Google Fiber Is Officially Making Its Way To Portland

An anonymous reader writes This week the Portland City Council has approved a franchise agreement with Google to bring its fiber service to Portland. “As a result of the unanimous vote, Google will be subject to a five percent ‘franchise fee’ on its video revenues. It won’t have to pay a three percent ‘PEG’ fee that Portland otherwise charges rival Comcast, but it will offer free Internet service for Portland residents for a $300, one-time fee. It’ll also provide free Internet service to some to-be-determined nonprofits, in addition to providing a total of three free Wi-Fi networks in various parts of the city.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Fiber Is Officially Making Its Way To Portland

A Man Got into a Firefight with a Robot in Pennsylvania

A man in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania armed himself with weapons, threatened police, and barricaded himself inside his apartment. Luckily, a police robot was there to stand on the firing line. Read more…        

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A Man Got into a Firefight with a Robot in Pennsylvania

12 Maps of America From Before We Knew What It Looked Like

The island of California. A huge triangle of land called Florida. A great ocean that cut down from the Arctic into the Midwest. As the New World came into focus beginning in the 17th century, explorers and cartographers struggled to measure a massive expanse of land that would take centuries to accurately map. Read more…        

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12 Maps of America From Before We Knew What It Looked Like

Japanese Aircraft-Carrying Super Submarine From WWII Located Off Hawaii

Freshly Exhumed sends this story from Reuters: “Scientists plumbing the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaii coast have discovered a Second World War era Japanese submarine, a technological marvel that had been preparing to attack the Panama Canal before being scuttled by U.S. forces. The 122-meter ‘Sen-Toku’ class vessel — among the largest pre-nuclear submarines ever built — was found in August off the southwest coast of Oahu and had been missing since 1946, scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa said. The I-400 and its sister ship, the I-401, which was found off Oahu in 2005, were able to travel one and a half times around the world without refueling and could hold up to three folding-wing bombers that could be launched minutes after resurfacing, the scientists said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Japanese Aircraft-Carrying Super Submarine From WWII Located Off Hawaii

Lead Contractor On Health-Care Web Site Led By Execs From Troubled IT Company

thomst writes “The Washington Post’s Jerry Markon and Alice Crites report that ‘The lead contractor on the dysfunctional Web site for the Affordable Care Act is filled with executives from a company that mishandled at least 20 other government IT projects, including a flawed effort to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers, documents and interviews show. CGI Federal, the main Web site developer, entered the U.S. government market a decade ago when its parent company purchased American Management Systems, a Fairfax County contractor that was coming off a series of troubled projects. CGI moved into AMS’s custom-made building off Interstate 66, changed the sign outside and kept the core of employees, who now populate the upper ranks of CGI Federal.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Lead Contractor On Health-Care Web Site Led By Execs From Troubled IT Company

How the Smithsonian is 3D-Scanning Its Entire Collection

The Smithsonian’s been a fan of 3D scanning and printing for some time , but now it’s decided to use lasers to preserve its entire collection for future generations. Read more…        

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How the Smithsonian is 3D-Scanning Its Entire Collection