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Culture

A war veteran with PTSD is the first person to buy legal weed in Colorado

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As reported on The Verge. By Katie Drummond Colorado’s marijuana dispensaries opened their doors to recreational users this morning, but their first customer was far from someone just looking to have a good time: Sean Azzariti, a Denver-area veteran of the Iraq war who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), instead purchased weed to help alleviate symptoms of his illness.   Azzariti’s purchase was largely a symbolic one, orchestrated by activists who led the charge to…

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Health

The bitter truth about making a natural sugar substitute

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As reported on The Verge. By Adi Robertson Sugar in soft drinks and other processed foods may be bad for us, but cheating our taste buds has proved difficult — and the substitutes we do have (like the coal derivative found in Sweet’n Low) can sound even worse. A more “natural” solution is sweetener derived from plants like stevia, which has made its way into the recently launched Coca-Cola Life and other beverages. But as Daniel…

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Android Application iPhone

The Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2013

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Greg Kumparak Congratulations, Planet Earth! We made it another 365 days without crashing into the sun. Go team! It’s the end of the year, and that means three things: booze, ridiculous sunglasses with numbers on them, and lists. Lots and lots of lists. You’ve seen our list ofbest/worst gadgets of the year. Up next? The Best Mobile Apps Of 2013. Now, to be clear: there’s not a lot of science here.…

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Business Retail Sales SmartPhone

Moto G for Verizon now on sale at Best Buy for $100 contract-free

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS When Motorola said that a CDMA version of the Moto G would reach the US in January, it was being overly cautious. Best Buy has confirmed that it’s already selling the Verizon edition of the budget smartphone in its retail stores; as soon as a store has inventory, you can pick one up. And it’s cheap, too. At $100 off-contract, Verizon’s Moto G is less expensive than both its GSM equivalent and many slower, smallerdevices. You…

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Science

Watch an ultrasonic array move objects in 3D space (video)

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Ultrasonic levitation has been possible for awhile, but it’s not very practical when objects must typically hover along a single axis. University of Tokyo researchers Yoichi Ochiai, Takayuki Hoshi and Jun Rekimoto have cleared this hurdle with an ultrasonic array that can push items around in 3D space. The machine creates a focal point from a three-dimensional standing wave; users just have to alter the wave’s properties to move whatever is caught…

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Business Environmental

Power play: why your electric bill may be changing soon

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As reported on The Verge. By Adrianne Jeffries In the near future, power companies may have to decouple electricity use from prices Americans are buying bigger homes, using more appliances, and firing up more data centers than ever before. You’d expect electricity demand to skyrocket accordingly, but the trend is actually the opposite. Total electricity use in the US has actually declined in the past four out of five years, according to a new government study, and…

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News

The Year in Review: the biggest stories of 2013

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As reported on The Verge. By Verge Staff The news that mattered, disappointments that didn’t, essential products, and what to look forward to in 2014   What a year you were, 2013. Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks turned up the heat on a cauldron of privacy concerns that’s sure to boil over in the next year. Drones expanded from killing machines to potential package-delivery robots. The US government shut itself down and revealed a disheartening lack of…

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Culture

These Apps Will Help You Make 2014 Less Filthy

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Catherine Shu This year, several notable apps that connect users with house cleaners have launched or gained traction. These include Homejoy,Exec and laundry service Prim. There are a lot of benefits to hiring a professional cleaning service but, unfortunately, I live outside the area covered by these apps. Letting people I don’t know into my apartment also makes me feel exposed. I just don’t like having strangers judge my lovingly curated collections of masking…

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Business

HP woes continue as 5,000 more employees face the axe

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As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON It certainly won’t be a happy new year for thousands of HP employees — not when the company has increased its layoff numbers yet again. Hewlett-Packard alreadyadjusted the number of people it needed to let go from 27,000 to 29,000 a year ago, but it’s now added another 5,000 to the total. According to HP’s new SEC 10-K filing, cutting off 34,000 positions will save the ailing firm $4.1 billion per fiscal year.…

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Culture Science

Study suggests we’re all susceptible to false memories

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As reported on The Verge. By T.C. Sottek Researchers from UC Irvine have found that people with extraordinarily accurate memory are as vulnerable to the inception of fake memories as others, indicating that perhaps nobody is protected from memory distortion. The study, published last month inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on people with highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), who are able to recall highly specific facts about their lives, like what they ate for lunch, going…

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