Category: reader

TSA Paid $1.4 Million For Randomizer App That Chooses Left Or Right

An anonymous reader writes: For those of you who have traveled through U.S. airports in recent years, you may have noticed the Transport Security Administration (TSA) use a Randomizer app to randomly search travelers in the Pre-Check lane. The app randomly chooses whether travelers go left or right in the Pre-Check lane so they can’t predict which lane each person is assigned to and can’t figure out how to avoid the random checks. Developer Kevin Burke submitted a Freedom of Information Act request asking for details about the app. The documents he received reveals the TSA purchased the Randomizer iPad app for $336, 413.59. That’s $336, 413.59 for an app, which is incredibly simple to make as most programming languages of choice have a randomizing function available to use. What may be even more intriguing is that the contract for the TSA Randomizer app was won by IBM. The total amount paid for the project is actually $1.4 million, but the cost is not broken down in Burke’s documents. It’s possible IBM supplied all the iPads and training in addition to the app itself. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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TSA Paid $1.4 Million For Randomizer App That Chooses Left Or Right

Frontier customers still have problems three days after Verizon changeover

Former Verizon customers who were switched over to Frontier Communications on Friday are still reporting outages and other problems today. Verizon sold its FiOS and DSL networks in California, Florida, and Texas to Frontier, but the transition has not been smooth. On Friday, Frontier acknowledged a “technical issue” involving the integration of systems, but the company said it had been fixed by 9:30am ET that morning. That assurance seems to have been premature, with customers still reporting problems on DownDetector  and Twitter throughout the weekend and today. “Onto the 4th day without Internet or any working account…any timeframe guys? This is getting really crazy!” one California customer complained today. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Frontier customers still have problems three days after Verizon changeover

Amazon CEO says a brand-new flagship Kindle is coming next week

If you’re thinking about buying a Kindle Voyage, you probably should hold off. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just tweeted this morning that the company is ready to release an “all-new, top of the line” Kindle next week. Presumably, that’ll be a replacement for the aging but still powerful Kindle Voyage , which was released back in the fall of 2014. It’s still an excellent e-reader (albeit an expensive one at $200), but the mid-range Kindle Paperwhite has since adopted its high-resolution screen at a much lower price. Heads up readers – all-new, top of the line Kindle almost ready. 8th generation. Details next week. — Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 4, 2016 The Voyage is still slightly smaller and lighter than the Paperwhite; it also features a screen with adaptive lighting technology and has pressure-sensitive page turn buttons. But for most readers, the cheaper Paperwhite is the better buy. We’ll see what Amazon has to differentiate its new e-reader from the Voyage next week, but as for now Bezos isn’t dropping any other details. It’s also worth noting that this is a pretty strange way to drop some news — most new device launches are obviously shrouded in secrecy. Bezos’ transparency around this implies that it’s not that big of a deal, despite his “all-new” proclamation. And e-readers aren’t exactly hotly anticipated gadgets at this point; Amazon got the formula right with the Kindle and continues to dominate the market with it. So there’s not a whole lot for Bezos to lose by giving the masses a little tease of what’s coming next. Source: Jeff Bezos (Twitter)

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Amazon CEO says a brand-new flagship Kindle is coming next week

Inside Meow Wolf, the amusement park for people who want a weirder Disneyland

A view from the enchanted forest, showing all the stairs and crawl spaces that you can explore. (credit: Meow Wolf) SANTA FE, NM—The Meow Wolf art complex looks like a strip mall from another dimension. Located in downtown Santa Fe, its massive main building—a former bowling alley—is covered in zig-zagging lines of explosive color. The parking lot is dominated by towering metal sculptures of a spider and a robot. Its landlord is George RR Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series, and its tenants are a high-tech artist collective called Meow Wolf, known previously for building a full-scale spaceship that visitors could explore . On March 17, after nearly two years of construction, the Meow Wolf art complex opened its riotously painted doors and invited the public in to its first permanent exhibit, called The House of Eternal Return . Think of it as a walk-in science fiction novel built with milling machines, thermoplastic, and Arduinos. Or maybe it’s a cross between Disneyland and a massive, multiplayer, IRL game . Built by 135 artists and makers, the result is a 20,000-square-foot dreamworld where your goal is to figure out why an old Victorian house in Mendocino, California, has become ground zero for a rupture in space-time that’s allowing other dimensions to leak into ours. I took a tour of the Meow Wolf art complex in the final few days before it opened, when dozens of artists and fabricators were working around the clock to finish building what I can only describe as something I never imagined could exist. My tour guides were artist Lauren Oliver, whose magnificent space owl can be found in the dreamscape of Eternal Return, and technology project lead Corvas Brinkerhoff. They fitted me with a hard hat and took me into a building that was once a bowling alley. Now it’s another world. Read 27 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Inside Meow Wolf, the amusement park for people who want a weirder Disneyland

Tesla’s Model 3 Preorder Numbers Are Way Bigger Than Anyone Expected

Given that people camped out in line for a chance to pay a deposit on the Model 3, a car they won’t see for at least a year, it’s no surprise that the pre-order numbers are big. But 276, 000 pre-orders in 72 hours is still a shockingly high number. Read more…

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Tesla’s Model 3 Preorder Numbers Are Way Bigger Than Anyone Expected

Huge data leak reveals the hidden wealth of the rich and famous

In one of the biggest data leaks ever (even larger than the NSA wires leak in 2013 ), Panama-based legal firm Mossack Fonseca has seen 2.6 terabytes of its private data leaked to journalists. Shared with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung , it was then spread to a wider network of journalists globally — 370 reporters from 100 media organizations have looked into the leak for a year. The research has already unearthed that 12 national leaders, including monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, have been using offshore tax havens, including a $2 billion paper trail that leads to Russia’s Vladimir Putin . Meanwhile, FIFA’s attempts to clean itself up faces fresh criticism after the leak appears to connect executives being investigated to members of the ethics committee itself. The sheer volume of data means that files are still being pored over, although you can attempt to follow along with this Reddit thread . It sheds light on the huge, lucrative, complex world of offshore finance and special tax laws. Mossack Fonseca is the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, meaning that the leak has plenty of new information and insight globally, from Russia’s rich to property developers in Hong Kong , Lionel Messi and politicians across the world . There’s a big focus on the UK too: more than half of the companies are either registered there or in British-administered tax havens. The company denies any accusations of wrongdoing. Source: The Guardian , Reddit

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Huge data leak reveals the hidden wealth of the rich and famous

Homebrew self-driving tech gets millions in backing

George “Geohot” Hotz’s attempt to put cheap, self-driving tech into any existing car raised eyebrows (and Tesla’s ire) when it was revealed late last year. Now, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital funds is throwing its wallet behind Hotz’s grand idea. Andreessen Horowitz has written a check for $3.1 million to help Hotz hire engineers and turn his jury-rigged system into a working product. He’s joining some illustrious company, since the fund has previously handed cash to outfits like Oculus VR, Zynga, Instagram, Groupon, Jawbone and something called Twitter. Those with long memories will know Hotz from his days as Geohot, the hacker that cracked the iPhone and PlayStation 3 . The engineer has founded a company, Comma, on the principle that cheap sensors and machine learning makes it possible to make a system for a few thousand bucks. It’s a claim that Tesla was quick to trash, saying that while it’s easy to build a system for a “known stretch of road, ” a real self-driving car is a much harder proposition. Still, if the folks at Horowitz are opening their bank accounts, even slightly, then they must feel differently. Source: Chris Dixon

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Homebrew self-driving tech gets millions in backing

NASA’s Made 2.95 Million Amazing Images of Earth’s Thermal Emissions Public

Since 1999, NASA’s Terra spacecraft has been capturing amazing images of thermal emissions and radiation across the surface of the planet for Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Now, those images have been made publicly available. Read more…

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NASA’s Made 2.95 Million Amazing Images of Earth’s Thermal Emissions Public

‘Biopen’ lets doctors 3D print cartilage during surgery

If you need knee replacement surgery in the future, doctors may be able to create a custom-made joint from your own stem cells. A team from St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, have developed the Biopen, a type of 3D printer that uses “ink” made from hydrogel and stem cells. While 3D printing stem cells isn’t new , the exact shape of a patient’s cartilage often can’t be known until they’re cut open. Using the device, surgeons can precisely customize the joint to the patient with surgical “scaffolds, ” then permanently harden the biogel using ultraviolet light. Built from medical-grade plastic and titanium in consultation with doctors, the Biopen is supposedly up to the challenges of an operating room. “The development of this type of technology is only possible with interactions between scientists and clinicians — clinicians to identify the problem and scientists to develop a solution, ” says Professor Peter Choong, Director of Orthopaedics at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. The process yields a very high 97 percent survival rate for the cells. Doctors developed a Biopen prototype several years ago (see the video, above), but refined it considerably, according to a new research paper . The same device could be used in other forms of surgery where custom tissue regeneration is needed, but there’s no word yet on when it will be tested on patients or commercialized. Via: IB Times Source: Pubmed (subscription)

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‘Biopen’ lets doctors 3D print cartilage during surgery