Microsoft

Microsoft starts selling ASUS’ VivoTab Note 8 for $329

As reported on Engadget. BY EDGAR ALVAREZ ASUS, like many other companies, took to CES 2014 to introduce a number of new products. Among these was the often-leaked VivoTab Note 8, an 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet with support for Wacom pen input. If you were remotely intrigued back then, it looks as if Microsoft has now (quietly) placed it up for grabs in the US. Currently, Redmond’s online store is selling the 32GB model of ASUS’ VivoTab Note 8 for $329, which is slightly different…

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Science

Lawrence Livermore Lab wins $45 million to create the most powerful laser ever built

As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom Today, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory joined the cutting edge of laser research, receiving $45 million dollars to build a laser system of unprecedented power for a European Union project outside of Prague. The project, called ELI-Beamlines, is developing something called a “High repetition-rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System” (HAPLS), which employs short, frequent bursts of intensely high-powered lasers reaching power greater than 1,000,000,000,000,000 watts. If successful, it will be the…

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Humor Security

In Russia, Bathroom Mirror Watches You!

As reported on TechCrunch.  by Gregory Ferenstein In Russia, spying on visitors is so pervasive, authorities don’t even seem realize that watching someone shower is cause for alarm. During a press meeting on the Winter Olympics, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak claimed that Western journalists were deliberately sabotaging the hotel facilities. As evidence, he said authorities had seen guests leave the water running in the shower. Yes, you read that right. Here’s the full report from the Wall…

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Art

Remote Controlled Robots To Roam Tate Britain Gallery After Hours So Web Users Can Peek At The Art

As reported on TechCrunch  by Natasha Lomas Who doesn’t want to hang out in the museum after hours? London’s Tate Britain art gallery houses a treasure trove of great works from Hogarth, Gainsborough and Whistler, to Bacon and Freud.The gallery gets more than a million visitors a year passing through its lofty halls during opening hours, but after dark its passageways fall silent and the works fade from public view. That’s going to change next summer thanks to the inaugural…

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Hardware Dev

‘Beep’ works like a Chromecast for your old speakers

As reported on Engadget. BY EMILY PRICE If you want to make your favorite speakers wireless, you have a few options. Nothing on the market, however, is quite like Beep. Launching today, the tiny dial works like a Chromecast for your speakers, and lets you cast tunes from your mobile device over Wi-Fi — and with none of the range restrictions that affect Bluetooth-based devices. The creation of two ex-Android engineers, the project has financial backing from…

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Google

Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

As reported on Engadget. BY SHARIF SAKR France and Google are playing a delicate game of brinkmanship in the courts of Europe, and it still isn’t clear who’ll come off worse. France fined the search company €150,000 ($200,000) last month as a penalty for failing to tell French citizens exactly what happens to their personal data. Google could have coughed up the trivial sum and drowned its sorrows in a bottle of beaujolais, but instead it has decided to fight…

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Android Apple Application

Steve Wozniak: Apple Should Make an Android Phone

As reported on Wired. BY MAT HONAN Steve Wozniak. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED   At the Apps World North America conference in San Francisco, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak gave WIRED a wide-ranging interview, touching on everything from his preferred iPhone 5s color (he has all three) to the fictional operating system in the movie Her. But his most interesting comment by far was a heretical recommendation for his former company: Apple, he thinks, should release an Android handset. “There’s nothing…

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History

Tunnel vision: how an obsessed explorer found and lost the world’s oldest subway

As reported on The Verge. By Adrianne Jeffries New York City has sealed up a 169-year-old landmark, but the man who discovered it wants back inside The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences. — Walt Whitman, writing about the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in 1861     Bob Diamond had been…

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Art Google

DevArt: Google’s ambitious project to program a new generation of artists

As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris You could be the star of a major new exhibition Your work could be at the heart of one of the largest digital art exhibitions the world has ever seen, thanks to a collaboration between London’s Barbican Centre and Google. The exhibition is called Digital Revolution, and from July 3rd to September 14th it will explore the impact of technology on art over the past 40 years. It will…

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Automotive

Your car’s computer system can be hacked with off-the-shelf parts

As reported on Engadget. BY SEAN BUCKLEY You probably don’t spend much time thinking about the computer in your car, but a pair of Spanish security researchers sure do. In preparation for next month’s Black HatAsia security conference in Singapore, Javier Vazquez-Vidal and Alberto Garcia Illera have assembled a small electronic device that can leave a vehicle’s computer system open to attack. “It can take five minutes or less to hook up and then walk away,” Vidal…

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