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Submission + - Scientists Sneak A Peek At How Ladybugs Fold Their Wings (npr.org)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: With the help of high-speed cameras, CT scanners and some nail-art supplies, scientists in Japan have managed to catch a glimpse of the elaborate way that ladybugs fold their wings to tuck them away.

The research could have implications for everything from aeronautics to umbrellas.

The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explored how ladybugs can have wings strong enough to fly with, but quickly collapsible so they can be tucked out of the way.

Submission + - Samsung's Note 7 recycling center catches fire, company blames faulty batteries (extremetech.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: Every now and then, the universe hands you a story on a silver platter, served with a whopping huge side of situational irony. On Wednesday, 19 fire engines and 110 firemen reported to a fire at Samsung SDI’s Chinese manufacturing facility in Tianjin. The fire was put out without widespread damage to the plant, which mostly remained on a normal manufacturing schedule.
HP

HP Made a Laptop Slightly Thicker To Add 3 Hours of Battery Life (theverge.com) 167

Posted by BeauHD from the not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
When a technology company like Apple releases a new product, chances are it's going to be thinner than its predecessor -- even if may be slightly worse off for it. HP is taking a different approach with its new 15.6-inch Spectre x360 laptop, which was recently announced at CES. The machine is slightly thicker than its predecessor, and HP claims it features three hours of additional battery life. The Verge reports: The difference between the new x360 and the old x360, in terms of thickness, is minimal, from 15.9mm to 17.8mm. (For reference, the 2015 MacBook Pro was 18mm thick.) It's an increase of 1.9mm for the Spectre, but HP says it's now including a battery that's 23 percent larger in exchange. At the same time, the laptop is also getting narrower, with its body shrinking from 14.8 inches wide to 14 inches wide. Unfortunately, the claimed three hours of additional battery life aren't meant to make this laptop into some long-lasting wonder -- they're really just meant to normalize its battery life. HP will only be selling the 15.6-inch x360 with a 4K display this year, and that requires a lot more power. By increasing the laptop's battery capacity, HP is able to push the machine's battery life from the 9.5 hours it estimated for the 4K version of its 2016 model to about 12 hours and 45 minutes for this model. So it is adding three hours of battery life, but in doing so, it's merely matching the battery life of last year's 1080p model. The x360 is also being updated to include Intel's Kaby Lake processors. It includes options that max out at an i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics. It's supposed to be released February 26th, with pricing starting at $1,278 for an entry-level model.

Submission + - Social Media Is Killing Discourse Because It's Too Much Like TV (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: Like TV [social media] now increasingly entertains us, and even more so than television it amplifies our existing beliefs and habits. It makes us feel more than think, and it comforts more than challenges. The result is a deeply fragmented society, driven by emotions, and radicalized by lack of contact and challenge from outside. This is why Oxford Dictionaries designated “post-truth” as the word of 2016: an adjective "relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals."

Traditional television still entails some degree of surprise. What you see on television news is still picked by human curators, and even though it must be entertaining to qualify as worthy of expensive production, it is still likely to challenge some of our opinions (emotions, that is). Social media, in contrast, uses algorithms to encourage comfort and complaisance, since its entire business model is built upon maximizing the time users spend inside of it.
Microsoft

Microsoft Extends Again Support For Windows 7, 8.1 Skylake-based Devices (zdnet.com) 85

Posted by msmash from the buy-more-time dept.
Microsoft says it is giving more time to users on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices running sixth generation Intel Skylake chips. Earlier the company had said that it would end support for such systems on July 17, 2018 (before that the end date was July 17, 2017). Today's announcement further pushes the deadline, giving Windows 7 users till January 14, 2020, and Windows 8.1 users till January 2023. ZDNet adds: Today's latest change to the Skylake support cut-off dates also applies to Windows Embedded 7, 8 and 8.1 devices. As of this latest change, supported devices running Skylake -- here's the list of PCs that qualify, along with embedded devices -- will get all applicable security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1 until the end of support dates for each product. What we don't really know is why Microsoft made this latest change. Did Intel "fix" Skylake? Did customers, especially those wanting to downgrade to Windows 7, complain a lot? The official word is "This change is designed to help our customers purchase modern hardware with confidence, while continuing to manage their migrations to Windows 10."

Submission + - Flossing your teeth isn't beneficial (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: lossing may not yield the protective benefits we’ve been told to expect. Since 1979, the federal government in the US has recommended daily flossing, but by law these dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years, have to be supported by scientific evidence. Surprisingly—and without any notice—the federal government dropped flossing from its dietary guidelines this year, telling the Associated Press that “the government acknowledged the effectiveness of flossing had never been researched, as required.”

Submission + - BUSINESS U.S. Set to Approve Moon Mission by Commercial Space Venture (wsj.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: U.S. officials appear poised to make history by approving the first private space mission to go beyond Earth’s orbit, according to people familiar with the details. The government’s endorsement would eliminate the largest regulatory hurdle to plans by Moon Express, a relatively obscure space startup, to land a roughly 20-pound package of scientific hardware on the Moon sometime next year.

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