Fully Charged: Steve Jobs’ time capsule unearthed, flexi-screened Galaxy Note 3 coming soon, and the voice-activated 3D printer
Four tech stories to keep you busy while your quaff your morning coffee/tea/kale juice
Steve Jobs’ 30-year-old time capsule discovered
30 years ago, the late Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs was among a group of International Design Conference attendees that donated items to a time capsule in Aspen, Colorado. Jobs donated the Lisa mouse he had used during his presentation at the conference, and among the hundreds of other items were a Rubik’s cube, a six-pack of beer and a Moody Blues record. Well, it was 1983.
The capsule – a 13-foot long tube – was originally due for exhumation in 2000, but excavators had lost its location and it was, essentially, deemed to be MIA. Until now: enter the crew of National Geographic’s Diggers show, who found and dug up the tube. Many items inside were mouldy and ruined, but some, including Jobs’ mouse, had been packed in plastic and hence survived the 30-year hibernation relatively intact. [Source: CNET]
Flexi-screened Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Active “coming soon”
If a report is true, we could be seeing Samsung’s YOUM flexible display technology finally making its way into a consumer product as early as next month. Android Community claims that the limited edition Note 3 Active will rock a bendy, near-unbreakable screen and waterproof construction. Stay tuned for more soon… [Source: Android Community]
Linn Exakt hi-fi puts your source in the speaker
Most hi-fis convert digital audio to analogue long before the signal reaches the speaker, but the Exakt from Linn works to keep the lossless digital path going for as long as possible. In fact, the signal is converted inside the speaker itself, at the very last stage before you hear it. Linn calls it “the most direct connection ever made between the listener and the artist” and while the hyperbole is worthy of Kanye West, the fact is that high quality recordings like Studio Master files should remain more loss-free than on any standard hi-fi. Want one? Well, here’s the thing: prices for the Exakt start at £50,000. One to bookmark for when your lottery numbers finally come up, then…
Voice-activated 3D printer makes whatever you tell it to
Yahoo! Japan has delivered a very special 3D printer to a Japanese school for visually-impaired children. When the kids speak a search term – “giraffe” or “car” – the printer retrieves 3D image data from the web and uses it as the basis for a model. You can see exactly how it works in the video above.