If you’ve ever been to a supermarket in the UK, you were probably surprised (if not a little grossed out) to see stacks of eggs hanging out with nary a refrigerated one in site. As it turns out, we might actually be the crazy ones. Read more…
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Why the British Don’t Refrigerate Eggs
Flickr user: Dierk Schaefer Two teams creating devices that stimulate the brain to restore memory function have been granted $37.5 million by DARPA to develop the technology. Both will initially work with people with epilepsy who have been given implants to locate where their seizures originate. The researchers will reuse the data gathered during this process to monitor other brain activity, such as the patterns that occur when the brain stores and retrieves memories. One team will then attempt to map these patterns by recording the brain activity of epilepsy sufferers with mild memory problems while they play a computer game about remembering things. The pattern differences between the best and worst scores among these patents will be used to develop an algorithm for a personalized stimulation pattern to keep the brain performing at an optimal level. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Human memory-saving devices get $37.5m research boost from DARPA
Iddo Genuth (903542) writes “Israeli scientists from the Tel Aviv University perfected a method for using cell phone service towers’ microwave emitters to measure rain and snow and even (for the first time ) detect fog with great accuracy over vast areas in real time. The research team members have analyzed endless amounts of raw cellular data and developed more accurate ways to measure meteorological information and added more parameters that they can now measure using their growing database. When combined with existing meteorological monitoring technologies such as radars and local ground based weather stations, the results show unprecedented level of accuracy that can give better and further weather forecast as well as special warnings about upcoming floods, fog and hail which can affect both people and crop production.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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New Technology Uses Cellular Towers For Super-Accurate Weather Measurements
John Tregoning Seattle’s publicly-owned electrical utility, City Light, is now demanding a refund for the $17,500 that it paid to Brand.com in a botched effort to boost the online reputation of its highly-paid chief executive, Jorge Carrasco. The project was concocted by the CEO’s chief of staff, Sephir Hamilton . In an interview with Ars, Hamilton said that the agency may even file a lawsuit to enforce this refund. “We’re leaving our options open,” he said. “I hope that they’ll see that what we signed up for was not the service that they delivered. We were sold one bill of goods and we were given another.” Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Seattle utility wants $17,500 refund after failure to scrub negative search results
Zothecula (1870348) writes “Conventional lithium-ion batteries rely on anodes made of graphite, but it is widely believed that the performance of this material has reached its zenith, prompting researchers to look at possible replacements. Much of the focus has been on nanoscale silicon, but it remains difficult to produce in large quantities and usually degrades quickly. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have overcome these problems by developing a lithium-ion battery anode using sand.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Sand-Based Anode Triples Lithium-Ion Battery Performance
The military masterminds at DARPA have just changed everything you think you know about bullets. Meet the Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance, or EXACTO , a .50 caliber bullet that maneuvers itself midair to stay locked on target . Here’s footage of the first live test : it sure as hell looks like the technology works. Read more…
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Self-Guided Bullets That Change Course Midair Are Now Terrifyingly Real
wiredmikey (1824622) writes “China-based threat actors are using sophisticated malware installed on handheld scanners to target shipping and logistics organizations from all over the world. According to security firm TrapX, the attack begins at a Chinese company that provides hardware and software for handheld scanners used by shipping and logistics firms worldwide to inventory the items they’re handling. The Chinese manufacturer installs the malware on the Windows XP operating systems embedded in the devices. Experts determined that the threat group targets servers storing corporate financial data, customer data and other sensitive information. A second payload downloaded by the malware then establishes a sophisticated C&C on the company’s finance servers, enabling the attackers to exfiltrate the information they’re after. The malware used by the Zombie Zero attackers is highly sophisticated and polymorphic, the researchers said. In one attack they observed, 16 of the 48 scanners used by the victim were infected, and the malware managed to penetrate the targeted organization’s defenses and gain access to servers on the corporate network. Interestingly, the C&C is located at the Lanxiang Vocational School, an educational institution said to be involved in the Operation Aurora attacks against Google, and which is physically located only one block away from the scanner manufacturer, TrapX said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Chinese Hackers Infiltrate Firms Using Malware-Laden Handheld Scanners
A federal judge has granted a nutritional supplement firm’s request to help it learn the identities of those who allegedly left “phony negative” reviews of its products on Amazon.com. The decision means that Ubervita may issue subpoena’s to Amazon.com and Cragslist to cough up the identities of those behind a “campaign of dirty tricks against Ubervita in a wrongful effort to put Ubervita at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace .” (PDF). According to a lawsuit by the maker of testosterone boosters, multivitamins and weight loss supplements, unknown commenters had placed fraudulent orders “to disrupt Ubervita’s inventory,” posted a Craigslist ad “to offer cash for favorable reviews of Ubervita products,” and posed “as dissatisfied Ubervita customers in posting phony negative reviews of Ubervita products, in part based on the false claim that Ubervita pays for positive reviews.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Judge orders unmasking of Amazon.com “negative” reviewers
Let’s try something really quickly: pull your phone out, flip it over, and maybe squint at it a bit. Chances are you’ll see a series of FCC-mandated pictograms emblazoned there, little images you’ve probably never paid attention to before. If US senators Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Virginia) get their way though, those curious icons may soon become a thing of past . Instead, the pair wants to replace those etchings with more informative digital equivalents that users can peek at if they so chose. Alas, your gadgets might not be completely clean if the bill passes — there are still those pesky CE labels to gaze upon. Anyway, it wasn’t long before the FCC released a set of guidelines for what should be displayed and how… but of course it did. FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly wrote a blog post pushing to make e-labels a thing months ago. Why are these folks getting so worked up over digital vs. physical labels? There’s the design argument, for one. No longer will your shiny smartphone or terrific tablet be marred by oblique symbols. Manufacturers won’t have to worry about the very process of etching tiny logos on everything they make either, and Rockefeller thinks that’ll mean ultimately mean “lower device costs for consumers” too. We’re looking forward to seeing how right these folks may or may not be, but (just like anything involving US law-making) it’ll take a while to see anything concrete. Filed under: Mobile Comments Source: The Hill
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The E-Label Act may rid your future gadgets of FCC logos
itwbennett writes: The Federal Communications Commission, in a 3-2 party-line vote Friday, approved a plan to revamp the 17-year-old E-Rate program, which pays for telecom services for schools and libraries, by phasing out funding for voice service, Web hosting and paging services, and redirecting money to Wi-Fi. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had proposed a $5 billion budget for Wi-Fi, but Republican commissioners and some lawmakers had questioned where the money would come from. Still, the E-Rate revamp (PDF) approved Friday contemplates a $1 billion-a-year target for Wi-Fi projects “year after year, ” Wheeler said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FCC Approves Plan To Spend $5B Over Next Five Years On School Wi-Fi