Cabetts

Teen dies trying to hold onto iPad during theft, police say

(Credit: CNET)

It’s a natural instinct to resist if someone tries to steal something out of your hand.

In Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon, that instinct might have cost a 15-year-old boy his life.

As the Las Vegas Sun reports, Marcos Vincente Arenas was walking down the street, holding an iPad.

Police say an SUV pulled up alongside him. A man allegedly got out of the passenger seat and tried to wrest the iPad from Arenas.

The teen wouldn’t let go of the device, so, investigators say, he was dragged along by the alleged thief toward the vehicle.

He was still near the passenger door when the car took off. Arenas was run over and died in hospital of his injuries.

Police have issued descriptions of both the driver and the passenger of the SUV, said to be a white Ford Explorer or Expedition.

This is the latest and most gruesome example of the phenomenon known as “Apple-picking.”

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Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse takes on the slow roads

Despite its massive horsepower and torque, the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse behaves nicely cruising on a twisty mountain road.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

I wish I could tell you about driving the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse up to its record-breaking speed of 254 mph. Race car driver Anthony Liu did it. Of course, he drove the Veryon on a 5.6-mile straightaway at Volkswagen’s test track in Ehra-Lessien, Germany, taking the speed record for a production convertible.

On the rural roads in Napa, Calif., the best I could manage was a few seconds of maximum acceleration, making all four wheels grab pavement with neck-snapping force from the engine’s 1,106 pound-feet of torque.

With my foot flat on the gas pedal, I wasn’t looking at gauges or consulting a stopwatch, but Bugatti says the Veyron, in its open-top Grand Sport Vitesse form, hits 60 mph in about 2.5 seconds. I’ve driven cars that hit 60 mph in 3.5 seconds, but those did not prepare me for the Veyron. It is in a completely different class when it comes to stepping off the line.

Put the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox in first, push the gas, and hang on. There’s no time to tap the paddle shifters, but that’s OK, the car will automatically grab the next gear before redline. No fuel shut-off to worry about.

Behind me, I hear disparate noises, most notably the whoosh of the Veyron’s four turbocharger… [Read more]

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Forced to live with BB10, and kind of liking it

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

ORLANDO, Fla — Irony may be funny to the gods of Olympus but it’s a cruel lesson for us mortals. I found this out the hard way at BlackBerry Live 2013. Within minutes of arriving at my hotel I managed to misplace my lovely HTC One test unit. As a result my backup BlackBerry Z10 was suddenly promoted to first-string smartphone duty.

Comprehending the unthinkable I have to say that within the first hour of realizing my predicament I went through all the classic stages of withdrawal. Initially I denied it — I mean how could this happen to me? Then I became livid, and soon after dejected and listless. Sure, I brought along the Z10 to test any new apps or software I spotted at BlackBerry’s yearly shindig. To lean on the device as my sole form of mobile communication, well that was a fearsome prospect. I’d have no Google Drive documents, Google Talk, Google Now, and the rest of Android’s laundry list of Google services.

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Qantas: Forget the Kindle, read a book we just wrote for you

Sophisticated. But mere decoration?

(Credit: Qantas)

The past is a cockroach.

It never truly goes away. It simply makes more copies of itself, each a little different from the last.

How quaint, though, of Qantas to think that its fliers should read a book.

No, not a book on some fancy machine. A paper book, with a cover and a booky smell, given to you if you’re one of its fancy passengers.

These are, allegedly, no ordinary books. As Ad Age reports, Qantas claims they are “bespoke.” Yes, like a hunting jacket.

The company has teamed with publishing house Hachette to offer high-fliers something of quality and class.

Yes, of course most fliers read James Patterson, Dan Brown, and Richard North Patterson, so in many of these beautiful books, people will still be shot at, taken to court, and die.

Still, each book is complete with something everyone would wish for: a personal note form the Qantas CEO. Did I mention that they are very beautifully designed?

But the greatest claim to joy here is that the books will allegedly be of perfect length for a particular flight.

David Nobay, the ad agency creative behind this idea insisted: “According to ou… [Read more]

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Enormous asteroid to zip by Earth

A supreme opportunity for space scientists.

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

A giant asteroid will pass by Earth on May 31, according to NASA, but hold off before you start browsing survival gear on Amazon.

The 1.7-mile long asteroid, labeled 1998 QE2, will come within 3.6 million miles of Earth, or about 15 times the distance between our planet and the moon. It’s a golden opportunity for astronomers, who plan to extensively image the temporary visitor.

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“Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface … [Read more]

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How injectable nanogel could help fight diabetes

A closeup of the nanogel.

(Credit: MIT)

For diabetics who have to constantly manage their blood-sugar levels, insulin works. The problem is, many people with Type 1 diabetes have to prick their fingers multiple times a day to monitor their levels, and inject themselves with insulin when those levels are too high. And they don’t always administer the right amount at the right time.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Children’s Hospital hope to automate insulin delivery with a novel nanotech approach that involves injecting a gel that detects blood-sugar levels and secretes insulin when needed — with a single injection doing do the trick for as many as 10 days.

“With this system of extended release, the amount of drug secreted is proportional to the needs of the body,” says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor of chemical engineering, in a school news release. Anderson is the senior author of the paper describing the system in the journal ACS Nano.

Because insulin delivery is so time-consuming and important to get right, researchers have spent years trying to improve the approach, with some developing systems that basically mimic the pancreas to both detect gl… [Read more]

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iPhone robot is an alarm clock with attitude

Tim-e can wake you up with interactive games, music, or snarky comments.

(Credit: Kickstarter)

For the snooze kings and queens of the world, an even more annoying alarm clock is a must. Well, here’s a droid with a “hilarious personality” that looks like it needs a good kick.

Tim-e is an iPhone dock with arms and legs. It wriggles and dances and is generally annoying. But that’s the whole point.

The subject of a Kickstarter campaign that’s aiming for $150,000, Tim-e (pronounced “Timmy”) uses your iPhone screen as an animated face.

In the promo video below, it has a blue, animated mug and puts on a snarky routine. It recalls the genie from Disney’s “Aladdin.”

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MIT to turn sky into dancing-umbrella light show

A bird’s view of the project.

(Credit: Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET)

Forget the Umbrellas of Cherbourg. MIT presents the Umbrellas of Cambridge.

This Sunday evening, participants in a large-scale interactive performance will hoist programmable umbrellas outfitted with LED lights skyward in a shimmering spectacle of red, green, and blue.

The project called “UP: The Umbrella Project,” is part of a collaboration between MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Connecticut-based Pilobolus modern-dance company.

Using hand controllers designed by researchers at CSAIL’s Distributed Robotics Lab, hundreds of MIT students, faculty, and staff will be able to independently change the color of their umbrellas, thus spontaneously choreographing a kind of umbrella dance that will then be projected onto a giant screen so everyone can see the aggregate moving image.

Umbrella holders can look up at a screen to see how their movements are affecting the whole.

(Credit: Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET)

Sunday night’s event, which starts at 7:45 p.m. at … [Read more]

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Students blast off in egg payload rocket contest

Middle school student Jose Martinez from San Luis, Ariz. shows off his team’s rocket.

(Credit: Team America Rocketry Challenge)

Big rockets like the SpaceX Grasshopper and the Orbital Antares have been in the news lately, but those are a little out of reach for the average student. That’s why the Aerospace Industries Association’s Team America Rocketry Challenge exists. It fans the maker flames by challenging kids to design, build, and launch model rockets.

The rocket challenge finals took place over the weekend. It was a record year for the competition’s turnout, with 725 teams battling through the initial rounds. The top 100 teams participated in the final fly-off in Virginia, representing 29 states with teams from schools, 4-H clubs, and even a team made up of Civil Air Patrol volunteers.

The competition was open to students in grades 7 through 12. All the teams had one goal: build the best model rocket. The challenge was to fly an egg to 750 feet up in the air, and then parachute it back to the ground with no damage. That’s even harder than it sounds.

There were plenty of rules in pla… [Read more]

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Chris Hadfield sings Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ in ISS farewell

Floating in a tin can: Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sings Bowie.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)

How do you top months of amazing photos, demos, and tunes done aboard the International Space Station? If you’re Chris Hadfield, you cover David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in a showstopping finale.

On the eve of his return to Earth, the Canadian astronaut released a beautifully done video of himself singing the 1969 classic.

Mixed with the help of staff at the Canadian Space Agency, musician Emm Gryner, and others, the cover features a somber piano intro and modified lyrics that reference the Soyuz capsule that will return Hadfield to Kazakhstan.

When the mustachioed commander sings “I’m floating in a most peculiar way” while actually floating up in space, Hadfield wins the Internet, as one commenter suggests.

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