TurboTax Went Down At a Kind of Crucial Moment and Didn’t Handle It Well on Twitter

So taxes are due…any minute now. And TurboTax is a popular service for doing taxes. Yes? Sure. Well, that’s a lot of pressure! Cue meltdown. More »        

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TurboTax Went Down At a Kind of Crucial Moment and Didn’t Handle It Well on Twitter

Microsoft Makes Millions Renting Campus Space to Vendors

theodp writes “In a move that would do Bill Lumbergh (YouTube homage) proud, Microsoft has been pulling in about $25 million a year through its unusual practice of charging its vendors for occupying office space on its campus while working on Microsoft projects, according to the real estate firm that manages the program. And that’s before a planned July 1st rate increase that Microsoft informed vendors of earlier this week, which will boost the ‘chargeback’ rate for its ‘shadow workforce’ from $450 per month ($5,400 per year) for every workstation to $510 per month (or $6,120 per year). So, is there a discount if you’re moved downstairs into Storage B?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Makes Millions Renting Campus Space to Vendors

The incredible bridge design that could take Portland into the future

What would happen if we designed new urban megastructures using the latest scientific information about green design? Portland architect Bill Badrick has the answer. The new Columbia River Crossing bridge, in Portland, Oregon, should be a double-decker, carbon-neutral engineering marvel — complete with a huge park on top. The best part? It’s all possible with current technology. Read more…

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The incredible bridge design that could take Portland into the future

Researcher: Hackers Can Jam Traffic By Manipulating Real-Time Traffic Data

An anonymous reader writes “Hackers can influence real-time traffic-flow-analysis systems to make people drive into traffic jams or to keep roads clear in areas where a lot of people use Google or Waze navigation systems, a German researcher demonstrated at BlackHat Europe. ‘If, for example, an attacker drives a route and collects the data packets sent to Google, the hacker can replay them later with a modified cookie, platform key and time stamps, Jeske explained in his research paper (PDF). The attack can be intensified by sending several delayed transmissions with different cookies and platform keys, simulating multiple cars, Jeske added. An attacker does not have to drive a route to manipulate data, because Google also accepts data from phones without information from surrounding access points, thus enabling an attacker to influence traffic data worldwide, he added.’ ‘You don’t need special equipment for this and you can manipulate traffic data worldwide,’ Jeske said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researcher: Hackers Can Jam Traffic By Manipulating Real-Time Traffic Data

Walgreens To Build First Self-Powered Retail Store

MojoKid writes “We hear about green deployment practices all the time, but it’s often surrounding facilities such as data centers rather than retail stores. However, Walgreens is determined to go as green as possible, and to that end, the company announced plans for the first net zero energy retail store. The store is slated to be built at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Keeney Street in Evanston, Illinois, where an existing Walgreens is currently being demolished. The technologies Walgreens is plotting to implement in this new super-green store will include solar panels and wind turbines to generate power; geothermal technology for heat; and efficient energy consumption with LED lighting, daylight harvesting, and ‘ultra-high-efficiency’ refrigeration.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Walgreens To Build First Self-Powered Retail Store

Moon Mining Race Under Way

New submitter rujholla writes “The race to the moon is back! This time, though, it’s through private enterprise. Google has offered a $20m grand prize to the first privately-funded company to land a robot on the moon and explore the surface (video) by moving at least 500 meters and sending high definition video back to Earth by 2015.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Moon Mining Race Under Way

The World’s Biggest Fiber LAN Lives at a Nuclear Weapons Research Lab

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation’s premiere nuclear weapons research facility, and for more than 60 years, its researchers have poked and prodded the interiors of atoms to suss out their secrets—a task that has produced mountains of data that the facility’s copper network struggles to contain. But now, even the most remote building’s on Sandia’s campuses have access to the biggest bandwidth modern technology can muster. More »

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The World’s Biggest Fiber LAN Lives at a Nuclear Weapons Research Lab

Bizarre eyeball transplant allows tadpoles to see out of their tails

Get ready for custom eyeball transplants for people who absolutely must have eyes in the backs of their heads — or pretty much anywhere on their bodies. Researchers at Tufts University just published a paper where they report transplanting working eyes onto the tail of a blind tadpole. Here’s how they did it. More »

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Bizarre eyeball transplant allows tadpoles to see out of their tails

These serene Chinese landscapes are actually photographs of landfills

At first glance, Yao Lu’s digital collages look like watercolor paintings of misty Chinese mountains. But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the real subjects of these photographs aren’t plant-covered hills but landfills, and the initial beauty of the images takes on an entirely different meaning. More »

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These serene Chinese landscapes are actually photographs of landfills

Over the Antarctic, the Smallest Ozone Hole In a Decade

hypnosec writes “The ozone layer seems to be on a road to recovery over Antarctica; according to Europe’s MetOp weather satellite, which is monitoring atmospheric ozone, the hole over the South Pole in 2012 was the smallest it’s been in the last 10 years. The decrease in size of the hole is probably the result of reduction in the concentration of CFCs, especially since the mid-1990s, because of international agreements like the Montreal Protocol.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Over the Antarctic, the Smallest Ozone Hole In a Decade