Author: admin

Business Legal

Samsung throws money at Ericsson to end smartphone patent war

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As reported on Engadget. BY DANIEL COOPER We prefer it when companies make devices, not courtroom drama, so it’s delightful to see that Samsung has silenced another one of its litigation-frenemies this morning. The company has signed a cross-licensing agreement with former Sony beau Ericsson, with a figure of around $650 million being paid up-front, and an undisclosed regular payment to follow. Now that Samsung has appeased both Google and Ericsson, let’s hope we can get back to reporting on gadgets, or else…

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Business Culture Environmental

Monsanto Is Going Organic in a Quest for the Perfect Veggie

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As reported on Wired. BY BEN PAYNTER Monsanto’s new veggies are sweeter, crunchier, and more nutritious—with none of the “Frankenfoods” ick factor.   Nicholas Cope In a windowless basement room decorated with photographs of farmers clutching freshly harvested vegetables, three polo-shirt-and-slacks-clad Monsanto execu­tives, all men, wait for a special lunch. A server arrives and sets in front of each a caprese-like salad—tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, lettuce—and one of the execs, David Stark, rolls his desk chair forward, raises…

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Art

Astronomers say Monet’s ‘Sunset’ masterpiece was painted at 4:53 pm on February 5th, 1883

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As reported in The Verge. By Amar Toor Forensic astronomy sheds new light on impressionist work Researchers from Texas State University have used forensic astronomy to uncover new details about Claude Monet’s Étretat: Sunset — a stunning seascape that the impressionist master painted during a trip to the Normandy coast in 1883. Their findings, published in the February 2014 issue of the magazine Sky & Telescope, reveal the exact spot and time at which Monet painted the work, based on extensive fieldwork and…

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Film

‘The Raid 2’ review: bigger and bloodier

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As reported on The Verge. By Bryan Bishop Gareth Evans mixes gangster drama and epic action Let’s just get this out of the way: I wasn’t a huge fan of The Raid: Redemption. Gareth Evans’ Indonesian action flick was a video game riff on John Carpenter’s classic Assault on Precinct 13, and while its intense devotion to martial arts wizardry was certainly impressive, I found myself wanting more when it came to story and drama. So when it…

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Android Application Security

Android app learns from your phone to fend off malicious attacks

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As reported on Engadget. BY CHRIS VELAZCO  The last time we heard from Itzhak ‘zuk’ Avraham, he was at Defcon 2011 showing offan Android app that let even inexperienced users poke around networks for weak links and vulnerable computers. Now his company, Zimperium, is rolling out a new mobile intrusion protection app (or zIPS, for short) to help users figure out when their phones are subject to sneak attacks. There’s no shortage of mobile antivirus apps out…

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Apple

Apple gushes on 30 years of making Macs (video)

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As reported on Engadget. BY JAMIE RIGG This year signifies the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh computer, and who better to reflect on this achievement than the almighty creator Apple? Cupertino has dedicateda corner of its website to such a retrospective, the focal point of which is an inspirational video starring several fans who talk about what Macs have meant to them (embedded below). After learning that Moby is still a thing and that Macs represent a “truly…

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Security

White hat hacker says he found 70,000 records on Healthcare.gov through a Google search

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As reported on The Verge. By Adrianne Jeffries The federal health insurance marketplace at Healthcare.gov still has major security issues according to some experts, including a flaw that allows user records to show up in Google results. At least 70,000 records with personal identifying information including first and last names, addresses, and user names are accessible by using an advanced Google search and then tweaking the resulting URLs, according to David Kennedy, founder of the security…

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Microsoft

Microsoft Gives Its Office Web Apps A New, Flatter Look

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Frederic Lardinois Microsoft is giving its Office Web Apps a new look today, it seems. While the company hasn’t done all that much to promote its Office Web Apps lately, they are pretty capable online versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote that are free for anyone to use. Today, the company is giving all of these apps a user interface overhaul that brings an even flatter design, some new features and easier…

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Business

IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Pankaj Mishra IBM has finally managed to sell its low-margin server business to the world’s largest PC maker Lenovo. The two companies have been negotiating this deal for past few years, and a potential sale fell off last year when Lenovo did not agree to pay what IBM wanted — $6 billion. Now, Lenovo has informed the Hong Kong Stock exchange that it will pay $2.07 billion in cash to IBM for…

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Science

World’s most precise atomic clock will still be spot-on in 5 billion years

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As reported on Engadget. BY CHRIS VELAZCO Most of us only pay attention to time when it’s causing headaches, but the same can’t be said of a team of researchers working out of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Led by National Institute of Standards and Technology fellow Jun Ye, they’ve crafted an atomic clock that can keep precise time for billions of years, a world record. This hefty new timekeeper can tick off the seconds…

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