How the Jacket Zipper Was Perfected After 100 Years

You might’ve heard about Under Armour’s crazy new zipper that only requires one hand to zip. Though the futuristic magnetic clasp jigsaws nicely with the company’s high-performance standards, the zipper was originally had more humble origins: helping a sick man lead an easier life. Read more…        

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How the Jacket Zipper Was Perfected After 100 Years

This Abandoned Nazi Bunker Just Reopened As a Clean Energy Plant

The last time Hamburg’s hulking air raid bunker saw use, it was 1945—and locals were taking cover from Allied bombs inside its six-foot-thick concrete walls. That was almost 70 years ago. This year, the bunker is serving a new purpose: Supplying the city with renewable energy. Read more…        

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This Abandoned Nazi Bunker Just Reopened As a Clean Energy Plant

Mac OS X Bitcoin Stealing Trojan Horse Called OSX/CoinThief Discovered

An anonymous reader writes “SecureMac.com has discovered a new trojan horse for Mac OS X called OSX/CoinThief.A, which spies on web traffic to steal Bitcoins. This malware has been found in the wild, along with numerous reports of stolen coins. The malware, which comes disguised as an app to send and receive payments on Bitcoin Stealth Addresses, instead covertly monitors all web traffic in order to steal login info for Bitcoin wallets.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mac OS X Bitcoin Stealing Trojan Horse Called OSX/CoinThief Discovered

‘Not sci-fi anymore’: NASA is working on Star Trek healing devices

NASA and Houston-based company GRoK Technologies will work on the development of new “breakthrough products, ” noninvasive medical technologies designed to “regenerate bone and muscle tissues.” It really sounds like something out of Star Trek, but “it’s not just sci-fi anymore.” Read more…        

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‘Not sci-fi anymore’: NASA is working on Star Trek healing devices

Windows Replacement? ReactOS 0.3.16 Gets Themes, CSRSS Rewrite, and More

jeditobe writes with this announcement from the ReactOS home page: “The ReactOS Project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.3.16. A little under a year has passed since the previous release and a significant amount of progress has been made. More than 400 bugs were eliminated. Some of the most significant include completion of the CSRSS rewrite and the first stages of a shell32 rewrite. 0.3.16 is in many ways a prelude to several new features that will provide a noticeable enhancement to user visible functionality. A preview can be seen in the form of theme support, which while disabled by default can be turned on to demonstrate the Lautus theme developed by community member Maciej Janiszewki. Another user visible change is a new network card driver for the RTL8139, allowing ReactOS to support newer versions of QEMU out of the box.” You can download release images here. Want to see how it handles Windows software? Here are demos of Office 2003, Photoshop CS2, and OpenMPT. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows Replacement? ReactOS 0.3.16 Gets Themes, CSRSS Rewrite, and More

Bitcoin Plunges After Mt. Gox Exchange Halts Trades

krakman writes with this excerpt from Bloomberg News: “Bitcoin plunged more than 8 percent [Friday] after a Tokyo-based exchange halted withdrawals of the digital currency, citing technical malfunction. Mt. Gox, claimed in a blog post it needed to ‘temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests to obtain a clear technical view of the currency processes.’ It promised an ‘update’ — not a reopening — on Monday, Feb. 10, Japan time. This is day after Russia’s Prosecutor General concluded Bitcoin and other digital currencies are illegal under current law.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bitcoin Plunges After Mt. Gox Exchange Halts Trades

Florida Arrests High-Dollar Bitcoin Exchangers For Money Laundering

tsu doh nimh writes “State authorities in Florida on Thursday announced criminal charges targeting three men who allegedly ran illegal businesses moving large amounts of cash in and out of the Bitcoin virtual currency. Experts say this is likely the first case in which Bitcoin vendors have been prosecuted under state anti-money laundering laws, and that prosecutions like these could shut down one of the last remaining avenues for purchasing Bitcoins anonymously.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Florida Arrests High-Dollar Bitcoin Exchangers For Money Laundering

L.A. Building’s Lights Interfere With Cellular Network, FCC Says

alphadogg writes “When a certain Los Angeles office building lights up, it’s a dark day for nearby cellphone users, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Fluorescent lights at Ernst & Young Plaza, a 41-story tower near the heart of downtown, emit frequencies that interfere with the Verizon Wireless 700MHz network, the agency said in a citation issued against the building owner. The FCC’s message comes through loud and clear in the filing: the building owner could be fined up to $16, 000 a day if it keeps using the interfering lights, up to a total of $112, 500. The alleged violation could also lead to ‘criminal sanctions, including imprisonment, ‘ the citation says.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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L.A. Building’s Lights Interfere With Cellular Network, FCC Says

What would Middle Earth look like from space?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s hand-drawn maps of Middle Earth have long fueled readers’ imaginations about the land of Hobbits, wizards, and Elves, and a group of fantasy cartographers are imagining what the world’s terrain might look like in 3D. Read more…        

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What would Middle Earth look like from space?

Customer: Dell Denies Speaker Repair Under Warranty, Blames VLC

An anonymous reader writes “VLC is incapable of increasing the actual power past 100%, all that is being done is the waveform is being modified to be louder within the allowed constraints. But, that didn’t stop Dell from denying warranty service for speaker damage if the popular VLC Media Player is installed on a Dell laptop. Also we got a report that service was denied because KMPlayer was installed on a laptop. The warranty remains valid on the other parts of the laptop. VLC player developer [Jean-Baptiste Kempf] denied the issue with VLC and further claimed that the player cannot be used to damage speakers. How can I convince Dell to replace my laptop speaker which is still in warranty? Or class action is only my option?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Customer: Dell Denies Speaker Repair Under Warranty, Blames VLC