11-04-2015, 09:51 PM
Smartphones have sidelined digital cameras and other special-purpose devices. Now Google thinks mobile phones will shove virtual-reality headsets like the Oculus Rift into the shadows, too... Current smartphone hardware can’t update the virtual world in close enough synchrony with the movements of your head as you look around, which is what causes motion sickness. The Rift works well in part because it has cut that lag to less than 20 milliseconds, and even then, viewing some kinds of content can still leave some users nauseated. Cardboard’s latency is significantly greater.
Inside Google’s Plan to Make Virtual Reality Mainstream Before Facebook Can | MIT Technology Review
Recently, I started to wonder if my generation’s relationship with alcohol was abnormal. When I looked into the numbers, I realised that it was. I discovered that 2004 was Peak Booze: the year when Brits drank more than they had done for a century, and more than they have done in the decade since. Leading the way to this alcoholic apogee were those of us born around 1980. No other generation drank so much in their early 20s. Why us?
BBC - Future - Why do the British drink so much?
If you hate long-haul flights, we’ve got some good news for you. An aerospace company has received over £80 million to build a space plane that travels at 25 times the speed of sound. Reaction Engines, a small company based in Oxfordshire, hopes to use the funding to build Skylon, a super-fast airplane of the future. If successful, RE claims the journey from London to Sydney could be reduced to just four hours.
UK funds ‘Space Plane’ that travels 25 times the speed of sound
An ultrathin, inexpensive wearable patch can give doctors detailed information about crucial markers of health.
According to S&P senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt, S&P 500 companies generated 47.8% of 2014 sales overseas. This is why the strong dollar is the No. 1 thing S&P 500 companies have been complaining about. FundStrat Global's Tom Lee estimates the US dollar's strength will have cost S&P 500 companies $93 billion in profits this year.
TOM LEE: US dollar to become profit tailwind - Business Insider