Category: reader

Surgeries On Friday Are More Frequently Fatal

antdude writes “A British Medical Journal (BMJ) research report says that ‘Surgeries on Friday Are More Frequently Fatal … compared to those who opt for really bad Mondays, Britons who have a planned surgery on a Friday are 44 percent more likely to die. And the few patients who had a leisurely weekend surgery saw that number jump to 82 percent. The skeleton staff working on weekends might be to blame.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Surgeries On Friday Are More Frequently Fatal

Matt Smith Leaves “Doctor Who”

First time accepted submitter Dave Knott writes “The BBC has announced that Matt Smith will be leaving ‘Doctor Who’, after spending the last four seasons in the titular role of The Doctor. Smith will remain for the upcoming 50th anniversary special, where he will star alongside a majority of the other actors who have taken on the character, and will exit following the yearly Christmas episode. No actor has yet been cast as the twelfth incarnation of The Doctor, although there was a teaser involving John Hurt at the end of the most recent season of the show.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Matt Smith Leaves “Doctor Who”

Tons of Hackers Are Hanging Out in Old Soviet Cyberspace

The Internet is a huge place. Some parts of it are awesome, but others are…less so. And falling squarely in that latter category is the ancient .su domain, once the cyberhome of the Soviet Union . It’s not exactly well maintained, or well policed, which is why more and more online criminals are using it as a hideout. Read more…        

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Tons of Hackers Are Hanging Out in Old Soviet Cyberspace

MSI GT70 Dragon Edition review: last year’s gaming powerhouse gets Haswell

More Info MSI GT70 review First Haswell gaming laptop revealed: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 with GTX780M graphics Intel: Haswell will boost battery life by 50 percent One of the strongest gaming laptops of 2012 had to be the MSI GT70 . Like all machines of its type, it was huge, oversized and ridiculously heavy — but it trumped many of the category’s biggest faults by being superbly crafted, surprisingly long-lasting and by boasting the bleeding edge of tech: an Ivy Bridge CPU. It was a darn good machine, so it’s no surprise that MSI is hoping for a repeat performance. Meet the GT70 Dragon Edition : a Haswell-toting, 17-inch gaming laptop with all the trappings of its predecessor. It’s actually the second GT70 to adopt the Dragon moniker, but the first to pack Intel’s fourth-generation Core processors. NVIDIA’s latest mobile GPU is here too, not to mention notable OS upgrades, port tweaks and a mystical new motif. Let’s dive in and see if MSI’s encore deserves a standing ovation. Gallery: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition review Filed under: Gaming , Laptops Comments

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MSI GT70 Dragon Edition review: last year’s gaming powerhouse gets Haswell

Haswell is here: we detail Intel’s first 4th-generation Core CPUs

Intel is announcing the first of its fourth-generation Core processors based on the “Haswell” architecture. Intel Intel has been releasing information about Haswell, its next-generation CPU architecture, for months now. Our coverage has already been fairly extensive—we’ve already got a nice overview of Haswell’s CPU architecture itself, along with a primer on its brand-new integrated GPUs . All we need to know now is specific product information, and Intel is finally giving us our first official taste of that today. This morning’s announcements revolve around high-end quad-core chips in the Core i7 and Core i5 families, 12 for desktops and ten for laptops. If you’re looking for specific information about U- and Y- series low-voltage chips for Ultrabooks or anything belonging to the Core i3, Pentium, or Celeron families, you’ll have to wait a little while longer. We’ll be sure to pass that information along as we have it. What we’ll do here is present a high-level recap of the CPU, GPU, and chipset enhancements Intel is introducing in Haswell. After that, we’ll break down the specific CPUs that Intel is announcing today, and the kinds of systems you’re likely to find them in. Note that all of this information is coming directly from Intel—they’re not going to out-and-out make things up, but they’re definitely going to present their CPUs in the best possible light. We’ll be putting all of the below performance claims to the test as we begin to review Haswell-based systems later this summer. Read 30 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Haswell is here: we detail Intel’s first 4th-generation Core CPUs

Oculus VR co-founder, 33, killed by speeding car

Tragedy hits the company that made the Oculus Rift head-mounted virtual-reality display, as co-founder Andrew Reisse finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time during a police chase. [Read more]        

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Oculus VR co-founder, 33, killed by speeding car

Metal of Heaven: Ancient Egyptians Got Iron from Meteorites

The Gerzeh Bead, an ancient Egyptian iron bead derived from a meteor (c. 3300 BC) Photo: The Open University / The University of Manchester The name for iron in ancient Egyptian is ” metal of heaven ,” and they’re not kidding! Researchers from The Open University and the University of Manchester have proven that ancient Egyptians used meteorites to make iron beads accessories for their dead. Dr Joyce Tyldesley is a Senior Lecturer in Egyptology at The University of Manchester and worked on the research. She said:  “Today, we see iron first and foremost as a practical, rather dull metal. To the ancient Egyptians, however, it was a rare and beautiful material which, as it fell from the sky, surely had some magical/religious properties. They therefore used this remarkable metal to create small objects of beauty and religious significance which were so important to them that they chose to include them in their graves.” Link – via Nature

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Metal of Heaven: Ancient Egyptians Got Iron from Meteorites

TSA Finishes Removing “Virtual Nude” X-Ray Devices From US Airports

dsinc writes “The Transportation Security Administration announced it has finished removing from all airports the X-ray technology that produced graphic and controversial images of passengers passing through security screening checkpoints. The machines, which the TSA first deployed in 2008, provoked public outrage as the technology, better able than traditional X-rays to detect hidden contraband, also created images that appeared as if they were ‘virtual nudes.’ Critics called this an invasion of privacy and questioned whether the scanning devices truly lacked the ability to save the images, as the TSA claimed.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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TSA Finishes Removing “Virtual Nude” X-Ray Devices From US Airports

Google Maps Used To Find Tax Cheats

phantomfive writes “Some countries are worried about the privacy implications of Google Maps, but Lithuania is using them to find tax cheats. ‘After Google’s car-borne cameras were driven through the Vilnius area last year, the tax men in this small Baltic nation got busy. They have spent months combing through footage looking for unreported taxable wealth. … Two recent cases netted $130,000 in taxes and penalties after investigators found houses photographed by Google that weren’t on official maps. … “We were very impressed,” said Modestas Kaseliauskas, head of the State Tax Authority. “We realized that we could do more with less and in shorter time.”‘ The people of Lithuania don’t seem to mind. ‘Authorities have been aided by the local populace. “We received even more support than we expected,” said Mr. Kaseliauskas.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Maps Used To Find Tax Cheats