#Google has a brilliant new tool for avoiding long lines at stores and restaurants Google has added a new tool to its search bar that helps people avoid long lines at stores and restaurants.
The feature reveals peak traffic hours for millions of businesses on every day of the week,
the company said in a blog post. The tool is accessed by searching for a retailer,
avoid Monday after work?""Google's post reads.""Now, you can avoid the wait and see the busiest times of the week at millions of places and businesses around the world directly from Google search.
For example, just search for"Blue Bottle Williamsburg,"tap on the title and see how busy it gets throughout the day
#Ruptured pipeline spills 79k litres of oil along California coast A broken pipeline spilled 21,000 gallons (79,500 litres) of crude oil into the ocean before it was shut off Tuesday,
and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact, "the company said in a statement.
and is credited for giving rise to the American environmental movement. Several hundred thousand gallons spilled from a blowout on an oil platform
and the Santa barbara-based Environmental Defence Center said to have it occur in"a sensitive and treasured environment is devastating to watch."
and the Coast guard said a morning flyover would allow them to get a better sense of the damage.
and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact, "the company said in a statement.
and is credited for giving rise to the American environmental movement. Several hundred thousand gallons spilled from a blowout on an oil platform
and the Santa barbara-based Environmental Defence Center said to have it occur in"a sensitive and treasured environment is devastating to watch."
and the Coast guard said a morning flyover would allow them to get a better sense of the damage.
#Smartphone skin cancer app developed by Vancouver dermatologist A new smartphone app for monitoring skin cancer made its debut at the World Congress of Dermatology in Vancouver on Tuesday.
and device during her Phd research at Simon Fraser University.""It enables patients to have access to the same system that doctors have in their clinic,
"said Sadeghi.""As a patient, I don't have to wait 12 months to use a doctor's phone or...
camera to look at my mole. I can do this from home.""The app works by attaching a mini-microscope to a smartphone camera,
which takes images of skin moles and uploads them to a cloud-based analytical platform,
where doctors can view it in closer detail. Maryam Sadeghi shows off an early version of Molescope, an app for smartphones and ipads that people can use to monitor for signs of skin cancer.
Simon Fraser University) This allows people to monitor their moles and skin health, share images with family
and healthcare providers and eventually, connect with skin specialists online. The app has already been tested,
"My Phd supervisor, she found her melanoma when she was designing the device, just testing the image quality,"said Sadeghi."
"Dr. Susan Poelman, a dermatologist at the University of Calgary, says the device could help solve problems in her own clinic."
"Usually what I try to do is get good images with my iphone hovering over the dermatoscope,
The app currently only runs on ios, with an Android version in the works e
cellphones with EU plans pay same price everywhere The European union has agreed to end mobile roaming charges within two years
and allow travellers with European phone plans to pay the same price for calls, text messages and data anywhere in the 28 EU nations.
also means Internet users will be able to access content without being slowed unfairly down or blocked, a concept known as net neutrality.
"From April 30, a maximum roaming surcharge of 5 euro cents per minute will be allowed for calls, 2 euro cents for text messages and 5 euro cents per megabyte for data.
It could be applied in cases where a person buys a SIM CARD in a European country with low prices
and the full parliament, would allow Internet providers to use"reasonable"measures to manage online traffic,
#Growing number of Canadians cutting traditional television, CBC research shows A growing number of Canadians are ditching their traditional television subscriptions, according to a new CBC research report.
"meaning they had a television subscription and cancelled it.""With the prevalence of TV content on the internet and Netflix, Canadians are seeing less need to have a TV subscription,
"the report said. Sixteen per cent of Canadians don't pay for a traditional TV service, up from 12 per cent three years ago,
the report said.""We consider it a big jump, "said Mark Allen, senior director of corporate research at CBC/Radio-Canada in Ottawa."
if they're a light TV viewer, they can get what they need on the internet."
"Allen said cord-cutters are finding other ways to watch their favourite shows and some believe they were paying too much for television.
Marjie Lynn was looking for ways to save money when she decided to cut ties with her television provider."
"We're the average Nova Scotian family, living paycheque to paycheque to paycheque and...you look at things that you can do,
and one of those was said cutting off cable the educational assistant in a recent interview from Hantsport, N s."With the wonders of Netflix and online streaming...
you can basically achieve all the TV watching that you want.""The report also said a fifth of television subscribers were interested in cutting the cord,
with a third already having taken steps towards that end. Allen said whether or not the number of cord-cutters continues to rise will depend on how much choice Canadians have in the future to watch television online
and the success of the CRTC's"pick -and-pay"and"skinny package"rules for television providers,
which become mandatory in December 2016.""Up until this point, cord-cutters have been light TV viewers,
"said Allen.""But there are a lot of new over-the-top services that are making it easier for people,
"The report is based on phone and online surveys conducted in the fall of 2014 with more than 8, 000 people across Canada a
"and observed them in their separate rooms as they were given each partial control over a virtual arm they could see on a screen.
they were able to synchronize their brain activity to guide the arm of an avatar, allowing them to reach for a virtual ball.
The monkeys were connected only to a computer, but not one another. However, in a second set of experiments, the team directly wired the brains of four rats together,
and to a computer, to allow the animals to transmit neural brain activity to each other. The team outfitted the animals with multi-electrode arrays in the motor and somatosensory (sense of touch) cortices to capture
and transmit their brain activity. The rats were able to recognize patterns in brain activity and a"brain-to-brain interface"was established.
or stimulation, represented data that included temperature and barometric pressure. The rats were encouraged then, through a reward system,
Duke scientists say the results support earlier claims that brainets"may serve as test beds for the development of organic computers created by the interfacing of multiple animal brains with computers."
"Lead researcher Duke university Medical center neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis reported on the first direct brain-to-brain interface between animals two years ago.
he and his colleagues found the brain was much more plastic than they had thought. Scientists said that with practice,
The Brazilian neurobiologist was part of a team of researchers who created a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton worn by Juliano Pinto as the paraplegic man took part in the kickoff for the 2014 World cup in Sao paulo o
#New subatomic particle, the pentaquark, discovered Data from the Large hadron collider (LHC) outside Geneva appears to have proved the existence of particles made of five quarks, solving a 50-year-old puzzle about the building blocks of matter,
the physics research centre that houses the LHC, said a telltale"bump"seen in a graph of billions of particle collisions could only be explained by a five-quark particle."
a circular 27 km (17 mile) underground particle accelerator, has provided reams of data since it started smashing protons together at close to the speed of light in 2010.
#Wi-fi Aware enables location-based apps without GPS, cell service A new Wi-fi technology will soon let smartphones
and other Wi-fi enabled devices easily find each other and communicate without a cellular or internet connection or GPS.
Wi-fi Aware is a way for devices and apps to scan their surroundings for other devices
and apps they might want to connect to and exchange small messages before making a more solid Wi-fi connection.
Some uses suggested in a promotional video including: Finding someone to play a game with on a subway train.
Finding nearby people to share photos with at a crowded concert. Sending push notifications from a museum about an app that provides more information about exhibits
The new technology was announced this week by the Wifi Alliance, a collaboration of companies involved in making
or selling Wi-fi devices or components, including Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Intel and Samsung. Location-based services have been billed as a convenient way to target information to people, such as shoppers,
where and when they need it, but they have raised also privacy concerns. Many of the technologies used to deliver them also have weaknesses and limitations.
In Wi-fi Aware-certified devices, the service runs continuously in the background, looking for services
or devices that the user has configured it to seek out. While it only allows the exchange of basic information,
users who find what they're looking for can establish a more solid connection via Wi-fi,
or Wi-fi Direct, which allows some devices to connect directly without an internet connection. Regular Wi-fi has sometimes been blamed as a battery drain in smartphones
but the Wi-fi Alliance says Wi-fi Aware operates in a very power efficient way"through a unique process of discovery
and synchronization, establishing a common'heartbeat'".'"Works indoors, in crowds It's billed as working well even indoors somewhere GPS doesn't work very well,
limiting the use of GPS in location-based services. Wi-fi Aware will also work in crowded places like concerts
and protests without a cellular, Wi-fi or GPS connection. Its range is similar to that of a regular Wi-fi connection several dozen metres.
So far, the Wi-fi Aware technology has been incorporated into a wireless chips from Broadcom, Intel, Marvell and Realtek."
"Wi-fi Aware closes many of the gaps preventing other technologies from offering a rich experience where users can fully engage with the world around them,
"said Clint Brown, director of product marketing for Broadcom Corp.,in a statement. Existing technologies used for location-based services all have weaknesses.
GPS doesn't work well indoors, regular Wi-fi is not very power efficient, NFC has an extremely short range,
and Apple's ibeacon, based on Bluetooth Low energy (BLE) is designed to work only with Apple devices. ibeacon:
How much privacy would you give up for a coupon? This week, Google announced its own competitor to ibeacon, known as Eddystone,
which can be compatible with any Bluetooth Smart device, regardless of whether its Apple, Android,
or some other platform. Kevin Robinson, director of product marketing for the Wi-fi Alliance, said another advantage of Wi-fi Aware over beacon technologies is they offer only one-way conversations."
"So you can discover proximity to a uniquely identified service or device but the benefits stop there,
"he said in an email.""Wi-fi Aware enables a two-way conversation that doesn't rely on the cloud."
"For example, he said, existing proximity-based apps can notify travellers that they're near an airport security checkpoint.
But Wi-fi Aware would let the app ask about wait times at that and nearby security checkpoints o
#The future of traffic: Commuting apps, smart cars and smarter parking New apps and other technologies are improving the urban traffic experience.
But there's debate over what impact the existing ones, along with those that are just around the corner,
will have on the future of traffic over the next decade or two. Applications that may make the most difference come from networking data and people.
At least that's what Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto's chief planner, says. Apps that tell commuters when the next bus passes by,
or where there's someone driving who can give you a lift or where there are bicycles to share may be relatively simple,
but she says they offer the biggest opportunity. Nevertheless, Keesmaat says that's just tinkering at the margins of big city traffic problems.
Kenneth Irving, the former CEO of Irving Oil, left three decades in the oil industry to work on improving mobility in cities.
Through his company, Luum, he's pushing tools like carpooling apps to increase the occupants per vehicle while lowering the total number of vehicles on the move.
Irving advocates an integrated platform that brings together automobiles, public transit, cycling and walking, with incentives to drive behaviour,
Ford motor co. pushes a similar strategy with its Blueprint for Mobility, which foresees a transport network connecting vehicles,
transport infrastructure and individual mobile devices. That strategy takes advantage of new-generation cars as rolling collections of sensors
to reduce congestion and prevent accidents, although Ford acknowledges it will require unprecedented co-operation across a number of sectors.
Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute think tank expects those and other technologies, like smart parking
and parking sensors, "will have only modest impacts.""Cities, with Moscow one of the leaders, have been testing
and implementing systems with apps that drivers can use to find out about available parking spots nearby and, in some cases,
and sensors to speed up the parking once they get there. In congested downtowns, drivers looking for parking account for up to a third of the automobile traffic.
and data shows a modest increase in riders because of those apps. A City College of New york study of the New york city system found a two per cent increase in bus ridership through 2013
with much of that increase on the most-travelled routes. While Litman says these technologies will produce incremental improvements,"Every city
One of the dramatic developments the planners did not foresee is that total vehicle miles travelled per capita in the U s. actually began to fall in 2006"
for example through social media and online shopping, are big parts of the explanation for this decline among the Millennial generation.
you'll see more people walking to work. Toronto is directing growth to its main transit corridors.
London does so as well.""We see that as a critical part of mitigating congestion because if we're directing our growth to places people don't have access to by public transit,
For her, public transit, not cars, is where technology could have a transformative role. She notes that increasing vehicle occupancy helps,
but, for example, with 69 per cent of the people coming into downtown Toronto taking public transit,"At the end of the day,
while eventually saving money on salaries through the driverless trains. When he was recently in Istanbul to do a workshop for transit planners,
Litman learned that city is buying a fleet of 400 new buses, all with onboard Wi-fi, USB ports at every seat and bike racks.
He says the incremental costs are tiny for new bus fleets but these features could attract 20 to 40 per cent of people who would otherwise drive.
Jeff Wood monitors developments in urban transport technology at The Direct Transfer website. While he says"transit agencies are pretty far behind the times
"he adds that interesting new things are happening all over the place, from driverless trolleys and subway trains in Copenhagen, Vancouver and elsewhere,
including rapidly charging the batteries of electric buses at their route stops. Wood says increasing the frequency of buses
"public transit integrated with car sharing, bikesharing, Uber, Lyft, and similar services, and eventually autonomous vehicles a
#Cord-cutting grows as more people flee traditional TV, report says In living rooms across the country, viewers are cutting ties with conventional television
and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. Growing number of Canadians cutting traditional television, CBC research shows A new report predicts that cord cutting is poised to gain momentum,
buoyed by the growing choices and ease of use of online video streaming services, like Netflix."
"This is a time of significant transformational change in the traditional TV service market here in Canada,
"says report co-author and International Data Corporation (IDC) analyst Emily Taylor. The IDC report projects that the number of Canadians opting for traditional television services like cable
and satellite will drop by about half a million to 11.3 million subscribers by 2019. The marketing research company also estimates revenue from those same services will decline by 7. 8 per cent over the next five years to $8. 3 billion.
Taylor says many defectors will be lured away by streaming services which over time, have become more user friendly.
She points to tools like Apple TV or Roku video streaming devices, which have made it simple for even technically challenged folk to streamline their online video selections."
"We have those products that you can buy anywhere and make it super easy to cast content
and get content to the big screen and certainly that's compelling for many consumers,
"she says. Cutting the cord gets easy'We are going to save money and we are going to have way more choice'-Chris Devine,
cord-cutter It's compelling enough for the Devine family in Burlington, Ont. With the help of a tech help service, Kutko Canada, Chris and Aleksandra Devine have just set up a Roku device along with Apple TV.
Now they can seamlessly stream a dizzying amount of content onto their big screen TV.
Cutting the TV cord? Call the anti-cable guy"I can see myself getting rid of cable pretty quick.
Because everything that I want to watch is on here and a lot more,"says Chris as he checks out the myriad of offerings from streaming services such as Netflix, HBO Now and Hulu.
His wife asks Chris to show her how to access the last episode of the TV series The Bachelorette.
He clicks a few buttons on his remote and suddenly the episode plays on the big screen."
"I think it's great,"comments Aleksandra. Cable Cutter Chris Devine Chris Devine from Burlington, Ont.
checks out the dizzying number of streaming services that offer viewers an alternative way to watch TV.
CBC) After viewing their options, the Devines soon make a decision to cancel their cable.
"We are going to save money and we are going to have way more choice, "he concludes.
More choice without borders Taylor with IDC says the growing selection of streaming content is another reason viewers are jumping ship from traditional TV.
"Still, no mass exodus Taylor acknowledges that streaming video is a real threat to traditional TV
"The data at this point is simply not there to back up the idea that there is a mass cord-cutting movement that is happening in Canada,
"says the university of Calgary professor. While the Devines have taken the plunge and transformed the way they watch TV,
many Canadians still enjoy tuning in to comfortable, conventional, and habitual services like cable. So, for now, instead of a battle of attrition, it's simply becoming a more crowded marketplace.
And traditional TV will have to make room for the new kid on the block.""They just have to recognize they're not the only game in town anymore,
"says professor Taylor r
#Smartphones tested as tools for medical research Jody Kearns doesn't like to spend time obsessing about her Parkinson's disease.
The 56-year-old dietitian from Syracuse, New york, had to give up bicycling because the disorder affected her balance.
But she still works, drives and tries to live a normal life. Yet since she enrolled in a clinical study that uses her iphone to gather information about her condition,
Kearns has been diligently taking a series of tests three times a day. She taps the phone's screen in a certain pattern, records a spoken phrase and walks a short distance while the phone's motion sensors measure her gait."
"The thing with Parkinson's disease is there's not much you can do about it, "she said of the nervous-system disorder,
which can be managed but has no cure.""So when I heard about this, I thought,
'I can do this."'"'Smartphone apps are the latest tools to emerge from the intersection of health care and Silicon valley,
where tech companies are also working on new ways of bringing patients and doctors together online, applying massive computing power to analyze DNA and even developing ingestible"smart"pills for detecting cancer.
Smartphone Medicine Dr. Michael Mcconnell, a cardiologist who's using an app to study heart disease,
calls a smartphone a great platform for research because it's one thing that people have with them every day.
Eric Risberg/Associated press) More than 75,000 people have enrolled in health studies that use specialized iphone apps, built with software Apple Inc. developed to help turn the popular smartphone into a research tool.
Once enrolled, iphone owners use the apps to submit data on a daily basis, by answering a few survey questions
or using the iphone's built-in sensors to measure their symptoms. Scientists overseeing the studies say the apps could transform medical research by helping them collect information more frequently and from more people, across larger and more diverse regions,
than they're able to reach with traditional health studies. A smartphone"is a great platform for research"
said Dr. Michael Mcconnell, a Stanford university cardiologist, who's using an app to study heart disease."
"It's one thing that people have with them every day.""While the studies are in early stages,
researchers also say a smartphone's microphone, motion sensors and touchscreen can take precise readings that,
in some cases, may be more reliable than a doctor's observations. These can be correlated with other health or fitness data and even environmental conditions, such as smog levels, based on the phone's GPS locater.
Others have had similar ideas. Google Inc. says it's developing a health-tracking wristband specifically designed for medical studies.
Researchers also have tried limited studies that gather data from apps on Android phones. But if smartphones hold great promise for medical research
experts say there are issues to consider when turning vast numbers of people into walking test subjects.
The most important is safeguarding privacy and the data that's collected, according to ethics experts.
In addition, researchers say apps must be designed to ask questions that produce useful information, without overloading participants
or making them lose interest after a few weeks. Study organizers also acknowledge that iphone owners tend to be more affluent and not necessarily an accurate mirror of the world's population.
Democratizes medicine Apple had created previously software called Healthkit for apps that track iphone owners'health statistics and exercise habits.
Senior vice president Jeff Williams said the company wants to help scientists by creating additional software for more specialized apps
using the iphone's capabilities and vast user base estimated at 70 million or more in North america alone."
"This is advancing research and helping to democratize medicine, "Williams said in an interview. Apple launched its Researchkit program in March with five apps to investigate Parkinson's, asthma, heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer.
A sixth app was released last month to collect information for a long-term health study of gays and lesbians by the University of California,
San francisco. Williams said more are being developed. For scientists, a smartphone app is a relatively inexpensive way to reach thousands of people living in different settings and geographic areas.
Traditional studies may only draw a few hundred participants said Dr. Ray Dorsey, a University of Rochester neurologist who's leading the Parkinson's app study called mpower."
"Participating in clinical studies is often a burden, "he explained.""You have to live near where the study's being conducted.
You have to be able to take time off work and go in for frequent assessments.""Smartphones also offer the ability to collect precise readings, Dorsey added.
One test in the Parkinson's study measures the speed at which participants tap their fingers in a particular sequence on the iphone's touchscreen.
Dorsey said that's more objective than a process still used in clinics, where doctors watch patients tap their fingers
and assign them a numerical score. Some apps rely on participants to provide data. Elizabeth Ortiz, a 48-year-old New york nurse with asthma, measures her lung power each day by breathing into an inexpensive plastic device.
She types the results into the Asthma Health app which also asks if she's had difficulty breathing or sleeping,
or taken medication that day.""I'm a Latina woman and there's a high rate of asthma in my community,
"said Ortiz, who said she already used her iphone"constantly"for things like banking and email."
"I figured that participating would help my family and friends, and anyone else who suffers from asthma."
"None of the apps test experimental drugs or surgeries. Instead, they're designed to explore such questions as how diseases develop
or how sufferers respond to stress, exercise or standard treatment regimens. Stanford's Mcconnell said he also wants to study the effect of giving participants feedback on their progress,
or reminders about exercise and medication i
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