New Single Board Computer Lets You Swap Out the CPU and Memory

ganjadude (952775) writes “I stumbled upon this little scoop and thought the Slashdot crowd would be interested in. The new kid on the block, known as the HummingBoard can handle faster processors, more RAM and will fit the same cases for the Pi. Also, you can expand the memory and the CPU is replaceable! The low end model starts at $45 and the high end costs $100. So tell me guys, what are you going to do with yours?” $45 model is a single core iMX6 (an ARMv7) with 512M of RAM, the $100 model has a dual core i.MX6 with 1G of RAM. Full specs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Single Board Computer Lets You Swap Out the CPU and Memory

Dubai Is Obviously Building the World’s Biggest Mall

Since building something that’s conventional is out of the question for Dubai, the second-largest United Arab Emirates city announced today that it’s breaking ground on the world’s largest shopping mall. Read more…

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Dubai Is Obviously Building the World’s Biggest Mall

$1,099 iMac review: lose 50% of your performance to save 18% of the money

Technically, this is the $1,299 iMac, not that you’d be able to tell the difference. Andrew Cunningham Apple’s new $1,099 iMac will undoubtedly be a popular computer. People in the know who want the most computing bang for their buck would be smarter to step up to a higher-end model, but there are plenty of people—casual users, schools, businesses—who just want an iMac that’s “fast enough,” not one that’s “as fast as it could possibly be.” For those people, we obtained one of the new entry-level iMacs so we could evaluate its performance. On paper, it sounds like a big step down—you’re going from a quad-core desktop processor and GPU to a dual-core Ultrabook processor and GPU. This new iMac and the base MacBook Air models in fact use the exact same processor, even though historically there’s been a big performance gap between MacBook Airs and iMacs. In practice, the story is more complicated. Let’s talk about what the new low-end iMac changes, and then we’ll spend some time looking at processor performance. Read 29 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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$1,099 iMac review: lose 50% of your performance to save 18% of the money

Hacking Internet Connected Light Bulbs

An anonymous reader writes We’ve been calling it for years — connect everything in your house to the internet, and people will find a way to attack it. This post provides a technical walkthrough of how internet-connected lighting systems are vulnerable to outside attacks. Quoting: “With the Contiki installed Raven network interface we were in a position to monitor and inject network traffic into the LIFX mesh network. The protocol observed appeared to be, in the most part, unencrypted. This allowed us to easily dissect the protocol, craft messages to control the light bulbs and replay arbitrary packet payloads. … Monitoring packets captured from the mesh network whilst adding new bulbs, we were able to identify the specific packets in which the WiFi network credentials were shared among the bulbs. The on-boarding process consists of the master bulb broadcasting for new bulbs on the network. A new bulb responds to the master and then requests the WiFi details to be transferred. The master bulb then broadcasts the WiFi details, encrypted, across the mesh network. The new bulb is then added to the list of available bulbs in the LIFX smart phone application.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hacking Internet Connected Light Bulbs

Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E

An anonymous reader writes The biggest complaint about Tesla Motors’ electric vehicles is that they’re far too expensive for the average motorist. The Roadster sold for $109, 000, and the Model S for $70, 000. Chris Porritt, the company’s VP of engineering, says their next model will aim for much broader availability. The compact Model E aims to be competitive with the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series, which both start in the low $30, 000 range. To reduce cost, the Model E won’t be built mostly with aluminum, like the Model S, and it will be roughly 20% smaller as well. The construction of the “Gigafactory” for battery production will also go a long way toward reducing the price. Their goal for launch is sometime around late 2016 or early 2017 Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E

This Is What the Sunken Cruise Ship Costa Concordia Looks Like Now

Remember how the 984-foot-long cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground in Italy in 2012? Now, police divers have re-entered the vessel, days before an attempt to re-float it, and this video shows exactly what it looks like two years on. Read more…

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This Is What the Sunken Cruise Ship Costa Concordia Looks Like Now

How to turn an entire watermelon into one giant Jell-O shot

At this year’s Fourth of July party, blow your guests’ minds harder than a Yonshakudama firework with a watermelon that splits to reveal a jiggly Jell-O core. All of the vodka and flavor, none of the seeds. Read more…

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How to turn an entire watermelon into one giant Jell-O shot

Make a PiGRRL – Raspberry Pi Gameboy

From our friends at adafruit: “Celebrate the 20th anniversary of that classic gaming device by building your own with 3D printing and DIY electronics from adafruit. The 3D printed enclosure ( files here ) will house all the components and you can print it in your favorite color. Find out how to assemble and program this project by checking out the guide on the adafruit learning system.

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Make a PiGRRL – Raspberry Pi Gameboy

How many gigabytes does it take to make a human?

How much information is stored inside a human? Not as much as you think. All you need is a mere 1.5 gigabytes to fit your entire genetic code. Veritasium did the math in his latest brain tapping video and cooked up that number using bits to understand the molecules that make up a person’s genetic code. Read more…

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How many gigabytes does it take to make a human?