The Untold History of Where Barcodes Come From

When George Laurer goes to the grocery store, he doesn’t tell the check-out people that he invented the barcode, but his wife used to point it out. “My husband here’s the one who invented that barcode, ” she’d occasionally say. And the check-out people would look at him like, “you mean there was a time when we didn’t have barcodes?” Read more…        

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The Untold History of Where Barcodes Come From

Apple To Launch 4.7- And 5.5-Inch iPhone As Soon As September, Report Claims

Apple is said to be readying to release its next iPhone in both 4.7- and 5.5-inch screen sizes, with a launch as early as September, according to a report by Japanese business news publication Nikkei today. The production cycle is already ramping up, with component makers producing elements like fingerprint sensors and LCD driver chips, according to the paper, with LCD mass production kicking off… Read More

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Apple To Launch 4.7- And 5.5-Inch iPhone As Soon As September, Report Claims

HTC Dodges Carrier Update Lag By Separating Sense 6 Features Across Multiple Google Play Apps

HTC is hardly unique in facing challenges updating its software for its Android smartphones – carriers must approve OS updates, including those for the UI skins that Android OEMs make for their devices, but it is trying something different to make it less of an issue. Sense 6 (which HTC annoyingly refers to constantly as ‘Sixth Sense, ’ too) will have many of its core components… Read More

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HTC Dodges Carrier Update Lag By Separating Sense 6 Features Across Multiple Google Play Apps

Where the Progress Bar Came From

We’ve all spent hours—maybe even days—of our lives cursing the slow crawl of the dreaded progress bar. But did you ever stop to think about how much worse it might be if the bar wasn’t there in the first place. Fortunately, thanks to one grad student’s genius idea back in the 80s , we’ll never have to find out. Read more…        

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Where the Progress Bar Came From

NASA announces asteroid will fly by Earth today closer than the Moon

Surprise! NASA just issued a last minute asteroid notice: Today, a 100-foot (30 meter) asteroid called 2014 DX110 is going to fly by Earth closer than the Moon. The closest point will be 217, 000 miles (about 350, 000 kilometers) at around 4PM Eastern Standard Time. Read more…        

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NASA announces asteroid will fly by Earth today closer than the Moon

Obama says US Army is building a real Iron Man and no, he is not joking

Last Tuesday President Obama met with top engineers and Pentagon people. He publicly said: “Basically, I’m here to announce that we’re building Iron Man Not really. Maybe. It’s classified.” People laughed, but the truth is that yes, the US military is building Iron Man, and the first prototypes are coming in this June. Read more…        

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Obama says US Army is building a real Iron Man and no, he is not joking

Kickstarter Security Breach Exposes Customer Data

New submitter jbov writes “Kickstarter members received an e-mail at about 16:40 EST notifying them of a security breach. According to the e-mail, information including user names, encrypted passwords, mailing addresses, and phone numbers may have been revealed. Kickstarter members were urged to change their passwords. ‘Older passwords were uniquely salted and digested with SHA-1 multiple times. More recent passwords are hashed with bcrypt.’ Kickstarter claims that credit card information was not accessed during the breach. According to Kickstarter, law enforcement officials contacted the company on Wednesday night and alerted them that ‘hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers’ data.’ Upon learning of the breach, Kickstarter closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Kickstarter Security Breach Exposes Customer Data

Dried Meat "Resurrects" Lost Species of Whale

sciencehabit writes “A gift of dried whale meat—and some clever genetic sleuthing across almost 16, 000 kilometers of equatorial waters—has helped scientists identify a long-forgotten animal as a new species of beaked whale. The ‘resurrection’ raises new questions about beaked whales, the most elusive and mysterious of cetaceans. Overall, the saga shows ‘that there are probably even more species of beaked whales that we don’t know about, ‘ says Phil Clapham, a marine mammalogist at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, Washington. ‘We don’t see them because they’re very deep-diving and live far from land.’ They also live in a poorly surveyed part of the ocean, Baker says, where very few people dwell on remote atolls.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dried Meat "Resurrects" Lost Species of Whale