Month: September 2017

Scheel, et. al.

The first time that divers discovered a "city" of octopuses off the coast of Australia, it seemed like a fluke. Octopuses are notoriously solitary animals. Divers found a small group of them in 2009 living together in burrows built around a piece of discarded metal, and they called it "Octopolis." At the time, scientists believed it was a rarity, perhaps caused by human meddling in the environment. But, in 2016, divers found another community of octopuses living in dens built from discarded shells. And this time there was no hunk of metal that had disturbed the natural environment. Researchers now suspect octopuses have been building group habitats for a long time.

Alaska Pacific University marine biologist David Scheel and his colleagues described the new discovery in the journal Marine and Freshwater Behavior and Physiology. They call it "Octlantis," and, over several months of observation, they determined that the settlement is made up of roughly 10 to 15 gloomy octopuses (yes, that is actually the common name for Octopus tetricus). Octlantis is hardly a metropolis, though—it's more like a tiny village of dens clustered around rocks, built up over several generations. These octopuses only live for about three years, so each generation is relatively short. But they leave behind mounds of discarded shells from their prey, as well as junk they've scavenged, like beer bottles and lead fishing lures. Over the years, octopuses pushed these mounds against the rocks, burrowed inside, and created dens next to each other.

Enlarge / The Flyboard Air is a personal flying machine that was unveiled in 2016. (credit: Aquatic Aviation)

Boeing is offering $2 million in prizes—including a $1 million top prize—to inventors of "safe, quiet, ultra-compact, near-VTOL personal flying devices capable of flying 20 miles while carrying a single person." VTOL stands for vertical take-off and landing, meaning that Boeing is looking for something more original than a conventional ultralight airplane. Boeing is correct that there's potential for technological breakthroughs here, but in the world of aviation, $1 million doesn't get you very far.

The idea of personal flying machines is hardly new. Personal jetpacks have existed since at least the 1960s. But they have always had severe range and safety limitations, preventing them from becoming widely used.

In recent years, however, there's been some sign that this might be changing. Some people have continued refining jet-pack technology. One inventor has been dubbed the British Iron Man for his rocket suit, while an experimental jet-powered hoverboard called the FlyBoard Air was unveiled last year (it costs $250,000 and isn't yet available to the general public).

Enlarge (credit: Amazon)

Amazon held an event today in Seattle and announced a pair of new Echo home speakers: the revamped $99 Echo and the $150 Echo Plus. The new Echo is the latest version of the company's Alexa-powered home speaker, while the Echo Plus houses Amazon's virtual assistant in addition to being a smart home hub for IoT devices.

The new Echo speaker remains a cylindrical device, but this model appears slightly shorter and thicker than its $180 predecessor. It'll also come in a bunch of new finishes, including wood-like "oak" and "walnut" designs, as well as dark gray and charcoal fabric designs. The new device has an improved speaker system with a dedicated subwoofer and tweeter, along with integrated Dolby sound. It also has "second-generation voice-recognition technology" along with seven microphones, beamforming technology, and noise cancellation so Alexa can hear your commands from anywhere even when music is playing.

Undoubtedly, Amazon wanted to upgrade the original Echo's internals so it can compete with Apple's high-end HomePod, which is slated to come out at the end of this year. HomePod is priced at $349, so Echo already has an advantage with its $99 price tag. Amazon also has an offer for $50 off if you buy three new Echos.

Amazon

Amazon has a big hardware launch party today, and on the TV-side of things, the company is launching a new Fire TV. It's $69, has a new form factor, and has 60FPS 4K HDR support.

4K HDR is a big deal for Amazon since the company is actually producing 4K HDR content. Before today, it wasn't possible to use Amazon hardware to watch Amazon shows like The Grand Tour in their full HDR glory. Now, Amazon finally has a comprehensive HDR hardware and content solution it can pitch to customers.

Enlarge / Surface Pro with a Cobalt Blue Type Cover.

In one of those moments that leaves you scratching your head and wondering how it happened, the specifications and release date of the Surface Pro LTE appear to have been leaked by Microsoft staff speaking in an official capacity on behalf of the company.

When Microsoft announced the 2017 refresh of its Surface Pro tablet, the company promised a version with integrated LTE for those who need connectivity on the go. Since that initial announcement, we've heard nothing about when this device would become available or what its specs would be. The news that Panos Panay, corporate vice president of Microsoft Devices, would be at an event in London in October led to speculation that this would be the moment we learned when the LTE device would materialize.

That may still be the case, but at its Ignite conference this week any surprise or novelty to such an announcement was ruined. As reported by Neowin, at a presentation titled "Surface product engineering behind the scenes, and deep dive on the new Surface Pro," a Microsoft spokesperson said that the product would be available on December 1. It would come in two i5-based configurations: one with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage, the other with 8GB and 256GB.