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Sony is becoming less and less of a factor in the smartphone world, but their camera sensor modules are second to none. You can find Sony's Exmor camera sensors in more or less every high-end phone on the market these days, including Samsung's Galaxy line and the iPhone. So when the company announces a new high-end sensor, it's kind of a big deal. That's the case today: Sony's camera division has revealed the IMX318, a new sensor with more megapixels, tiny dimensions, and a host of built-in features.

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Sony Announces A New 22.5 Megapixel CMOS Camera Sensor - Expect To See It In Plenty Of Phones Later This Year was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 Open Garden  is adopting ANT wireless technology, which will be available in the new release of its flagship mobile app, FireChat. FireChat is the first “off the grid” mobile app that enables people to communicate for free, even if they do not have access to the Internet, a cellular network, or a data plan.

FireChat allows people and communities to create their own free communications networks thanks to its unique peer-to-peer mesh networking technology. In order to significantly enhance direct connections between Android smartphones, FireChat now uses the ANT protocol, in addition to Bluetooth and peer-to-peer WiFi, to let smartphones connect to each other to exchange messages and photos when offline.

With this technology, people  don't need a phone signal or Internet connection to send or download messages -- instead, it connects phones using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radio signals as long as they are no more than 200 feet apart. If just five percent of phones in a city use the app, the company says, then messages can travel through the mesh of off-the-grid phones to cross the entire city within a few minutes. 

ANT is an ultra low power (ULP) wireless networking protocol that enables direct connections between devices and can be found in everything from fitness sensors to apps and consumer devices, including over 200 million mobile devices.

Christophe Daligault, CMO of Open Garden sees Firechat as an enabler for mobile communication in most countries where people can barely afford to buy a smartphone, let alone a data plan or credits. 

"Unsurprisingly, more and more people are using FireChat in countries such as India, Malaysia, Mexico, and the Philippines. To enable free communications in these countries, robust direct connectivity between Android mobile devices is critical. This is precisely what ANT helps us accomplish.”

The app has been used extensively in countries when governments threaten to shut down cellular wifi such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Iraq, and Russia. It also has great implications for situations when conventional communication is down due to events such as severe storms or earthquakes and is also useful in situations like crowded concerts and sporting events. 

Off the grid technology is not new but it has been limited to a lack of range. The adoption of ANT wireless technology by Open Garden will take the concept further than before and this is an innovation that is definitely one to watch. 

1Password is one of the best ways to store and manage all of your passwords, and now it wants to start working for entire families. It's launching a new subscription plan today called 1Password for Families, which will allow family members to have individual 1Password accounts as well a series of shared passwords synced between them. The idea is that everyone can save their own private passwords, while something like a Netflix password could be shared across the family or a bank password could be shared between parents. The app is also able to store and share credit card numbers, notes, and other small bits of personal info.

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A new virus is hitting Android phones in Europe, uncovered by Heimdal Security. Called Mazar, the virus spreads through texts and, once installed, forwards all web traffic through a malicious proxy, allowing attackers to harvest sensitive details from the user's web activity. Heimdal tells the BBC the malware has already been sent to as many as 100,000 phones in Denmark, although it's difficult to say how far Mazar has spread from there. Notably, the virus is set to avoid any phone with the language set to Russian, possibly as a gesture to pacify Russian police.

The app relies on a number of bad security practices to spread. The virus arrives in a SMS message, and if users simply refuse to follow the link in the message, they will be...

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Photographs fade, books rot, and even hard drives eventually fester. When you take the long view, preserving humanity's collective culture isn't a marathon, it's a relay — with successive generations passing on information from one slowly-failing storage medium to the next. However, this could change. Scientists from the University of Southampton in the UK have created a new data format that encodes information in tiny nanostructures in glass. A standard-sized disc can store around 360 terabytes of data, with an estimated lifespan of up to 13.8 billion years even at temperatures of 190°C. That's as old as the Universe, and more than three times the age of the Earth.

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Smartphones have replaced digital cameras as the primary way millions of people take photos. But these days, many devices don't let users pop in a microSD card to store their photos as they would on a dedicated device. Companies have come up with an alternative solution by letting you upload and store your images on their servers.

Apple has iCloud, and Google has Google Photos. Dropbox, Microsoft, and most any other service that lets you back up files remotely will gladly host all of your photos too.

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Popular Photo Storage App 'Everalbum' Hovers Over To Android With Unlimited Image Backups was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

If you have an umbrella that’s been broken by rainy weather, a little work will turn it—or at least the fabric part—into a waterproof tote bag you can use, instead of tossing the whole thing in the trash.

You don’t need great sewing skills for this project, but a sewing machine will make it a lot easier. Besides the fabric from the umbrella, you’ll need some thread, an iron, a pair of scissors, and a smooth surface to cut on. That’s about it. Remove the umbrella fabric from the metal frame, and keep the velcro strap to close the umbrella.

From there, you’ll either want to follow the linked instructions carefully, or you’ll need another reusable shopping bag you can use as a template. You’ll want to fold the fabric back to form the shape of your bag, trim off the excess, and then sew the whole thing closed.

Add the velcro strap, and wrap it around the rolled back for easy storage. Now you have a waterproof tote that rolls up tightly, closes with its own strap, and can go into your actual carry-all until you need it. For a step-by-step visual guide to this project, check out the link below.

Broken Umbrellas Aren’t Trash | Untrendy Life

Image from Untrendy Life.

Americans spend $1.5 billion a year on sparkling water, but there are a few common myths about the bubbly beverage that don’t quite add up. Some say it’s bad for your bones, erodes your teeth, and that it might even dehydrate you. If you’re worried your favorite fizzy drink is actually unhealthy, here’s the mouth-tingling truth.

Sparkling Water Doesn’t Leach Calcium from Your Bones

Neither sparkling water or the carbonation found in many beverages makes your bones weaker. Nobody seems to know where this myth got started, but somewhere along the line people started to believe that carbonation could leach calcium from your bones and increase the risk of osteoporosis. There’s no evidence that supports that theory, but there is some evidence that it’s other ingredients in cola soft drinks specifically. According to one study, led by Douglas Kiel, MD, at Harvard Medical School, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, cola soft drinks were associated with low bone mineral density in older women, but not other carbonated beverages (including sparkling water). The men in the study experienced no changes.

Another study, led by Robert Heaney, MD, at the Creighton University School of Medicine, and also published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, seems to suggest the same thing: carbonation is not the prime suspect when it comes to calcium being leached from bones. The researchers suggest that the problem may actually lie with caffeine and phosphoric acid found in colas—neither of which are found in sparkling water. Your beautiful bone structure is safe from all those bubbles.

http://lifehacker.com/5847591/10-stu...

Sparkling Water Doesn’t Dehydrate You

This myth is a real head-scratcher, but sparkling water does not dehydrate you. Not only is there zero evidence that sparkling water dehydrates you (why would it exactly?), it actually does the exact opposite (surprise!). According to Sarah Bleich, Ph.D. and associate professor in health policy at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, drinking sparkling water is just as hydrating as drinking regular water. The only small catch: you may drink less water per sitting because the carbonation in sparkling water makes it more filling, and that may potentially lower your overall intake of water. So it’s okay to have a glass of sparkling water when you’re thirsty, just keep in mind that you may need to drink more of it to actually quench your thirst.

That feeling of being full will come in handy, however, if you’re looking to lose weight and avoid overeating. A glass of sparkling water with your meal (or right before it) may help you feel full and satisfied faster so you eat less. Not to mention you get a refreshing beverage without adding any extra sugar or calories to your meal.

http://gizmodo.com/does-seltzer-h...

Sparkling Water Can Damage Your Teeth, but It’s Not That Bad

Sparkling water can erode your tooth enamel, but it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. The main suspect here is actually a byproduct of the carbonation process itself. To turn boring water into fashionable fizzy water, carbon dioxide gas is forced to dissolve into said water using low temperatures and high pressure. This process creates carbonic acid (dun dun dunnnn), giving most sparkling water an acidity level lower on the pH scale than normal tap water.

They aren’t nearly as acidic or corrosive as soda, but some flavored sparkling waters have acidity levels on par with fruit juice. A study led by researcher Catriona Brown at the University of Birmingham, and published in the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry, suggests that a large portion of flavored sparkling waters have the same corrosive effect on teeth as orange juice (which is known to soften tooth enamel). In their tests, lemon, lime, and grapefruit were the most corrosive flavors because they use citric acid for taste in addition to the carbonic acid that is already present.

A different study, however, published in the Journal of Oral Rehabilitation, found that plain mineral water and most flavorless sparkling water do very little damage to teeth. So yes, sparkling water can have an effect on your teeth, but in the worst case scenario, it’s no more damaging than fruit juice (minus the sugar which make things worse). As Damien Walmsley, a professor of dentistry at the University of Birmingham, explains to The Atlantic sparkling water presents a theoretical risk of tooth erosion, but the drinks would need to be consumed over a long period of time to have any major effect. Essentially, tooth erosion happens in a controlled lab environment, yes, but under real world conditions it’s unlikely you’d drink enough to do any real damage. If you take care of your teeth properly, you don’t have much to worry about.

http://lifehacker.com/an-adults-guid...

Rules to Remember While You Enjoy Sparkling Water

Sparkling water is perfectly safe to drink on a regular basis as long as you stick to a few basic rules:

• Don’t drink sparkling water (or any other carbonated beverages) if you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The carbonation might exacerbate your symptoms and cause severe, uncomfortable bloating.
• Read the nutrition label and avoid sparkling water with any added sugar or artificial sweeteners, recommends Despina Hyde, a Registered Dietitian at NYU Langone Medical Center. Sparkling beverages like tonic water and some flavored sparkling water options will have extra hidden ingredients, even if they claim to have no calories, so keep your eyes peeled.
• Avoid drinking too much sparkling water with high amounts of citric acid added for flavoring if you can help it. Remember, citrus flavored sparkling waters tend to be the most acidic.
• Save your more acidic sparkling water for mealtimes and drink regular water (or plain sparkling water) in between, says Damien Walmsley, the professor of dentistry at the University of Birmingham.

The bottom line is plain ol’ water will always be a guaranteed safe bet (as long as it’s clean). That said, sparkling water is a good alternative to soda and other sugary beverages. It’s fine to drink whenever you’re thirsty, as long as it’s not the only thing you drink for the rest of your life.

http://vitals.lifehacker.com/4-myths-about-...

Illustration by Sam Woolley.

Thinkgeek's all-cotton Star Trek: TOS sleep shirts come in Command Gold, Science Blue, or Expendable Operations Red, and cost $24. (more…)

The Financial Times ran a column critical of Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman. The company's marketing chief, Henry Gomez, threatened to cut the advertising it ran in the newspaper. Lucy Kellaway's response is perfect.

My piece was not biased and I fear you misunderstand our business model. It is my editors’ steadfast refusal to consider the impact of stories on advertisers that makes us the decent newspaper we are. It is why I want to go on working here. It is why the FT goes on paying me.

Kellaway seems almost happy to have gotten such a direct threat in the first place, in an age of smarmy PR outreach and cold silence. But it's no surprise that HP is the one to break ranks. When did it get its reputation for this sort of "nice ads you have there" nastiness?

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

Terry Gilliam’s memoir is as unique as the man himself. Known for his work with Monty Python and as a director of films like Brazil, Time Bandits, and Twelve Monkeys, Gilliam’s work has always had a surreal quality that makes it instantly recognizable. His “Pre-posthumous Memoir” happily possesses a similar quality.

Most authors would write a memoir that is a prose account of their life, and maybe they would include a couple pictures of the highlights for added effect. Gilliam, originally a cartoonist and animator, naturally flips this idea on its head and sticks pictures all over the book, drawing attention to them with handwritten notes. Sometimes the pictures are a direct reference to the text, sometimes they are tangentially related to the text, and occasionally they have no apparent connection to anything outside of Gilliam’s head.

What we get reads less like a book and more like a collage of many art pieces. The actual text of the memoir ends up being just one piece of many that ties the others together. You could probably only read the handwritten notes and pictures and still get a good sense of Gilliam’s life and personality. The pictures scattered throughout the book are a collection of old family photos, sketches, illustrations, magazine ads, set photos, and more. Gilliam’s early years in advertising and comedy magazines include some of the most surprising work, with hints of what the artist Gilliam would later become.

As far as story content, Gilliam spends a lot of time on his childhood and formative years before Monty Python and his work in Hollywood. We get a great glimpse into his decision to leave America for Britain, and his own self-proclaimed ability to somehow always be in the right place at the right time. Readers looking for in-depth details about the making of his films won’t find much besides the occasional hindsight infused self-analysis of his choices. Gilliam instead seems to be most interested in connecting the dots of his life after the fact, trying to make sense of the events that led him to being such an offbeat artist. We’re treated to an excellent journey into the mind of an artist who after an illustrious career spent questioning the boundaries of reality finds himself asking those same questions, just in newer (and sometimes stranger) forms. He never quite gets an answer, and fans of his work should find this is no surprise. – Alex Strine

Gilliamesque: A Pre-Posthumous Memoir
by Terry Gilliam
Harper Design
2015, 352 pages, 7.9 x 10.2 x 1 inches
$22 Buy a copy on Amazon

 With the emerging ecosystem of connected devices – often dubbed the “Internet of Things” – consumers are rightly worried about the security and privacy implications associated with always-on hardware in their homes that listen, watch, observe and then store data in the cloud. Today, a company called Silk Labs, co-founded by former Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal, is launching… Read More

The US and Cuba signed an agreement Tuesday to restore the first commercial flights between the two former Cold War foes in over 50 years. Immediately after signing the pact, the US Department of Transportation invited commercial air carriers to submit their applications to carry passengers and cargo to and from the island nation.

The deal was signed by US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Charles Rivkin, Cuban Minister of Transportation Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez, and president of the Cuban Civil Aviation Institute, Ministry of Transportation Colonel Alfredo Cordero Puig.

First flights in over 50 years

In making its selection, the Department said it "will consider...

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Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

Games

Space Grunts

Android Police coverage: OrangePixel's Space Grunts Is A Roguelike Turn-Based Shooter, And It's 50% Off For The Launch

OrangePixel's specialty is old-school shooters with pixelated graphics, but the developers are getting out of their comfort zone with Space Grunts.

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36 New And Notable Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (2/2/16 - 2/15/16) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 There’s less than a week to go until LG’s pre-MWC press conference, where the company is expected to lift the veil on a new flagship smartphone, the LG G5. But the South Korean mobile maker has another handset to show off in Barcelona — which it’s just announced today. Read More

A new Japanese PC giant could be about to emerge. Bloomberg News reports that VAIO, the spin off from Sony's PC brand, is nearing a deal to combine itself with Toshiba and Fujitsu's PC businesses. The merged result will create a significant rival to Lenovo NEC, Japan's biggest PC maker. While there are no details on naming or products, Hidemi Moue, chief executive officer of Japan Industrial Partners (which owns VAIO) says the deal is expected to be announced by the end of March.

News of the consolidation comes just as Toshiba confirmed it was not considering withdrawing from making PCs.Toshiba cut 7,800 jobs in December amidst an accounting scandal and a struggling electronics division. At the time, Toshiba revealed it would "consider...

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The computers at a Los Angeles hospital have been down for more than a week after ransomware ended up on its internal network. Patients at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center have been transferred to other hospitals because of the outage, and connected medical devices and portals are offline, as well. The attackers have reportedly asked for more than $3.6 million to decrypt the system and the hospital’s files, CSO reports. Staff are now having to turn to fax machines and landline telephones to get work done, and medical records are being kept on paper.

The hospital didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment and hasn’t elaborated on how far the attack has spread, what kind of ransomware infected its network, or how it was even...

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$20 is the lowest price I've seen for a 128GB flash drive. The PNY Attaché has 4.4 out of 5 stars on Amazon with over 3,000 reviews.

Here's the obligatory image of a 5MB hard drive being loaded on a plane in 1956:

You need 25,600 of these hard drives to get 128 of storage.

https://youtu.be/P8NRh9UI1aQ

Simon Pierro's iPad Magic delights an mystifies chimpanzees, especially because the magic tricks involve peanuts, which the chimps like to eat.

 It’s true, I’m addicted to sunsets. At this point, my entire Instagram account is just a collection of sunsets. But it looks like I’m not the only one. Infinite Sunset is a neat little Instagram hack that pulls sunset pictures from Instagram to put together an ever-changing, infinite sunset. Read More

 Microsoft unveiled its first Lumia phones running Windows 10 back in October, and today it offered up a third and much cheaper variant. Read More

Most of us are probably pretty bad at sleep to begin with. At the least, do yourself a favor and start a “shutdown ritual” so your brain knows it’s time to relax.

http://lifehacker.com/5855204/cultiv...

As tips site Barking Up the Wrong Tree explains, your brain needs an adjustment period to get out of work mode. Otherwise you’ll keep going and going until you just pass out in bed. By establishing a shutdown ritual, you can wind down the activities of the day and let your brain know it’s time to get into a different mode:

Workday is over. But your mind is still going and going and going. You gotta get your brain out of “work mode” to relax. A simple ritual can help. Have a consistent little routine that let’s your overactive brain know “we’re done.” Research shows writing down what you need to do the next day relieves anxiety and helps you enjoy your evening.

Ideally, your ritual will involve wrapping up the tasks you haven’t finished and planning for the next day’s events. Once you’ve gotten everything handled, you can relax without worrying. However, your ritual should fit you. So whatever helps you chill out at the end of the day, just be sure to do it consistently. Over time, your brain will get with the program.

The 7 Step Evening Ritual That Will Make You Happy | Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Photo by Megan Leetz.

If you have an old t-shirt and a few wire hangers around the house, you have everything you need to make this tent for your cat in about ten minutes. Sure, you want your cat to have toys, but cat accessories aren’t cheap and they’ll just end up in an empty box anyways. Make your own.

This project takes about ten minutes, and all you need is:

• A medium sized t-shirt (or larger if you have a big cat or just want to make a bigger tent)
• Two wire hangers
• A 15x15 inch piece of cardboard (or larger)
• Wire cutters
• Safety pins
• Masking or painter’s tape

Once you have all your supplies, cut the hangers where they meet to form the hook. Bend them into a U shape that reaches diagonally across the cardboard. Tape the creases to reinforce the cardboard, then poke holes in each corner and put the end of the hangers into each hole so that they cross over the middle of the cardboard. Tape the hangers together where they cross, then bend them under in the corners and tape it down. Put the whole structure into the shirt so that the neck hole creates an entrance on one side. Flip the tent over, pull the bottom and sleeves tight, then safety pin them to the rest of the shirt so they’re secure and out of the way.

http://lifehacker.com/5843058/top-10...

You can customize your tent by cutting the neck hole larger for easier access, cushioning the cardboard bottom with a blanket or cat bed, or by tossing your kitty’s favorite toy inside. For step-by-step visual instructions, hit the link below.

DIY Cat Tent | Instructables

Image from Instructables.

 Movebubble, the startup that wants to make renting in London suck a little less, has picked up $1.6 million in further funding, bringing total investment to just over $3.4 million. Investors include Adam Williams (former Spotify MD), Richard Leigh (co-founder and MD of London and Capital), and Robert Stiff. Read More

Remember Lemmings? Odds are against it. Like the suicidal animals on which the classic video game drew inspiration, the Lemmings brand has in recent years gone off a cliff — the cliff of public awareness!

Look at the Google Trend graph, below. See! Now, that is a cliff.

There is a chance that you do remember Lemmings, and that the game has very special nook in your heart, a comfy spot warmed by the fluffy blanket of childhood memories. Maybe it's you who is represented by the tiny hills and valleys on the right side of the graph. You're still searching "Lemmings + Game" every now and then, hoping for a big return that never comes. I do, sometimes.

I played Lemmings to death on my school's computer, and became academically obsessed...

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It's no secret that "resisting arrest" is the go-to excuse for violence committed against suspects by corrupt cops -- it's practically a running gag. (more…)