Twitter has announced a new set of Wimbledon-themed emoji via the timeline of Serena Williams. The new characters are part of a broader push to get fans engaging on social media during the tournament. Aside from #Wimbledon (which brings up a tennis racquet), the hashtags let you broadcast where you’re watching from: #TheQueue, #TheHill (Henman Hill) or #TheWorld (anywhere outside SW19). Twitter says it wants to create “a friendly battle
A new report from Bloomberg backs up the rumours we’ve been hearing about Force Touch coming to the iPhone. “People with knowledge of the matter” say production has already started on this year’s handsets. For the Force Touch newbies, it’s a pressure-sensing technology that reacts to the lightness (or otherwise) of a touch on a display. It can already be found on the Apple Watch and the new MacBook. Bloomberg’s
Strapping fitness Has anyone noticed how the sun seems to be shining a little brighter these days? The air feel a little crisper, more satisfying? And how about them chirping birds, eh? Loads of them everywhere. It’s possible that this is just my post-triathlon mind breaking free of the memory of being trapped in the Thames, the need to keep donning the sausage suit and throw myself in lakes no
With the excitement of E3 behind us, the ever-present negativity in the games industry settles back down to its regular levels. At even the best of times, there’s always this undercurrent of grumblings about frame rate, resolution and various other game-related things like DLC and exclusives and pre-order bonuses, and much of it is legitimate and worth pointing out. Like most people, I don’t really want to see things like
Introduction Windows 10 isn’t really the last version of Windows. It might be the last version number though, because new features and improvements will come out as part of Windows 10 rather than as new releases you have to upgrade to. Some of those will be smaller fixes and updates; some will be larger upgrades, like the Redstone update expected in 2016. They’ll be delivered through Windows Update and Windows
Your weekly smartphone fun Following hot on the heels of last week, this week’s instalment of Keitai continues the contact management theme, specifically look at those of you rocking iPhones. Catch up on Keitai How to transfer contacts to Google on iOS Last week we showed you how to back up your Android contacts to your Google account, but what about if you use an iPhone? Perhaps unsurprisingly it’s not
Despite years of advances in automation of the production of bricks, turning them into a structure is still a tedious, manual process. That’s why an Australian engineer’s latest project could revolutionise the construction industry. Mark Pivac has built a fully-automated bricklaying robot, which he claims is a world first. “We’re at a technological nexus where a few different technologies have got to the level where it’s now possible to do
A team of German engineers competing in Google’s Lunar Xprize has struck a deal with Audi to design a rover that could one day drive on the Moon. The carmaker will offer the group, called Part-Time Scientists, its four-wheel drive technology, as well as expertise in lightweight construction, electric mobility and piloted driving. Google’s competition will award $30 million to the first team that can get a rover to the
Introduction and design When Lenovo unveiled the $1,499, NEC-made LaVie Z HZ550 (US-only, but about £952, AU$1,936) at CES 2015, it caused an uproar in the tech industry. This 1.87-pound (0.78kg) notebook had broken the record for the lightest laptop on the market. Its cousin, the $1,699 LaVie Z 360 (also US-only, but about £1,079, AU$2,195) – a 2.04-pound (0.92kg) hybrid device – would do the same for 2-in-1 laptops.
Imagine pressing a button on your smartphone to conjure up a meteor shower. That’s the vision of a Japanese entrepreneur preparing to launch a satellite that would make it possible to release man-made-meteors. “It is artificial but I want to make really beautiful ones that can impress viewers,” Lena Okajima, who has a PhD in Astronomy, told AFP in an interview. “I’m thinking of streams of meteors that are rare
