70160087
submission
mpicpp writes:
Woman sleeping on floor of her apartment awoken in pain by robotic vacuum cleaner attempting to suck up her hair.
A robotic vacuum cleaner "attacked" a South Korean woman while she slept by attempting to suck up the hair on her head.
The woman, a 52-year-old resident of Changwon who has not been named, was awoken by the pain and, unable to extricate herself from the robot, called the fire department for help.
She was eventually freed by paramedics, escaping serious injury but losing several strands of hair.
It required two paramedics to remove her hair from the machine's nozzle, Korea Biz Wire reported.
The incident, which took place on January 3, highlighted the potential risk of this type of accident in South Korea, where sitting and sleeping on the floor is common practice.
The vacuum only stopped running more than a minute after initially ingesting the woman's hair.
She was still unable to free herself from the vacuum and made a "desperate rescue request" call to 119, South Korea's emergency telephone number.
70160033
submission
mpicpp writes:
The astronaut had secretly kept equipment from the moon mission, including the camera used to film footage of the landing, for more than 40 years.
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, secretly took home a bag of mementos from the mission including the camera used to film his "one small step" and the planting of the US flag on the lunar surface.
He kept the equipment in a cupboard at his home where it stayed for four decades, discovered by his widow Carol after Armstrong's death in 2012.
Allan Needell, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, said: "I received an email from Carol Armstrong that she had located, in one of Neil's closets, a white cloth bag filled with assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft.
"Needless to say, for a curator of a collection of space artefacts, it is hard to imagine anything more exciting."
Inside the bag were 17 objects from the Apollo 11 mission including Armstrong's waist tether, utility lights, and emergency wrench.
Most importantly, it contained the 16mm data acquisition camera (DAC) used to film footage of the final approach to the moon on July 20, 1969.
The camera was also used to record Armstrong going down the ladder and taking his famous "one small step," the planting of the flag and other footage of Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface.
The cartridges from the camera, containing the iconic footage, were taken back separately so there was no film in the camera found in Armstrong's cupboard.
But Mr Needell told CollectSpace.com: "The 16mm DAC, given the images that it captured, ranks as enormously important,"
70056457
submission
mpicpp writes:
Intuit the parent company of TurboTax, has stopped e-filing all state tax returns due to increased suspicion of fraud.
The company says it is investigating criminal attempts to use stolen data to file fraudulent returns and claim refunds, after hearing concerns from a handful of states, Intuit spokeswoman Diane Carlini told MarketWatch. After a preliminary examination with security experts, Intuit believes its systems weren’t breached, but crooks may have used TurboTax software to file fraudulent returns after stealing identities, she said.
Intuit said in a release that “the information used to file fraudulent returns was obtained from other sources outside the tax preparation process.” The company called pausing e-filings to states a “precautionary step.”
Utah, the first state to reach out to Intuit, issued a notice Thursday saying the state tax commission has discovered 28 fraud attempts that “originate from data compromised through a third-party commercial tax preparation software process,” as well as 8,000 returns flagged as potentially fraudulent.
70055431
submission
mpicpp writes:
Yesterday Mary Bauer received her Comcast bill in the mail. But the 63-year-old Chicago area resident says she’s not going to open it. That’s because someone at Comcast switched her name on the bill, addressing it instead to “SuperB*tch Bauer.”
Bauer has been having problems with Comcast for months. As she related her story to Chicago’s WGN television station, she’s had a lot of service and billing issues. Technicians have been dispatched to her place a whopping 39 times, and she recently got into it with telephone support after her bills stopped arriving.
Whether that prompted the “SuperB*tch” name change, Comcast doesn’t know. Comcast spokesman Jack Segal, told us that the company is “investigating this thoroughly, and we have reached out to our customer.”
Meanwhile, Bauer is understandably angry. “This is a disgrace to me,” she told WGN. “Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I do not deserve this.”
Comcast employs about 130,000 people nationwide. This looks like the work of a lone smart-ass with little common sense, and not like it’s the result of corporate policy. But this isn’t the first time someone in the bowels of the company’s billing department has pulled such a stunt. Last month, the company changed another customer’s name to “*sshole” Brown, after he tried to cancel his cable package.
And a decade ago, another Chicago area customer found herself renamed “B*tch Dog” by the cable company.
70030353
submission
mpicpp writes:
Late last year, Uber announced plans for tighter safety measures in India following the rape of a passenger using its service in December. Now it has confirmed that two major features — an in-app panic button and journey/location sharing — will roll out to users in India on February 11
The company went public with the launch date after Times Of India reported that the Mumbai transportation department was considering a ban on its service over its apparent approach to safety. Authorities are reportedly “not happy with Uber representatives’ responses during various meetings held to consider measures for passengers’ safety.”
Uber cleared the air on its plans to settle “some misconceptions” around its safety policy — which already includes more stringent background checks and a dedicated emergency response team. That will be boosted when the in-app panic button, which alerts local police when triggered, and a ‘safety net’ feature, which goes beyond Uber’s existing ‘share my ETA’ feature to let customers share details of their location and trip with up to five other people, go live in India next week.
70029489
submission
mpicpp writes:
He's sitting casually on his macho bike. He's pointing his radar gun down the road toward you.
For all you know, the thing doesn't even work. For all you know, he's just stopped there to sing to himself.
Still, you know that cop may be checking your speed. Soon, however, he might be using that radar gun to check whether you're texting. A company called ComSonics is working on a radar gun that can pick up radio frequencies that identify texting drivers.
Some might fear, however, that, in this world of Googley snooping, such a radar gun might be able to pick up the content of your texts, as well as merely the fact that you're texting.
ComSonics Calibration Services Manager Malcolm McIntyre admitted to the Virginian-Pilot that there are certain legal obstacles to be overcome.
What's fascinating about this technology is that it can allegedly distinguish between texting and calling. In ComSonics' home state of Virginia, for example, texting and driving is illegal, whereas talking on the phone and driving is not (for adult drivers).
70017631
submission
mpicpp writes:
A team of researchers from Columbia University has come up with a new smartphone accessory that detects STDs in a matter of minutes. The accessory can detect the markers of two STDs by a simple prick of a finger.
STDs tests can take several days before the results gets back to the patients, but this new smartphone accessory that detects STDs can do so in around 15 minutes. With this accessory you can find out if you’ve got HIV or syphilis faster than with traditional STD tests.
Samuel K. Sia is a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University and he’s one of the researchers that was involved in this new study. He explained that detecting these two diseases with the help of this new smartphone accessory is going to help save money and it is more private and convenient for patients. He also added that this new smartphone accessory that detects STDs in under 15 minutes is going to be of real help in countries where STDs are a very serious problem.
69993597
submission
mpicpp writes:
Amazon announced that it has opened a pickup and drop-off location on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Students can order everything from "textbooks, laptops, or mac and cheese," according to Paul Ryder, vice president of media and student programs at Amazon.
Students can place store orders via Amazon Student, an already existing service that provides free shipping, and they'll receive email or text notification when their orders arrive. The company is also offering free one-day shipping for students who ship their purchases to the Purdue store.
The store is "a convenient and secure spot for them to pick up their stuff at hours that work with their schedules."
Ryder said the company plans to open a second location at Purdue in the spring and would like to expand into other universities.
This is a big departure for the retail giant that has dominated online sales.
But Amazon has experimented with physical locations before, placing lockers in stores across the country. And Bloomberg reports that Amazon is considering a purchase of RadioShack stores after the company files for bankruptcy.
Physical locations could be a good deal for some customers. Last year, Amazon raised its Amazon Prime membership to $99 in annual payments from $79, so customers have had to pay more for two-day shipping, video streaming and access to e-books. In 2013, Amazon raised the required minimum purchase for free shipping to $35 from $25.
69990171
submission
mpicpp writes:
As part of an effort to increase control over the Internet, China's government this week revealed new regulations that require Web users to register their real names.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the rules apply to users of blogs, microblogs, instant messaging services, online discussion forums, news comment sections, and other related services.
Beginning March 1, China will also ban Web accounts that impersonate people or organizations, Reuters said. That includes groups posing as government entities—the People's Daily state newspaper—and impersonations of foreign leaders, like President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.
69606111
submission
mpicpp writes:
The largest image of the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) has recently been unveiled by NASA. Made up of an astonishing 1.5 billion pixels, a total of 600 high-definition television screens are required to view the entirety of the image. The composite photo is the largest and highest resolution image of the Andromeda galaxy, and was pieced together from over 400 images; a whopping 4.3GB of disk space is needed to house the 69,536 x 22,230 pixel image.
The breathtaking image was released on Jan. 5, showing the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. The Andromeda galaxy is situated in the Andromeda constellation, and is some 2.5 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is also thought to be the largest among those within the Local Group, as well as the most massive.
Representing one of the most impressive results of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury Program (PHAT), the panoramic image was obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. Since Hubble typically looks towards more distant objects, it was capable of espying the Andromeda galaxy in unprecedented detail.
The photo shows around one-third of the Andromeda galaxy’s disk, which spans a total distance of 48,000 light-years. With the image showing more than 100 million stars – many of which are configured in enormous clusters – the Space Telescope Institute described the new observations as being akin to “ photographing a beach and resolving individual grains of sand.”
The images were collected using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3, with the galactic bulge displayed towards the left of the picture. As we move towards the right of the image, however, we start to see individual lanes of stars in the outer disc.
69581459
submission
mpicpp writes:
China is clamping down on unrestricted access to the Internet by blocking services that allow users to get around government censorship.
Several foreign-based operators of virtual private network (VPN) services said Friday that access to their services in China had been disrupted as a result of the crackdown and users are facing a harder time getting to some foreign websites.
Virtual private networks work by establishing an encrypted pipe between a computer or smartphone and a server in a foreign country. All communications are sent inside the pipe, effectively shielding Internet traffic from government filters that determine whether a site can be accessed. VPNs are used by Chinese citizens to get to external news sources and by resident foreigners and businesses for day-to-day communications.
StrongVPN, a commercial provider that operates a network of servers around the world, said users in China had recently begun experiencing connection problems to some of its sites. Comments alongside a company blog post indicate the list of sites affected is changing and sites that might work one day are failing the following day.
Another VPN provider, Golden Frog, told customers they might have more success connecting to services in Hong Kong or The Netherlands than those in the United States or Australia.
The problems have been caused by an upgrade to China’s censorship system, reported the English-language Global Times newspaper. The state-run paper quoted unnamed Chinese analysts as urging Internet users to abide by the government’s Internet censorship system “for safety.”
69571657
submission
mpicpp writes:
There are plenty of dying markets: DVD rentals, newspaper publishing, appliance repair. And, according to Google's Eric Schmidt, the Internet.
During an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Google executive chairman argued that, one day, "the Internet will disappear."
But before you envision a connectivity-free future, Schmidt's comments suggest that the Google exec envisions a future where the Internet as we know it will evolve into a system that's just there and always on.
"There will be so many IP addresses so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won't even sense it," he said, as published by The Hollywood Reporter. "It will be part of your presence all the time.
69525547
submission
mpicpp writes:
Google is taking a leap into the wireless business, according to reports that say the Internet giant plans to partner with Sprint and T-Mobile to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers.
"It's not surprising. Google has limitless ambitions," said analyst Scott Cleland, president of Precursor, a Virginia-based consulting firm and author of a book that raised concerns about the company's growing influence. "They're going to play Sprint and T-Mobile against each other to get a really low price, so Google can offer a really low price."
Citing unnamed sources, news sites The Information, The Verge and the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday about Google's plans to run a new wireless service that resells what is provided on Sprint and T-Mobile networks.
69481689
submission
mpicpp writes:
Microsoft just took another big step toward the release of Windows 10 and revealed it will be free for many current Windows users.
The company unveiled the Windows 10 consumer preview on Wednesday, showcasing some of the new features in the latest version of the operating system that powers the vast majority of the world's desktop PCs. The developer preview has been available since Microsoft first announced Windows 10 in the fall, but it was buggy, limited in scope and very light on new features.
Importantly, Windows 10 will be free for existing Windows users running versions of Windows back to Windows 7. That includes Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows Phone. Microsoft specified it would only be free for the first year, indicating Windows would be software that users subscribe to, rather than buy outright.
Microsoft Corporate Vice President of the Operating Systems Group Joe Belfiore showed off some of the new features in Windows 10. While Microsoft had already announced it would bring back the much-missed Start Menu, Belfiore revealed it would also have a full-screen mode that includes more of the Windows 8 Start screen. He said Windows machines would go back and forth between to two menus in a way that wouldn't confuse people.
Belfiore also showed a new notification center for Windows, which puts a user's notifications in an Action Center menu that can appear along the right side, similar to how notifications work in Apple OS X.
Microsoft Executive Vice President of Operating Systems Terry Myerson revealed that 1.7 million people had downloaded the Windows 10 developer preview, giving Microsoft over 800,000 individual piece of feedback.
Myerson explained that Windows 10 has several main intents: the give users a mobility of experience from device to device, instill a sense of trust in users, and provide the most natural ways to interact with devices.
69412225
submission
mpicpp writes:
Infusion Would Back Push to Provide Internet Access Via Satellites
Google is close to investing roughly $1 billion in Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to support its nascent efforts to deliver Internet access via satellites, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The investment would value SpaceX, backed by Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk , at more than $10 billion according to this person. It isn’t clear what exact stake Google could end up with in the fast-growing space company.
If Google completes the deal, it would be the Internet company’s latest effort to use futuristic technology to spread Internet access to remote regions of the world, alongside high-altitude balloons and solar-powered drones. By extending Web access, Google increases the number of people who can use its services.
