This is why Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion : because its throughput of shared photographs is astronomical, and rising at an insane rate. (See also, the purchase of Instagram and the crazy offer for Snapchat .) [ KPCB ] Read more…
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This is why Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion: because its throughput of shared photographs i
The world has too many nasty old cigarette butts. On the other hand, the world could use some supercapacitors , the high-tech replacements for batteries that could potentially charge in seconds. Scientists in South Korea have found a simple process to turn used cigarette filters into high-performing material that works better than graphene or carbon nanotubes in supercapacitors. Read more…
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Old Cigarette Butts Can Be Used As Material For Supercapacitors
The term might make you cringe, but “daycationing” is one way to feel like you’re on vacation while saving money by staying local. Hotels, picking up on the rise in popularity of staycationing, are offering access that doesn’t require a room key. Read more…
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Experience the Luxury of Your Local Hotel by "Daycationing"
vinces99 (2792707) writes “Imagine a world in which your wristwatch or other wearable device communicates directly with your online profiles, storing information about your daily activities where you can best access it – all without requiring batteries. Or, battery-free sensors embedded around your home that could track minute-by-minute temperature changes and send that information to your thermostat to help conserve energy. This not-so-distant ‘Internet of Things’ reality would extend connectivity to perhaps billions of devices. Sensors could be embedded in everyday objects to help monitor and track everything from the structural safety of bridges to the health of your heart. But having a way to cheaply power and connect these devices to the Internet has kept this from taking off. Now, University of Washington engineers have designed a new communication system that uses radio frequency signals as a power source and reuses existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity to these devices. Called Wi-Fi backscatter, this technology is the first that can connect battery-free devices to Wi-Fi infrastructure. The researchers will publish their results at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Data Communication’s annual conference this month in Chicago. The team also plans to start a company based on the technology. The Pre-print research paper. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Harvesting Wi-Fi Backscatter To Power Internet of Things Sensors
Exhaustive analysis into the price of Lego bricks has revealed that parents of children who like both Lego and trains are getting the metaphorical brick in the sole of the foot treatment—with train sets bucking the trend and costing more than their less thrilling equivalents. Read more…
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Lego Trains are the Worst Value Sets in Per-Brick Pricing
Airplane tickets are one of the biggest costs of traveling, so cutting down the price on those can expand your travel budget in a huge way. If you’re planning to visit Europe, Business Insider has determined the nine cheapest airlines to fly to Europe. Read more…
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The Cheapest Airlines for Flying to Europe
Marie Curie made some of the most significant contributions to science in the 20th century. And as most people already know, she did so at a great cost to her own health. What most people probably don’t know, however, is that the radiation levels she was exposed to were so powerful that her notebooks must now be kept in lead-lined boxes . Read more…
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Marie Curie’s 100-year-old notebook is still too radioactive to touch
Taco Cowboy writes Japan is planning to launch a military space force by 2019. The Mainichi Shimbun is reporting that Japan plans to create a “space force” within its existing Self Defence Force, hoping to have it operational by 2019. Japan would provide the US military with information obtained by the force as part of the joint bid to strengthen ties in space, the so-called “fourth battlefield”, Kyodo news agency said, citing unnamed sources. Note that this plan, which involves simply looking into space using old civilian astronomy equipment and radar, is just the beginning. The transforming space fighters and combat mechs will presumably come later. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Japan To Launch a Military Space Force In 2019
If you’ve ever tried to send a large PDF over email, you know that email systems have file size limits. SmallPDF will combine and shrink PDFs from the cloud so you can send it along. Read more…
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SmallPDF Compresses PDFs From the Cloud
An anonymous reader writes Intelligence agency GCHQ has just accredited six UK universities to teach Master’s degrees in online security that meet the intelligence agency’s “stringent criteria.” From the press release: “The certification of six Master’s degrees in Cyber Security was announced by Rt.Hon Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he visited GCHQ today. This marks another significant step in the development of the UK’s knowledge, skills and capability in all fields of Cyber Security as part of the National Cyber Security Programme. The National Cyber Security Strategy recognises education as key to the development of Cyber Security skills and, earlier in the year, UK universities were invited to submit their Cyber Security Master’s degrees for certification against GCHQ’s stringent criteria for a broad foundation in Cyber Security.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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UK Spy Agency Certifies Master’s Degrees In Cyber Security