The Lego-compatible, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled SBricks Plus have four ports that are inputs and outputs, so you can attach sensors, motors, and lights. Image: Vengit Remember those colored bricks you used to play with as a child, or possibly much more recently? They were great, and still are, for building anything from bridges to trains. But in hindsight they lacked one thing: interactivity. Things started to change […]
The coolest vehicle I saw at AutoMobilityLA (aka, the LA Auto Show) this week wasn’t even real, at least initially. To debut its new I-PACE all-electric crossover, Jaguar herded media into a Hollywood studio with a dozen or so tables in a large room, each topped with HTC Vive VR headsets, Dell Precision workstations, stereo headphones, and a joystick controller. Keep in mind that automotive […]
Everything across the utilities landscape should be connected, instrumented, and measured, according to Cisco Australia CTO Kevin Bloch, in order to move forward from automating operations to augmenting human decision making and predicting the future using the Internet of Things (IoT). Speaking at Utility Week in Sydney on Tuesday, Bloch stressed the importance of connecting everything possible to the IoT so as to make use of the […]
American Airlines has selected IBM Cloud to be a service provider as it moves its internal applications to the public cloud. The airline has said that it was looking to move some of its customer web site and back office applications to the public cloud. American Airlines was evaluating Amazon Web Services, IBM and Microsoft. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. IBM said that American will use […]
Over the years, I have often written about Silicon Valley’s desire for Washington to stay out of its hair. Except for lucrative defense contracts, the tech industry would prefer to work unrestrained by politics and government regulations. That trend lasted well into the early 1990s, but when Bill Clinton was running for president, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and then-CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, figured […]
Two weeks before the election, I traveled to Maine for a conference and drove through Massachusetts and New Hampshire on my way. In Silicon Valley, which was mostly Clinton country, I’d seen very few signs or bumper stickers promoting any candidates. But as I drove through the northeast, plenty of Trump signs were displayed on people’s lawns, fences, and car bumpers. I did see a […]
The Asus ROG GT51 ($4,999) combines a powerful aesthetic with equally strong internal components, resulting in a distinctive looking and high-performing gaming desktop. Design-wise, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s definitely a conversation piece—if you want your rig to look like the gaming system it is, it’ll probably work for you. With dual Pascal graphics cards, a ton of RAM, and a useful […]
Astro Gaming’s new A50 wireless gaming headset follows its predecessors as one of the most impressive, and pricey, headsets on the market. It rings in at a hefty $300, but justifies its price tag with excellent audio quality and a full feature set, including an attractive charging cradle. It’s light, comfortable, sounds fantastic for both games and music, and it can work with your Sony PlayStation 4 […]
While some users are looking for advanced security features or ruggedized drives to take into the field, many are simply looking for a reliable and fast place to store their data for travel. The Oyen Digital MiniPro 3.1 USB-C Portable Solid-State Drive ($299 for 1TB) does exactly that with its sleek design and fast data transfer speeds. On top of that, it’s one of the most affordable […]
Many of the portable Bluetooth speakers we test are rugged and made for outdoor use, but the Harman Kardon Onyx Mini feels more like a portable speaker for the house. At $199.95 it’s not cheap, but it delivers audio worth the price. You won’t be getting booming subwoofer-like bass out of the Onyx Mini, but it packs a rich, full low frequency response, along with excellent higher […]
Creating diagrams, such as organizational charts and network infrastructure maps, used to require either a designer or a whole lot of patience. Not anymore. Diagramming app SmartDraw intuits the shapes and objects you’re going to put into a diagram based on the template you choose. It gives you buttons that quickly add the new elements, align them, and make them look professional. The program is dead simple […]
Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps you gather current and historical information about all your customer interactions, including not just past purchases, but also interests, a roadmap of the customer’s eventual product needs, negotiation details from previous deals, and even customer service or helpdesk issues. All that combines to build what amounts to customer dossiers full of up-to-the-minute interaction records and demographic data that you can leverage […]
BambooHR is human resources software that should start at around $7 per employee per month, but this figure isn’t available on the company’s website. Instead of clicking on an easy-to-read pricing page, you’ll need to fill in a web form or call BambooHR for a “custom quote.” That’s worth it, however, because if you take advantage of the free evaluation period, you’ll find BambooHR to be a […]
By Christopher Johnson | LONDON LONDON Oil prices slipped on Tuesday on signs that leading oil exporters were struggling to agree a deal to cut production to reduce global oversupply. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Vienna on Wednesday aiming to implement an agreement outlined in September to cut output by around 1 million barrels per day (bpd), from around 33.82 million bpd […]
Tuesday 06:00 GMT Overview Markets across Asia were trading cautiously as Wall Street and the US dollar weakened overnight and the price of oil has pulled back. European bourses are expected to open a touch weaker, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will slip about 10 points to 6,790 and Germany’s Dax to drop 20 points to 10,562. US index futures suggest the S&P 500 will […]
Apple is now starting to accept orders for the LG UltraFine 5K display today. The external display accessory is selling for a discounted price of $974 in the United States. Called by Apple itself as the “ultimate docking station,” the LG UltraFine 5K display was first unveiled late October alongside the new MacBook Pro models, designed to take advantage of the new lineup. Apple also partnered it with […]
BANGKOK Thailand’s cabinet on Tuesday acknowledged the appointment of a new king, Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said, more than one month after the death of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The death of the much loved King Bhumibol on Oct. 13 plunged the Southeast Asian nation into mourning. Most Thais have known no other monarch. According to procedure, the cabinet will ask the president of parliament to invite […]
While there is no sign of our collective obsession with social media fading any time soon, there is also a growing determination by some to cut all ties and go on a technology detox. It sometimes feels as if new platforms for posting, sharing and pontificating are appearing by the day. With so many outlets for people to share their opinions and views of the world, and […]
By Tom Westbrook | SYDNEY SYDNEY Warm seas around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have killed two-thirds of a 700-km (435 miles) stretch of coral in the past nine months, the worst die-off ever recorded on the World Heritage site, scientists who surveyed the reef said on Tuesday. Their finding of the die-off in the reef’s north is a major blow for tourism at reef which, according to […]
The persistent notion that Mr. Castro’s fastball had made him a potential big league prospect has long been debunked by historians. By many accounts, his primary sport as a schoolboy was basketball. He was tall, at 6-foot-2 or 6-foot-3, and he told the biographer Tad Szulc that the anticipation, speed and dexterity required for basketball most approximated the skills needed for revolution. Yet it was primarily baseball, […]
It’s a well-known fact that water, at sea level, starts to boil at a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, or 100 degrees Celsius. And scientists have long observed that when water is confined in very small spaces, its boiling and freezing points can change a bit, usually dropping by around 10 C or so. But now, a team has found a completely unexpected set of changes: Inside […]
Donald Trump was due to meet former critic Mitt Romney for a second time on Wednesday as aides to the president-elect stepped up a public rearguard action against the possible appointment of the one-time Republican nominee as secretary of state. Mr Trump has narrowed the list of candidates to several frontrunners, including Mr Romney and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a faithful ally of the […]
By Sue-Lin Wong | DANDONG, China DANDONG, China A labour agent sat in his bus on a recent frigid morning, waiting to cross the “Friendship Bridge” at China’s main border post with North Korea. He had come to pick up migrant workers and take them to jobs in factories and restaurants in China. The single-lane bridge in the border city of Dandong is the main gateway for international trade […]
Much of the markets’ mixed reaction reflects uncertainty about a new president who has never held public office, leaving political leaders, business executives and international institutions to make bets on how a Trump administration may rewrite rules that have governed global affairs under American presidents of both parties. Continue reading the main story “For allies and adversaries alike, the election of Donald Trump represents the likely abandonment […]
