Author: kenmay

Square Cash makes bill collecting from your friends less of a hassle

Getting your friends to pay you back for dinner just got a lot easier. Square Cash , the company’s super-simple service that lets you pay friends by sending an email, added the ability to request money Thursday. Now you can ask to get paid back by sending an email to your buddy (or reply all to a group of friends) with the amount you need in the subject line and copying request@square.com on the message. When your friends receive the request and tie a debit card to their email, a reply that copies cash@square.com will pay you immediately. If you’re waiting for a group to pay you back you can also track the status of your requested payments, so you know which of your deadbeat friends needs another shake down. Those still waiting to get reimbursed for last weekend’s night out can start their own collection service now using an email address , or Square’s Android or iOS app. Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless Comments

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Square Cash makes bill collecting from your friends less of a hassle

Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s $45 billion merger puts 30 million customers under one roof

It’s official: Confirming the leaks from last night, Comcast has announced it will acquire Time Warner Cable . This combination of the country’s #1 and #2 cable companies will stretch from coast to coast, as TWC controls markets like New York City, LA and Texas, while Comcast strongholds include Philadelphia and Washington DC. TV isn’t the only medium in play either, since as Gigaom points out, the two companies together cover not only 30 million+ cable TV subscribers, but also around the same number of internet connections, and about 15 million phone lines. So, what’s the likely impact for customers as a result of the deal? Right away, probably not much, and for several reasons. It will take time for the combo to gain regulatory approval from the FCC and Justice Department, like the lengthy acquisition process we saw when Comcast snatched up NBCUniversal a few years ago. Despite that, both parties expect the deal to close by the end of this year. As part of the announcement, Comcast says it’s “prepared to divest systems serving approximately 3 million managed subscribers, ” and expects to gain about 8 million net subscribers with the move. Comcast is still trying to roll out its new X1 TV platform including cloud DVR access, while Time Warner Cable brings its own setup, complete with StartOver and LookBack VOD features that let viewers go back in time without a DVR. Filed under: Home Entertainment , Internet , HD Comments Source: Comcast , Time Warner Cable

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Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s $45 billion merger puts 30 million customers under one roof

Netflix’s first taste of ‘Star Wars’ coming with exclusive ‘Clone Wars’ series in March

Sure, Netflix has a multi-billion dollar deal with Disney , but Star Wars content is noticeably missing from its sizeable catalog. That’s about to change, however, after the streaming giant announced it has signed an exclusive agreement to bring the final series of The Clone Wars , dubbed ” The Lost Missions , ” to all 44 million of its subscribers on March 7th. Netflix says the 13-episode season will be accompanied by all five director’s cuts of the previous five Clone Wars seasons and the feature film, making it the only subscription service to offer such content. We’ve already started to see more Disney content on Netflix, but we’ll have to wait until 2016 until we see first-run live-action and animated films come to the service. There’s no word on whether we’ll see the Star Wars feature films come to the catalog in the future — we’ll just make sure to enjoy the launch of multiple Marvel mini-series while we wait. Filed under: Home Entertainment , Internet Comments Source: Star Wars

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Netflix’s first taste of ‘Star Wars’ coming with exclusive ‘Clone Wars’ series in March

The World’s Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity Today

Take 300, 000 computer-controlled mirrors, each 7 feet high and 10 feet wide. Control them with computers to focus the Sun’s light to the top of 459-feet towers, where water is turned to steam to power turbines. Bingo: you have the world’s biggest solar power plant, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System . Read more…        

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The World’s Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity Today

Skeleton from one of the earliest Americans yields its genome

The burial mound in Montana where the skeleton was found. Texas A&M University The peopling of the Americas via the Bering Sea land bridge is one of the more confusing events in recent history. Some of the earliest signs of human occupancy are actually in Chile. After that, the first distinct toolmaking culture, the Clovis people, appeared in the interior of North America, and rapidly swept across the continent. There are also indications that a separate migration occurred down the Pacific coast, possibly associated with people who had distinctive skeletal features, while the Inuit seem to be relatively recent arrivals. The sudden appearance of the Clovis toolset has caused some people to suggest that the Clovis were a distinct migration by a passage between ice sheets directly into North America’s interior. Others have even suggested that they arrived from Europe, brought by people who crossed the ice through Greenland (an idea that’s favored by a certain Bigfoot researcher ). Now, researchers have completed the genome of an individual who was buried with Clovis tools in Montana 12,500 years ago. The results suggest that the migration into North America was more unified than some thought. Although Clovis tools are relatively common at many North American sites, they’re generally not associated with skeletal remains. And there have been no distinctive skeletal features that label remains as belonging to a distinctive Clovis ethnic group. All of which makes Montana’s Anzick site exceptional: it contains remains that were placed with Clovis tools, unambiguously tagging the skeleton as belonging to this group. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Skeleton from one of the earliest Americans yields its genome

Toyota recalls 1.9 million Prius hybrids to fix flawed software

Toyota has shipped over 3.5 million Prii since the first models hit streets in 1997, and now it wants more than half of them back. The company announced today that it’s recalling 1.9 million hybrids (713, 000 of which are in North America) thanks to a nasty software issue that could affect cars made between March 2009 and February 2014. The glitch may cause parts of the car’s hybrid system to overheat and malfunction. That would normally put the car into a failsafe mode where it can still be driven with reduced engine power, though it’s possible it could shut down entirely. The bug was first reported back in 2011 but, miraculously, it doesn’t appear to have caused any accidents yet. You can check to see if your Prius is one of the afflicted on Toyota’s recall site and schedule an appointment at your local dealership. Thankfully, you wont waste your whole day in the waiting room: a spokesperson told Automotive News the update process only takes about 40 minutes. Comments Via: Reuters Source: Toyota

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Toyota recalls 1.9 million Prius hybrids to fix flawed software

Verizon reportedly launching ‘More Everything’ plans with higher data caps, lower prices

The Nexus 7 arriving on Verizon Wireless apparently isn’t the carrier’s only big news this week. @VZWnews just tweeted that “#More is coming, ” teasing an announcement for tomorrow. According to our tipster, Verizon will launch so-called More Everything plans with additional data and reduced prices for Edge customers. Plans with 8GB or less of data will be discounted $10, while those with 10 gigs or more will be reduced by $20. For those unfamiliar, Edge is Verizon’s trade-in and upgrade program, which lets you pay off the cost of a phone over the course of your two-year contract. Share Everything plans will reportedly become the new More Everything plans, and they’ll get a boost in data caps in the process. Those plans will also allow for unlimited messaging to anywhere in the world from the US. Finally, More Everything plans will apparently include 25GB of free cloud storage. We’re hardly the first to say it, but it certainly looks like the carrier is feeling the heat from T-Mobile and others competing for customers with increasingly ambitious offers. We’ll have #More details on the announcement tomorrow, so keep an eye out! [Thanks, anonymous!] Filed under: Cellphones , Networking , Mobile , Verizon Comments Via: Android Police Source: Verizon Wireless (Twitter)

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Verizon reportedly launching ‘More Everything’ plans with higher data caps, lower prices

Giant leap for nuclear fusion as scientists get more energy out than fuel put in

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratroy Researchers in the US have overcome a key barrier to making nuclear fusion reactors a reality. In results published in Nature , scientists have shown that they can now produce more energy than the fuel put into an experiment. The use of fusion as a source of energy remains a long way off, but the latest development is an important step toward that goal. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun and billions of other stars in the universe. If mastered, it could provide an unlimited source of clean energy because the raw materials are plentiful and the operation produces no carbon emissions. During the fusion process, smaller atoms fuse into larger ones releasing huge amounts of energy. To achieve this on Earth, scientists have to create conditions similar to those at the center of the sun. This involves creating very high pressures and temperatures. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Giant leap for nuclear fusion as scientists get more energy out than fuel put in

Google Earth’s New Satellites

Rambo Tribble writes “The BBC provides some insights into the next generation satellites being built for Google by contractor DigitalGlobe in Colorado. The resolution of these satellites’ cameras is sufficient to resolve objects that are only 25cm wide. Unfortunately, the public will be allowed only half that image quality, the best being reserved for the U.S. military. ‘The light comes in through a barrel structure, pointed at the Earth, and is bounced around by a series of mirrors, before being focused onto a CCD sensor. The big difference – apart from the size – between this and a typical handheld digital camera, is that the spacecraft will not just take snapshots but continuous images along thin strips of land or sea.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Earth’s New Satellites

Supposed iPhone 6 parts surface on Twitter, hint at a larger screen on the way

Lately it’s seemed like Apple can’t build anything without a few prototype shells and cases leaking into public view, and now we’re seeing pictures of what could be the next iPhone. Posted by a Twitter user earlier today and addressed to several Apple-focused websites, the empty iPhone 6 shells look very close to current models, but appear to have space for a larger edge to edge-style display, which has been rumored before . Sonny Dickson, who has previously obtained iPhone and iPad parts prior to the launch of new devices, has also apparently received the same pictures and tells MacRumors they came from a source in China. Are these pics the real thing, and if they are, do they represent what we’ll likely see from Apple later this year? Without any details to back them up we can’t be sure, but you can check out a few more pictures for yourself after the break. iphone 6 #apple pic.twitter.com/T7URVS8O6f – mornray886 (@mornray886) February 12, 2014 iphone 6 #apple pic.twitter.com/GW6jKLG9FP – mornray886 (@mornray886) February 12, 2014 Filed under: Cellphones , Mobile , Apple Comments Source: mornray886 (Twitter) , Sonny Dickson (Twitter)

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Supposed iPhone 6 parts surface on Twitter, hint at a larger screen on the way