Pranav Dixit

Banks Now Know Who You Are From How You Type

No two humans type alike. Some of us jab our fingers precisely into the right spots on a screen, while others are slightly less accurate. Now, a Swedish security startup is using this behavior to add an extra layer of security to our cellphones. Banks in Europe’s Nordic region are now using a new kind…

The XBOX One’s Official Reddit App Lets You Upvote With Your Voice

Love Reddit? Love your XBOX One? This is your lucky day. Microsoft is launching ReddX, a dedicated Reddit app for the XBOX one, which will allow users to submit their own links and upvote and downvote content by — you guessed it — just screaming at your TV (Kinect required). The app, according to XBOX’s…

DARPA Wants To Make Tanks Sleeker, Faster — And Deadlier

Tanks are Goliaths. They’re covered with layers and layers of thick armor for protection, which makes them huge and slow-moving. Now, DARPA wants to change that. For the last 100 years, the ability of weapons to punch holes through thick armor has advanced faster than the armor’s ability to withstand protection, says a DARPA release.…

Watch Cancer Cells Scurrying Over The Surface Of A Microchip

Watching cancer cells scurrying across the surface of a microchip is mesmerizing. Most of them plod along together and make steady progress. Others break off and aggressively cover large distances. Scientists say that this ability to actually see the cancer cells advance will be useful to figure out how to stop them once and for…

This Camera Will Flag You as a Suicide Bomber If You Seem Stressed Out

You might want to practice some breath-control before you go to China. Chinese scientists have reportedly developed a mini-camera to scan crowds for highly stressed individuals, who, it turns out, have a greater chance of turning out to be suicide bombers. The camera works by detecting the level of blood oxygenation in exposed areas of…

Xiaomi’s Next OS Is the Most Shameless iOS Rip-Off You Will Ever See

Looks like Chinese device maker, Xiaomi, is taking its “Apple of the East” tag too literally. First, their CEO brazenly copies Steve Jobs’ signature look, sitting cross-legged on the floor and everything. And now, Xiaomi’s latest version of Android shamelessly rips off iOS 7. MIUI 6, which is Xiaomi’s upcoming edition of Android for its…

Watch How “Electronic Makeup” Completely Transforms This Model’s Face

Nobumichi Asai has used projection mapping to put CGI onto cars, docks, building and more. His latest canvas? A real, live human face. Asai used Omote, a combination of real-time face tracking and projection mapping to transform a model’s face into mesmerizing patterns. SlashGear calls it “electronic makeup”, but as you will see in the…

John McAfee Wants You To Stop Using Google

John “Crazy” McAfee, the creator of the barely-passable virus-scanning program, has called upon people to resist Google” to protect their privacy. Thankfully, he still has his clothes on in this one. McAfee was speaking at the Defcon security conference earlier this month, where he made a surprise appearance. “Google … would like us to believe…

This Site Automatically Saves Your Favorite Username on New Services

Boy do you have to be quick when signing up for new services these days. Dilly-dally a little and you’ll find that your favorite username has already been snapped up. Now, a new startup called Earlyclaim can automatically reserve your favorite username for you. “This is an effort to help people create a consistent online…

The Man Who Invented Pop-up Ads Is Very, Very Sorry

Pop-up ads have got be in the top five list of the digital world’s most hated things, not including Internet Explorer. Now, the man who invented them back in the mid-90s, wants to apologize. Ethan Zuckerman, the head of the Center for Civic Media at the MIT, says that he didn’t know what he was…

Looks like YouTube’s been completely redesigned for TV sets. The visual refresh looks not unlike YouTube’s iOS and Android apps, complete with a pretty, scrollable sidebar and a special focus on playlists. If you’re on the XBOX One, you should be updated already. If you have another set-top box, you should get the update shortly.…

The Gyroscope In Your Smartphone Can Be Easily Used To Spy On You

Sure, the gyroscope in your smartphone is great for whizzing past the competition in Need For Speed. But did you know that it can also be used to eavesdrop on your conversations? Researchers from Stanford University and Israel’s defense research group, Rafael, have developed a way to turn a smartphone’s gyroscopes into crude microphones. They…

Uber, AirBnB And Many Other Services Might Accept Bitcoin Soon

You might soon be able to pay for that Uber ride or that AirBnB reservation using bitcoin. The Wall Street Journal reports that eBay has been working to integrate bitcoin into its Braintree payments subsidiary. Who uses Braintree for backend payment processing? GitHub, Hailo, Fab.com, LivingSocial, OpenTable, Hotel Tonight, and many many others. This doesn’t…

This Is What a Heart Injected With Liquid Metal Looks Like

Two researchers from a Beijing University have found a way to create 3D X-Ray images of some of the smallest blood vessels in the heart — by filling it with liquid metal. Gallium is a metal which melts at 29 degrees centigrade, so it’s liquid at the normal temperature of a human body. It’s stable,…

Google might be ripping off one of Facebook Messenger’s best features on the phone for its own Hangouts app on the desktop: chat heads. A new leak on Phandroid shows that Google is currently experimenting with this feature. Hangouts is a mess and chat heads are awesome. Google may never actually release this, but I’ll…

Watch Zuck Dump a Bucket of Ice Water on His Head (For Charity)

Some of the most powerful people in the tech world are dumping buckets of ice water on their heads. No, they haven’t lost it. They’re doing it for charity. The stunt is a part of a campaign to raise money to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as the motor neurons disease. Those who…

This High-Res Satellite Can Count The Number Of Chickens On Earth

Now that the WorldView-3, the world’s first satellite capable of capturing high-resolution public images has launched, here’s exactly what it is capable of doing all the way up from 385 miles above the Earth, according to this cool Mashable article: It may prevent famine in Syria by identifying ahead of time exactly how many crops…

Should E-Cigarettes Be Banned As “Hazardous Materials” On Flights?

Not only will e-cigarettes mess you up if you smoke them too much, they are now under scrutiny for listing as a flight hazard. The New York Times reports that officials at Boston’s Logan International Airport are asking the Transportation Department to consider classifying e-cigarettes as hazardous materials after a smoldering bag had to be…

T-Mobile Will Throttle Your Data If You Use Torrents

If you’re using your unlimited T-Mobile 4G/LTE plan to download the last season of Game Of Thrones in all its 1080P glory, stop now or be throttled. According to an internal memo to staff, T-Mobile knows if you abuse your data allowance and will “address” you shortly. T-Mobile’s terms and conditions clearly spell out what…

This New Technology Will Finally Bring Flexible Displays To Market

Flexible touch screens have been “just round the corner” for some time now. Heck, Samsung showed off a flexible screen at CES in January 2013. Sadly, it was just a prototype. The truth is that flexible displays just haven’t been durable enough for mass production. Until now. A Menlo Park-based startup named Kateeva will start…