A Spiky Outdoor Speaker That Charges Your Gadgets

Image: Outdoor Tech

It’s pretty hard for a Bluetooth speaker to stand out these days, but Outdoor Tech’s Big Turtle Shell commands attention for a few reasons. It’s summertime antics-proof, it keeps your other devices’ batteries topped off while you listen to music, and it will get loud.

The Big Turtle Shell looks like a geometric approximation of the Batmobile Tumbler. It comes in black. And those sharp angles on the speaker’s surface are designed for more than just looking interesting. When the speaker is laid flat, all that choppy terrain helps it push sound in directions other than straight up in the air.

You don’t have to lay the Big Turtle Shell speaker down, though. There’s a flat surface on one side so you can use it as a front-firing speaker too. In that orientation, the power, volume, and track-navigation buttons are on top of it. You can also hang the Turtle Shell on things and use it to aim Christopher Cross cuts in whatever direction you want thanks to large handles built into its sides. It’s about the size of a pound cake.

Not only does the Big Turtle Shell offer impressive battery life—its 7,800 mAh battery gives you up to 16 hours of playtime per charge, according to Outdoor Tech—but it also lets you sip off that high-capacity cell to charge your other devices. There’s a USB port built into the side of it, and the speaker can charge smartphones as well as iPads and other devices that require 2.1-amp charging.

That makes it a useful multi-purpose tool for camping, beach trips, and other outdoor adventures. The Big Turtle Shell is shock proof, sand- and dust-proof, and water-resistant. So you can dump water on it, but it’s not built for complete submersion.

Feature-wise, it seems built to go toe-to-toe with the Big Jambox. Both of them get as loud as a power saw, with a peak loudness of 110 decibels. You can daisy-chain a couple of Big Turtle Shells together via a 3.5mm audio-out port, and the speaker supports Bluetooth 4.0, NFC pairing, and line-in input through a 3.5mm port.

This versatile speaker comes in at a lower price than the Big Jambox, too. It costs $230, and ships in two weeks. Keep in mind that we tested the Big Turtle Shell’s little brother a few years ago, and the sound quality didn’t exactly blow us away. This version is much bigger though, and the amply-sized passive radiator on the bottom offers at least some hope for better sound quality.

How Porsche Made the Targa’s Iconic Pop-Top Even Better

1 | Shaped Glass

The most complicated piece of the Targa puzzle wasn’t the mechanics; it was the glass. The rear window was judged by most parts manufacturers as too big and curvy to make. But after a two year search, Porsche found a supplier with an oven large and sophisticated enough to bake the enormous pane.

2 | Mechanical Ballet

Press a button and the Targa transforms. As hydraulic cylinders raise the rear glass, two panel covers lift and move inward, allowing the roof’s arms to rise and pivot back. Hydraulics pull the magnesium-coated Teflon top over the roll bar and stow it in a rear compartment just above the engine.

3 | Safety Meets Style

The defining characteristic of the original Targa was its metal hoop concealing a roll bar. In a nod to the car’s heritage, Porsche retained the familiar basket-handle look. But today’s design isn’t as simple: Die-cast aluminum panels hide intricate mechanics and a massive molded steel roll bar.

4 | Open Sesame

It’s hard to sell a $100K car that requires the owner to do manual labor. The original Targa’s roof was a rigid scaffolding covered in vinyl; popping the top meant lifting it off. The new, fully automated system is quicker and easier—the driver only has to lift one finger.

How to Design a Killer Logo With Super Lame Fonts

Pentagram's Natasha Jen designed the graphic identity for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale using two totally ordinary fonts: Arial and Times New Roman.

Pentagram's Natasha Jen designed the graphic identity for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale using two totally ordinary fonts: Arial and Times New Roman.

With those two fonts her team created a sprawling identity system that encompassed a logo, letter templates, infographics, publication layout and maps. Image: Pentagram

With those two fonts her team created a sprawling identity system that encompassed a logo, letter templates, infographics, publication layout and maps.

Image: Pentagram

Here, a chart that compresses the entire working history of dozens of major U.S. architecture firms, into one elegant chart. Image: Pentagram

Here, a chart that compresses the entire working history of dozens of major U.S. architecture firms, into one elegant chart.

Image: Pentagram

A more detailed view. Image: Pentagram

A more detailed view.

Image: Pentagram

The same data, as a circular chart. Image: Pentagram

The same data, as a circular chart.

Image: Pentagram

Another layout. You can see how Jen used as many typographical tricks as possible, to make the fonts feel contemporary, alive, and less familiar. Image: Pentagram

Another layout. You can see how Jen used as many typographical tricks as possible, to make the fonts feel contemporary, alive, and less familiar.

Image: Pentagram

That same layout, in full. Image: Pentagram

That same layout, in full.

Image: Pentagram

The choice to use Arial and Times New Roman was more pragmatic than superficial. Here, a poster from one of the brochures, showing a graphic style that marries with the font features.A detail of the previous page.

The choice to use Arial and Times New Roman was more pragmatic than superficial. Here, a poster from one of the brochures, showing a graphic style that marries with the font features.A detail of the previous page.

The full layout. Image: Pentagram

The full layout.

Image: Pentagram

System fonts are like Top 40 radio: Fine for the masses but easy to snub if you’re of more discerning taste. It’s easy to look down on the default typefaces we find on our PCs and Macs (think Verdana, Comic Sans and Arial), especially if you’re in the business of making fonts look good. “As graphic designers, we tend to spend a lot of time and energy picking out bespoke fonts,” says Natasha Jen, a partner at Pentagram. “My habit was to always think, what will be a new cool font for this, or what’s the most exquisite cut for that?”

It’s funny then, that for her newest project, Jen and her team actually did the exact opposite. When asked to design a graphic identity for the US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Pentagram decided to do it using two of the most common fonts available: Arial and Times New Roman. With these fonts alone, Pentagram designed a sprawling identity system that encompassed a logo, letter templates, infographics, publication layout and maps. And if you ask us, the fonts look pretty damn good.

Deciding to design an entire identity with two of the most widely-used fonts is certainly an unorthodox choice. In fact, asked about the last time she used Times New Roman or Arial in a logo, Jen responds, “Never.” But the biennale identity was born more from practicality.

Less Headaches for Everyone

The U.S. pavilion will be a working office, where six architects will conduct business as usual for the 25 week span of the biennale. Sure, it would look cool if you chose a stylish bespoke font in your letter template, but you’d give everyone headaches because of it. Pentagram wanted the identity’s typefaces to be useful. “Fonts aren’t something people think about until they become a problem,” says Jen. “These fonts are automatically in every computer system, so the staff working in the office will never confront issues.”

Ideally, graphic identities do more than look pretty. And while Pentagram’s vision actually contributes to the efficiency of the work environment, graphic designers will be graphic designers. “The challenge was how do you use these two seemingly mundane fonts to actually create interesting design to create something of beauty,” says Jen.

Jen is also a speaker at WIRED by Design. Stanley Chow for WIRED

To be fair, there are things to admire about both fonts. Ariel is a direct decedent of Helvetica (“one of the very few perfect fonts,” says Jen). It shares Helvetica’s weight, cuts of certain angles and the smooth curves of the letters. Times New Roman, explains Jen, is like a perfectly proportioned woman. “It’s not too fat and not too thin,” she says. It has meat in the places it needs it.” Individually, both make for beautiful body copy, and together they strike a perfect balance.

But it turns out, more important than the typeface itself is how you use it. Jen says they spent a year tweaking the nuances of each font, paying particular attention to the spacing, kerning and tracking of each letter. “It has much less to do with the typefaces as an object, and more in how you use them,” she says. “I was relearning all of this, and that was a very beautiful thing.”

Click here for information WIRED by Design, a live magazine.

This Week’s Apple Rumors, Ranked From Dumbest to Most Plausible

The iMac will be getting a Retina upgrade eventually. Photo: Alex Washburn/WIRED

Each week, there are dozens of rumors, reports, and patent filings that hint at what’s coming out of Cupertino next. Some are legit, but many are totally bogus. With this year’s WWDC behind us, there’s not much in the rumor department, but there are a heck of a lot of hints about what’s coming next in iOS and OS X based on code leaks. Below are some of the biggest expected updates, both in terms of hardware and software, that we’ve seen since developers got access to iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

Retina iMacs Are on the Way

The developer preview of OS X Yosemite includes a new file with display scaling resolution options for an iMac that doesn’t yet exist. The resolutions listed range up to a Retina display-level 3,200 x 1,800, and even up to 6,400 x 3,600 pixels. The native resolution of the display would be 5,120 x 2,880, which is twice the pixel count of today’s 27-inch iMac. MacRumors explains that this is similar to what we see in today’s Retina MacBook Pro: “While the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has a native resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 (giving screen real estate of 1,440 x 900 as Retina), the system is capable of generating a 3,840 x 2,400 desktop that is then scaled down to give the real estate of a 1,920 x 1,200 display.” We’ve been hearing that Apple is working on a Retina display iMac, but it’s probably taken time to hone the manufacturing process for getting satisfactory yields for such a large, high-resolution screen.

Larger-Size iPhones on the Way, Xcode Hints

The latest version of Apple’s Xcode software, Xcode 6, lets developers mock up their iOS designs on simulated screen resolutions of their choice, not just existing ones. That means they could check out how their app would look on a 4.7-inch or 5.5-inch iPhone, for example—the sizes expected to debut at Apple’s next iPhone event in the fall. While it’s not concrete evidence, it’s the most solid indicator Apple can offer that developers might want to check how their interfaces work on devices of various size and resolution.

M7 Processor Is Enabling Indoor Positioning in iOS 8

Using the sensors in your iOS device, like the M7 coprocessor and Wi-Fi chip, iOS 8 enables accurate indoor positioning. Until now, GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data could pinpoint your location to within about a block of your actual location. But now, iOS 8 can pick out your exact indoor location—in venues that house iBeacons. While this verges on creepy, it does have a lot of utility: Imagine getting turn-by-turn directions in the mall, or to the hot dog stand at a baseball game, or even to where the health food section is at the grocery store. A couple of Bay Area locations like the San Jose International Airport and California Academy of Sciences actually already have indoor positioning in place, but with iOS 8, it’ll be available on a mass scale. In addition to this, Apple also appears to be promoting apps based on your location, so if you’re near a Starbucks, for example, a Starbucks app icon will appear in the lower left of your homescreen (whether you’ve downloaded the app or not). This is an interesting way to push app discovery and provide greater utility when you’re somewhere that a dedicated app might be able to help you.

Apple Giving Users More Control Over Battery Life

It’s always a bummer when you download or update a bunch of new apps, and one (or more) of them turns out to be a battery hog. When iOS 8 comes out, you’ll have better control over when apps can use your data, and know which apps are taking the biggest toll on your battery life. A new feature called “Visit Monitoring” lets apps ask permission not just for location data, but specifically if they can use location data only when the app is in use. This should improve efficiency for many apps that might otherwise poll your location, or other sensor data, even when you’re not using it. Paired with the ability to individually monitor apps’ battery usage, it’s clear Apple wants to give users greater control over a better iOS experience when it comes to daily battery usage.

YbeY is essential for fitness and virulence of V. cholerae, keeps RNA household in order

YbeY is a conserved protein that is present in most bacteria. A study published on June 5th in PLOS Pathogens examines the function of YbeY in the cholera bacterium and reveals critical roles in RNA metabolism in this and other pathogenic bacteria.

Graham Walker, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and colleagues previously studied E. coli YbeY and found that it acts as an "RNase" -- a protein that deliberately and specifically cuts RNA molecules and thereby regulates their availability and activity. Turning to Vibrio cholerae to examine the role of YbeY in disease-causing pathogens, they now report that YbeY is essential in this pathogen, critical for cell fitness and general stress tolerance, and involved in the regulation of different classes of RNA targets.

Like in higher organisms, genetic information contained in the DNA of bacteria gets "transcribed" into RNA molecules. Some of these RNAs serve as templates for proteins, others form part of the bacterial protein factories (so-called ribosomes), and yet another group consists of small regulatory RNAs that modulate cellular functions of the bacteria and their hosts. The researchers demonstrate that YbeY is needed in generating the components for functional ribosomes, for their assembly, and for ribosome quality control -- eliminating defective protein factories before they turn out faulty products.

In addition, they find that YbeY targets virulence-associated small regulatory RNAs. Consistent with these functions, reducing the amount of YbeY makes V. cholerae less harmful (or virulent) in a mouse cholera model. The researchers also show that YbeY belongs to a set of conserved RNases that are essential in many different pathogens, including Streptococcus pneumoniae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

They conclude that "although functionally associated with a well-established antibiotic target, the ribosome, YbeY is so far unexploited as a drug target and its use . . . might lead to the discovery of completely novel antibiotic scaffolds" and suggest that "considering YbeY's high level of conservation, its essential nature in many pathogens, and its ability to sensitize pathogens by disrupting stress tolerance and virulence, a YbeY-specific antibiotic could have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity."

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The above story is based on materials provided by PLOS . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

One and done: New antibiotic could provide single-dose option

In the battle against stubborn skin infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a new single-dose antibiotic is as effective as a twice-daily infusion given for up to 10 days, according to a large study led by Duke Medicine researchers.

Researchers said the advantage of the new drug, oritavancin, is its potential to curtail what has been a key driver of antibiotic resistance: a tendency for patients to stop taking antibiotics once they feel better. In such instances, the surviving bacteria may become impervious to the drugs designed to fight them.

"The prolonged activity is what makes oritavancin distinctive," said G. Ralph Corey, M.D., lead author of the study published June 5, 2014, in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). "This drug has a long half-life, which allows for a single-dose treatment."

Corey, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Duke University School of Medicine, led a three-year study of oritavancin that encompassed two large clinical trials enrolling nearly 2,000 patients. Findings from the trials will be presented to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as part of the drug's approval application.

Results reported in the NEJM are for the first of the two clinical trials, which included 475 patients randomized to take the investigational drug, and 479 patients following a typical regimen of vancomycin, including two infusions a day, for seven to 10 days.

Researchers found that the single intravenous dose of oritavancin was as effective as vancomycin in shrinking the size of the lesion and reducing fever. Both were also similar in rates of requiring a rescue antibiotic.

The new antibiotic also performed similarly to vancomycin in reducing the area of the wound by 20 percent or more within the first 48-72 hours of treatment, and in curing the patients of infection, including those infected with MRSA.

"Having a single-dose drug could potentially prevent hospitalizations or reduce the amount of time patients would spend in the hospital," Corey said.

In addition to Corey, study authors include Heidi Kabler of Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas; Purvi Mehra and William O'Riordan of Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center in Chula Vista, Calif.; Sandeep Gupta of MV Hospital and Research Center in Lucknow, India; J. Scott Overcash of Sharp Grossmont Hospital in San Diego; Ashwin Porwal of Inamdar Multispecialty Hospital in Pune, India; Philip Giordano of Orlando Health in Orlando, Fla.; Christopher Lucasti of Somers Point, N.J.; and Antonio Perez, Samantha Good, Hai Jiang and Greg Moeck of The Medicines Company.

The study was funded by The Medicines Company, which owns and is seeking to market oritavancin. Corey was a paid consultant to The Medicines Company and the principle investigator of the SOLO trials, the three-year study of oritavancin.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Duke Medicine . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

'Clever' DNA may help bacteria survive

Scientists have discovered that bacteria can reshape their DNA to survive dehydration.

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Interface, shows that bacterial DNA can change from the regular double helix -- known as B-DNA, to the more compact A-DNA form, when faced with hostile conditions such as dehydration.

Crucially, scientists have pinpointed a unique process in DNA, called the B-A-B transition, which allows it to change its structure in response to environmental change. Without impacting on the ability of the bacteria to function and reproduce, this unique structural alteration sees the B-DNA change to A-DNA, and then revert back to its original B-DNA form to ensure the bacteria survive.

Associate Professor Bayden Wood, from Monash University said the study gives vital new information on how bacteria can survive periods of time in arid environments.

"Our findings may be important in understanding how dormant bacteria that are transferred from dry surfaces may become active and reproduce in the human body,' Associate Professor Wood said.

PhD student and first author of the paper, Donna Whelan said the most common form of DNA found in most organisms is B-DNA. However, the A-form has been thought to show protective qualities to allow bacterial spores to survive high UV exposure and other extreme environmental conditions.

"Our research, which utilised infrared light to investigate the structure of DNA inside live bacteria, demonstrates that bacteria can survive by adopting the A-DNA form after the majority of water is removed -- and that really is groundbreaking," Donna Whelan said.

The new findings build on research led by Associate Professor Wood and Donna Whelan in 2011 at the Australian Synchrotron, which indicated the same B-A-B DNA transition occurs in all cell types. Significantly, the team has now discovered this change may have a biological function in bacteria, potentially assisting them to survive dehydration.

Associate Professor Bayden Wood said the ability for DNA to transform and then change back again in human cells had puzzled scientists until now.

"In human cells the DNA is tightly bound by proteins known as histones, so the fact that it can change to a different form and then change back again is fascinating. We have no biological reason for why this DNA transition happens in human cells, but we may now understand its role in bacteria," Associate Professor Wood said.

The interdisciplinary team at Monash investigated four species of bacteria using live cells. By carefully hydrating and dehydrating the bacteria and then analysing the cells using an infrared-based technique, which detects the vibrations of DNA, the team found all four species underwent the same B-A-B transition.

Professor Julian Rood, who coordinated the microbiology aspects of the research, said that because the majority of bacteria remained fully functional after hydration and rehydration the results suggest A-DNA may have a highly evolved protective capacity to ensure survival.

"We discovered A-DNA has an amazing ability to protect and ensure life continues even under extreme stress, in this case dehydration. In our tests, even after the majority of water was removed, A-DNA kicked in and then changed back to B-DNA to help the bacteria survive," Professor Rood said.

The next phase of the research will see the team investigate how bacteria survive other conditions such as temperature, pH levels, oxygen, nutrients and antimicrobials and discover what role the 'clever' DNA plays under these conditions.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Monash University . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.