Author: kenmay

Everything you need to know to install SteamOS on your very own computer

SteamOS in all its blue glory. Lee Hutchinson True to its word, Valve has released a beta version of SteamOS, the Linux-based operating system that it will use to power its living room Steam Machine consoles. The release coincides with a lucky group of 300 public beta testers being selected to actually receive Steam Machines to test on—the rest of us can still use the OS, but we’ll have to bring our own hardware. Valve had previously recommended that users who aren’t “intrepid Linux hackers” should wait a few more months before trying out SteamOS, but that’s not going to stop Ars from barreling head first into the midst of things! We downloaded the OS as quickly as we could after it went live and spent some time getting it whipped into shape on fresh hardware. Contrary to Valve’s warning, the install wasn’t complex or scary at all—though if you’ve never installed Linux before, it might take you a bit out of your comfort zone. The hardware Specs at a glance:The Ars Technica Steam Machine CPU Intel Pentium G3220 (Haswell), dual-core, 3.0 GHz GPU Zotac Geforce GTX660 (2GB) RAM 8 GB DDR3-1600 Motherboard MSI H81I (mini-ITX) Storage Western Digital WD Blue 7200 rpm 500GB HD Sound Onboard Network Onboard (wired gigabit Ethernet) PSU Antec VP-450, 450W Case BitFenix Prodigy, arctic white We didn’t receive a Steam Machine to test, so we set out to build our own. Our goals were to stick to known-good SteamOS hardware, and to keep the price between $5-600. Andrew Cunningham, Kyle Orland, and I all stuck our heads together and came up with the configuration at right. All items were purchased from NewEgg, and the total prior to shipping was $562.93. Read 35 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Everything you need to know to install SteamOS on your very own computer

How the first iPhone copied everything—and the last one did too

The first iPhone was a true breakthrough that shaped the multitouch-dominated world we live in. It took its clues from everyday objects to create a familiar experience that was instantly understood (and copied.) Years later it got stuck in those successful metaphors but, instead of working in another breakthrough, Apple just copied some bits from the companies who copied the iPhone. This video explains this story in a fair way. Read more…        

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How the first iPhone copied everything—and the last one did too

GE’s New Fast CT Scanner Captures Insane Images in a Heart Beat

Even after 40 years of service, X-ray computed tomography (better known as CT scans) can be a challenge to capture. If the patient moves even a nudge, the image will come out blurry. But with GE’s new Revolution CT, doctors will be able to image the entirety of your innards in the span of a single heartbeat. Literally. Read more…        

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GE’s New Fast CT Scanner Captures Insane Images in a Heart Beat

The NSA Can Decode Private, Encrypted Cellphone Conversations

The Washington Post is reporting that, according to a newly released internal document, the National Security Agency isn’t just swiping location data from our cell phones ; they actually have the ability to decode private, encrypted data, putting all our texts and calls right at their disposal. Read more…        

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The NSA Can Decode Private, Encrypted Cellphone Conversations

Magic Color-Changing Camo Blends In No Matter The Season

Camouflage only works when it’s got the same color and pattern as your surroundings. When the foliage takes on a different hue, you don’t want to be caught wearing last season’s color. This magical new camouflage solves that problem with temperature-sensitive dyes to keep your sporting wear fashionable year-round. Read more…        

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Magic Color-Changing Camo Blends In No Matter The Season

There’s an Apple Bitcoin Prank That’s Hilarious and Devastating

General piece of advice: don’t go around typing stuff into your computer’s terminal window based on some pictures you found randomly floating on the internet. You’re not very likely to unlock a hidden bitcoin miner in your Mac, and far more likely to brick the thing instead . Read more…        

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There’s an Apple Bitcoin Prank That’s Hilarious and Devastating

More Students Learn CS In 3 Days Than Past 100 Years

theodp writes “Code.org, backed by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, boasts in a blog post that thanks to this week’s Hour of Code, which featured a Blockly tutorial narrated by Gates and Zuckerberg, ‘More students have participated in computer science in U.S. schools in the last three days than in the last 100 years.’ Taking note of the impressive numbers being put up on the Hour of Code Leaderboards (’12, 522, 015 students have done the Hour of Code and written 406, 022, 512 lines of code’), the Seattle Times adds that ‘More African American and Hispanic kids learned about the subject in two days than in the entire history of computer science, ‘ and reports that the cities of Chicago and New York have engaged Code.org to offer CS classes in their schools. So, isn’t it a tad hyperbolic to get so excited over kids programming with blocks? ‘Yes, we can all agree that this week’s big Hour of Code initiative is a publicity stunt, ‘ writes the Mercury News’ Mike Cassidy, ‘but you know what? A publicity stunt is exactly what we need.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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More Students Learn CS In 3 Days Than Past 100 Years

Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Tells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft.

cartechboy writes “Autonomous driving is every car manufacturer’s immediate R&D project. In car-building terms, even if a new technology isn’t due for 10 years — since that’s just two full vehicle generations away– it has to be developed now. So now it is for autonomous car research and testing, and this week Ford revealed a brand new Fusion Hybrid research vehicle built for autonomous R&D with some interesting tech capabilities. Technologies inside the new Fusion Hybrid research vehicle include LIDAR (a light-based range detection), which scans at 2.5 million times per second to create a 3D map of the surrounding environment at a radius of 200 feet. Ford says the research vehicle’s sensors are sensitive enough to detect the difference between a small animal and a paper bag even at maximum range. More road-ready differentiations include observation and understanding of pedestrians, cyclists, and plain old stationary objects. Ford is working on this project in cooperation with the University of Michigan.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Tells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft.

ITU Standardizes 1Gbps Over Copper, But Services Won’t Come Until 2015

alphadogg writes “The ITU has taken a big step in the standardization of G.fast, a broadband technology capable of achieving download speeds of up to 1Gbps over copper telephone wire. The death of copper and the ascent of fiber has long been discussed. However, the cost of rolling out fiber is still too high for many operators that instead want to upgrade their existing copper networks. So there is still a need for technologies that can complement fiber, including VDSL2 and G.fast. Higher speeds are needed for applications such as 4K streaming, IPTV, cloud-based storage, and communication via HD video, ITU said.” Meanwhile, I’m hoping Google Fiber, FIOS, and other fast optical options scare more ISPs into action along both price and speed axes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ITU Standardizes 1Gbps Over Copper, But Services Won’t Come Until 2015

Engineering the Perfect Coffee Mug

Nerval’s Lobster writes “From the annals of Really Important Science comes word that a research assistant who picked up his B.S. just seven months ago has invented a coffee mug designed to keep java at just the right piping-hot temperature for hours. Logan Maxwell, who got his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University in May, created the “Temperfect” mug as part of his senior design project for the College of Engineering. Most insulated mugs have two walls separated by a soft vacuum that insulates the temperature of a liquid inside from the temperature of the air outside. Maxwell’s design has a third layer of insulation in a third wall wrapped around the inner basin of the mug. Inside is a chemical insulator that is solid at room temperature but melts into a liquid at 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The insulator – which Maxwell won’t identify but swears is non-toxic – turns to liquid as it absorbs the extra heat of coffee poured into the mug at temperatures higher than 140 F, cooling it to a drinkable temperature quickly. As the heat of the coffee escapes, the insulating material releases heat through the inner wall of the mug to keep it hot as long as possible; a graph mapping the performance of a prototype shows it could keep a cup of coffee at between 128 F and 145 F for as long as 90 minutes. “Phase-change” coffee-mug insulation was patented during the 1960s, but has never been marketed because they are difficult and expensive to manufacture compared to simpler forms of insulation. While working on the Temperfect design, Maxwell met Belgian-born industrial designer Dean Verhoeven, president of consulting form Ancona Research, Inc., who had been working on a similar design and had already worked out how to manufacture a three-walled insulated mug cost effectively. The two co-founded a company called Joevo to manufacture the mugs.” According to the Joevo Kickstarter page, you can get one starting at $40. For that much, I’d like a clever lid like this Contigo has. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Engineering the Perfect Coffee Mug