Sci-Tech news

• Fired IT Staffer Offered to Unlock Google Account — for $200K

  18-01-2017 23:31 via nbcnews.com
  
  Litigation involving the American College of Education highlights a situation that cybersecurity experts warn could occur more frequently.
  
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• Nintendo's Fire Emblem: Heroes is coming to Android on February 2nd - The Verge

  18-01-2017 23:22 via theverge.com
  
  Engadget
  Nintendo's Fire Emblem: Heroes is coming to Android on February 2nd
  The Verge
  Nintendo has provided some new details on its next mobile game, a smartphone take on the long-running strategy series Fire Emblem. The game — dubbed Fire Emblem: Heroes — is described as a tactical role playing game. According to Nintendo, the ...
  Fire Emblem Heroes brings the tactical RPG to Android and iOSPolygon
  Nintendo Announces Fire Emblem Games for Mobile, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS
  
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• Netflix Beats Q4 Subscriber Forecasts With Largest Quarterly Gain in Its History - Variety

  18-01-2017 23:05 via variety.com
  
  Variety
  Netflix Beats Q4 Subscriber Forecasts With Largest Quarterly Gain in Its History
  Variety
  Netflix added 7.05 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2016, handily beating expectations for the period and setting a quarterly record, driving shares to new all-time highs in after-hours trading Wednesday. For the last three months of ...
  Netflix earnings send stock to record high: Live blog recapMarketWatch (blog)
  Netflix posts its biggest-ever quarterly subscriber growth, stock surg
  
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• Study illustrates Facebook's growth as campaign news source

  18-01-2017 22:40
  
  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton voters had different media diets, but a study finds common ground in Facebook as an important news source—even if their individual feeds bore little resemblance to each other's.
  
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• Netflix's shrinking DVD service faces uncertain future

  18-01-2017 22:38
  
  Netflix's video streaming service is booming while its steadily shrinking DVD-by-mail business has turned into an afterthought.
  
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• Esquire network will transition from cable to online channel

  18-01-2017 22:37
  
  Esquire Network said Wednesday it is shutting down as a cable channel and will transition into a digital online outlet.
  
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• Finally, an explanation of strange African 'fairy circles'?

  18-01-2017 22:36
  
  The forces behind the mysterious "fairy circles" that dot a desert in southern Africa do not appear to be supernatural, but they are intricate and complex.
  
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• US sues Oracle alleging discrimination in pay

  18-01-2017 22:31
  
  The US Labor Department on Wednesday sued business software giant Oracle alleging "systemic" discrimination in pay against female, African American and Asian employees.
  
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• Blood-repellent materials: A new approach to medical implants

  18-01-2017 22:31
  
  Medical implants like stents, catheters and tubing introduce risk for blood clotting and infection - a perpetual problem for many patients.
  
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• New study examines how China maintains large catches and what it means for fishery management elsewhere

  18-01-2017 22:23
  
  China, the world's largest seafood producer, has done something extraordinary. For the past 20 years, despite minimal management and some of the most intense industrial fishing in the world, it has maintained large catches of key species in its most productive waters.
  
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• Mighty river, mighty filter: Restored floodplain helps heal Mississippi River

  18-01-2017 22:03
  
  Huckleberry Finn wouldn't recognize today's lower Mississippi River. Massive walls separate the river from low-lying lands along the bank, an area called the floodplain. Floodplains were once the spillover zone for the river. As people settled in floodplains, the land was converted into farms, homes, and businesses. Close to 1,700 miles of walls, or levees, keep the lower Mississippi River in check.
  
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• When Seeing the Most Depraved Side of the Internet Is Your Job

  18-01-2017 20:12 via nbcnews.com
  
  Machines are getting smarter, but human moderators are still crucial in the fight against child exploitation, bestiality and other violent crimes.
  
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• Google acquires Fabric developer platform and team from Twitter - TechCrunch

  18-01-2017 20:08 via techcrunch.com
  
  USA TODAY
  Google acquires Fabric developer platform and team from Twitter
  TechCrunch
  Google is taking over Twitter's mobile app developer platform Fabric, as well as its Crashlytics crash reporting system, Answers mobile app analytics, Digits SMS login system and FastLane development automation system. Twitter launched Fabric as a ...
  Twitter Is Selling Its Developer Platform to Google as It Continues to ShrinkFortune
  Google is buying most of Twitter's developer products, including Crashly
  
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• The Tasmanian tiger had a brain structure suited to a predatory life style

  18-01-2017 20:00
  
  Scientists have used an imaging technique to reconstruct the brain architecture and neural networks of the thylacine—better known as the Tasmanian tiger—an extinct carnivorous marsupial native to Tasmania. The study, published in PLOS ONE, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to scan postmortem specimens of two thylacine brain specimens, both of which were about 100 years old.
  
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• Survival of many of the world's nonhuman primates is in doubt, experts report

  18-01-2017 20:00
  
  A report in the journal Science Advances details the grim realities facing a majority of the nonhuman primates in the world - the apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs and lorises inhabiting ever-shrinking forests across the planet. The review is the most comprehensive conducted so far, the researchers say, and the picture it paints is dire.
  
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• New England's 1816 'Mackerel Year' and climate change today

  18-01-2017 20:00
  
  Hundreds of articles have been written about the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, at Indonesia's Mt. Tambora just over 200 years ago. But for a small group of New England-based researchers, one more Tambora story needed to be told, one related to its catastrophic effects in the Gulf of Maine that may carry lessons for intertwined human-natural systems facing climate change around the world today.
  
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• Green Sahara's ancient rainfall regime revealed

  18-01-2017 20:00
  
  Rainfall patterns in the Sahara during the 6,000-year "Green Sahara" period have been pinpointed by analyzing marine sediments, according to new research.
  
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• AIs will battle to loosen Samsung's grip on Android - ZDNet

  18-01-2017 19:39 via zdnet.com
  
  ZDNet
  AIs will battle to loosen Samsung's grip on Android
  ZDNet
  Samsung is tapping Viv Labs to fight back against Google Assistant and a startup from Android's creator. Keri Wiginton / Blue Sky. The release of the first Galaxy S smartphones in 2010 paved the way for Samsung's dominance of the high end of the ...
  Report: Google is Bringing Android One to the US Later This YearDroid Life (press release) (blog)
  Google will reportedly launch Android One in the USArs Technica
  Project Fi Month Long R
  
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• How Much Is Facebook Actually Spending on Virtual Reality? More Than We Thought - TheStreet.com

  18-01-2017 19:36 via thestreet.com
  
  TechCrunch
  How Much Is Facebook Actually Spending on Virtual Reality? More Than We Thought
  TheStreet.com
  Mark Zuckerberg's testimony in a lawsuit filed against Facebook acquisition Oculus Rift shows that developing the nascent technology is not coming cheap. Chris Nolter. Follow. Jan 18, 2017 1:37 PM EST. Mark Zuckerberg's testimony in a Texas lawsuit is ...
  Oculus lawsuit may undercut VR industry, not just Facebook's bottom linePolygon
  Mark Zuckerberg, in Suit, Testifies in Oculus Intelle
  
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• How Reliable Are Cancer Studies? - The Atlantic

  18-01-2017 19:16 via theatlantic.com
  
  The Atlantic
  How Reliable Are Cancer Studies?
  The Atlantic
  In recent years, scientists have been dealing with concerns about a reproducibility crisis—the possibility that many published findings may not actually be true. Psychologists have grappled intensively with this problem, trying to assess its scope and ...and more »
  
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• Molecule shows ability to thwart pathogens' genetic resistance to antibiotic

  18-01-2017 19:08
  
  Oregon State University researchers have developed a new weapon in the battle against antibiotic-resistant germs - a molecule that neutralizes the bugs' ability to destroy the antibiotic.
  
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• Apple adds Touch Bar support and iCloud file sharing to music editing apps - The Verge

  18-01-2017 19:08 via theverge.com
  
  Mac Rumors
  Apple adds Touch Bar support and iCloud file sharing to music editing apps
  The Verge
  Apple has just updated both its consumer-friendly and pro-level music editing software to include more advanced file-sharing capabilities between the two apps, as well as support for the touch-sensitive Touch Bar on new MacBook Pro laptops. GarageBand ...
  Apple's Logic Pro X for Mac and GarageBand for iOS Receive Major UpdatesMac Rumors
  Apple hopes Logic Pro X support will make the MacBook Pro T
  
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• The astonishing science behind the desert's mysterious fairy circles - Washington Post

  18-01-2017 19:06 via washingtonpost.com
  Washington Post
  The astonishing science behind the desert's mysterious fairy circles
  Washington Post
  No one is certain what causes the enigmatic “fairy circles” of the Namib Desert. The rings of burnt orange dirt, each impeccably round and enclosed in a fringe of tall, tufted grass, emerge suddenly from the spare landscape. Over the course of decades ...
  We Finally Know What's Causing Namibia's Mysterious Fairy CirclesGizmodo
  Fairy circles could be the handiwork of hungry termites a
  
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• Studying the quantum vacuum: Traffic jam in empty space

  18-01-2017 19:00
  
  An important step towards a completely new experimental access to quantum physics has been made at University of Konstanz. The team of scientists headed by Professor Alfred Leitenstorfer has now shown how to manipulate the electric vacuum field and thus generate deviations from the ground state of empty space which can only be understood in the context of the quantum theory of light.
  
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• Watch Out For This iPhone-Crashing Text Message - TIME

  18-01-2017 18:59 via time.com
  
  TIME
  Watch Out For This iPhone-Crashing Text Message
  TIME
  A single text message could cause your iPhone to temporarily freeze and restart, according to several reports. The troublesome text won't affect devices running Apple's latest software, iOS 10.2, but could lock up phones running earlier versions of iOS 10.
  This malicious string of emojis can potentially crash iPhones and iPadsDigital Trends
  This emoji message instantly freezes some iPhonesMashable
  iPhone turns 10: Why it's still the smar
  
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• US scientists officially declare 2016 the hottest year on record. That makes three in a row. - Washington Post

  18-01-2017 18:58 via washingtonpost.com
  
  Washington Post
  US scientists officially declare 2016 the hottest year on record. That makes three in a row.
  Washington Post
  This story has been updated. In a powerful testament to the warming of the planet, two leading U.S. science agencies Wednesday jointly declared 2016 the hottest year on record, surpassing the previous record set just last year — which, itself, had ...
  Climate change: Data shows 2016 likely to be warmest year yetBBC News
  The last time the Earth was this warm was 1250
  
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• Fin24.com | Naspers seeks partners in Africa to take on Netflix

  18-01-2017 18:51
  
  Naspers, Africa’s biggest company by market value, is seeking partnerships with mobile-phone operators to boost its video-on-demand business, says CEO Bob Van Dijk in Davos.
  
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• New Cassini Image – Peeking Over Saturn’s Shoulder

  18-01-2017 18:38 via scitechdaily.com
  This newly released Cassini image shows Saturn in a way no Earth-based telescope ever could. No Earth-based telescope could ever capture a view quite like this. Earth-based views can only show Saturn’s daylit side, from within about 25 degrees of Saturn’s equatorial plane. A spacecraft in orbit, like Cassini, can capture stunning scenes that would […]
  The post New Cassini Image – Peeking Over Saturn’s Shoulder appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Examines Possible Mud Cracks

  18-01-2017 18:31 via scitechdaily.com
  
  NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover has examined slabs of rock cross-hatched with shallow ridges that likely originated as cracks in drying mud. “Mud cracks are the most likely scenario here,” said Curiosity science team member Nathan Stein. He is a graduate student at Caltech in Pasadena, California, who led the investigation of a site called “Old […]
  The post NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Examines Possible Mud Cracks appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• A quark like no other: Searching for 'bottom quark'

  18-01-2017 18:20
  
  A University of Iowa physicist is at the forefront of the search for a missing particle that could prove whether the Higgs boson—believed to give mass to all matter—exists.
  
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• What humans and primates both know when it comes to numbers

  18-01-2017 18:19
  
  For the past several years, Jessica Cantlon has been working to understand how humans develop the concept of numbers, from simple counting to complex mathematical reasoning. Early in her career at the University of Rochester, the assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences began studying primates in her search for the origins of numeric understanding.
  
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• International effort announced to try to save the world's most endangered marine mammal

  18-01-2017 18:18
  
  An ambitious, emergency plan to help save the vaquita porpoise from extinction in the northern Gulf of California has been recommended by the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA). The plan involves relocating some of the remaining vaquitas to a temporary sanctuary, while crucial efforts aimed at eliminating illegal fishing and removing gillnets from their environment continue. The emergency action plan will be led by the Mexican government and supported by a consortium
  
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• Researchers find seafloor valleys below West Antarctic glaciers

  18-01-2017 18:17
  
  Glaciologists have uncovered large valleys in the ocean floor beneath some of the massive glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica. Carved by earlier advances of ice during colder periods, the troughs enable warm, salty water to reach the undersides of glaciers, fueling their increasingly rapid retreat.
  
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• Macedonia says its capital is most polluted city in Europe

  18-01-2017 18:16
  
  Health authorities in Macedonia say Skopje is now Europe's most polluted capital, with poor air quality blamed for the premature death of 1,300 people each year.
  
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• A Catalog of Kepler Habitable Zone Exoplanet Candidates

  18-01-2017 18:12 via scitechdaily.com
  A newly published study provides a list of habitable zone exoplanet candidates from the Kepler Data Release 24 Q1-Q17 data vetting process. In our solar system, the Earth is cozily situated in the middle of the habitable zone which, depending on the model, extends roughly from Venus to Mars. The Kepler mission has as one […]
  The post A Catalog of Kepler Habitable Zone Exoplanet Candidates appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Anonymous to Trump: You Will 'Regret' the Next 4 Years

  18-01-2017 18:11 via nbcnews.com
  
  Hacking collective tells Trump to watch his back.
  
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• Kenya, Rwanda ban poultry from Uganda over bird flu

  18-01-2017 17:40
  
  Kenyan and Rwandan authorities said Wednesday they had banned poultry products from neighbouring Uganda, where a virulent H5 strain of avian flu has broken out.
  
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• Fin24.com | SA scrambles as R100bn in welfare threatened

  18-01-2017 17:34
  
  The Post Office believes it’s best-placed to distribute grants worth over R100bn a year to more than 17 million people as the government is set to miss a deadline to appoint a new distributor .
  
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• 2016 was the hottest year on record -- again - CNN

  18-01-2017 17:12 via cnn.com
  
  Los Angeles Times
  2016 was the hottest year on record -- again
  CNN
  (CNN) Last year was officially the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in the 1880s, the World Meteorological Organization announced Wednesday morning. That means 2016 set a global heat record for the third year in a row according to NOAA and ...
  Heat Record: How NASA Knows 2016 Was the Hottest YearSpace.com
  Scientists react to Earth's warmest year: 'We are heading into a new unknown'Washington Post (blog)
  Climate ch
  
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• Nothing to eat but cactus in Madagascar's hunger capital

  18-01-2017 17:10
  
  A black ribbon is strapped around Karaniteny's straw hat: a symbol of mourning after she lost her 10-year-old daughter Vahana to the devastation of severe drought in October.
  
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• Room upgrade programs can increase hotel profits up to 35 percent

  18-01-2017 17:04
  
  With travelers spending more than $278 billion on accommodations in the U.S. last year, hotel chains that explore creative new ways to engage customers have the potential to significantly increase their profits. Standby upgrade programs are an innovative way for hotels to increase annual revenue by as much as 35 percent while also filling frequently unused premium rooms, creating awareness for unique room features, and improving guest satisfaction and loyalty. However, new research in an upcomin
  
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• Earth breaks heat record in 2016 for third year in a row

  18-01-2017 17:02
  
  Last year, the Earth sweltered under the hottest temperatures in modern times for the third year in a row, US scientists said Wednesday, raising new concerns about the quickening pace of climate change.
  
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• Heartbeat could be used as password to access electronic health records

  18-01-2017 16:59
  
  Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have devised a new way to protect personal electronic health records using a patient's own heartbeat.
  
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• Artificial fingertip that 'feels' wins international robotics competition

  18-01-2017 16:55
  
  An open-source 3D-printed fingertip that can 'feel' in a similar way to the human sense of touch has won an international Soft Robotics competition for its contribution to soft robotics research.
  
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• NTU successfully launches its 7th satellite into space

  18-01-2017 16:50
  
  Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has successfully launched its 7th satellite into space from the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday evening (16 Jan).
  
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• 'Hyperloop' rail study for Slovakia-Czech connection

  18-01-2017 16:50
  
  A US startup pursuing Elon Musk's vision for near-supersonic rail transport announced Tuesday an agreement on a feasibility study for a "hyperloop" system connecting two European cities.
  
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• New research addresses gap between research and practice in sustainable agriculture

  18-01-2017 16:49
  
  Michigan State University-led research has found a big difference in the yields produced by alternative agricultural practices in commercial fields compared with the same practices in the small experimental plots ordinarily used to test them.
  
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• Killer debt: Study shows link between debt and mortality rates

  18-01-2017 16:47
  
  A new study from the University of Colorado Denver shows a direct link between financial strain and increased risk of death, a finding with potentially major implications for both economic and health care policy.
  
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• What's behind the durian fruit's notorious stench

  18-01-2017 16:46
  
  Most people who have tried durian either love it or hate it. The fruit's yellowish flesh is sweet and custard-like, but it comes with an overpowering stench of garbage. Scientists studying the unique fruit have now analyzed a set of 20 stinky and fruity chemical ingredients and found that a mere two compounds can re-create the overall smell. Their findings appear in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
  
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• New modeling method focuses attention on amorphous material's unusual vibrational modes

  18-01-2017 16:43
  
  Asegun Henry wants to avert the worst effects of climate change by finding new forms of renewable energy and improving the materials that contribute to energy use.
  
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