Tech News Flash

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Tech News Flash: Wednesday -- May 25, 2016

TechNewsWorld -- All Tech - All The Time
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Headline Scan
OnePlus Offers Free Headsets to Lure Crowd to VR Smartphone Launch
Google's Abacus May Count Out Passwords
Versatile iBot Wheelchair to Make a Comeback
The Rise of Drone Racing, Part 1
Rebellin Linux Offers Best of Both Gnome Worlds
Microsoft Tightens Screws on Terrorists Posting Online
Google's New Custom Chip May Not Live Up to the Hype
Using the Scientific Method to Pick the Best US President

Today's Story Highlights

OnePlus Offers Free Headsets to Lure Crowd to VR Smartphone Launch
The 30,000 virtual reality headsets OnePlus announced it would give away
as part the unveiling of its OnePlus 3 smartphone were snapped up
Monday, the day they became available. OnePlus has set up a VR space
called "The Loop" in which it will unveil the OnePlus 3. The Loop can be
accessed only by users of the OnePlus Loop VR headsets, made by AntVR.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83545.html

Google's Abacus May Count Out Passwords
By the end of the year, Android devs will be able to use a trust API
from Google's Project Abacus in their apps, Google ATAP Director Dan
Kaufman suggested at last week's I/O conference. The API, which will run
in the background continually, is aimed at doing away with passwords. It
will use a smartphone's sensors to create a cumulative trust score that
will authenticate users.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83543.html

Versatile iBot Wheelchair to Make a Comeback
Toyota and DEKA Research and Development last week announced an
agreement that will revive development of the iBot, a wheelchair that
can climb stairs. The companies revealed their pact to develop mobility
solutions for the disabled community at the annual convention of the
Paralyzed Veterans of America. One of the first initiatives under the
agreement will be to resurrect the iBot.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83542.html

The Rise of Drone Racing, Part 1
Tearing through open spaces and timing each turn to burst out of them, a
seeming continuum of drones weaves through a set of obstacles lap after
lap, until the stutter of a pilot's joystick breaks the cadence of this
competitive concert and destroys the illusion. It's the drama --
anticipating and reacting to those human moments -- that has propelled
drone racing to the spotlight.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83515.html

Rebellin Linux Offers Best of Both Gnome Worlds
Rebellin Linux is a smart-looking, fast distro that is both lightweight
and secure. It is well worth checking out. The Rebellin line avoids the
pitfalls that befall many Debian GNU/Linux derivatives. It does not
maintain a warehouse full of desktop versions. It is neither a
minimalistic Linux line nor a distro stuffed with bloat from packages
typical users will never need.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83536.html

Microsoft Tightens Screws on Terrorists Posting Online
Microsoft last week announced plans to crack down on terrorist content,
perhaps in response to the Obama administration's intense effort to get
Silicon Valley's help in preventing organizations like ISIS from using
social media as a recruiting and fundraising tool. Microsoft has amended
its terms of use to prohibit the posting of terrorist content on its
various platforms.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83539.html

Google's New Custom Chip May Not Live Up to the Hype
Google last week announced the Tensor Processing Unit, a custom
application-specific integrated circuit, at Google I/O. TPU was built
for machine learning applications and has been running in Google's data
centers for more than a year. Google's AlphaGo software, which thrashed
an 18-time international Go champion in a match earlier this year, ran
on servers using TPUs.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83531.html

Using the Scientific Method to Pick the Best US President
I've been thinking a lot this week about what it takes to select a
strong CEO and being annoyed by robocalls from the different campaigns.
On one such call, when asked what I'd do if given the choice between
Clinton and Trump, my response was "move to Canada." That apparently
wasn't what they were looking for. Boards often have to select from a
very small pool of CEO candidates, and they don't get the "move to
Canada" option.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83521.html

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