52548649
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mknewman writes:
MoviePass, the all you can eat, one movie per day service that models themselves after gym memberships where people buy the service and never use it, has driven one more stake through their user's hearts (gratuitous post-Halloween reference) in a 10/31/2013 email message where they describe new Features (?!) added to the apps:
"We're also excited to introduce a new feature: The Countdown Clock. This clock counts down the time until your next available screening. You will still be able to go to a movie each day, but there will be a 24-hour period between screenings. Your MoviePass app has already been updated, and you will notice these changes the next time you see a movie."
This constitutes a change in the terms of service and after a phone call they have confirmed that another announcement will allow users currently under contract to drop out within 14 days. There is heated discussion going on the MoviePass Facebook page.
52515223
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mknewman writes:
This morning more than 30 trucks filled with 5-cent coins arrived at Apple’s headquarters in California. Initially, the security company that protects the facility said the trucks were in the wrong place, but minutes later, Tim Cook (Apple CEO) received a call from Samsung CEO explaining that they will pay $1 billion dollars for the fine recently ruled against the South Korean company in this way.
45517255
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mknewman writes:
Between 2006 and 2008 about four dozen physicists buried 19 Germanium-based detectors and 11 silicon-based detectors deep in a mine in Minnesota. They believed the Germanium detectors might be just right to capture the rare, but theoretically possible collision between a WIMP and an atomic nucleus. The silicon detectors were just there to confirm the result — i.e. if a Germanium detector recorded such a collision and a silicon detector did not, that would be good evidence for a WIMP.
After taking their data for three years the scientists got a ho-hum result — the Germanium detectors recorded two events, when on average they would have expected to see 0.9 events during the time period. This was not statistically significant, and moreover, they later concluded these events were attributable to the leakage of electrons.
Since the primary detectors showed no significant results, data collected by the silicon detectors, which could only detect WIMPs up to a mass of about 15 GeV were not analyzed.
Then, after some considerations, the physicists came to believe that maybe the WIMPs weren’t really, really big. So they went back and studied the silicon detector data and found three events, when they would have expected just 0.7 events during the time period of data taking. This is statistically significant.
So they published their results on Monday (see paper). Based upon their statistical analysis, they are 99.8 percent sure they have observed some WIMPs at a mass of about 8 GeV. But in particle physics, certainty doesn’t come until they are 99.9999 percent sure.
44901435
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mknewman writes:
Scientists say a $2 billion antimatter-hunting experiment on the International Space Station has detected its first hints of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up almost a quarter of the universe.
The evidence from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, revealed Wednesday at Europe's CERN particle physics lab, is based on an excess in the cosmic production of anti-electrons, also known as positrons. The AMS research team can't yet completely rule out other explanations for the bump, but the fresh findings provide the best clues yet as to the nature of dark matter.
44687405
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mknewman writes:
I am a Lifetime member on SiriusXM and have low speed Internet access, which is free with the account. It works fine on desktop platforms but not on mobile devices. The Android app says to upgrade to High Speed Data when I log in. Talking to the tech support they acknowledge this and basically say to upgrade, at $3.50 per month. Three problems with this, I don't want to pay $3.50 per month for service I already bought, and don't need the high speed fidelity as the low speed sounds just fine, especially on talk shows, and lastly the high speed data will use up more of my monthly allotment.
I have created an onliine petition to request them to unrestrict this. Please sign it if you agree.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/siriusxm-should-allow-low-speed-internet-on-its/
39804891
submission
mknewman writes:
NASA has secretly been working on a plan to develop a manned outpost on the far side of the moon, but the lofty plan has been kept quiet until after the presidential election, according to media reports.
According to Space.com, the plan has probably already been cleared by the Obama administration. Officials kept the plan under wraps in case Mitt Romney won the presidential election.
The plan would set up a manned station in an area of space called the "earth moon libration point," CNN reported. The spot is a point in space where the gravitational forces of the moon and Earth are roughly balanced.
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mknewman writes:
Looks like the embargo on the Higgs discovery has been broken, there is a video up describing the details.
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mknewman writes:
"The U.S. government's secret space program has decided to give NASA two telescopes as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space Telescope. Designed for surveillance, the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office were no longer needed for spy missions and can now be used to study the heavens. They have 2.4-meter (7.9 feet) mirrors, just like the Hubble. They also have an additional feature that the civilian space telescopes lack: A maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more focused images. These telescopes will have 100 times the resolving power of the Hubble, according to David Spergel, a Princeton astrophysicist and co-chair of the National Academies advisory panel on astronomy and astrophysics."
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mknewman writes:
A refreshingly simple new idea has emerged in the complicated world of high energy physics. It proposes that the early universe was a one-dimensional line. Not an exploding sphere, not a chaotic ball of fire. Just a simple line of pure energy.
Over time, as that line grew, it crisscrossed and intersected itself more and more, gradually forming a tightly interwoven fabric, which, at large distances, appeared as a 2-D plane. More time passed and the 2-D universe expanded and twisted about, eventually creating a web — the 3-D universe we see today.
This concept, called "vanishing dimensions" to describe what happens the farther one looks back in time, has been gaining traction within the high energy physics community in recent months.
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mknewman writes:
AT&T says it is ending its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA after facing fierce government objections.
The cellphone giant said Monday that the actions of the government to block the deal do not change the challenges of the wireless phone industry, which it says requires more airwaves to expand.
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mknewman writes:
The European Space Agency reported Wednesday that a ground station in Australia has re-established contact with Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe, two weeks after a mysterious post-launch glitch.
On Tuesday, the Interfax news agency quoted Russia's deputy space chief, Vitaly Davydov, as saying that "chances to accomplish the mission are very slim." Then ESA said its tracking station in Perth, Australia, made contact with the probe late Tuesday (20:25 GMT, or 3:25 p.m. ET).
"ESA teams are working closely with engineers in Russia to determine how best to maintain communication with the spacecraft," the agency reported on its website Wednesday.
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mknewman writes:
CMS spokesperson Guido Tonelli dangled an intriguing teaser in today's release: "As we speak, hundreds of young scientists are still analyzing the huge amount of data accumulated so far; we'll soon have new results and, maybe, something important to say on the Standard Model Higgs Boson."
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mknewman writes:
n honor of South Park's 15th season, Comedy Central, in conjunction with Frito-Lay, will begin selling Cheesy Poofs on August 28 in Wal-Mart stores across the country. They will be available through September 18.
Leigh Anne Brodsky, President of Nickelodeon Consumer Products, described the soon-to-be released product as "a salty snack that's cheesy in flavor," and she expects that they will be well-received by fans. Co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, themselves, were on-board and involved with the development of real-life Cheesy Poofs to ensure the snack remained faithful to the iconic animated version.
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mknewman writes:
Computer hackers shut down al-Qaida's ability to communicate its messages to the world through the Internet, interrupting the group's flow of videos and communiqués, according to a terrorism expert.
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mknewman writes:
A distant galaxy with stars that began forming just 200 million years after the big bang has been discovered. The finding addresses questions about when the first galaxies arose and how early the universe evolved, scientists report.
The galaxy was spotted with the Hubble Space Telescope. It is visible through a cluster of galaxies called Abell 383, whose powerful gravity bends the rays of light like a magnifying glass. The so-called gravitational lens amplifies light from the distant galaxy, making it appear 11 times brighter and allowing detailed observations.
Infrared data from Hubble and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show the galaxy's stars formed when the universe was 200 million years old. Observations with the W.M. Keck Observatory on Muna Kea in Hawaii revealed the observed light from the galaxy dates to when the universe was 950 million years old. The universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago.
