Author: kenmay

Waze’s ‘Order Ahead’ is a quicker way to grab food on the go

Waze is a valuable travel buddy because of the many ways it can assist you on the road. The navigation app helps drivers avoid traffic , it integrates with Spotify , and it has a growing ride-sharing platform . In an effort to aid users in all commute-related endeavors, drivers can now place a Dunkin’ Donuts order right from the Waze app. Dunkin’ is the first eatery included in Waze’s new “Order Ahead” feature, which made its debut as part of a software update made available today. The ordering process seems clunky initially, but easy enough to use once it’s set up. First, users pick their favorite items via the Dunkin’ Donuts app, using the existing on-the-go ordering feature. Then, the Waze app will locate the nearest Dunkin’ and allow users to place their preset order with one tap. Google, which owns Waze, says that more companies will be added to Order Ahead soon. As The Verge notes , restaurants like McDonald’s , Taco Bell and Starbucks have mobile ordering capabilities in their apps, so it seems likely Waze will integrate with them at some point. Order Ahead is meant to be used before you hit the road for obvious safety reasons, but as The Verge points out, the feature could be particularly valuable in self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicle technology is quickly evolving , so adding features like these could make Waze more versatile in situations when operating a car doesn’t require as much of our attention. Order Ahead is a promising addition to Waze, but it could also be a storage nightmare if apps for each supported restaurant need to be installed on your phone. If Waze eventually manages true integration with all of your favorite dining destinations, though, it could become a killer all-in-one driving app. Images: Mike Mozart via Flickr (Dunkin’ Donuts sign, lead); Waze via Dunkin Donuts (App screenshot) Via: The Verge Source: Dunkin’ Donuts

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Waze’s ‘Order Ahead’ is a quicker way to grab food on the go

Dutch Scientist Proposes Circular Runways For Airport Efficiency

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fast Company: While airport terminal architecture has a solid history of style and innovation, rarely is a proposal put forth to utterly redesign the runway. But that’s precisely the aim of Henk Hesselink, a Dutch scientist working with the Netherlands Aerospace Center. Dubbed the “endless runway, ” Hesselink’s brainchild is a 360-degree landing strip measuring more than two miles in diameter. Since airplanes would be able to approach and take off from any direction around the proposed circle, they wouldn’t have to fight against crosswinds. And three planes would be able to take off or land at the same time. Hesselink’s team uses flight simulators and computerized calculations to test the unconventional design, and have determined that round airports would be more efficient than existing layouts. With a central terminal, the airport would only use about a third of the land of the typical airport with the same airplane capacity. And there’s an added benefit to those living near airports: Flight paths could be more distributed, and thereby making plane noise more tolerable. BBC produced a video detailing Hesselink’s circular runway concept. The concept is fascinating but there are many questions the video does not answer. Phil Derner Jr. from NYC Aviation writes via Business Insider about some of those unanswered questions in his article titled “Why the circular runway concept wouldn’t work.” The fundamental issues discussed in his report include banked runway issues, curved runway issues, navigation issues, and airspace issues. What do you think of Hesselink’s concept? Do you think it is preposterous or shows promise? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dutch Scientist Proposes Circular Runways For Airport Efficiency

Amazon is buying the ‘Amazon of the Middle East’

Amazon wants to be a one-stop shop for the entire world, but has struggled to get a foothold in the Middle East. After months of deliberations , the company has finally purchased Souq.com, the “Amazon of the Middle East.” Russ Grandinetti, Amazon VP, says that the deal is a no-brainer, since both sites “share the same DNA, ” adding that the pair will now “work hard to provide the best possible service” in the region. The price hasn’t been disclosed, but rumors from the back-end of 2016 claimed that Souq’s founders were looking for a cool $1 billion. TechCrunch believes that the price was haggled down during negotiations, and thinks that the final fee was closer to $650 million. For that chunk of change, Amazon will now have a strong presence in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE with plenty of the knotty issues of doing business in the Middle East already fixed. For example, credit cards aren’t ubiquitous in the area, so Souq developed a prepayment card where users top up in retail stores before ordering goods online. There’s also no unified logistics platform in many locations, or addresses, so Souq had to build a network of local couriers who knows where people live. There’s no word on if Amazon will look to rebrand Souq with its own logo, although it’s not that likely given its normal procedure. After all, Zappos, Twitch, and IMDb aren’t called Amazon Shoes, Amazon Game Videos or Amazon Movie Database for nothing. Then again, the fact that the site is gaining a foothold in a new region, there may be a temptation to bring everything under the classic brand. Source: Amazon (BusinessWire)

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Amazon is buying the ‘Amazon of the Middle East’

Intel’s first Optane SSD for regular PCs is a small but super-fast cache

Intel Intel is positioning its new Optane technology as the next big advancement in computer storage after SSDs, and today it’s announcing the first consumer product based on the technology. The “Intel Optane Memory” drives are 16GB and 32GB M.2 sticks that can be paired with a larger SSD or HDD to speed up total system performance. Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology allows your PC to see the two drives as one storage volume, and the software automatically caches important data to the faster drive. The Optane Memory drives will be available to order on April 24th. A 16GB drive costs $44 while a 32GB drive costs $77. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel’s first Optane SSD for regular PCs is a small but super-fast cache

iOS 10.3 Introduces a New File System, Adds In-App Reviews, and Find My AirPods

Apple’s released iOS 10.3 today, which isn’t a particularly interesting update, but it does have a few minor improvements, including a new file system, that are worth mentioning. Read more…

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iOS 10.3 Introduces a New File System, Adds In-App Reviews, and Find My AirPods

Researchers Discover A Surprising New Role for Lungs: Making Blood

schwit1 quotes ScienceAlert: In experiments involving mice, the team found that lungs produce more than 10 million platelets (tiny blood cells) per hour, equating to the majority of platelets in the animals’ circulation. This goes against the decades-long assumption that bone marrow produces all of our blood components. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco also discovered a previously unknown pool of blood stem cells that makes this happen inside the lung tissue — cells that were incorrectly assumed to mainly reside in bone marrow. “This finding definitely suggests a more sophisticated view of the lungs — that they’re not just for respiration, but also a key partner in formation of crucial aspects of the blood, ” says one of the researchers, Mark R. Looney. The platelet-producing cells actually migrate from the bone marrow to the lungs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Discover A Surprising New Role for Lungs: Making Blood

17-Year-Old Corrects NASA Mistake In Data From The ISS

“A British teenager has contacted scientists at NASA to point out an error in a set of their own data, ” writes the BBC. An anonymous reader quotes their report. A-level student Miles Soloman found that radiation sensors on the International Space Station (ISS) were recording false data… The correction was said to be “appreciated” by NASA, which invited him to help analyse the problem… The research was part of the TimPix project from the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS), which gives students across the UK the chance to work on data from the space station, looking for anomalies and patterns that might lead to further discoveries. What Miles had noticed was that when nothing hit the detector, a negative reading was being recorded. But you cannot get negative energy… It turned out that Miles had noticed something no-one else had — including the NASA experts. NASA said it was aware of the error, but believed it was only happening once or twice a year. Miles had found it was actually happening multiple times a day. There’s a video of the student — and his teacher — describing the discovery, a story which Miles says his friends at high school listen to with “a mixture of jealousy and boredom” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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17-Year-Old Corrects NASA Mistake In Data From The ISS

New Release Of StarCraft In 4K Ultra High Definition Annouonced

The classic 90s-era videogames StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War will be re-released this summer — remastered in 4K Ultra High Definition. An anonymous reader quotes The Verge: It will also include a number of updates, such as remastered sound, new additional illustrations for the campaign missions, new matchmaking capabilities, the ability to connect to Blizzard App, the ability to save to the cloud, and more… Blizzard also announced that it was issuing a new update to StarCraft: Brood War this week, which will include some bug fixes and anti-cheat measures, but will also make StarCraft Anthology (which includes StarCraft and Brood War) available to download for free. Kotaku reports that the news was announced at this weekend’s I

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New Release Of StarCraft In 4K Ultra High Definition Annouonced

Mass-produced artificial blood is now a real possibility

Doctors dream of having artificial blood always on hand, but the reality has usually been very different. While you can produce red blood cells in a lab, the current technique (which prods stem cells into action) only nets a small number of them at best. British researchers appear to have found the solution, however: they’ve developed a technique that can reliably produce an unlimited number of red blood cells. The trick is to create “immortalized” premature red blood cells that you can culture as much as you like, making mass production a real possibility. The biggest challenge is translating the technique to commercial manufacturing. Scientists have produced a few liters of blood in the lab, but there’s a big difference between that and the massive volumes needed to serve even a single hospital. Although the UK’s National Health Service is planning to trial artificial blood this year , this new technique won’t be involved. As it is, you wouldn’t likely see a wholesale switch to artificial blood even if this new method was ready for the real world. Any mass production is most likely to focus on people with rare blood types that can’t always count on donations. Even that limited effort could make a huge difference, mind you. Hospitals could always have a consistent supply of rare blood, so you wouldn’t have to worry about them running out in a life-or-death situation. Via: BBC , Digital Journal Source: University of Bristol , Nature

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Mass-produced artificial blood is now a real possibility

A 21st-Century Version Of OS/2 Warp May Be Released Soon

dryriver writes: A company named Arca Noae is working on a new release of the X86 OS/2 operating system code named “Blue Lion” and likely called ArcaOS 5 in its final release. Blue Lion wants to be a modern 21st Century OS/2 Warp, with support for the latest hardware and networking standards, a modern accelerated graphics driver, support for new cryptographic security standards, full backward compatibility with legacy OS/2, DOS and Windows 3.1 applications, suitability for use in mission-critical applications, and also, it appears, the ability to run “ported Linux applications”. Blue Lion, which appears to be in closed beta with March 31st 2017 cited as the target release date, will come with up to date Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client, Apache OpenOffice, other productivity tools, a new package manager, and software update and support subscription to ensure system stability. It is unclear from the information provided whether Blue Lion will be able to run modern Windows applications. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A 21st-Century Version Of OS/2 Warp May Be Released Soon