New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Apr 7, 2014:
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1) Report: change European law to allow scientific data mining
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/european-copyright-science-journals
The European Commission has published a
consultation recommending that copyright law be changed to
allow researchers to use automated text and data mining (TDM)
software to hunt for vital information in published scientific
papers.
For years scientists from all fields have been engaged in an
uphill battle to get more data out from behind journal paywalls,
and into the public academic sphere. Finding the balance between
open access and sustaining the costly peer-review model has been
tricky, and some have gotten around this by only publishing
datasets. Trawling through thousands of such releases, is of course
time consuming and somewhat counters the theory that making it open
will speed up scientific progress.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
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2) Raspberry Pi announces customisable module for industry
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/raspberry-pi-compute-module
The makers of Raspberry Pi have today announced a new
product, the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, aimed specifically
at business and industrial users.
As Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton told the audience at the
Wired 2013 event last autumn, the Pi was always intended to be an
educational device. But the tiny computers have ended up all over
the world, being used for all sorts of projects. It's not
surprising, then, that the Foundation has launched a module that
can be embedded into systems and commercial products.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
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3) 'Nearly unbreakable' encryption inspired by biology
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/unbreakable-encryption
A team of physicists has built a "nearly unbreakable" encryption
system devised using the same mathematical principles that explain
how the human heart and lungs function in unison.
The system has been described in a paper published
in Physical Review X, penned by Tomislav Stankovski,
Peter McClintock and Aneta Stefanovska of Lancaster University, and
a patent has already been filed. The kicker is, not one of the
physics professors had experience in encryption. Their joint
backgrounds are in engineering, nonlinear dynamics and
biomedical/physics engineering, but when they read up on the latest
discoveries around the cardiorespiratory coupling function -- the
way in which the heart and lungs work together continuously -- the
potential applications became clear.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
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4) £1.1m roboman to test Army's protective clothing
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/robot-man-mod
The Ministry of Defence has spent £1.1 million on a robotic
mannequin that will be used to test protective suits and other
equipment used by the armed forces.
The Porton Man mannequin has been built out of advanced
materials normally reserved for Formula One cars and can move
around in a variety of ways. He features more than 100 sensors on
his body to record data during tests, to see how equipment such as
chemical and biological protective clothing fares.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
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5) Gaming linked with brain thickening
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/gaming-brain-thickness
Playing video games has been linked with increases in the
thickness of some parts of the brain.
A study published in PLOS One reports that "a
robust positive association" exists between the amounts of time
teens reported spending on video games each week and the thickness
of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left frontal
eye fields (FEF).
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
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6) Generation XXX: Talk to your kids about internet porn
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/porn-education
Ministers and regulatory bodies want to put internet
pornography on the top shelf. They're insinuating it will deprave
and corrupt under the Obscenity Act -- which in fact defines what
material is illegal, including abuse and necrophilia, and does not
make judgements on other legal content. They're arguing it
constitutes material that will impair the emotional, physical and
mental development of minors, under Europe's Audiovisual Media
Services Directive. No other European country has gone this
far.
The result of all this, if online pornography is regulated and
taxed to the hilt, or alternatively blocked for non-compliance, is
that no one will ever have to talk about porn again.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
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7) Child abuse images bundled with malware in sinister hacks
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/child-abuse-malware
In the Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) annual report, released
today, the organisation has highlighted an emerging
trend that has seen a number of UK businesses' websites hacked
to host folders of child sexual abuse images and malware.
Only one percent of all the child sexual abuse images and videos
discovered last year were hosted in the UK, but the number of pages
found to be hosting images was up to 92 from 73 in 2012. The IWF
identified the reason for the increase as a significant rise in the
number of legitimate personal and business sites being hacked with
two specific child sexual abuse website templates -- a distribution
method that has not been in widespread use since 2010.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
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8) MPs slam BBC for false balance in climate debates
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/uk-parliament-bbc-climate-change
The UK Parliament's Science and Technology Committee has
recently delivered a report on the state of climate
knowledge and communication in the country. Although it doesn't
spare the government from criticism, the report notes that most of
the public looks to the BBC to provide authoritative coverage on
science. The report concludes that in this case, the BBC's news
division is failing its readership and viewers. Rather than
providing authoritative information, the BBC is succumbing to false
balance, and its director of Editorial Policy and Standards gave
testimony on science coverage that appears to be incoherent.
In the UK, the major political parties largely accept the
scientific evidence for climate change; official skepticism is
limited to a few parties on the conservative fringe. As such, the
report starts with the acceptance of the conclusions reached by the
majority of [...]
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9) Generation XXX: Global porn regulation could boost UK industry
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/regulating-online-porn-a-good-thing
The UK porn industry is dwindling, Jerry Barnett of
Sex & Censorship tells Wired.co.uk. Barnett's own company fell
foul of new regulations introduced by TV on-demand body
Atvod when a European directive ruled a few years ago that
anything that "might seriously impair minors" be fitted with age
verification tools. Part of the industry revolted, like Barnett
concerned that the "moral panic" over our children's innocence
would lead to excessive controls and, ultimately, censorship.
Another section, however, submitted, seeing the changes as overdue
and possibly with one great advantage: a path to battle "tube
porn".
"They are the scourge of the industry," says Chris
Ratcliff, Managing Director of Portland Broadcasting, which
runs ten adult channels broadcast on the likes of Sky and Virgin
and two on-demand websites. "I don't know why anyone would be
looking to try to protect them. The [...]
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10) Brace yourselves for the return of Game of Thrones
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/game-of-thrones-recap
Last time on Game of Thrones, everything
happened.
George R. R. Martin's world has always been famously
complicated, and by design. The story of Westeros isn't a simple
one, just like the story of the real world isn't a simple one.
Rather than getting lost in the myopia of honor or ego, the wisest
people -- and the wiliest survivors -- are those who understand the
complex political, historical, and personal forces that shape
events and see the world from a broader point of view, not
unlike the audience itself. From that perspective, even kings
and conquerors become little more than pawns in a bigger game that
has been in motion for thousands of years. What's the difference
between how Littlefinger looks at his world and how Game
of Thrones Wiki contributors see it? Probably very
little.
By: Laura Hudson, Continue reading...
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11) Generation XXX: Niche pornographers feel unduly targeted by censors
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/censorship-pornography
"I believe that there is some kind of hunt going on at the
moment," Itziar Urrutia tells Wired.co.uk.
Urrutia operates an adult fetish site that is less blondes in
schoolgirl skirts, and more whips, chains and latex. She is a
visual performance artist, and her persona du jour is that of the
jail keeper at the Urban Chick Supremacy Cell, "a fictional Femdom
terror cell that seeks to chase smug City boys and other male
vermin and destroy patriarchy". Since June 2013, however, the
tables have somewhat turned and Urrutia has found herself the
hunted party.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
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12) Watch the 29-storey-high game of Tetris
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/tetris-building
If you'll cast your mind back to deepest, darkest March Drexel
University was promising visitors to Philadelphia the chance
to play Tetris on a 29-storey building.
The game was planned as part of Philly Tech Week which opened on
4 April and thus you can now see how the building was repurposed
for gaming in the video above.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
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13) Amazon's Dash is 'remote control' for buying groceries
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/amazon-shopping-dash
Amazon announced a new stand-alone gadget today
called the Dash. It's basically a remote control for buying
groceries. The small, handheld
gadget itself is free, but the catch is you can only
use it to order food and other goods from Amazon Fresh, the
company's same-to-next-day delivery service.
Dash automates the task of creating a shopping list.
It looks like a little wand, and you can speak into it, or use it
to scan a barcode. Dash then adds those items to your Amazon Fresh
account. When you're ready, all the items you've added are there
waiting for you to schedule a delivery. You have to be an Amazon
Prime Fresh customer to get one (Prime Fresh costs $300 (£180) per
year, and is only available in a few cities) and, for now at least,
you'll also need an invitation code from Amazon.
By: Mat Honan, Continue reading...
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14) Xbox partners with Channel 4 to make sci-fi show Humans
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/humans-xbox-channel-4
Microsoft has confirmed it will be working with Channel 4 to
deliver a new sci-fi show called Humans.
The programme is set in the present day but in an alternate
universe where Synths -- humanoid robotic helpers and servants --
are common. The main plot of the show revolves around a father who
buys a refurbished Synth who happens to harbour a secret.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
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15) Generation XXX: Why we're afraid of internet porn
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/porn-fear
People like porn. It's not a surprising statement, and it's not
true of everyone, but there's just a lot of people that like porn.
Nine million of our 60+ million population accessed adult content
at least once in December, tv on-demand regulator Atvod told
us last month. That figure is totally unsurprising. It's also
probably a massive underestimate, considering only 83 percent
of UK households have internet access, and that nine million figure
didn't account for tablet or mobile access -- the predominant means
of accessing the web, at about 60 percent. The fraction of the
population left over after you account for mobile, must be looking
at porn down at the sex shop. Because you can't look at it on
television. Did you know that? Hardcore pornography, which the
British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) classes as real sex, is
banned. It's not behind a paywall, or a watershed. You're [...]
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16) Why Mercedes is owning this Formula 1 season
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/07/f1-mercedes-turbo
We're two races into the Formula 1 season, and Mercedes-Benz has
been killing it. Now we know the team's secret (one of them,
anyway), and it's brilliantly simple.
This year, the entire grid of 22 cars is running 1.6-litre
turbocharged V6 engines with a sophisticated hybrid energy
system that scavenges energy from the brakes and turbo. F1
engineers are among the sharpest on the planet, and they
have thousands of parameters they can tweak and tricks
they can use to make these power units as powerful and efficient as
possible. Mercedes' best and brightest found a particularly cool
one: they essentially cut the turbo in half.
This is very smart. Here's why.
By: Damon Lavrinc, Continue reading...
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Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
Tuesday 8 April 2014
Monday 7 April 2014
Blog Alert for Wired.co.uk - News, Apr 6, 2014
New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Apr 6, 2014:
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1) Drone deliveries: beyond the publicity stunt
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/06/drone-deliveries
It's the delivery service you've always wanted: just place an
order using your tablet, then sit back as the system dispatches a
delivery drone, plots its flight path, guides it past obstacles and
finds a suitable landing spot near you. The Autonomous Aerial
Cargo/Utility System (AACUS) may sound like Jeff Bezos' futuristic
plan for Amazon. In fact, it has been developed by the US Office of
Naval Research for battlefield resupply missions, and it is already
here.
Amazon's proposed 'Prime Air' delivery service using small
quadrotor drones received a lot of publicity before Christmas. It's
hardly unique: a slew of companies have unveiled plans to use
drones to deliver flowers, pizza, beer, medical supplies and all
manner of other things. Most of these are publicity stunts or, like
the recent April Fool story of a Dunfermline bakery's aerial cake
deliveries, spoofs. A few, like Matternet's [...]
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Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Drone deliveries: beyond the publicity stunt
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/06/drone-deliveries
It's the delivery service you've always wanted: just place an
order using your tablet, then sit back as the system dispatches a
delivery drone, plots its flight path, guides it past obstacles and
finds a suitable landing spot near you. The Autonomous Aerial
Cargo/Utility System (AACUS) may sound like Jeff Bezos' futuristic
plan for Amazon. In fact, it has been developed by the US Office of
Naval Research for battlefield resupply missions, and it is already
here.
Amazon's proposed 'Prime Air' delivery service using small
quadrotor drones received a lot of publicity before Christmas. It's
hardly unique: a slew of companies have unveiled plans to use
drones to deliver flowers, pizza, beer, medical supplies and all
manner of other things. Most of these are publicity stunts or, like
the recent April Fool story of a Dunfermline bakery's aerial cake
deliveries, spoofs. A few, like Matternet's [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
Saturday 5 April 2014
Blog Alert for Wired.co.uk - News, Apr 4, 2014
New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Apr 4, 2014:
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1) Samsung commercialises graphene for wearable tech
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/samsung-graphene-breakthrough
Samsung has announced what it claims is a "groundbreaking
method" to commercialise graphene for use in electronics
devices. The wonder material has many potential applications, but
Samsung is pursuing its development as its durability,
conductibility and flexibility make it ideal for the creation of
flexible displays, wearable and "other next generation electronic
devices".
The synthesis method, which involves growing large area, single
crystal wafer scale graphene, was developed by Samsung Advanced
Institute of Technology (SAIT) in partnership with Sungkyunkwan
University, and has been described in a paper published yesterday
in Science Magazine and Science Express.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
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2) Google's internet balloon circles Earth in 22 days
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/project-loon-22-days
Google's faintly Victorian efforts to bring the internet to
everywhere by balloon came one step closer to reality yesterday
when one managed to circle the Earth in just 22 days.Project
Loon aims to send Wi-Fi broadcasting balloons to the far
reaches of the globe and the success of Ibis-167, as well as the
500,000th kilometre clocked, is a sure sign that they're on the
right track.
By: Chris Higgins, Continue reading...
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3) Meet 'The Loremaster': Elder Scrolls historian
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/loremaster-eso
Is your job title Loremaster? It probably isn't. You probably
didn't also oversee the creation of tens of thousands of unique
characters that populate a certain fantasy game, devise how their
cultures should work and what they think about religion.
Lawrence Schick did.
His official role is Loremaster. It's not a colloquialism. He
works at Zenimax Online and is in charge of one of the most
interesting aspects of building a game as vast as The
Elder Scrolls Online, the gigantic multiplayer fantasy
role-playing adventure game that went on sale today after a
seven-year development period.
"I've been working on this title almost five years," Shick tells
Wired.co.uk. "We have almost 40,000 named NPCs [characters] in the
game and nearly every one of them has something to say to you, and
so it's important we understand where they come from. What's their
culture? What's their society? [...]
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4) Farmer accidentally breeds sheep-goat hybrid
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/hybrid-sheep
In November 2013, farmer Paddy Murphy witnessed one of his sheep
mating with a goat. Five months later, the sheep gave birth to a
sheep-goat hybrid, which Murphy refers to as his first "geep".
"This is the progeny of a goat out of a sheep. He's a week old
now. He's like a deer, it's unbelievable, he's so fast you'd have
to get him into the pen to catch him. There's no chance you would
catch him otherwise," explained an amused Murphy in an interview
with the
Irish Farmers Journal.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
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5) Five things that will make Windows Phone 8.1 great
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/windows-phone-8-1-features
After going hands-on with Windows Phone 8.1 at its official
London launch, Katie Collins explains why it's going to be the best
version of the mobile operating system we've seen yet.
I've always been a big fan of Windows Phone as an operating
system, although I'll also acknowledge that it's not without its
flaws. Fortunately, with the Windows Phone 8.1 update,
Microsoft has announced some additions and improvements that I
think it will give it the real boost it needs to continue to grow
rapidly.
Here are the five things that have got me most excited.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
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6) Government 'at risk of losing its way' with digital strategy
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/digital-disruption-government
The government digital strategy is at risk of losing its way
only five years in, said Cambridge Business School's Mark Thompson,
speaking today at an event hosted by EMC and Policy Exchange on how
technology can be used to reinvent government. The two
organisations are currently writing a joint technology manifesto to
advise the government transform public services through
technology.
"The government spent 20 years in indulging itself in building
bespoke IT in a frenzied splurge," said Thompson, former adviser to
chancellor George Osborne and the Cabinet Office on IT reform. This
has caused two problems: firstly it has encouraged nesting
behaviour by departments and local authorities, and secondly with
each indulgence the public sector decoupled itself further and
further from the global mainstream -- partly due to the fact that
when software was delivered, it was already out of date. [...]
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7) Biologists unearth mysteries of hagfish slime
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/hagfish-slime
Hagfish slime is tough, sticky and pretty bizarre stuff, but
biologists at the University of Guelph are beginning to get to the
bottom of this creature's mysterious mucus.
The incredibly strong protein threads secreted by the "slime
eel" have been examined at the cellular level, revealing details
about the slime-making process that have not been unearthed before.
Professor Douglas Fudge of Guelph's Department of Integrative
Biology claims that hagfish slime has baffled scientists for more
than 100 years.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
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8) Twitter finds no victor in Clegg vs Farage debate
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/clegg-farage-debate-analysis
This week, Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg squared off in the
rhetorical equivalent of a street-fight. The beef: Europe. The
territory: the airwaves of live, prime time television. For a long
hour, they traded insults across the debate floor as they fought
for that most precious of all currencies to politicians: the hearts
and minds of you, the British public.
As the politicians spoke to you, many thousands of you spoke
back. You thronged to a new digital social commons that has leapt
into prominence over the last few years: Twitter. It is fast
becoming now a political space: somewhere politicians are trying
hard to be heard and liked, but also somewhere everyone has the
right and ability to respond.
By: Carl Miller, Continue reading...
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9) iPlayer catch-up extended to 30 days
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/bbc-iplayer-extension
You'll never miss last week's Sherlock again
now that the BBC is to extend the catch-up window for programmes on
iPlayer from seven days to 30. But don't leave it too long as
they're also taking away TV series stacking. Episodes of any
BBC programme, on television or radio, will now be available to
watch online (or download) for 30 days from their broadcast date,
but at the expense of retaining every episode in a current TV
series.
The loss of series stacking should not affect many, as the BBC
Trust noted in its assessment of significance that 40 percent of
users were unaware that the feature existed, and 29% knew about it
but didn't use it. However, the trust also pointed out in its
report that the 30-day change actually results in less overall time
for the viewer to catch up.
By: Chris Higgins, Continue reading...
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10) Xbox has landfill dig for Atari games approved
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/xbox-et-landfill-dig
Permission has been granted for a film crew to excavate a
landfill suspected of containing millions of unsold Atari game
cartridges.
The dig is searching for a cache of cartridges including copies
of Atari's utterly disastrous E.T the Extra-Terrestrial adaptation
as part of an original documentary for Xbox.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
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11) How to do software like Nasa, by Nasa
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/nasa-guidebook
Forty years after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Nasa open
sourced the software code that ran the guidance systems on the
lunar module.
By that time, the code was little more than a novelty. But in
recent years, the space agency has built all sorts of other
software that is still on the cutting edge. And as it turns out,
like the Apollo 11 code, much of this Nasa software is available
for public use, meaning anyone can download it and run it and adapt
it for free. You can even use it in commercial products.
But don't take our word for it. Next Thursday, Nasa will release
a master list of software projects it has cooked up over the years.
This is more than just stuff than runs on a personal computer.
Think robots and cryogenic systems and climate simulators. There's
even code for running rocket guidance systems.
By: Robert McMillan, Continue reading...
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12) Flagship patent case won't transform litigious tech industry
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/alice-v-cls-bank-patent-case
The US Supreme Court has just heard one of its most
keenly-anticipated patent cases in decades, Alice v CLS
Bank. The case asks volatile questions about when software
(or, more accurately, computer-implemented inventions) and business
methods are patentable. These are subjects that ignite great
passion, with far-reaching implications in a world of ubiquitous
automation. But while predictions have been made about the
potentially dramatic significance of this case, the realities of
the dispute mean that the story may well be rather modest and
depressing -- a fact that in itself reflects the sombre state of
contemporary patent litigation.
By: Julia Powles, Continue reading...
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13) Alien: Isolation uses adaptive musical score to terrify
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/alien-isolation-sound
Developers of Alien: Isolation, Creative Assembly, have
given a bit of insight into how the game uses sound to create a
terrifying atmosphere.
"Sound is a massive component of any horror experience and
that's definitely the case with Alien," creative lead Al Hope
told Gamespot.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
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14) This tiny generator is powered by spit
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/spit-powered-generator
Your spit can now power micro-sized microbial fuel cells, which
can produce just enough energy to run on-chip
applications, thanks to an international team of
electrochemical engineers.
Bruce E Logan, Evan Pugh Professor and Kappe Professor of
Environmental Engineering, Penn State, credited the idea to fellow
researcher Justine E Mink. "The idea was Justine's because she was
thinking about sensors for such things as glucose monitoring for
diabetics and she wondered if a mini microbial fuel cell could be
used," Logan said. "There is a lot of organic stuff in saliva."
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
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15) Underground ocean makes Saturn moon top bet for alien life
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/underground-ocean-saturn-moon
Scientists have determined that a hidden ocean of liquid water
likely lies beneath the frozen crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Because the tiny moon freely sends samples of this water into space
via spectacular geysers, the finding could rocket Enceladus to
the forefront of searches for life beyond our planet.
Enceladus has been known as an oddball in the outer solar system
ever since the discovery in 2005 of its incredible water jets. The
finding, made by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft, revealed that the
tiny world -- only one-seventh the size of our own moon -- is
geologically active. Cassini has been back to Enceladus many times
since, exploring and photographing enormous cracks at the moon's
south pole known as tiger stripes, and even flying through the
geysers to sample their composition.
By: Adam Mann, Continue reading...
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16) 71 million watched eSports in 2013
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/esports-data
eSports viewership more than doubled from 2012 to 2013 and now
stands at 71 million viewers worldwide. That's according to
marketing data firm, SuperData.
Along with the growth in viewership, the prize money involved
has been growing too, increasing by more than 350 percent across
the last four years.
The growth was helped in no small part by events like the
2013 Dota 2 International and League of
Legends' World Championship, which offered $2.87m (£1.7m)
and $2m (£1.2m) respectively for professional players of their
games.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
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17) Nest UI fault should serve as alarm bell for designers
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/nest-product-fault
After a nearly blemish-free record that culminated in a $3
billion (£1.8 billion) acquisition by Google, Nest
today issued a surprising halt to sales of Protect, its
gesture-controlled smoke alarm. One of the device's key features
was that you could wave at it to turn it off. Turns out, sometimes
people wave their arms around when there's a fire in the house,
too. Thus, as CEO Tony Fadell put it, "This could delay the alarm
going off if there was a real fire." Oops.
Luckily, the smoke alarm has built-in Wi-Fi, and Nest has
already disabled the feature automatically on Protect devices that
are connected to the internet. The company halted sales as they're
investigating further, but the issue shouldn't be hard to resolve.
At heart, though, the story here is about user interfaces, and the
significant challenges that come along with building machines that
try to watch for and interpret our [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
18) Startup of the Week: Spacious
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/startup-of-the-week-spacious
Spacious simplifies the process of renting office space by
listing all types -- shared, co-working, standalone, serviced -- on
one platform, handling the entire process, from finding a space to
signing the lease. It was founded as part of the Entrepreneur First
programme by Tushar Agarwal, a former investment banker; computer
scientist Tom Watson, and Rohan Silva, former senior policy advisor
to the Prime Minister. Wired.co.uk caught up with Agarwal.
By: Wired.co.uk, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
19) Dolphin 'translator' aids human-animal interaction
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/dolphin-translator
Marine biologists have developed a dolphin "translator" that
helps humans identify individual whistles of animals underwater by
converting them into English words.
The Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) has been developed by
the Wild Dolphin Project. When a dolphin whistles, the tool can
analyse the sounds and then relay the meaning of the sound -- as
predetermined by researchers -- back to them via an earpiece when
underwater.
Denise Herzing, who heads up the Wild Dolphin Project,
tested the system on a pod of dolphins she's been tracking for 25
years. Her team had invented a specific whistle to describe a type
of seaweed, sargassum, which she and her team had used when playing
with the animals. A breakthrough moment came in August 2013, when
she heard for the first time one of the dolphins say the whistle
back. This was picked up by CHAT and converted into the word
"sargassum"; [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Samsung commercialises graphene for wearable tech
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/samsung-graphene-breakthrough
Samsung has announced what it claims is a "groundbreaking
method" to commercialise graphene for use in electronics
devices. The wonder material has many potential applications, but
Samsung is pursuing its development as its durability,
conductibility and flexibility make it ideal for the creation of
flexible displays, wearable and "other next generation electronic
devices".
The synthesis method, which involves growing large area, single
crystal wafer scale graphene, was developed by Samsung Advanced
Institute of Technology (SAIT) in partnership with Sungkyunkwan
University, and has been described in a paper published yesterday
in Science Magazine and Science Express.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Google's internet balloon circles Earth in 22 days
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/project-loon-22-days
Google's faintly Victorian efforts to bring the internet to
everywhere by balloon came one step closer to reality yesterday
when one managed to circle the Earth in just 22 days.Project
Loon aims to send Wi-Fi broadcasting balloons to the far
reaches of the globe and the success of Ibis-167, as well as the
500,000th kilometre clocked, is a sure sign that they're on the
right track.
By: Chris Higgins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Meet 'The Loremaster': Elder Scrolls historian
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/loremaster-eso
Is your job title Loremaster? It probably isn't. You probably
didn't also oversee the creation of tens of thousands of unique
characters that populate a certain fantasy game, devise how their
cultures should work and what they think about religion.
Lawrence Schick did.
His official role is Loremaster. It's not a colloquialism. He
works at Zenimax Online and is in charge of one of the most
interesting aspects of building a game as vast as The
Elder Scrolls Online, the gigantic multiplayer fantasy
role-playing adventure game that went on sale today after a
seven-year development period.
"I've been working on this title almost five years," Shick tells
Wired.co.uk. "We have almost 40,000 named NPCs [characters] in the
game and nearly every one of them has something to say to you, and
so it's important we understand where they come from. What's their
culture? What's their society? [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Farmer accidentally breeds sheep-goat hybrid
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/hybrid-sheep
In November 2013, farmer Paddy Murphy witnessed one of his sheep
mating with a goat. Five months later, the sheep gave birth to a
sheep-goat hybrid, which Murphy refers to as his first "geep".
"This is the progeny of a goat out of a sheep. He's a week old
now. He's like a deer, it's unbelievable, he's so fast you'd have
to get him into the pen to catch him. There's no chance you would
catch him otherwise," explained an amused Murphy in an interview
with the
Irish Farmers Journal.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Five things that will make Windows Phone 8.1 great
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/windows-phone-8-1-features
After going hands-on with Windows Phone 8.1 at its official
London launch, Katie Collins explains why it's going to be the best
version of the mobile operating system we've seen yet.
I've always been a big fan of Windows Phone as an operating
system, although I'll also acknowledge that it's not without its
flaws. Fortunately, with the Windows Phone 8.1 update,
Microsoft has announced some additions and improvements that I
think it will give it the real boost it needs to continue to grow
rapidly.
Here are the five things that have got me most excited.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Government 'at risk of losing its way' with digital strategy
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/digital-disruption-government
The government digital strategy is at risk of losing its way
only five years in, said Cambridge Business School's Mark Thompson,
speaking today at an event hosted by EMC and Policy Exchange on how
technology can be used to reinvent government. The two
organisations are currently writing a joint technology manifesto to
advise the government transform public services through
technology.
"The government spent 20 years in indulging itself in building
bespoke IT in a frenzied splurge," said Thompson, former adviser to
chancellor George Osborne and the Cabinet Office on IT reform. This
has caused two problems: firstly it has encouraged nesting
behaviour by departments and local authorities, and secondly with
each indulgence the public sector decoupled itself further and
further from the global mainstream -- partly due to the fact that
when software was delivered, it was already out of date. [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Biologists unearth mysteries of hagfish slime
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/hagfish-slime
Hagfish slime is tough, sticky and pretty bizarre stuff, but
biologists at the University of Guelph are beginning to get to the
bottom of this creature's mysterious mucus.
The incredibly strong protein threads secreted by the "slime
eel" have been examined at the cellular level, revealing details
about the slime-making process that have not been unearthed before.
Professor Douglas Fudge of Guelph's Department of Integrative
Biology claims that hagfish slime has baffled scientists for more
than 100 years.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Twitter finds no victor in Clegg vs Farage debate
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/clegg-farage-debate-analysis
This week, Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg squared off in the
rhetorical equivalent of a street-fight. The beef: Europe. The
territory: the airwaves of live, prime time television. For a long
hour, they traded insults across the debate floor as they fought
for that most precious of all currencies to politicians: the hearts
and minds of you, the British public.
As the politicians spoke to you, many thousands of you spoke
back. You thronged to a new digital social commons that has leapt
into prominence over the last few years: Twitter. It is fast
becoming now a political space: somewhere politicians are trying
hard to be heard and liked, but also somewhere everyone has the
right and ability to respond.
By: Carl Miller, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) iPlayer catch-up extended to 30 days
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/bbc-iplayer-extension
You'll never miss last week's Sherlock again
now that the BBC is to extend the catch-up window for programmes on
iPlayer from seven days to 30. But don't leave it too long as
they're also taking away TV series stacking. Episodes of any
BBC programme, on television or radio, will now be available to
watch online (or download) for 30 days from their broadcast date,
but at the expense of retaining every episode in a current TV
series.
The loss of series stacking should not affect many, as the BBC
Trust noted in its assessment of significance that 40 percent of
users were unaware that the feature existed, and 29% knew about it
but didn't use it. However, the trust also pointed out in its
report that the 30-day change actually results in less overall time
for the viewer to catch up.
By: Chris Higgins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Xbox has landfill dig for Atari games approved
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/xbox-et-landfill-dig
Permission has been granted for a film crew to excavate a
landfill suspected of containing millions of unsold Atari game
cartridges.
The dig is searching for a cache of cartridges including copies
of Atari's utterly disastrous E.T the Extra-Terrestrial adaptation
as part of an original documentary for Xbox.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) How to do software like Nasa, by Nasa
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/nasa-guidebook
Forty years after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Nasa open
sourced the software code that ran the guidance systems on the
lunar module.
By that time, the code was little more than a novelty. But in
recent years, the space agency has built all sorts of other
software that is still on the cutting edge. And as it turns out,
like the Apollo 11 code, much of this Nasa software is available
for public use, meaning anyone can download it and run it and adapt
it for free. You can even use it in commercial products.
But don't take our word for it. Next Thursday, Nasa will release
a master list of software projects it has cooked up over the years.
This is more than just stuff than runs on a personal computer.
Think robots and cryogenic systems and climate simulators. There's
even code for running rocket guidance systems.
By: Robert McMillan, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
12) Flagship patent case won't transform litigious tech industry
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/alice-v-cls-bank-patent-case
The US Supreme Court has just heard one of its most
keenly-anticipated patent cases in decades, Alice v CLS
Bank. The case asks volatile questions about when software
(or, more accurately, computer-implemented inventions) and business
methods are patentable. These are subjects that ignite great
passion, with far-reaching implications in a world of ubiquitous
automation. But while predictions have been made about the
potentially dramatic significance of this case, the realities of
the dispute mean that the story may well be rather modest and
depressing -- a fact that in itself reflects the sombre state of
contemporary patent litigation.
By: Julia Powles, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
13) Alien: Isolation uses adaptive musical score to terrify
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/alien-isolation-sound
Developers of Alien: Isolation, Creative Assembly, have
given a bit of insight into how the game uses sound to create a
terrifying atmosphere.
"Sound is a massive component of any horror experience and
that's definitely the case with Alien," creative lead Al Hope
told Gamespot.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
14) This tiny generator is powered by spit
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/spit-powered-generator
Your spit can now power micro-sized microbial fuel cells, which
can produce just enough energy to run on-chip
applications, thanks to an international team of
electrochemical engineers.
Bruce E Logan, Evan Pugh Professor and Kappe Professor of
Environmental Engineering, Penn State, credited the idea to fellow
researcher Justine E Mink. "The idea was Justine's because she was
thinking about sensors for such things as glucose monitoring for
diabetics and she wondered if a mini microbial fuel cell could be
used," Logan said. "There is a lot of organic stuff in saliva."
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
15) Underground ocean makes Saturn moon top bet for alien life
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/underground-ocean-saturn-moon
Scientists have determined that a hidden ocean of liquid water
likely lies beneath the frozen crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Because the tiny moon freely sends samples of this water into space
via spectacular geysers, the finding could rocket Enceladus to
the forefront of searches for life beyond our planet.
Enceladus has been known as an oddball in the outer solar system
ever since the discovery in 2005 of its incredible water jets. The
finding, made by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft, revealed that the
tiny world -- only one-seventh the size of our own moon -- is
geologically active. Cassini has been back to Enceladus many times
since, exploring and photographing enormous cracks at the moon's
south pole known as tiger stripes, and even flying through the
geysers to sample their composition.
By: Adam Mann, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
16) 71 million watched eSports in 2013
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/esports-data
eSports viewership more than doubled from 2012 to 2013 and now
stands at 71 million viewers worldwide. That's according to
marketing data firm, SuperData.
Along with the growth in viewership, the prize money involved
has been growing too, increasing by more than 350 percent across
the last four years.
The growth was helped in no small part by events like the
2013 Dota 2 International and League of
Legends' World Championship, which offered $2.87m (£1.7m)
and $2m (£1.2m) respectively for professional players of their
games.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
17) Nest UI fault should serve as alarm bell for designers
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/nest-product-fault
After a nearly blemish-free record that culminated in a $3
billion (£1.8 billion) acquisition by Google, Nest
today issued a surprising halt to sales of Protect, its
gesture-controlled smoke alarm. One of the device's key features
was that you could wave at it to turn it off. Turns out, sometimes
people wave their arms around when there's a fire in the house,
too. Thus, as CEO Tony Fadell put it, "This could delay the alarm
going off if there was a real fire." Oops.
Luckily, the smoke alarm has built-in Wi-Fi, and Nest has
already disabled the feature automatically on Protect devices that
are connected to the internet. The company halted sales as they're
investigating further, but the issue shouldn't be hard to resolve.
At heart, though, the story here is about user interfaces, and the
significant challenges that come along with building machines that
try to watch for and interpret our [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
18) Startup of the Week: Spacious
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/startup-of-the-week-spacious
Spacious simplifies the process of renting office space by
listing all types -- shared, co-working, standalone, serviced -- on
one platform, handling the entire process, from finding a space to
signing the lease. It was founded as part of the Entrepreneur First
programme by Tushar Agarwal, a former investment banker; computer
scientist Tom Watson, and Rohan Silva, former senior policy advisor
to the Prime Minister. Wired.co.uk caught up with Agarwal.
By: Wired.co.uk, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
19) Dolphin 'translator' aids human-animal interaction
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/dolphin-translator
Marine biologists have developed a dolphin "translator" that
helps humans identify individual whistles of animals underwater by
converting them into English words.
The Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) has been developed by
the Wild Dolphin Project. When a dolphin whistles, the tool can
analyse the sounds and then relay the meaning of the sound -- as
predetermined by researchers -- back to them via an earpiece when
underwater.
Denise Herzing, who heads up the Wild Dolphin Project,
tested the system on a pod of dolphins she's been tracking for 25
years. Her team had invented a specific whistle to describe a type
of seaweed, sargassum, which she and her team had used when playing
with the animals. A breakthrough moment came in August 2013, when
she heard for the first time one of the dolphins say the whistle
back. This was picked up by CHAT and converted into the word
"sargassum"; [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
Friday 4 April 2014
Blog Alert for Wired.co.uk - News, Apr 3, 2014
New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Apr 3, 2014:
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Spy software sales must be regulated, say campaigners
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/making-government-surveillance-illegal
Governments must hold private companies whose surveillance
software is used by oppressive regimes to account, a new
coalition has said.
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance
Exports (Cause) launched today in Brussels, and is made up of
Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, FIDH, Human Rights
Watch, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute,
Privacy International and Reporters without Borders. In its sights,
it has companies such as Gamma International, a UK firm whose
FinFisher spy software was allegedly used to illegally spy on
an Ethiopian political refugee living in the UK. Cause wants
countries to produce a legal framework in which to regulate these
sales.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Nokia Lumia 630 and Lumia 635 announced: hands-on preview
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/nokia-lumia-635-and-630-hands-on
If you know your way around Nokia's numerical naming policy,
you'll already have realised that the Lumia 630 and Lumia 635 --
both unveiled last night at Microsoft Build in San Fransisco --
will sit at the top of budget end of Nokia's Windows Phone line.
The company has a track record of making very popular phones that
offer excellent value for money at this price point, so our hopes
are high that these two models will follow in their footsteps.
We went hands-on with both phones at their official London
launch, but as there are very few differences between the two,
we'll group them together here for the sake of brevity. The only
variation you need to know about is that the Lumia 635 runs on 4G
networks and the Lumia 630 is a 3G-only phone. In terms of design,
you can distinguish one from the other as the 635 has a shiny back
and the 630 sports a matte case, which we actually [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) NHS lists companies that accessed UK health records
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/hscic-data-register
NHS data body, the Health and Social Care Information Centre
(HSCIC), has published a list of the companies that have
had access to patient data since April 2013, when the organisation
was formed. The move comes after heavy criticism about the lack of
transparency over who has had access to patient data in the past.
In providing this information, it hopes to build public trust about
future patient data initiatives such as Care.data.
Many patients and GPs are concerned about Care.data as they feel
that their data may be used for purposes other than to improve the
healthcare system. In one case from 2012, the NHS handed over
details relating to hospital admissions of 47 million patients
over 13 years to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, a
professional body for actuaries -- those are the companies
responsible for evaluating risk and informing pricing of insurance
premiums
By: Olivia [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Victory for net neutrality in European Parliament
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/eu-net-neutrality-victory
The European Parliament has voted to pass a package of telecoms
law reform with some critical amendments that will safeguard net
neutrality.
Two weeks ago, the EU's Parliamentary Committee on Industry,
Research and Energy approved the package of reforms put together by
Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. This included stricter
rules against internet providers blocking or slowing internet
services provided by competitors and a call for an end to roaming
charges.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Neurons responsible for 'moonwalking' flies isolated
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/moonwalking-flies
A team of geneticists has been able to map the moonwalking
capabilities of some fruit flies to the specific neurons in the
brain responsible.
Barry Dickson and colleagues from the Research Institute of
Molecular Pathology (IMP) found that some fruit flies seem to be
locked into "reverse" when they are walking. By screening vast
numbers of the creatures, the team could track the changes in
walking direction to the activity of specific neurons in the
brain.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Nokia Lumia 930 announced: hands-on preview
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/nokia-lumia-930-hands-on
Thanks to gradual coming together of Microsoft and Nokia, the
two companies staged a joint launch last night at Microsoft's Build
developer's conference in San Francisco. Along with the update
to Windows Phone 8.1, Nokia unveiled three of the new phones
it will be running on, including its new the flagship -- the
Lumia 930.
With a 5-inch Full HD OLED screen made with Gorilla Glass 3,
which Nokia claims is its brightest ever, the Lumia 930 is
certainly a treat for the eyes. In our hands-on time with the phone
it certainly looked extremely bright and crisp thanks to its
1,920x1,020-pixel resolution that works out as an impressive 441
pixels per inch.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Gel promotes bone growth around surgical implants
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/gel-bone-growth
A research group at Uppsala University has developed a coating
for implants used in dental and orthopaedic surgery.
The gel, made by modifying a biological molecule called
hyaluronan, can be used to coat metal implants and help bone
formation.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Pneumatics give this robotic kangaroo its bounce
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/robot-kangaroo
A development team from Festo's Bionic Learning Network, a
German-based supplier of automation technology, has created a
bionic kangaroo.
With a penchant for boxing and the only animal to use hopping as
a means of locomotion, we can all agree our Australian bouncing
buddies are pretty amazing. But while kangaroos may forever have
our curiosity, its recent bionic counterpart currently has our
attention.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) Ridley Scott linked to live-action Halo project
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/halo-ridley-scott
Ridley Scott will be serving as an executive producer on a
live-action Halo project, according to a report
by The Wrap.
Scott's production company, Scott Free Productions, is expected
to be partnering with Xbox Entertainment Studios and the game's
developer, 343 Industries, for the project.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Prism iPhone case lets you take spy photos
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/prism-iphone-case
Nothing spoils a moment like pulling out your phone to take a
picture. Suddenly everyone's eyes dart to the phone and even the
most veteran photo subjects become a bit awkward.
Thomas Hurst has had to navigate this phenomenon for his job as
a photojournalist, but now he has a simple, elegant
solution. Covr, a new Kickstarter project launched by Hurst,
is an iPhone 5/5s case with a prism lens that slides up over the
camera and lets users take photos while holding their phone
parallel to the ground. With Covr, you can shoot photos without
raising your phone and giving away that you're using the
camera.
By: Jakob Schiller, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) Real-world Nasa mission launches in simulator game
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/kerbal-space-program-asteroid-redirect-mission
Space agency simulator Kerbal Space Program's Asteroid
Redirect Mission is now available to play.
The mission was developed in partnership with Nasa to mirror an
ongoing real-world Asteroid Redirect Mission, which the space
agency is conducting.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Spy software sales must be regulated, say campaigners
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/04/making-government-surveillance-illegal
Governments must hold private companies whose surveillance
software is used by oppressive regimes to account, a new
coalition has said.
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance
Exports (Cause) launched today in Brussels, and is made up of
Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, FIDH, Human Rights
Watch, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute,
Privacy International and Reporters without Borders. In its sights,
it has companies such as Gamma International, a UK firm whose
FinFisher spy software was allegedly used to illegally spy on
an Ethiopian political refugee living in the UK. Cause wants
countries to produce a legal framework in which to regulate these
sales.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Nokia Lumia 630 and Lumia 635 announced: hands-on preview
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/nokia-lumia-635-and-630-hands-on
If you know your way around Nokia's numerical naming policy,
you'll already have realised that the Lumia 630 and Lumia 635 --
both unveiled last night at Microsoft Build in San Fransisco --
will sit at the top of budget end of Nokia's Windows Phone line.
The company has a track record of making very popular phones that
offer excellent value for money at this price point, so our hopes
are high that these two models will follow in their footsteps.
We went hands-on with both phones at their official London
launch, but as there are very few differences between the two,
we'll group them together here for the sake of brevity. The only
variation you need to know about is that the Lumia 635 runs on 4G
networks and the Lumia 630 is a 3G-only phone. In terms of design,
you can distinguish one from the other as the 635 has a shiny back
and the 630 sports a matte case, which we actually [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) NHS lists companies that accessed UK health records
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/hscic-data-register
NHS data body, the Health and Social Care Information Centre
(HSCIC), has published a list of the companies that have
had access to patient data since April 2013, when the organisation
was formed. The move comes after heavy criticism about the lack of
transparency over who has had access to patient data in the past.
In providing this information, it hopes to build public trust about
future patient data initiatives such as Care.data.
Many patients and GPs are concerned about Care.data as they feel
that their data may be used for purposes other than to improve the
healthcare system. In one case from 2012, the NHS handed over
details relating to hospital admissions of 47 million patients
over 13 years to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, a
professional body for actuaries -- those are the companies
responsible for evaluating risk and informing pricing of insurance
premiums
By: Olivia [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Victory for net neutrality in European Parliament
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/eu-net-neutrality-victory
The European Parliament has voted to pass a package of telecoms
law reform with some critical amendments that will safeguard net
neutrality.
Two weeks ago, the EU's Parliamentary Committee on Industry,
Research and Energy approved the package of reforms put together by
Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. This included stricter
rules against internet providers blocking or slowing internet
services provided by competitors and a call for an end to roaming
charges.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Neurons responsible for 'moonwalking' flies isolated
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/moonwalking-flies
A team of geneticists has been able to map the moonwalking
capabilities of some fruit flies to the specific neurons in the
brain responsible.
Barry Dickson and colleagues from the Research Institute of
Molecular Pathology (IMP) found that some fruit flies seem to be
locked into "reverse" when they are walking. By screening vast
numbers of the creatures, the team could track the changes in
walking direction to the activity of specific neurons in the
brain.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Nokia Lumia 930 announced: hands-on preview
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/nokia-lumia-930-hands-on
Thanks to gradual coming together of Microsoft and Nokia, the
two companies staged a joint launch last night at Microsoft's Build
developer's conference in San Francisco. Along with the update
to Windows Phone 8.1, Nokia unveiled three of the new phones
it will be running on, including its new the flagship -- the
Lumia 930.
With a 5-inch Full HD OLED screen made with Gorilla Glass 3,
which Nokia claims is its brightest ever, the Lumia 930 is
certainly a treat for the eyes. In our hands-on time with the phone
it certainly looked extremely bright and crisp thanks to its
1,920x1,020-pixel resolution that works out as an impressive 441
pixels per inch.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Gel promotes bone growth around surgical implants
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/gel-bone-growth
A research group at Uppsala University has developed a coating
for implants used in dental and orthopaedic surgery.
The gel, made by modifying a biological molecule called
hyaluronan, can be used to coat metal implants and help bone
formation.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Pneumatics give this robotic kangaroo its bounce
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/robot-kangaroo
A development team from Festo's Bionic Learning Network, a
German-based supplier of automation technology, has created a
bionic kangaroo.
With a penchant for boxing and the only animal to use hopping as
a means of locomotion, we can all agree our Australian bouncing
buddies are pretty amazing. But while kangaroos may forever have
our curiosity, its recent bionic counterpart currently has our
attention.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) Ridley Scott linked to live-action Halo project
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/halo-ridley-scott
Ridley Scott will be serving as an executive producer on a
live-action Halo project, according to a report
by The Wrap.
Scott's production company, Scott Free Productions, is expected
to be partnering with Xbox Entertainment Studios and the game's
developer, 343 Industries, for the project.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Prism iPhone case lets you take spy photos
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/prism-iphone-case
Nothing spoils a moment like pulling out your phone to take a
picture. Suddenly everyone's eyes dart to the phone and even the
most veteran photo subjects become a bit awkward.
Thomas Hurst has had to navigate this phenomenon for his job as
a photojournalist, but now he has a simple, elegant
solution. Covr, a new Kickstarter project launched by Hurst,
is an iPhone 5/5s case with a prism lens that slides up over the
camera and lets users take photos while holding their phone
parallel to the ground. With Covr, you can shoot photos without
raising your phone and giving away that you're using the
camera.
By: Jakob Schiller, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) Real-world Nasa mission launches in simulator game
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/03/kerbal-space-program-asteroid-redirect-mission
Space agency simulator Kerbal Space Program's Asteroid
Redirect Mission is now available to play.
The mission was developed in partnership with Nasa to mirror an
ongoing real-world Asteroid Redirect Mission, which the space
agency is conducting.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
Thursday 3 April 2014
Blog Alert for Wired.co.uk - News, Apr 2, 2014
New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Apr 2, 2014:
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Suck on these air bags for a taste of smog-free heaven
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/china-air-bags
Chinese citizens have been inhaling bags of air to escape
pollution.
A persistent and ubiquitous problem in some of China's densely
populated cities, pollution is a concern for many of its citizens,
with some residents of Beijing recently comparing a surge of
smog to the apocalypse.
In what appears to be a peculiar PR stunt from a local travel
agent, blue bags of air the size of pillows have been shipped into
the city of Zhengzhou, one of the most polluted areas of China, for
residents to inhale. Yes, we thought
of Spaceballs too.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Microsoft unveils Windows 8.1 with Cortana voice assistant
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/windows-phone-8-1-cortana
Meet Cortana, Microsoft's answer to Siri. Named after an
artificial intelligence character from Halo, the voice assistant
was introduced today during Microsoft's Build Developer Conference
in San Francisco as part of an overhaul of its mobile operating
system, which will be upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1.
Cortana will supposedly be highly customisable and you'll be
able to teach it who your close friends and family are so that only
they will be able to disturb you in moments of quiet. Obviously it
will also be able to perform web searches (powered by Bing -- sad
face), set calendar appointments and reminders, operate apps
including Facebook and Skype and complete a range of other basic
tasks.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Photographing all New Zealand's meteorites
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/photographing-meteorites
London-based photographer Casey Moore likes to
photograph meteorites. So much so that he's travelled the world in
order to find them and document them using his large-format Sinar
camera.
His interest in meteorites was piqued on Father's Day 2013 when
he made a trip to Greenwich Observatory and came across a section
of meteorite that featured the Widmanstätten pattern, a unique
structure found in iron-based meteorites. "I was blown away by it,"
Moore told Wired.co.uk.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Amazon fights Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast with Fire TV
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/amazon-fire-tv
Amazon has today announced its own little nugget of hardware,
Fire TV, to take on the array of other devices that plug into your
telly to make it "smart".
In terms of design, it's not a terribly original offering. It's
a little black box, that looks like Apple TV but with pointed
corners. Inside is a quad-core processor that Amazon claims will
rival the CPU in your smartphone. It offers the same Wi-Fi as a
Kindle Fire and comes with 2GB of RAM, which Amazon boldly claims
will make it three times as fast as rival products. It'll stream
video in 1080p, which also helps to keep it competitive with the
best players already available.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Samsung Galaxy Tab4 series of tablets announced
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/samsung-galaxy-tab4
How many Galaxies does it take to make a full product range?
This is the question we feel like we'll be forever asking
of Samsung, which has just taken the lid off the Galaxy Tab4
Series.
Adding to its already extensive tablet selection, Samsung
is introducing three new slates today at 7 inches, 8 inches and 10
inches. These replace the Galaxy Tab 3 Series and offer only
incremental improvements over their predecessors.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) How to fix NHS care.data
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/fixing-caredata
"Tell people what you're doing, how you're doing it and when
you're doing it." This was the simple advice on sharing patient
data that Dawn Monaghan, group manager of public services at
the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), gave healthcare
practitioners, while speaking at a Westminster forum.
It might sound obvious, but it's exactly what the
government failed to do with its care.data initiative. There
are plenty of benefits to synching up hospital and GP data, as
care.data was designed to, including bettering service, care and
even drug delivery. Failing to clarify exactly what data would be
made anonymous or pseudonymous, failing to tell the public who that
data would be shared with and how, and failing to explain the
entire process, was how the initiative fell short of realising its
duty of care to the public at every stage. Because it was a legal
failing, not just a PR [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Space surgery robot will enter astronauts via the belly button
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/belly-button-surgery-bot-space
What happens if an astronaut develops appendicitis halfway
through the journey to Mars? He or she may be saved by a surgery
robot that enters the body via the belly button.
At least that's the aim of a Nebraska-based company called
Virtual Incision, which has developed a miniature robot
surgeon designed to slip into the body via an incision in the
abdomen. Once inside, it can work at removing the infected appendix
or part of a diseased organ.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Square Enix investigating wiped Thief save files
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/thief-save-files
A number of players are reporting that their Thief save files
have become corrupted with older saves being wiped of some data and
some manual saves disappearing entirely.
According to Game Informer, Square Enix is investigating
the issue and trying to work out what's causing it.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) George Lucas reveals history of the lightsaber
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/lightsaber-history-george-lucas
Of all the amazing ships, droids, and weapons in the Star Wars
franchise, the lightsaber is the most iconic. Along with the Death
Star. And the Millennium Falcon. And R2-D2 and Threepio. And? well,
picking the best Star Wars doodad is like picking a favorite child.
In any event, we now have the full history of the lightsaber, from
George Lucas himself.
By: Angela Watercutter, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) EA apologises for 'unnecessary' and 'stupid' April Fool
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/frostbite-apology
EA has apologised for April Fool's tweets that came from
the Frostbite game engine's Twitter account.
The tweets have since been deleted but originally offered such
snippets as:
"Frostbite now runs on the #WiiU since it is the most powerful
Gen4 platform, our renderer is now optimized for Mario and
Zelda."
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) Zebras use stripes to fend off bugs
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/zebra-stripes
Zebras have stripes to confuse predators, right? Wrong,
according to biologists from the University of California, Davis,
who believe their stripes exist to fend off bugs.
The team found that biting flies were responsible for the
evolutionary direction of the zebra's markings. Previous hypotheses
for the famous stripes claim they exist for the purposes of:
camouflage, confusion, heat management and as some form of social
function. However, all of these are now believed to be
incorrect.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
12) It's human vs robot in the joke wars
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/man-vs-robot-the-comedy-war
Over the years, we've become accustomed to computers besting
humans in tests of raw intelligence. Deep Blue out-maneuvered world
chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, and in 2011 Watson trounced
Jeopardy! winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Sure,
computers can play the Sicilian Defense better and have a firmer
grasp of obscure geography -- but facts and analysis aren't
everything. We wanted to establish a different litmus test for
computer supremacy, so we devised a new matchup between man and
machine to establish once and for all who's funnier. Your
contestants in the bout: stand-up comic Myq
Kaplan versus Manatee the joke-telling computer.
By: Joel Warner and Peter McGraw, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
13) Gmail still delivering 10 years on
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/gmail-ten-years-on
Google loves to unveil a good gag product on April
Fool's Day. Remember 8-bit
maps? YouTube DVDs?
But despite arriving on April 1, 2004, its webmail
service was no joke. Google's simple, browser-based inbox helped
seed several ideas that have become so commonplace over the
intervening decade, they practically define modern computing as we
know it.
By: Michael Calore, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
14) Nest brings Learning Thermostat to the UK
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/nest-learning-thermostat-uk
Nest is finally launching its sleek Learning Thermostat in the
UK, following a series of delays caused partly by our slightly
awkward way of doing central heating in this country. It's
simultaneously launched its first utility partnership in the UK
with energy provider npower.
The Learning Thermostat has been available for some time in the
US and Canada and has been widely praised both for its bold design
and connectivity capabilities that allow users to remotely monitor
and control the temperature in their house using an app.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Suck on these air bags for a taste of smog-free heaven
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/china-air-bags
Chinese citizens have been inhaling bags of air to escape
pollution.
A persistent and ubiquitous problem in some of China's densely
populated cities, pollution is a concern for many of its citizens,
with some residents of Beijing recently comparing a surge of
smog to the apocalypse.
In what appears to be a peculiar PR stunt from a local travel
agent, blue bags of air the size of pillows have been shipped into
the city of Zhengzhou, one of the most polluted areas of China, for
residents to inhale. Yes, we thought
of Spaceballs too.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Microsoft unveils Windows 8.1 with Cortana voice assistant
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/windows-phone-8-1-cortana
Meet Cortana, Microsoft's answer to Siri. Named after an
artificial intelligence character from Halo, the voice assistant
was introduced today during Microsoft's Build Developer Conference
in San Francisco as part of an overhaul of its mobile operating
system, which will be upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1.
Cortana will supposedly be highly customisable and you'll be
able to teach it who your close friends and family are so that only
they will be able to disturb you in moments of quiet. Obviously it
will also be able to perform web searches (powered by Bing -- sad
face), set calendar appointments and reminders, operate apps
including Facebook and Skype and complete a range of other basic
tasks.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Photographing all New Zealand's meteorites
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/photographing-meteorites
London-based photographer Casey Moore likes to
photograph meteorites. So much so that he's travelled the world in
order to find them and document them using his large-format Sinar
camera.
His interest in meteorites was piqued on Father's Day 2013 when
he made a trip to Greenwich Observatory and came across a section
of meteorite that featured the Widmanstätten pattern, a unique
structure found in iron-based meteorites. "I was blown away by it,"
Moore told Wired.co.uk.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Amazon fights Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast with Fire TV
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/amazon-fire-tv
Amazon has today announced its own little nugget of hardware,
Fire TV, to take on the array of other devices that plug into your
telly to make it "smart".
In terms of design, it's not a terribly original offering. It's
a little black box, that looks like Apple TV but with pointed
corners. Inside is a quad-core processor that Amazon claims will
rival the CPU in your smartphone. It offers the same Wi-Fi as a
Kindle Fire and comes with 2GB of RAM, which Amazon boldly claims
will make it three times as fast as rival products. It'll stream
video in 1080p, which also helps to keep it competitive with the
best players already available.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Samsung Galaxy Tab4 series of tablets announced
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/samsung-galaxy-tab4
How many Galaxies does it take to make a full product range?
This is the question we feel like we'll be forever asking
of Samsung, which has just taken the lid off the Galaxy Tab4
Series.
Adding to its already extensive tablet selection, Samsung
is introducing three new slates today at 7 inches, 8 inches and 10
inches. These replace the Galaxy Tab 3 Series and offer only
incremental improvements over their predecessors.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) How to fix NHS care.data
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/fixing-caredata
"Tell people what you're doing, how you're doing it and when
you're doing it." This was the simple advice on sharing patient
data that Dawn Monaghan, group manager of public services at
the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), gave healthcare
practitioners, while speaking at a Westminster forum.
It might sound obvious, but it's exactly what the
government failed to do with its care.data initiative. There
are plenty of benefits to synching up hospital and GP data, as
care.data was designed to, including bettering service, care and
even drug delivery. Failing to clarify exactly what data would be
made anonymous or pseudonymous, failing to tell the public who that
data would be shared with and how, and failing to explain the
entire process, was how the initiative fell short of realising its
duty of care to the public at every stage. Because it was a legal
failing, not just a PR [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Space surgery robot will enter astronauts via the belly button
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/belly-button-surgery-bot-space
What happens if an astronaut develops appendicitis halfway
through the journey to Mars? He or she may be saved by a surgery
robot that enters the body via the belly button.
At least that's the aim of a Nebraska-based company called
Virtual Incision, which has developed a miniature robot
surgeon designed to slip into the body via an incision in the
abdomen. Once inside, it can work at removing the infected appendix
or part of a diseased organ.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Square Enix investigating wiped Thief save files
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/thief-save-files
A number of players are reporting that their Thief save files
have become corrupted with older saves being wiped of some data and
some manual saves disappearing entirely.
According to Game Informer, Square Enix is investigating
the issue and trying to work out what's causing it.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) George Lucas reveals history of the lightsaber
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/lightsaber-history-george-lucas
Of all the amazing ships, droids, and weapons in the Star Wars
franchise, the lightsaber is the most iconic. Along with the Death
Star. And the Millennium Falcon. And R2-D2 and Threepio. And? well,
picking the best Star Wars doodad is like picking a favorite child.
In any event, we now have the full history of the lightsaber, from
George Lucas himself.
By: Angela Watercutter, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) EA apologises for 'unnecessary' and 'stupid' April Fool
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/frostbite-apology
EA has apologised for April Fool's tweets that came from
the Frostbite game engine's Twitter account.
The tweets have since been deleted but originally offered such
snippets as:
"Frostbite now runs on the #WiiU since it is the most powerful
Gen4 platform, our renderer is now optimized for Mario and
Zelda."
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) Zebras use stripes to fend off bugs
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/zebra-stripes
Zebras have stripes to confuse predators, right? Wrong,
according to biologists from the University of California, Davis,
who believe their stripes exist to fend off bugs.
The team found that biting flies were responsible for the
evolutionary direction of the zebra's markings. Previous hypotheses
for the famous stripes claim they exist for the purposes of:
camouflage, confusion, heat management and as some form of social
function. However, all of these are now believed to be
incorrect.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
12) It's human vs robot in the joke wars
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/man-vs-robot-the-comedy-war
Over the years, we've become accustomed to computers besting
humans in tests of raw intelligence. Deep Blue out-maneuvered world
chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, and in 2011 Watson trounced
Jeopardy! winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Sure,
computers can play the Sicilian Defense better and have a firmer
grasp of obscure geography -- but facts and analysis aren't
everything. We wanted to establish a different litmus test for
computer supremacy, so we devised a new matchup between man and
machine to establish once and for all who's funnier. Your
contestants in the bout: stand-up comic Myq
Kaplan versus Manatee the joke-telling computer.
By: Joel Warner and Peter McGraw, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
13) Gmail still delivering 10 years on
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/gmail-ten-years-on
Google loves to unveil a good gag product on April
Fool's Day. Remember 8-bit
maps? YouTube DVDs?
But despite arriving on April 1, 2004, its webmail
service was no joke. Google's simple, browser-based inbox helped
seed several ideas that have become so commonplace over the
intervening decade, they practically define modern computing as we
know it.
By: Michael Calore, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
14) Nest brings Learning Thermostat to the UK
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/02/nest-learning-thermostat-uk
Nest is finally launching its sleek Learning Thermostat in the
UK, following a series of delays caused partly by our slightly
awkward way of doing central heating in this country. It's
simultaneously launched its first utility partnership in the UK
with energy provider npower.
The Learning Thermostat has been available for some time in the
US and Canada and has been widely praised both for its bold design
and connectivity capabilities that allow users to remotely monitor
and control the temperature in their house using an app.
By: Katie Collins, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
Monday 31 March 2014
Blog Alert for Wired.co.uk - News, Mar 30, 2014
New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Mar 30, 2014:
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Smiley-faced screw cheers up DIY
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/30/smiley-screw
A Japanese designer called Yuma Kano has developed a
screw that has a drive in the shape of a smiley face, and an
accompanying screwdriver that slots into it.
"The screw is one of the tools I use most frequently. I had been
thinking about the existence of the screw as an icon of mass
production, because screws are used and disposed -- they are
unnoticeable and ordinary," he told Wired.co.uk, adding that he
felt that the screw was a bit of an unsung hero in the tool
world.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Smiley-faced screw cheers up DIY
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/30/smiley-screw
A Japanese designer called Yuma Kano has developed a
screw that has a drive in the shape of a smiley face, and an
accompanying screwdriver that slots into it.
"The screw is one of the tools I use most frequently. I had been
thinking about the existence of the screw as an icon of mass
production, because screws are used and disposed -- they are
unnoticeable and ordinary," he told Wired.co.uk, adding that he
felt that the screw was a bit of an unsung hero in the tool
world.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
Thursday 27 March 2014
Blog Alert for Wired.co.uk - News, Mar 26, 2014
New Posts to Wired.co.uk - News on Mar 26, 2014:
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Neurosurgeons successfully implant 3D printed skull
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/3d-printed-skull
A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a
chronic bone disorder -- which has increased the thickness of her
skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe
headaches -- has had the top section of her skull removed and
replaced with a 3D printed implant.
The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the
University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is
this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not
been rejected by the patient.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Xbox One does a 360, reconsiders game sharing
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/xbox-game-lending
Microsoft is considering a return to the idea of digital loans
and gifting for its Xbox One games.
The company had been working on a type of family sharing before
the console launched with the intention that players would be able
to share the games in their library with up to ten family
members.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Feeble regulation of biometrics could 'erode privacy'
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-privacy
There is too much inconsistency in EU legislation and
EU data protection regulation when it comes to biometric
data, says Julia Lodge, senior analyst at Adaption Information
Management and Technology, at the University of Leeds. "It's these
inconsistencies in law that could erode privacy and make
accountability and trust in legislation fragile. The moment that
becomes even more fragile and people misunderstand how biometrics
are being used, they may question whether the regulator is relevant
anymore -- or even the law."
Lodge made the warning while speaking at a panel
debate on the future of biometrics held by Nesta. Though many of the panel
members spoke of the boundless merits and possibilities the
technology brings, Lodge warned that the wrong approach could be
the undoing of personal privacy.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Remix Linkin Park with Project Spark game
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/linkin-park-project-spark
Linkin Park's latest music video takes the form of a level made
entirely in Project Spark -- Team Dakota's
digital game creation canvas.
Project Spark launched in open beta on Xbox
earlier this month and a trailer of existing Spark levels pointed
to a connection between the band and the developers as it was "Set
to the music of Linkin Park, Team Dakota's rock band of
choice!"
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Get ready to have your biometrics tracked 24/7
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-the-good-and-bad
It's already too late to stop the ubiquitous tracking
and monitoring of the public through biometrics, says Peter
Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM's Emerging Technology Group.
We need to stop worrying about prevention, and start working out
how to make the most of data garnered from that kind of
surveillance.
"We're fighting the wrong battle when we ask should we
stop people being observed. That is not going to be feasible. We
need to understand how to use that data better," urged Waggett, who
was speaking as part of a Nesta panel debate on what
biometrics mean for the future of privacy.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Seals wear earphones to test impact of noise pollution
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/seal-earphones
Biologists have studied grey seals' sense of hearing by making
wild seals wear specially adapted earphones.
The researchers were concerned about the effect of acoustic
emissions from wind turbines on grey seals in the North and Baltic
Seas. Grey seals use acoustic signals for communication in air and
underwater, using complex vocal repertoires through a wide
frequency range, but particularly lower frequencies. This is where
offshore wind turbines also make a lot of their noise, and so their
operation may prevent seals from communicating effectively or make
a permanent impact on seals' hearing.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Dutch student offers up all his personal data to highest bidder
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/shawn-buckles-sells-his-data-soul
Shawn Buckles is a student from the Netherlands who
wants to sell you his soul. Or rather, he wants to sell you
everything there is to know about him, from his online viewing
habits to his thoughts and email conversations.
On 12 April, 2014, the highest bidder will receive:
Shawn's personal records, location track records, medical records,
train track records, personal calendar, email conversations, online
conversations, social media conversations, consumer preferences,
browser history and finally, his thoughts.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Why ghostly false positives cropped up in MH370 satellite hunt
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/ghostly-plane-images-mh370-satellite-hunt
Volunteers spotted scores of ghostly planes while hunting
through satellite images for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight
370. Many of these false positives stood out because they
showed up as three separate brightly coloured airplanes, an
interesting artefact of the way many satellites record a scene.
The imagery above, hosted by Mapbox, is from a satellite
company called BlackBridge, which was among the many companies and
governments that contributed data to the search. Their fleet of
five satellites uses push-broom cameras to scan the Earth.
By: Betsy Mason, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) 'No difference' between stealing car keys and severing fingers
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-stealing-body-parts
Cutting off fingers so that the prints can be used to
steal a car, is the same as stealing a set of keys to swipe that
car, says Peter Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM's Emerging
Technology Group.
The question arose during a panel debate held
by Nesta about how the ubiquity of biometrics could
redefine what privacy means in the modern age. Julia Lodge, senior
analyst at Adaption Information Management and Technology, at the
University of Leeds, cited the example of a driver having
his finger sliced off in southeast Asia so a gang could
access his Mercedes S-class.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Minecraft for Oculus Rift axed, Facebook too 'creepy'
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/notch-facebook-oculus
Minecraft creator, Markus 'Notch' Persson
has withdrawn his support of Oculus Rift in the wake of
the company's acquisition by Facebook for
$2bn (£1.2bn).
"I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with
Facebook," he stated in a blog post reacting to the news. "Their
motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven't historically
been a stable platform. There's nothing about their history that
makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) ?Mars in a bottle? simulates the Red Planet?s deadly dust
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/mars-chamber-simulates-deadly-martian-dust
The most dangerous thing on Mars isn't a 1-ton
laser-wielding robot; it's dust. And researchers have built a
vacuum chamber that can help determine how the probes and, one day,
human explorers we send there might fare against the mighty Martian
dust.
The schmutz of Mars has long plagued our robotic explorers. This
dust, composed mainly of magnetic iron oxides, tends to stick to
anything with a slight charge, including motors and electronic
devices. It can accumulate on solar panels, coating rovers
such as Spirit and Opportunity. Martian soot is even more
dangerous to humans. It is a strong oxidiser, meaning it could
interact with human skin like bleach or lye, and it contains
poisonous or carcinogenic compounds such as hexavalent
chromium.
By: Adam Mann, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
12) Nasa captures most detailed Milky Way panorama ever
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/milky-way-captured-by-spitzer
A stunning 360-degree mosaic of images shot by Nasa contains
more than half of the stars in the Milky Way. The images have been
captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of Nasa's
GLIMPSE360 project -- or to give it its full title, Galactic Legacy
Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire. It's a big name alright, but a
project of this magnitude does justify it at least.
The panoramas have been stitched together from more than two
million photos that have been captured using infrared light over
the course of ten years. As you might expect, the use of infrared
light allowed the Spitzer to illuminate and capture much more of
the galaxy than can be seen simply by using natural light. Visible
light is frequently blocked out by a dust that infrared light can
easily penetrate. Stars and other objects emit infrared light,
which is then picked up by the Spitzer's detectors.
By: Katie Collins, [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
13) Here's what to expect from Oculus in the Facebook era
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/vr-social-oculus-facebook-era
If you asked me yesterday to start listing companies that might
purchase virtual reality wunderkind Oculus, Valve would have
probably topped the list; the companies have previously talked
up their close relationship, after all. Microsoft would have
been a strong contender too, likely to throw around its cash to
give its consoles and mobile products an instant leg up in the
brewing VR wars. Google has also shown interest in augmented
reality and Amazon is making noise about a game console,
so they both would be dark horse candidates for buyers as well.
But Facebook? The social networking giant wouldn't have even
made my top ten list of potential Oculus buyers before last night.
No matter, though; the company did actually purchase Oculus
for $2 billion despite my theoretical list-making skills.
By: Kyle Orland, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
14) First convictions made for pirating mobile apps
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/copyright-app-case
The US Department of Justice has secured its first
convictions against distributors of counterfeit mobile apps in
a case involving $700,000-worth (£425,000) of downloads.
Americans Nicholas Anthony Narbone, 26, and Thomas Allen Dye,
21, have both now pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit
criminal copyright infringement.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
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http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Neurosurgeons successfully implant 3D printed skull
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/3d-printed-skull
A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a
chronic bone disorder -- which has increased the thickness of her
skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe
headaches -- has had the top section of her skull removed and
replaced with a 3D printed implant.
The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the
University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is
this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not
been rejected by the patient.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Xbox One does a 360, reconsiders game sharing
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/xbox-game-lending
Microsoft is considering a return to the idea of digital loans
and gifting for its Xbox One games.
The company had been working on a type of family sharing before
the console launched with the intention that players would be able
to share the games in their library with up to ten family
members.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Feeble regulation of biometrics could 'erode privacy'
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-privacy
There is too much inconsistency in EU legislation and
EU data protection regulation when it comes to biometric
data, says Julia Lodge, senior analyst at Adaption Information
Management and Technology, at the University of Leeds. "It's these
inconsistencies in law that could erode privacy and make
accountability and trust in legislation fragile. The moment that
becomes even more fragile and people misunderstand how biometrics
are being used, they may question whether the regulator is relevant
anymore -- or even the law."
Lodge made the warning while speaking at a panel
debate on the future of biometrics held by Nesta. Though many of the panel
members spoke of the boundless merits and possibilities the
technology brings, Lodge warned that the wrong approach could be
the undoing of personal privacy.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Remix Linkin Park with Project Spark game
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/linkin-park-project-spark
Linkin Park's latest music video takes the form of a level made
entirely in Project Spark -- Team Dakota's
digital game creation canvas.
Project Spark launched in open beta on Xbox
earlier this month and a trailer of existing Spark levels pointed
to a connection between the band and the developers as it was "Set
to the music of Linkin Park, Team Dakota's rock band of
choice!"
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
5) Get ready to have your biometrics tracked 24/7
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-the-good-and-bad
It's already too late to stop the ubiquitous tracking
and monitoring of the public through biometrics, says Peter
Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM's Emerging Technology Group.
We need to stop worrying about prevention, and start working out
how to make the most of data garnered from that kind of
surveillance.
"We're fighting the wrong battle when we ask should we
stop people being observed. That is not going to be feasible. We
need to understand how to use that data better," urged Waggett, who
was speaking as part of a Nesta panel debate on what
biometrics mean for the future of privacy.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Seals wear earphones to test impact of noise pollution
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/seal-earphones
Biologists have studied grey seals' sense of hearing by making
wild seals wear specially adapted earphones.
The researchers were concerned about the effect of acoustic
emissions from wind turbines on grey seals in the North and Baltic
Seas. Grey seals use acoustic signals for communication in air and
underwater, using complex vocal repertoires through a wide
frequency range, but particularly lower frequencies. This is where
offshore wind turbines also make a lot of their noise, and so their
operation may prevent seals from communicating effectively or make
a permanent impact on seals' hearing.
By: Olivia Solon, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
7) Dutch student offers up all his personal data to highest bidder
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/shawn-buckles-sells-his-data-soul
Shawn Buckles is a student from the Netherlands who
wants to sell you his soul. Or rather, he wants to sell you
everything there is to know about him, from his online viewing
habits to his thoughts and email conversations.
On 12 April, 2014, the highest bidder will receive:
Shawn's personal records, location track records, medical records,
train track records, personal calendar, email conversations, online
conversations, social media conversations, consumer preferences,
browser history and finally, his thoughts.
By: Nicholas Tufnell, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Why ghostly false positives cropped up in MH370 satellite hunt
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/ghostly-plane-images-mh370-satellite-hunt
Volunteers spotted scores of ghostly planes while hunting
through satellite images for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight
370. Many of these false positives stood out because they
showed up as three separate brightly coloured airplanes, an
interesting artefact of the way many satellites record a scene.
The imagery above, hosted by Mapbox, is from a satellite
company called BlackBridge, which was among the many companies and
governments that contributed data to the search. Their fleet of
five satellites uses push-broom cameras to scan the Earth.
By: Betsy Mason, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
9) 'No difference' between stealing car keys and severing fingers
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-stealing-body-parts
Cutting off fingers so that the prints can be used to
steal a car, is the same as stealing a set of keys to swipe that
car, says Peter Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM's Emerging
Technology Group.
The question arose during a panel debate held
by Nesta about how the ubiquity of biometrics could
redefine what privacy means in the modern age. Julia Lodge, senior
analyst at Adaption Information Management and Technology, at the
University of Leeds, cited the example of a driver having
his finger sliced off in southeast Asia so a gang could
access his Mercedes S-class.
By: Liat Clark, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Minecraft for Oculus Rift axed, Facebook too 'creepy'
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/notch-facebook-oculus
Minecraft creator, Markus 'Notch' Persson
has withdrawn his support of Oculus Rift in the wake of
the company's acquisition by Facebook for
$2bn (£1.2bn).
"I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with
Facebook," he stated in a blog post reacting to the news. "Their
motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven't historically
been a stable platform. There's nothing about their history that
makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
11) ?Mars in a bottle? simulates the Red Planet?s deadly dust
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/mars-chamber-simulates-deadly-martian-dust
The most dangerous thing on Mars isn't a 1-ton
laser-wielding robot; it's dust. And researchers have built a
vacuum chamber that can help determine how the probes and, one day,
human explorers we send there might fare against the mighty Martian
dust.
The schmutz of Mars has long plagued our robotic explorers. This
dust, composed mainly of magnetic iron oxides, tends to stick to
anything with a slight charge, including motors and electronic
devices. It can accumulate on solar panels, coating rovers
such as Spirit and Opportunity. Martian soot is even more
dangerous to humans. It is a strong oxidiser, meaning it could
interact with human skin like bleach or lye, and it contains
poisonous or carcinogenic compounds such as hexavalent
chromium.
By: Adam Mann, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
12) Nasa captures most detailed Milky Way panorama ever
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/milky-way-captured-by-spitzer
A stunning 360-degree mosaic of images shot by Nasa contains
more than half of the stars in the Milky Way. The images have been
captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of Nasa's
GLIMPSE360 project -- or to give it its full title, Galactic Legacy
Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire. It's a big name alright, but a
project of this magnitude does justify it at least.
The panoramas have been stitched together from more than two
million photos that have been captured using infrared light over
the course of ten years. As you might expect, the use of infrared
light allowed the Spitzer to illuminate and capture much more of
the galaxy than can be seen simply by using natural light. Visible
light is frequently blocked out by a dust that infrared light can
easily penetrate. Stars and other objects emit infrared light,
which is then picked up by the Spitzer's detectors.
By: Katie Collins, [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------
13) Here's what to expect from Oculus in the Facebook era
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/vr-social-oculus-facebook-era
If you asked me yesterday to start listing companies that might
purchase virtual reality wunderkind Oculus, Valve would have
probably topped the list; the companies have previously talked
up their close relationship, after all. Microsoft would have
been a strong contender too, likely to throw around its cash to
give its consoles and mobile products an instant leg up in the
brewing VR wars. Google has also shown interest in augmented
reality and Amazon is making noise about a game console,
so they both would be dark horse candidates for buyers as well.
But Facebook? The social networking giant wouldn't have even
made my top ten list of potential Oculus buyers before last night.
No matter, though; the company did actually purchase Oculus
for $2 billion despite my theoretical list-making skills.
By: Kyle Orland, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
14) First convictions made for pirating mobile apps
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/copyright-app-case
The US Department of Justice has secured its first
convictions against distributors of counterfeit mobile apps in
a case involving $700,000-worth (£425,000) of downloads.
Americans Nicholas Anthony Narbone, 26, and Thomas Allen Dye,
21, have both now pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit
criminal copyright infringement.
By: Philippa Warr, Continue reading...
------------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive Blog Alerts (email notifications of new posts) for Wired.co.uk - News. If you no longer wish to receive Blog Alerts for Wired.co.uk - News, go to this link:
http://shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php?action=leave&r=66344&k=V4SSCVDPCVNJ33XG
==================================================================
Self storage facilities are cash cows!
http://hasslefreehouses.com/selfstorage
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