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The new Google Glass is on sale today (but don’t get it)

Did you regret skipping Google Glass the first time around? You now have a second chance… if you have a specific need for it, that is. Glass for Work partner Streye is now selling the follow-up Glass Enterprise Edition starting at €1, 550 (about $1, 829). This is clearly intended for business (you get access to Streye’s enterprise streaming services with your purchase), so you really, really won’t want to buy it if you’re just trying to impress your friends. However, this is still the most accessible Glass has been in years — if you do need a wearable eyepiece, it’s theoretically within easy reach. To recap, this isn’t a night-and-day rethink of the Glass concept. Rather, it’s a logical evolution intended for workers who need hands-free computing. The biggest difference is the much larger 780mAh battery, which should keep it running for more of the workday. You’re otherwise getting twice the storage (32GB), an Intel Atom processor, faster WiFi, an expanded range of sensors (mainly assisted GPS) and a louder speaker. It’s otherwise a collection of minor tweaks. In short, you’d have to be a collector to appreciate this if you don’t intend to use it for professional tasks. Via: 9to5Google Source: Streye

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The new Google Glass is on sale today (but don’t get it)

Intel unveils full specs for its 18-core i9 Extreme Edition CPU

Intel made a big splash at Computex with its new Core i9 X-series family , which is spearheaded by its first 18-core processor for desktops. But we haven’t much in the way of technical details, until now. Today, Intel revealed that the 18-core i9-7980XE will feature a base speed of 2.6GHz, with a Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.2GHz. And using Turbo Boost 3.0, which speeds up performance of its fastest two cores, it’ll reach 4.4GHz. That’s just below the 4.5GHz top speed of Intel’s Core i7-7700K, its fastest mainstream processor for desktops. Basically, that means the 18-core chip will be no slouch when it comes single-threaded performance for games. (Check out our in-depth story on the development of the 18-core processor here .) Yes, it might seem strange to see the company’s most powerful processor with a base clock speed under 3GHz. But what’s more important are the boost figures, which will kick in when you actually need more computing power. As for the other members of the X-series family, the 16-core model will feature speeds between 2.8GHz and 4.4GHz, while the 14-core version starts at 3.1GHz. As usual, Intel can reach higher speeds on chips with fewer cores, since there’s less of a heat issue to worry about. It’ll be a while until we get full benchmarks from these chips, but Intel gave us a small preview from its own testing. The 16-core i9 CPU reached a Cinebench R15 score of 3200, while running an NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti GPU. That’s below a 24-core Xeon E5 2697, according to 3D Fluff’s database . The quad-core i7-7700K, meanwhile, scored just 966 on that same benchmark. You can nab the 14-18 core i9 CPUs on September 25th, while the 12-core version is coming sooner, on August 28th. The other chips are already available on the market. Intel Source: Intel

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Intel unveils full specs for its 18-core i9 Extreme Edition CPU

Cisco Meraki Loses Customer Data in Engineering Gaffe

Cisco has admitted to losing customer data during a configuration change its enginners applied to its Meraki cloud managed IT service. From a report: Specific data uploaded to Cisco Meraki before 11:20 am PT last Thursday was deleted after engineers created an erroneous policy in a configuration change to its US object storage service, Cisco admitted on Friday. The company did say that the issue has been fixed, and while the error will not affect network operations in most cases, it admitted the faulty policy “but will be an inconvenience as some of your data may have been lost.” Cisco hasn’t said how many of its 140, 000+ Meraki customers have been affected. The deleted data includes custom floor plans, logos, enterprise apps and voicemail greetings found on users’ dashboard, systems manager and phones. The engineering team was working over the weekend to find out whether the data can be recovered and potentially build tools so that customers can find out what data has been lost. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cisco Meraki Loses Customer Data in Engineering Gaffe

Beautiful chart displays native speakers of world’s languages

Spanish designer Alberto Lucas López created this gorgeous infographic that shows the proportion of native speakers of each major language. (more…)

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Beautiful chart displays native speakers of world’s languages

Slooh’s stargazing telescope livestreams now free to view

If you enjoy watching nature livestreams (and let’s face it, who hasn’t put on a panda cam at least one or twice while toiling away), then you may love today’s announcement. Slooh , an online astronomy community that has a network of telescopes, is now making virtual viewing free. Slooh’s aim is to bring outer space to your fingertips ; it owns two telescopes in Chile and seven in the Canary Islands. It allows its paid members to book time to control these telescopes. You can secure 5 reservations per month (5–10 minutes in length) for $5 per month or an unlimited number of reservations for $25 per month. Other Slooh members can sit back and watch online, but until today, they were required to pay for the privilege. Now the organization has opened up viewing for free; all you have to do is register to view live streams of outer space. Right now, some of Slooh’s telescopes are offline due to dust in the air, and obviously when it’s daylight at a telescope’s location, it will be dormant. To join Slooh’s community, you can register on their website. You’ll be taken to a payment page, which offers a 30-day trial of the $5/month tier, but you can move ahead with a free account by clicking the “Continue Exploring the Community” option. You can’t control the telescopes, and the number of photos you’ll be able to take is limited, but hey, it’s hard to complain about a free account. Via: The Verge

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Slooh’s stargazing telescope livestreams now free to view

Marijuana company buys entire town in California to make it weed friendly

A cannabis products producer bought the town of Nipton, California (pop. 20) for $5 million, with the intention of turning into a weed “destination.” From BBC : American Green wants to invest up to $2.5m (£1.9m) in revitalising the town to make it more tourist-friendly as well as eco-friendly. “We thought that showing that there was a viable means of having a cannabis-friendly municipality and further making it energy independent could be a way of really inspiring folks to say, ‘Why can’t we do that here?'” project manager Stephen Shearin told Bloomberg. “The gold rush built this city,” he adds. “The green rush can keep it moving the way people envisioned it years ago.” The Gateway to the Mojave National Preserve. . 30 April 2017 Nipton, CA A post shared by Prince Travels (@prince_travels) on May 2, 2017 at 9:00am PDT Nipton California. pic.twitter.com/l8PBEbFk35 — Jeff Lloyd (@lloydjbl) April 16, 2016

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Marijuana company buys entire town in California to make it weed friendly

Startup Unveils Revolutionary New Rechargeable Alkaline Batteries

Slashdot reader cdreimer quotes the New York Times: Alkaline batteries can be made far more cheaply and safely than today’s lithium-ion batteries, but they are not rechargeable… Ionic Materials could change that equation with an alkaline battery the company said could be recharged hundreds of times. One additional benefit of the company’s breakthrough: An alkaline battery would not be as prone to the combustion issues that have plagued lithium-ion batteries in a range of products, most notably some Samsung smartphones. Cheaper and more powerful batteries are also considered by many to be the driver needed to make the cost of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar competitive with the coal, gas and nuclear power that support the national energy grid. The company “has demonstrated up to 400 recharge cycles for its prototypes, ” and it’s now even investigating aluminum-based alkaline batteries which would also be lighter than lithium-ion batteries. The company is backed by Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, who also envisions the batteries being used in electric cars. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Startup Unveils Revolutionary New Rechargeable Alkaline Batteries

‘World of Warcraft’ Game Currency Now Worth More Than Venezuelan Money

schwit1 quotes TheBlaze: Digital gold from Blizzard’s massive multiplayer online game “World of Warcraft” is worth more than actual Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, according to new data. Venezuelan resident and Twitter user @KalebPrime first made the discovery July 14 and tweeted at the time that on the Venezuela’s black market — now the most-used method of currency exchange within Venezuela according to NPR — you can get $1 for 8493.97 bolivars. Meanwhile, a “WoW” token, which can be bought for $20 from the in-game auction house, is worth 8385 gold per dollar. According to sites that track the value of both currencies, KalebPrime’s math is outdated, and WoW gold is now worth even more than the bolivar. That tweet has since gone viral, prompting @KalebPrime to joke that “At this rate when I publish my novel the quotes will read ‘FROM THE GUY THAT MADE THE WOW GOLD > VENEZUELAN BOLIVAR TWEET.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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‘World of Warcraft’ Game Currency Now Worth More Than Venezuelan Money

Chicago police see less violent crime after using predictive code

Law enforcement has been trying predictive policing software for a while now, but how well does it work when it’s put to a tough test? Potentially very well, according to Chicago police. The city’s 7th District police report that their use of predictive algorithms helped reduce the number of shootings 39 percent year-over-year in the first 7 months of 2017, with murders dropping by 33 percent. Three other districts didn’t witness as dramatic a change, but they still saw 15 to 29 percent reductions in shootings and a corresponding 9 to 18 percent drop in murders. It mainly comes down to knowing where and when to deploy officers. One of the tools used in the 7th District, HunchLab, blends crime statistics with socioeconomic data, weather info and business locations to determine where crimes are likely to happen. Other tools (such as the Strategic Subject’s List and ShotSpotter ) look at gang affiliation, drug arrest history and gunfire detection sensors. If the performance holds, It’ll suggest that predictive policing can save lives when crime rates are particularly high, as they have been on Chicago’s South Side. However, both the Chicago Police Department and academics are quick to stress that algorithms are just one part of a larger solution. Officers still have be present, and this doesn’t tackle the underlying issues that cause crime, such as limited access to education and a lack of economic opportunity. Still, any successful reduction in violence is bound to be appreciated. Source: Reuters

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Chicago police see less violent crime after using predictive code