Mashable
Forget NASCAR, professional drone racing takes flight and it's incredible to watch
The Drone Racing League is a professional drone racing circuit with a series of global events culminating in a world championship game. What's it like to fly a drone competitively? The competition is also pretty fierce. The pilots come from a great variety of backgrounds from professional video gamers to former race car and motorcycle drivers.
Apple fixes Siri bug which let anyone access photos and contacts on a locked iPhone
Less than 24 hours after it was picked up by the media, the iOS security flaw which let anyone access a locked iPhone 6S/6S Plus contacts and photos without a password was fixed -- and it didn't even require a software download. Apple confirmed in a statement to the Washington Post that the bug was fixed Tuesday morning.
Touching robots can turn people on, study finds
People get turned on when they touch a robot's private parts. Let's digest that for a minute. It's the conclusion many reached after Stanford University researchers published a new study on what happens to people when a robot asks them to touch its nether regions. In a video released earlier this week, Stanford robotics researcher Jamy Li showed how he programmed a 2 feet tall humanoid NAO robot to ask people to point to and touch it in 13 different areas. The robot would gesture to, say, its ear and say, "Please touch my ear," which is not necessarily an inappropriate request, though when was the last time you asked someone to touch your ear?
Amazon Tap is like an Echo that's hard of hearing
The Amazon Echo is an incredible device, mostly because it lets you use voice commands to do everything from playing music to calling up an Uber to controlling your lights and thermostat. Shrink the Echo in half, cut the power cord and remove the hands-free voice commands and the Amazon Tap is what you get. It's a portable Bluetooth speaker, and it still gets you access to Alexa, Amazon's personal voice assistant whom you can boss around, but it didn't sweep me off my feet the way the Echo did. At 130, the Tap is smack in the range of average portable Bluetooth speakers. With a height of 6.2 inches and diameter of 2.6 inches, the Tap is compact enough to toss into your bag.
A 'Fitbit' for cows is here to help farmers get more milk out of their cattle
Dairy farming is one of the biggest industries in Pakistan, with an estimated 42 billion liters of milk production per year. With approximately 63 million animals producing milk and over eight million households involved in the trade, the country ranks as the fourth-highest milk producing nation globally. Despite these rosy numbers, average milk yields per cow are abysmally low -- estimated at only four to five liters per day during the lactation cycle. This pales in comparison to the United States -- incidentally the world's highest milk producing country -- where cows yield on average 32 liters per day. The reason behind low yields boils down to primitive agricultural practices.
Autonomous taxis may soon be coming to Singapore
One of the challenges of successfully deploying autonomous cars in major, congested cities is the sheer logistical hurdles involved in introducing driverless cars onto streets that in some cases are hundreds of years old. That's why Singapore, a relatively young but incredibly rich and advanced city, is the perfect setting to bring autonomous cars to the public -- a task that a startup called nuTonomy plans to do. The company has plans to launch thousands of driverless taxis in Singapore, a move that could serve as a perfect test case for other major cities around the world looking to introduce driverless cars to their streets. In March, the nuTonomy autonomous vehicle passed its first obstacle course test in Singapore, according to a post from MIT, where nuTonomy co-founder Emilio Frazzoli serves as a professor of aeronautical and astronautical engineering. That successful test has paved the way for the company to seek permission to test its autonomous vehicle in a small business district in Singapore.
Dubai deploys drone fleet to catch people littering
Dubai has gained a reputation as both a center for wealth and excess as well as a city where even relatively minor illegal acts can have major consequences. Now one component of the city's enforcement efforts will be backed by the latest technology in remote-controlled technology: drones. The Dubai Municipality's Waste Management Department plans to deploy an entire fleet of drones to police the city's litterers. In line with the development towards excellence and the government pursuit for smart services in providing services to the community and keeping up with what is followed in major international cities, The Waste Management Department in Dubai Municipality launched the drone to monitor sites that are supervised by waste landfills in Al Qusais, Jebel Ali and Warsan as well as in investment sites. A photo posted by Dubai Municipality???????? (@dubaimunicipality) on Apr 3, 2016 at 12:53am PDT Currently, just one drone is operation, but two additional drones will be added later this year.
iPhone 6S bug lets you use Siri to bypass phone lock
How hard is it to bypass an iPhone's lock screen and access the photos and contacts on it even if you don't know the password? If you ask the FBI, it's pretty tough. But a new bug, that works with the latest version of iOS (9.3.1) and the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, lets you do just that by tricking Siri into letting you in. SEE ALSO: Edward Snowden says FBI's claim that only Apple can unlock an iPhone is'horsesh*t' The procedure on how to do that was first posted on YouTube on Spanish, by a user called videosdebarraquito, but YouTuber EverythingApplePro posted a more detailed video in English, below. The trick includes invoking Siri on a locked iPhone 6S or 6S Plus, asking her to perform a Twitter search, finding a tweet that contains an email address, and then using the phone's 3D Touch capabilities to enter either into the phone's contacts or photos.
Cat faces existential nightmare over electronic kitty bank
What face will you make when you realize the robots are here? Marmalade, one half of the cat duo Cole and Marmalade, has met other cats before. But meowing, battery-operated kittens are another matter entirely, and Marmalade soon realizes that the future has arrived. The video has been uploaded by multiple users, but originally came from the Cole and Marmalade channel's secondary channel, Cat Man Chris. Should you want to challenge your own cat's perception of cathood, the kitty bank is for sale online.
Amazon Echo is finally in Best Buy
No one knows how many Amazon Echo devices Amazon has sold, but the number is almost certain to grow now that Amazon is finally selling the always-listening "digital assistant" device in Best Buy, along with other retail outlets. SEE ALSO: 'Alexa, how lazy have I been today?' Amazon Echo now works with Fitbit Amazon Echo, which has been a surprise hit for the Seattle-based online sales giant, is an all-black, intelligent speaker that includes Amazon's Alexa digital assistant. The device's sensitive microphone array means that you can say "Alexa" from anywhere in the room and Echo will come to life and listen for a command or query. It's cloud-based, so Echo and Alexa tap into your Amazon account's content (music, books) as well as weather, news sources and more. In fact, Amazon is constantly adding new services (like the ability to control smart home devices like lights).