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Earth

Cleaner Air Could Speed Global Warming 344

Posted by kdawson from the caught-between-asthma-and-the-rising-sea dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists estimate that the US Clean Air Act has cut a major air pollutant, sulfate aerosols, by 30% to 50% since the 1980s, helping greatly reduce cases of asthma and other respiratory problems. But NPR reports that this good news may have a surprising downside: cleaner air might actually intensify global warming. One benefit of sulfates is that they've been helpfully blocking sunlight from striking the Earth for many decades, by brightening clouds and expanding their coverage. Researchers believe greenhouse gases such as CO2 have committed the Earth to an eventual warming of roughly 4 degrees Fahrenheit, a quarter of which the planet has already experienced. But thanks to cooling by aerosols starting in the 1940s, the planet has felt only a portion of that warming. And unlike CO2, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries, aerosols last in the air for a week at most, so cutting them would probably rapidly accelerate global warming. The author of 'Hack the Planet' says: 'As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.'"
Communications

US Students Suffering From Internet Addiction 307

Posted by kdawson from the crackberry-is-no-joke dept.
goG sends in a piece from IBTimes on the latest study to confirm what is becoming pretty obvious. The article mentions the Internet addiction rehab center we discussed last year. "American college students are hooked on cellphones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full day found that after 24 hours many showed signs of withdrawal, craving and anxiety along with an inability to function well without their media and social links. ... 'Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort,' wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. 'When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life.'"
Image

Google Street View Shoots the Same Woman 43 Times Screenshot-sm 106

Posted by samzenpus from the get-your-face-out-there dept.
Geoffrey.landis writes "Terry Southgate discovered that his wife Wendy appears on the Google Street View of his neighborhood not once or twice but a whopping 43 times. From the article: 'It seems as if the Street View car simply followed the same route as Wendy and Trixie. However, Wendy was a little suspicious that the car was doing something on the "tricksie" side. Several of the Street View shots show Wendy looking with some concern towards the car that was, well, to put it politely, crawling along the curb. "I didn't know what it was doing. It was just driving round very, very slowly," Wendy told the Sun.' The next best thing to being a movie star — a Street View star!"
Cellphones

All GSM Phones Open To Attack, Tracking 119

Posted by Soulskill from the now-where'd-that-tinfoil-hat-go dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "A pair of security researchers has discovered a number of new attack vectors that give them the ability not only to locate any GSM mobile handset anywhere in the world, but also to find the name of the subscriber associated with virtually any cellular phone number, raising serious privacy and security concerns for customers of all of the major mobile providers. The research builds upon earlier work on geolocation of GSM handsets and exposes a number of fundamental weaknesses in the architecture of mobile providers' networks. However, these are not software or hardware vulnerabilities that can be patched or mitigated with workarounds. Rather, they are features and functionality built into the networks and back-end systems that Bailey and DePetrillo have found ways to abuse in order to discover information that most cell users assume is private and known only to the cell provider."
Democrats

House Proposes Legalizing, Taxing Online Gambling 473

Posted by Soulskill from the twenty-bucks-says-it-gets-shot-down dept.
eldavojohn writes "Passed in 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is set to go into effect June 1. New efforts by Democrats in the House of Representatives aim not only to stop that but to legalize and tax Internet gambling. Jim McDermott (D-WA), said, 'This is a huge boon to the state governments. If you look across the country you're seeing programs cut. In Arizona, they just cut out a program for children's health for 40,000 kids. Here's a source of money.' Basically, the bill proposes that for each state, a 6% cut would be taken from all wagers and go to the state in which the bet was made online, while federal would get 2%. They estimate in the next decade this would amount to $30 billion for state and tribal governments and $42 billion for the federal government in new taxes. Banks and casinos appear to be very much on board, while the usual crowd (Republicans, Focus on the Family, Think of the Children) gathered in opposition to the move."
Biotech

How To Grow a Head 355

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-not-like-that dept.
Taco Cowboy writes "British scientists have found a mechanism within our gene sequence that allows the growing of a new head — with brains, etc. The gene is tentatively known as smed-prep, and the information contained in smed-prep also makes the new cells appear in the right place and organise themselves into working structures."

Comment Re: narcissistic hissy-fit (Score 1) 280

by KharmaWidow (#31943290) Attached to: Android Ported To iPhone

Really? Seems like the people throwing the fit are all the Android fans with their egotism and inflated idea of their own importance. All you guys do is bitch about Apple day in and day out. Ironically, creating more brand awareness of Apple and Apple mind-share in the blogs. All the while burying Android stories. Rather than complaining about Apple you should be chatting about Android if Android were actually better. But the Android interface blows compared to the Apple OS as several reviews have demonstrated.

Comment Possible Benefits are ridiculous (Score 1) 695

by KharmaWidow (#31943136) Attached to: Apple To Buy ARM?

Apple buying a chip manufacturer simply to stop supplying competitors is an idiotic concept. A) Apple would lose money immediately via decreased revenue B) Competitors would simply start using a different chip

The only reason why Apple might buy a chip manufacturer is to lower retail prices. And that's not going to happen because that is not the industry Apple is in. Apple makes consumer electronics and B2B parts supply doesn't fit into that business model.

The ridiculousness of the internet quarter backing has reach a new peak of WTF?

Comment Glass Houses (Score 1) 909

by KharmaWidow (#31928360) Attached to: Steve Jobs Recommends Android For Fans of Porn

Actually, I think your argument is the one that is, er, unsound. Jobs said Apple wants to keep porn of the iPhone - meaning Apple does not want to endorse porn. He said nothing about the iPhone not having access to porn via channels beyond Apple. You didn't read the statement comprehensively.

Apple simply wants to keep porn out of its media-content store. Apple's target demographic is families and education. As an Apple shareholder, I completely agree. There is no need in Apple's business model for Apple to endorse nor allow porn-centric apps.

Which comes to another point: sites who create iPhone-friendly content are in no way a relection on Apple's content policy. Thats a fallacy of logic. Apple has nothing to do with those sites.

As well as, those who are ridiculing Jobs' position because the web browser can access porn have no ground to criticize Apple for blocking content - because according to the critics, the content isn't blocked. To do so, contradicts their own line of reasoning - and is *unsound*.

Apple just reported the the best non-holiday quarter ever in the middle of the worst recession, surpassing similar companies... Only a fool would criticize Apple's strategies.

Comment Re:Any Graphic Designers want to weigh in? (Score 1) 122

by KharmaWidow (#31914344) Attached to: Study Finds Fast-Food Logos Make You Impatient

I'm a graphic designer and the only aspect I think might influence the viewer is color. What they need are additional studies - sit-down restaurants, non-restaurants, logos that aren't generally reds and yellows, logos the viewer is not familiar with....

Maybe its simply having crap flash in your face...

Considering that the subliminal-message studies of the 60s or whenever were a hoax, I think this a bunch of hooey.
Image

Study Finds Fast-Food Logos Make You Impatient Screenshot-sm 122

Posted by samzenpus from the I-got-the-cowboyneal-jitters dept.
A study conducted by the University of Toronto has found that exposure to fast-food logos can cause people to feel impatient and make them more likely to buy things. Subjects in the study were exposed to nearly imperceptible flashes of images (for 12 to 80 milliseconds) which included fast-food logos for some. The subjects were then asked to read about and choose between two different kinds of skin-care treatments, one of which was a three-in-one. Those who had the logos flashed before them read "significantly faster" and chose the more time-saving skin product. From the article: "The researchers concluded 'fast food, originally designed to save time, can have the unexpected consequence of inducing haste and impatience' and 'preference for time-saving products when there are potentially other important aspects upon which to choose a product.' So, basically, driving past a McDonald's on the highway has the potential to not only make you drive faster, it will make you more likely to buy two-for-one Pantene Pro-V Shampoo and Conditioner the next time you go to Duane Reade. One, it seems, is considerably less ominous than the other." I guess this explains why my nephews will chew on their seat belts and try to get out the windows just to be first into the McDonald's Playland.

Comment Seems like the dystopian vision is ours... (Score 1) 394

by KharmaWidow (#31860892) Attached to: Entertainment Industry's Dystopia of the Future

Citing the number of cases the RIAA have lost etc I would hardly describe it as "US government's willingness to bend over for Big Media"... Not to mention that under current law what most people are doing with media online is illegal ... regardless of the culprit's opinion.

One of the main problems around here is exaggeration.

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