Curious about the Amazon Echo? New website lets users experience Alexa first-hand
With a rumored 3 million+ units sold, the Amazon Echo has been something of a sleeper hit for the online retail giant. In fact, the surprising success of the Echo has created a whirlwind of competition in the smart-home space: Google recently unveiled Google Home and now there are rumors that Apple is planning to release its own stand-alone Echo competitor.
In an effort to show users what using Echo is like, developer and Echo-enthusiast Sam Machin recently launched a new website at Echosim.io that allows users to take Amazon’s AI software for a test drive. Originally spotted by TechCrunch, interested users must first login with an Amazon account and, following that, they can see what all the fuss about Alexa is about.
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U.S. Special Forces will soon have a new weapon at their disposal: Stealth motorcycles
Over the past few decades, the military has made great strides towards improving its stealth technology. Today, the U.S. Air Force can make use of stealth fighter jets and stealth bombers while the U.S. Navy can just as easily deploy stealth submarines and even stealth ships.
But what if a particular mission calls for something a bit smaller and just a tad more mobile? Meet the stealth motorcycle.
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The definitive guide to not updating to Windows 10
Microsoft wants you to upgrade to Windows 10. Like, a lot. So much so that if you leave your PC to its own devices for too long, you might come back and find that Cortana has settled in and made itself at home.
If you want to hang on your Windows 7 or 8 install without having to live in fear of an unexpected update (like this unfortunate TV weather crew), or if you want to prevent Windows 10 from spying on practically everything you do, we’ve put together the definitive guide.
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2 insanely powerful liquid-cooled PCs are on sale on Amazon until the end of May
Desktop computers have never been more affordable than they are right now. You can get a surprisingly capable machine for cheaper than ever before, and prices will likely continue to fall in the coming months and years. But if you need a truly powerful PC for gaming or hardcore computing, the price will never be the first concern. You need lightning-fast processors, tons of RAM and storage, and top-of-the-line graphics cards that can feed multiple displays.
Lucky for you, Amazon has a killer sale going right now on two different cutting-edge PCs with more power than most people would know what to do with.
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9 new movie trailers you need to watch from this past week
It’s the end of May, which means that X-Men: Apocalypse is finally hitting theaters all over the world; following its international launch, the new X-Men movie is now finally playing in the US. If you’re going to ignore all the critics who slammed it and see the most terrifying X-Men villain yet, you should expect a bombardment of new trailers, including a few exciting new ones.
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No one needs a Wi-Fi router this overkill
Look, I get it. Bad Wi-Fi is one of life’s worst tortures, up there with rush-hour traffic and Comcast customer service. But surely there’s a solution that’s a little more sane than this $400 Linksys router that looks like it wants to rip my head off?
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Watch Mark Zuckerberg call the International Space Station on Wednesday
Facebook will be getting social with astronauts next week.
The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will be chatting live with astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, and viewers will be able to both watch and submit questions for him to ask, NASA announced Friday.
Interested parties on Earth can tune into NASA’s Facebook page for the 20-minute video call, which will begin at 12:55 p.m. EDT on June 2. Zuckerberg will be speaking with two NASA astronauts on the ISS, Jeff Williams and Tim Kopra, as well as Tim Peake of the European Space Agency.
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Donald Trump can’t give Jimmy Kimmel a straight answer about transgender bathroom laws
The presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live this Wednesday.
As has become the norm for his talk show appearances, it was a relatively mellow affair, with Trump avoiding any of the colorful language or boisterous claims that draw crowds to his rallies all across the country, but there was one moment in particular that stood out like a sore thumb among the rest of the banter.
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Why Jeff Bezos’s space company is going to deliberately crash a spaceship
Space is hard, and space is even harder when you take away all the parachutes. But that’s exactly what Blue Origin, the pet space company of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is going to do on its next test flight.
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This backpack computer makes a PC-grade virtual reality experience portable
One of the problems with virtual reality is that it’s not really portable. You’ve got your Google Cardboard and Gear VR products that can turn your mobile phone into a VR machine, but that’s not the powerful VR experience many users want. That’s what the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are for. But such advanced VR headsets have to be tethered to a computer that can deliver enough horsepower to offer you a more immersive VR experience.
Luckily, some companies have figured out a clever way to offer users a mobile VR experience that is PC-grade. MSI is one of them, and the company has just come up with a Backpack PC that will let you take VR anywhere you want to go. Or at least, it will prevent you from tripping over wires.
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