Researchers believe smoke alarms may sound at too high a frequency to wake up children. They are testing a combination of a lower frequency and a female voice. The project is led by Dave Coss, a fire investigator whose local area covers a house where six children died in a fire despite an alarm sounding. […]
Missing footage from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story won’t be showing up in the initial disk releases. There’s no sign of deleted scenes in the wealth of bonus material, despite the original trailers having footage that wasn’t in the movie. The release on April 4 has DVD, Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray versions. There’ll also […]
A Dutch inventor has created a machine that automatically sorts M&Ms and Skittles by color. It cost around $500 to make, though Willem Pennings says it was well worth that for the learning experience. The machine is based on an Arduino controller, with various 3D printed parts and, most importantly, an RGB sensor. It sorts […]
Hasbro is releasing a 40th anniversary series of Star Wars figures that are hugely reminiscent of the very first series of toys from 1977. The actual 6” figures themselves appear to be similar if not identical to the currently available Black Series range from Hasbro. However, they are in new packaging that’s heavily inspired by […]
A race between two driverless cars ended with mixed results: one car crashed, but a rogue dog that ran onto the track escaped unharmed. The race was a test run for a planned future series of full-fledged races of driverless cars. It took place as the first performance for the latest instalment of the Formula […]
It appears competition might actually be working in the US cellphone market as, following Verizon bringing back “unlimited” data, all four major networks have upped their game. As always, however, unlimited still comes with restrictions. As we noted on Monday, Verizon brought back unlimited data for the first time since ditching it several years back […]
The Nokia 3310 may be making a comeback. A Finnish manufacturer is reportedly ready to unveil a new version of the legendarily resilient handset next week. According to Venturebeat’s Evan Blass, it’ll be one of four handsets launched by HMD Global Oy. That’s the company which currently holds the rights to make phones under the […]
A new set-top box aims to make it far easier to use multiple streaming video and gaming devices, combining both the cables and interfaces. But it costs an eye-watering $400. Caavo aims to solve two different common problems in this age of trying to get streaming video on to a television set: dealing with a […]
The latest Humble Bundle offers almost 40 games for a total of $30. It includes The Witness, which by itself normally costs more than that. Some of the games included are Stardew Valley, Nuclear Throne and Invisible Inc. There’s also early access versions of Subnautica and Overgrowth and remastered versions of Day of the Tentacle […]
Verizon has joined the other major carriers in bringing back an “unlimited” mobile data plan. But as so often, there’s some big caveats. The new plan is $80 a month and covers unlimited voice calls, texts and data use on one line in the US, as well as 500MB of data while visiting Canada. Customers […]
An engineer from an electronic laboratory disappointed by a gadget has used science to back up a humorously scathing review. ‘Dirty Hormonal’ decided to prove that the USB-powered mug warmer not only didn’t work as advertised, but couldn’t possibly do so while remaining safe. The engineer, who reports having a physics degree and electrical engineering […]
Think car crash injuries and you probably think concussion or whiplash. But Mercedes-Benz wants to tackle another risk: hearing damage caused by the sound of the impact. IEEE, which spotted an upcoming “Pre-Safe Sound” feature in a new car range, notes that a crash can produce sounds inside the car of 145 decibels, which can […]