It only took the theft of 40 million Target customer credit card details to spur Congress into finally joining the rest of the world in abandoning the highly insecure credit cards you’re used to. Starting late next year, every credit card in the United States will adopt a more secure system. Here’s what it is, and how it works. Read more…
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What Are "Smart" Credit Cards, and Why Are They Coming to America?
ananyo writes “Physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — the single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons better than theory predicted even for the most idealized form of the material (abstract). The finding could help graphene realize its promise in high-end electronics, where researchers have long hoped it could outperform traditional materials such as silicon. In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1, 000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer’s team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Graphene Conducts Electricity Ten Times Better Than Expected
Buildings “grown” from fungus and other organic materials may seem like a far-off concept to some. But this summer, a group of young Brooklyn architects are planning to demonstrate just how real the technology is—by building a tower out of bricks “grown” from mycelium, a root-like fungus, in the courtyard of MoMA P.S.1. Read more…
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A Tower Grown From Fungus Is Coming to NYC This Summer
Pininfarina is known for turning Ferraris and other exotic cars into even more impressive works of art, so it’s a safe assumption that its new 4.EVER Pininfarina Cambiano writing instrument is going to cost a small fortune when available. But with an inkless design that never needs a new cartridge, it could eventually pay for itself—after a century of use. Read more…
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A Gorgeous Inkless Pen That Never Needs a Refill
Hey there, world traveller. Say you want to go on a cruise but can’t afford a fancy oceanfront room on the Empress deck. No big deal! Royal Caribbean’s got you covered. Read more…
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Bad Rooms on the New Royal Caribbean Ship Come with Virtual Balconies
At first glance, this screen looks strangely familiar. The dock icons, the gray, rounded windows, the whole layout; it’s Mac OS X, except not quite. The top-left icon is the giveaway. This ain’t OS X, it’s Red Star, North Korea’s state-sanctioned operating system. And Version 3.0 looks very Mac-like. Read more…
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North Korea’s State Computers Run This Delightful Mac OS X Knockoff
An anonymous reader sends word that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has given the go-ahead for telecommunications companies to start experimenting with an IP-based telephone protocol. From the article: “The experiments approved by the FCC would not test the new technology – it is already being used – and would not determine law and policy regulating it, FCC staff said. The trials would seek to establish, among other things, how consumers welcome the change and how new technology performs in emergency situations, including in remote locations. ‘What we’re doing here is a big deal. This is an important moment, ‘ FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. ‘We today invite service providers to propose voluntary experiments for all-IP networks.’ The move in part grants the application by AT&T to conduct IP transition tests as companies that offer landline phone services seek to ultimately replace their old copper wires with newer technology like fiber or wireless.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FCC Wants To Trial Shift From Analog Phone Networks To Digital
itwbennett writes “Facebook said last year that it was exploring Blu-ray for its data-center storage needs, and on Tuesday it showed a prototype system at the Open Compute Project summit meeting in San Jose, California. It designed the system to store data that hardly ever needs to be accessed, or for so-called ‘cold storage’ (think duplicates of users’ photos and videos that it keeps for backup). The Blu-ray system reduces costs by 50% and energy use by 80% compared with its current cold-storage system, which uses hard disk drives, said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure engineering.” It’s a prototype, and they’re also evaluating low power flash as another alternative to keeping seldom accessed data on hard drives. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Facebook Puts 10,000 Blu-ray Discs In Low-Power Storage System
You’re looking at Ozobranchus jantseanus , a little leech found in East Asia. It doesn’t look much, but it has a very special skill indeed: it can survive for up to 24 hours immersed in liquid nitrogen . Read more…
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This Leech Can Survive For 24 Hours in Liquid Nitrogen
Today is a big day for 3D printing: Patent #US5597589 is set to expire and will open up the possibility for makers to use laser sintering — shooting a laser at a layer of nylon powder — in cheaper devices, essentially opening the technology to the small maker. The patent is fairly clear on what sintering is. It describes an “apparatus for selectively sintering a layer of powder to produce a part made from a plurality of sintered layers and the apparatus includes a computer controlling a laser to direct the laser energy onto the powder to produce a sintered mass.” This means anything that shoots a laser at powder could run afoul of this patent much as Form Labs bumped up against 3D Systems’ stereolithography patent. Most larger “professional-quality” printers use laser sintering and you can create homogenous, solid-looking objects with stable structures using the technique. Does this mean we’ll have sintering printers in our homes next year? Possibly, but given the materials needed and the components involved I could see prices going down but not dropping until there is mass acceptance of 3D printing. FDM printers that deposit layers of plastic is still the cheapest method, but sintered parts are almost seamless, creating a cohesive whole that is very useful in prototyping and engineering. In short, however, it’s a great day for makers. via 3Dprint
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Cheap Laser-Sintering Printers Are Coming Thanks To The Expiration Of A Key Patent