New submitter mmiscool writes: ESP8266 Basic is a project less than 6 moths old. It is open source and designed specifically for the internet of things. The ESP8266 microcontroller costs less than $3, and once the basic firmware is loaded to the device a user can connect to it using Wi-Fi and start programming right inside their web browser. No wires, no software or plugins to install. Just a simple text editor. There is now a community, primarily older folks who fell in love with Basic on the Commodore, who are using it for controlling a variety of projects. The code is amazingly simple and includes commands for interfacing with neo pixels, OLED displays, Temperature sensors, hobby servo motors and of course the blinky LED. It also provides commands for browser widgets that can be used to construct interfaces for the device like textboxes, buttons, sliders and dropdowns. The bottom line is that Basic is not dead, and has finally made its way into the internet of things. Make last year ran a three-part series on the chip (here's part one), but things have advanced quite a bit since then, when people were first noticing that the ESP8266 is more powerful than the tasks for which it was first marketed.

New submitter jerome writes: Pre-orders have just started for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The $600 price tag is higher than most people were expecting — and that doesn't even account for the required upgrade needed to fully enjoy VR apps. "In September of 2014, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said to expect a $200 to $400 range for the Rift." The device will first begin shipping on March 28th, though the store is already showing an estimate of April for Rifts beyond the initial stock. "The Rift package also doesn't include the relatively powerful Windows PC that will be required to use the device. Oculus recommends a rig with an Nvidia GTX 970 (or equivalent), an Intel i5 processor, and at least 8GB of RAM." In February, they'll start taking pre-orders for a package that does include a full, "Oculus-ready" system for $1500.

An anonymous reader writes: Workers in New York City have begun installing the city's first LinkNYC kiosks. The kiosks are free, public Wi-Fi access points, which are taking the spots formerly occupied by phone booths. 500 more of these hubs will be installed by mid-July, and the full network will eventually include over 7,500 of them. "Once completed, the hubs will also include USB device charging ports, touchscreen web browsing, and two 55-inch advertising displays." The displays are expected to bring the city $500 million in revenue over the next 12 years. When the project was announced in 2014, officials said construction would start "next year." They sure cut it close.

An anonymous reader writes: FCC filings published today are offering a glimpse of the "Enterprise Edition" of Google Glass. According to Engadget: "...The work-focused eyepiece touts a much slicker (and likely more durable) design with both a larger display prism and a hinge that lets you fold it up for travel. The test photos also reveal a spot for a magnetic battery attachment and what looks to be a speedier Atom processor. There's still no word on when Google will announce this headset, although the FCC presence hints that it might not take long."

An anonymous reader writes: While the Western vision of an internet café includes a shoddy WiFi hotspot and a few old desktops running Windows XP, the Chinese counterpart is more closely related to LAN gaming centers, offering up not only high speed internet access but also high performance gaming systems. In an effort to expose this quite massive population of gamers to virtual reality, HTC announced a partnership with ShunWang Technology, the software provider behind some 70% of China's internet café market. ShunWang plans to roll out arcade-like Vive VR systems to partner internet cafés across China.

Lucas123 writes: Carmakers and their tier 1 parts suppliers at CES in January are expected to launch an unprecedented number of software advances centered around cloud services and over-the-air updates. The number of in-vehicle processors continues to grow, and consumers have come to expect their car to mimic smartphone functionality. As hardware becomes more of a commodity, increasingly cars will be defined by software. There will be about 464 automotive electronics exhibitors at this year's CES — a record number, according to IHS Automotive. Human-machine interface will be a core technology at the show — augmented reality and virtual reality, in the form of gesture recognition and heads up displays, are expected to be among the most cutting-edge features.

Cloud-based speech recognition technology that uses machine learning skills to identify speech patterns more quickly will also be more commonplace. One development the analysts said they're "crossing their fingers" to see at the show is Modular Infotainment Platforms, which allow carmakers to offer the latest electronic systems prior to a model launch. Today, car models are often launched with years-old electronics. Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto are also increasingly undermining the native infotainment system makers' business. Analysts believe all carmakers will eventually offer both APIs in future car models.

MojoKid writes: Since the original iPhone was released in 2007, we have seen some incredible advances in smartphone processing power along with a wealth of feature improvements like faster Wi-Fi and cellular speeds and larger, higher resolution displays. However, battery technology, for the most part, hasn't kept up. There are a few major battery suppliers but Sony is currently an underdog, commanding just 8 percent of the market for compact lithium-ion batteries. Its three largest competitors — Samsung (SDI), Panasonic and LG Chem — each command around 20 percent of the market. In an effort to change that, Sony is developing a new type of battery chemistry that can boost runtimes by 40 percent compared to lithium-ion batteries of the same volume. Sony's batteries use a sulfur compound instead of lithium compounds for the positive electrodes, reportedly allowing for much great energy density. Sulfur batteries can also supposedly be made 30 percent smaller than traditional lithium-ion cells while maintaining the same run times. The company is now working to ensure that the new battery chemistry is safe enough for commercial use.

New submitter Will Mason writes: The HTC Vive VR headset, originally planned to launch by the end of this year, has been pushed back until April 2016. HTC plans to unveil a second developer kit for the Vive at CES this year, and they plan to make 7,000 additional units available to developers. Recently, HTC's head of marketing, who said on stage that the product would launch this year, jumped ship for the secretive Magic Leap startup in Florida.

MojoKid writes: AMD's Radeon Technologies Group has announced a couple of new features for Radeon graphics support in 2016. FreeSync over HDMI support will be coming to all Radeons that currently support FreeSync. FreeSync over HDMI, however, will require new displays. The HDMI specification doesn't currently have support for variable refresh rates, but it does allow for vendor specific extensions. Radeon Technologies Group is using these vendor specific extensions to enable the technology. A number of FreeSync over HDMI compatible displays are slated to arrive early next year from brands including LG, Acer, and Samsung. The first notebook with FreeSync has also launched. Lenovo's Y700 gaming notebook is the first with a validated, FreeSync-compatible panel. The Radeon Technologies Group also announced that support for DisplayPort 1.3, HDMI 2.0a and HDR displays was coming in the 2016 pipeline as well. With current 8-bit panels, the range of colors, contrast, and brightness presented to users is only a fraction of what the human eye can see. When source material is properly mapped to an HDR panel, colors are more accurately displayed representing more closely what the human eye would see in the real world.

pbahra writes: In a race that fuses video-game technology and real world driving skill, two professional drivers, on two separate but identical tracks, have raced against each other — effectively blind — while wearing virtual reality headsets attached to their crash helmets. The drivers hurtled around the circuit in two identical 2015 V8 Ford Mustangs, trusting that what they were seeing on their Oculus Rift DK2 VR headsets was a true, real-time representation of how their cars were performing on the actual track. One of the main challenges: tracking the cars' exact positions as they sped around the track without the need for re-calibration. This was necessary so that an exact match could be achieved between what was happening on the physical track and its representation on the VR screens.

A few weeks ago you had a chance to ask author, entrepreneur, and software developer Jeff Atwood about founding Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange Network, as well as his new endeavor, the Discourse open-source discussion platform. Below you will find his answers to your questions.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple is expected to integrate organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology in its iPhone handsets from 2018. The Cupertino-based giant will jump from liquid crystal display (LCD), which has been used in iPhones since 2007, to OLED – turning to suppliers like LG Displays, according to Japanese reports. The switch follows the steps of other smartphone makers such as Samsung and LG, which have both already integrated OLED technology in their mobile device ranges.

No, working your company's trade show or conference booth isn't your job. But sooner or later, an awful lot of people (including me) get tagged for booth duty whether we want it or not. Fine. At least we can learn a little about how to do it well, which is why Andy Saks, of Spark Presentations, is offering us some useful tips on how to do well at trade shoms and conferences.

While Andy's focus is on corporate displays and presentations, everything he says also applies to FOSS projects that exhibit at anything from regional Linux conferences to multinational expos like OSCON and LINUXCON. And one last thought before we turn this over to Andy, who we recorded from Skype at an extremely low frame rate to make this a narrated slide show (with accompanying transcript, as usual): If you're working in a typical corporation, trade shows are often your best way to meet your own company's executives, espcially at casual after-show gatherings. You might also meet execs from other companies and be open to conversations about changing jobs, but this is not something you want to talk about with your bosses or their bosses, but is best kept quiet until or unless you have a firm offer in hand.

hackwrench writes: I like to read on my computer, but when I resize text to be comfortably big, web pages and browsers handle it badly, and some applications don't offer an option to enlarge. Some applications even are bigger than the screen, which Windows doesn't handle well. Lastly, applications consist of bright backgrounds which feels like staring into a headlight. Windows' built in options like magnifier are awkward. What tools are there for Windows to increase text size, make things fit inside the screen, and substitute colors that windows use?

mushero writes: We are building out a new NOC with dozens of LCD monitors and need ideas for what PCs to use to drive all those monitors. What is small and easy to stack, rack, power, manage, replace, etc.?

The room is 8m x 8m. It has a central 3x3 LCD array, as well as mixed-size and -orientation LCD monitors on the front and side walls (plus scrolling LEDs, custom desks, team tables, etc) — it's designed as a small version of the famous AT&T Ops Center. We are an MSP and this is a tour showcase center, so more is better — most have real functions for our monitor teams, DBAs, SoC, alert teams, and so on, 7x24. We'll post pics when it's done.

But what's the best way to drive all this visual stuff? The simplest approach for basic/tiny PCs is to use 35-50 of these — how do we do that effectively? Almost all visuals are browser-only, so any PC can run them (a couple will use Apple TV or Cable feeds for news). The walls are modular and 50cm thick, and we'll have a 19" rack or two, so we have room, and all professional wiring/help as needed.

Raspberry Pis are powerful enough for this, but painful to mount and wire. Chromeboxes are great and the leading candidate, as the ASUS units can drive two monitors. The Intel NUC can also do this — those and the Chromeboxes are easily stackable. My dream would be a quad-HDMI device in Chromebox form factor. Or are there special high-density PCs for this with 4-8-16 HDMI outputs?

Each unit will be hard-wired to its monitor, and via ip-KVM (need recommendations on that, too, 32+ port) for controls. Any other ideas for a cool NOC are also appreciated, as we have money and motivation to do anything that helps the team and the tours.

szczys writes: The Pari-Mutuel system revolutionized how wagers were made on horse races starting in the late 1800s. It moved away from gambling against the house, and adjusted the odds based on how many people were placing wagers on a particular horse. Calculating and publicly displaying the changing odds was slow and labor intensive until engineers took a crack at the problem. They created Tote Boards; large mechanical computers which connected to each betting window with levers and cables. Each pull of a lever recalculated the odds which were displayed on large mechanical displays for all to see. Tote Boards were built all over the world and used until digital computing displaced them.

An anonymous reader writes: It goes without saying that cellphone carriers have access to tons of data about their subscribers. They have data about who you call, what sites you visit, and even where you're located. Now: "Under the radar, Verizon, Sprint, and other carriers have partnered with firms including SAP to manage and sell data." The article describes some of the ways this data is used by marketers: "The service also combines data from telcos with other information, telling businesses whether shoppers are checking out competitor prices on their phones or just emailing friends. It can tell them the age ranges and genders of people who visited a store location between 10 a.m. and noon, and link location and demographic data with shoppers' web browsing history. Retailers might use the information to arrange store displays to appeal to certain customer segments at different times of the day, or to help determine where to open new locations." Analysts estimate this fledgling industry to be worth about $24 billion to the carriers, and they project huge growth over the next several years. The carriers are trying to keep it a tightly held secret after seeing the backlash from the public in response to government snooping, which involves much less private data.

theodp writes: Surprisingly, says Ars Technica's review of Amazon's $50 Fire tablet, it doesn't suck. "There's simply very little reason to spend more when you can get 90 percent of the functionality for a fraction of the price," writes Mark Walton. "The only real niggle right now with the Fire Tablet is the display (and the camera, if you really want to take photos with your tablet). Once budget tabs start coming with 1080p displays as standard, the writing really will be on wall. For now, the Amazon Fire Tablet is the budget tablet to beat." How does cheap technology like this mesh with Bill Gates's dream of putting a computer in every home, and projects like OLPC? Beyond that, any thoughts on what a $50 tablet price point might inspire in education, gaming, and other areas?

MojoKid writes: Dell's 2015 version of the XPS 13, the company's 13-inch premium ultrabook, is arguably one of the most acclaimed laptops of the year, with its "Infinity Edge" display that comes in resolutions from 1080p up to UHD 4K, with almost no bezel, and a carbon fiber composite chassis design with a machined aluminum lid. Based on the product's success in the market, Dell recently announced they were bringing the design approach and 4K Infinity Edge display to both their XPS 15 consumer based ultrabooks as well as their Precision 15 professional line up. At Dell World 2015 this week Austin, the company had both 15-inch versions on display for demos and this quick hands on shows just how compact and well-built the machines are, though they're also now refreshed with Intel Skylake processors and PCIe NVMe SSDs.

theodp writes: With its sweeping vistas and narration by the late Robin Williams, Apple's 2014 'Your Verse' ad dramatically showcased the many ways iPads might help people create, from making movies to calibrating wind turbines. So it's interesting that Microsoft's first ad for its new Surface Book (YouTube) bears a striking resemblance to the earlier Apple ad (YouTubeDoubler comparison). Which is probably only fair, since Apple's soon-to-be-released iPad Pro bears more than a passing resemblance to the Microsoft Surface. Hey, good artists copy, great artists steal, right? By the way, between the release of Microsoft's Surface Pro 4, Apple's iPad Pro, and Google's Pixel C, is the keyboard+touch interface poised to be a four-decade "overnight success"?