in his jukebox might speak to the fatigue of having unlimited choices at your disposal, thanks to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Read more…

More about Tech, Music, Diy, Handmade, and Tech

Chrissy Teigen has already kicked off 2019 with a viral moment, but it must have hurt a bit.

The Queen of Twitter was co-hosting NBC’s live New Year’s Eve from New York’s Times Square with her pal, Saturday Night Live favourite Leslie Jones, when the pair went in for a hug at midnight.

But Jones, shielded from the wet weather by a treacherous plastic umbrella, proved difficult to get to, with Teigen leaning in for a hug but instead taking an umbrella point straight to the eye.

The awkward but rather funny moment was not only seen on live television, but rewatched in videos like the above, which clocked up millions of views. Read more…

More about Umbrella, Chrissy Teigen, Leslie Jones, New Year S Eve, and Entertainment

What’s one of the worst things you could stumble upon in the middle of a rainy night? Say, a handful of lousy cane toads hitching a ride on a python? 

That’s exactly what a farmer in the Western Australian town of Kununurra stumbled upon on Sunday.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, farmer Paul Mock was casually checking his dam late at night when he came upon the frankly horrifying sight. 

Mock’s dam had reportedly seen a large build up of water after heavy rainfall during the night, which caused thousands of cane toads — a poisonous, vile Australian pest — living in burrows around the edge of the dam to scurry to higher ground, according to the news outlet. Read more…

More about Australia, Snakes, Reptiles, Toads, and Cane Toads

You might’ve already put together your top nine posts on Instagram for 2018, but there’s also a way you can see which colours dominated your posts this year.

Year of Colour is a web app which builds a visualisation of your posts, arranged in a cluster of cute, different sized bubbles.

Each circle’s size is representative of the frequency of that colour, plus how well-liked it was by your followers. As seen from my own profile, blues and browns seem to represent quite a number of my photos last year.

Launched last year by couple Stef Lewandowski and Emily Quinton, the tool requires you to sign in with your Instagram account. Only public accounts work, and you can request a report for the last year or a particular set of dates. Read more…

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