Author: admin

Story

Keep Your Desktop Wallpaper Always Fresh with These Tools and Sites

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As reported on LifeHacker. by Melanie Pinola Your desktop wallpaper can inspire ormotivate you, help organize your icons and folders (or even serve as your to-do list), or simply serve as amazing eye candy. Here are several fantastic tools for keeping your wallpaper from getting stale. Automatically Download and Update Your Desktop Wallpaper The easiest way to keep your desktop looking good with a fresh crop of wallpapers is by having them automatically come to you.   Full size For Windows:  John’s…

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Story

Meet the Genius Behind the Trillion-Dollar Coin and the Plot to Breach the Debt Ceiling

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As  reported on Wired. BY RYAN TATE Photo: Kurtis Garbutt/Flickr More than six months later, during a wonky online discussion about the debt ceiling, Beowulf thought of the article and, egged on by fellow monetary-system obsessives, came up with his own clever plan to exploit the powers of the U.S. Mint. His idea to issue a single trillion-dollar coin to the U.S. Treasury, thus letting it avoid borrowing and bypass the debt ceiling, is now much discussed…

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Military

Top U.S. General Says Stopping a Syrian Chemical Attack Is ‘Almost Unachievable’

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As reported on Wired. BY SPENCER ACKERMAN AND NOAH SHACHTMAN Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, shown here in Afghanistan, doubts that the U.S. can stop Syria’s Bashar Assad from using poison gas. Photo: Defense Department   If Syrian dictator Bashar Assad decides to use his chemical weapons, there won’t be a thing the U.S. military can do to stop him, America’s top military officer conceded on Thursday. Nor will the U.S. step…

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Story

The Few, The Proud, The Supertall: 2012′s Largest Skyscrapers

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As reported on Wired. BY TIM MALY The tallest buildings built in 2012 can tell us a lot about the state of the world.Architecture is crystallized power. A constructed building, especially a spectacular one, is a record of the wealth and influence needed to complete such a project. Indeed, the link between a booming economy and tall buildings is so strong that economists have proposed (somewhat jokingly) a Skyscraper Index. The idea is that when you start…

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Story Travel

U.S. Now Targeting Mexican Drug Lord’s Family, Too

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As reported on Wired. BY ROBERT BECKHUSEN Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman after his arrest in 1993. Photo: AP/Damian Dovargane   If there’s one rule to running the mob, it’s to keep your family close. For Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the cocaine kingpin of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, he’s kept his family so close to the business that it’s attracted the attention of the U.S. government. On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department added two top-level Sinaloa…

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Engineering Entertainment Story Tech

‘The Avengers’ visual effects reel reveals how ILM built a fictional New York City

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As reported on The Verge. By Kimber Streams In celebration of its Oscar nomination, ILMVisualFX has released a video breaking down the slew of effects used in Marvel’s The Avengers. The reel shows how the company built and rendered the city of New York as well as the process of animating Tony Stark’s Ironman suit and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk. In the comments, ILMVisualFX has answered a few questions about its visual effects process, saying that the…

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Apple Business Story Tech

The Apple economy dominates CES 2013, but Samsung isn’t far behind

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As reported on The Verge. By Ellis Hamburger Apple hasn’t made an appearance at CES since 1992, but its products are everywhere. At CES 2013, iPhones and iPads adorn the sides of booths for everything from Bluetooth speaker manufacturers to car audio companies. Booth after booth is named iFrogz, iSkins, and iLounge. Row after row of companies like Otterbox and Speck have made fortunes building cases for Apple products. Just Mobile’s booth is something like an aluminum…

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Hardware Dev

Translusense clear keyboard eyes-on Hands-on

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As reported on Engadget. By Terrence O’Brien You might have forgotten about this guy. It’s been over a year since Jason Giddings put his clear keyboard concept up on Kickstarter. Well, the infrared-based touch board may not have found enough backers to get off the ground, but some other investors saw potential and now Translusense is making its way towards a reality. The company wasn’t quite ready to show off working prototype at CES — there’s still a…

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Entertainment Hardware Dev

Zoom iQ5 professional stereo microphone hands-on Hands-on

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As reported on Engadget. By Kevin Wong Earlier at CES, we got our hands on the Rode iXY 30-pin stereo microphone iPhone add-on that left our Lightning users a bit sad. Cheer up! The folks over at Zoom got us over to their booth to take a peek at the company’s new iQ5 professional stereo microphone. The iQ5 is a different beast than its aforementioned competition in that it works in conjunction with native iOS applications. What this means is…

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Application Internet

Chrome 24 fixes two dozen bugs, promises to speed things up

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As reported on Engadget. By Sean Buckley Google’s latest browser update landed today with little fanfare from Mountain View— just a tiny blog post proclaiming a faster, more stable Chrome. Diving into the build’s change notes, however, reveal Flash updates, bug fixes and support for MathML. Not a lot in the way of consumer facing features — though Bookmarks are now searchable, via the Chrome omnibox. Not as fancy as the last release, but we never to scoff…

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