Author: kenmay

Harvard Develops Drug-Filled, Injectable Sponge That Expands Inside the Body

An anonymous reader writes “Harvard bioengineers have perfected injecting us with a drug-filled sponge instead of just a liquid. It may seem strange to want to inject a piece of sponge into your body, but it does actually help solve a number of invasive problems. For example, sometimes it is necessary to have drugs released slowly into our bodies, and/or some kind of bio-scaffold is required to be positioned so that it can help support a damaged organ or to engineer new tissue. This new, injectable sponge is incredibly useful because not only can it be filled with drugs that then are slowly released, it also has a memory and can be collapsed down to a tiny fraction of its original size.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Harvard Develops Drug-Filled, Injectable Sponge That Expands Inside the Body

Review: Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal a mix of promise, pain

Tux shares a perch with Ubuntu 12.10’s namesake bird Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock Write this down: Ubuntu 12.10, the late-year arrival from Canonical’s six-month standard release factory, marks the first new release within the company’s current long-term support cycle. Got it? Good, because it may be the best takeaway from the latest Ubuntu release, codenamed Quantal Quetzal. After that, it’s a bit of a rocky ride. The product’s development lineage is important to note from more of a business/adoption side perspective. The release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS in April was Canonical’s fourth long-term support product and signaled the end of one full two-year development cycle. Quantal Quetzal is the first standard release on the road to pushing out Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in Spring 2014 (undoubtedly to be codenamed “Uber-rocking Unicorn” if the pattern holds), and it sets up themes and directions which will mature over the next two years. Standard releases aren’t terribly different from the bi-annual LTS products, though they tend to be slightly less conservative in code offerings. The Ubuntu development community lets off the brakes a little and sticks some shiny back in. Read 63 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Review: Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal a mix of promise, pain

Hands-On With Intel’s “Next Unit of Computing” Mini PC

crookedvulture writes “Intel’s Next Unit of Computing has finally made its way into the hands of reviewers. The final revision is a little different from the demo unit that made the rounds earlier this year, but the concept remains the same. Intel has crammed what are essentially ultrabook internals into a tiny box measuring 4″ x 4″ x 2″. A mobile Core i3 CPU provides the horsepower, and there’s a decent array of I/O ports: USB, HDMI, and Thunderbolt. Users can add their own memory, storage, and wireless card to the system, which will be sold without an OS for around $300. Those extras raise the total price, bringing the NUC closer to Mac Mini territory. The Apple system has a bigger footprint, but it also boasts a faster processer and the ability to accommodate notebook hard drives with higher storage capacities than the mSATA SSDs that are compatible with the NUC. If Intel can convince system builders to adopt the NUC, the future of the PC could be a lot smaller.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hands-On With Intel’s “Next Unit of Computing” Mini PC

Facebook Switching To HTTPS By Default

Trailrunner7 writes “Facebook this week will begin turning on secure browsing be default for its millions of users in North America. The change will make HTTPS the default connection option for all Facebook sessions for those users, a shift that gives them a good baseline level of security and will help prevent some common attacks. Facebook users have had the option of turning on HTTPS since early 2011 when the company reacted to attention surrounding the Firesheep attacks. However, the technology was not enabled by default and users have had to opt-in and manually make the change in order to get the better protection of HTTPS.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Facebook Switching To HTTPS By Default

Internet Cafe Webmaster Steals Internet From Internet Cafe

An internet cafe webmaster in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, Guangdong, was recently arrested for stealing user information, passwords, and money from the very same internet cafe he was working in. The method of his crime was something that seems like something lifted from the 1999 movie Office Space . More »

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Internet Cafe Webmaster Steals Internet From Internet Cafe

Romney campaign got its IT from Best Buy, Staples, and friends

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulhami/ Imagine you’re launching a company and only have six months to deliver a product. You face a competitor that has been in your industry four years longer than you with twice your staff and twice the budget. If you don’t make your deadline, you’re out of business. That, in a nutshell, was the situation facing the technology team for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. The Obama for America (OFA) organization had the advantage: it didn’t have to wade through the primary season first, allowing OFA’s technology team to focus on building an infrastructure. Based on an Ars analysis of the Romney campaign’s financial reports, Romney’s team had less to work with and passed the lion’s share of technology-focused spending directly to advertising companies and telemarketers. This left Team Romney’s tech squad with only a fraction of the budget for consulting, services, and infrastructure. So, the campaign did what a lot of small businesses would do: they went to Best Buy. Or more accurately, they went to Best Buy’s subsidiary, MindShift Technologies, a managed service provider that specializes in small and medium business consulting. And when they were in a pinch for tech help, they called Staples’ subsidiary ThriveNetworks and a collection of small consulting firms with links to Romney and the Republican Party. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Romney campaign got its IT from Best Buy, Staples, and friends