Every iOS update is a small deception. 117MB, well that’s not so bad! Then you look at the fine print, and some a few gigabytes are required make to actually install the damn thing. So what’s really going on here? Read more…
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Why iOS Updates Require So Much Space
Tractor beams now have a better shot at crossing from science fiction trope to reality, thanks to scientists at The Australian National University (ANU). They managed to push and pull a 0.2mm sized particle nearly 20cm using a “hollow” laser beam. That’s a hundred-fold improvement over recent efforts at light propulsion, which have only moved microscopic particles short distances. The ANU team placed gold-coated glass spheres in the light-free center of the beams, creating hotspots on the surface that propelled the spheres via air reactions. The hotspot’s location was changed by adjusting the polarization, giving scientists full control over the sphere’s motion. Sure, it’s not exactly the Death Star, but the scientists think it’ll work over long distances — meaning it could one day be used to, say, control pollution or move dangerous particles in the lab. [Image credits: Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images, ANU] Filed under: Science Comments Via: CNET Source: Nature
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Tractor beams are suddenly a lot more plausible
Sandia National Lab Reducing our emissions of carbon dioxide quickly enough to minimize the effects of climate change may require more than just phasing out the use of fossil fuels. During the phase-out, we may need to keep the CO 2 we’re emitting from reaching the atmosphere—a process called carbon capture and sequestration. The biggest obstacle preventing us from using CCS is the lack of economic motivation to do it. But that doesn’t mean it’s free from technological constraints and scientific unknowns. One unknown relates to exactly what will happen to the CO 2 we pump deep underground. As a free gas, CO 2 would obviously be buoyant, fueling concerns about leakage. But CO 2 dissolves into the briny water found in saline aquifers at these depths. Once the gas dissolves, the result is actually more dense than the brine, meaning it will settle downward. With time, much of that dissolved CO 2 may precipitate as carbonate minerals. But how quickly does any of this happen? Having answers will be key to understanding how well we really sequester the carbon. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Natural underground CO2 reservoir reveals clues about storage
Ferrari You don’t need a degree in marketing to know that using social media right is an important part of building up any kind of brand these days. And the growing value of fan websites and Facebook fan pages seems to be leading to an increase in legal disputes over who controls them. The latest example involves Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari. Last week, a Swiss father and son sued Facebook and Ferrari after control of their popular Ferrari fan page was taken away from them. In their lawsuit (PDF) , Olivier and Sammy Wasem claim they controlled “by far the most popular Facebook pages for Ferrari enthusiasts,” which they created in 2008. The complaint describes Sammy Wasem as an aspiring Formula One driver whose “passion for racing and Ferrari drew many fellow fans together.” By 2009, the Wasem’s Ferrari page had more than 500,000 fans. In February of that year, Olivier Wasem got an e-mail from a Ferrari employee stating that “legal issues force us [Ferrari] in taking over the formal administration of” the Ferrari fan page. The same employee promised “to preserve and even enhance your role in the Ferrari Web Presence and communities.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Ferrari hit with lawsuit for taking over Facebook fan page
It may look the same, but iOS 8.1 is shoving some major new additions into your pocket—the most anticipated of which is, of course, Apple Pay. So backup all your goodies, because you can officially download the new update in iTunes right now. Read more…
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Go Download iOS 8.1 Right Now
The folks at Carnegie Mellon’s Future Interfaces Group have made something really cool. Essentially, they are using small lasers to paint icons onto your skin through the bottom of a watch. The icons are touch sensitive and can be projected in any shape. The team consists Gierad Laput, Robert Xiao, Xiang Chen, Scott E. Hudson, and Chris Harrison, researchers at CMU’s… Read More
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Skin Buttons Are Working Buttons Projected Onto The Skin
I rarely like to focus on military robots but this video is fascinating. It talks about the SWARM program, a system for controlling multiple boats in a body of water and ensuring they don’t crash into each other and can easily swarm on another ship as needed. These boats, which are connected via software called Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing, can be armed but… Read More
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Autonomous Boats Are Helping The Navy Swarm On Threats
For the last week, I’ve been reading off of a Kindle e-reader that somehow costs twice as much as a brand new Kindle Fire HD tablet. What a world! And while I still don’t know if the Kindle Voyage is worth $200 (or $290 for the 3G model) I do know that it’s the best e-reader ever built. Read more…
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Kindle Voyage Review: The Best E-Reader Lots of Money Can Buy
A chip card and the inside of a card’s chip. Explain That Stuff On Friday, President Obama signed an executive order to speed the adoption of EMV-standard cards in the US. The transition to EMV—an acronym eponymous of Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the companies that developed the standard—has been slow to gain traction in the US. The EMV standard will require credit card companies to do away with the magnetic stripe cards that are common today in favor of cards with embedded-chips that will offer more secure credit card transactions. Lawmakers and credit card companies confirmed earlier this year that the US would make the transition to EMV cards in October 2015. But over the past several months, retail stores like Target , Home Depot , Michaels , Neiman Marcus , and more have sustained major hacks that caused the retailers to loose credit card information and personal information of millions upon millions of customers, giving new urgency to the call for more secure credit cards. Speaking at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday , President Obama said that the federal government would apply “chip-and-PIN technology to newly issued and existing government credit cards, as well as debit cards like Direct Express.” The White House also said that all payment terminals at federal agencies will soon be able to accept embedded chip cards. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Obama signs “BuySecure” initiative to speed EMV adoption in the US
Happy Sunday fellow Gizmodo readers. Lots of techy tech stuff happened this week. Google let us see the brave new Nexus future and Apple had a few new toys to showcase before 2014 wraps up. But in between and among these big events, lots of great stories filtered through the web. Here are great long form pieces from The Star , Vox , Nautilus , and MIT Technology Review worthy of your undivided attention. Read more…
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To Save Modern Medicine, Scientists Hunt for New Antibiotics