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Submission + - Rookie Dongle Warns Parents When Their Kids Are Driving Too Fast (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dongle Apps, a Belgian tech company, has introduced a new system which alerts a car owner if the vehicle’s driver is breaking the speed limit. Initially designed for parents and guardians to keep an eye on their young ones behind the wheel, the 'Rookie Dongle', connects to the vehicle’s on-board diagnostics (OBD II) port, internal GPS and mobile technologies to push real-time data to the cloud and send notifications to car owners via email or text when the driver is speeding, suddenly accelerates, brakes hard or has high RPM levels.

Submission + - eSports Now Official Part of College Athletics (chronicle.com)

Submitted by jyosim
jyosim writes: The U of Cincinnati hosted what was possibly the largest-ever collegiate video-game tournament last weekend. At the university, the League of Legends club has become an official club sport, just like rugby or rowing. “What’s happening with college e-sports right now is that we’re seeing a formalization and institutionalization of what’s always been present,” said T.L. Taylor, a professor of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Submission + - Apple Patents Bank Account Balance Snooping Tech (geekinspector.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple’s latest patent filings shows that the company is looking into displaying advertising based on your available bank balance. If Apple moves forward with this type of technology it would be a complete 360 on its previous direction to not monetize everything they know about it. Tim Cook has even said multiple times that companies are targeting consumers on multiple fronts and that he’s completely against using customer information in this manner and its not the kind of company he wants Apple to be.

Submission + - Not in my ZIPCODE: Fracking increases hospital visits (plos.org)

Submitted by Michael Tiemann
Michael Tiemann writes: An article published in PLOS One finds increased hospital admissions significantly correlated to living in the same ZIP CODE as active fracking sites. The data comes from three counties in Pennsylvania, whose ZIP CODEs mostly had no fracking sites in 2007 and transitioned to a majority of ZIP CODEs with at least one fracking site. While the statistical and medical data are compelling, and speak to a significant correlation, the graphical and informational figures flunk every Tufte test, which is unfortunate. Nevertheless, with open data and Creative Commons licensing, the paper could be rewritten to provide a more compelling explanation about the dangers of fracking to people who live within its vicinity, and perhaps motivate more stringent regulations to protect them from both immediate and long-term harm.

Submission + - UK government proposes 10-year copyright infringement jail term (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According the the BBC, the UK government is proposing increasing the jail term for copyright infringement from the current 2 years to 10 years, which they say would "act as a significant deterrent." They claim this will "mainly" be aimed at "distributors of pirated content". If you live in the UK, please let your MP know if it's appropriate for a teenager to go to jail for 10 years for torrenting the latest Taylor Swift album.

Submission + - Plastic Roads Sound Like a Crazy Idea, Maybe Aren't (ieee.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: America has an infrastructure problem. Part of that problem is our roads, which are either in terrible condition or in the process of being torn up by road crews who'll make them betterâ"until, that is, they're in terrible condition again. It's time to try something radical, and for that, we (as always) look to the Dutch for inspiration.

A Dutch construction company called VolkerWessels is partnering with the city of Rotterdam to create a prototype for a prefabricated plastic road. If it works, it would be durable, fast to construct, and way better for the environment than asphalt.

VolkerWessels' PlasticRoad concept is ambitious, to say the least. They envision pulling waste plastic out of the oceans, and then processing it into prefabricated sections of road with integrated utility channels and drainage. The composition and structure of the plastic makes it more durable than traditional asphalt, and VolkerWessels estimates that their plastic roads should last about three times as long as traditional roads.

Now make them out of photovoltaic material.

Submission + - Spam Makes Up Less Than Half of All Emails Now

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to Symantec’s latest Intelligence Report, Spam has fallen to less than 50% of all email in June – a number we haven’t seen in over a decade. Of all emails received by Symantec clients in June, junk emails only accounts for 49.7% down from 52.1% in April which shows a huge drop. Year over year, Spam has decreased as well due to internet providers doing a better job at filtering and shutting down spam bots.

Submission + - Rockwell Collins to develop cockpit display to show sonic boom over land

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Under contract from NASA, Rockwell Collins is developing equipment to let pilots of supersonic craft know where a sonic boom will be produced. The hope is to make supersonic flight over land practical. Will this be used to keep blasts directed at less populated areas? Flying higher widens impacts but lessens intensity. Although usually blamed on the military, unexpected booms are sometimes caused by small meteors or CME fragments.

http://www.aviationanalysis.ne...

Submission + - First smart TVs powered by Firefox OS on sale in Europe, worldwide soon (arstechnica.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The first smart TVs powered by Firefox OS have gone on sale today in Europe. They will be available around the world "in the coming months." This isn't just some token gesture, either: Panasonic's top-of-the-line TV, a curved 65-inch 4K monster, is powered by Firefox OS.

Submission + - Wind Turbines With No Blades (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wired has a profile of Spanish company Vortex Bladeless and their unusual new wind turbine tech. "Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity." Instead of relying on wind to push a propeller in a circular motion, these turbines rely on vorticity — how wind can strike an object in a particular way to generate spinning vortices of air. Engineers usually try to avoid this — it's what brought down the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. But this Spanish company designed the turbine computationally to have the vortices occur at the same time along its entire height. "In its current prototype, the elongated cone is made from a composite of fiberglass and carbon fiber, which allows the mast to vibrate as much as possible (an increase in mass reduces natural frequency). At the base of the cone are two rings of repelling magnets, which act as a sort of nonelectrical motor. When the cone oscillates one way, the repelling magnets pull it in the other direction, like a slight nudge to boost the mast’s movement regardless of wind speed. This kinetic energy is then converted into electricity via an alternator that multiplies the frequency of the mast’s oscillation to improve the energy-gathering efficiency."

Submission + - World's Most Powerful Laser Diode Arrays Deployed (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: The High-Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System (HAPLS) under construction in the Czech Republic is designed to generate a peak power of more than 1 quadrillion watts (1 petawatt, 1015 watts). The key component to this instrument – the laser "pump" – will be a set of solid-state laser diode arrays recently constructed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). At peak power, this electronic assemblage develops a staggering 3.2 million watts of power and are the most powerful laser diode arrays ever built.

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