Calling the launch of Healthcare.gov a complete and utter disaster may sound a bit dramatic—but unfortunately, it’s also pretty accurate. With only six people able to actually enroll out of the 4.7 million unique visitors the site saw on launch day, something clearly needs to change. And since the government has its hands full with perpetually tripping over itself , three coders from San Francisco did what the feds couldn’t by building HealthSherpa.com— a website that actually works . Read more…
Originally posted here:
These Guys Just Built the Website Healthcare.gov Should Have Been
An anonymous reader writes with news that Yahoo will be ending their email service in China on August 13th. A support post on the Yahoo China site tells users how to migrate their account to a different email service called Aliyun. If they do so, their data can be migrated and they will continue to receive emails to their Yahoo address until the end of 2014. From the article: “The US Internet giant Yahoo! has come under criticism in the past over its business in China, with executives apologising in 2007 for providing evidence that Chinese authorities used to convict government critics. The company said it was legally obliged to divulge information about its users to the Chinese government but that it was unaware it would be used to convict dissidents. The end of the service will affect millions of users, the paper quoted Alibaba public relations official Zhang Jianhua as saying, though he did not have a total figure.” Yahoo also announced the closure of six other products today: Upcoming, Deals, SMS Alerts, Kids, Mail and Messenger feature phone apps, and older versions of Mail. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
The chipmaker says a USB bug in the chipset that accompanies the “Haswell” processor exists and will be fixed. [Read more] 
paysonwelch writes “North Korea has declared a state of war against South Korea, stating that neither peace nor war has ended. Quoting the news release via Reuters: ‘1. From this moment, the north-south relations will be put at the state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.’ The DPRK goes on to say that this will be a ‘blitz’ war and that they will regain control of the south, and destroy U.S. bases in the process.” Great line from the declaration: “[The U.S.] should clearly know that in the era of Marshal Kim Jong Un, the greatest-ever commander, all things are different from what they used to be in the past.” A senior U.S. official called this statement “pot-banging and chest-thumping.” The official said, “North Korea is in a mindset of war, but North Korea is not going to war.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 