May 2013 - TekDefender

Why We Can’t Send Humans to Mars Yet (And How We’ll Fix That)

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on Wired. BY ADAM MANN While humans have dreamed about going to Mars practically since it was discovered, an actual mission in the foreseeable future is finally starting to feel like a real possibility. But how real is it? NASA says it’s serious about one day doing a manned mission while private companies are jockeying to present ever-more audacious plans to get there. And equally important, public enthusiasm for the Red Planet is riding high after the Curiosity…

Random

Liquid woolly mammoth blood found preserved in Russian ice, researchers report

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Jacob Kastrenakes As global warming thaws the ground in Russia, researchers have been making some amazing finds. Now, Russian researchers claim to have made what could be the most incredible discovery of all: the preserved blood and meat of a woolly mammoth. “When we broke the ice beneath [the mammoth’s] stomach, the blood flowed out from there,” expedition head Semyon Grigoriev told the AFP. As unlikely as the discovery sounds, the…

Remaking Rio: turning an urban dystopia into an Olympic playground

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Amar Toor With the World Cup just 12 months away, Brazil is scrambling to put its best foot forward On March 22nd, police in Rio de Janeiro clashed with demonstrators outside the city’s Maracanã football stadium, where members of various indigenous groups had been squatting in protest. Earlier, the protesters had received eviction notices from the government, which planned to build a new parking lot where their homes then stood. Less than…

Business Culture

Husband And Wife Architects Create The Sugar Lab, A Foundry For 3D Printed Sweets

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by JOHN BIGGS Kyle and Liz von Hasseln aren’t your typical designers. Initially focused on architecture, the pair stumbled upon an interesting business idea when they wanted to make a special cake for a friend’s birthday: the Sugar Lab. “It was our friend Chelsea’s birthday, and we didn’t have an oven to bake her a cake, so we decided to try to 3D print a cake for her, instead. It took some trial…

Automotive

Tesla Will Triple Its Supercharger Coverage Area, Enabling Cross-Country Road Trips, CEO Elon Musk Says

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by RYAN LAWLER Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the D11 Conference today that the company will be tripling its supercharger coverage throughout the country. By the end of this year, Musk expects that it will cover most of the metropolitan cities, allowing electric car owners to drive coast to coast. The technology was developed because traditional charging happens too slowly, so they made something that was quick to charge, Musk said.…

Google

Google Admits It Spams The Hell Out Of You In New Gmail Commercial

By admin | May 30, 2013May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by JOSH CONSTINE Got so many Google+, YouTube, Google Offers, and Zagat emails you want to scream? Google’s got you covered. No, it’s not sending you less spam. It’s organizing your spam into tabs! Google’s blatant attempt to cross-promote its bevy of services in the video for the quite possibly awesome new Gmail inboxleaves it seeming like a sketchy foreigner who just needs $200 to wire you your lottery winnings. Yes, of course…

Microsoft

Windows 8.1 To Get A Start Button Because Windows Is Dumb Without One

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by MATT BURNS Good news! Microsoft super blogger Paul Thurrott details the return of the Start Button and the figurative demise of the Metro/smart tile/Start Page thing with Windows 8.1′s ability to boot right to Desktop, sidestepping the worst part of Windows 8. Best of all, as previously reported, Microsoft isn’t charging for these fixes. There’s nothing better than the classics.

Mobile

Samsung confirms Galaxy S 4 Mini: 4.3-inch display, 1.7 GHz dual-core processor

By admin | May 30, 2013 by admin

As reported on Engadget. By James Trew So, it might not be a surprise that it was in the works, but its official announcement today almost caught us off guard. Here it is, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Mini. Now we can say for sure that there’s a (yet to be specified) 1.7 GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.2.2, GPS, GLONASS, WiFi, 8GB internal memory (expandable up to 64), and 1.5GB of RAM. The display is a 4.3-inch…

Environmental Random

Rogue Queens, Sex-Changing Fish, and Rain-Making Bacteria: Nature’s Weirdest Life Cycles

By admin | May 29, 2013 by admin

As reported on Wired. BY BRANDON KEIM The word ‘unnatural’ is often used to describe what’s considered weird or unusual. But is anything weirder than nature? Just look at 17-year cicadas, poised to flood the U.S. East Coast after having stayed underground since Bill Clinton was President. And cicadas are just the start: Biology abounds with creatures that change shape, change sex, change locations and in some cases cause other creatures to do these things. It’s a strange,…

Government

FBI ran child porn site for two weeks in attempt to identify over 5,000 pedophiles

By admin | May 29, 2013 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris DON’T MISS STORIES FOLLOW THE VERGE The FBI kept a site facilitating the viewing and sharing of child pornography for two weeks to try and catch pedophiles. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the agency raided what it describes as a bulletin board-type site back in November. Rather than shutting it down, investigators kept it open in the hope of identifying its users. The paper notes that while FBI agents have posed…

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