Month: April 2013

Science

The deadly bean: why ricin is used for bioterror

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As reported on The Verge. By Carl Franzen It’s easy to make, but it’s also not very effective as a biological weapon, scientists say There was scarcely time to process the fatal Boston Marathon bombings on Monday when the news broke late yesterday afternoon that a letter mailed to Republican Senator Roger Wicker had tested positive for ricin, one of the most potentially toxic and easily-synthesized poison substances in the world, which is extracted from beans of the commonly available castor…

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Google

A Day With Glass: First Impressions Of The Early Days Of Google’s Latest Moonshot

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As reported on TechCrunch. by DREW OLANOFF As we shared yesterday, the process to actually pay for the Glass Explorer Edition was quite simple. The next step in the process is picking up your device at either the Mountain View, Los Angeles or New York City Google Campus. Of course, you can opt to have them shipped to you if you’re not in one of those areas, but what’s the fun in that? I picked up my Google…

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Hardware Dev

Hands On With The Toshiba KIRAbook: Can Great Hardware Coupled With An Amazing Display Save Windows PCs?

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As reported on TechCrunch. by MICHAEL SEO With PC laptop shipments projected to decline by 7.3% this year, Windows 8 machines desperately need a shot multiple shots of adrenaline. The Toshiba KIRAbook may be just that. The KIRAbook is Toshiba’s first entrant in their newly fashioned “KIRA” line of luxury ultrabooks. At first glance, you can see that the KIRAbook is meticulously designed, and it radiates a Cupertino-esque level of fit and finish. We haven’t seen this kind of quality…

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Entertainment Film

Tribeca Film Festival Narrows Down #6SecFilms Submissions To A Short List Of 40 Awesome Vines

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As reported on TechCrunch. by JORDAN CROOK Less than a month ago, Tribeca Film Festival opened up a sub-competition within the festival for those of us with a knack for brevity: the Tribeca Film Festival’s #6SecFilms competition. Partnering with Twitter’s new darling and video-sharing app Vine, TFF made a call for submissions from filmmakers who’d like to use the Vine platform to be featured on TribecaFilm.com, along with a nice cash prize of $600. Today, TFF…

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Microsoft

Outlook.com lets you sign in with an alias, adds 32 international email domains

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As reported on Engadget. By Nicole Lee Aside from the two-step verification feature revealed yesterday, Microsoft also rolled out a pair of updates for Outlook.com that are decidedly less important but welcome nonetheless. Namely, users are now able to sign in via a new alias instead of their initial username, and they can add a bit of international flair to their Outlook address with any of 32 new country-specific domains as well. It still might not have the…

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Mobile

Pantech Vega Iron brings a 5-inch ‘zero bezel’ display, where zero equals 2.4mm (update) Mobile

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As reported on Engadget. By Sharif Sakr We’ve got to admit that we saw some rumors about a “zero bezel” Pantech a few days ago, but ignored them because we had no idea what that meant. Now we do, however, as Pantech has made the 5-inch 1080p 720p phone official, under the solid-sounding name of the Vega Iron. The bezels aren’t quite zero, but they are small: just 2.4mm across on each side, which — for reference — is roughly…

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Space

Electron showers could create the nano-spacesuit of the future Alt

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As reported on Engadget. By Joseph Volpe Historically, whenever man or beast’s been bombarded with massive amounts of radiation the results have either been gruesome or wholly fantastical (see: any superhero origin story). But recent research out of Japan indicates that a barrage ofelectrons could actually help scientists revolutionize microbiology and, more excitingly, space travel. The experiment, conducted by a team from the Hamamatsu University of Medicine, found that the larvae of fruit flies hit with this electron rush were…

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Culture

Eastern European Daredevils Continue to Guts-Shame the Rest of the World

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As reported on Wired. BY JAKOB SCHILLER   Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield needed special effects to help them hang off buildings in the Spider-Man movies. Not Mustang Wanted. That’s the pseudonym of a 26-year-old Ukrainian man who’s taken the internet by storm with the photos and videos he’s posted of himself doing death-defying stunts on top of tall buildings, bridges and cranes around Eastern Europe. “For me it’s a sport,” he told Wired via Skype. Climbing…

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Entertainment TV

Fox pulls ‘Family Guy’ episode linked to Boston bombings by conspiracy theorists

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As reported on The Verge. By Sam Byford In the aftermath of yesterday’s tragic events in Boston, what appeared to be a chillingly prescient clip from a month-old Family Guy episode circulated around the internet. The video is a doctored composite of two scenes from the episode “Turban Cowboy,” and plays off Family Guy‘s trademark flashback method of telling jokes to suggest that lead character Peter Griffin detonated a bomb at the Boston Marathon. While the joke is crude and…

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Culture How To Story Tech

Staying safe: how can we find and defend against explosives?

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As reported on The Verge. By Carl Franzen New technology ranges from handheld bomb detectors to impromptu blast walls It’s hard to protect large crowds, as Monday’s attacks made painfully clear, but it’s a problem that has inspired a host of technological solutions from a wide range of groups. The biggest difficulty, according to many, is the tension between protecting the public and respecting the event itself — but as security questions circulate with newfound urgency, it’s…

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