Sunday, August 25, 2019

Why the NFL’s field goal record is waiting to be smashed

There's a Wired video accompaniment if curious.

A northeasterly breeze blows across the football fieldat the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. To me the wind provides some glorious relief: It's the middle of the day in the middle of July, and a heat wave has just descended on the region. But to Harrison Butker, who is standing with me at the 40-yard line, facing north, it's a tactical advantage. "Bit of a tailwind," he says, eyeing the goal posts as he bends to tee up a football.

Not that he needs it. Butker backs away, takes two steps to his left, pauses, and dashes toward the ball, his right foot making contact with a thwock that sings throughout the stadium. The kick drifts right, tails left, then soars high between the uprights. It's a 50-yard field goal, but it looks to me like it could have been good from more than 60.

Butker is the starting placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He's met me here at a kicking camp in Whitewater to demonstrate his skills, which are considerable. One of the most powerful and consistent kickers in the NFL, Butker has made more than 95 percent of the extra points he's attempted in the course of his career and 90 percent of his field goals, including several from 50 yards or more.

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Realme 5 Pro, Mi A3, Motorola One Action, and More Tech News This Week

Realme 5 Pro and Realme 5 India launch may have been the highlight of the week, but there was plenty of other stuff including price cuts for popular phones. https://ift.tt/2ZrosRF

Capacity, formerly Jane.ai, raises $13.2M Series B for its AI tech that can help companies maintain a searchable index by consolidating info from various apps (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Capacity, formerly Jane.ai, raises $13.2M Series B for its AI tech that can help companies maintain a searchable index by consolidating info from various apps  —  Capacity (formerly Jane.ai), a startup developing a platform that indexes data from apps, teams, and more and enables users …



Ally, which makes goal-planning and execution management software for enterprises, raises $8M Series A led by Accel, bringing total raised to $11M (Taylor Soper/GeekWire)

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Ally, which makes goal-planning and execution management software for enterprises, raises $8M Series A led by Accel, bringing total raised to $11M  —  A Seattle startup has raised $8 million to fuel its quest to help companies stay on track and hit their goals in an era of rapid change for businesses, markets and industries.



Saturday, August 24, 2019

Motorola Moto E6 Plus images appear online

Images of the Moto E6 Plus have surfaced online. The smartphone is a successor to the recently launched Moto E6. According to the leaked images, the Moto E6 Plus will run on Android Pei out of the box. The device is expected to sport a small dot notch and the images show the smartphone’s display surrounded by bezels and a thick chin. When it comes to button placement, the smartphone has the volume rocker and the power button on the right side. The back of the smartphone has a glossy finish and is home to a dual-camera setup. The vertically stacked dual camera looks quite similar in form to what we have seen on the OnePlus 7. There is the Moto logo on the back of the smartphone as well. There is no information available about the specifications of the smartphone but information circulating the internet suggests that the smartphone will have an Helio P22 SoC coupled with 2GB RAM.

Coming to the recently announced Moto E6, the smartphone has a 5.5-inch HD+ IPS LCD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio sporting a 1440 x 720 pixel resolution. The selfie camera is located on the left side of the earpiece on the forehead. On the back is a single camera with an LED flash and a centrally-aligned batwing logo. The back panel has a P2i nano-coating which is done to repel water and sweat.

Under the hood, the phone has an Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 chipset clocked at 1.4GHz, which is paired with 2GB RAM and 16GB onboard storage (expandable up to 256GB via a microSD card). A 3000 mAh removable battery with 5W charging powers the entire package. The smartphone runs on Android 9.0 Pie out of the box.

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Renders of the OnePlus 7T leaked online

If you were looking to pick up a OnePlus 7 smartphone, we’d say hold your horses. Information circulating the internet suggests that the successor to the OnePlus 7, the OnePlus 7T will launch in India on September 26. The date isn't confirmed and could be changed. New information about the upcoming OnePlus 7T has surfaced online. The new render of the smartphone comes from leakster OnLeaks who has released renders of the device. The renders show the OnePlus 7T sporting the same display as the OnePlus 7 with the small notch at the top of the display. 

However, the big change is at the back of the device. Where the OnePlus 7 has a dual-camera setup, similar to the OnePlus 6T, the OnePlus 7T looks to sport a circular camera housing at the back that houses three cameras. The three cameras are horizontally stacked. The flash rests below the middle camera. Coming to the bottom, the OnePlus 7 has two grills, one of which houses the speaker and the other houses the microphone. The renders of the OnePlus 7T showcases the bottom of the smartphone with a single grill. The rest of the dimensions remain the same as the OnePlus 7. 

Coming to the specifications of the OnePlus 7T, the smartphone is expected to sport the Snapdragon 855+ SoC coupled with 8GB RAM. The selfie camera is expected to be the same as the OnePlus 7 at 16MP. The specs of the triple rear camera are still a mystery. It is speculated that the OnePlus 7T and the 7T Pro will be unveiled alongside the OnePlus TV. You can read everything we know about the OnePlus TV here. 

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Xiaomi to offer 'loans', new phones from Motorola, Realme, big 'change' for Android users and more

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Motorola One Action review: Lights, camera and Action

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From Nuking Mars to calling world's richest man a copycat: 20 'best' and 'worst' tweets by Tesla CEO Elon Musk

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A likely feature in the next iPhone that Steve Jobs would've hated

A sketchy rumour suggests that the new iPhone may have support for a stylus. It’s co-founder -- the late Steve Jobs -- had once famously dissed the stylus and said “who wants a stylus? Yuck." https://ift.tt/2LkAh3d

Profile of Rodney Brooks, the Australian roboticist who in 1990 co-founded iRobot, which used to make robots for US army and is now popular for Roomba vacuums (Brian Bergstein/MIT Technology Review)

Brian Bergstein / MIT Technology Review:
Profile of Rodney Brooks, the Australian roboticist who in 1990 co-founded iRobot, which used to make robots for US army and is now popular for Roomba vacuums  —  The professor who got robots zipping through the world—and cleaning house—by challenging conventional wisdom in AI.



BSF 2019 – Constable (Tradesmen) Phase I Exam Result Released

Border Security Force (BSF) has released Phase I Exam (PST/ PET, DV & Trades Test) result for the posts of Constable (Tradesmen).

Friday, August 23, 2019

New Safety Feature for Delhi Commuters Launched on Himmat Plus App

The "QR Code Scheme" feature for the Himmat Plus safety app has been designed to enhance the safety and security of commuters, particularly of women. https://ift.tt/2L3Y1Ze

Misinformation, spread by exploiting our eagerness to share content without thinking, has created a "new world disorder" that we need to safeguard against (Claire Wardle/Scientific American)

Claire Wardle / Scientific American:
Misinformation, spread by exploiting our eagerness to share content without thinking, has created a “new world disorder” that we need to safeguard against  —  Our willingness to share content without thinking is exploited to spread disinformation By Claire Wardle |



Bose announces Portable Home Speaker with 360-degree sound

If you're in the market for a premium portable Bluetooth speaker, Bose's latest release should interest you. Bose Corporation has announced the Portable Home Speaker, which, as the name suggests, is a transportable battery-powered speaker with inbuilt support for virtual assistants such as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Available in Triple Black and Luxe Silver, the Bose Portable Home Speaker is set to go on sale from September 19 for $349 (Rs 25,000 approx).

The new Bose Portable Home Speaker boasts premium features such as 360-degree sound and deeper bass than any other portable speaker of its size. Weighing just a little over a kilogramme, Bose's new speaker comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a proprietary voice pick-up system for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, AirPlay 2 support for playback through Apple devices, Spotify Connect, and a claimed battery life of 12 hours.

Physical features include a foldable grab handle, haptic buttons for playback control, and a dedicated mic-off button for privacy. Resembling something close to a portable coffee flask, the Bose Portable Home Speaker is a cylinder that measures 7.5 inches high and 4 inches across. The speaker setup inside includes three passive radiators, a high-excursion driver, and a proprietary deflector. On the top surface, there's a button to trigger the virtual assistant and a white LED light ring to indicate the current status.

Bose claims that its mono-signal technology will ensure that left and right channels don't cancel each other out when music is played through the Portable Home Speaker. Like many portable Bluetooth speakers in the market, the Bose Portable Home Speaker is IPX4 rated for ruggedness and resistance to dust and water splashes. Though the speaker can be charged using a standard USB-C cable, Bose offers an optional charging cradle for $29 (Rs 2,000 approx). Bose has not mentioned in its press release when the Portable Home Speaker will come to the Indian market.

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Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; it was last valued at $1.2B in 2024 (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Meir Orbach / CTech : Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; ...