Articles and updates from the INNOTECH archive.
Practical guides ↗248 articles · Page 10 of 21
It’s not unusual to find yourself talking to an uncoöperative appliance or gadget. Soon, though, it could soon be more common for those devices to actually pay attention. A startup called Wit.ai plans to make it easy for hardware makers and software developers to add custom voice controls to everyth
Read the article ↗
A startup has come up with a simple way to make smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors more useful: a nine-volt battery with built-in Wi-Fi. The battery can alert you on your smartphone if the alarm goes off or the battery itself is about to die. Roost, the Sunnyvale, California-based company behind th
Read the article ↗
No one really knows what dark matter is. Since the 1980s, theorists' best hunch has been that it consists of so-called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. If they exist, WIMPs would have a mass between one and 1000 times that of a proton. They would interact only through the feeble weak
Read the article ↗
The point-of-sale terminal at the CVS drugstore in Palo Alto, California, can accept payments through a quick tap from a smartphone. The clerk isn’t sure how it works, though he knows it does because “a few kids” have used it. But one shopper tries it by taking out his Android phone and clicking on
Read the article ↗
Apple and Nike are working on new item of wearable technology that will have greater integration into existing gadgets, and is less obvious and more “stealth”, according to the Nike chief executive, Mark Parker. Nike has long been making wearable technology, originally partnering with Apple for its
Read the article ↗
Last year an Apple-1 was sold at auction in Germany for just under $672,000. The computer, which went under the hammer for $750,000 at Bonham’s History of Science auction in New York Wednesday, was bought by The Henry Ford museum complex in Dearborn, Mich. The buyer's commission took the computer's
Read the article ↗
Facebook is blocked in China, but its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg appears determined to win over hearts and minds in Beijing – surprising a hall full of students by conducting a Q&A session in Mandarin. Zuckerberg charmed his audience comprising Chinese and international students when he kicked off t
Read the article ↗
National broadband network complaints are on the rise, with consumers often unsure who is responsible for fixing their problem. The telecommunications industry ombudsman (TIO) has reported for the first time on NBN-related complaints in its annual report, released on Thursday. Consumers made 3,982 N
Read the article ↗
This extra layer of security forces you to enter a dynamically generated code sent to a mobile device, together with the usual password. This beats hackers as they’d need not only your password, but your mobile device too, in order to break into your account. While this might sound like enough to pr
Read the article ↗
Malaysian company GrabTaxi has raised $90 million in funding in the last 12 months and that's big news in this part of the world. Southeast Asia plays hosts to 600 million people -- twice the population of the US -- and while the app only has 400,000 active users a month, that's plenty of space for
Read the article ↗
Brain stimulation is a very real but still unproven area of technology for tinkering with the human brain. For decades, scientists have experimented with sending electrical currents through subjects' skulls to their brains to do everything from treating serious mental disorders like depression to im
Read the article ↗
In the place of these unofficial or illegal links — which often rank above legal, commercial sites — Google will now show direct links to Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and other “official” sites. Furthermore, Google will more aggressively prune the results that pop up via autocomplete so that they’re in
Read the article ↗