Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries

Jason Koebler writes: A bill that would make it easier to fix your electronics is rapidly hurtling through the Washington state legislature. The bill’s ascent is fueled by Apple’s iPhone-throttling controversy, which has placed a renewed focus on the fact that our electronics have become increasingly difficult to repair. Starting in 2019, the bill would ban the sale of electronics that are designed “in such a way as to prevent reasonable diagnostic or repair functions by an independent repair provider. Preventing reasonable diagnostic or repair functions includes permanently affixing a battery in a manner that makes it difficult or impossible to remove.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries

US Hacker Sets Off 156 Sirens At Midnight

“I had the displeasure of being awoken at midnight to the sounds of civil-defense/air-raid sirens, ” writes very-long-time Slashdot reader SigIO, blaming “some schmuck with a twisted sense of humor.” The Dallas News reports: Rocky Vaz, director of Dallas’ Office of Emergency Management, said that all 156 of the city’s sirens were activated more than a dozen times… Dallas officials blame computer hacking for setting off emergency sirens throughout the city early Saturday… It took until about 1:20 a.m. to silence them for good because the emergency system had to be deactivated. The system remained shut down Saturday while crews safeguarded it from another hack. The city has figured out how the emergency system was compromised and is working to prevent it from happening again, he said… The city said the system should be restored Sunday or Monday. City officials reported 4, 400 calls to their 9-1-1 emergency phone number in the first four hours of Saturday morning, with over 800 occurring in that first 15 minutes when all 156 sirens started going off simultaneously. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Hacker Sets Off 156 Sirens At Midnight

Verizon will test 5G wireless in 11 cities by mid-2017

Verizon isn’t going to let AT&T’s 5G plans go unanswered. The carrier (and our corporate overlord) says it will pilot the gigabit-class wireless in 11 cities by the middle of 2017, including major urban hubs like Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, Seattle and Washington, DC. These will be “pre-commercial services” offered to specific customers, so don’t expect to try extra-fast cellular data in your neighborhood. Instead, this is about investigating “scenarios and use cases” before Verizon is ready to ask for money. It’s not certain when you’ll see honest-to-goodness paid service, although Verizon has been aiming for sometime in 2017. However, any widespread deployment is likely to be contingent on a formal 5G standard, which doesn’t exist yet — and that’s not including the necessary hardware . You might not want to get too excited, then. While 5G may well usher in an era where your smartphone data speeds are as fast as a fiber optic line, the technology is still very much in the early stages. Source: Verizon

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Verizon will test 5G wireless in 11 cities by mid-2017

Surgeons complete first uterus transplants from live donors in US

A team of surgeons at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas have achieved something that hadn’t previously been done in the US. With the help of a Swedish surgical team, doctors performed the first uterus transplants from living donors . The experimental procedures took place between September 14th and 22nd with four total transplants. While the first three were unsuccessful, the fourth patient is showing positive results based on follow-up tests. The transplanted uteri were removed from those first three patients and they’re expected to resume normal activity soon. For the fourth patient, tests indicate good blood flow to the uterus with no signs of rejection or infection. “We are cautiously optimistic that she could ultimately become the first uterine transplant recipient in the US to make it to the milestone of uterine functionality, ” a statement from Baylor University Medical Center explained. 16 uterine transplants have been performed around the world thus far. In fact, the Swedish team that assisted doctors at Baylor are considered experts on the procedure. There have been five births following procedures they’ve completed. Following these most recent transplants, both surgical teams say they’ve gained valuable knowledge from the three unsuccessful cases that will prove beneficial to future operations. Changes will include updates to protocols and post-op management with special attention to the thickness of the uterine veins. Back in February, the Cleveland Clinic performed the first uterus transplant in the US. In that case, the 26-year-old recipient would have needed to have the organ removed after one or two pregnancies due to medications that kept her body from rejecting it. Due to compromised blood flow caused by an infection in the weeks that followed, the transplanted uterus was removed in March. Via: CNN Source: Baylor University Medical Center (1) , (2)

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Surgeons complete first uterus transplants from live donors in US

Five Airports Are Set to Get Automated TSA Security Screening Lanes

After anticipating extra long airport security lines this year , the Transportation Security Administration has taken steps to fix the problem. Their latest solution involves adding new screening technology to Chicago (O’Hare), Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and Miami. They’ll also include a pilot program in Phoenix. Read more…

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Five Airports Are Set to Get Automated TSA Security Screening Lanes

Researchers Make a Circuit So Flexible, It Can Wrap Around a Vein

If we really want to get the dream of implantable electronics off the ground, we’ll need to figure out how to make circuit boards flexible enough to morph and move with our bodies. Thankfully, a team at The University of Texas at Dallas seems to have solved that , with thin film transistors that are flexible enough to wrap around a nerve or blood vessel. Read more…

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Researchers Make a Circuit So Flexible, It Can Wrap Around a Vein

Scientists just created some of the most powerful muscles in existence

In a surprising breakthrough for the world of materials science, researchers have created some of the world’s most powerful artificial muscles we’ve ever seen. And they did it with simple fishing line. These freakishly strong and cheap muscles could revolutionize robotics, and perhaps one day our own bodies. Read more…        

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Scientists just created some of the most powerful muscles in existence

Report: NSA Put Spyware on Over 50,000 Networks Worldwide

Netherlands newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports today that newly-reviewed documents indicate the NSA has covertly installed spying malware on over 50, 000 computer networks worldwide. The documents, leaked by Edward Snowden, include a map of areas where the malware is installed . Read more…        

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Report: NSA Put Spyware on Over 50,000 Networks Worldwide

Dark Day In the AWS Cloud: Big Name Sites Go Down

An outage of one company’s servers might only affect that company’s customers — but when a major data center for Amazon hits kinks, sites that rely on the AWS cloud services all suffer from the downtime. That’s what happened today, when several major sites or online services (like Instagram and AirBnB) were knocked temporarily offline, evidently because of problems at an Amazon data center in Northern Virginia. From TechCrunch’s coverage of the outage: “The deluge of tweets that accompanied the services’ initial hiccups first started at around 4 p.m. Eastern time, and only increased in intensity as users found they couldn’t share pictures of their food or their meticulously crafted video snippets. Some further poking around on Twitter and beyond revealed that some other services known to rely on AWS — Netflix, IFTTT, Heroku and Airbnb to name a few — have been experiencing similar issues today.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dark Day In the AWS Cloud: Big Name Sites Go Down