Archives for February 14, 2018

Can’t live with ’em, and can’t live without ’em. No, we’re not talking about the significant other in your life. Rather, we’re talking about the other relationship you’re more invested in than you may like to admit — that with your electronics, and specifically, your phone. Given that marriage therapist Winifred Reilly tells Digital Trends that 80 percent of folks under 24 sleep with their phones (61 percent of whom are single, no surprise), it’s safe to say that we’re a generation truly obsessed with tiny screens. And when those screens break, all hell breaks loose.

Luckily, a cracked device doesn’t have to be cause for panic — not with Puls.

Founded in 2015, Puls is a rapid-response services platform for a wide range of smart devices. The company offers in-home repair services for just about any smartphone you may have. In October, the company partnered with Google to expand its services for the Google Pixel and Pixel XL to cities across the U.S., and also added repairs for the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones.

“Puls has built a strong business around seamless, same-day, in-home repair and installation services for smart technology devices,” explained Eyal Ronen, CEO and co-founder of Puls. “We come to your home or office, in under an hour, and provide the service on the spot.”

While the company is based in San Francisco, it offers services throughout the major cities of the U.S., including Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York, just to name a few. By using proprietary technology, Puls promises to intelligently match and instantly dispatch the necessary repair person in order to address damaged mobile devices.

But that isn’t the only service in Puls’ wheelhouse. The company also offers smart home device setup as well as TV mounting, and help generally arrives at your front door in less than 60 minutes. As Ronen noted, “TVs are getting bigger, smarter, and cheaper every year, thanks to advances in screen technology and manufacturing processes. Such large screens must be carefully and securely mounted on the wall.” Puls technicians promise “fast, reliable, professional TV installation, so you don’t drop your new TV, or drill into your wiring.”

And if your TV is a smart one, the company can help with that as well. Whether it’s setting up streaming features, connecting an audio system, or just figuring out how to get Alexa to talk to your new television set, the company can help.

Puls isn’t necessarily the only company that provides such services, however. For your phone repairs, there’s iCracked, which comes to your home or office to repair your smartphone or tablet. And there are a number of smartphone makers, including Samsung, that will offer the same convenience as well. That said, Puls seems to be one of the few companies that not only offers phone repairs, but a wide range of technical services as well. After all, if you’re smartphone-obsessed, chances are you have at least one smart home hub or other connected device in your home.

The company has technicians with the right parts for each job available from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time, seven days a week, including holidays. Pricing is straightforward and can be found on the company website before you ever call a technician to your door, so you shouldn’t suffer from any sticker shock.

So if you’re in need of some on-demand repairs for your tech-savvy life, Puls may just be the service you’ve been waiting for. And to sweeten the deal around Valentine’s Day, the company is offering customers a free tempered glass repair with the code “freeglass.”

The first ever alien visitor from outside our solar system was sent flying into our vicinity after colliding with another astronomical body billions of years ago.

Oumuamua, the interstellar asteroid that fascinated space enthusiasts all over the world when it came flying into the path of our telescopes last October, had a ‘violent past’, according to new research.

The interstellar rock was immediately recognised as unusual when it was spotted by astronomers in Hawaii.

Its discovery marked the first observation of a planetesimal – that is, a small body like an asteroid or comet – born in an entirely different planetary system entering our own.

On top of this, Oumuamua’s long, thin shape was unlike anything scientists had seen in our solar system, and the object appeared to be wrapped in an organic coat that shielded the frozen water inside from the Sun.

So unusual was Oumuamua, in fact, that one group of scientists decided to scan its surface in a hunt for alien technology.

That search proved fruitless, but Dr Wesley Fraser at Queen’s University Belfast and his collaborators have published a series of studies since the discovery of the alien object in which they have attempted to comprehensively unravel its mysteries.

In their latest research, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, they have attempted to build a more accurate profile of Oumuamua, suggesting where it came from, and where it is going.

“We now know that beyond its unusual elongated shape, this space cucumber had origins around another star, has had a violent past, and tumbles chaotically because of it,” said Dr Fraser.

“Our results are really helping to paint a more complete picture of this strange interstellar interloper. It is quite unusual compared to most asteroids and comets we see in our own solar system.”

By analysing the brightness measurements of the object – and how these changed over time – the scientists realised Oumuamua was not spinning periodically like most solar system bodies, but instead spinning chaotically.

According to the scientists, the object could have been in this state for billions of years already, and likely will continue like this for the foreseeable future.

“Our modelling of this body suggests the tumbling will last for many billions of years to hundreds of billions of years before internal stresses cause it to rotate normally again,” said Dr Fraser.

“While we don’t know the cause of the tumbling, we predict that it was most likely sent tumbling by an impact with another planetesimal in its system, before it was ejected into interstellar space.”

Another mysterious aspect of Oumuamua is it colour. Early reports suggested the object had a dark red colour, but Dr Fraser’s research suggested its surface is actually spotty.

When the long face of the object was facing Earth it was largely red, but the new analysis suggested that the rest of the body was likely neutral coloured – “like dirty snow”.

The scientists think Oumuamua is in all likelihood an asteroid, and not an alien spacecraft. However, there is still much about this interstellar visitor, and objects like it, that remains to be understood.

Researchers have suggested there could be more than 46 million similar interstellar objects crossing the solar system every year.

While most of these objects will be too far away to see with current technology, future telescopes should enable scientists to understand more about interstellar messengers like Oumuamua.