vrml writes: People often enroll in mindfulness meditation courses to pursue better health, but can such practices have unintended consequences on how they are engaged by emerging technologies such as virtual reality (VR)? That's what comes out from a new study published by the Computers in Human Behavior. A group of people with no experience in meditation tried scary VR experiences with an head-mounted display, while researchers measured their emotional reactions through physiological parameters such as heart activity and facial muscles activity. Then, half the participants followed a typical 8-week mindfulness course, while the other half did not (control group). At the end of the 8 weeks, they tried VR again. Participants who had practiced mindfulness during the 8 weeks were much less affected by VR: the scary VR experiences were not able to increase their heart rate as 8 weeks earlier, facial muscles activity was reduced, and their subjective perception of VR was consistent with this lack of engagement. On the contrary, the control group did not show such changes, and was still affected by VR. The paper interprets this emotional deactivation of meditators in terms of self-regulation of attention and detachment that can be gained through mindfulness, and can persist also when people (as these participants trying VR) are not meditating.

An anonymous reader writes: Israeli forces mounted a rescue mission in a Palestinian neighborhood after gun battles erupted when two soldiers mistakenly entered the area because of an error on a satellite navigation app, Israeli authorities said Tuesday.The clashes late Monday in the Qalandiya refugee camp outside Jerusalem left at least one Palestinian dead and 10 injured, one seriously. According to initial Israeli reports, the two soldiers said they had been using Waze, a highly touted Israeli-invented navigation app bought more than two years ago by Google. The smartphone app, which has a settings option to 'avoid dangerous areas,' relies on crowdsourcing to give users the fastest traffic routes.

MarkWhittington writes: Researchers at MIT have developed a gossamer thin solar cell that is made of layers of flexible polymers. The cell is so light that it can rest on a soap bubble without breaking it. As a bonus, the thin, light cells puts out 400 times more power than the standard, glass covered photovoltaic cells, at about six watts per gram. According to the researchers, this new development could help power the next generation of portable electronic devices.

An anonymous reader writes: Israeli PC maker CompuLab has begun shipping the Airtop PC that allows assembling high-end PC components into a completely fanless design. Phoronix's initial testing of the Airtop PC showed that it has a Core i7 5775C Broadwell processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and GeForce GTX 950 all while being fan-less thanks to the innovative design. The early results are quite positive for this uniquely designed PC but it comes at a cost premium of a fully-loaded system costing more than $2,200 USD.

An anonymous reader writes: The original Raspberry Pi went on sale four years ago, and more than 8,000,000 units have shipped since then. Raspberry Pi computers are used in schools and universities, in factories and other industrial applications, in home automation and hobby projects, and much more. Today the Raspberry Pi 3 was announced, featuring a 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, making it roughly 10x the speed of the original Pi 1. Many people will be pleased to hear that the Raspberry Pi 3 also features on-board Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, greatly improving the device's connectivity. The new device goes on sale today at the usual price of US $35. (Here's the official announcement itself.)

An anonymous reader writes: A popular internet-enabled security camera "secretly and constantly connects into a vast peer-to-peer network run by the Chinese manufacturer of the hardware," according to security blogger Brian Krebs. While the device is not necessarily sharing video from your camera, it is punching through firewalls to connect with other devices. Even if the user discovers it, it's still extremely hard to turn off. Krebs notes that the same behavior has been detected in DVRs and smart plugs -- they're secretly connecting to the same IP address in China, apparently without any mention of this in the product's packaging. One security researcher told Krebs the behavior is an "insanely bad idea," and that it opens an attack vector into home networks.

mikejuk writes: Details of the next in the family of the successful Raspberry Pi family have become available as part of FCC testing documents. The Pi 3 finally includes WiFi and Bluetooth/LE. Comparing the board with the Pi 2 it is clear that most of the electronics has stayed the same. A Raspberry Pi with built in WiFi and Bluetooth puts it directly in competition with the new Linux based Arduinos, Intel's Edison and its derivatives, and with the ESP8266 — a very low cost (about $2) but not well known WiFi board. And of course, it will be in competition with its own stablemates. If the Pi 3 is only a few dollars more than the Pi 2 then it will be the obvious first choice. This would effectively make the Pi Zero, at $5 with no networking, king of the low end and the Pi 3 the choice at the other end of the spectrum. Let's hope they make more than one or two before the launch because the $5 Pi Zero is still out of stock most places three months after being announced and it is annoying a lot of potential users.

mi writes: Though loudly resisting the American government's attempts to make it help break into the phone of a dead scumbag, Apple is very accommodating of the Chinese government's attempts to keep tabs on the citizenry's communications. Apple has censored apps that wouldn't pass muster with the Chinese government, moved local user data onto servers operated by the state-owned China Telecom, and submitted to Chinese audits. According to James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, "I can't imagine the Chinese would tolerate end-to-end encryption or a refusal to cooperate with their police, particularly in a terrorism case." Why the accommodation there?

Striek writes: Several media outlets are reporting that Windows 10 has now started showing full screen ads on users' lock screens. They can be turned off, but how many people will actually bother with this? "Tips site How-To Geek discovered that Windows Spotlight, which normally rotates between a selection of photographs, was being used to display an ad for Square Enix's Rise of the Tomb Raider. Understandably, most people probably don't want to be hit in the face with a full-screen ad for a video game before they even unlock their computer. If you want to make sure you're not hit with these ads, follow these steps to disable Windows Spotlight: Open the Start Menu and search for "Lock Screen Settings."; Under "Background," select either Picture or Slideshow, instead of Windows Spotlight.; Scroll down to "Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen" and this toggle." Apparently the "and more" is where Microsoft hid the advertisements.

New submitter androlinuz writes: Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, a leading platform provider for mobile app development. In conjunction with Visual Studio, Xamarin provides a rich mobile development offering that enables developers to build mobile apps using C# and deliver fully native mobile app experiences to all major devices, including iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin's approach enables developers to take advantage of the productivity and power of .NET to build mobile apps, and to use C# to write to the full set of native APIs and mobile capabilities provided by each device platform.

David Rothman writes: Back in 2003, Slashdot ran TeleRead's call for a brick-and-mortar international e-book museum at the Library of Congress. The proposed museum would focus on the devices and other technology rather than the content. It still isn't too late for such a project, and TeleRead is again advocating the idea. Content, too, actually would benefit -- considering that proprietary formats and DRM can imperil the future readability of e-books. Meanwhile, a small-scale e-book museum is about to open in Paris and is looking for donations. A worthy cause!

An anonymous reader writes: Out before the much anticipated Google Modular Phone Project ARA, is a new phone from Fairphone: The Fairphone 2. This phone is claimed to be the the worlds first real modular phone. Fairphone is more than just a phone manufaturer but a social justice movement . Fairphone is a project of Waag Society, Action Aid and Schrijf-Schrijf to raise awareness about conflict minerals in consumer electronics and the wars that the mining of these minerals is fueling in the DR Congo. The Fairphone 2 build consists of 5-inch Full HD LCD screen, Android 5.1 Lollipop,Dual SIM, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Qualcomm quad core processor.

schwit1 writes: Connecting your smartphone to the web with just a lamp - that is the promise of Li-Fi, short for 'light fidelity,' which features Internet access that is 100 times faster than Wi-Fi. French start-up Oledcomm demonstrated the revolutionary wireless technology at the Mobile World Congress, the world's biggest mobile fair, this week. As soon as this smartphone was placed under an office lamp, it started playing a video. The big advantage of Li-Fi is theoretical speeds of over 200 Gbps.

Zothecula writes: Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have repurposed discarded apples to build cheap and high-performance sodium-ion batteries, making a green technology even greener. The advance could find use in grid storage and, after further development, compete with lithium-ion cells to power portable electronics and low-end electric cars.

msm1267 writes: Researchers have discovered a vulnerability in the USB devices that support wireless keyboards and mice that could put a countless number of devices at risk to attack. Seven manufacturers have been informed of the flaw, but as of today, only Logitech has produced a firmware update. Some have no update mechanism and can never be patched. The issue lies in the fact that some of the commands from the peripheral device to the dongle are not encrypted. Most do not authenticate packets and an attacker within close proximity and using a USB transmitting malicious packets over radio frequency can trick the victim's machine into accepting mouse clicks impersonating keystrokes. It would take a matter of seconds for the attacker's code to load a rootkit, malware or additional network access.

alphadogg writes: Likely to get lost among the shiny new Android and Windows smartphones and tablets at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are demonstrations of technology that could bring LTE indoors over the 3.5 GHz wireless spectrum band, previously the sole domain of the military and satellite providers. But the exploitation of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service in the 3550-3700 MHz band, which the FCC voted about a year ago to make available for shared wireless broadband use, is worth paying attention to, especially if you're an organization that could stand to deliver more oomph for your employees who rely on wireless devices to make and receive calls in the office. CBRS — backed by the likes of Intel and Google — could overcome some of the troubles people currently have making LTE calls from indoors, due to interference or weak signals that result from penetrating tough building materials.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple may not have the public's support in its legal fight with the FBI, according to a recently published Pew report. In a survey that reached 1,000 respondents by phone over the weekend, Pew researchers found 51 percent of respondents believed Apple should comply with FBI demands to weaken security measures on an iPhone used in the San Bernardino attacks, in order to further the ongoing investigation. Only 38 percent of respondents agreed with the company's position.

Limiting the sample to respondents who own a smartphone only improved the numbers somewhat, changing them to a 50-41 split in the FBI's favor. Among those who own an iPhone, the numbers are even closer, but still in the FBI's favor 47 to 43 percent.

An anonymous reader writes: After beginning support for LTE Category 9 last year on their 4Gx network (with its theoretical max download speed of 450Mbps), Telstra has now announced that they will upgrade their network to support LTE category 16. In theory, this means that if a customer has the correct equipment in the correct location, they will be able to have a maximum theoretical download speed of 1000Mbps, and a maximum theoretical upload speed of 150Mbps. Of course, it's unlikely that customers will be able to sustain these speeds, but Telstra lists on their website that 4GX devices currently have a typical download speed of 2 to 75Mbps on 4GX.

An anonymous reader writes: Cyanogen has announced a new integrated mobile platform designed to change the way users, developers, OEMs and MNOs build and interact with mobile devices. Their new platform MOD provides developers with APIs they can use to implement intelligent, contextually aware and lightweight experiences natively into the mobile operating system. It also allows users to extend the functionality of their devices.

MojoKid writes: Samsung held their annual Unpacked event at Mobile World Congress 2016, officially unveiling their next generation Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones. The Galaxy S7 sports a 5.1-inch QHD Super AMOLED display with 2560x1440 resolution, while the Galaxy S7 Edge wields a larger 5.5-inch dual-edge screen also at 2560x1440. Among the new features are the company's always-on display technology. When you pull the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge out of your pocket or purse, you'll be able to peek at basic information like the time, calendar, or notifications without touching or waking the display. Both devices also feature "Dual Pixel" 12MP cameras. Using dual-photodiode technology, this is an alternative to phase-detection auto-focus that's supposed to work faster and better. Samsung also claims the rear shooters on the phones capture 95% more light through a wider f1.7 lens. Both are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM with 32GB of internal storage which is expandable via microSD, along with 802.11ac MU-MIMO Wi-Fi, BT 4.2, NFC support, fast wireless charging, and 3,000 mAh (Galaxy S7) or 3,600 mAh (Galaxy S7 Edge) batteries. Both are water-resistant and dust-resistant designs with IP68 certification that will withstand total submersion for 30 minutes. The company also announced a new Gear 360 VR video camera and a partnership with Facebook-Oculus. The Gear 360 sports dual fisheye lenses each with high resolution 15MP CMOS image sensors capable of capturing 360-degree video at 3840x1920 and 30-megapixel (7776x3888) still images. When the Gear 360 is synced to a compatible Galaxy phone, you can preview footage in real-time using the phone as a remote.