It’s apparent once again that virtual reality has finally reached the point to where it actually feels pretty real. Now we might not be so far away from a Lawnmower Man-like future.

[h/t: lleti via Reddit]

The Xbox Netflix app will be unlocked this weekend – meaning that those with just an Xbox LIVE Silver membership will be able to utilize the app (as long as you have a Netflix subscription). Usually, you must have an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription to access Netflix.

“If you’ve been yearning for more of the Bluth family, look no further. The new season of Arrested Development finally premieres this Sunday, May 26. And it gets even better. Starting today, Xbox Live Gold will be unlocked* for the weekend for Netflix members in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. Basically, we’ve made it ridiculously really easy for you to catch up on the first three seasons of Arrested Development. If you’re not a Netflix member, fear not,” says the Xbox Wire.

The new season of Arrested Development drops (all 15 episodes) at 12:01 am PT on Sunday. Netflix offers a free 1-month trial right now, so it looks like the perfect storm for Xbox LIVE Silver members who want to watch via their Xbox. If you want to get caught up, you have until then to stream the first 3 seasons, which are all available on Netflix.

This sort of deal promotes binge watching – but be careful. According to Arrested Development’s creator, that could make it less fun. Marathonning is hard to resist, however. So, do what you want.

The article questions the safety of Google Glass. It doesn’t so much question the safety of the device itself, but that of the human brain and how it would deal with the the real world while wearing the device. The duo says:

According to the results of two representative national surveys we conducted, about 70 percent of Americans believe that “people will notice when something unexpected enters their field of view, even when they’re paying attention to something else.”

Yet experiments that we and others have conducted showed that people often fail to notice something as obvious as a person in a gorilla suit in situations where they are devoting attention to something else. Researchers using eye-tracking devices found that people can miss the gorilla even when they look right at it. This phenomenon of “inattentional blindness” shows that what we see depends not just on where we look but also on how we focus our attention.

While a person in a gorilla suit may seem like a funny example, this is actually a pretty important subject, particularly if the device goes mainstream.

Some states are already looking at banning the device while driving. As discussed in a recent article, however, one of the engineers behind Google Glass has spoken about “super vision” and “night vision” one day being possibilities with the technology.

There are other apparent dangers of wearing Google Glass. For one, as Google says right in its own Glass FAQ that it could be harmful to some eyes, particularly children’s.

“Glass isn’t for everyone. Like when wearing glasses, some people may feel eye strain or get a headache,” Google says. “If you’ve had Lasik surgery, ask your doctor about risks of eye impact damage before using Glass. Don’t let children under 13 use Glass as it could harm developing vision. Also, kids might break Glass or hurt themselves, and Google’s terms of service don’t permit those under 13 to register a Google account.”

Another danger would be getting punched in the face by this guy.

Image: 2001: A Space Odyssey (MGM/Warner Bros.)

On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul introduced the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act, or S. 1037, to the Senate. Like other bills before it, the proposed legislation aims to require law enforcement to obtain warrants when accessing any kind of personal information online, including email, chat logs, online bank accounts and more.

Paul said that his bill will “reassert Fourth Amendment protections” online:

“Congress has passed a variety of laws that decimate our Fourth Amendment protections. In effect, it means that Americans can only count on Fourth Amendment protections if they don’t use email, cellphones, the Internet, credit cards, libraries, banks or other forms of modern finance and communications.

Basic constitutional rights should not be invalidated by carrying out basic, day-to-day functions in a technologically advanced world, and this bill will provide much needed clarity and reassert Fourth Amendment protections for records held by third parties.”

Paul’s bill enters the Senate only a month after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2013. Unlike Leahy’s bill, however, Paul’s bill would ensure all online data held by third parties is protected by the Fourth Amendment.

In a perfect world, Paul’s bill would join forces with Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s Online Communications and Geolocation Protection Act to create powerful Fourth Amendment protections for all.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where Congress is content to put a bandaid on a bullet wound. In other words, we’re probably going to get a bill that requires a warrant when obtaining emails, but only under very limited circumstances. The majority of your personal data stored online would still be subject to warrantless searches.

[h/t: The Hill]

Sources close to Apple told 9to5Mac that the next iteration of Apple’s iOS software will be getting a complete redesign. That redesign will predominantly sport black and white colors while toning down on the textured look that iOS has been known for since its inception in 2007.

Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive (aka the guy who designed the iPhone hardware) is now in charge of the iOS7 overhaul. He is expected to bring the simplistic design of his hardware to iOS 7. He reportedly feels that Apple’s iOS has become complicated in recent years with different visual designs for different apps. His design would unite all of Apple’s software under a common aesthetic principle while retaining the simplicity of use iOS fans have come to expect.

Ive’s new black and white approach to UI design will find its way into pretty much every facet of the next iteration of iOS. Some examples include a lock screen that’s no longer transparent, notifications that ditch the current leather look in favor of a white text on black background, and the home screen will be removing gradient textures from backgrounds and app icons.

Speaking of apps, all of Apple’s apps have reportedly been redesigned with the new black and white look in mind. One example is the Notes app, which currently features a yellow notepad look. The new design will likely feature a simplistic white look with black text.

Outside of design, the new mobile OS will also reportedly include integration with Flickr and Vimeo.

We’re likely to see if the above rumors are true at Apple’s WWDC keynote on June 10. The developer-focused event will likely not feature a lot of new hardware (sorry iPhone fans), but we’ll probably get our first look at iOS 7 and the next version of Mac OS X.

This one doesn’t seem to be done in a mean-spirited way, but it does show you how silly you could look while taking pictures with Glass – one of things it’s supposed to be great for.

[via Gizmodo]

Anonymous sources speaking to Geek say that HTC is now working on a version of the HTC One that will ship with stock Android 4.2.2 instead of its HTC Sense software. If true, it could potentially be a major win for HTC as it’s aiming to capture more of the market that’s been cornered by Samsung in recent years.

Of course, there is one question we must ask – why bother with a Nexus edition of the HTC One when people can already buy the HTC One developer edition and flash their own custom ROMs on the device? Well, some people adore the vanilla Google experience, but don’t know how to install custom ROMs. Letting HTC and Google do all the work for them could boost sales of HTC’s flagship while getting the definitive Google experience, ads and all, into the hands of more users.

So, when can you expect to see the fabled Nexus edition of the HTC One arriving in stores? It’s said that we’ll get an announcement within the next two weeks with a release following later in the summer.

It should be noted that this is merely a rumor for now, but Geek broke the news that Google would be releasing a Nexus edition of the Galaxy S4 before its announcement at Google I/O. I wouldn’t be surprised to see HTC follow suit.

Fox News reports that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a bulletin on 3D printed guns to law enforcement agencies around the nation. It says that 3D printed guns in their current state may be “impossible” to stop. The DHS continues by saying that it can’t regulate the guns because it can’t regulate the file sharing that’s putting the gun’s blueprints in peoples’ hands.

Like other agencies, the DHS is concerned that people will use 3D printed firearms to get past metal detectors. Their main concern is that large events will be harder to police since magnetometers, which are used to find metal weapons, will be useless against 3D printed weapons.

An anonymous law enforcement official told Fox News that the only solution to the potential threat is to pat-down every single person attending any large event. He ends by asking if America is ready “for pat-downs at every event.”

Near the end of the memo, the DHS says that Congress can pass laws banning 3D printed weapons. The agency admits that it probably won’t stop the creation of 3D printed guns though:

“Even if the practice is prohibited by new legislation, online distribution of these digital files will be as difficult to control as any other illegally traded music, movie or software files.”

We’ve seen over the past few weeks that people are already experimenting with the Liberator and making it better. Some are even making 3D printed bullets. The DHS does have some legitimate concerns, but it’s hard to say just how much of a threat 3D printed guns pose at the moment. It seems that hobbyists and gun smiths are the only ones interested in the technology for now. Besides, the liberator isn’t much of a gun, and is still prone to exploding.

Instead, Digg’s new reader will simply be a part of Digg. Speaking at Internet Week New York, Digg CEO Andrew McLaughlin said that users will ”have one download, which is Digg, and the current Digg will have added onto it reader capabilities.”

Oh, and yes, Digg’s reader will be called “Digg Reader.”

Ever since Digg announced that they were working on their own reader, shortly after Google announced that they were killing Google Reader, the goal has been to build a replacement – something fast and simple that Google Reader users will want to adopt. Digg has said that apart from making it fast and simple, they really only want to make it synchronous across multiple devices and make it easy to import from existing Google Reader accounts.

Digg’s own surveys have shown that users want very little changed about Google Reader.

Another interesting thing that they found was that 40% of respondents said that they would pay for a Google Reader replacement – something that “pleased” them. They went on to say that they wanted their users ““to be customers, not our product.”

“Free products on the Internet don’t have a great track record. They tend to disappear, leaving users in a lurch. We need to build a product that people can rely on and trust will always be there for them. We’re not sure how pricing might work, but we do know that we’d like our users to be our customers, not our product. So when we asked survey participants whether or not they would be willing to pay, we were pleased to see that over 40% said yes.”

Although there’s no confirmation here, that makes it seem like Digg is at least strongly considering charging for Digg Reader. And if that’s the case, and it’s not even its own standalone app, is Digg just trying to charge people to use Digg?

Anyway, McLaughlin confirmed that Digg Reader will launch by the end of June, just in time for the Google Reader kill date of July 1st. Hopefully for Digg, that’s not too late. By then, users will have had months to find a replacement, and there are certainly plenty out there.

Google Fiber Community Manager Rachel Hack ways on the Google Fiber blog:

Last night, the City Alderman in Raytown, Missouri voted unanimously to bring Google Fiber to their city. Raytown is the tenth Kansas City-area expansion we’ve announced, and we hope to bring Fiber to more communities in the area, too.

It will be awhile before we can hook up Raytown residents—we need to plan and build our network there first. When we have more info, we’ll be sure to post it here.

Earlier this month, Google announced it would be adding Grandview, Missouri to the list. The city is just south of Kanas City.

The service will also be coming to Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah in the future as well.