Mobile Phones – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jul 25
2020

Some Nest thermostats can no longer connect to the internet, so Google is replacing them

Some users of Nest thermostats can no longer control the devices remotely, and the issue is forcing Google to replace the devices entirely if otherwise standard troubleshooting fails. The issue, which began popping up on Nest forums as early as last November and racking up more than 200 responses, is known as the “w5 error,” and it disables remote control of the company’s thermostats.

Controlling the temperature of your home with your smartphone when you’re out of the house or away from the physical device is pretty much the sole selling point of the Nest thermostat. So that makes this a pretty serious issue, even if you still can manually adjust the temperature on the device itself. Google says it’s aware of the problem and that it’s now offering replacements to owners of the device who cannot solve the issue through standard reset procedures.

“A very small number of Nest thermostat users are experiencing a known issue with the Wi-Fi chip that causes remote connectivity issues. This does not affect the thermostat’s ability to control the customer’s heating and cooling system in the home, but does impact the user’s ability to manage the thermostat remotely,” a Google spokesperson tells The Verge. “If a user sees this error and it can’t be resolved through troubleshooting, they are prompted to contact customer support for assistance and will be issued a replacement device.”

Jul 24
2020

Using Nuclear Fusion to Help Fuel the World

This article is the first in a series of installments examining the potential of different energy initiatives and types.

If you’re reading this article, chances are, you’re living in a first-world country. You probably have access to modern technology, whether it be your cell phone, laptop, or even central heating system.

Jul 23
2020

Meet the AI that can write

A new general language machine learning model is pushing the boundaries of what AI can do.

Why it matters: OpenAI’s GPT-3 system can reasonably make sense of and write human language. It’s still a long way from genuine artificial intelligence, but it may be looked back on as the iPhone of AI, opening the door to countless commercial applications — both benign and potentially dangerous.

Driving the news: After announcing GPT-3 in a paper in May, OpenAI recently began offering a select group of people access to the system’s API to help the nonprofit explore the AI’s full capabilities.

Jul 21
2020

Let Arab space programmes create more space for Arab scientists and students

But now, all the Arab world’s universities must be ready to run with the baton that Hope is handing to them. Currently, the overwhelming majority of the young people who watched the launch on their smartphones and decided on a career in space science will have to study abroad, because the Arab world largely lacks the capacity to educate them in astrophysics or space science.

The United Arab Emirates’ Mars probe is a stunning and historic effort, but it needs to be transformational, too.

Jul 20
2020

Samsung will unveil 5 new products at its big phone event on Aug. 5

Samsung’s president and head of mobile communications T.M. Roh said in a blog post Monday that Samsung will announce five new products during the company’s big “Galaxy Unpacked” event on Aug. 5.

Samsung didn’t say what it will unveil, but it has teased a new Galaxy Note phone. The company typically unveils its large-screened Galaxy Note devices — best known for the pen that slides into the side — in August. Samsung usually packs in all of the latest hardware and software it has to offer into its Galaxy Note phones ahead of Apple’s iPhone event, which is typically held in September. Rumors suggest this year’s model will be called the Galaxy Note 20.

Jul 18
2020

Beetle-mounted camera streams insect adventures

👽 New beetle

Fyodor R.

Researchers have developed a tiny wireless camera that is light enough to be carried by live beetles.

The team at the University of Washington in the US drew inspiration from the insects to create its low-powered camera system.

Its beetle-cam can stream up to five frames per second of low-resolution, black and white footage to a nearby smartphone.

Jul 17
2020

Revolutionizing Large-Scale Energy Storage: Better Multivalent Metal Batteries

They suggest next steps in search for large-scale energy storage solution.

Lithium-ion batteries are recognized for their high energy density in everything from mobile phones to laptop computers and electric vehicles, but as the need for grid-scale energy storage and other applications becomes more pressing, researchers have sought less expensive and more readily available alternatives to lithium.

Batteries using more abundant multivalent metals could revolutionize energy storage. Researchers review the current state of multivalent metal-ion battery research and provide a roadmap for future work in Nature Energy, reporting that the top candidates – using magnesium, calcium, zinc and aluminum – all have great promise, but also steep challenges to meet practical demands.

Jul 17
2020

How the Brain Builds a Sense of Self From the People Around Us

We are highly sensitive to people around us. As infants, we observe our parents and teachers, and from them we learn how to walk, talk, read—and use smartphones. There seems to be no limit to the complexity of behavior we can acquire from observational learning.

But social influence goes deeper than that. We don’t just copy the behavior of people around us. We also copy their minds. As we grow older, we learn what other people think, feel, and want—and adapt to it. Our brains are really good at this—we copy computations inside the brains of others. But how does the brain distinguish between thoughts about your own mind and thoughts about the minds of others? Our new study, published in Nature Communications, brings us closer to an answer.

Our ability to copy the minds of others is hugely important. When this process goes wrong, it can contribute to various mental health problems. You might become unable to empathize with someone, or, at the other extreme, you might be so susceptible to other people’s thoughts that your own sense of “self” is volatile and fragile.

Jul 16
2020

The ‘Android Of Self-Driving Cars’ Built A 100,000X Cheaper Way To Train AI For Multiple Trillion-Dollar Markets

How do you beat Tesla, Google, Uber and the entire multi-trillion dollar automotive industry with massive brands like Toyota, General Motors, and Volkswagen to a full self-driving car? Just maybe, by finding a way to train your AI systems that is 100,000 times cheaper.

It’s called Deep Teaching.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it works by taking human effort out of the equation.

Jul 15
2020

Japanese researchers have created a smart face mask that connects to your phone

Japanese researchers have created a smart face mask that has a built in speaker and can translate speech into 8 different languages.

We live in a world full of technology but it was a world without smart masks, until now!

A Japanese technology company Donut Robotics has taken the initiative to create the first smart face masks which connects to your phone. Of course, we couldn’t have battled coronavirus with a simple mask that still does the job of protecting us perfectly well. We as a race need to bring technology into everything and more so if it does an array of extremely important, life-saving things like using a speaker to amplify a person’s voice, covert a person’s speech into text and then translate it into eight different languages through a smartphone app.