Tag: nyc

This Kiosk Prints Magazines and Newspapers As They’re Purchased

Many people are claiming that these new Meganews Magazines autonomous newstands could save the print industry. That’s maybe a bit optimistic, but at the least they’ll help reduce the mountains of wasted paper from unsold magazines since the over-sized vending machine only prints publications when they’re ordered, in just two minutes. Read more…        

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This Kiosk Prints Magazines and Newspapers As They’re Purchased

Solar-Powered Boat Carries 8.5 Tons of Lithium-Ion Batteries

bshell writes “The Verge has a great photo-essay about Tûranor PlanetSolar, the first boat to circle the globe with solar power. ‘The 89,000 kg (nearly 100 ton) ship needs a massive solar array to capture enough energy to push itself through the ocean. An impressive 512 square meters (roughly 5,500 square feet) of photovoltaic cells, to be exact, charge the 8.5 tons of lithium-ion batteries that are stored in the ship’s two hulls.’ The boat is currently in NYC. Among other remarkable facts, the captain (Gérard d’Aboville) is one of those rare individuals who solo-rowed across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, journeys that took 71 and 134 days, respectively. The piece has a lot of detail about control systems and design.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Solar-Powered Boat Carries 8.5 Tons of Lithium-Ion Batteries

LA issues cease-and-desist to Uber and other car ride apps

“How can ride-app outfits like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar operate in a town with strict rules about how and where taxis can do business?,” asks Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly . “Los Angeles Department of Transportation taxicab administrator Thomas Drischler this week came up with an answer. They can’t.”        

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LA issues cease-and-desist to Uber and other car ride apps

American public schools in 9 states sharing every conceivable personal detail of their students with third parties

Greg Costikyan sez, inBloom , a Gates-funded non-profit to harness data to improve grade school education, has partnered with New York and eight other states to encourage the development of apps to “further education” by using intimate data about students, without parental consent and with no ability for parents to opt out. Among the data shared are name, address, phone numbers, test scores, grades, economic status, test scores, disciplinary records, picture, email, race, developmental delay… just about everything conceivable , and all specific, none of it anonymized. inBloom has arrangements with nine states (New York, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Georgia, Delaware and Kentucky) to do this. The XML schema used are downloadable here . Anyone can register as a developer and start using “sample” data, but “real” data is supposedly only available to developers with contracts with a school board. But this includes for-profit, third party developers, such as, say, Amplify, a News Corp subsidiary with a contract with New York. And it doesn’t appear there are any constraints on their use of this data. Who is Stockpiling and Sharing Private Information About New York Students? ( Thanks, Greg! )        

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American public schools in 9 states sharing every conceivable personal detail of their students with third parties

Pod2g Confirms IOS 6, IOS 6.1 Beta 4 Untethered Jailbreak

hypnosec writes “Well known iOS security researcher Pod2g has confirmed that a working untethered iOS 6 jailbreak is ready and would be released as soon as iOS 6.1 GM is released. In an interview with iDigitalTimes, the security researcher has revealed that they are already in possession of a functional untethered iOS 6 and iOS 6.1 beta 4 jailbreak and majority of the work has been done by @planetbeing and @pimskeks. “6.0 is jailbroken, 6.1 beta 4 also. Now we are waiting 6.1 to confirm and release,” said the researcher. He said that the jailbreak would have been possible without him as he came into the iOS 6 jailbreak scene at a later stage and provided pointers that pushed the other researchers to the maximum.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pod2g Confirms IOS 6, IOS 6.1 Beta 4 Untethered Jailbreak

New York Data Centers Battle Floods, Utility Outages

miller60 writes “At least three data center buildings in lower Manhattan are struggling with power problems amid widespread flooding and utility outages caused by Hurricane Sandy. Flooded basements at two sites took out diesel fuel pumps, leaving them unable to refuel generators on higher levels. One of these was Datagram, which knocked out Buzzfeed and the Gawker network of sites. At 111 8th Avenue, some tenants lost power when Equinix briefly experienced generator problems.” The NY Times has a running list of Sandy-related problems, including 5,700 more flight cancellations, 6 million people without power, rising water levels at a nuclear plant, official disaster declarations from President Obama, and a death toll of 38. On the upside, and despite the high water levels, the Nuclear Energy Institute was quick to point out that all 34 nuclear facilities in Sandy’s path made it through without problems. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New York Data Centers Battle Floods, Utility Outages