There’ll be 10,000 private space companies started in the next decade. This is what it’s like to launch a future possible “space unicorn.”
Category: futurism – Page 1,371
Apple files patent for haptic touch laptop keyboard
A new patent filed by Apple could offer a glimpse into the future of MacBook design, and it would be a much less tactile experience. The patent for a “Configurable Force-Sensitive Input Structure for Electronic Devices” was filed in September 2014 and was made available to the public last week. It describes a haptic-powered touch keyboard for devices like laptops. Such a device wouldn’t have any physical key switches, just a touch-sensitive layer with virtual keys.
The system would essentially consist of a large metal contact layer with the ability to sense not just touches, but the amount of force applied — 3D Touch, basically. The user would tap a key, which is really just a configurable area of the surface, and they get a haptic jolt to simulate pressing a key. The array of keys on the virtual keyboard would be marked by a light guide shining up from underneath.
Apple files patents on plenty of things that never see the light of day, but this seems like something it might want to use. Of course, that assumes it can get anywhere close to a real typing experience in terms of speed and accuracy. The company is constantly trying to slim down its MacBooks, to the point that it went all-in with USB Type-C on the latest MacBook Air. The keyboard is one of the thickest single components of the device now. If the physical keys could be done away with, the computer could approach tablet levels of thinness.
Presenting Oscar
Hello world, here is Oscar! #projectoscar
Facebook says VR headsets will look like Ray-Bans in 10 years
Virtual Reality is awesome, but having to wear a huge headset isn’t fun.
Facebook knows that, so while unveiling its roadmap for the next 10 years, Mark Zuckerberg said future VR headsets would basically be the size of a normal pair of glasses.
Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May.
Inside a Billionaire’s New Interstellar Mission
Yuri Milner is spending $100 million on a probe that could travel to Alpha Centauri within a generation—and he’s recruited Mark Zuckerberg and Stephen Hawking to help. In an interview with The Atlantic, Milner makes his case for star travel.
In the Southern Hemisphere’s sky, there is a constellation, a centaur holding a spear, its legs raised in mid-gallop. The creature’s front hoof is marked by a star that has long hypnotized humanity, with its brightness, and more recently, its proximity.
Since the dawn of written culture, at least, humans have dreamt of star travel. As the nearest star system to Earth, Alpha Centauri is the most natural subject of these dreams. To a certain cast of mind, the star seems destined to figure prominently in our future.