Author: kenmay

Google takes its same-day delivery service to New York and LA

Just over a year after it started offering same-day deliveries to San Franciscans, Google’s Shopping Express has finally made its way out of California. The service, which offers expedited shipping from major stores like Target, Staples and Walgreens but also local businesses, has expanded to parts of New York and Los Angeles. Residents living in Manhattan can now call upon Google to deliver groceries, gadgets and office supplies in super-fast time. Shoppers in Culver City, Inglewood, Marina Del Rey, Santa Monica, Venice, West Los Angeles and Westwood are now also eligible, extending the search giant’s California footprint in the process. To kickstart its expansion, Google is throwing in six months of unlimited free deliveries and says it’ll add other parts of Los Angeles in the coming months, undoubtedly giving Amazon and other brick-and-mortar stores something to think about. Filed under: Internet , Google Comments Via: The Verge Source: Google Commerce Blog

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Google takes its same-day delivery service to New York and LA

Scientists can trace your ancestors to within 30 miles using DNA

You might know where your forebears lived a few generations prior, but how about the exact village they came from — 1, 000 years ago? Thanks to DNA sequencing , it’s now possible to find that out in many cases according to researchers from the University of Sheffield in the UK. The aptly-named GPS or Geographic Population Structure tool was modeled using more than 100, 000 DNA signatures called AIMs (ancestry-informative markers). Since those are often typical to geographic regions, the researchers were able to pinpoint where subjects came from, even if they moved around later (see the video below). During a Sardinian study, for instance, a quarter of the test subject were located to their exact villages and the remainder to within 31 miles. You can even try it for yourself by getting a simple DNA test from 23andme or ancestry.com (for $100-200), then uploading the results to the GPS tool . Filed under: Misc , Alt Comments Via: Gizmag Source: The University of Sheffield , Nature , Prosapia Genetics

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Scientists can trace your ancestors to within 30 miles using DNA

Etihad’s A380 ‘Residence’ has a lounge, double bed and an en-suite shower

We’ve seen full-length beds, 32-inch TVs and even dedicated chefs on board the latest Airbus and Boeing planes, but Etihad’s setting the bar far, far higher by offering an entire section of its brand-new A380 to passengers with the cash to spare. “The Residence, ” as the airline’s calling its uber-lux three-room suite, includes 125 square feet of space spread between a living room, dining area, bedroom and private bathroom (yes, of course it has a shower). You can have the suite all to yourself, or you can share the double bed with a companion. As for the tech on board, there’s a 32-inch TV in the living room, a 27-inch screen near the bed, HDMI inputs (hello PS4 at 30, 000 feet), power outlets, USB ports and a top-of-the-line Panasonic entertainment system. Etihad’s not talking pricing at this point, but the A380 is expected to fly between Abu Dhabi and London, New York and Sydney beginning in 2015, giving you plenty of time to save up. Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Etihad Airways

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Etihad’s A380 ‘Residence’ has a lounge, double bed and an en-suite shower

Finally, Hi-Def Streaming Video of the ISS’s View of Earth

An anonymous reader writes with a snippet from ExtremeTech: “After being continuously inhabited for more than 13 years, it is finally possible to log into Ustream and watch the Earth spinning on its axis in glorious HD. This video feed [embedded at ExtremeTech] comes from from four high-definition cameras, delivered by last month’s SpaceX CRS-3 resupply mission, that are attached to the outside of the International Space Station. You can open up the Ustream page at any time, and as long as it isn’t night time aboard the ISS, you’ll be treated to a beautiful view of the Earth from around 250 miles (400 km) up.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Finally, Hi-Def Streaming Video of the ISS’s View of Earth

Fitbit designer calls Project Ara the “IKEA chair” of smartphones

Magnets, how do they work? Google’s eventual, modular Project Ara smartphone will answer that question and more once its first “millions of units” ship in 2015’s first half. Project Ara To some extent, Gadi Amit, the tech-design guru who owns New Deal Design and helms the team behind devices like Fitbit, is letting go. His latest project forced him to. It’s called Project Ara , a smartphone concept that began as a Motorola product before Google bought the company. Project Ara strays from Amit’s string of simple, elegant, self-contained products. This phone is not like a fitness band or a more efficient camera; it doesn’t solve a single, immediate goal and then step out of the way. Rather, Project Ara demands experimentation and customization, forcing everyone outside of the Project Ara team to become the phone’s designers. In Amit’s eyes, especially in the modern phone era, that has become the point. The mission, even. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fitbit designer calls Project Ara the “IKEA chair” of smartphones

High School senior charged with hacking report-card system

A high school senior in Miami has been arrested on charges claiming he illegally accessed his school’s online report card system and changed grades for him and at least four other students, according to a published report. Jose Bautista, 18, appeared in court Friday, according to WFOR . He reportedly faces charges of intellectual property offense, modifying programs, and an offense against computer users. The student allegedly approached fellow students and asked if they wanted him to change their grades. The principal of Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School, the school Bautista attended, said the student gave a written confession detailing the hacking. Bautista’s bond was set at $20,000. He is under house arrest with a GPS monitor. It’s unclear if he will be allowed to graduate or if the other students involved will face any punishment. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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High School senior charged with hacking report-card system

Scientists say young blood transfusions reverse aging

Two separate teams of scientists have announced that blood transfusions from young individuals make older individuals younger, fixing their hearts and curing aging brains. Speaking to the New York Times, Harvard Medical School’s professor of neurology Rudolph Tanzi, “these findings could be a game changer.” Read more…

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Scientists say young blood transfusions reverse aging

Study: Some E-Cigs Put Out Tobacco-Like Levels of Carcinogens

An upcoming study in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research says that some tank-style e-cigarettes emit cancer-causing formaldehyde in their vapor at levels similar to traditional tobacco cigarettes. The New York Times , which revealed the findings ahead of publication, says a second study confirms the results. Read more…

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Study: Some E-Cigs Put Out Tobacco-Like Levels of Carcinogens

Google Drive to lose document editing, prompt downloads of Docs and Sheets apps

Looks like the new Docs and Sheets apps were harbingers of changes for Google Drive. The good folks at Android Police parsed Drive’s new, currently unreleased version and discovered that it no longer has document or sheet editing capabilities. Should you try to make changes, the app prompts you to download the appropriate app to do so. Choose not to download and attempt to open a file, and you’ll be greeted by a view-only mode. While users may be a bit miffed at being force-fed a pair of new apps, it may prove beneficial. Separating the doc editing and cloud storage components will (presumably) let Google streamline the experience for each and give you option to download only the apps you need. Filed under: Mobile , Google Comments Source: Android Police

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Google Drive to lose document editing, prompt downloads of Docs and Sheets apps

Some Users Find Swype Keyboard App Makes 4000+ Location Requests Per Day

New submitter postglock (917809) writes “Swype is a popular third-party keyboard for Android phones (and also available for Windows phones and other platforms). It’s currently the second-most-popular paid keyboard in Google Play (behind SwiftKey), and the 17th highest of all paid apps. Recently, users have discovered that it’s been accessing location data extremely frequently, making almost 4000 requests per day, or 2.5 requests per minute. The developers claim that this is to facilitate implementation of ‘regional dialects, ‘ but cannot explain why such frequent polling is required, or why this still occurs if the regional function is disabled. Some custom ROMs such as Cyanogenmod can block this tracking, but most users would be unaware that such tracking is even occurring.” Readers in the linked thread don’t all seem to see the same thing; if you are a Swype user, do you see thousands of location requests, none, or something in between? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Some Users Find Swype Keyboard App Makes 4000+ Location Requests Per Day