Hanx Writer app
Hanks releases an app for the iPad called Hanx Writer (download link). The app replicates all the noises of a typewriter, such as clicking of keys, chiming when you come to the end of a line — and comes with a single font, color and typewriter available in the free, default version. Customers can unlock more font and typewriter features with in-app purchases.
Hanks is a typewriter collector ; he started collecting them in 1978 when a store owner in Cleveland refused to fix Hanks’ mostly plastic typewriter, and instead sold him a Hermes 2000.
I use a manual typewriter — and the United States Postal Service — almost every day. My snail-mail letters and thank-you notes, office memos and to-do lists, and rough — and I mean very rough — drafts of story pages are messy things, but the creating of them satisfies me like few other daily tasks.
The app has gained 4.5 star rating from 1300 reviews and is No 1 for free downloads in Apple’s App Store.
Self-driving car to make 3,500 mile trip
A car outfitted with Delphi’s self-driving technology is driving itself from California to New York, a trip of 3,500 miles. This long-distance test is intended to help Delphi collect more data about highways.
Around the periphery there’s forward vision, there’s radar, there’s also lidar, the car has high accuracy GPS, and also vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to infrastructure communications…We’re using radar and vision systems and those rely on the infrastructure and vehicles around them for the car to make decisions.
Tests delivery drones
With its team of roboticists, software engineers, aeronautics experts, and remote sensing experts, Amazon is testing delivery drones at a secret site in Canada. Amazon plans to fly autonomous drones ten miles or longer at 50mph while carrying payloads that weigh up to 5lbs. Amazon wants to offer customers a delivery-by-drone service, called Prime Air, that will deliver packages within thirty minutes after an order is placed.
We think that this new technology will provide huge benefits for our customers, who we think will love it, and for society more broadly.
Receives bionic eye
Flynn becomes first patient in the world to receive an artificial retina for dry age-related macular degeneration after chip is implanted at the back of his eye in a four-hour operation. He can now make out shapes with his eyes closed. He says:
Before when I was looking at a plant in the garden it was like a honeycomb in the centre of my eye. That has now disappeared. I can now walk round the garden and see things.
Stanga, consultant ophthalmologist at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, says:
Mr Flynn’s progress is truly remarkable. He is seeing the outline of people and objects very effectively… Ray had to do everything with his peripheral vision – it’s very tiring, it is exhausting… This is new information that Ray’s brain is receiving and his brain now needs to get use to interpreting it.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4L_1Nn–w0
Chinese test mind-powered car
Nakai University in China reveal a car that is controlled by the users brain activity — an electroencephalo-graph car. Drivers use a headset to monitor brain activity that direct the vehicle. Head of Research:
We connect our equipment with CAN (Controller Area Network) of the car for communication, which is a breakthrough because in the past the human brain signal can only control stuffs in visual environment or a simple thing like a wheelchair…Now we can do it on an entire car, and we are the first in China.
Ebola vaccine trial successful
The rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine against Ebola is 100% successful in trials involving 4000 people which are conducted in Guinea. Brende says:
Having seen the devastating effects of Ebola on communities and even whole countries with my own eyes, I am very encouraged by today’s news. This new vaccine, if the results hold up, may be the silver bullet against Ebola, helping to bring the current outbreak to zero and to control future outbreaks of this kind. I would like to thank all partners who have contributed to achieve this sensational result, due to an extraordinary and rapid collaborative effort.
Indigogo campaign starts
SkunkLock launches an Indiegogo campaign for SkunkLock, a U-shaped lock that prevents bicycle theft by releasing a non-lethal chemical gas that induces vomiting and shortness of breath when tampered with. Skunklock says the gas is perfectly safe and can only be released by trying to cut through it with an angle grinder, and that it penetrates high-end gas masks – though most thieves are unlikely to go to such lengths. Some states have limitations on shipping chemical compounds like pepper spray, so Skunklock has an alternative formula ready for some customers.
Our formula irreversibly ruins the clothes worn by the thief or any of the protection they may be wearing.
