Google Search app for iOS Updated with new Voice Search Functionality, iPhone 5 Compatibility

Google just released an updated version of its Search app for Android devices yesterday, and it's now (aspromised) also delivered a fairly big update to iOS users. That brings with it iPhone 5 compatibility, but the bigger news is the expanded voice search functionality, which promises "faster and significantly improved voice recognition," with spoken responses à la Google Now provided alongside the search results. Those additions also extend to iPad users in addition to the iPhone and iPod touch -- get it here.

Tetris Ported to a Jack-o'-lantern

What happens when you gut a pumpkin and replace its insides with heat-shrink tubing, solder, 128 LEDs, eight AA batteries, an Arduino board and clever programming? You get what self-proclaimed tinkerer Nathan Pryor calls "Pumpktris." Over the years we've seen the classic puzzle game Tetris ported to some amazing things, but a piece of fruit? Just in time for Halloween, this high-tech spin on the jack-o'-lantern features a fully playable Tetris game controlled from the pumpkin's joystick stem. 

Whether you're a hardcore do-it-yourselfer, or a diehard Tetris fan hoping to top the system's high score (9,800 points), you can build your very own Pumpktris. Of course, its creator estimates it'll take around 12 hours or longer to build the custom LED matrix and joystem and carve up the gourd of your choice.

Survey of 1,200 People Reveals 52 Percent Have Never Heard of Windows 8

Out of a pool of 1,200 adults, 52 percent said they’d never heard of Windows 8 leading up to last week’s release. For all of Microsoft’s wining and dining of the tech-savvy crowd — it seems the revamped software isn’t in the average consumer conscious. The company was always going to fight an uphill battle when marketing its new OS vision.

According to The Associated Press and GfK, of those who had heard of Windows 8, 61 percent said they had little to no interest in buying a computer running Microsoft’s newest OS. About 35 percent of people who were somewhat familiar with the new system felt it would not be an improvement over Windows 7.

One 43-year-old engineer, Chris Dionne, who knew Windows 8 was coming, said he isn’t “thrilled [Microsoft is] changing things around” when Windows 7 already does what he wants it to.

Additionally, the poll highlights the lack of interest surrounding Microsoft’s Surface, which launched in conjunction with Windows 8. Of those surveyed, 69 percent admitted they had little to no interest in the device, which is a product Microsoft is hoping will fit into a tablet/laptop niche.

Microsoft’s approach to the changing market is admirable and something that strays pretty significantly from iOS and Android. The company’s task of marketing Windows 8 (and Windows Phone 8, and its two Surface tablets) was always going to be difficult. It’ll be interesting to see how consumers receive Microsoft’s new direction now that all its cards are on the table, especially since it does offer compelling features, such as a new modern user interface and full touchscreen support in laptops and PCs. More here.

The 16GB Nexus 7 Is Now Just $200

Google just took the lid off a 32GB Nexus 7 tablet, and dropped the price of the 16GB model from $250 to $200. The bigger version is $249.

This confirmed earlier suspicions from price leaks to third-party retailers that Google would make its flagship tablet cheaper. In spite of the cancellation of Google's event because of Hurricane Sandy, the news is still moving along—Google also revealed the 10-inch Nexus 10 to rival the iPad. The 32GB Nexus 7 also comes in an HSPA+ version for $300. The tablet goes on sale on November 13. More here.

Scientists Are Making Computer Chips of the Future Out of Carbon Nanotubes

Scientists have developed a way to manufacture a new breed of computer chips that use carbon nanotubes in the place of silicon.

Nanotubes have plenty of superior electronic properties over silicon, but until now it's been impossible to manufacture a chip with a high enough density of nanotubes to make an effective processing unit. Now, the researchers, from IBM, have cracked it.

Writing in Nature Nanomaterials, the researchers explain a new manufacturing technique that makes it possible to squeeze enough tubes on to the chip. It involves two solutions which work like a two-part epoxy: when they double-dip their chip substrate in the two, it enables them to create neatly aligned nanotube devices, with a density of a billion nanotubes per square centimeter.

While that sounds like a lot, though, it's not quite enough for the ambitious team of scientists. James Hannon, one of the researchers, explained to the BBC:

"That's one nanotube every 150 or 200 (billionths of a meter) or so. That's not good enough to make a microprocessor yet - it's a factor of 10 away... But it's a factor of 100 better than has been done previously."

So, while they've managed a step change in their production technique, there's still some tweaking to be done. The team, however, predicts that if it can bump up its density, then it could produce processors three times faster than the current state-of-the-art, that consume a third of the power. Fingers crossed. More here.

Sharp Announces First TVs with Moth-Eye Technology

Sharp may look like it's in trouble, but that's not stopping it bringing new displays to the market, the AQUOS Quattron 3D XL TV line. Behind the mouthful of acronyms, these LED-backlit LCD panels are the first to feature Sharp's Moth-Eye technology, designed to reduce glare and pump out bright colors, as well as a deep black. The company's 'four primary color'tech is partly responsible for the rich output, which squeezes a yellow sub-pixel in with the standard R, G and B. 

All the panels run at 1,920 x 1,080, as you'd expect, sport a 10 million to 1 contrast ratio and use five speakers to deliver audio. Prices aren't fixed, but the 46-, 52- and 80-inch models will be released in Japan on December 15th, while the 60- and 70-inch variants will come slightly earlier, on November 30th. You're going to have to be quick on launch day, though -- only 10,000 units are expected to be available in the first month. More here.

Nexus 4 Render Leaks Before Next Week’s Unveiling

We’ve seen the Nexus 4 show up for pre-order, support pages in Australia, a charging pad and even a quick-start guide, but if you want at least one more spoiler before then, take a look above. The folks over on the @evleaks account shared one more render that gives you a good look at the front, back and sides. Christmas is definitely coming early for those who can’t wait for the Nexus 4. More here.

ASUS Unveils RT-N12HP WiFi Router With Extra-long Antennas

If getting long-range WiFi is a perpetual battle, ASUS just started a nuclear war. Its fresh RT-N12HP router carries a pair of (thankfully removable) high-gain, 9dBi antennas and a separate signal amplifier that can jointly boost the range of the router's 802.11n wireless up to 300 percent versus challengers that reach the same 300Mbps peak speed. Beyond that, the hotspot mostly claims sheer flexibility as its virtue with support for as many as four separate WiFi networks and a fast toggle between pure router, access point and repeater modes. More here.

Giant Working Instagram Camera Is This Year’s Costume To Beat

The heart of the costume is a Nikon D800 with an Eye-Fi SD card inside transferring photos to an iPad serving as the display on the back. But since the D800 isn't fully compatible with the Eye-Fi's direct transfer mode, a portable wireless router was also added to the mix to facilitiate the exchange. Oddly enough it doesn't seem as if the costume uploads photos to an Instagram account, which leaves the door wide open for someone to come along and one-up this one too. More here.

This Down Jacket Keeps You Warm Even When It’s Wet

A puffy down feather jacket is one of the lightest and warmest things you can wear. But the tradeoff is that if you get it even the slightest bit wet, you'll be wearing a cold soggy mess. Not the Brooks-Range Mojave, though; thanks to a special coating on the feathers, it doesn't skimp on the warm when it's wet.

The feathers it's stuffed with are treated with a hydrophobic polymer known as perfluoroalkyl acrylate, developed by a company called Down Decor. So instead of absorbing water, the down inside the $300 Mojave repels it. And while it doesn't guarantee you'll stay completely dry, the company claims the treated feathers will only absorb about a quarter of the moisture that regular down filling would. Which means your jacket will dry five times faster and be ready to warm you again in no time. More here.

Tortilla Hexaflexagon

This Nexus 10 User Manual Leaks Google’s 10-Inch Tablet

A Korean gadget site has posted images of a user manual for a device called a Samsung Nexus 10 that looks much like an oversized Nexus 7. Could this—along with that new Nexus phone—be what Google is announcing on Monday?

The pictures don't offer much in the way of hard intel beyond that in terms of features, and the sketch of the phantom gadget looks like what you'd expect from a 10-inch tablet. At the very least, it supports persistent rumors that Google will reveal its flagship slate's bigger brother at some point. This tablet is said to have a 2560×1600 pixel display, more pixels per inch than the iPad, and run on Android 4.2, a.k.a. Key Lime Pie. We'll know if the so-called Nexus 10 is actually real next week. More here.

Here’s a Website That’ll Make You Instantly Feel Better

If you're having a crappy day, go grab yourself an emergency compliment at this thoughtful website which serves up, you guessed it, emergency compliments.  

Be happy! More happy things on the Internet! 

The Lowly Button Gets a Brilliant Upgrade

There should be a special Nobel Prize set aside for geniuses who find ways to improve the simplest things in life. And this year's award would go to Shapeways user OliveBird, whose Button 2.0 turns any shirt into a convenient headphone wrangler.

It's not to say that the traditional button design isn't useful. It's just that with the addition of a subtle clamp on one edge for holding headphone cables no thicker than two millimeters, the Button 2.0 is approximately a thousand times more useful. And this isn't some design student's thesis on how to make the world better. It's an actual product you can order from Shapeways in different colors ranging in price from $3 to $4. Expensive for a button? Yes. But this is the bleeding edge of shirt fastening/cable wrangling technology. More here.

The Placebo Effect May Be Genetic

The placebo effect seems to make little sense: get ill, take a dummy pill, and you'll recover in much the same way as someone taking real drugs. While there have been many theories bandied about over the years to explain how it works, new evidence suggests that it may be genetic.

A team of researchers at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School has published a study in PLoS One that identifies the first ever genetic difference between patients who respond to placeboes and patients who don't. If it's correct, it could completely change the way drugs are tested and prescribed.

The study looked at patients with irritable bowel syndrome who were enrolled in an acupuncture trial. Split into three groups—one that received no treatment, one that got fake acupuncture with little interaction with the caregiver, and another that received fake acupuncture with real interaction—they were also analyzed genetically.

The results show variations in the COMT, or catechol-O- methyltransferase gene, affect patient response to placebo. The gene is known to be related to dopamine release—a neurotransmitter associated with reward and positive feeling—and the study shows that variations in it are strongly correlated with placebo susceptibility.

Of course, many of the usual caveats apply: this was a modestly sized study, involivng just 104 patients, which considered just one placebo treatment used for one medical condition. If, however, the results bear out, then expect to see genetic tests being used to improve both personal care and clinical trials in the future. More here.

Apple’s New iMacs Are Crazy Thin

Apple has defied that assumption that the desktop is on the outs and dropped refreshed super-thin iMacs at its event today.

They were expected this summer at WWDC, but the wait might have been worthwhile—this refresh is far more significant than we thought. The new models are 80 percent thinner (just 5mm) and about eight pounds lighter than their predecessors. We didn't anticipate a redesign, but they're incredibly beautiful from what we can see. Apple will offer iMacs in 21.5-inch and 27-inch versions, the latter of which has a resolution of 2560 by 1440.

The screen has 75 percent less reflection, and a few other features like an HD camera, dual microphones, and a stereo sound system that's supposed to be much better than the previous generation. Specs got a bump too—the new machines have quad-core i5 processors (configurable up to i7), up to 32GB of RAM, and as much as 768GB of flash storage. RAM is accessible in the 27-inch iMac, but not the smaller one. Both of these guys have four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt, which is very nice. On top of that, there's an SD card, gigabit ethernet, and a now, a fusion drive—that's 128GB of flash storage plus 1 or 3 TB of hard drive combined into one hard drive. Doesn't sound half bad, although customization might be a bit more difficult with such a big update.

The smaller model starts at $1300 and ships in November, and the 27-incher starts at $1800 and ships in December.

The iPad Mini’s Guts Are Basically an iPad 2

Apple's new iPad Mini is here, with all the attendant fawning. But strip away the smaller size, and what is it really? A tiny little iPad 2.

Let's start with guts. The Mini runs on an A5 chip—the same one that's in the iPad 2. The major upgrade to the A5 chip in this year's iPad (the A5X was sold as a graphical update at the time). That's a full three generations back now, with the A6X out now. This is almost certainly the same chip design that was die-shrunk in the upgraded iPad 2.

In all likelihood, the Mini has the same 512MB of RAM as the iPad 2 as well. A few reasons there. For one, it doesn't have retina-level numbers of pixels to push. But then remember that the die-shrunk A5 that it's using has never been paired with anything but 512MB of RAM.

You'll be hearing plenty more about the screen, but for now, it's 162.03 PPI, at 7.9 inches and 1024 x 768. 

How the iPad Mini Stacks Up to the Competition

Microsoft Announces Skype for Windows 8

With Windows 8 going on sale in just four days, Microsoft is doing a sensible thing and releasing a version of Skype optimized for Win 8. As you'd expect, Skype for Windows 8 has the same overarching look and feel as other apps, which is to say you can swipe from left to right to see different categories, such as recent activity, favorites and a complete contacts list. But the integration with Windows 8 goes a little deeper than that. Just as you can pinch your Live Tiles to zoom out and make them easier to navigate, you can use semantic zoom to sift through a long list of contacts. And, because Skype runs in the background, you can set up your Start Screen so that the Skype Live Tile shows notifications for things like missed calls. Additionally, Skype is now baked into the People Hub, so that someone's Skype handle shows up alongside other forms of contact, like an email address or phone number.

The in-call experience has also been modified to take advantage of certain features in Win 8. For one, you can link your Skype and Microsoft account, so that when you log into your system using your Microsoft ID, you'll already be logged into Skype. While on a call, you can conduct video chats using the whole screen, at which point chat messages from that person will show up as text bubbles on the side of the screen. At any time, you can swipe to see other recent activity, which could be handy if you're juggling multiple IM conversations at once.

If you prefer, you can also dock Skype on the side of the screen, as you can with any other program in Win 8. With the Skype chat taking up just a third (or two thirds) of the screen, you can use that remaining real estate for an IM chat within Skype, or maybe a web search. Lastly, if you return to the home screen, there's a large phone icon up top where you'll find the dialer, whose number pad allow your fingers plenty of room to hit the right keys. You'll see your balance listed there, too, in the event you're not planning on making a free call to another Skype user, if you like you'll soon be able to experience it for yourself: the app will be available for free in the Windows Store on October 26th.

This Sliding Lens Cap iPhone Case Banishes Smudges

Not only do lens caps protect your camera's glass from scratches that can permanently render them unusable, they also help keep fingerprints and grease smudges at bay, which can ruin a photo. And it's no different with your iPhone, which is why this case with a sliding door that protects and cleans its tiny lens is brilliant.

Designed by Ace Display, the inside of the sliding door on the Identity case is covered in microfiber fabric. So every time it's closed and opened, it wipes away grease, smudges, and fingerprints ensuring your photos are as pristine as possible. The $20 case also protects the rest of your phone too, making it a must-have accessory for the iPhone 5 which seems like its particularly prone to being scratched up. More here.