Comment Short Cuts (Score 2, Funny) 84
That's the last thing we need: robot overlords who keep taking shortcuts. Next thing you know, they'll kill all humans and then go bankrupt from ill-advised mortgages!
Chinese Icebreaker Is Stuck In Ice After Antarctic Research Vessel Rescue 361
New submitter Cochonou writes "In an unforeseen turn of events, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long is now stuck in heavy Antarctic pack ice, just a day after its helicopter was used for the rescue of the passengers onboard the ice-trapped MV Akademik Shokalskiy. The Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis, which is now carrying the passengers of the Shokalskiy, has been placed on standby to assist. The Chinese vessel is waiting for favorable tidal conditions on Saturday to make another attempt at freeing itself."
Comment Re:You mean, doomed like iPads? And ChromeBooks? (Score 1) 564
I don't know good your adb-fu is is, but it's not that hard to package and sideload a console program on an unlocked device.
That said, the definition of Linux distribution is that it builds an operating system around the Linux kernel, which Android does. It just has its own peculiar user interface.
Comment Readership (Score 3, Funny) 57
I'm sure all eight people who still buy physical computer magazines will quite excited.
Comment It's official (Score 1, Troll) 276
Whelp, it's official. If Bank of America thinks it's a great investment, Bitcoin is going to expand rapidly to biggest bubble anyone has ever seen, and then murder several developed economies when it bursts. Look for the Countrywide Bitcoin Exchange coming soon!
Could be worse though, they haven't come out with a Beanie Baby Bitcoin yet...
Comment Re:Does FlyKly work... (Score 1) 152
Careful...hipster-hating is the new cool thing. And slavishly doing the new cool thing...makes you a hipster.
Man, I was hating hipsters years before it was cool. These hipster-hating hipsters are ruining everything!
Comment Re:Asia is playing catch up (Score 3, Interesting) 101
Actually the Apollo missions did deploy a few UV telescopes on the lunar surface. They weren't much better than Earth-orbit telescopes, and so noone has bothered since. The radar is more interesting, but probably of limited utility given the power requirements to actually penetrate deep enough to see the layered mare deposits.
Where China is decades behind the US, Europe, and Japan is that they don't really release their science products. US missions legally must release all raw and processed data after a short proprietary period (typically a year). Europe and Japan take longer, but still do usually release all their raw data. China does not, and often waits until after the mission is over before releasing even highly processed versions of the data. The lack of raw data (and opacity of how it is processed) means that it is hard to compare to other sources, and belies any claim to actual scientific motivation.
Comment Re: Stupid judge/jury. (Score 1) 324
Good. If it really easy to get a patent overthrown, only patents which are strongly defensible will be granted. And then everyone (but the patent trolls) wins.
Comment Re:A link between DPR and an early Bitcoiner (Score 4, Insightful) 172
Regardless if there was an official link, it is probably true that Bitcoin really took off when illegal/quasi-legal enterprises like Silk Road started using them. That's not to say Silk Road created Bitcoin or that all Bitcoin commerce is illegal, just that it would never have grown to real prominence without it.
Comment Re:Approved by GCHQ? (Score 1) 213
Thanks Obama!
Comment Re:Why do you find it interesting? (Score 2) 166
It doesn't come with Windows or OSX.
Not exactly hard to do, but still exceedingly rare for laptops in the US.
Comment Re:Tempting... but no thanks. (Score 2) 93
What precisely are you afraid of? And I'm being serious, what could the app access that you find worrying? It does grab your location, but that is trivial for any law enforcement agency these days.
If this app helps the FCC ensure that wireless companies are honest, I'm all for it.
Viruses Boost Performance of Lithium-Air Battery Used In Electric Cars 66
rtoz writes "MIT researchers have found that adding genetically modified viruses to the production of nanowires will boost the performance of lithium-air battery used in electric cars. The key to their work was to increase the surface area of the wire, thus increasing the area where electrochemical activity takes place during charging or discharging of the battery (abstract). The increase in surface area produced by their method can provide a big advantage in lithium-air batteries' rate of charging and discharging. Unlike conventional fabrication methods, which involve energy-intensive high temperatures and hazardous chemicals, this process can be carried out at room temperature using a water-based process."
Comment Get it now (Score 2) 702
Get it now, because no one in their right might is going to import electronics into Venezuela anytime soon.
Isn't vaguely socialist dictatorship great?
Soylent: No Food For 30 Days 440
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Senior Editor of Motherboard Brian Merchant went an entire month without eating regular food. Instead, the journalist whisked up a concoction called soylent, an efficient take on the future of nourishment and nutrition. Merchant says: 'It was my second day on Soylent and my stomach felt like a coil of knotty old rope, slowly tightening. I wasn't hungry, but something was off. I was tired, light-headed, low-energy, but my heart was racing. My eyes glazed over as I stared out the window of our rental SUV as we drove over the fog-shrouded Bay Bridge to Oakland. Some of this was nerves, sure. I had twenty-eight days left of my month-long all-Soylent diet—I was attempting to live on the full food replacement longer than anyone besides its inventor—and I felt woozy already. ... By the third week of Soylent, not eating food seemed normal. I saw a doctor, who said I was healthy; I was still losing weight, but nothing serious. Yet, given that a daily mixture of Soylent contains 2,400 calories, both Rob and Dr. Engel thought it was odd that I’d shed so much. Dr. Engel said that given my weight, height, and body mass, I should only require about 1,800 calories a day. I could still be adjusting to the new diet, or I could have such a hyperactive metabolism that before Soylent, I was tearing through hundreds of extra calories per day and staying trim.'"
