Tag: facebook

The Guy Who Unknowingly ‘Live-Blogged’ the Bin Laden Raid

netbuzz (955038) writes “Three years ago today, software consultant Sohaib Athar was working on his laptop at home in Pakistan when he tweeted: ‘Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).’ And then: ‘A huge window-shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope it’s not the start of something nasty :-S.’ It was for Osama bin Laden. Today Athar says, ‘People do bring it up every now and then.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Guy Who Unknowingly ‘Live-Blogged’ the Bin Laden Raid

MRSA is from Morningside Heights

The majority of community acquired (i.e., not caught in a hospital) cases of antibiotic-resistant staph can be linked to a single strain of the bacteria. And, now, scientists have pinpointed where that strain first evolved. It’s from the upper west side of Manhattan .

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MRSA is from Morningside Heights

Amazon has expanded its same-day delivery service to San Francisco, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

Amazon has expanded its same-day delivery service to San Francisco, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Good news for those who leave things to the last minute. Read more…

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Amazon has expanded its same-day delivery service to San Francisco, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

Saturn’s rings contain soaring towers of ice

Here’s something you don’t see everyday—or even every 15 years for that matter. These towering structures of ice and rock on the edge of Saturn’s middle rings are an incredible and rarely-captured sight visible only during the planet’s equinox. Read more…

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Saturn’s rings contain soaring towers of ice

Stanford Bioengineers Develop ‘Neurocore’ Chips 9,000 Times Faster Than a PC

kelk1 sends this article from the Stanford News Service: “Stanford bioengineers have developed faster, more energy-efficient microchips based on the human brain – 9, 000 times faster and using significantly less power than a typical PC (abstract). Kwabena Boahen and his team have developed Neurogrid, a circuit board consisting of 16 custom-designed ‘Neurocore’ chips. Together these 16 chips can simulate 1 million neurons and billions of synaptic connections. The team designed these chips with power efficiency in mind. Their strategy was to enable certain synapses to share hardware circuits. … But much work lies ahead. Each of the current million-neuron Neurogrid circuit boards cost about $40, 000. (…) Neurogrid is based on 16 Neurocores, each of which supports 65, 536 neurons. Those chips were made using 15-year-old fabrication technologies. By switching to modern manufacturing processes and fabricating the chips in large volumes, he could cut a Neurocore’s cost 100-fold – suggesting a million-neuron board for $400 a copy.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Stanford Bioengineers Develop ‘Neurocore’ Chips 9,000 Times Faster Than a PC

FCC Proposes $48,000 Fine To Man Jamming Cellphones On Florida Interstate

New submitter freddieb writes: “An individual who had been jamming cellphone traffic on interstate 4 in Florida was located by FCC agents with the assistance of Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Deputies. The individual had reportedly been jamming cellphone traffic on I-4 for two years. The FCC is now proposing a $48, 000 fine for his actions. They say the jamming ‘could and may have had disastrous consequences by precluding the use of cell phones to reach life-saving 9-1-1 services provided by police, ambulance, and fire departments.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FCC Proposes $48,000 Fine To Man Jamming Cellphones On Florida Interstate

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.

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Comcast Offers To Shed 3.9 Million Subscribers To Ease Cable Deal

Google Shows How Its Self-Driving Cars Are Getting Smarter With 700K Miles Driven

 Google has a new blog post detailing some of the progress it’s been making over the last year with its self-driving car initiative. The driverless cars have been tackling the challenge of navigating city streets lately, using Google’s home town of Mountain View as the test bed for navigating the increased complications that come with dense urban zones vs. relatively uncomplicated… Read More

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Google Shows How Its Self-Driving Cars Are Getting Smarter With 700K Miles Driven

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