GeekwithEnvy

Hardware

Buddy the Futuristic Dog Collar

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With wearable technology slowly working it’s way into our everyday lives, it was only a matter of time before we got man’s best friend involved. This new futuristic dog collar called Buddy, is the ultimate must-have gadget for geeky pet owners.

‘Buddy’ will keep track of just about everything you could ever want to know about your dog, starting with temperature. No longer will you have to wonder if your dog is getting too uncomfortably hot or cold, you will now know the exact temperature of your four legged friend. In the event that your dog does get to hot or cold ‘Buddy’ can actually link into your Nest thermostat to have the temperature automatically adjusted.

With Geofences, you will be able to set a perimeter that your dog is allowed to be in by simply using an app for either iOS or Android. Once your dog leaves the perimeter that you set up, you will be notified with an alert. Even better, ‘Buddy’ will include GPS tracking so you can know exactly where your dog is.

To keep your pup in top shape, the Buddy collar will also include an activity tracker to measure how much exercise your dog is getting. This feature could also benefit some owners as it will persuade us to get up and get active with our pets. Need to know how much your pet is eating? Well, it keeps track of that too. How about appointments with the veterinarian? Yes, it keeps track of this information as well.

And last but certainly not least, it’s quite stylish. The Buddy collar has customizable LED lights that can be adjusted to pretty much any color you can imagine. Plus, having a well lit Buddy collar is great for safety as it provides ample night time lighting so drivers and cyclists will not only see you, they will see your pet as well.

All of these features of course are going to come at a premium, after all this isn’t your basic everyday pet store collar here. If you back the Buddy project early you will get the collar at a discounted price of $180 US. If the collar is fully funded and released for purchase, it could set you back approximately $450.

 Buddy the Geeky Dog Collar

Xbox One Suffers Disc Drive Issues, May Get Free Game

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XboxOneVideoDemo

Unfortunately, it happens all too often, early adopters run out and grab the latest and greatest, whether it’s software or hardware, only to find that you’re likely to run into issues sooner or later. The Xbox One is no different as some users have been reporting disc drive failures that prevent any disc based game from playing. The defective units have been reported to make a nasty grinding noise when a disc is inserted into the system.

The feeling of disappointment and possibly rage can build up quick when this kind of stuff happens but there’s no need to freak out just yet as Microsoft has said that they will be offering Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse, Zoo Tycoon, or Dead Rising as a FREE digital download, but only to those users who are having problems specifically related to the disc drive failing. In addition to this, and most importantly, Microsoft is also working with these affected customers to ensure that they get new and fully functional consoles.

Microsoft isn’t the only one feeling hardware launch pain as Sony’s Playstation 4 has also suffered from some issues of it’s own including major slowdowns to it’s Playstation Network service and some consoles arriving completely dead out of the box. The hope is here that even though all of these aforementioned issues on both consoles are only causing a very small percentage of users to have headaches, that both Sony and Microsoft step-up and take care of the issues they are having as quickly as possible, and most importantly, take care of their customers by offering them good customer service for their hard earned money.

 

 

Teardown of the Playstation 4 (Video)

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This video is of Sony engineering director Yasuhiro Ootori tearing down the Playstation 4. Ootori leaves out no details as he takes the PS4 down to it’s motherboard and reveals the true guts of the system. The Playstation 4 was designed with the game programmers in-mind, that’s been the mission of the PS4 from the very beginning.

Even though the Playstation 3 was extremely powerful during it’s release, it was notoriously difficult to create games for, and that’s a problem since great games are what really make a console shine. The hardware capabilities of the Playstation have a lot of promise, especially with the inclusion of GDDR5, and it’s likely that we won’t see games utilizing the full power of the system until a few years from now but there’s still plenty to be excited about right now as trailers for some pretty rad PS4 exclusives begin to hit the web.

Thanks to WIRED for the video.

Apple to Bring Jobs to Arizona

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Apple Logo

In an official statement from the Arizona government, Governor Jan Brewer welcomes Apple to Arizona as he mentions that Apple will creating a new manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona that will bring with it at least 700 new jobs in the first year along with approximately 1,300 construction related jobs.

This is not only a big plus for Arizona but also for U.S jobs in general as many companies, including Apple, have relied on factories overseas to build their best products. The statement does not mention which products will be produced here, but it’s likely that it may have something to do with the upcoming Mac Pro line which will be made right here in the US.

Apple is indisputably one of the world’s most innovative companies and I’m thrilled to welcome them to Arizona,” said Governor Brewer. “Apple will have an incredibly positive economic impact for Arizona and its decision to locate here speaks volumes about the friendly, pro-business climate we have been creating these past four years. Their investment in renewable energy will also be greening our power grid, and creating significant new solar and geothermal power sources for the state. As Governor, I’ve worked hard to demonstrate that Arizona is open for business. Today’s news is proof that’s paying off.”

Nvidia Eliminates Screen Tearing with G-Sync

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Nvidia gsync-module

Screen tearing, stutter and input lag have plagued gamers for  years, but now Nvidia claims that they have found a solution to this issue. Nvidia has created what they call G-Sync to completely eliminate all of the aforementioned issues. G-Sync is a module that forces your monitor to have the exact same refresh rate as your GPU, which is the opposite of what happens in current systems.

The biggest problem is that GPU’s don’t render at a fixed speed and by having the monitor keep up with the GPU all of your screen tearing issues will go away instead of making the graphics card compensate for a fixed refresh rate. There have been many attempts over the years to correct these issues including the introduction of VSync, which did help, but it’s not perfect as VSync often stutters and fails to make gameplay as smooth as it should be and it can also be pretty taxing you your system.

By the time PCs came to market in the early 1980s, CRT TV technology was well established and was the easiest and most cost effective technology for utilize for the creation of dedicated computer monitors. 60Hz and fixed refresh rates became standard, and system builders learned how to make the most of a less than perfect situation. Over the past three decades, even as display technology has evolved from CRTs to LCD and LEDs, no major company has challenged this thinking, and so syncing GPUs to monitor refresh rates remains the standard practice across the industry to this day.”

For complete details on this new module head over to Nvidia’s official blog. I’m surprised that its taken us this long to fix this problem, especially since monitors have evolved so much over the last decade.