Are you in love with your landline number? Or financially, it just makes sense for you to make and receive calls on your landline? Well, that is all reasonable, but you are never at home because you spend most of your time on the road or at work! You really need that landline and you can’t do without it!!! The landline is wired at home, that is why it is aptly called a fixed line. So how do you get those valuable landline calls when you are not in the house? Luckily, there is now a solution for you. Here comes voice bridge.
If you understand the video then you know what the nifty devices does, it diverts your landline calls to your mobile devices (tablet or phone) via the internet! Which means as long as you have internet on your phone and your WiFi at home is fine, you will be able to take the calls on your mobile device!
No more fixed line, your landline calls are now free to roam with you without wires! Handy!
Scientists have always researched into alternative ways to do away with “unclean” energy for cleaner ones. Clean energy or renewable energy, being energy derived from natural sources without destruction to the environment that comes with producing energy nowadays. Think the batteries in your smart devices that poison the earth if not disposed of carefully.
The solar power panels have always been sought for an alternative way to harness energy. Why? The sun is abundant and will always be there, as long as there is life on earth. But the most efficiency we ever got from this form of power generation was 17%. This has changed now. Sol Voltaics, a Swedish start-up has seen a breakthrough that will help ensure change.
They claim to have created a film that can boost solar power efficiency to 50%. This is good news for both us, the end users, and mother nature. One thing is certain, the more we look, the more we find. Soon, we might just have a renewable energy source that will make the “poisonous” batteries we have all around us now obsolete, amongst other things. We might never need to charge our mobile devices any longer, it will charge itself by fuelling on the sun. See video below!
We say well done to the researchers of this discovery and hope for an even better result on clean energy in the future!
We all know those times when you want to show your friends, or loved ones a video on youtube and then there is an advert. You would be very lucky to get those ads you can skip after 4 seconds, if you are less lucky, you get that 14 seconds video that you just have to wait for!
Well this could finally be a thing of the past without breaking the bank. One word; Adblock.
Adblock is a portmanteau of the words advert and block, and it means what it looks like, it is a “software” that blocks ads. Some websites actually ask for a premium so that those annoying adverts will stop holding up your entertainment. However, recently many tech companies are researching into making an adblocker to stop them all. This has been slowly introduced into some web browsers and one of these is Opera.
Without futher ado, Opera web browser has cracked it finally. No more adverts on most websites, and with time, we only think this process will be perfected. So go on here, download the new opera browser by choosing your device, install it, turn on adblock, and browse and watch with freedom and peace! At least until websites learn to counter these adblockers.
Update: Websites are fighting hard to make sure they can bypass adblockers. However, so are the adblockers themselves. You might notice it is a continuous battle between the two sides, but all in all, adblockers still work and get updated regularly to give you that stress free browsing, or entertainment!
Whichever way you look at it, technology has always helped us learn more about the environment, and in the long run, help us defeat some of our impediments, pushing us to some times live longer! Of such innovation came a company: Pixium.
Pixium – founded by José-Alain Sahel, a scientist and ophthalmologist- has created an artificial “retina”: IRIS II – to help the blind regain their sight
IRIS II mimics the mechanism our natural eyes use to make out shapes in black and white.
Picture courtesy www.pixium-vision.com
According to the makers’ website “The above chart is an illustration of the rehabilitation process where patients progressively identify shapes. It is not indicative of final outcome.”
Also the video below is also an illustration of how the device would be implanted.
We at thecomputerpotato think extremely savant research such as this is a blessing to earth, and hope to see more people giving up their valuable time to make the world a better place!
We talked about Project Ara a while back! Since then, like always in the tech age, things have changed and the world has advanced even more. Google has changed its parent name to Alphabet and made Google a division of that. Project Ara has also changed leadership and changed the focus of how the project would take off.
Instead of a full modular phone, the screen and processor (brain in the phone) will not be changeable but the rest of the phone will be. “We’ve integrated the phone technology in the frame. That frees up space for modules that will create and integrate new functionality that you cannot get on your smartphone today,” Said the project’s lead engineer, recently at a conference!
The good news is that the project is definitely moving forward, and we have started to see some devices trying to incorporate the idea. See below
The LG G5 lets you swap the battery pack and add a camera grip in seconds.
However, the Alphabet’s Ara wants to do more. As of the time of this article, the prototype is aiming at swapping things like a secondary e-paper display, a high-resolution camera, loud speakers, expandable storage, or even a kickstand. And it is proposed to be out commercially by end of 2017!
In another news, a new research is making screens that can be remodulated just like a rubik cube! Crazy!
We say good work to everyone involved in this. This futuristic idea will definitely change the standard we have today and make the same devices more useful to different people!
“Hey Siri, did you know you now have a younger sibling?” Siri might not give you an answer to that but it does have a sibling, called Viv, and everyone is talking about it. Viv was debuted weeks ago in New York and it seems to know how to do a lot more when asked for assistance!
Viv was made to be different from Siri because it doesn’t just spew out internet search results at you, or perform basic tasks, it actually works out what you want and help you get things done! The very makers of Apple’s Siri sat down to create a new virtual assistant – as they are now called- and came up with a software that can rewrite itself to find solutions. Another step towards the personification of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
You can see a demonstration of Viv at work in the video below. if you are more interested in the full talk, you can restart the video from the beginning.
According to one of Viv’s and Siri’s makers: “We’re going to use this technology to breathe life into the inanimate objects and devices of our life through conversation,” This statement sounds scary at first, especially with all the talk of AI taking over the world or our jobs. However we believe this types of technology, when perfected, can be more beneficial than harmful to help machines, i.e electronic devices, better understand and represent our needs!
You might have heard of the Amazon Dash. It is a system to help making shopping on Amazon a tad easier. Now the Dash has got a new cousin, the AWS IoT Button! A mouthful I know, by the time you finish calling its name though, it would have completed its task!
This button unlike the Amazon Dash can be used to do any task programmable rather than just shopping on Amazon!
According to its makers “You can click the button to unlock or start a car, open your garage door, call a cab, call your spouse or a customer service representative, track the use of common household chores, medications or products, or remotely control your home appliances.”
An amazing device for an already connected home! Click on image below to read more!
Ask any diabetic and the first thing they tell you is that it is a pain to manage! Why? They have to constantly prick themselves with needles to check their blood sugar, but it doesn’t stop there. Some of them have to prick even more to inject their insulin, which helps reduce the blood sugar back to a normal level.
Well all that pricking could be over if the researchers in South Korea develop what they claim to have created! A “smart patch”!
The Patch Being Peeled Off Skin
The patch works with sensors embedded into its thin layer. The sensors tests the wearer’s sweat to determine blood sugar levels. If high, the patch delivers a drug, Metaformin, through tiny needles to help regulate the blood sugar back to normal. Simple right? Well in theory and on paper yes. However, there is a lot more to do to get this technology out commercially to sufferers of this disease. So no, these patches won’t be at the local pharmacy just yet.
There comes a time when technology does really help save lives, and we at the Computer Potato like to write about technology that literally save or change lives. This smart patch is one of many to come and we say the applications of this technology is promising! It can be applied to many other blood related ailments, if developed!
We think this is a step closer to another milestone in the advancement of medical diagnosis and “dispensary” and we say more power to the efforts of those putting their time into such an innovative way to help humankind!
The computer potato is all about digging out promising, emerging technologies in anything electronics. We won’t have lived up to our reputation if we didn’t bring you nifty, tiny devices that make us wish for more!
We present to you the WonderCube!
Yup, the device looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, but then again what new device doesn’t nowadays! This tiny device will make you do away with lots of your daily devices and it is just the size of a key ring! This makes WonderCube a device that makes our list quite literally in any category!
You can now preorder WonderCube here. This indicates it will soon be seeing commercial production.
We say kudos to the inventors of this tiny, tiny “cubey” thing that will make life a lot easier and a whole lot less heavier.
Many companies and service providers are trying to give us mobile connectivity without the need for a SIM card. This could mean the beginning of seamless connection everywhere you go around the world, without needing to worry about signal bars or that massive roaming bill when you get back home or carrying around one of these.
In the US, Google has recently launched its own “mobile network” of mobile networks called Project Fi. For one paid plan, you can use the many phone networks that Google has partnered with around the world!
How it works?
You simply get one of the Project Fi enabled phones, sign up for one of the packages with Google, and you are good to go! The plan is you can go around the world with your phone with no roaming charge, and you will be able to seamlessly make calls over wifi or any of Google’s partner networks in the country you are in, all these without losing the call during change of networks! Google boasts this is possible in over 120 countries! Sounds like freedom!
Another startup company – GoTenna – has also made a revolutionary device that connects to your phone via bluetooth to send messages without needing a network signal, either mobile or WiFi, or even a SIM in your phone.
Man With GoTenna In Remote Location
How it works?
The GoTenna comes in pairs, you buy one and get one for a family member or friend. This way, a network of GoTenna is built around the world with each connected GoTenna. If you were to lose signal, say you are in a desert, and another GoTenna is less than 4 miles away (depending on the terrain), you can send messages to the nearest GoTenna and through it. Or you can simply send your location so that you are easily found. Not convinced? Watch video below.
Slowly, it seems we will no longer be needing a SIM to communicate with each other if technologies like these are allowed to pick up! We will have no need for roaming charges! And best of all, all networks will serve everyone no matter their individual chosen mobile provider!
Don’t throw away your phones yet though, before we can enjoy these services in full capacity, there is much work to be done to the current infrastructure, and we are sure, tonnes of contracts signed between the mobile providers!
