Curious travellers rejoice: Wikipedia has launched an official Nearby page, which will provide you w

Curious travellers rejoice: Wikipedia has launched an official Nearby page , which will provide you with articles based on location. Read more…        

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Curious travellers rejoice: Wikipedia has launched an official Nearby page, which will provide you w

PETA Wants To Sue Anonymous HuffPo Commenters

MarkWhittington writes, quoting himself: “PETA is incensed over an article in the Huffington Post that details that organization’s unsettling practice of euthanizing animals in a Virginia facility that many have assumed is a no kill shelter. According to the New York Post, PETA wants to sue some of the people who have left comments on the article. The problem is that, following the practice of many on the Internet, many of the comments are under assumed names or are anonymous. PETA is attempting to discover the true identities of their critics so that it can sue them for defamation.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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PETA Wants To Sue Anonymous HuffPo Commenters

Intel Claims Haswell Architecture Offers 50% Longer Battery Life vs. Ivy Bridge

MojoKid writes “As with any major CPU microarchitecture launch, one can expect the usual 10~15% performance gains, but Intel apparently has put its efficiency focus into overdrive. Haswell should provide 2x the graphics performance, and it’s designed to be as power efficient as possible. In addition, the company has further gone on to state that Haswell should enable a 50% battery-life increase over last year’s Ivy Bridge. There are a couple of reasons why Haswell is so energy-efficient versus the previous generation, but the major reason is moving the CPU voltage regulator off of the motherboard and into the CPU package, creating a Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator, or FIVR. This is a far more efficient design and with the use of ‘enhanced’ tri-gate transistors, current leakage has been reduced by about 2x — 3x versus Ivy Bridge.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel Claims Haswell Architecture Offers 50% Longer Battery Life vs. Ivy Bridge

Medical Firm Sues IRS For 4th Amendment Violation In Records Seizure

cold fjord writes “A healthcare provider has sued the Internal Revenue Service and 15 of its agents, charging they wrongfully seized 60 million medical records from 10 million Americans … [The unnamed company alleges] the agency violated the Fourth Amendment in 2011, when agents executed a search warrant for financial data on one employee – and that led to the seizure of information on 10 million, including state judges. The search warrant did not specify that the IRS could take medical information, UPI said. And information technology officials warned the IRS about the potential to violate medical privacy laws before agents executed the warrant, the complaint said.” Also at Nextgov.com. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Medical Firm Sues IRS For 4th Amendment Violation In Records Seizure

Construction of World’s Largest Optical Telescope Approved

The University of Hawaii at Hilo has been granted a permit by the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources to begin construction of the $1.3 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). From the article: “The TMT has been in development for over a decade, but the large amount of land needed for its construction raised concerns over the environmental and cultural impact of such a project. Now, however, the land board has rendered a final decision, saying that the university had satisfied the eight criteria necessary under Hawaiian state law to allow the venture to go forward. The giant TMT will be an optical and infrared telescope with enough coverage area and sharpness to observe light from 13 billion years ago, track extrasolar planets, and observe planets and stars in their early formative years.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Construction of World’s Largest Optical Telescope Approved

The World’s Biggest Ship Is Assembled like a Lego Model

With a capacity of more than 16,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit shipping containers) the CMA CGM Marco Polo currently reigns as the ” world’s largest container ship ” but it won’t for much longer. Construction of an even larger line of mega-ships—the Maersk Triple E—will soon be complete and, once launched, will dwarf every other vessel on the high seas. More »

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The World’s Biggest Ship Is Assembled like a Lego Model

This Hair’s-Width Endoscope Will Revolutionize Micro-Surgery

Your chances of being split open sternum to sphincter for a medical procedure are quickly declining (whew) thanks to the advent of endoscopic surgery and robotic surgical platforms like the DaVinci , though even these revolutionary procedures have their limitations. But thanks to a team of Stanford researchers, size is no longer one of them. More »

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This Hair’s-Width Endoscope Will Revolutionize Micro-Surgery

The World’s Fastest Electric Boat Skims Over the Sea at 86 Knots

What happens when you transfuse the 2,200 HP electric drive train from the world’s fastest and most powerful production electric car, the Mercedes SLS AMG Coupé Electric Drive, into a 38-foot racing hull? You get the world’s fastest and most powerful production electric speed boat. Duh. More »

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The World’s Fastest Electric Boat Skims Over the Sea at 86 Knots

The World’s Biggest Solar Sail Launches Next Year

Space is noticeably short on gas stations, requiring spacecraft to carry huge reserves of expensive and cumbersome propellant which limits their range. But with NASA’s newest Sun-powered propulsion concept, future astronauts could sail to the stars on solar winds. More »

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The World’s Biggest Solar Sail Launches Next Year

Queen Elizabeth Will Float the Biggest Marine Turbine Engine in History

The 109,000 HP Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C diesel engine is the largest and most powerful, but at 2,300 tons, any warship it’s attached to is going to have trouble outmaneuvering jellyfish, much less torpedoes. Instead, the British Navy is relying on a new gas turbine engine that, while only half as powerful as the RTA96, weighs 68 times less. More »

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Queen Elizabeth Will Float the Biggest Marine Turbine Engine in History