Watch How Bolivia Built the World’s Longest Urban Cable Car System

In most parts of the world, cable cars are relegated to ski areas or amusement parks. But in South America, cities use the gondolas to navigate undulating terrain as public transportation. This fall, two more lines will open in Bolivia’s La Paz-El Alto network, making it the longest urban cable car system in the world. Read more…

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Watch How Bolivia Built the World’s Longest Urban Cable Car System

The Saleen FourSixteen Is A Faster, Louder And More Slippery Tesla Model S

 The Tesla Model S is already a shockingly quick car. The electric drive train will propel the car to 60 miles per hour in just over five seconds. But that’s not fast enough for Steve Saleen, owner of Saleen Automotive, who recently said his company’s upgraded example of the Model S, called the FourSixteen, will sprint to 60 mph in the mid- to low four-second range. Because why not. Read More

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The Saleen FourSixteen Is A Faster, Louder And More Slippery Tesla Model S

This Is What a Jellyfish Sting Looks Like in Microscopic Slow Motion

If you’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish, you’ll know how incredibly painful it is—but you might not know why. In fact, their tentacles are covered in explosive cells that are like miniature hypodermic syringes filled with venom—and in this video, you can see how they work in microscopic slow motion. Read more…

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This Is What a Jellyfish Sting Looks Like in Microscopic Slow Motion

This Beetle Has a Thin Coating Whiter Than Anything Humans Can Make

This beetle looks like it’s been given a lick with a paintbrush—but in fact, it’s covered in paper-thin scales that are brilliant white, and reflect more light than anything of a similar thickness that can be made by humans. Read more…

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This Beetle Has a Thin Coating Whiter Than Anything Humans Can Make

Daimler’s Solution For Annoying Out-of-office Email: Delete It

AmiMoJo writes Sure, you can set an out-of-office auto-reply to let others know they shouldn’t email you, but that doesn’t usually stop the messages; you may still have to handle those urgent-but-not-really requests while you’re on vacation. That’s not a problem if you work at Daimler, though. The German automaker recently installed software that not only auto-replies to email sent while staff is away, but deletes it outright. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Daimler’s Solution For Annoying Out-of-office Email: Delete It

Watch How "Electronic Makeup" Completely Transforms This Model’s Face

Nobumichi Asai has used projection mapping to put CGI onto cars, docks, building and more. His latest canvas? A real, live human face. Read more…

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Watch How "Electronic Makeup" Completely Transforms This Model’s Face

A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it

We’ve all had this first-world problem, but USB is still leagues better than what came before. Like all technology, USB has evolved over time. Despite being a “Universal” Serial Bus, in its 18-or-so years on the market it has spawned multiple versions with different connection speeds and many, many types of cables. The USB Implementers Forum , the group of companies that oversees the standard, is fully cognizant of this problem, which it wants to solve with a new type of cable dubbed Type-C . This plug is designed to replace USB Type-A and Type-B ports of all sizes on phones, tablets, computers, and other peripherals. Type-C will support the new, faster USB 3.1 spec with room to grow beyond that as bandwidth increases. It’s possible that in a few years, USB Type-C will have become the norm, totally replacing the tangled nest of different cables that we all have balled up in our desk drawers. For now, it’s just another excuse to pass around that dog-eared XKCD comic about the proliferation of standards . While we wait to see whether Type-C will save us from cable hell or just contribute to it, let’s take a quick look at where USB has been over the years, what competing standards it has fought against, and what technologies it will continue to grapple with in the future. Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it

New Cridex Malware Copies Tactics From GameOver Zeus

Trailrunner7 writes The GameOver Zeus malware had a nice run for itself, making untold millions of dollars for its creators. But it was a run that ended with a multi-continent operation from law enforcement and security researchers to disassemble the infrastructure. Now researchers have identified a new variant of the Cridex malware that has adopted some of the techniques that made GOZ so successful in its day. Researchers at IBM’s X-Force research team have seen a new version of Cridex, which is also known as Bugat and Feodo, using some of the same techniques that GOZ used to such good effect. Specifically, the new strain of malware has adopted GOZ’s penchant for using HTML injections, and the researchers say the technique is nearly identical to the way that GOZ handled it. “There are two possible explanations for this. First, someone from the GOZ group could have moved to the Bugat team. This would not be the first time something like this has happened, which we’ve witnessed in other cases involving Zeus and Citadel; however, it is not very likely in this case since Bugat and GOZ are essentially competitors, while Zeus and Citadel are closely related. The second and more likely explanation is that the Bugat team could have analyzed and perhaps reversed the GOZ malware before copying the HTML injections that made GOZ so highly profitable for its operators, ” Etay Maor, a senior fraud prevention strategist at IBM, wrote in an analysis of the new malware. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Cridex Malware Copies Tactics From GameOver Zeus

Insect that ekes out a living in Antarctica has tiny genome

The larval form of the midge (left) and the adult. Denlinger Lab, Ohio State When the term “extremophiles” gets thrown around, it’s usually in reference to single-celled organisms that thrive in high salt or near-boiling water. But there are a few animals that also manage to make do in rather extreme conditions. Perhaps the top example is a wingless midge that goes by  Belgica antarctica . As its name implies, it’s native to the frozen continent—in fact, it’s the only insect that’s native. (A few others have more recently introduced themselves from South America in recent years, and cockroaches undoubtedly ride in shipments to research bases.) Now, to try to help understand how anything can survive in such inhospitable conditions, researchers sequenced the genome of the midge and discovered it’s gotten rid of a lot of the DNA that’s frequently termed junk. The researchers describe just how difficult the insect’s living conditions are in detail: “The larvae, encased in ice for most of the year, require two years to complete their development and then pupate and emerge as adults at the beginning of their third austral summer. The [wingless] adults crawl over surfaces of rocks and other substrates, mate, lay eggs and die within 7–10 days after emergence.” Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Insect that ekes out a living in Antarctica has tiny genome

3D-printed wind turbine puts 300W of power in your backpack

For the most part, portable energy generators are intended for modest uses. They can charge your phone , but they won’t drive high-powered laptops or small appliances. That might change if Omni3D gets its crowdfunded AirEnergy 3D off the ground. The 3D-printed wind turbine should fit into a backpack, yet produce up to 300W of power — enough that you can keep a whole slew of devices running, including those that wouldn’t run at all on solar or thermoelectric systems. It will be open source, too, since part of the goal is to let those in Africa and other developing regions create their own reliable, renewable power sources. If you want to help out and get one of the first AirEnergy 3D models when it arrives in February, you’ll need to act fast. Omni3D is only offering a handful of early units to those who pledge £290 ($484) or more. Take heart if you’re not part of the first wave, though. The team expects to bring the cost of a basic production model down to $350, which is just cheap enough that it could either supplement your home power or keep your gadgets alive during long camping trips. Filed under: Household Comments Source: Kickstarter

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3D-printed wind turbine puts 300W of power in your backpack