Easily grow your own fresh, delicious, and nutritious produce at home with the Herbitat Smart Hydroponic Indoor Garden. Featuring a soilless NFT grow system, this smart home garden maximizes plant growth while creating zero mess. As a result, it’s exceptionally easy to plant, grow, and also harvest your plants. With an intelligent system in place, Herbitat features Wi-Fi connectivity as well as integrated nutrient, water, and temperature sensors to know just what your plants need in order to grow. When human intervention is required, you get instantly notified in the app on your smartphone. Because you can control light schedules and access to these smart features, you can grow a variety of plants all in one place. The grow pods are also detachable so you can pull them out for maintenance as needed. In addition to being incredibly easy, Herbitat is also easy on the eyes. The modern and minimalist structure fits in with any interior space while the falling water creates a zen-like growing environment.
If you’re looking to create an intelligent home, look no further than the Aria Modern Home Affordable Smart Home Gadgets. Using Wi-Fi, this range of devices connects seamlessly to give you unprecedented control in your home. The beautiful all-white Aria range includes an ambient sensor, smart plug, multi-color light bulb, daylight light bulb, and LED strip controller. Best of all, no hub is required. Even so, Aria Smart Home Gadgets integrate with Alexa and Google Assistant so you can manage them all with just your voice. Use Ember, the ambient sensor, to keep track of humidity and temperature. You can even trigger other smart devices based on results. The multi-color bulb, which has 16 million color options plus white shades, and the daylight light bulb, which offers color temperature control, are the perfect brightness at 800 lumens. If you have an LED strip already, the Hue Dial will let you manage it to display the perfect color. Or, if you have a device that isn’t smart, use the Binary smart plug to take it to the next level. Offering incredible functionality, the entire range comes at an impressively affordable price so you can fill your home.
Get a grip on your smartphone footage with the Lensta Grip Universal Smartphone Stabilizer. Perfect for creators, photographers, and travelers, this ergonomic grip also has a built-in shutter release. This will reduce the shake, so you get better photos and videos. And, because the shutter button is where it would be on a regular camera, you get a more natural experience. But, the Lensta Grip does even more. The shutter button is removable so it works as a Bluetooth remote for photos. And, you can add on a wrist or neck strap for even more peace of mind. Or, you can attach it to a tripod so you can get in the photos, too. Fitting most smartphones on the market, the Lensta Grip is far less bulky than your DSLR, so it can travel with you anywhere. Plus, the battery will last you a full year on a single charge. With your choice of leather or corduroy, the Lensta Grip looks as great as it functions.
You’ve seen plenty of intelligent wallets, but the Mjölnir Efficient Coin-Sorting Wallet is simply a great wallet that’s intelligently designed. The creators thought of everything—truly everything. The most notable feature is the coin trap. When you get your change at the shop, just drop your coins and bills into the main slot. The coin trap will automatically grab your coins. In addition, the Mjölnir Wallet also remains impressively slim even with the coins as well as up to 12 cards. In fact, it’s just 5mm thick when empty. For your cards, there’s a quick-draw system so you can pull just what you need. And, it features highly durable RS15 fibers, a material stronger than steel, complete with anti-RFID technology. There are even slots built into the wallet for your SIM card, micro SD card, SIM removal tool, and a spare key. If all that wasn’t enough, the Mjölnir Wallet doubles (or triples?) as a smartphone stand so you can go hands-free. It even comes with an anti-drop feature so it stays in your pocket and not on the floor.
Final Fantasy XIV has been around for a long time now; it has been nine years since it first launched, and six years since A Realm Reborn replaced the original. Square Enix has a new strategy to earn back some lapsed players.
From now until June 27, Final Fantasy XIV‘s Heavensward expansion is free on PC, PS4, and Mac. It’s a limited-time event, but anyone who claims it before the deadline will have permanent access. Heavensward was the first of three expansions for the MMO, having released back in 2015.
This coincides with a second promotion, which is called the Free Login Campaign. From now through June 17, anyone can play Final Fantasy XIV for free for seven days. Usually, it carries a $13 per month subscription fee. One free week is a decent trial to determine whether that fee might be worth it.
Of course, there’s an ulterior motive for all this goodwill. These freebies lead right up to the July 2 launch of Shadowbringers, which is the third and last Final Fantasy XIV expansion. As Chris noted last fall, the middle expansion Stormblood and the Version 4.4 patch add up to a game that’s bursting with content and polished as all heck. That will probably continue with Shadowbringers. But right now, with free Heavensward and a week of free logins, is a great time to check out what all the fuss is about.
Space Exploration and vintage 1960s style art? I’m in!
But really, what more do you want?
Oh… more info about the game? Well, I’ve known Chad Elkins of 25th Century Games through social media for about a year now. You may have seen his work recently in the form of Christmas Lights, which should be hitting tables at homes across the world in a couple months! When I saw he had a new project that was a space-themed tableau builder, I was immediately intrigued! Space Explorers is designed by a Russian gentleman by the name of Yuri Zhuravlev.
The best thing about Space Explorers is you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to play!
As far as components, there are 60 Specialist cards, 10 project tiles, and 20 research tokens. Very straightforward. You also get a Hub board (not L. Ron, though) and reference sheet to help keep you organized while playing. Learning the game takes less than 10 minutes. Teaching the game takes less than 5.
For a 2-player game, it should take you roughly 20-30 minutes your first time through, and then depending on how thinky you or your opponent is, the time will either shorten due to familiarity or lengthen due to over-thinking.
The game fits into what I like to call, “The Perfect Balance”. Other games that fall into this category for me are Splendor, Fantastic Factories, Century: Spice Road, and so on. The premise is easy to understand, the component count is low, the learning/teaching time is low, but the strategy is very high.
One thing that’s a LITTLE wonky to grasp initially is the SKILLS versus RECRUITMENT COST. My main piece of advice is to pay attention to the SHAPE of the icon you are looking at, to figure out what purpose it serves. The circular icons are SKILLS and the square icons are the RECRUITMENT COST (and the RESEARCH TOKENS used to pay for them). It “feels” like the SKILLS pay for the RECRUITMENT COST, but they do not, they simply mitigate the costs. Here is a quick How to Play video, as well!
I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes: space, strategy, games that take less than an hour but scratch the “challenge” itch, space exploration, strategic thinking, Russia, America, Space Force, NASA, engineering, science… you get the point.
Here is a mid-game example of my Hub. I have 1 Engineer (blue), 1 Tester (green), 1 Scientist (yellow), 2 Builders (red), and 1 Astronaut (purple). The game ends when a player has 12 Specialists or all of the Projects (satellites/spaceship/interplanetary station) have been built.
The art is also super fun. For each type of Specialist there is only 1 illustration, and rather than complicating the game with a lot of art, they simply zoom in on the more powerful versions of each Specialist type. As you can see above, the green Specialist is zoomed quite close up (they are worth 3 VP, cost 5 and have an ability) while the blue Specialist is zoomed out (they are 0 VP, cost 2, and has a less potent ability).
One cool thing is that if (when) they fund in the first 48 hours EVERY backer will receive a cloth mission patch like the ones NASA used to make!
Space Explorers is a tableau building game for 2-4 players, ages 12+, and plays in about 20-40 mins. It is designed by Yuri Zhuravljov, best known for designing Viceroy, and is illustrated by Alexey Kot.
Players are the head of their own Research and Development Hub in a Space Research Center. Your goal is to gather the best and brightest minds humanity has to offer, and complete large scale space projects.
Space Explorers features 20 different historical spacecrafts, 10 American and 10 Soviet, covering satellites, manned spaceships, and orbital stations. A wide range of spacecrafts can be found in the game from the Golden Age of Astronautics including Sputnik and Apollo 11.
As Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin said aboard the Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, as he was positioned on the launchpad poised to be the first human in space…“Let’s Go!”About
Monitors for home and nursery that include Alexa capabilities, facial recognition, smart zoning and even sleep analysis will all be on the launchpad at this year’s CES, from Binatone, official licensee of the Motorola brand.
Binatone, Indianapolis, IN.
Helping parents has always been the driving force for Binatone’s development of new baby products from Motorola. 2019 will see cutting edge devices and services focussed on baby sleep and well-being with first looks at PepCom and CES.
The Motorola Halo is a unique baby monitor that can attach to any cot or crib giving an unparalleled ‘parent’s eye view’ of the baby. At the heart of Halo is a 1080p camera with IR night vision to 10m with two-way audio activated by motion and audio sensors. This feeds crystal clear video and audio to a connected home-viewer or, if parents prefer, they can access the camera on their smart phone via the partner Hubble-for-Baby app from anywhere they choose. The Hubble app has been specifically developed for all Motorola connected products and unlocks many features to help parents of new-borns and young infants.
The unit’s camera also doubles as a portable monitor and can easily be detached from the cot/crib mount and positioned anywhere in the home, making it both a fixed and mobile solution.
In addition to the camera, the cot/crib mount has a choice of ambient soft glow light settings and a night sky ‘virtual mobile’ to project sky scenes onto the nursery ceiling. The two-way audio can also be used to play lullabies and other soothing sounds direct through the speaker from the Hubble-for-Baby services accessed through the partner app.
The Halo sets a new standard in nursery monitoring and coupled with the Hubble-for-Baby partner app, will become the benchmark for new parents looking for more than just a monitor.
The Hubble IoT platform has also undergone an overhaul transformation with some new, exciting services added for 2019. Hubble-for-Baby app will be introducing a number of key features to help parents track and monitor their baby’s development.
Sleep is a critical feature for development and Hubble-for-Baby allows any connected Motorola baby monitor to do much more than just record your baby sleeping. A baby tracking diary, access to expert sleep advice, in-depth sleep analytics and smart zoning are all part of the new Hubble-for Baby app which can be accessed from any connected Motorola baby monitor.
In addition to the new nursery products, Binatone is launching a brand-new home monitoring system. The Motorola Mods for Home uses a state-of-the-art 1080p waterproof camera that can be combined with several stands and cases, making it the ultimate modular system. Choose from outdoor battery packs to night stands to build your own personal home monitoring system. The Mods system can be adapted to fit any user’s needs.
The Mods also connects to Hubble-for-Home app and benefits from the same AI developments at the heart of Motorola nursery products. Smart zoning coupled with person recognition will ensure that users only get notified when people enter or leave the smart zone, no more false alarms from stray dogs or branches swinging in the wind. The Mods also features new facial recognition AI which has increased accuracy and speed enabling positive ID within one second of being detected. Hubble-for-Home is available across a number of new Motorola home products, including the Mods, brand new indoor and outdoor cameras, and a new connected video doorbell.
It’s a hybrid inside a hybrid. That’s the best way to think about the new XPS 15 two-in-one from Dell. This big-screen laptop has a 360-degree hinge, so it folds all the way back to form a tablet — we’ve seen that plenty of times before, but never in Dell’s high-end XPS 15 line.
Inside, it has a new CPU package that’s part of Intel’s eighth generation of Core i-series chips. But this is also a hybrid part. It’s one of the very first examples we’ve seen of a new Intel-AMD partnership, where these two component rivals are teaming up.
Now playing: Dell’s new XPS 15 is a hybrid inside and out 1:33
You get an Intel CPU paired with AMD Radeon Vega M GPU, giving you some pretty decent graphics muscle for a super-slim hybrid.
With these new parts, plus better cooling and a bigger heat spreader, Dell claims the battery will run for 15 hours.
It’s 16mm thick, which is pretty thin for any kind of 15-inch laptop, and the edge-to-edge Infinity Display has 4K resolution.
Dell’s XPS 15 2-in-1 is thin, sturdy and loaded with power33 PHOTOS
Also new is a redesigned keyboard — Dell calls it a “maglev” keyboard. That’s an idea that’s been talked about for years, but not widely used. Instead of rubber domes under the keys, it uses magnets to push the keycaps back up.
That lets you have an even thinner keyboard. In a brief hands-on demo, it felt very much like Apple’s current super-shallow keyboards, which some people like more than others.
The new XPS 15 two-in-one will be available in the spring, and starts at $1,299 in the US. International details have not been announced yet, but that works out to about £960 or AU$1,650.
You’re not likely to buy a self-driving car anytime soon, but you may end up riding in one. Navya is already deploying its Autonom Shuttle for public transportation in select areas around the world, and showed off its Autonom Cab at CES 2018, a newer vehicle which will see public tests this year.
The Autonom Cab, designed for ride-hailing services, leaves out the driver controls entirely in what is known as a Level 5 autonomous vehicle.
Meeting with Navya President Christophe Sapet in the Autonom Cab, its seating arrangement and spare interior created a comfortable space, making it easy for passengers to converse. Sapet emphasized the small size of the company, at just 180 employees, and how much it has accomplished.
The meeting was supposed to include a ride in the Autonom Cab, but Navya canceled that part of the demonstration due to rain. Sapet said that the car works fine in the rain, but this preproduction version’s body might leak. A production version would be weather-proof.
Self-driving cars, being developed by automakers, startups, automotive equipment suppliers and big tech companies, have the potential to prevent of mitigate accidents that cause over a millions deaths worldwide each year. They could also make a big difference for an increasingly urban populace that becomes less likely to own personal cars.
Navya claims that over 260,000 people have already ridden in its Autonom Shuttle, an earlier self-driving vehicle designed to drive a prescribed route, similar to a municipal bus. The Autonom Cab is designed to be more flexible, taking people where they need to go in an urban area.
The interior of the Autonom Cab is very roomy, and includes two seating rows facing eachother.Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow
The interior seats six in two seating rows that face each other. Impressively, the Autonom Cab doesn’t look any bigger than most five-seater SUVs, and is smaller than many. Yet the passenger space feels much roomier. A touchscreen in the Cab lets passengers interact with the vehicle, yet most requests are made through a smartphone.
With 10 lidars, six cameras and four radars, the Autonom Cab carries more sensors than most autonomous cars in development.Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow
At CES, Navya Director of Marketing Nicolas de Cremiers demonstrated how a passenger might open up a ride-hailing app, then specify whether he was looking for a shared ride or a private taxi. As in most ride-hailing apps today, the app shows when the Autonom Cab arrives. The Autonom Cab greets the person who summoned it with a colored light matching one on the app, helping to distinguish it from other cars or Cabs that might be on the road.
The Autonom Cab’s electric drivetrain isn’t designed for personal car driving dynamics. Its top speed is 55 mph, and it is designed to travel comfortably at about 35 mph, suitable for most urban and suburban areas. Its 22-kilowatt-hour battery pack lets it operate for about 10 hours as a robo-taxi.
The Autonom Cab senses its surroundings with 10 lidar units, six cameras and four radars, a very robust array. In addition, two GPS units help it understand where it is in the world. As with most self-driving car technologies, the Autonom Cab stores a high-definition map, comparing what its sensors see to that map to get its precise location in relation to lane lines, curbs and traffic infrastructure.
Sapet said the Autonom Cab costs about $250,000. However, as a public transport vehicle, that amount amortizes reasonably well when you consider how many hours a day it will operate and how many passengers it will carry.
RoboSense http://www.robosense.ai, a leader in LiDAR perception technology solutions and CES 2019 Innovation Award Honoree, announced today that next week at CES 2019, they will publicly demonstrate an upgraded version of their MEMS solid-state LiDAR, anautomotive grade solid-state LiDAR designed for the mass production of autonomous vehicles. The new RS-LiDAR-M1 with patented MEMS technology offers ground-breaking vehicle intelligence awareness to fully support Level 5 driverless automated driving. A breakthrough on the measurement range limit based on 905nm LiDAR with a detection distance to 200 meters, the upgraded optical system and signal processing technology brings remarkable final output point cloud effect which can now clearly recognize even small objects, such as railings and fences.
At last year’s CES 2018, RoboSense demonstrated the first generation MEMS solid-state LiDAR RS-LiDAR-M1Pre. Just four months later, in May 2018, it was loaded on the Cainiao unmanned logistics vehicle and unveiled at the Ali Cainiao Global Intelligent Logistics Conference, becoming the world’s first solid-state LiDAR for unmanned vehicles. RoboSense has already been sending the MEMS LiDAR product to the world’s top OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. At CES 2019, RoboSense will launch the new RS-LiDAR-M1, showcasing the potential of their MEMS optomechanical system design, with breakthrough improvements in detection distance, resolution, Field of View (FOV), reliability, and other RoboSense award-winning LiDAR sensing technologies.
Double the Horizontal Field of View to 120 Degrees
A major step forward from the previous version award-winning RoboSense RS-LiDAR-M1Pre, the new RS-LiDAR-M1 MEMS optomechanical LiDAR provides an increased horizontal field of view by nearly 100% compared to the previous generation, reaching an amazing 120° field of view, so that only a few RS-LiDAR-M1s are needed to cover the 360° field of view. In addition, with only five RS-LiDAR-M1s, there is no blind zone around the car with dual LiDAR sensing redundancy provided in front of the car for a L5 level of automatic driving — full driverless driving. Based on the target production cost at $200 each, the cost of five RS-LiDAR-M1 is only 1/100th the highest mechanical LiDAR available to the market, which is more in line with the cost requirements for the mass production of autonomous vehicles.
Measurement Range to 200 Meters
The battle between 1550nm and 905nm LiDAR is about cost and performance. When aiming for a low-cost 905nm LiDAR, it is necessary to overcome the technical difficulties of achieving sufficient measurement range. The RS-LiDAR-M1 achieves a breakthrough on the measurement range limit based on the 905nm LiDAR, with a detection distance to 200 meters.
A Leap Forward in Point Cloud Effect Technology — Even Small Objects
The unique RS-LiDAR-M1 LiDAR system provides massive improvements, the most remarkable being the final output point cloud effect. The M1’s detection capability is greatly improved through the upgraded optical system and signal processing technology, which can now clearly recognize even small objects, such as railings and fences.
“The RoboSense RS-LiDAR-M1 LiDAR system is a giant leap forward for driverless technology,” said Mark Qiu, Co-founder, RoboSense.“We are committed to developing high-performance automotive-grade LiDAR at a low-cost to advance the LiDAR market, so that LiDAR can be used in fully unmanned vehicles, as well as assisted autonomous driving with superior environmental information detection that ensures driving safety. ”
A CES 2019 Innovation Award Honoree, the RS-IPLS first hardware and software algorithm based solution for the mass production of safer autonomous cars includes the RS-LiDAR-M1Pre first generation RoboSense MEMS LiDAR system and AI algorithms. RoboSense will be exhibiting the new upgraded MEMS LiDAR, the RS-LiDAR-M1, at CES 2019, Booth #9310, North Hall. CES is held January 8-11, 2019 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV. For more information about RoboSense, see http://www.robosense.ai.
About RoboSense
RoboSense is the world’s leading provider of LiDAR environmental awareness solutions. Founded in 2014, the company is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, with offices in the United States, Germany, and Beijing, Shanghai, and Suzhou, China. The core R&D team comes from the world’s top universities and world-class technology companies. For many years, RoboSense’s main design team has been developing the LiDAR sensing environment based on experience in many core technical fields, such as chips, LiDAR sensors, and AI algorithms. Market-oriented, providing customers with different combinations of intelligent environment-aware LiDAR systems, RoboSense’s core products include MEMS solid-state LiDAR system technology solutions and mechanical LiDAR system technology solutions. Customers include the world’s major autonomous driving technology companies, car manufacturers, and first-tier suppliers. RoboSense’s technologies are widely employed in a variety uses, including autonomous driving logistics vehicles, buses, passenger cars, and more. RoboSense’scutting-edge LiDAR system works with you to keep your autonomous driving safe. For more information, see http://www.robosense.ai.
Perhaps one of the most eye-catching demos on the show floor was an LG 4K TV. The 64-inch TV had a flexible, paper-thin display and it rolled into a tube that could fit inside a box the size of a sound bar. The TV was an iteration of a smaller, 18-inch TV that showed up at CES 2016.
The rollable TV was more of a “proof of concept” and LG didn’t offer any details about its pricing, availability or even product name. It seems as if not much has changed on the consumer end since then. As of December, LG stated that are “no updates at this point” about the TV. Bummer.
At any given moment our phones have access to nearly all of the world’s knowledge, literature, history and science. Despite such rich resources, many of us opt to kill time by scrolling through social media, messages or random videos. The French company Short Edition is out to change how we spend our time waiting with its Short Story Dispenser.
Inside a conference room at the Mandalay Bay hotel, I got to see the Short Story Dispenser in action as part of CES. It is a slender waist-high cylinder with an illuminated plexiglass sign on top that simply reads, “Select your reading time.” It would easily look at home in an interactive exhibit at a museum.
The machine has three buttons that allow you to choose the length of the short story you want to read.Short Edition
The top of the dispenser is adorned with three shiny metallic buttons labeled “1 min.,” “3 min.” and “5 min.” You press the button for the length of story you want and within moments an original short story is printed on a piece of thick paper about the size of a long receipt. Best of all, the story is free.
The idea of a machine that serves up books or magazines is nothing new. But the appeal of the Short Story Dispenser is how its simple premise immediately captures your curiosity. There is an unexpected delight interacting with the dispenser. The real charm comes from the stories. After I read the story that was printed, I immediately handed it to a co-worker who in-turn read it and shared it with someone else.
The publisher Short Edition envisioned the machine as a way to share the work of its authors to a wider audience. It has been in use in France since 2016 where it can be found in train stations, airports and hospitals.
Watch this: Short Story Dispenser prints you a great read with a… 1:06
Loïc Giraut with Short Edition explained that the hope for the device was to save reading by bringing literature to unexpected places. It’s being sold to business owners and governments. The Short Story Dispenser accesses curated stories from Short Edition’s platform via the internet. In France, that platform includes over 85,000 short stories. It’s also worth noting that authors get paid every time one of their stories is printed.
Short Edition curates its stories for the audience where the dispenser is located. For example, the Columbus School District in Ohio bought dispensers for elementary schools and the stories it prints are from a catalog of children’s literature.
Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was so impressed with the Short Story Dispenser that he ordered one for his Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco. He has since become an investor in the company.
“A short story is a very good basis for a movie because a short story you read in one sitting and a movie you see in one sitting,” said Coppola.
The Short Story Dispenser is in the process of rolling out to the US this year. But until you encounter one in-person, you can check out some of the stories on Short Edition’s website.
