Author: kenmay

Millions of Spiders Seen In Mass Dispersal Event In Nova Scotia

Freshly Exhumed writes A bizarre and oddly beautiful display of spider webs have been woven across a large field along a walking trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. “Well it’s acres and acres; it’s a sea of web, ” said Allen McCormick. Prof. Rob Bennett, an expert on spiders who works at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC, Canada, said tiny, sheet-web weaver spiders known as Erigoninae linyphiidae most likely left the webs. Bennett said the spiders cast a web net to catch the wind and float away in a process known as ballooning. The webs in the field are the spiders’ drag lines, left behind as they climb to the top of long grass to be whisked away by the wind. Bennett said it’s a mystery why these spiders take off en masse. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Millions of Spiders Seen In Mass Dispersal Event In Nova Scotia

Netflix takes up 9.5% of upstream traffic on the North American Internet

Netflix We’ve written a lot about how Netflix takes up a gigantic share of Internet traffic. During peak viewing hours, Netflix accounts for about a third of all bits sent to Internet users in North America on “fixed” connections—that is, cable, DSL, fiber, or satellite, but not cellular. But Netflix users also send a ton of data upstream, so much so that Sandvine’s latest Internet Phenomena Report puts Netflix at 9.48 percent of all peak upstream traffic on North American fixed Internet services, second only to BitTorrent’s 25.49 percent. Sandvine, a maker of equipment that helps consumer broadband providers manage network congestion, defines “peak” hours as those when network usage is within 95 percent of its daily maximum, typically from 7 to 11 p.m. It isn’t new that Netflix is both an upload and download monster. But for some reason, its share of uploads went up substantially in the latest measurement while downloads remained level. The twice-annual report had Netflix accounting for 6.44 of peak upstream traffic and 34.21 percent of downstream traffic in the first half of this year , while the newest report has Netflix at 9.48 percent of upstream and 34.89 percent of downstream: Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Netflix takes up 9.5% of upstream traffic on the North American Internet

How to Run Your Favorite Windows Programs on OS X with Wineskin

A lot of software comes out for Mac and Windows these days, but there are always a few games or apps that don’t make it OS X. Thankfully, you can easily port many Windows programs to OS X with a free app called Wineskin. Read more…

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How to Run Your Favorite Windows Programs on OS X with Wineskin

T-Mobile add-on gives you unlimited international calls for $5 per month

Calling people outside the US isn’t as expensive as it used to be, but the charges can still add up; even the better deals at big American wireless carriers have you paying both a monthly rate and by the minute. T-Mobile thinks it can shake things up a bit. It just revamped its Stateside International Talk plan to offer unlimited international calling to as many as 70 countries at flat rates. You’ll pay a relatively modest $5 extra per month if you only need to reach landlines, and $10 per month if your foreign friends use cellphones. And importantly, this covers every line on your account — your kids can speak to family overseas without racking up huge bills. There are some catches (only “30+” countries qualify for unlimited mobile-to-mobile), but this could still be a solid deal if you frequently chat with people around the globe. [Image credit: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images] Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Mobile , T-Mobile Comments Source: T-Mobile (1) , (2)

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T-Mobile add-on gives you unlimited international calls for $5 per month

DOJ Ups the Ante, Says iPhone Encryption Will Kill a Child

Here we go again. Just a few days after a former FBI agent argued that the new iOS 8 encryption would cause somebody to die , a Department of Justice boss upped the ante. At a meeting on October 1, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told a room full off Apple executives that iPhone encryption would cause a child to die. A child! Read more…

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DOJ Ups the Ante, Says iPhone Encryption Will Kill a Child

Yahoo will be Firefox’s default search engine for the next five years

Remember when Yahoo was your go-to search engine for browsing the web? It might be again soon, at least if you’re a Firefox user. Mozilla and Yahoo just announced a five year deal to make Yahoo the web browser’s default search engine, supplanting Google as the top item in Firefox’s search bar in the United States. Mozilla says this is part of providing a more “local” experience — until now, the company defaulted to Google search regardless of the user’s country. Now the default search engine will be assigned by region: Yahoo for the United States, Yandex search for Russia and Baidu for China . Each region will have the ability to switch to other local options as well, giving Googlers a chance to switch back if they so desire. Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer says that the deal will allow the two firms to work more closely together on future product integration, a process it’s starting with Yahoo search: starting in December, Firefox users will become the first folks with access to a new, more immersive Yahoo. This promises to have a cleaner, more interactive interfaces with a heavier focus on personalization. Dedicated to using Google Chrome, but still want in on the new Yahoo? Don’t worry — it’ll roll out to all users in early 2015. Check out the companys’ announcements a the source links below. [Image credit: Shutterstock] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: Mozilla , Yahoo

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Yahoo will be Firefox’s default search engine for the next five years

The Defective Tech That Killed the iPhone’s Sapphire Screens

The saga of Apple’s disappearing sapphire screens seems to have finally offered some concrete answers. According to a recent article by the Wall Street Journal, the screens’ supplier, GT Advanced Technologies, wasn’t just mismanaged—the product they were putting out was pretty much unusable. Read more…

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The Defective Tech That Killed the iPhone’s Sapphire Screens

Inside the lab that makes the instant blood stopping gel of the future

Something that seems ripped from the future is being developed right now inside a lab in Brooklyn. It’s the VetiGel which is also known as the borderline magical band-aid of the future. It’s a gel that when applied on a wound, almost immediately stops the bleeding. Here’s the lab where they make the future. Read more…

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Inside the lab that makes the instant blood stopping gel of the future

The most accurate, highest resolution video of Earth ever made

This Earth video created by James Tyrwhitt-Drake using footage from the Elektro-L weather satellite —a Russian satellite that takes one 121 megapixel image of Earth every 30 minutes—is the highest resolution video of our home planet ever created. Watch it in all its 4K glory here. Read more…

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The most accurate, highest resolution video of Earth ever made

AT&T refreshes its GoPhone lineup with $45 option and unlimited data

AT&T is expanding its GoPhone prepaid choices by adding a $45 tier for those who think the $60 plan’s offerings are too much, and the $40’s not enough. The company originally launched this option back in April, though you could only get it at Walmart. Now the $45 plan is officially listed on the company’s website , and it comes with unlimited talk, text and data. In fact, even the $60 option also comes with unlimited data now, but it’s not as “unlimited” as we’d all like. You only get 1GB of high-speed data for the $45 tier and 2.5GB for the $60 per month, after which AT&T will throttle your connection. Sure, it’s no fun browsing the internet on speeds reaching only 128kbps, but having a connection no matter how slow beats having none at all, especially in times of emergency. If you need more high-speed data, though, you can always top off the more expensive plan with 1GB for $10, or the $45 plan with 500MB for (oddly enough) the same price. Plus, you can add $10 on top of both tiers to get 1, 000 minutes of calls to landlines and cellphones in Mexico, among other add-on packages that you can see on AT&T’s website. Ma Bell not your carrier of choice? If T-Mobile has the better service where you live, you may want to look at its comparable (but even more competitive) Simple Choice prepaid plans. [Image credit: JeepersMedia/Flickr ] Filed under: Cellphones , Mobile , AT&T Comments Source: Droid Life , AT&T

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AT&T refreshes its GoPhone lineup with $45 option and unlimited data