Out with the old, in with the 8K TV
The world’s first broadcast using 8K TV technology is about to begin on Japan’s public channel, NHK. With a resolution of 7680x4320, “Super Hi-Vision” has about four times the detail of 4K, and 16 times that of HDTV (1920 1080), 33 177 600 pixels vs 2 073 600. The first trials will broadcast parts of the Olympic Games, as of August 6. Few TV sets support this kind of resolution. Sharp has an 8K, 85-inch screen (216 cm) on catalogue, for the low, low price of CA$200,000.
⇨ Ars Technica, “World’s first 8K TV broadcasts begin for Rio 2016 Olympics.”
Artificial Neurons
IBM Research in Zurich has created world’s first artificial nanoscale stochastic phase-change neurons. IBM has already created a population of 500 of these artificial neurons and used them to process a signal in a brain-like way. The neurons’ stochasticity means that they are able to produce slightly different, random results, just like biological neurons.
⇨ Ars Technica, “IBM creates world’s first artificial phase-change neurons.”
Robot Tattooist
Two French designers, Pierre Emm and Johan da Silveira, residents at Pier 9 in San Francisco, developed a robot tattooist with the help of Autodesk. The video warns “Don’t try this at home”. Even if we wanted to, we don’t happen to have an industrial robot at home.
⇨ Circuit Breaker, “Your future robot tattooist has steady hands, but isn’t great at conversation.”
Area 404
Facebook opened the doors to the mystery-shrouded Area 404 of its labs in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to developing and fabricating new hardware. “Over the next 10 years, we're building everything from Oculus headsets to solar-powered planes”, said Mark Zuckerberg.
⇨ Wired, “See inside Facebook’s new Area 404 hardware lab.”
Water Pistols
Apple has redesigned its existing emojis and released a slew of new ones. The hundred-or-so new emojis are more diverse, and feature female versions of traditionally male occupations and activities. But the most telling change is the replacement of the gun emoji with a fluorescent green water pistol.
⇨ Ars Technica, “Newest iOS 10 beta includes 100 new emoji, replaces gun with waterpistol.”
