Sci-Tech news

• The Best and Worst From Google I/O So Far - Gizmodo

  18-05-2016 23:48 via gizmodo.com
  
  Gizmodo
  The Best and Worst From Google I/O So Far
  Gizmodo
  The first Google I/O keynote just wrapped up and Sundar Pichai & Co had lots to say. New smart home gadgets! New all-powerful AI bots! New VR goodies! Next-generation messaging apps! Dad jokes and hijinks! Whoa. We synthesized the chaos into the 12 ...
  Daydream will be the reason you'll want a 4K phoneThe Verge
  5 things to know about Google's VRCNET
  5 reasons Allo and Duo make Hangouts and Messenger obsoleteGreenbot
  Bloomberg&nb
  
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• LinkedIn says accounts stolen in 2012 have resurfaced online - SFGate

  18-05-2016 23:36 via sfgate.com
  
  SFGate
  LinkedIn says accounts stolen in 2012 have resurfaced online
  SFGate
  LinkedIn said Wednesday that more than 100 million email addresses and passwords from its users, stolen by hackers in 2012, had resurfaced online this week. Based on a post by the Mountain View professional network Wednesday, it appears that the ...
  LinkedIn warns of data leak from 2012 hackYahoo News
  LinkedIn confirms 2012 hack exposed 117M user passwordsU.S. News & World Report
  LinkedIn Says Data Breach Is Muc
  
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• Google's Tensor Processing Unit could advance Moore's Law 7 years into the future - PCWorld

  18-05-2016 23:08 via pcworld.com
  
  PCWorld
  Google's Tensor Processing Unit could advance Moore's Law 7 years into the future
  PCWorld
  Forget the CPU, GPU, and FPGA, Google says its Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU, advances machine learning capability by a factor of three generations. “TPUs deliver an order of magnitude higher performance per watt than all commercially available GPUs ...
  Google Isn't Playing Games With New ChipWall Street Journal
  Google built its own chips to expedite its machine learning algorithmsTechC
  
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• 15 Years of the Apple Store

  18-05-2016 22:31 via nbcnews.com
  
  A look back on the growth of Apple's retail stores through the past 15 years.
  
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• Google virtual home assistant to challenge Amazon Echo (Update)

  18-05-2016 22:17
  
  Google on Wednesday unveiled a virtual home assistant device that will challenge Amazon Echo as the Internet giant laid out a future rich with artificial intelligence.
  
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• Google virtual home assistant to challenge Amazon Echo

  18-05-2016 22:17
  
  Google on Wednesday unveiled a virtual home assistant device that brings together the Internet titan's strengths to challenge Amazon Echo.
  
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• Burial sites show how Nubians, Egyptians integrated communities thousands of years ago in Nile River Valley area

  18-05-2016 22:13
  
  New bioarchaeological evidence shows that Nubians and Egyptians integrated into a community, and even married, in ancient Sudan, according to new research from a Purdue University anthropologist.
  
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• New Google products, services take aim at its biggest rivals

  18-05-2016 22:00
  
  From virtual reality to a new smart-home speaker, Google is showing off just how pervasive it has become even as it's squeezed by its biggest competitors—Facebook, Apple and Amazon.
  
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• Google echoes Amazon's Echo, opens new virtual-reality door (Update)

  18-05-2016 22:00
  
  Google wants to play an even bigger role in managing people's daily lives, while also nudging them into an alternate reality, as the Internet company responds to competitive threats posed by Facebook, Amazon and Apple.
  
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• Stellar mystery deepens

  18-05-2016 21:37
  
  Using recent advancements in Australian telescope technology, a Monash University-led research team has made an unexpected discovery that a large group of stars are dying prematurely, challenging our accepted view of stellar evolution.
  
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• Ocean acidification puts NW Dungeness crab at risk

  18-05-2016 21:36
  
  Ocean acidification expected to accompany climate change may slow development and reduce survival of the larval stages of Dungeness crab, a key component of the Northwest marine ecosystem and the largest fishery by revenue on the West Coast, a new study has found.
  
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• New study tallies environmental and public health benefits of solar power

  18-05-2016 21:33
  
  Solar power could deliver $400 billion in environmental and public health benefits throughout the United States by 2050, according to a study from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
  
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• Fish can adapt some to warmer ocean waters, but not necessarily to extreme heat

  18-05-2016 21:31
  
  Fish can adjust to warmer ocean temperatures, but heat waves can still kill them, a team of researchers from Sweden, Norway and Australia reports in an article published this week in Nature Communications.
  
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• Microsoft's sale of feature phone biz erodes smartphone commitment - Computerworld

  18-05-2016 21:29 via computerworld.com
  
  Computerworld
  Microsoft's sale of feature phone biz erodes smartphone commitment
  Computerworld
  Microsoft today continued to undo its disastrous 2014 acquisition of Nokia's phone business, announcing that it is exiting the feature phone market, which it had once trumpeted as a critical component of its mobile strategy. The sale of its feature ...
  Microsoft may have just killed its Lumia line. Good riddanceCNET
  Nokia Is Plotting A Big Comeback to the Phone BusinessWIRED
  Nokia to Return as Smartph
  
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• Say goodbye to Time Warner Cable: sale leads to name change

  18-05-2016 21:19
  
  Time Warner Cable is going away, and that means you might have a new cable company to hate. But you might find one you like better instead.
  
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• Climate change, runaway development worsen Houston floods

  18-05-2016 21:09
  
  With clay soil and tabletop-flat terrain, Houston has endured flooding for generations. Its 1,700 miles of man-made channels struggle to dispatch storm runoff to the Gulf of Mexico.
  
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• Bell Museum launches the midwest's first comprehensive online 'Biodiversity Atlas'

  18-05-2016 21:07
  
  The Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota has launched the first web portal providing access to all of its biodiversity collections. The Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas is an online digital resource offering public access to hundreds of thousands of plant and animal specimens, from algae to zebras. The Atlas—the midwest's first portal to integrate such disparate collections—houses over 5 terabytes of data from the museum's botanical and zoological collections. More than 16,000 spec
  
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• Hornbills in the Kalahari desert may keep cool by losing heat through their beaks

  18-05-2016 21:02
  
  When temperatures are scorching, southern yellow-billed hornbills in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa dilate blood vessels in their beaks to thermoregulate and cool off, according to a study published May 18, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Tanja van de Ven from the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa, and colleagues.
  
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• Most local government budgets gain from oil, gas development

  18-05-2016 21:00
  
  The recent surge in oil and natural gas development has been beneficial for most local governments in the United States, according to new findings by two Duke University researchers.
  
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• Scientists discover the evolutionary link between protein structure and function

  18-05-2016 20:56
  
  Proteins are more than a dietary requirement. This diverse set of molecules powers nearly all of the cellular operations in a living organism. Scientists may know the structure of a protein or its function, but haven't always been able to link the two.
  
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• Google gets smart with Google Assistant and Google Home - Computerworld

  18-05-2016 20:51 via computerworld.com
  
  Computerworld
  Google gets smart with Google Assistant and Google Home
  Computerworld
  Google is launching a smart personal assistant that uses artificial intelligence and search to let people not just get answers to their questions but to even control their devices. Google wants users to be able to do more than ask Google Assistant what ...
  Google Home will take on Amazon EchoUSA TODAY
  Google takes on Echo and Siri with 'Home' and 'Assistant'CNNMoney
  Alexa, you've got competition. Google Home wan
  
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• Why Europa's ocean could be a hotspot for life - Christian Science Monitor

  18-05-2016 20:46 via csmonitor.com
  
  Christian Science Monitor
  Why Europa's ocean could be a hotspot for life
  Christian Science Monitor
  A new study finds more evidence that suggests one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, has the capacity to host life. By Corey Fedde, Staff May 18, 2016. Save for later Saved. close. An artist's concept of a plume of water vapor thought to be ejected off the ...
  Europa's ocean may have an Earth-like chemical balanceAstronomy Magazine
  More signs that life could thrive on Jupiter's moon EuropaWashington Post
  
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• Smart-home speaker, VR system, chat service from Google

  18-05-2016 20:40
  
  Google is showing off a new smart-home speaker, a virtual-reality system called Daydream and a chat service called Allo.
  
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• SEE IT: Facebook releases 360-degree vid of Grand Central - New York Daily News

  18-05-2016 20:35 via nydailynews.com
  New York Daily News
  SEE IT: Facebook releases 360-degree vid of Grand Central
  New York Daily News
  The social media giant just released a stunning 360-degree video of Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal. The three-minute clip allows viewers to mouse around to look in all directions inside the 42nd Street train stop. “It's the first 360 video that we ...
  Check Out Facebook's Stunning 360 Video of Grand Central TerminalPC Magazine
  Watch Facebook's stunning 360-degree video of Grand Central Te
  
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• Paleontologists discover new species of horned dinosaur in southern Utah

  18-05-2016 20:11
  
  An international team of scientists, including a graduate student lead author from Ohio University, have identified a new species of centrosaurine, a member of the large-bodied ceratopsians (horned dinosaurs) that diversified in North America and Asia during the final stages of the age of dinosaurs.
  
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• Ocelot density in the Brazilian Amazon may be lower than expected

  18-05-2016 20:06
  
  The population density of ocelots in the Brazilian Amazon may be stable but lower than expected, according to a study published May 18, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Daniel Gomes da Rocha from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues.
  
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• This dinosaur had a heartbreaking life. Now she's famous — and an inspiration. - Washington Post

  18-05-2016 20:04 via washingtonpost.com
  
  Washington Post
  This dinosaur had a heartbreaking life. Now she's famous — and an inspiration.
  Washington Post
  Bill Shipp isn't a dinosaur doctor. He's not even a paleontologist. But when he looked at the skeleton of the creature he discovered on his Montana ranch 10 years ago, an ancient horned dinosaur he called Judith, it was obvious she had been through a lot.
  New horned dinosaur species with 'spiked shield' identified by Canadian Museum of NatureEurekAlert (press release)
  Paleontolog
  
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• Andy Weir, author of “The Martian,” aims his pen at the moon - Washington Post

  18-05-2016 20:04 via washingtonpost.com
  
  Washington Post
  Andy Weir, author of “The Martian,” aims his pen at the moon
  Washington Post
  Lots of people who are interested in going to Mars have been gathering this week at George Washington University for the annual Humans to Mars Summit, and the star attraction this morning was Andy Weir. He's the author of the novel "The Martian," which ...
  Send Astronauts to Mars to Find Evidence of Life, NASA's Top Scientist SaysSpace.com
  Buzz Aldrin says NASA is going about Mars explo
  
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• Researchers develop new way to decode large amounts of biological data

  18-05-2016 20:01
  
  In recent years, the amount of genomic data available to scientists has exploded. With faster and cheaper techniques increasingly available, hundreds of plants, animals and microbes have been sequenced in recent years. However, this ever-expanding trove of genetic information has created a problem: how can scientists quickly analyze all of this data, which could hold the key to better understanding many diseases, and solving other health and environmental issues.
  
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• New horned dinosaur species with 'spiked shield' identified

  18-05-2016 20:00
  
  A chance fossil discovery in Montana a decade ago has led to the identification of an audacious new species of horned dinosaur. The international research team that described the plant-eating dinosaur was led by a scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The results are published today in the online science journal PLOS ONE.
  
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• No evidence that grit improves performance, analysis finds

  18-05-2016 19:53
  
  There are many paths to success, but the significance of grit in helping you reach that goal has been greatly overstated, says an Iowa State University psychologist.
  
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• Panda poop study provides insights into microbiome, reproductive troubles

  18-05-2016 19:52
  
  A stomachache can put a real damper on your love life—especially if you're a giant panda.
  
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• Google Takes on Amazon Echo With New Smart Home Hub

  18-05-2016 19:47 via nbcnews.com
  
  Google announced Wednesday a voice-activated home device, similar to Amazon Echo, to launch later this year.
  
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• Hackers May Target Presidential Candidates: Spy Chief

  18-05-2016 19:37 via nbcnews.com
  
  The nation's top intelligence official warned that foreign hackers have been spying on the U.S. presidential candidates.
  
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• Allo is a messaging app with Google built right in - The Verge

  18-05-2016 19:33 via theverge.com
  
  The Verge
  Allo is a messaging app with Google built right in
  The Verge
  Google is announcing a new messaging app today. It's called Allo and its main feature is a Google assistant that's built right in. Google says it'll be available later this summer — for free — on both iOS and Android. Allo (pronounced like "Aloe" and ...
  Gear VRs for everyone! Google turns Android into a VR-ready OSArs Technica
  Inside Sundar Pichai's Plan To Put AI EverywhereForbes
  Android Wear 2.0 gets a keyboar
  
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• VR Films Come to Cannes, Spielberg Sounds Warning

  18-05-2016 19:28 via nbcnews.com
  
  Virtual reality movie-making is taking flight at this year's Cannes Film Festival alongside traditional film offerings.
  
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• Chinese panda in Belgium 'probably' pregnant

  18-05-2016 19:17
  
  A female panda on loan to Belgium from China is showing telling signs of pregnancy, the Pairi Daiza zoo said on Wednesday.
  
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• Jupiter blasted by 6.5 fireball impacts per year on average

  18-05-2016 19:12
  
  Jupiter is hit by an average of 6.5 objects per year that create impacts large enough to be visible from Earth, according to preliminary results from a worldwide campaign by amateur astronomers to observe the giant planet. The estimate was presented at an international workshop on Jupiter for professional and amateur astronomers organized by Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure at the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France.
  
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• New data on the variability of the Earth's reflectance over the last 16 years

  18-05-2016 19:04
  
  The Earth's albedo, or reflectance, is a fundamental atmospheric parameter having deep implications for temperature and climate change. For that reason, experiments have been performed to monitor it over the past two decades to reveal how it evolves. One of these, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias is a participant, has brought up to date the observations made since 2007 and adds to, and gives a new systematic record of the Earth's albedo covering the period between 1998 an
  
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• Stellar cannibalism transforms star into brown dwarf

  18-05-2016 19:00
  
  Astronomers have detected a sub-stellar object that used to be a star, after being consumed by its white dwarf companion.
  
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• Scientists predict extensive ice loss from huge Antarctic glacier

  18-05-2016 19:00
  
  Current rates of climate change could trigger instability in a major Antarctic glacier, ultimately leading to more than 2m of sea-level rise.
  
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• How viruses infect bacteria: A tale of a tail

  18-05-2016 19:00
  
  Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. Using state-of-the-art tools, EPFL scientists have described a million-atom "tail" that bacteriophages use to breach bacterial surfaces. The breakthrough has major implications for science and medicine, as bacteriophages are widely used in research.
  
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• Watch: Mark Zuckerberg to Hold Meeting With Conservatives Amid Criticism

  18-05-2016 18:49
  
  A select group of conservatives will meet the Facebook CEO after allegations surfaced last week claiming that curators of the website's "news feed" had deliberately censored certain topics on the basis of ideological differences.
  
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• Study links student loans with lower net worth, housing values after college

  18-05-2016 18:29
  
  Student loan debt may negatively impact young people's ability to accumulate wealth after they graduate or drop out of college, a new study suggests.
  
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• Norway opens new Arctic zones to oil exploration

  18-05-2016 18:26
  
  Norway awarded Arctic drilling licenses to 13 oil companies Wednesday, including in a hitherto unexplored part of the Barents Sea, provoking condemnation from environmental groups.
  
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• LinkedIn Warns Users To Reset Passwords As 117M Logins For Sale On Dark Web - Forbes

  18-05-2016 18:23 via forbes.com
  
  Forbes
  LinkedIn Warns Users To Reset Passwords As 117M Logins For Sale On Dark Web
  Forbes
  LinkedIn has confirmed a significant breach from 2012 was worse than first thought, with the number of leaked usernames and passwords rising from 6.5 million to a purported 117 million. Earlier this week, fresh LinkedIn credentials went on sale on a ...
  117 million LinkedIn emails and passwords from a 2012 hack just got posted onlineTechCrunch
  LinkedIn Security Breach Update: What To Do If Your Password, E
  
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• Stuck on Hot: Earth Breaks 12th Straight Monthly Heat Record

  18-05-2016 18:08
  Earth in April set its 12th straight monthly warm temperature record
  
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• US intelligence: Foreign hackers spying on campaigns (Update)

  18-05-2016 17:40
  
  The United States sees evidence of hackers, possibly working for foreign governments, snooping on the presidential candidates, the nation's intelligence chief said Wednesday. Government officials are assisting the campaigns to tighten security as the race for the White House intensifies.
  
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• US intelligence: Foreign hackers spying on campaigns

  18-05-2016 17:40
  
  The United States sees evidence that hackers, possibly working for foreign governments, are snooping on the presidential candidates, the nation's intelligence chief said Wednesday. Government officials are working with the campaigns to tighten security as the race for the White House intensifies.
  
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• Uber now lets you track rides of family, friends - CNET

  18-05-2016 17:39 via cnet.com
  
  CNET
  Uber now lets you track rides of family, friends
  CNET
  Trip Tracker lets you monitor someone else's Uber ride. Uber. Ride-hailing service Uber has released a safety feature that lets you follow a passenger's ride. Trip Tracker, announced Tuesday, enables family or friends to ensure that someone has reached ...
  Keep Tabs on Family With Uber 'Trip Tracker'PC Magazine
  Uber Updates Family Profiles With New Safety Feature: Track Your Loved Ones On The GoTech Times
  Uber now lets you track your fa
  
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