Samsung stresses improved battery safety during Galaxy Note8 launch event

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

In case you missed it, Samsung has launched a successor to the doomed Galaxy Note7 phablet. The Galaxy Note8, an enormous 6.3-inch smartphone featuring all the latest Samsung technologies, is coming on September 15 and will be sold in Canada through Bell, Eastlink, Freedom, MTS, Rogers, Sasktel, Telus and Videotron. Off contract price is a whopping $1,200.00! Making this the most expensive Samsung handset in recent memory.

The big question many consumers have is, how safe is the Note8 given its predecessor's battery defects and subsequent $5.3 billion dollar recall. Samsung seems to have addressed this during today's launch.

"Samsung continues to uphold its commitment to lead the industry in battery safety. The Galaxy Note8’s battery has undergone our Samsung 8-point battery check," Samsung explained.

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Carpool Karaoke: The Series features the Stark Sisters from GOT

In an attempt to stay topical and hip, Carpool Karaoke featured actresses Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner (Arya and Sansa Stark from the hugely successful Game of Thrones show on HBO). While the two actresses aren't singers, which makes their inclusion something of a departure from the format, they do offer some humourous moments, including speaking like Ned Stark. Check out the teaser video above.

Microsoft shuts down Surface Support Twitter account

It’s not the first time Microsoft has shut down a support account on Twitter. The company shut down @LumiaHelp before when the Lumia brand went away. And now the brand is doing something similar with @SurfaceSupport, but it doesn’t mean they are shutting down Surface, despite its recent controversy. Instead, Microsoft looks like they want to consolidate their support account under one handle. The company is urging users to reach out to @MicrosoftHelps for any device or service inquiry.

Source: MS Power User

Dyson engineers take on Global Rapid Development Challenge

Dyson sent over a press release asking the question: “What can be achieved in just 24-hours when you set Dyson engineers on a rapid development challenge?” A lot, apparently. Two hundred Dyson hardware, mechanical, software, and electronics engineers from the UK and Singapore had to team up to design and build an intelligent machine that follows one of the themes: The Connected Home, Gamification of Dyson Products, and Accessibility through Usability. They had to accomplish this within 24 hours. And with that short amount of time, the participants on average were only able to sleep for two hours during the event, they wrote over 6,000 lines of code, and downed over 500 energy drinks and coffee.

The winning group came from the UK. They modified a Jake Dyson CSYS task light by augmenting its motors drive mechanism and hooking these up to an Arduino electronics board. With computer programming it transfers data to the light and having the machine draw highly detailed images. As you see at the end of the video above, it shows the machine drawing a portrait of Jake Dyson himself.