Author: kenmay

Local judge unseals hundreds of highly secret cell tracking court records

Scott A judge in Charlotte, North Carolina, has unsealed a set of 529 court documents in hundreds of criminal cases detailing the use of a stingray, or cell-site simulator, by local police. This move, which took place earlier this week, marks a rare example of a court opening up a vast trove of applications made by police to a judge, who authorized each use of the powerful and potentially invasive device. According to the Charlotte Observer , the records seem to suggest that judges likely did not fully understand what they were authorizing. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have taken extraordinary steps to preserve stingray secrecy. As recently as this week, prosecutors in a Baltimore robbery case dropped key evidence that stemmed from stingray use rather than fully disclose how the device was used. The newspaper also reported on Friday that the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office, which astonishingly had also never previously seen the applications filed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD), will now review them and determine which records also need to be shared with defense attorneys. Criminals could potentially file new claims challenging their convictions on the grounds that not all evidence was disclosed to them at the time. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Local judge unseals hundreds of highly secret cell tracking court records

Windows Kernel Version Bumped To 10.0

jones_supa writes: In Windows, the kernel version number is once again in sync with the product version. Build 9888 of Windows 10 Technical Preview is making the rounds in a private channel and the kernel version has indeed been bumped from 6.4 to 10.0. Version 6.x has been in use since Windows Vista. Neowin speculates that this large jump in version number is likely related to the massive overhaul of the underlying components of the OS to make it the core for all of Microsoft’s products. The company is working to consolidate all of its platforms into what’s called OneCore, which, as the name implies, will be the one core for all of Microsoft’s operating systems. It will be interesting to see if this causes any software comparability issues with legacy applications. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows Kernel Version Bumped To 10.0

Chevy previews the next-gen Volt and its location-based charging system

We’ll be seeing the next-generation Chevy Volt in less than two months when GM launches it at the North American International Auto Show in January. But for the sake of those who can’t wait, the company has shown off a bit more of the 2016 hybrid model at an event in Los Angeles. While the first photo that came out in August only displayed the vehicle’s logo, these series of images (there are more after the break) shows almost the whole front end with its redesigned silver grille and more angular headlights. We still don’t know if it’s going to be significantly cheaper than its predecessor, but General Motors has at least revealed that the car will boast GPS location-based charging. Apparently, the new Volt will automatically adjust its charge settings when it determines that you’re at home based on GPS data. For instance, the car can tweak its charge levels, as well as make sure it’s only consuming electricity during off-peak hours. It can also start the process at a particular time each day (or week) if you’re charging in your own house, instead of at a charging station. Plus, there’s now a status indicator light (pictured below) on top of the instrument panel that lets you know how much the battery has been charged through a series of flashes. That’s about what the company has announced for now, but if you’ve been waiting to hear about the next-gen Chevy Volt for years, you’ll be able to wait two more months for the full deets. [Image credit: General Motors] Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: GM

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Chevy previews the next-gen Volt and its location-based charging system

Amazon reportedly launching free, ad-supported video streaming service

Amazon is set to launch a free, ad-supported video service separate from its $99 Prime Instant Video offering, according to the New York Post . In case you’re having deja vu , the WSJ reported exactly the same thing back in March and Amazon firmly denied it . However, the Post confidently said that the offering is now a definite “go.” One of its sources for the rumor is a potential advertiser, which said Amazon would unveil the service in order to increase its video share against arch-rival Netflix — and ultimately tempt users into Prime memberships. Amazon (sort of) offers limited ad-supported streaming now, by letting non-Prime users watch a limited selection of shows with commercial breaks. If the Post’s report proves accurate, the launch of a full-bore streaming service with ads may indicate that the current version enticed Amazon customers to buy Prime. Amazon recently scored a deal to stream classic HBO programs like The Sopranos and Six Feet Under in a minor coup over Netflix. But it still has less than a tenth of its competitor’s size — so if the rumor is true, an ad-supported service looks like it wants to change that ratio. Filed under: Home Entertainment , Internet , Amazon Comments Via: TechCrunch Source: New York Post

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Amazon reportedly launching free, ad-supported video streaming service

How You Can Get Temperatures Below Absolute Zero

It used to be that scientists all agreed that it was impossible to achieve temperatures below absolute zero, but now they realise that’s not entirely true. This video explains how you can reach temperatures below absolute zero. Read more…

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How You Can Get Temperatures Below Absolute Zero

VetiGel: A Plant-Based Polymer That Stops Bleeding in Seconds

I once got stabbed in the head with a wooden knife. It was an accident that occurred during a martial arts training exercise. I’d heard that head wounds bleed badly, but as I waited for the taxi to take me to the hospital (an ambulance is not what you take in NYC if speed is a priority) I was shocked at the amount of blood that came out of my head. While head wounds are bad, severing a femoral or carotid artery is way worse in terms of blood loss. If you slice one of these open and can’t stop the bleeding, that’s basically the last selfie you’ll ever take. But now a tiny biotech company in Brooklyn can change that equation, having developed a product that stops bleeding, whether pinprick or grievous wound, almost instantly. Called VetiGel , the material is a plant-based polymer. It requires no training to use and can be loaded into an ordinary plastic syringe; rather than needing to learn how to prepare a field dressing, someone providing aid can simply aim and squirt it like toothpaste onto a brush. Watch how it works in this video: The leftover material, by the way, can be safely resorbed into the body or removed. As for why it’s called VetiGel, the material is first being marketed towards veterinarians, with approval for human use planned for further down the line. Should the product pass human trials and prove affordable enough to manufacture, it could be a real game changer: Simple syringes loaded up with the stuff and placed into every ambulance, soldier’s pack and first aid kit around the world could mean the difference between life and death for countless people, particularly those for whom a hospital is more than a cab ride away. (more…)

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VetiGel: A Plant-Based Polymer That Stops Bleeding in Seconds

Gorilla Glass 4 promises to save your phone from street drops

This video screencap comes after a Gorilla Glass 4 device fell for a full meter and landed directly onto a sandpaper-coated surface. Look: no breakage, no shattering. Corning On Thursday, Corning Incorporated, the creators of Gorilla Glass, unveiled the fourth generation of its thin, durable glass technology for use in smartphones, tablets, and other mobile electronics. Gorilla Glass 4 is already being advertised as “up to two times stronger” than any “competitive” mobile screen, with a specific focus on surviving everyday drops in the real world. Corning confirmed to Ars Technica that the upgraded glass will reach consumer devices “this quarter.” Global marketing director David Velasquez was unwilling to reveal “what we did to the glass to make it better,” but he talked at length about one major change to the company’s lab testing: a single sheet of sandpaper. After analyzing “thousands upon thousands” of screens broken in the real world, Corning confirmed that a major contributor to common breakage was dropping a phone on “rough surfaces like asphalt and concrete.” That might seem like a head-smackingly obvious issue, but Velasquez insists that the smartphone glass-making industry, which hasn’t even existed for a full decade, has “no standard” for such testing. Most drop tests employ surfaces like stainless steel or granite, which replicate surfaces in a home. “The best way to approximate what asphalt does [to a phone screen] is 180-grit sandpaper,” Velasquez said. That can more consistently reproduce the microscopic breakage of a rough surface than even a giant sheet of asphalt (which, Corning learned after a few tests, actually smooths out at a point of contact after a few drops). Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Gorilla Glass 4 promises to save your phone from street drops

This Is the Biggest Cargo Ship on Earth

In order to keep up with the frenetic growth of global shipping traffic— which has quadrupled over the past two decades alone—commercial cargo ships keep getting bigger. And the newest king of the containerships isn’t one of Maersk’s EEE titans, it’s the CSCL Globe. Read more…

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This Is the Biggest Cargo Ship on Earth