Vaporpath Viora Coffee Cup Lid

core77 reports: [edited]

The Viora Lid from Vaporpath promises a lid that not only reduces the likelihood of spills but provides an experience closer to sipping from a ceramic mug.

For the lid's inventor, Doug Fleming, Viora is the result of 20 years of innovating in the beverage-container space. "The current lid is the result of dozens of iterations on almost every aspect of the design," Fleming says. "What began as a quest to unlock the aroma inside the cup, and the air flow of the volatile vapours, evolved into a study of the fluid-flow part of the problem."

Looking to unleash the aroma of the coffee within, the inventor enlarged the mouth hole of the lid and moved it away from the cup's rim, creating an effect similar to that of a ceramic mug. When the cup is tipped, a pool of coffee collects in a well right under the drinker's nose, giving them a fuller sensory experience.

Fleming switched out the typical homogenous round recess found in to-go lids with an angled ravine that serves a secondary purpose: keeping your shirt coffee-free by catching splashed liquid and reducing spillage, directing it back into the cup.
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Boosted Electric Skateboard

Wired reports: [edited]

The design problems involved in mounting an adequately powerful motor and its battery onto a slim slab of wood are not easily solved. It took the crew at Boosted Boards several years of experimentation with a series of decreasingly dangerous prototypes to get this particular board rolling.

Twin brushless motors sit at the back, where they spin the rear wheels by means of dual carbon belts — the same kind used in motorcycles and e-bikes. The motors get their juice from a 40-volt lithium ion phosphate battery mounted beneath the front of the board just behind the front trucks. The battery at front is connected to the motor in the back by means of a flat cable that runs the length of the bamboo deck.

Speed is controlled with a hand-held remote. It has a dead-man trigger under your index finger and a back-to-front, spring-loaded throttle rocker under your thumb. Push the throttle forward to go. Push backwards to slow down and stop. Another neat detail: When you’re slowing down, the motor regeneratively charges the battery.

It’ll carry at least 250 pounds. I weigh 240, and I felt like the acceleration was pretty good. I had no problems going up and down modest hills. It’s the deceleration that really takes some getting used to — bend your knees and lower your centre of gravity before engaging the reverse drive.

Top speed is governed at 20 mph. The range is roughly six miles, depending on hills. Of course, you can always just push it like a regular longboard, so you can’t get stranded when the motor runs out.

Price: $2,000.

Image: Ariel Zambelich
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Lego Avengers Helicarrier

Lego Ideas reports: [edited]

Based upon two dimensional pictures, I measured the proportions of the helicarrier as accurately as I could. The total span of the ship is about 217 x 115 cm, and a total of 22,694 bricks were used.
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SoftWheel

Wired reports: [edited]

When Israeli farmer Gilad Wolf broke his pelvis in 2008, he became determined to turn his wheelchair into a workhorse. After suffering the pain that came from traversing the bumpy rows of his field in a stock chair he began developing new designs better suited to off-road applications. He experimented with solutions based on farm equipment and ultimately took his concepts to the Rad-BioMed Technology Accelerator in Tel Aviv where he got the help required to transform concept sketch into a patent-pending product called SoftWheel.

In traditional wheelchair designs up to 30 percent of expended energy is lost because they lack suspension, leaving only 70-80 percent of the energy put into the chair for propulsion. This creates uncomfortable rides and fatigued drivers. “Most of the time, the user is driving a rigid wheel with no suspension and it breaks your back and shakes your filings loose,” says SoftWheel CEO Daniel Barel.

SoftWheel addresses this problem with their 'symmetric and selective technology' that uses three compression cylinders to absorb shocks within the wheel before they’re transferred to rider. The goal is to make the wheel’s hub essentially float in mid-air while suspending the chair’s mass. Practically this means riders can traverse stairs and curbs nearly as easily as gliding down a ramp by allowing the wheels to bear the brunt of the forces.
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Zero SR 2014

Gizmag has published an extensive (and ecstatic) review of Zero Motorcycles' latest leccy bike.

Snippets follow:

"The Zero puts out just under 70 peak horsepower and a monstrous 106 ft-lbs of torque. That's about 10 percent more than the 1200cc EBR 1190RX, the current torque king of the superbike world. Its kerb weight is 205 kg. But the bike feels much, much smaller and lighter than that. A decent comparison in the petrol world might be something the size and handling feel of a nimble 250cc nakedbike, but with the power of a 600."

"The performance and acceleration feel absolutely excessive in the way all the best bikes do. There's no clutch or gears, it's pure simplicity to ride, provided you can keep the slim rear tire from spinning up in the wet."

"It dispatches traffic in the blink of an eye and hits 60 mph in a brutal 3.3 seconds. The power is abundant and predictable. There's no power band or sweet spot, there's just instant, whooshing acceleration on tap at all times."

"There's almost no engine braking in sports mode, but you can dial that up through a Bluetooth-connected mobile app that lets you set peak power, top speed, regenerative braking and 'engine braking' parameters through your phone. A display on the dash shows how much power and torque you're putting out when you're on the throttle, and how much you're pulling back in on the brakes."

"The range is 135 miles if you ride it gently, and well over 60 miles if you're giving it an absolute gumboot full... where it's really going to shine is as a power commuter."

"There is of course a downside. The SR retails for $17,000 or $19,500 with an extra 2.8 kWh 'power tank' battery stuck in the storage area you'd normally expect to put your petrol in. That means that in America the standard SR is about $10,000 more than, say, a Kawasaki Ninja 650."
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Sony Cyber-shot DSC RX100 III

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

The RX100 III features the same 1", 20.2MP BSI CMOS sensor as the II, but gains the latest Bionz X processor, a pop-up electronic viewfinder and a faster lens.

The zoom now extends across a 24-70mm equivalent range, with a maximum aperture of F1.8-2.8, a great improvement on the 28-100mm, F1.8-4.9 lenses sported by the existing two models.

It includes Wi-Fi, can run Playmemories Camera Apps, and the rear LCD now flips up by up to 180° for selfies. Video has also been upgraded - including full-sensor readout 1080p stored at up to 50Mbps in the XAVC S format.

The RX100 III will be available in June at a cost of around $800.
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London-Somerset-London, 16 & 17-05-14

London to Somerset, 16-05-14
Girl - Jamie xx
Bongo Bong - Manu Chao
I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
Green Tambourine - The Lemon Pipers
Hallelujah - Nightcore
The Three-starred Restaurant - Paul's invitation - Starmarie
Pretzelbodylogic - Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL
Head Like A Hole - Nine Inch Nails
Harold Pinter is Dead - Kiran Leonard
The Lion & Albert - Jarvis Cocker
Little Red Corvette (album) - Prince
The Night - Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons
PopLove 2012 - 24 Song Mashup - Robin Skouteris
Misery Over Dispute - Waxahatchee
Candy Girl - New Edition
Jump In the Line - Harry Belafonte
Complete Surrender - Slow Club
Methuselah - San Fermin
Dancing in the moonlight - Toploader
Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) (bootleg?) - Frank Wilson
Delorean Dynamite - Todd Terje
Virginia Plain - Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music
Live Forever - Oasis
Brianstorm - Arctic Monkeys
Tarzan Boy - Baltimora
They Don't Know - Tracey Ullman
Fake Tales of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys
Little Miss Can't Be Wrong - Spin Doctors
Getting Away With It - Electronic
All The Things She Said - Tatu (t.A.T.u.)
Ace Of Spades - Motorhead
Sequestered In Memphis - The Hold Steady
Since Yesterday - Strawberry Switchblade
Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy
I've Been Working (live) - Van Morrison
Going Back to My Roots - Richie Havens
Juke Box Jive - The Rubettes
Monsters and Angels - Voice of the Beehive
Drinking from the Bottle (feat. Tinie Tempah) - Calvin Harris
This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us - Sparks
Anarchy In the UK - Frazier Chorus
Millionaire (Radio Edit) - Kelis
Sugar - Nightcore
Slight Return - The Bluetones
I Drove All Night (Radio Mix) - Celine Dion
Boys - Grace London
Let's Hear It For The Boy - Deniece Williams
Poison - Alice Cooper
All Men Are Liars - Nick Lowe
Love is in the air - John Paul Young
You and Me Song - The Wannadies
The Edge Of Heaven - Wham!
Vicious - Lou Reed
Pokemon Theme - Nightcore

Somerset to London, 17-05-14
It's My Party - Lesley Gore
Just what I've always wanted - Mari Wilson
Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy
What is Love - WonFu
Whole Lotta Rosie - AC/DC
Blue Moon - The Mighty Echoes
Tom Hark - Piranhas
I'm So Excited - Pointer Sisters
Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor
Billy Don't Be A Hero - Paper Lace
Anti-Parent Cowboy Killers - Joanna Gruesome
Another One Rides the Bus - "Weird Al" Yankovic
Call me maybe - Nightcore
Pretend to be Nice - Josie and the Pussycats
History Eraser - Courtney Barnett
Marrakesh Express - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Best Friend - Toy Box
Dear Lincoln - Kiran Leonard
Considering a Move to Memphis - The Colorblind James Experience
Moonlight Shadow - Nightcore
You Sexy Thing - Hot Chocolate
Save Your Kisses For Me - Brotherhood Of Man
Digging Your Scene - Blow Monkeys
Big Area - Then Jerico
2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson
Give Your Love to Her - The Hosts
Mah Na Mah Na - Mahna Mahna and The Two Snowths
The Sun Has Got His Hat On - Ambrose and His Orchestra
Glad All Over - Dave Clark Five
I'm The Leader Of The Gang - Gary Glitter
My Girls - Animal Collective
Turn It Around - Lucius
Madison - Joanna Gruesome
Time Bomb - Rancid
Rollin' (Ballad of Big and Rich) - Big & Rich
Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Plug In Baby - Muse
See You - Depeche Mode
Footloose - Kenny Loggins
Wallflowers - The Burning Hell
Something Good '08 (Radio Edit) - Utah Saints
Screamager - Therapy?
You Sexy Thing (16/6/87 BBC Radio 1 John Peel Session) - Cud
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
Anything Can Happen - Ezra Furman
If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar
I Shall Be Free - Bob Dylan
You Know My Name - Courtney Love
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Google Maps adds GB public transport data

BBC reports: [edited]

The data includes departure times and routes for buses, ferries, trains and trams in England, Scotland and Wales, supplied by Traveline - a partnership of Great Britain's transport operators and local authorities.

In total, schedules from nearly 1,500 different transport operators have been integrated, including more than 17,000 different routes and more than 330,000 pick-up points.
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DNA V.2

Nature reports: [edited]

For billions of years, the history of life [on this planet] has been written with four letters — A, T, C and G, the labels given to the DNA subunits contained in all organisms. That alphabet has just grown longer, researchers announce, with the creation of a living cell that has two 'foreign' DNA building blocks in its genome.

“What we have now is a living cell that literally stores increased genetic information,” says Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, who led the 15-year effort.

Each strand of the DNA's double helix has a backbone of sugar molecules and, attached to it, chemical subunits known as bases. There are four different bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). These letters represent the code for the amino-acid building blocks that make up proteins. The bases bind the two DNA strands together, with an A always bonding to a T on the opposite strand (and vice versa), and C and G doing likewise.

Romesberg’s group is working on getting foreign DNA to encode proteins that contain amino acids other than the 20 that together make up nearly all natural proteins. Amino acids are encoded by 'codons' of three DNA letters apiece, so the addition of just two foreign DNA 'letters' would vastly expand a cell’s ability to encode new amino acids.

Potential uses of the technology include the incorporation of a toxic amino acid into a protein to ensure that it kills only cancer cells, and the development of glowing amino acids that could help scientists to track biological reactions under the microscope.
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Free Font - Origram

Nuno Dias reports: [edited]

Origram was the first font I designed. Inspired by Origami and Tangrams, the basic shape is an octagon.
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Samsung NX3000

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

The NX3000 boasts a powerful 20.3MP APS-C CMOS Sensor, fast 1/4000 shutter speed and 5fps continuous shooting.

With a focus on selfies, the Samsung NX3000 features a 3 inch Flip-up Display with 'Wink Shot' (yes, really, Ed.). By opening the screen, framing a face in the display and winking, users can turn on the device and capture the perfect selfie.

The NX3000 features Wi-Fi and NFC integration that makes it easy to share images. Tag & Go connectivity allows the NX3000 to pair with NFC-enabled devices, such as smartphones or tablets, simply by touching the two together.

The NX3000 will be available in black, white or brown and will include Samsung’s new compact 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 Power Zoom ED OIS Lens. Users can control the camera’s zoom function from their mobile device via Remote Viewfinder Pro.
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Free Font - Kirvy

Quirky sans serif by Youssef Habchi, available in 4 weights from Behance.
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SpaceX latest test

Venture Beat reports: [edited]

SpaceX’s latest reusable rocket test was a success — and a stunning one at that.

Elon Musk’s spacecraft company tested its Falcon 9 Reusable rocket, bringing it to an altitude of 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) before safely guiding it down to the Texas grasslands.

Even better, SpaceX filmed the whole event for your viewing pleasure.



SpaceX’s reusable rocket program seeks to develop technologies that can be reused many times for space travel, similar to how we use airplanes for commercial air travel. The company’s Falcon9R tests are ongoing following completion of its Grasshopper rocket program last year.
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Huawei Ascend P7

The Register reports: [edited]

Huawei took the No 3 spot in smartphones last year – pushing aside Sony, HTC and Nokia – but it’s still practically unheard of as a smartphone brand in the UK. But that could change with the launch of its latest flagship model, the Ascend P7, unveiled today in Paris.

The P7 manages to squeeze in LTE Cat4 (meaning up to 150Mbps download speed thanks to dual antennas) into a very well-designed, 6.5mm-thick 5-inch full HD phone, weighing just 123g. And with a before-taxes-and-subsidies price of €449, it undercuts rivals substantially.

The P7 is extravagantly well-crafted and boasts a slim profile – it's 6.5mm thick – with a narrower bezel than the heavyweight rivals.

The 4G handset uses Huawei’s own HiTech CPU – but leans on Sony for the primary camera module, and Altek for a customised discrete ISP that reduces noise and generally improves results in very low light conditions. The f/2.0 primary camera is complemented by an 8MP five-piece lens front camera – all the better to take your selfie. It can also stitch together several photos for a "panoramic selfie". This is how pressing First World Problems are solved.

There is a dual SIM version – and when you’re not using the second SIM slot, it’ll take a MicroSD card. More likely to be used is the low power mode, squeezing one full day of standby, calls and texts from the final 10 per cent of a power cycle. The 2500mAh battery should last into a second day.
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Free Font - Tamoro Script

Fontspace has made this fineline script available, for personal use only.
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LED fluorescent tube replacements

Gizmodo reports: [edited]

Cree has announced the release of a new type of tube light designed to tackle one of lighting's biggest energy hogs.

The new Cree T8 bulb looks very much like the traditional T-8 fluorescent tube we've been using since the 1970s. Except, however, that the new Cree uses LED rather than inert gas which allows it to turn on instantly without flickering as well as operate at a 30 percent energy savings over the traditional method. The Cree T8 outputs 2100 lumens at 21 watts with a CRI (color rendering index) of 90. That's very good, even the best current generation of fluorescent bulbs top out around 10 points lower.

What's more, the Cree's are rated to 50,000 hours of operation (just north of 17 years if run for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year) and are designed to fit into existing ballasts so, unlike other LED fluorescent replacements, you won't have to get up into the ceiling and rewire anything, just plug the LED tube in the same way the older fluorescents do.

The new LEDs have a MRSP of $30 each.
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Free Font - Promesh

An informal condensed slab serif by Paul Reis, available in a range of styles from Behance
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Samsung Galaxy K Zoom

DPR Connect reports: [edited]

Smartphone imaging components have improved a lot in recent years but the lack of an optical zoom is still a major disadvantage compared to traditional compact cameras. Samsung tried to bridge the gap with last year's Galaxy S4 Zoom but the device ended up being bulkier than its smartphone cousin, the Galaxy S4, without offering the same high-end specification.

The new model offers a slimmer body than the S4 Zoom (18 vs 28 mm) and most of the smartphone components have been upgraded. The Super AMOLED screen has grown from 4.3 to 4.8 inches, but the 720p resolution doesn't match the 1080p displays of the Galaxy S5, HTC One M8 or Sony Xperia Z2.

The 1/2.3-inch BSI CMOS sensor now captures 20.7MP images versus the S4 Zoom's 16MP. The 10x zoom lens offers the same 24-240mm equivalent focal range and F3.1-6.3 maximum aperture as the S4 Zoom and comes with optical image stabilisation. There is also a xenon flash and a 2MP front camera for the occasional selfie.
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Nissan developing 'self-cleaning' car coating

For more information, visit Wired.
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British Pathé releases 85,000 films on YouTube

British Pathé reports: [edited]

Newsreel archive British Pathé has uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films, in high resolution, to its YouTube channel. This is part of a drive to make the archive more accessible to viewers all over the world.

“Our hope is that everyone, everywhere who has a computer will see these films and enjoy them,” says Alastair White, General Manager of British Pathé. “This archive is a treasure trove unrivalled in historical and cultural significance that should never be forgotten. Uploading the films to YouTube seemed like the best way to make sure of that.”

British Pathé was once a dominant feature of the British cinema experience, renowned for first-class reporting and an informative yet uniquely entertaining style. It is now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in existence. Spanning the years from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage – not only from Britain, but from around the globe – ofmajor events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture. The archive is particularly strong in its coverage of the First and Second World Wars.

Alastair White continues: “Whether you’re looking for coverage of the Royal Family, the Titanic, the destruction of the Hindenburg, or quirky stories about British pastimes, it’ll be there on our channel. You can lose yourself for hours.”
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Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of life

New Scientist has published an intriguing article investigating some of the latest research on why humans have a finite lifespan.

Snippets follow:

"Death is the one certainty in life – a pioneering analysis of blood from one of the world's oldest and healthiest women has given clues to why it happens."

"Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper was at one point the oldest woman in the world. She was also remarkable for her health, with crystal-clear cognition until she was close to death, and a blood circulatory system free of disease. When she died in 2005, she bequeathed her body to science, with the full support of her living relatives that any outcomes of scientific analysis – as well as her name – be made public."

"Researchers have now examined her blood and other tissues to see how they were affected by age."

"What they found suggests that our lifespan might ultimately be limited by the capacity for stem cells to keep replenishing tissues day in day out. Once the stem cells reach a state of exhaustion they steadily diminish the body's capacity to keep regenerating vital tissues and cells, such as blood."

"In van Andel-Schipper's case, in the twilight of her life, about two-thirds of the white blood cells remaining in her body at death originated from just two stem cells, implying that most or all of the blood stem cells she started life with had already burned out and died."
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Lytro Illum

Engadget reports: [edited]

When Lytro first introduced its light field camera two years ago, it shook up not just the world of photography, but of technology in general. Bundled inside a tiny rectangular block was a groundbreaking image sensor that could capture millions of rays of light along with their color, intensity and direction -- a task that previously required hundreds of cameras and a supercomputer. That hardware combined with some complex software meant that you could not only get a 3D image from a single shot, but also the ability to refocus a photograph after you take it. It's this latter trick that is arguably the Lytro camera's most identifying characteristic, and the one that put it on the technological map.

The Illum lens has a zoom range of 30 to 250 mm with a very wide f/2 aperture across it. All you have to do is tap on an image to autofocus, and toggling through the different settings is just a touch and a scroll away.

At the heart of the Illum is a 40 Megaray light ray sensor, which means it's able to capture 40 million rays of light (in contrast, the original only has 11 Megarays). The refocusing is much finer and more granular - we were able to focus in so tight on a labrador's nozzle that we could see its pores. In addition, the Illum has a mechanical shutter with a speed of 1/4000ths of a second, which Rosenthal says would make it great for sports photography. He showed us an example of a Lytro image where it captured a cloud of dirt as a motorcycle went around a dirt track. If you'd rather shoot things up close, the Illum has an extremely close-up macro capability as well, allowing us to zoom in really close on a pair of jeans and hone in on the stitches. Powering it all is one of the highest performance chipsets available; Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800.

You get all of the same software tricks as before, like 3D imaging and post-shot refocusing, but you'll also now be able to adjust the depth of field in order to widen or narrow the focusing area. Additionally, Lytro has worked out a deal with Adobe and Apple so you can transfer those images to Lightroom, Photoshop or Aperture if you wish to work on them after you've adjusted the image's focus and depth of field.

The Lytro Illum will be available July 15 for $1,599.
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Copy

copy is a new competitor to Dropbox.

It offers a generous 15 Gigabytes of free storage, and is available on Windows, Linux, OSX, Android and iOS platforms.

And, for a limited time, they are offering 5 extra Gigabytes of storage for each registered referral you make.
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Have You Found What You’re Looking For? (Easter Sunday)

Tom Reinke writes:

Like children scattering around a yard for Easter eggs, you and I are on a hunt.

We all hunt. Our thirsty souls rummage through every nook and cranny of this world, in search of shiny pleasures and saccharine delights.

Every such joy seeker, in pursuit of treasures that will not fade or rust or break or be stolen, must pay careful attention to Easter — not with a nod-off-through-the-sermon kind of attention, but with a real, earnest, eager attention riveted on Christ. If we miss the significance of the resurrection, we scamper past the greatest joy in the universe.

The Joy of Jesus

As the dark shadows stalked the soon-to-be crucified Christ, he turned his attention to joy. Throughout this Holy Week of his crucifixion, Jesus had foreshadowed his death for his disciples who struggled to make sense of it all. He addressed their concerns directly in John 16:19–24.

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
We rewind Holy Week to hear Jesus forecast the changes to come in his resurrection. He wanted his disciples to anticipate Easter Sunday as the cataclysmic dawning of true joy. And here’s what it all means for joy seekers.

A Blood-Bought Joy

Jesus spoke of this joy as he faced the torture of Good Friday. He faced denial, faced betrayal, faced beatings, faced splinters and nails and spears — he could not stop talking about joy! Only joy would keep him going. Joy was on his mind, joy was on his tongue, and joy was drawing him, not away from suffering, but into it (Hebrews 12:2).

Jesus went to the cross for joy: to buy joy, create joy, and offer joy.

As the world celebrated the savage killing of God, out of this sea of foaming rebel hostility emerged a blood-bought, inextinguishable joy.

An Unbreakable Joy

If the killing of the Author of life could not extinguish this joy Jesus speaks about, nothing can — and nothing ever will. No opposition from the world, no opposition to the gospel, and no cultural despising of Christ, will overcome the resurrection joy of Jesus.

As we have seen this week, the unquenchable joy of Easter was birthed in the greatest trauma and tragedy and evil the world has ever unleashed — the murder of Son of God. Death, the Devil, demons and the coordinated rebellion of mankind all allied together cannot stymie this joy. Persecutors cannot steal this joy away. No power, no event, no enemy, can sequester the resurrection joy of Jesus Christ that burst out of the tomb with him.

Worldly joys are brittle in comparison. Sickness and poverty crumble joy, and the long process of aging and dying slowly strips life of all its worldly pleasures (Ecclesiastes 12:1–8). Death recedes all our joys, save one. Only one joy cannot be thwarted by death, because only one joy was purchased by blood.

A Newborn Joy

The resurrection joy of Jesus escapes the clutches of death because it’s the joy of the new creation, a joy broken free from the evil of this fallen world.

And this makes Easter breathtaking. As Jonathan Edwards boldly declared: “The resurrection of Christ is the most joyful event that ever came to pass.” And rightly did Charles Spurgeon say: “No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead.” The resurrection is the most joy-filled divine event in biblical history worthy of our eternal adulation and awe and wonder. But it’s more than a breathtaking historical spectacle.

Jesus employed a common birthing analogy to introduce a radical cosmic birth. His death was the birth pangs of a new creation; his resurrection was the arrival of a new creation into history. In his resurrection, Jesus set in motion an unstoppable chain reaction that will one day culminate in the resurrection of the dead and the renovation of all creation.

Here’s the point. In the long history of joy in this fallen world, after ages of unsatisfied appetites and hunger pangs in the hearts of men and women and children, the resurrection of Christ marks a crescendo. Never has joy found greater expression on earth. In John 15:11, Jesus offered his disciples “full joy,” an invitation only possible from within the final stage in cosmic history. Such a stage was born on Easter morning.

Jesus wants his disciples to thirst for a post-resurrection joy as the arrival of a newly amplified joy, a long-awaited and long-anticipated joy, a never before fully seen or experienced joy in human history. The resurrection of Christ will bring the most spectacularly joy-filled event because it ignites an eternally abiding and forever unconquerable joy.

The Old Testament foretold of this joy, the birth of Christ announced this joy, Holy Week seemed to extinguish this joy, but the resurrection of Christ is the point in history when the unassailable torch of God’s joy emerged from the sea of foaming rebel hostility, rose up and lit the summit of an Olympic torch of joy that will burn for all eternity.

A Joy for the Asking

But as magnificently as this joy entered the world in this defining moment in cosmic history, this joy presses close to us. So Jesus taught his disciples to ask and seek for more of this joy. This is the open invitation of the Messianic age.

And this joy makes sense of the logic of John’s Gospel. Jesus said he must die and go to the Father, and would leave his joy with the disciples. Once he was with the Father, Jesus sent the Spirit to dwell in them (another unmistakable sign of the new creation). United to Christ, the disciples would now pray by the Spirit, to the Father, through the Son.

Easter reshapes prayer, spirituality, and joy. With this inauguration of a new creation, the disciples became adopted sons who could pray to a Father who is eager to pour out spiritual flourishing upon them in every way, leading to a full and satisfying joy which nobody can take away.

Which is great news for the disciples.

Inexpressible Joy for You

But Jesus’s bold resurrection joy promised to the disciples in John 16:19–24 is now offered to you and me. We are promised the same “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

In Christ, God delights to pour out this resurrection joy into your life, a joy that fills, and a joy that cannot be stolen from you. What do we do? We simply ask our gracious Father for more of it!

The Easter joy Jesus foretold has arrived, and it’s deeply personal. The resurrection is both a cosmic event, and it comes intimately close, reminding us of God’s work in our lives. “The point of Easter is that God is in the process of clearing this world of all heartbreak” (John Piper). Therefore, “Christ’s resurrection not only gives you hope for the future; it gives you hope to handle your scars right now” (Tim Keller).

Such a restoring and reviving joy was purchased for you and me in the resurrection of Christ.

Feast and Celebrate

Easter is for stark contradictions.

If Christ is still dead, death reigns, and all our joys are vain. So hoard every plastic Easter egg you find, because whatever you find inside is all the joy you have to grab. Or, as Paul says, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Corinthians 15:32).

But if death is dead, and if the dead are raised — if Christ is risen from the dead! — brothers and sisters let us feast and celebrate, for the dawning light of our inextinguishable and inexhaustible eternal pleasures have broken into the darkness, offering us a life of joy in Christ that cannot fade or rust or be stolen away!

Today, delight in the resurrection joy of Christ, pray it bigger in your life, and treasure it for all eternity.
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It is finished

John Bloom writes:

It is Friday, April 3, A.D. 33. It is the darkest day in human history, though most humans have no clue of this. In Rome, Tiberius attends to the demanding business of the empire. Throughout the inhabited world, babies are born, people eat and drink, marry and are given in marriage, barter in marketplaces, sail merchant ships, and fight battles. Children play, old women gossip, young men lust, and people die.

But today one death, one brutal, gruesome death, the worst and best of all human deaths will leave upon the canvas of human history the darkest brushstroke. In Jerusalem, God the Son, the Creator of all that is (John 1:3), will be executed.

The Garden

The Jewish day dawns with night, and never has it been more fitting, since today the hour has come and the power of darkness (Luke 22:53). Jesus is in Gethsemane, where he has prayed with loud cries and tears, being heard by his Father (Hebrews 5:7) whose will will be done. Jesus hears noises and looks up. Torches and hushed voices signal the arrest party’s arrival.

Jesus wakes his sleepy friends who are jarred alert at the sight of their brother, Judas, betraying his Rabbi with a kiss. Soldiers and servants encircle Jesus. Peter, flushed with anger, pulls out his sword and lunges at those nearest Jesus. Malchus flinches, but not enough. Blinding pain and blood surge where his ear had been. Voices speak, but Malchus only hears the screaming wound, which he’s grabbed with both hands. He feels a hand touch his hands and the pain vanishes. Under his hands is an ear. Stunned, he looks at Jesus, already being led away. Disciples are scattering. Malchus looks down at his bloody hands.

The Sanhedrin

Jesus is led brusquely into to the house of Annas, a former High Priest, who questions him about his teaching. Jesus knows this informal interrogation is meant to catch him disoriented and unguarded. He is neither, and gives this manipulative leader nothing. Rather, he refers Annas to his hearers and is struck with irony by a Jewish officer for showing disrespect. Frustrated, Annas sends Jesus on to his son-in-law Caiaphas, the current High Priest.

At Caiaphas’s house the trial gets underway quickly. Morning will come fast. The Council needs a damning verdict by daybreak. The examination proceeds as bleary-eyed Sanhedrin members continue to file in.

The trial has been assembled hastily and witnesses haven’t been screened well. Testimonies don’t line up. Council members look disconcerted. Jesus is silent as a lamb. Irritated and impatient, Caiaphas cuts to the quick: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matthew 26:63).

The hour has come. Charged in the name of his Father to answer, Jesus speaks the words that seal the doom for which he had come to endure (John 12:27): “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64).

In a moment of law-breaking (Leviticus 21:10) politically religious theater, Caiaphas tears his robes in feigned outrage and thinly concealed relief over Jesus’s blasphemy. He declares the trial’s end with, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves form his own lips” (Luke 22:71).

As the sun breaks over Jerusalem’s eastern ridge, Judas swings from his own belt, Peter writhes in the grief of his failure and Jesus’s face is streaked with dried blood and saliva from the pre-dawn sport of the temple police. The Council’s verdict: guilty of blasphemy. Their sentence: death. But it’s a sentence they cannot carry out. Rome refuses to delegate capital punishment.

The Governor

Pilate’s mood, already sour over the Sanhedrin’s sudden insistent intrusion so early in the morning, worsens as he grasps the situation. They want him to execute a Galilean “prophet.” His seasoned instincts tell him something isn’t right. He questions Jesus and then tells the Council, “I find no guilt in this man” (Luke 23:4).

A game of political chess ensues between Pilate and the Sanhedrin, neither realizing that they are pawns, not kings.

Pilate makes a move. As a Galilean, Jesus falls under Herod Antipas’s jurisdiction. Let Herod judge. Herod initially receives Jesus happily, hoping to see a miracle. But Jesus refuses to entertain or even respond. Antipas, disappointed, blocks the move by returning Jesus to Pilate.

Pilate makes another move. He offers to release Jesus as this year’s annual Passover pardoned prisoner. The Council blocks the move. “Not this man, but Barabbas!” they cry (John 18:40). Pilate is astounded. The Sanhedrin prefers a thief and murderer to this peasant prophet?

Pilate tries another move. He has Jesus severely flogged and humiliated, hoping to curb the Council’s blood thirst. Again the move is blocked when the Council insists that Jesus must be crucified because “he has made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7). Check. Pilate’s fear grows. Jesus’s divine claim could threaten Rome. Worse, it could be true. Roman deities supposedly could take on human form. His further questioning of Jesus unnerves him.

One last move. Pilate tries to persuade the Sanhedrin to release Jesus. One last block and trap. “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar” (John 19:12). The Council has Pilate where they want him: cornered. Checkmate.

And the triune God has the Council, Pilate, and Satan where he wants them. They would have no authority over the Son at all unless it had been given them from above (John 19:11). Fallen Jews, Gentiles and spiritual powers unwittingly collaborate in executing the only innocent death that could possibly grant the guilty life. Checkmate.

The Cross

Morning wanes as Jesus stumbles out of the Praetorium, horribly beaten and bleeding profusely. The Roman soldiers had been brutal in their creative cruelty. Thorns have ripped Jesus’s scalp and his back is one grotesque, oozing wound. Golgotha is barely a third of a mile through the Garden Gate, but Jesus has no strength to manage the forty-pound crossbar. Simon of Cyrene is drafted from the crowd.

Twenty-five minutes later, Jesus is hanging in sheer agony on one of the cruelest instruments of torture ever devised. Nails have been driven through his wrists (which we only know about because of the doubt Thomas will express in a couple days (John 20:25)). A sign above Jesus declares in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic who he is: the King of the Jews.

The King is flanked on either side by thieves and around him are gawkers and mockers. “Let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” some yell (Luke 23:35). One dying thief even joins in the derision. They do not understand that if the King saves himself, their only hope for salvation is lost. Jesus asks his Father to forgive them. The other crucified thief sees a Messiah in the mutilated man beside him, and he asks the Messiah to remember him. Jesus’s prayer is beginning to be answered. Hundreds of millions will follow.

It is mid-afternoon now and the eerie darkness that has fallen has everyone on edge. But for Jesus, the darkness is a horror he has never known. This, more than the nails and thorns and lashings, is what made him sweat blood in the garden. The Father’s wrath is hitting him in full force. He is in that moment no longer the Blessed, but the Cursed (Galatians 3:13). He has become sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). In terrifying isolation, cut off from his Father and all humans he screams, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani,” Aramaic for “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Psalm 22:1). No greater love (John 15:13), humility (Philippians 2:8), or obedience (Hebrews 5:8) has ever or will ever be displayed.

Shortly after 3 PM, Jesus whispers hoarsely for a drink. In love, he has drained the cup of his Father’s wrath to the dregs. He has born our full curse. There is no debt left to pay and he has nothing left to give. The wine moistens his mouth just enough to say one final word: “It is finished” (John 19:30). And God the Son dies.

It is the worst and best of all human deaths. For on this tree he bears our sins in his body (1 Peter 2:24), “the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). And now it is finished.

The Tomb

A bright irony on this darkest of days is that the men who step forward to claim the corpse of the Christ for burial are not family members or disciples. They are members of the Sanhedrin: Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. It is one more unexpected thread of grace woven into this tapestry of redemption. They quickly wrap Jesus’s body in a sheet and lay it in a nearby tomb. Evening is falling and they don’t have time to fully dress it with spices.

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses accompany them, careful to note the tomb’s location. They plan to return with more spices after the Sabbath, on the first day of the week, to make sure that it is finished.
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Skala Color

iMore reports: [edited]

Skala, Bjango's next generation interface design tool for Mac, is still under development but a component of it, Skala Color, has just launched — and it's free for everyone.

Skala Color is a compact and feature-rich OS X color picker that works with a huge variety of formats, covering everything you're likely to need for web, iOS, Android and OS X development — Hex, CSS RGBA, CSS HSLA, UIColor, NSColor and more. It also automatically recognises colours copied to the clipboard, presenting them as a swatch that can be applied with a single click.

Video explanation below:


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Free Font - Saylor

Fun, legible 'scribbly' typeface by Bettina Johnson. From DaFont
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Fuji X-T1

Digital Photography Review has published a full review of Fuji's fully-loaded mirrorless camera.

Snippets from the conclusion follow.

"The huge high-resolution electronic viewfinder is a joy to use, offering an excellent preview of how your images will turn out. Autofocus is impressively quick, and the X-T1 is one of the first mirrorless cameras that can properly track focus on subjects moving towards or away from the camera."

"Image quality is excellent; we've long been fans of Fujifilm's JPEG colour rendition, and the X-T1 doesn't disappoint. Colours are natural-looking, with consistently well-judged white balance, and skin tones in particular are nicely rendered. High ISO noise is well-controlled."

"We think it offers potentially better image quality than the Olympus OM-D E-M1."

"84% - Gold Award"
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Why do we eat?

The New Yorker has published an interesting article on the psychological reasons for hunger.

If this is a subject that interests you, read the whole article. But to whet your, erm, appetite, I've pasted some snippets below:

"Here are a few of the things that can make you hungry: seeing, smelling, reading, or even thinking about food. Recent studies show that our physical level of hunger does not correlate strongly with how much hunger we say that we feel or how much food we go on to consume."

"Traditionally, hunger has been seen as largely physiological: our body becomes depleted and, to maintain homeostasis — the body’s status quo — hormones are released into our bloodstream and stomach to signal to our brain that it’s time to replenish its resources."

"Food deprivation, however, is generally not a problem in modern, developed societies. While our ancestors had to struggle to consume enough calories, we can just go to the fridge or the supermarket. From an early age, we learn to depend increasingly on external, socially, and culturally based cues."

"Foremost among those factors is the time of day at which you learn to be hungry. Your scheduled lunch break at work or your usual family dinnertime can reliably set your stomach growling. Even if you’ve had an unusually late or large breakfast, your body is used to its lunch slot and will begin to release certain chemicals, such as insulin in your blood and ghrelin in your stomach, in anticipation of your typical habits, whether or not you’re actually calorie-depleted."
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London-Nottingham-London, 12-04-14

London to Nottingham
You're Moving Out Today - Carole Bayer Sager
Purple Toupee - They Might Be Giants
Bloodsports - Drenge
Young Folks (Featuring Victoria Bergsman) - Peter, Bjorn and John & Victoria Bergsman
What Is Love - Haddaway
Is That How You Get Off? - Big Yoga Muffin
Undercover Martyn - Two Door Cinema Club
I Won't Change You - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Hurricane - Bob Dylan
She's So High - Tal Bachman
Leave This Island - Maxïmo Park
S.O.S. In Bel Air - Phoenix
Mesmerise - Temples
Team - Lorde
When Can I See You Again? - Owl City
My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found - The Fiery Furnaces
Second Fiddle (To an Old Guitar) - Jean Shepard
Bad Reputation - Joan Jett
Rubberband Girl - Kate Bush
Talking Backwards - Real Estate
Sunshine, Lollipops, Rainbows - Lesley Gore
Stoned and Starving - Parquet Courts
Loves Me Like A Rock - Paul Simon
United States Of Whatever - Liam Lynch
Holy City - Joan As Police Woman
California Love - 2Pac (feat. Dr. Dre)
Rock 'n' Roll Star - Oasis
Dancing On A Saturday Night - Barry Blue
Star Trekkin' - The Firm
Radiation Vibe - Fountains Of Wayne
Dance with Me - Orleans

Nottingham to London
Think (alt) - Aretha Franklin
Games - Claire
Fancy Footwork - Chromeo
All kinds of everything - Dana
Make an Ugly Woman Your Wife - Percy Sledge
You Really Got Me - The Kinks
Rip Her To Shreds - Blondie
Stop! In The Name Of Love - Diana Ross & the Supremes
Hippy With a Banjo - Those Darn Accordions
Total Eclipse Of The Heart - Bonnie Tyler
Snack Attack - Godley & Creme
Girls Lie Too - Terri Clark
Lose My Breath - Yuck
The Distance - Cake
Maybe I Know - Lesley Gore & Claus Ogerman
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) - Billy Joel
Somewhere All the Time - Samantha Crain
The Cat Crept In - Mud
I heard a rumour - Bananarama
Take the Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven
(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear - Blondie
Return to Yesterday - The Lilac Time
Big in Japan (Original) - Alphaville
Mean Streets - Tennis
She Don't Love Me - Trent Willmon
Witchdoctor - Cartoons
The Laughing Gnome - David Bowie
Digital Witness - St. Vincent
These Days - Nico
There Goes My First Love - Drifters
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - The Hollies
Shake It - Metro Station
White Wedding - Billy Idol
There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought Of It Yet - Panic! At The Disco
Itchycoo Park - M People
Blinded By The Light - Manfred Mann
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Faraday Porteur Electric Bicycle

Faraday Bikes reports: [edited]

Our flagship product is the Faraday Porteur – the bike that was dubbed 'the ultimate modern utility bike' by the Oregon Manifest bicycle design competition.

The Faraday Porteur will surprise your friends when you tell them it’s electric, and it will surprise you when you realise just how much is possible on a bicycle with a little 'boost'. Everything you need to ride safely and comfortably has been considered, from integrated front and rear lights to a sturdy, frame-mounted front rack, wood fenders, accessory bag, and 8-speed internal hub.

The Faraday Porteur. It’s for doing more than you ever thought possible – for keeping up with your friends, or leaving them in the dust. It’s your daily ride. It’s crazy fun.

Price: $3500.00
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MediaFire offering free 50GB of online storage

Computerworld reports: [edited]

MediaFire today went live with its Desktop cloud storage service, offering users up to 1TB of capacity for just $2.50 a month for newcomers. The service normally charges $5 for 1TB of online capacity, but chopped that price in half for a limited time as part of its initial launch.

MediaFire offers up to 50GB of free space before requiring payment for the full 1TB of capacity, compared with 2GB offered by other popular services.

MediaFire Desktop, a free application for OS X and Windows, allows users to upload, store and share content in the cloud, directly from their desktop and mobile devices. The service synchronizes data to a customer's OS X and Windows computers that are also connected via the application.

As with other file-sharing services, MediaFire allows multiple users to collaborate on projects by sharing folders and files and offering controls on who can edit and who can view content. Users can invite others to connect through the service by sending a link through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogger or email. There is also embedded-link sharing for online blogging platforms.

The application also has an "Activity Feed" that keeps track of a user's activity on MediaFire, including updates to files made by other users, new files received and system status messages.
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Free Font - Comic Neue

comicneue.com reports: [edited]

Comic Sans wasn’t designed to be the world’s most ubiquitous casual typeface. Comic Neue aspires to be the casual script of choice for everyone including the typographically savvy.

The squashed, wonky, and weird glyphs of Comic Sans have been beaten into shape while maintaining the honesty that made Comic Sans so popular.

There are two variants: Comic Neue and Comic Neue Angular, which features angular terminals rather than round. Both include light, regular, and bold weights, with oblique equivalents.
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Phantom Vision 2+

DIY Photography reports: [edited]

DJI Phantom quadcopters are drones that take videos and photos from up in the air, like any basic helicopter shot you’ll see in movies. They’re effective, durable, and stay where they need to stay even if the wind is against them. And now the company is announcing their newest addition to the line: the Phantom Vision 2+.

Like the previous DJI Phantom 2, this drone will feature a 14 megapixel camera that can film 1080p at 30 fps. Where the Phantom Vision 2+ really improves is in how well it works: it’s claimed to be able to keep its position in the air at wind speeds of up to 25mph. Along with the stabilisation it gets from that department, it’ll also have integrated in it a 3 axis stabiliser.

The Phantom Vision 2+ comes with an app on both iOS and Android that enables you to shoot and watch at the same time, and you can do that with the drone up to as much as 2,300 feet away from you. The battery will give you 25 minutes of flying time on a full charge.

So what about when it’s that far away and the battery’s dying? Or what if you lose signal with it? You’re covered. The Phantom automatically enables a “Return to Home” feature where it returns to the home GPS spot that you establish for it beforehand.

Price: $1299


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Extending your iPhone's battery life

Buzzfeed has published a helpful article explaining a number of ways to reduce the drain on your iPhone's battery.
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Free Font - Derkon

Eight One Six has made this distressed, all-caps typeface available for free download.

Nest Thermostat - Now Available in the UK

TNW reports: [edited]

The Nest Thermostat has been available in the US since back in 2012, but due to differences in the way heating systems work it has taken a year-long, 100-household trial to work out the best way to deliver it to UK consumers. Nest says the Thermostat is compatible with “almost all central heating systems” in the UK.

The Nest Thermostat 'learns' the temperature you like in your home at different times and adjusts accordingly. The result, according to Nest, are potential savings of somewhere in the region of 4 percent to 20 percent off your annual heating bill. According to its research, the average UK home spends around £1,300 per year on heating, and could save between £9 and £353 per year, depending on conditions, existing schedule and a few other variables.

As well as learning your schedule over the first week or so (it doesn’t stop after this point, but those first few days will be the most instructive), it also has features like ‘Auto-Away’, which uses sensors in the device to recognise when there is no one around and therefore not to bother switching the heating on. Users can also review their energy usage history to see when they’ve been using the most, and see if there are any savings to be had at specific times.

It’ll also encourage you to turn your heating down by rewarding you with a leaf symbol each time you are below your normal temperature. There’s a gamification element at work here too as your leaf count is tallied and your ‘performance’ reflected in your monthly energy report comparing you to other Nest Thermostat users.

Handily, if you own a Nest Protect smoke alarm, the two devices can communicate with each other. So, say for example that the Protect detects carbon monoxide, it will instruct the Thermostat to switch the boiler off.

The UK version comes with the Thermostat control itself plus a ‘Nest Heat Link’ that connects directly to the boiler. Users then have the choice of either wiring in the Nest Thermostat where the old one was, or if the old one is in an inappropriate place, using it without wiring it in.

Nest is recommending that the Thermostat is purchased alongside professional installation for a total of £249, but it’s also available to buy as a standalone product for £179 from Nest’s website. It’ll also be available to buy from Amazon, B&Q, John Lewis and Apple.
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Olympus Stylus SH-1

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

The Olympus Stylus SH-1 may look like a PEN mirrorless camera, but it's actually a compact travel zoom.

It has inherited a feature from the PEN: 5-axis image stabilization. Other features of note include a 16MP BSI-CMOS sensor, 25-600mm equiv. F3.0-6.9 lens, touchscreen 3" LCD, limited manual control, 1080/60p video, and built-in Wi-Fi. It will be available in May in black, white, and silver for under $400.
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EU Audio Archive

The Sunday Times reports: [edited]

Some of the most distinctive sounds of Britain, including the hum of a Merlin engine inside a Spitfire and a whistling kettle, are to be captured and preserved in a huge audio archive.

Torsten Nilsson, a Swedish museum curator, will arrive in Britain in September to record sounds now rarely heard, including the noise made by the engine of a classic Bentley and that of 'at least 40 different English kettles boiling ready for preparing afternoon tea'.

The trip is part of a two-year £170,000 project, funded by the European Union, to collect sounds from around Europe before they disappear. Among the noises Nilsson wants to record are the sound of a person dialling a rotary telephone and a dial-up modem in operation.

The recordings will be made available to the public.
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HTC One (M8)

Pocket Lint has published a review of HTC's latest flagship smartphone.

Verdict snippets follow:

"It's difficult to criticise the quality of the solid build, which eclipses many other devices. It sticks very much to the concept behind the 2013 model, so if you own the older device, then you'll love how the One has evolved in 2014."

"The new phone is a large device... but it feels slightly easier to manage than the likes of the Sony Xperia Z2 thanks to the curve of the back that sits so nicely in the hand. The gesture controls make it easy to access too, as you don't have to stretch for the access button."

"It's also hugely powerful and a pleasure to use. It can fly though intensive tasks and the addition of the microSD card slot is a real benefit too."

"Sense 6.0 moves HTC's Android skin on a step, continuing to refine the user experience, trim away unnecessary excesses and support you with native functionality that actually matters. There's still some bloat, but sections such as Gallery are enhanced."

"The HTC One (M8) is a wonderful reinvention of the 2013 handset. There's innovation, refinement and new features that make it a shining example of a flagship device."
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Smart Herb Garden v.2

freshome reports: [edited]

Click and Grow has announced its second generation Smart Herb Garden for indoor cultivation. Just add water, plug into an electrical outlet and the technology does all the work. The nano-tech growth medium combined with a removable 6 watt LED grow light helps yield plants even in less-than-perfect conditions.

The new model lets you raise up to 3 herbs at once (the starter kit comes with basil, thyme and lemon balm). The nano tech growth medium contains pockets for oxygen and guarantees aeration to the plant roots even when material is fully saturated with water.

Price: $99.95
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The end of polio declared in India

Kottke reports: [edited]

In 1988, India had over 200,000 cases of polio reported. For the past three years, they've had 0. At the end of this month, the WHO will announce the end of polio in India.

America experienced the height of polio in the 1940s and '50s, when about 35,000 people became disabled every year. Fear and panic spread and parents were known to warn their children to not drink from public water fountains, avoid swimming pools and stay away from crowded public places.

The development of the Salk and Sabine vaccines helped lead to eradication of polio in the United States in 1979. In India, too, vaccination was critical.
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Sony DSC-RX10

Digital Photography Review has published an in-depth review of Sony's £850 RX100/R1 hybrid.

Snippets from the conclusion follow:

"The RX10 has all of the features you'd expect on a premium compact: manual controls, a high resolution EVF and tilting LCD, dynamic range enhancement, 10 fps continuous shooting, and built-in Wi-Fi."

"The DSC-RX10 easily bests other premium superzooms in photo quality. Its 1" sensor is 2.8X larger than the 1/1.7" CMOS in the Olympus Stylus 1, and 4.1X bigger than the 1/2.3" sensor in the Panasonic FZ200."

"Another part of the equation is the RX10's excellent 24-200mm F2.8 Carl Zeiss T* lens, which is sharp from corner to corner."

"The RX10 isn't a compact camera [but] the body feels 'just right' in your hands. Controls are placed in such a way that they can be accessed with one hand."

"Ultimately, the DSC-RX10 is a niche product that will most likely be picked up by photographers who want a 'best of everything' camera,. For those who the camera appeals to, it's a fantastic product, and one that is worthy of our highest award."
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Hand-drawn logos

Go Media Magazine has published a selection of hand-drawn logos.
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Olympus OM-D E-M10

Digital Photography Review has published an in-depth review of Olympus' budget (£529, body only) OM-D model.

Snippets from the conclusion follow:

"The E-M10 feels more like a third generation OM-D model than a step-down from its two brothers. It borrows many qualities we liked from both of them and presents them in a slightly smaller, lighter package."

"The E-M10 offers an impressive level of direct control. Twin command dials and two customisable function buttons are just the tip of the iceberg - in true Olympus fashion, just about any button or dial on the camera can be customised."

"The camera is very responsive. Auto focus is fast and reliable, camera menus are easily navigated and the touch screen adds one more interface option when the Super Control Panel is in use."

"The E-M10 is capable of producing very nice images. JPEG default sharpening is a bit strong, and around ISO 3200 noise reduction starts to muddy fine detail. In good light at low-to-moderate ISO the E-M10 produces pleasantly sharp and clean JPEGs that rival the performance of entry-level DSLRs."

"The improved feel of the control layout in the E-M10 and additions like Wi-Fi make this camera feel more like an un-weather-sealed E-M5 replacement, rather than a lower-end model. Those considering the E-M5 at this point should take a serious look at the E-M10 - if weather-sealing isn't absolutely necessary, then we're inclined to pick this one over the E-M5."
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iPhone nano - When less is best

Weight: 80g
Depth: 6mm
Width: 59mm
Height: 87mm

For a higher resolution image, click here reports: [edited]
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Transporter Sync

Transporter reports: [edited]

Transporter Sync turns any external USB drive into your own private cloud. Featuring sync, access, share and protect functionality in a compact form-factor starting at just $99 with no monthly fees.

Most cloud storage solutions require you to move all your files to a specific folder to sync across devices. This can be a real hassle with applications that save files to default locations. The Transporter Special Folder feature allows you to sync files directly from popular desktop, documents, movies, music, and picture locations.

Selective Sync gives you the flexibility to select only the folders you want to be synced to your computer. This feature is especially handy for saving space on computers with small hard drives and is ideal for households and businesses with multiple computers.

Mobile phones have become the camera of choice for capturing life’s special moments, but this convenience has resulted in phones that are constantly running out of storage space. The camera auto-upload feature allows you to pick your favorite location (home, office, etc.) and anytime your phone connects to that network, newly added photos and videos will be automatically synced to your Transporter.
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