At a toy fair in Germany, toy maker Lego has unveiled its first set to include a disabled minifigure character.

The wheelchair-bound young male figurine (which you can turn female or old with a change of a wig) is accompanied by an assistant dog as part of Lego City’s new Fun in the Park set. Other accessories include a stroller for a baby figurine, a bicycle and a lawnmower.

The set reportedly comes after months of lobbying by #ToyLikeMe campaigners, led by a United Kingdom-based mother and journalist Rebecca Atkinson. Atkinson started the group in April 2015, calling on major toy manufacturers to help children with disabilities find positive representations of themselves in toys. In statement, she calls the move “massive in terms of ending cultural marginalization.”

“It will speak volumes to children, disabled or otherwise, the world over,” she said.

Lego’s Fun in the Park set is expected to go on sale for $40 later this year.

Everything is finally awesome.

➤ Lego Will Unveil A Minifigure In A Wheelchair, In A First [NPR]

UMich’s new tech adds 3D Touch to any phone, no additional hardware required

One of the novel features of the latest Apple flagship, the iPhone 6s , is 3D Touch . It brings up contextual options when you press down rather than tap on an icon or in an app interface. It’s an elegant way to let you access additional functionality without cluttering up the UI.

Sadly, it’s only available on that iOS device… for now. A research team at the University of Michigan have developed a way to add this feature to any smartphone using components that are already in your mobile device: the mic and speaker.

When activated, the ForcePhone software makes your phone emit a continuous 18kHz hum. It’s beyond the spectrum of frequencies the human ear can detect, but can still be picked up by your phone’s mic.

Press down on the screen or squeeze your phone in your hand and you’ll cause the pitch to change. When ForcePhone detects this change, it interprets it as a command to let you do things like open an app’s menu bar or dial 911.

Yu-Chih Tung, a doctoral student in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said that he was inspired by the 2008 Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’ in which the Caped Crusader locates the Joker by turning all the smartphones in Gotham City into a sonar system as high-frequency audio signals bounce off buildings across town.

However, you’ll still have to wait a bit until ForcePhone becomes available on phones everywhere. The researchers will first present their creation at the MobiSys 2016 conference in Singapore next month.

via Engadget

Amazon Echo now adds events to Google calendar like a proper digital assistant

Amazon Echo is getting a nice new feature: you can now add events to your Google calendar.

All you have to do is say something like ‘Alexa, add ‘camping with Nate’ to my Calendar for 9am this Saturday’ and she’d put it right in your calendar so you don’t forget we’re going camping this weekend.

Before this update, Alexa could tell you what was already added to your calendar, but the Echo was unable to add events itself.

To activate the feature, just go to the settings screen in the Alexa app and select ‘calendar.’

Reecent Echo updates involve asking Alexa to read you a book , hail an Uber or toggle your temperature up or down. Try scheduling one of those events and see if it completely blows Alexa’s mind.