Evolutionary theory teaches us that life never remains the same. It is constantly changing and adapting. So what might be the next stages in the evolution of humanity and our planet? Here are 20 books, both fiction and nonfiction, that try to answer that question. More »
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20 Essential Books About the Next Step in Human Evolution
TechCrunch is reporting that a number of users received an email from Twitter this morning claiming their account was compromised and that they should change their passwords now. Many users are also finding spammy tweets coming from their account that they didn’t send. More »
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An Unknown Number of Twitter Accounts Have Been Compromised, Time to Change Your Passwords
The Royal Society, along with the Academy of Medical Sciences, British Academy, and Royal Academy of Engineering, recently concluded a workshop called Human Enhancement and the Future of Work in which they considered the growing impact and potential risks of augmentation technologies. In their final report , the collaborative team of scientists and ethicists raised serious concerns about the burgeoning trend, and how humanity is moving from a model of therapy to one in which human capacities are greatly improved. The implications, they concluded, should be part of a much wider public discussion. More »
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Scientists raise the alarm on human enhancement technologies
Every one of the modern US Navy’s 129 ships, and its entire fleet of aircraft, relies on gas turbines for either basic propulsion or to generate electricity for their critical systems—typically both. But as fuel costs continue to rise, these turbines now burn through nearly $2 billion of fuel annually. That’s why the Naval Research Lab is developing a revolutionary new type of engine that could reduce our armada’s energy consumption by as much as 25 percent (and save $400 million a year) even as the Navy transitions to “all electric” propulsion systems. More »
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US Warships Could Soon Run on Detonated Waves
Entropy98 writes “Windows Live Messenger will be shut down by March 2013, after nearly 13 years of service, so Microsoft can focus its efforts on Skype, its recent $8.5bn acquisition. No word on whether users will be able to transfer their WLM accounts to Skype. ‘According to internet analysis firm Comscore, WLM still had more than double the number of Skype’s instant messenger facility at the start of this year and was second only in popularity to Yahoo Messenger. But the report suggested WLM’s US audience had fallen to 8.3 million unique users, representing a 48% drop year-on-year. By contrast, the number of people using Skype to instant message each other grew over the period.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Microsoft Retiring Messenger, Replacing It With Skype
Romans may have used 20-Sided die almost two millennia before D&D , but people in ancient Egypt were casting icosahedra even earlier. Pictured above is a twenty-faced die dating from somewhere between 304 and 30 B.C., a timespan also known as Egypt’s Ptolemaic Period . More »
New submitter mc10 points out a post on the CloudFlare blog about the circumstances behind Google’s services being inaccessible for a brief time earlier today. Quoting: “To understand what went wrong you need to understand a bit about how networking on the Internet works. The Internet is a collection of networks, known as “Autonomous Systems” (AS). Each network has a unique number to identify it known as AS number. CloudFlare’s AS number is 13335, Google’s is 15169. The networks are connected together by what is known as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). BGP is the glue of the Internet — announcing what IP addresses belong to each network and establishing the routes from one AS to another. An Internet “route” is exactly what it sounds like: a path from the IP address on one AS to an IP address on another AS. … Unfortunately, if a network starts to send out an announcement of a particular IP address or network behind it, when in fact it is not, if that network is trusted by its upstreams and peers then packets can end up misrouted. That is what was happening here. I looked at the BGP Routes for a Google IP Address. The route traversed Moratel (23947), an Indonesian ISP. Given that I’m looking at the routing from California and Google is operating Data Centre’s not far from our office, packets should never be routed via Indonesia.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Facebook tells you one of your friends is celebrating a birthday today. You can write on his or her wall, like everyone else, or go the extra mile and send ’em a gift card. With Wrapp, you don’t even have to pay for the gift card. More »
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Wrapp Sends Free Gift Cards to Your Facebook Friends
Nerval’s Lobster writes “Rumors have circulated for weeks that Microsoft intends to release a smartphone of its own design and manufacture, embracing the strategy that drove Apple’s iPhone to such enormous success over the past few years. While releasing a branded smartphone offers several potential benefits—look at the revenue and brand recognition Apple’s earned as a result of the iPhone—such a strategy also carries significant risks for Microsoft. First, it could alienate smartphone partners such as Nokia, which would find itself competing against a high-end device backed by Microsoft’s sizable marketing dollars. (Given the Finnish phone-maker’s already perilous situation, that could prove ruinous.) But a branded smartphone could also convince hardware manufacturers that Microsoft really is ‘all in’ on building its own devices, which could lead to all sorts of drama.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Microsoft-Built Smartphone Could Irritate Hardware Partners, Harm Nokia
You may have noticed that retailers like Amazon are charging tax, in compliance with state laws, on not just the price of goods, but on the “shipping and handling” fees they charge. An anonymous reader writes “By coincidence I noticed this myself the other night, and ended up ordering something from a supplier in Arizona, rather than Amazon, to avoid the sales tax. Now here is an article about it in the Los Angeles Times.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Amazon Charges Sales Tax On "Shipping and Handling"