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Submission + - Your Home Value and 401k Loss is Harvard School of Engineering's Gain

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In 2007, hedge fund manager John Paulson personally took home nearly $4 billion — the largest one-year payout in the history of the financial markets — after convincing banks to create securities of sub-prime mortgages he could bet against. Paulson made another $5 billion for his firm the next year by betting against financial companies with exposure to housing. Now Harvard — which originally passed on an opportunity to join alum Paulson in his big bet — is also reaping the rewards of the nation's financial crisis. Harvard announced it is renaming its engineering school the "Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences" in return for a staggering $400 million donation Paulson made to his alma mater, the largest gift in the university's history. Author Malcolm Gladwell took to Twitter to voice his distaste. A sampling: 1. "It came down to helping the poor or giving the world's richest university $400 mil it doesn't need. Wise choice John!" 2. "If billionaires don't step up, Harvard will soon be down to its last $30 billion." 3. "It's going to be named the John Paulson School of Financial Engineering." Kind of surprised not to see Gladwell get retweeted by Robert Reich, secretary of Labor under President Clinton, who argued in 2007 that charitable deductions should be reserved for the likes of the Salvation Army, not Harvard, which has been described as a "tax-free hedge fund".

Submission + - Want a career in Linux? Take this edX course (betanews.com)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: There comes a point in every person's life when they must grow up and plan for their future. It is important to remember that you can be anything you want if you try hard enough. Of course, some jobs such as astronaut, President of the USA or NBA player are harder to get than others!

A smart choice in today's world is to be involved with Linux. There are many careers in Linux that are in demand nowadays. If you want to be a Linux Systems Admin, I have good news — you can now become qualified online thanks to a partnership between edX and the Linux Foundation.

Submission + - Why American Loathe Cable Companies 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Vikas Bajaj writes in the NYT that the results are in and the American Customer Satisfaction Index shows that customer satisfaction with cable TV, Internet and phone service providers have declined to a seven-year low. Of the 43 industries on which the survey solicits opinions, TV and Internet companies tied for last place in customer satisfaction. “Internet and TV have always been among the lowest scoring,” says David VanAmburg, director of the Index. “But this year they’re at the very bottom.” The study, which is based on more than 14,000 consumer surveys, gives companies a rating from 0 to 100. The ACSI reports huge drops in customer satisfaction for Comcast and Time Warner Cable, following their failed merger. Already one of the lowest-scoring companies in the ACSI, Comcast sheds 10 percent to a customer satisfaction score of 54. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable earns the distinction as least-satisfying company in the Index after falling 9 percent to 51. Joining Time Warner Cable in the basement is ACSI newcomer Mediacom Communications (51), which serves smaller markets in the Midwest and South. “Customer service in these industries has long been bad,” says VanAmburg of Internet and TV providers. “They don’t have a good business model for handling inquiries with efficiency and respect. It goes back a decade plus.”

Even though those complaints are longstanding, customer frustration has risen along with the ever-rising prices. “You compound all that with the prices customers are paying, and that’s the final straw,” says VanAmburg. “They’re opening bills each month and saying ‘I’m paying how much?'” In an age of over-the-top viewing options like Hulu and Netflix, customer dissatisfaction may increasingly translate to companies’ bottom lines. “There was a time when pay TV could get away with discontented users without being penalized by revenue losses from defecting customers,” says Claes Fornell, chairman and founder of the Index. “But those days are over.”
Power

Company Extends Alkaline Battery Life With Voltage Booster 243

Posted by samzenpus from the power-up dept.
New submitter ttsai writes: Batteroo is a Silicon Valley company preparing to release its Batteriser product in September. The Batteriser is a small sleeve that fits around alkaline batteries to boost the voltage to 1.5V. This means that batteries that would otherwise be thrown into the trash when the voltage dips to 1.3V or 1.4V could be used until the unboosted voltage reaches 0.6V, extending the useful life of a battery 8x, according to the company. This product has the potential to reduce the number of batteries in landfills as well as increasing the time between replacing batteries. The expected price of the sleeve is $10 for a pack of 4 sleeves.

Submission + - Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) about to begin construction

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The consortium building the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) have secured the half billion dollars of funding required to begin construction in Chile.

Unlike Hawaii, Chile's population welcomes astronomers and telescopes, so don't expect any of those kinds of political problems getting this telescope finished.

Submission + - Pluto's outer moons orbit chaotically, with unpredictable sunrises and sunsets

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Few things in this world are as regular as sunrise and sunset. With the application of a little physics, you can predict exactly where and when the sun will rise or set from any location on Earth. Thus far, every world in our Solar System — planet, moon and asteroid — has had the exact same experience as us. But out in the Kuiper belt, Pluto is different. The only known world in the Solar System where a significant fraction of the system’s mass is not in a single component, the outer moons of the Pluto-Charon system provide a unique environment to study how planets might behave in orbit around binary stars. The amazing takeaway? The rotational part of the orbit is chaotic; the worlds tumble, and hence sunrises and sunsets are no longer predictable.
Television

Showtime Announces Subscription-Free Streaming Plan 84

Posted by samzenpus from the more-streams dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Following in HBO's footsteps, Showtime has announced that it is launching a stand-alone streaming service in mid-July. Simply called "Showtime," the service will launch through a partnership with Apple and costs $10.99 a month. "Going over-the-top means Showtime will be much more accessible to tens of millions of potential new subscribers," said CBS Corp. President and CEO Leslie Moonves in a statement about the deal. "Across CBS, we are constantly finding new ways to monetize our programming by capitalizing on opportunities presented by technology. This works best when you have outstanding premium content – like we do at Showtime – and when you have a terrific partner like Apple – which continues to innovate and build upon its loyal customer base," he added.
ch

LHC Restarts High-Energy Quest For Exotic Physics 85

Posted by samzenpus from the looking-for-the-unknown dept.
astroengine writes: It's official: After a long 27 month hiatus for upgrades and a 2 month restart, the world's largest particle accelerator is back in the particle collision business. As of 10:40 a.m. CET (5:40 a.m. ET), the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was running at record-breaking energies and collecting science data. Physicists now expect the particle collider to run non-stop for the next 3 years. We are in a new era of high-energy particle physics where, for the first time, we don't exactly know what we'll find. "With the LHC back in the collision-production mode, we celebrate the end of two months of beam commissioning," said CERN Director of Accelerators and Technology Frédérick Bordry in a press release. "It is a great accomplishment and a rewarding moment for all of the teams involved in the work performed during the long shutdown of the LHC, in the powering tests and in the beam commissioning process. All these people have dedicated so much of their time to making this happen."

Submission + - SSDs Drop In Price 25% Over Past Year (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Computer makers are paying on average $50 for a 128GB SSD and about $90 for a 256GB drive, according to DRAMeXchange. The average retail price that consumers pay for a 128GB SSD is $91.55, and for an SSD in the 240GB to 256GB range, the price is about $165.34, DRAMeXchange's data showed. A combination of denser NAND flash manufacturing process and laptop industry adoption has lead to a massive drop in SSD prices over the past year. The latest numbers from DRAMeXchange indicates prices for internal SSDs are declining at an accelerated pace as the production of NAND flash migrates to 15 nanometer process, triple-level cell and 3D NAND technologies. Previously, NAND transistors size was in the 19-plus nanometer range: More density equals lower production costs. Additionally, hard drives in notebooks are quickly being swapped out by manufacturers and SSD market penetration will be more than 30% for 2015 and will surpass 50% by 2017 to dominate the sector. The sheer economies of scale is also leading to SSD price decline.

Submission + - Microsoft Lets EU Governments Inspect Source Code for Security Issues

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: European governments will be able to review the source code of Microsoft products to confirm they don’t contain security backdoors, at a transparency center the company opened in Brussels on Wednesday. The center is the second of its kind. Last June, the company opened a center in Redmond, Washington. The centers are part of Microsoft’s Government Security Program, launched in 2003 to help create trust with governments that want to use Microsoft products.

Submission + - Google's Self-Driving Ccars Have Autonomously Driven Over 1 Million Miles

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced that its self-driving car project crossed the 1 million mile mark last week. CEO Larry Page originally challenged the team to drive 100,000 miles on public roads, and they have now done that 10-fold, or the equivalent of 75 years of typical U.S. adult driving. If you’re confused at the figure, that’s probably because you remember the 1.7 million number revealed last month. That number was for manual and autonomous driving combined; today’s 1 million mile number is just for autonomous driving.

Submission + - Mars One Applicant Numbers Inflated

Submitted by jklovanc
jklovanc writes: Mars One has admitted that they wildly inflated the number of completed applications. While they reported over 200,000 applications the number of completed applications was actually 4,227. It is apparent that they do not have the public support the want us to think they do.

Submission + - Malware Creators Use Paid Apple Program To Bypass iOS Security (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: One of the selling points iOS is that apps can only be downloaded via the App Store, which vets them for malware, thus creating a very safe environment. There is a way to bypass those security checks, though: pay $299 to sign up for the iOS Developer Enterprise Program. The program is meant for companies that want to distribute custom in-house apps to their employees, but Japanese fraudsters are now using it to get fraudware onto unsuspecting users' phones.

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