Don't expect an easy getaway if one of Boston Dynamics' Atlas robots ever chases you down. The Hyundai-owned firm has shared a video (below) of the humanoid bots successfully completing a parkour routine in an obstacle course for the first time. The pair of Atlas machines leapt gaps, vaulted beams and even coordinated a backflip, all without missing a beat — they might be more graceful than you are.
The routine took "months" of development, according to the company, and served as a useful test of the robots' ability to maintain their balance while switching behaviors and coordinating actions. This isn't just canned behavior, either. As with other recent tests, Atlas now uses visuals to adapt its movement to the course.
Don't worry that the robots will chase you down any time soon, though. The vault in particular has about a 50 percent failure rate, and there's still a slight chance of failure at each step. Even a fist pump at the end didn't go smoothly, Boston Dynamics said. The company still has to refine movements that are limited by the very nature of the robots themselves, such as the lack of a spine and the relatively weak arm joints.
As it stands, Atlas isn't a production robot like Spot. It's a research model meant to push the limits of robotics. Boston Dynamics does, however, envision this parkour practice leading to future helper robots that can handle a wide variety of tasks with human-like dexterity. Let's just hope they stay on our good side.
It’s shaping up to be a good year for the Nintendo Switch, with games like New Pokémon Snap, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and Famicom Detective Club giving us plenty of reasons to keep playing the now four year old console. The new OLED version might add a bit of extra pep to your game graphics, but a better Switch experience doesn’t have to cost $350. You can upgrade your setup with the right accessories, and we’ve got a few recommendations for different uses.
For Switches that stay at home
Devindra Hardawar
The first thing you’ll want to pick up for your Switch or Switch Lite is a microSD card. After all, there are a lot of great games to download and your system has limited storage space. It’s also the only way you’ll get screen captures off your console if you haven’t connected it to Facebook or Twitter. Samsung's EVO Select line is recommended for its speed and reliability, but it’s the price that you’re likely to find most appealing, with a 256GB card running only $36 and the more spacious 512GB costing $70.
It might be tempting to pick up a third-party dock for your Switch. Don’t. There have been reports of Switches getting bricked by non-Nintendo docks, which means you’re stuck with the official $100 model. However, if all you’re looking for is a change in look, you can buy a skin for your dock (and the Joy-Cons too) that will liven things up. Dbrand offers a range of bold, vibrant colors, and the skins won’t damage your Switch if removed. If you’d prefer something with a design, Slickwraps offers marble and camo patterns as well some attractive Super Nintendo and Super Famicom-themed skins.
If your Switch gets a lot of use, chances are you may have picked up some extra Joy-Cons and a Pro Controller. It’s a real pain to have to charge multiple pairs of Joy-Cons on one Switch, however, so a charging dock can be a great buy. PowerA’s Pro Controller charging dock has room for one pair of Joy-Cons and a Pro Controller, keeping them tidy and powered up. If you don’t need a place to put your Pro Controller, the regular charging dock can accommodate two sets of Joy-Cons. You can also use them for other controllers that slide onto your Switch’s rails like the official NES-style controllers or Hori’s Split Pad Pro.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the Labo VR kit from 2019, mostly due to its price and a lack of game support. But if you’re interested in trying out the virtual reality modes in games like Super Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the VR starter kit is a good purchase. It comes with the basic headset and the blaster, which was easily the most fun of all the various Labo VR projects. It usually costs around $40, but Best Buy often puts it on sale for half that amount so be sure to keep an eye out.
You’re going to need a case, that’s certain. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just enough to protect your Switch from getting bumped around in your bag. The AmazonBasics model is cheap, has 10 slots to hold additional Switch cards and a mesh pocket to store an extra charging cord or set of Joy-Cons. If you’re planning to take your entire setup, dock and all, Amazon also makes a larger storage case that can fit all the cords and controller accessories. If you need something smaller for your Switch Lite, the official case from Nintendo is incredibly slim and even comes with a screen protector. But it’s not made for carrying a lot of games. For that, we recommend TomToc’s line of Switch Lite cases, which are waterproof and come in a wide variety of colors to match your handheld for under $20.
You probably already have a bag that you’re carrying around all your stuff in, but if you were looking for one specifically made for your Switch, how about this backpack from HORI? It’s specifically designed to hold a Nintendo Switch and all its accessories, and comes in Pokémon, Mario and Zelda designs. The company also makes less overtly nerdy bags, but where’s the fun in that?
If Animal Crossing is more your aesthetic, Target sells a charming collection of bags emblazoned with leaf or character patterns. The backpacks have a special pocket just for your Nintendo Switch, while the clutch purses are perfectly sized for the consoles while being super stylish to boot.
Whether you hate the speakers on your Switch or just don’t want to bother those around you, you’re going to need a pair of headphones to listen to your games. Ideally you want something that doesn’t cost too much and can survive a beating in your bag, so if you don’t mind wires we’re still big fans of Turtle Beach’s Recon 70, which offers great sound in an affordable, lightweight form factor. However, if you just can’t stand cords and don’t mind dropping a bit of extra cash, check out the SteelSeries Arctis 1 or Razer’s Barracuda X headsets. They both come with a USB-C receiver you can plug directly into your console for a solid wireless connection, and the sound quality of either is among the best you’ll find in any gaming headset, especially for under $150.
If you already have a pair of wireless headphones you’re particularly attached to, you can use those with your Switch or Switch Lite by plugging HomeSpot’s 5.0 Audio Transmitter Adapter into the USB-C port. It’s rather diminutive and can slip into your case easily, and very affordable at only $30.
One thing you definitely have to worry about if you game on the go often is battery life, and in those cases you’ll want to carry around an extra power bank. For your Switch there are two features you need to focus on, and that’s the ability to use a USB-C cord to connect, and a slim profile so it’ll fit inside your Switch case. The RavPower 26,800mAh power bank fits both those criteria perfectly, is rather affordable at $61, and can even charge your device as you play.
Occasionally you might want to make use of the Switch’s kickstand and play with a standard gamepad. The official Pro Controller is generally accepted to be the best available, but it’s also kind of cumbersome to lug around in your bag. If you’re trying to travel a little lighter and don’t mind a slightly smaller version, PowerA’s Enhanced Nano controller can do the job. In my testing I found it’s susceptible to electrical interference, but when you’re sitting right in front of the Switch on a table it should handle the task just fine. It even comes with a little cloth bag to protect the controller from dings and scratches.
Adobe has added more welcome features to Photoshop on iPad, including some that debuted on the desktop version. The tablet app now includes the Magic Wand object-selection and Healing Brush imperfection-fixing tools. With the Canvas Projection you can share your screen to a larger display over HDMI or USB-C, which should be helpful when collaborating with other people in the same room.
Adobe has upgraded the desktop version of Photoshop as well. The Sky Replacement tool now has many more options to draw from, and you can import up to 5,000 skies simultaneously.
Adobe
The Transform Warp tool with independent Bezier handles will allow for previously-impossible transformations, according to Adobe. It could be prove to be a boon for designers who have to shape images on and around boxes, bottles and other 3D surfaces.
There's a new Discover panel, which you can use to search for tools, menu items and workflows. It includes hands-on tutorials for workflows as well. You can access the panel by clicking the search icon, or using the Command+F or Ctrl+F shortcuts.
In addition, the Photoshop Beta program is getting underway this month. Creative Cloud users can test new versions of Photoshop for stability, performance and, from time to time, new features. They can provide feedback to the Photoshop team too. You'll find Photoshop Beta in the beta section of the Creative Cloud app.
Those looking to snag a new laptop from Apple ahead of the upcoming semester can do so for less if they go through Amazon. The online retailer has the MacBook Pro M1 with 256GB of storage for $200 off right now, bringing it down to $1,099. The sale price is $1,199, but an automatically applied coupon will knock the final cost down to $1,099. If extra storage means a lot to you, the 512GB model has also on sale: it's on sale for $1,299 thanks to a discount plus another automatically applied coupon.
Most people would probably be best served by the MacBook Air M1, but the Pro M1 is a good option for those that want extra graphics power and better cooling. Notably, the Pro M1 has a built-in fan, something that Air M1 lacks, and it helps the laptop handle tough work like 3D rendering and laborious video encoding. In our testing, the MacBook Pro M1 performed similarly to the Air M1 — Apple's SoC allows it to be incredibly fast and efficient, and it'll last all day with its 16.5-hour battery life.
But there are a few limitations to the Pro M1 that are worth considering before buying. Namely, the laptop only supports one external display and there's no external GPU support at all. While the latter is a bit of a niche concern, it's a bummer for those that rely on external cards to boost performance. If you can live with those tradeoffs, the MacBook Pro M1 should make a good workhorse.
If you're looking to move away from traditional laptops all together, Amazon also has some of the highest-powered iPad Pros on sale right now, too. The latest 11-inch iPad Pro with 1TB of storage is $100 off, bringing it down to $1,399. The WiFi + Cellular model has also been discounted by $100, dropping it down to $1,599. These both run on M1 chipsets, so they could easily replace your aging laptop, especially when paired with an accessory like the Magic Keyboard.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched an investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot system. Since 2018, Tesla cars driven by Autopilot have crashed into first-responder vehicles on 11 separate occasions, causing 17 injuries and one fatality. Given that first responders vehicles have flashing lights, arrow boards and road cones, officials are concerned the system lulls drivers into a false sense of security.
The NHTSA will now investigate how Tesla’s Autopilot system studies the road and, more importantly, ensures drivers engage with what’s going on. This could be the first brick in the road toward tougher supervision of all autonomous and semi-autonomous driver assistance systems. After all, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has already criticized Tesla for beta-testing its product on public roads with very little oversight.
For years, Intel has wanted a piece of NVIDIA’s (and AMD’s) discrete graphics card business, and now we know a little bit more about its plan. The struggling chip giant has announced it will release hardware under the Intel Arc name, with its first card due to arrive at the start of 2022. The first GPU, currently codenamed Alchemist, will offer hardware-based ray tracing and mesh shading and support DirectX 12 Ultimate. As part of the announcement, it also showed off a sizzle reel of games running on its new silicon which, unsurprisingly, looked pretty good. Continue Reading.
Earlier this year, Qualcomm and ASUS announced the snappily named Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. It’s an ultra-premium smartphone designed, in theory, for diehards who expect their Android phones to be a cut above whatever else is on the market. Now, Engadget’s Cherlynn Low has put the phone through its paces and found a handset that was simply too undercooked to review. With a number of headline features not yet available to test, the end result is a device that, right now, can’t justify its high price. Continue Reading.
YikYak was, or is, an anonymous messaging app that only let you communicate with people in a five-mile radius. Unfortunately, the anonymity offered meant it quickly became a hotbed for abuse, and it shut down in 2017. Now it’s back, equipped with a whole new set of guardrails designed to stop its communities becoming toxic. It’s only currently available for iOS in the US but is expected to grow in the near future. It’ll need to work very hard to coax everyone away from their current social media platforms of choice. Continue Reading.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has filed a complaint against NASA, saying the way it picked a contractor for the Human Landing System was unfair. It’s the second time in a month the company has launched a courtroom brace against NASA after officials picked SpaceX for its lunar lander contract. This was after Bezos essentially offered the US government a $2 billion discount to put Blue Origin at the front of the line. Unfortunately, this latest complaint will force work on the Artemis lander to be put on hold, which may mean NASA misses its 2024 goal of returning to the moon. Continue Reading.
Apple has long allowed Mac, iPhone and iPad users to access their iCloud drives on a PC using an app you can get from the Microsoft Store. And while the software let you download your photos and files, any passwords stored on your keychain were a more complicated matter. That’s about to change for the better.
With version 12.5 of iCloud for Windows, Apple is adding a password manager to the software. Once you download the update from the Microsoft Store, you can use the tool to add, edit, copy and paste, delete and look up any passwords you have stored in your iCloud keychain. You can also use the app in conjunction with a Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome extension to autofill a password when you’re surfing online.
Apple says the app stores all your passwords within an encrypted database on your computer and transfers them to the relevant browser extension over a secure channel. The app will automatically save and sync any website usernames and passwords but won’t do the same for applications and other sensitive personal data like your credit card number.
It’s all pretty standard functionality apps like 1Password and Dashlane have offered for years, but if you’re an iPhone user who frequently saves their logins to iCloud, you’ll appreciate having easy access to them on your PC.
Following reports of a data breach over the weekend, T-Mobile has confirmed it’s investigating a cybersecurity incident. In an update published on Monday, the company said someone gained unauthorized access to its computer systems, but that it has yet to determine if any customer data was stolen.
“We are confident that the entry point used to gain access has been closed, and we are continuing our deep technical review of the situation across our systems to identify the nature of any data that was illegally accessed,” the carrier said.
When Motherboard first broke the news of the data breach on Sunday, the information of about 30 million T-Mobile customers was on sale on the dark web for about $270,000 in Bitcoin. A hacker told the outlet they had obtained social security and IMEI numbers connected to more than 100 million people. As of the second quarter of 2021, T-Mobile had 104.7 million subscribers. The carrier said it could not “confirm the reported number of records affected or the validity of statements made by others” until it completes its investigation. Once it knows more about the situation, T-Mobile promises to proactively contact customers.
Starting today, Google Maps users will be able to find the closest available Spin electric bike or scooter in real-time. The app will also show how long it will take to walk to the vehicle in question, its battery range and when you can expect to arrive at your destination when riding it.
The scooters will appear in both the bicycle and the public transportation tab when looking up directions. Though users will be able to find the nearest Spin e-vehicle with Google Maps, they’ll be directed to the Spin app in order to pay for the vehicle and unlock it.
“With this integration, Spin is making it easier for millions of Google Maps users to easily incorporate shared bikes and scooters into their daily trips,” said Spin CEO Ben Bear in a press release.
Spin is not the only e-scooter company to collaborate with Google. Back in 2019, Google Maps integrated with Lime, the other big brand in this space. Google has worked with ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft to include those transportation options in its app too. Spin, for its part, is already integrated on other platforms like Citymapper and Moovit.
Ford, which owns Spin, says this feature will be available in 84 towns, cities and campuses in the US, Canada, Germany and Spain.
Robots that can swim underwater are nothing new. For instance, Carnegie Mellon fitted its famous snakebot with turbines and thrusters earlier this year to give it aquatic capabilities. But few can do so with the grace, speed and effortlessness of a real-life fish. And it’s not that scientists have avoided trying to create a robot that can do just that, but the exact way fish swim faster or slower is something that has proved elusive.
Marine biologists have known for a while that the secret lies somewhere in the way they can alter the rigidity of their tails. The problem is that it’s difficult to measure that while a fish swims. However, using a combination of fluid dynamics and biomechanics, researchers from the University of Virginia say they’ve derived a formula that not only provides an answer to that question but also allows a robot with a specially designed tail to be nearly as good as its natural counterpart at speeding up and slowing down in water.
When they applied the formula to a tuna-like robot they built, they found it could swim at a greater variety of speeds using almost half as much energy as one with a fixed-stiffness tail. If you’re a cyclist, you’ll love this analogy. "Having one tail stiffness is like having one gear ratio on a bike," Dan Quinn, one of the co-authors of the study, told Big Think. "You'd only be efficient at one speed. It would be like biking through San Francisco with a fixed-gear bike; you'd be exhausted after just a few blocks."
With a tuna-sized machine under their belt, the University of Virginia team plans to scale their tail technology for use on both bigger and smaller robots. They’re also developing one that undulates like a stingray. Their work could one day lead to a class of drones that can quickly travel to a remote location and then slow down to investigate the area. Like an aquatic snakebot, that's something the Navy could use to inspect their ships for damage.
Yik Yak is only available in the US and on iPhone for now, as Mashablenotes, but it will expand to other regions and devices soon. As before, it's a message board app that connects you to other people in a five-mile radius. However, that localized aspect, plus the fact that users can post anonymously, led to reports of widespread bullying and harassment (and even bomb threats) on Yik Yak at colleges, high schools and elsewhere.
📣 ICYMI: After a 4 year hiatus, Yik Yak is available in the App Store again!
💭 Anonymity, location-based, the hot feed & more -- everything you used to love about Yik Yak
👋 Now available on iPhone in the US -- more countries and devices coming soon!
The developers of the revived Yik Yak seem aware of the problem. Along with mental health resources and guidance on staying safe, the app's website lays out extensive "community guardrails."
Yik Yak doesn't allow users to post personal information or engage in any kind of bullying, harassment, bigotry or threats. Nor are users allowed to promote or encourage suicide or self-harm. "Overly graphic violent depictions," spam, fake news, dissuading others from voting in elections and trolling are also off-limits. Although community management is a tough nut to crack and anonymity adds an extra hurdle to enforcing rules, outlawing a broad range of harmful content at the outset is a positive move.
After Yik Yak shut down in 2017, partly because many of its users moved to other apps like Snapchat, Square bought some of the app's intellectual property and hired several engineers. It's not yet clear who's behind the new version.
Although Yik Yak and fellow anonymous messaging app Secret closed shop, image-based Whisper has stuck around since 2012. That's despite Whisper having its own troubles to deal with, such as exposing user info (including identifiable location data) in a database that was open to all for years.
