Category: reader

NASA launch of Antares ends in smoke and flames: rocket explodes after liftoff

NASA’s launch of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket and Cygnus resupply spacecraft for the International Space Station today ended abruptly when the rocket exploded in smoke and flames shortly after liftoff. This was to be Orbital’s third resupply mission to the ISS. Such an incident is referred to in NASA parlance as a “Catastrophic Anomaly.” An Accident Investigation Board (AIB) is being assembled to review the mishap. Read the rest

Original post:
NASA launch of Antares ends in smoke and flames: rocket explodes after liftoff

A $146,000 Anti-Zombie Cabin Is Your Best Bet To Stay Safe on Halloween

Don’t listen to the naysayers. The zombie apocalypse is real—and imminent. Fortunately, Tiger Log Cabins is on your side with a state-of-the-art, high-tech Zombie Fortification Cabin. Because those goddamn trick-or-treaters zombies never stood a chance. Read more…

More:
A $146,000 Anti-Zombie Cabin Is Your Best Bet To Stay Safe on Halloween

The FTC Is Finally Suing AT&T for Throttling Customers’ Data

Good news, you lovers of freedom and justice. The FTC is going after AT&T for throttling the mobile internet speed of unlimited data customers. In the words of FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez: ” The issue is simple : Unlimited means unlimited.” Read more…

Read More:
The FTC Is Finally Suing AT&T for Throttling Customers’ Data

Platform lets homeowners donate energy to those who need it

Add / Remove For the new breed of homeowners that use solar and wind technologies to generate their own energy, one bonus is that any energy that isn’t needed to power their home can be sold back to the grid. However, in every community there are those who can’t afford to heat their home in the winter, or even turn their lights on at night. Hoping to connect the two, Gridmates is a peer-to-peer network that lets those with excess energy share it with neighbors in need. We are all interconnected, and the way each of us uses the Earth’s resources is one of the causes of inequality. There are people and communities who go without, and yet those who have abundant access to things like food and energy tend to be wasteful. By making networks smarter, we can help better share the resources we have. That’s the tenet of Gridmates, a platform that’s set to launch in December. Homeowners — whether they generate their own electricity or not — can log onto the Gridmates website and sign up to pledge some of their energy to a nonprofit, an elderly citizen or anyone living in energy poverty. Working with utilities providers, the system registers their donation and reroutes energy to the recipient’s home or building. Members can either pay money to simply contribute to another’s electricity bill, or assign a portion of their current bill to be redirected to someone in need. The site hopes to also include tips that could help donors offset the equivalent power through energy saving tactics. Those who generate their own electricity can also sign up to give any excess to someone else in their community. Watch the video below to learn more about the project: George Koutitas, who came up with the concept, is currently working with the Community First! Village in Texas to trial the P2P energy network, relying on donations to provide 200 families with free electricity. Are there other ways to develop intelligent networks that could reroute excess resources to those who need it, instead of being wasted? Website: www.gridmates.com Contact: george@gridmates.com

See the original post:
Platform lets homeowners donate energy to those who need it

Google Fit for Android is ready to compile all of your fitness stats

We first heard about Mountain View’s activity-tracking plans back at I/O, and now the Android faithful and get their hands on the goods. The Google Fit app, the company’s answer to Apple Health , is now available for download, compiling all of those collected fitness stats in the same spot. By leveraging your phone’s sensors, the software monitors walking, running and cycling activity, allowing you to set specific goals and benefit from some friendly advice. Fit also plays nice with third-party apps and devices — and of course, Android Wear gadgets — so that you can get an overall view of your progress from one place. Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach were specifically mentioned in the announcement. What’s more, the initiative can be accessed on the web should the need arise (once you’ve logged in on your phone). Looking to get moving? You’ll need a handset running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or above, but if you meet the requirement, the app is available for download at Google Play . Filed under: Software , Mobile , Google Comments Via: The Next Web Source: Google Play , Android Official Blog

Read More:
Google Fit for Android is ready to compile all of your fitness stats

XYZPrinting Releases All-In-One 3D Printer With Internal Laser Scanner

Lucas123 writes XYZPrinting today released the first 3D printer with embedded scanner that has the ability to replicate objects between 2-in and 6-in in size and print objects of up to 7.8-in square from .stl files. The printer’s retailing for $799. A review of the new da Vinci 1.0 AiO all-in-one 3D printer revealed the 3D scanning capability, which is supposed to have a .05mm resolution, captures overall size and some finer features of an object but it falls short when it comes to precise details; thin protrusions and through-object holes are often missed in a scan. The mechanics — the printing head, two laser scanning/camera pods and turntable, and the motorized print table — are fully enclosed in a sleek-looking blue and white cubical case with a large transparent, hinged-front door. The front of the printer has a simple push button keypad for traversing a menu on a 2.6-in LCD black-and-white display. The printer is about 18-in. x 20-in. x 22-in. in size and weighs 60.6 lbs. While this is a desktop printer, it takes up a sizeable amount of room on your desk. It can print with either ABS or PLA thermopolymer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read More:
XYZPrinting Releases All-In-One 3D Printer With Internal Laser Scanner

OEM Windows 7 License Sales End This Friday

colinneagle writes This Friday is Halloween, but if you try to buy a PC with Windows 7 pre-loaded after that, you’re going to get a rock instead of a treat. Microsoft will stop selling Windows 7 licenses to OEMs after this Friday and you will only be able to buy a machine with Windows 8.1. The good news is that business/enterprise customers will still be able to order PCs ‘downgraded’ to Windows 7 Professional. Microsoft has not set an end date for when it will cut off Windows 7 Professional to OEMs, but it will likely be a while. This all fits in with typical Microsoft timing. Microsoft usually pulls OEM supply of an OS a year after it removes it from retail. Microsoft cut off the retail supply of Windows 7 in October of last year, although some retailers still have some remaining stock left. If the analytics from Steam are any indicator, Windows 8 is slowly working its way into the American public, but mostly as a Windows XP replacement. Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit, account for 59% of their user base. Windows 8 and 8.1 account for 28%, while XP has dwindled to 4%. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See the original post:
OEM Windows 7 License Sales End This Friday

This is Verizon’s Droid Turbo: 5.2-inch Quad HD display, up to 48 hours of battery life

What’s black and Kevlar and screams “turbo”? Okay, yes, a modded BMW M3. But also Verizon’s latest smartphone, the Droid Turbo by Motorola. Regular Engadget readers assuredly know a lot about this phone already : it’s got a 5.2-inch Quad HD AMOLED display covered in Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3, a Kevlar back, and an incredibly long battery life. Verizon’s touting “up to” 48 hours of power and a quick charge feature that nets “up to 8 hours of use” from a 15-minute charge (using a specific charging cable included with the phone, naturally). The Droid Turbo’s not all charge and no oomph: a Snapdragon 805 processor is the heart of the Turbo (a 2.7GHz quad-core CPU) and an Adreno 420 CPU (running at 600MHz) handles graphics on that fancy Quad HD screen. 3GB of RAM handles memory, making all that processor power worth a damn. Should processor speeds not excite you, perhaps megapixel counts will? The camera out back on the Droid Turbo is a whopping 21-megapixels. And yes, relax, your selfies are safe: there’s a front-facing camera with 2MP resolution and 1080p video capability. In terms of the rest of the specs, the Droid Turbo is keeping up with the Joneses with Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 in all the flavors (a/g/b/n/ac), NFC, and microUSB for connectivity. Verizon’s XLTE comes inside the Droid Turbo as well — surprise! Honestly, it’s just a little frustrating to see this thing debut so shortly after the Moto X first hit the scene. After all, it basically improves on just about everything we didn’t dig about Moto’s recent flagship , so if you just bought one you might want to keep the receipt handy. In fact, all of the voice and gesture ability in Motorola’s Moto X is also in the Droid Turbo. How about that ?! Okay, now the elephant in the room: what’s powering that “up to” 48 hours of battery life? A 3, 900 mAH battery is nestled behind that tough exterior, sitting next to 32GB of internal storage (64GB optionally if you wanna get crazy ). It’s available October 30th; Droid Turbo starts at $199 (with a two-year contract) and jumps to $249 when you add the extra storage. So, how does the phone feel? Is it any good? These are all good questions that we don’t have answers for just yet, but we’ll have a hands-on for you shortly. Hang tight! Filed under: Cellphones , Handhelds , Mobile , Verizon Comments

See the article here:
This is Verizon’s Droid Turbo: 5.2-inch Quad HD display, up to 48 hours of battery life

Space Whiskey Safely Returned To Earth

Back in 2011, a group of alcoholics masquerading as scientists managed to somehow persuade their bosses that sending (very small) vials of whiskey to space was a viable ‘experiment’. Four years on, the whiskey has eluded the clutches of the ISS astronauts, as has landed safely back on Earth . Read more…

Read the original post:
Space Whiskey Safely Returned To Earth

Alienware’s Triangular Area-51 Re-Design With Tri-SLI GeForce GTX 980, Tested

MojoKid writes Dell’s Alienware division recently released a radical redesign of their Area-51 gaming desktop. With 45-degree angled front and rear face plates that are designed to direct control and IO up toward the user, in addition to better directing cool airflow in, while warm airflow is directed up and away from the rear of the chassis, this triangular-shaped machine grabs your attention right away. In testing and benchmarks, the Area-51’s new design enables top-end performance with thermal and acoustic profiles that are fairly impressive versus most high-end gaming PC systems. The chassis design is also pretty clean, modular and easily servicable. Base system pricing isn’t too bad, starting at $1699 with the ability to dial things way up to an 8-core Haswell-E chip and triple GPU graphics from NVIDIA and AMD. The test system reviewed at HotHardware was powered by a six-core Core i7-5930K chip and three GeForce GTX 980 cards in SLI. As expected, it ripped through the benchmarks, though the price as configured and tested is significantly higher. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Follow this link:
Alienware’s Triangular Area-51 Re-Design With Tri-SLI GeForce GTX 980, Tested