advertising – Page 537

Comcast Offers To Shed 3.9 Million Subscribers To Ease Cable Deal

An anonymous reader writes “In a bid to win regulatory approval for its proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable, Comcast has offered to sell 1.4 million pay TV subscribers to Charter Communications for $7.3 billion. From the article: ‘Comcast also said it would divest another 2.5 million subscribers into a new publicly traded company, dubbed SpinCo for now, to be one-third owned by Charter and two-thirds owned by Comcast shareholders. The deal will make Charter — whose own bid for Time Warner Cable was thwarted by Comcast’s higher offer — the second-biggest U.S. pay TV company with 5.7 million customers, overtaking Cox Communications Inc.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put “Meatless” Meat To the Test

assertation (1255714) writes “Bill Gates and the founders of Twitter are betting millions that meat lovers will embrace a new plant-based product that mimics the taste of chicken and beef. Meat substitutes have had a hard time making it to the dinner tables of Americans over the years, but the tech giants believe these newest products will pass the “tastes like chicken” test. Gates has met several times with Ethan Brown, whose product, Beyond Meat, is a mash-up of proteins from peas and plants.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put “Meatless” Meat To the Test

HealthCare.gov Back-End Status: See You In September

theodp writes: “The consumer-facing parts of the Obamacare website may now work (most of the time) for people buying insurance, writes Politico, but beneath the surface, HealthCare.gov is still missing massive, critical pieces that are essential for key functions such as accurately paying insurers — and the deadline for finishing them keeps slipping. Without a fully built and operational system, federal officials can’t determine how many of the 8 million Obamacare sign-ups announced last week will have actually paid their premiums. The Obama administration earlier this month indicated that insurers will continue to be paid through an ‘interim’ accounting process — pretty much a spreadsheet and some informed estimates — until at least September, when what is being called ‘the mother of all reconciliations’ will be conducted, which some fear could reveal the need for a massive correction and rate adjustments. Still, Oregon decided Friday to switch to Healthcare.gov from its own nothing-wrong-that-$78-million-couldn’t-fix Cover Oregon online healthcare exchange.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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HealthCare.gov Back-End Status: See You In September

3D Printer Lays Down Functioning Circuitry Alongside Thermoplastic

Lucas123 writes: “The Rabbit Proto is a new 3D printer attachment that can be added to a RepRap printer to create circuitry right alongside an existing thermoplastic extruder. While still in prototype, the printer head is expected to ship this summer. The creators of the Rabbit Proto, a group of Standford graduate students, have already printed working prototypes, such as a game controller. So far, the syringe-like printer head has used silver-filled silicon to create circuitry, but the engineers are now working with conductive inks made with graphite. The Rabbit Proto head unit can be pre-ordered for $350, or you can purchase a fully-assembled RepRap 3D printer with the Rabbit Proto head for $2, 499.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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3D Printer Lays Down Functioning Circuitry Alongside Thermoplastic

Blood of World’s Oldest Woman Hints At Limits of Life

porkchop_d_clown (39923) writes “When Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died in 2005, she was the oldest woman in the world. [New Scientist reported Wednesday] that, at the end of her life, most of her white blood cells had been produced by just two stem cells — implying the rest of her blood stem cells had already died, and hinting at a possible limit to the human life span.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook Data Miner Will Shock You

MojoKid (1002251) writes “A new website sponsored by Ubisoft as part of its advertising campaign for the upcoming hacking-themed game Watch Dogs isn’t just a plug for the title — it’s a chilling example of exactly how easy it is for companies to mine your data. While most folks are normally averse to giving any application or service access to their Facebook account, the app can come back with some interesting results if you dare. Facebook’s claims that it can identify you with 98.3% accuracy based on images.The Datashadow app also offers the ability to compare various character traits and gives a great deal of information about total number of posts, post times and inferred values about income, location, and lifestyle. Is Ubisoft actually performing some kind of data analysis? Almost certainly not. This is far from an exhaustive, comprehensive examination of someone’s personality or FB posting habits. The companies that actually perform that kind of data analysis are anything but cheap. The point Ubisoft is making, however, is that your FB profile contains enormous amounts of information in a single place that can be mined in any number of ways. All of this information absolutely is combined and collated to create detailed digital profiles of all of us, and the more we engage with various online services (from Facebook to Google Plus), the larger the data pool becomes.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Facebook Data Miner Will Shock You

This Obsidian Mirror Was Once Toxic Chemical Waste

There are plenty of ways to deal with chemical waste: You could ship it across the ocean . Or pump in into Ohio . Or, you could use plasma gasification—a Back to the Future -style process that “recreates the conditions inside a volcano” to incinerate waste. One byproduct of the process? A glassy synthetic obsidian. Read more…

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This Obsidian Mirror Was Once Toxic Chemical Waste

ARIN Is Down To the Last /8 of IPv4 Addresses

An anonymous reader writes “On 3 February 2011, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) issued the remaining five /8 address blocks, each containing 16.7 million addresses, in the global free pool equally to the five RIRs, and as such ARIN is no longer able to receive additional IPv4 resources from the IANA. After yesterday’s large allocation (104.64.0.0/10) to Akamai, the address pool remaining to be assigned by ARIN is now down to the last /8. This triggers stricter allocation rules and marks the end of general availability of new IPv4 addresses in North America. ARIN thus follows the RIRs of Asia, Europe and South America into the final phase of IPv4 depletion.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ARIN Is Down To the Last /8 of IPv4 Addresses

AT&T Plans To Launch Internet Video Service

An anonymous reader writes “AT&T officially announced on Tuesday their intention to launch a Netflix-like service in collaboration with an investment group run by a former Fox president. AT&T is following in the footsteps of Verizon, which partnered with Redbox in 2012 to offer the same type of service, and like Verizon, is also still negotiating with Netflix on payments to not throttle Netflix traffic.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AT&T Plans To Launch Internet Video Service

Make Your Own Delicious Ramen That’s Even Cheaper Than Instant

Instant ramen is a poor shadow of the noodles you get at a ramen shop. Now you can make better-than-instant ramen at home for even less than those cheap packets you find at the grocery store. Read more…

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Make Your Own Delicious Ramen That’s Even Cheaper Than Instant

Ken May

Tag: advertising