Author: admin

Security

Independent federal review board calls for NSA to end ‘illegal’ phone call data collection

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As reported on Engadget. BY RICHARD LAWLER Following up on what we’ve learned about the NSA’s various spying activities over the last year, the aptly-named Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is apparently ready to issue a report on the mess. Established in 2004 (but only fully operational since November) within the executive branch to serve as an independent source of advice to the president on… privacy and civil liberties, it has arrived somewhat late to the party (President Obama announced reform…

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Entertainment Film

How Peter Jackson’s team created the Oscar-nominated soundscape of ‘Smaug’

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As reported on The Verge. By Nathan Ingraham The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was just nominated for two Oscars relating to its sound design — it’s up against some tough competition in the form of Gravity and a number of other excellent films, but a new mini-documentary from SoundWorks makes a good case for Peter Jackson’s latest adventure into Middle-earth. The video contains interviews with a number of sound mixers at Park Road Post Studios in Wellington, New Zealand who…

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iPhone

WobL Smartphone Stand And Alarm App For iPhone Ensure You’ll Snooze Forever

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As reported on TechCrunch.  by Darrell Etherington I have an iPhone, and like most adult humans I imagine, I use that as my alarm clock in place of one of those quaint old-fashioned pieces of dedicated hardware we used to use. But it’s not always ideal: you can’t just smash a button to get it to stop trying to wake you up, for instance. The wobL, a new Kickstarter project launching today, hopes to fix that. As its…

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SmartPhone

LG’s Curved Display G Flex Smartphone Will Go Up For AT&T Pre-Order On January 24

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Jordan Crook Curved displays are officially a thing. The LG G Flex, the Korean company’s latest attempt to battle back Samsung, is going to be available for pre-order at AT&T starting this Friday, January 24. Sprint pulled the trigger last week, announcing that the phone would be available for pre-order on January 31, but AT&T has obviously beaten the yellow carrier to the punch by a week. Still, AT&T never mentioned in its announcement…

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Google

Google tests the performance limits of D-Wave’s quantum computers

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS We’ve long known that D-Wave’s quantum computers are specialized tools rather than Swiss Army Knives, but just how good are they at their intended tasks? Googlehas just conducted some benchmarking to find out, and the short answer is that these systems are very good — but they have definite limits. A current-generation D-Wave 2 is about 35,500 times faster than a generalized problem-solving computer when both are running standard software. However, some of that advantage…

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Environmental Tech

Heat-sensitive solar cell could lead to much more on-demand energy

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS It’s tough to build solar cells that capture both heat and light — most of these multi-talented devices can’t trap more than one percent of the energy they receive. However, MIT has just blown past that limitation with a prototype chip that absorbs warmth through an outer layer of carbon nanotubes. The tubing heats up photonic crystals so much that they glow with an intense light, giving an attached solar cell more energy than…

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Science

The Physics of a Front-Wheel Drive Muscle Car

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As reported on Wired. BY RHETT ALLAIN Check out this 736 horsepower Volkswagen Golf. Yes, most traditional muscle cars are rear-wheel drive instead of front-wheel drive. What is the difference? Of course there is an issue when the front wheels are used for both steering and power. But there is something else – traction. Fake Forces The best way to look at frictional forces on the tires for a car is to consider fake forces. Trust…

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Environmental

Poisoned: why West Virginia’s water crisis is everyone’s problem

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As reported on The Verge. By Matt Stroud How regulators allowed chemicals to literally slip through the cracks and threaten the water supply When 35-year-old Jason Eldridge arrived home last Thursday from his job as a systems administrator with a healthcare company in Charleston, West Virginia, he acted no differently than he normally would: he made dinner (that night, it was tacos) for his wife, his two-year-old daughter, and himself. Then the trio sat down to…

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Google

Google Unveils Smart Contact Lens That Lets Diabetics Measure Their Glucose Levels

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Frederic Lardinois This isn’t Google Glass in a contact lens, but it may just be Google’s first step in this direction. The company’s Google X lab just teased a smart contact lens on its blog that is meant to help diabetics measure their glucose levels. The company says it is currently testing prototypes of this contact lens that use a tiny wireless chip and a miniaturized glucose sensor. These chips are embedded in…

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Apple Tablet

Storehouse: An Apple Vet Tries To Move The Needle On Long-Form Visual Communication

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Matthew Panzarino The way we communicate is increasingly visual. The devices that we carry with us are uniquely suited to both capturing and displaying stories primarily comprised of images, rather than words. Snapchat and Instagram are good examples of the changing ways we’re communicating with each other, but their ‘atomic unit’ — the capsule that they use to present their shared content — consists of a single image or series of…

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