📱
Big Tech &
Startups
Google's Plan To Take On Alexa: New Features, New Devices, and a Trojan Horse (5 minute read)
At CES, Google has announced a lot of new features for Assistant, including auto-translation which lets you talk to someone who speaks a different language with the smart speaker acting as a translator automatically. It will also be putting Google Assistant onto millions of iPhones by adding Assistant to Google Maps, allowing users to "share your ETA with friends and family, reply to text messages, play music and podcasts, and get information hands free." Most importantly, Google launched Google Assistant Connect, a platform that will let third party developers build their own applications on top of Google Assistant to compete with Alexa's third party integrations.
🚀
Science &
Futuristic Technology
Switching Off Anger With an Electrode (2 minute read)
Researchers have discovered that anger can be suppressed by sending a current to a certain area of the brain through an electrode. They designed an experiment where participants played a game in which they were cheated, causing them to become angry. Using an fMRI, they are able to measure anger by scanning a particular region of the prefrontal cortex. When they sent a current through the electrode to a particular region of the brain, they were able to detect less activity in this region of the prefrontal cortex. The researchers believe these results could lead to "a non-invasive adjuvant to improve anger coping capabilities".
💻
Programming, Design & Data Science
Designer Camera (Mac Desktop App)
This is a Mac desktop app that lets you easily make a rotatable 3D mockup of your iOS app in just a few seconds. It's a free download with no email required.
🎁
Miscellaneous