Stanford researchers have developed a rechargeable battery with a built-in fire extinguisher. It’s not a new concept, but this looks to be the first time it would work without affecting battery performance. As with previous efforts, the researchers used triphenyl phosphate, a flame retardant. When exposed to heat, it forms phosphoric acid and in turn […]
Apple will face a court hearing over claims its tight control of iPhone apps constitutes an unfair monopoly. The plaintiff claims Apple’s 30 percent revenue cut is effectively a “surcharge” on app buyers. The people bringing the case say Apple effectively eliminates competition by making it difficult for app developers to sell directly to iPhone […]
Apple is reportedly planning to launch its own original TV content by the end of the year. It may use the material as a way to boost subscriptions to Apple Music. The Wall Street Journal reports that the content would be a big step up from the current limited video offerings on the service that […]
Uber is to publish trip data to help city authorities get more insight into road congestion. It’s an attempt to navigate the tricky balance between privacy and usefulness. The data will appear on a new site dubbed Movement that will initially be accessible only by city authorities and researchers but will “soon” be publicly available. […]
Going through labor is never fun, but one Star Wars fan embraced the experience by briefly wearing a Chewbacca mask. It’s attracted a very mixed response among commenters because, well, what doesn’t? A 10 second clip of Katie Stricker Curtis wearing the mask – which included a voice changing sound effect – went up on […]
A TV news report about an unwanted Amazon Echo order turned into a comedy of errors when the audio triggered further Echos belonging to viewers. It’s a reminder that not everyone thinks through the user settings on devices. The CW6 station in San Diego reported on a case of a six-year-old who, not quite understanding […]
The Consumer Electronic Show may be all about the home appliances this year, but there were still plenty of TV and other screens on displays. The basic display technology hasn’t changed much since last year’s show, with manufacturers yet to start telling us that, actually, 4K, OLED and High Dynamic Range are all unwatchable rubbish […]
Razer has unveiled a prototype of a gaming laptop with three screens. Exactly how practical it will be remains to be seen. The device is currently codenamed Project Valerie. The three screens are each 17 inches and have a 4K resolution, though it appears likely that the processors could only cope with ordinary HD when […]
Algorithm-controlled carpooling rather than individual taxi rides could cut the number of vehicles on city roads by 75 percent according to MIT researchers. But it seems to be a classic disconnect between the logical solution and the real world. The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory crunched the numbers from data about three million taxi […]
CNN’s choice of image to illustrate a report on Russian hacking has backfired after viewers noticed it was in fact a screenshot from Fallout 4. Publishers Bethesda have even poked fun at the incident in a tweet. The footage only appeared for a couple of seconds in the report and shows a bunch of seemingly […]