Month: January 2018

Enlarge (credit: Live Water)

Step aside, Juicero—and hold my “raw” water.

Last year, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Doug Evans brought us the Juicero machine, a $400 gadget designed solely to squeeze eight ounces of liquid from proprietary bags of fruits and vegetables, which went for $5 to $8 apiece. Though the cold-pressed juice company initially wrung millions from investors, its profits ran dry last fall after journalists at Bloomberg revealed that the pricy pouch-pressing machine was, in fact, unnecessary. The journalists simply squeezed juice out of the bags by hand.

But this didn’t crush Evans. He immediately plunged into a new—and yet somehow even more dubious—beverage trend: “raw” water.

Enlarge / The 2017 Roku Ultra. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Ahead of CES 2018, Roku announced plans to put its software into a bunch of new home entertainment devices—but the company is leaving it up to third-party manufacturers to do so. Today, Roku revealed plans for its new wireless audio platform, Roku Connect, that it will license to hardware manufacturers. Roku Connect will allow soundbars, smart speakers, and other devices to connect wirelessly and work together as a unified home entertainment system. Roku also plans to develop its own digital assistant, dubbed the Roku Entertainment Assistant, that can be used to control Roku Connect devices using spoken commands.

Roku Connect is, essentially, the video company's way of connecting a bunch of different devices that contribute to the home-entertainment experience. While Roku isn't planning on making any of these devices itself (don't expect to see a Roku-made smart speaker debut any time soon), it will license software and hardware references to third-parties so they can build devices with Roku Connect.

With the introduction of the Roku Entertainment Assistant, users could say, "Roku, play jazz in the living room," and the proper Roku Connect-enabled soundbar will begin playing music even when the television is off. The Entertainment Assistant is attached to devices that run Roku OS (like the company's streaming set-top boxes), so as long as you have a Roku TV or a Roku box in your home, you can use the Entertainment Assistant to control other Roku Connect devices. Roku plans on debuting the Entertainment Assistant this fall in a free software update to Roku TV and Roku players. Users will be able to access the Entertainment Assistant via a Roku remote or the Roku mobile app.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

BMW has been one of the better automakers when it comes to weaning itself off fossil fuels. That's in large part thanks to its i sub-brand, which includes the excellent i8 coupe and the good-but-expensive i3 city car. Both cars were designed from the ground up to be electric vehicles, and both make extensive use of composites and carbon fiber. But they aren't for everyone, and neither are they your only options if you want a plug-in hybrid EV that wears the famous blue and white propellor badge.

Meet the most recent addition to BMW's PHEV line: the 2018 BMW 530e iPerformance.

Enlarge / Behold, a microchip implant with its delivery device. (credit: https://dangerousthings.com/)

When Wisconsin-based tech company Three Square Market offered to pay for its employees to be voluntarily microchipped last summer, the Internet was aghast. But just days before the so-called “chip party” at the 3SM company headquarters, people at the DEFCON hacking conference were eagerly lining up and paying to get microchip implants injected into the subdermal fascia between their thumbs and forefingers.

This juxtaposition begs the question: are these chip implants a step toward an invasive dystopian future where employers track their subjects’ every movement? Or are they simply an easy way to log in to accounts and open doors with the flick of a wrist? With a small but growing number of chipped individuals (between 50,000 and 100,000 according to estimates from biohacking company Dangerous Things) taking the plunge, society may soon find out.

What we’re talking about when we talk about microchips

Microchip implants are generally shaped like cylinders. They contain a small microchip, a bio-safe epoxy resin, and a copper antenna wire coil encased in lead-free borosilicate glass or soda-lime Schott 8625 biocompatible glass. Microchips used for both animals and humans are unpowered and have no battery or power source. Therefore, they are inert until they come in contact with a reader device, which implants communicate with over a magnetic field.