Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

Pornhub compared Gallup’s survey of religiosity to its own records of smut-seekers, and learned that residents of America’s most religious cities love themselves some porn. [Pando Daily]        

Read More:
America’s most religious cities download lots of porn

As of today, AT&T’s prepaid GoPhone customers now have access to the company’s burgeoning LTE network. Previously, prepaid users could only connect to the carrier’s older 3G and Edge networks — not a major stumbling block for most, since the company sells no LTE-ready prepaid phones . But it did stink for those who were hoping to get LTE-capable devices, such as an iPhone 5 or HTC One, running on AT&T’s contract-free service. Continue reading…

See the article here:
AT&T prepaid users can now get LTE, if they have the right phone

Google is working on building up wireless networks in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and other developing regions, reports The Wall Street Journal . Google is said to be “deep” in the process of funding and building such networks, and is looking to partner with local companies and seeking to have local regulators open up spectrum reserved for TV and other industries. That spectrum may be so-called “white spaces,” the portions that TV companies don’t use but which are still licensed to them. After all, in March, Google announced a trial to deliver wireless broadband to ten schools in South Africa over white spaces, which would seem to be in line with the larger ambitions reported today. Continue reading…

Read the original:
Google may fund and build wireless networks in Africa, Southeast Asia, WSJ reports

“The nightly riots began on Sunday in the north-western [Stockholm] suburb of Husby, a deprived, largely immigrant area. It is believed they were sparked by the death of a man nearly a week before, who was shot by police after he allegedly threatened to kill them with a machete.” [BBC]        

Read More:
Five nights of rioting in Sweden

Worried it might lose younger block-buying customers to video games and computers, Lego has teamed up with Sony to bring the two closer together. PCWorld reports that researchers at Sony’s Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo have already started working on a number of experimental Lego products — including DualShock-controlled robots and camera-mounted figures. While Lego’s main business remains construction focused, the company is experimenting with new prototypes to stay ahead of the curve, even if it has no firm plans to release any commercial products. Continue reading…

Read More:
Sony and Lego research leads to DualShock-controlled minibots

US Senators’ indulgent treatment of Apple CEO Tim Cook at this week’s hearing on tax avoidance didn’t escape the writers at The Daily Show. On Wednesday’s episode, host Jon Stewart skewered lawmakers like John McCain (R, AZ) and Claire McCaskill (D, MO) with a supercut of fawning and adoration, punctuated with lines like “you’ve managed to change the world,” ” we love the iPhone and the iPad,” and “I harassed my husband until he converted to a MacBook.” Cook was called in to testify about Apple’s offshore profit shifting — avoiding US taxes on over $100 billion of income by keeping it stashed overseas. After throwing in a shot about Apple Maps, the host ripped the senators for asking Cook what kind of tax code he thought… Continue reading…

Read more here:
‘The Daily Show’ rips fawning Senators at Tim Cook’s tax hearing

Google Translate is coming to Chrome on Android. The Chrome Beta Android app was updated Thursday with a new feature that can automatically translate webpages into different languages. On a phone or tablet, the feature works a lot like the translation capabilities that are included in Chrome on the desktop counterpart — recognizing different languages by scanning websites and translating them after a user prompt.

Follow this link:
Chrome for Android automatically translates the web in latest beta

The Xbox One is a next generation console, and as such, it’s built with some future proofing in mind . It can do things you’re not quite ready for just yet, such as play back 4K resolution games, movies, and TV. And it’ll support 3D visuals too, despite the fact that 3D in the home has yet to catch in any meaningful way when it comes to TV, movies, or games.

Originally posted here:
Future proofing: Xbox One to support 3D and 4K content

The Very Large Telescope is about to turn 15, and to celebrate the European Southern Observatory has released a spectacular image of a radiant pink gas cloud. Naturally the shot you see above — showcasing just one nursery (IC 2944, according to Phys.org ) where stars are born in spectacular fashion — was captured by the VLT. The telescope’s massive optical power makes it feel as if you’re right there, but in reality this cloud lies some 6500 light-years away. Researchers turned on the Very Large Telescope in May of 1998, and since then it’s proven to be an indispensable tool cited in countless scientific papers and studies. And as you can clearly see, it’s still producing wondrous results

More here:
As it turns 15, the ESO’s Very Large Telescope captures another interstellar stunner

Amazon has opened pre-orders for its Kindle Fire tablets in over 170 countries and expanded its Android Appstore in nearly 200 regions . It’s the biggest device rollout the company has embarked on since it entered the tablet market, and sees it take on Apple in terms of availability and distribution. Before today, the Kindle Fire was available in only seven countries — including the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

Continued here:
Amazon eyes Apple with massive Kindle Fire expansion in over 170 countries

At a press event in Tokyo today, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey announced the long-awaited Japanese debut of Square. It’s a big deal for the company — its first expansion outside of North America, and in the third-largest economy in the world. But Japan also presents some unique challenges. The country is still overwhelmingly cash-based, and Square competitor PayPal launched its own PayPal Here payment system last year without much fanfare. But Dorsey thinks his company can take off where others have failed to

Read this article:
Square arrives in Japan, its first market outside North America

“Captain Geoffrey Spaulding” shares this vintage ad on Flickr, and a quick Google reveals that it’s a promo card for a short-lived program on a Philadelphia TV station in 1954: “Let Scott do it.” No known tape exists, and if it does, it’s definitely not online. That’s Mister Rivets pouring coffee.        

Read the original:
A local television robot, from WPTZ-Philadelphia, 1954

We’ve seen the rapid voice search advancements Google has made in Chrome for the desktop , but since Siri is currently the sole method of entering voice queries on the iOS version, iPhone and iPad owners haven’t been given the same treatment. That’s soon going to change, as Google today announced that a forthcoming update to Chrome for iOS will include its own voice search technology. It’s not as simple as hitting a button on Apple’s pop-up keyboard (Siri occupies that spot), but Google has added a microphone shortcut that appears directly above the keyboard. Tapping that will let you take advantage of Google’s often faster (and arguably more accurate) voice search on iPhone and iPad

More here:
Google bringing its own voice search to Chrome for iOS, adds fullscreen mode to Android phones

Amazon has proposed to add a huge artificial biome to its new Seattle campus. Rather than being decorative, however, the enormous greenhouse, which comprises of three 80-to-95 feet high connected domes, will serve as a work space. The new building will be filled with plants separated into botanical zones reflecting a number of different ecologies, and all the plants will be selected for their “ability to co-exist in a microclimate that also suits people.” The five-story complex will contain office space, meeting rooms, lounge areas, in-house dining, and publicly-accessible retail spaces. It makes up a tiny portion of Amazon’s planned “Rufus” campus, situated in a landscaped park between the three main 37-story office towers. If the…

Visit site:
Amazon planning giant greenhouse offices for its new Seattle campus

Qualcomm has demonstrated a new prototype Mirasol display for use in smartphones, marking a return to the reflective technology designed to allow for comfortable outdoor reading on color e-readers and other devices. The new prototype is 5.1 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 2560 x 1440; at 576 pixels per inch, the display is sharper than the 443 ppi 5-inch 1080p panels that have found their way into multiple smartphones over the past six months. Engadget saw the prototype at SID Display Week in Vancouver, Canada, and reported that while the colors are somewhat less vibrant than those exhibited on other screen technologies, Qualcomm claims the display is six times more power efficient than LCD and OLED screens. The new… Continue reading…

Original post:
Qualcomm resurrects Mirasol reflective displays with new 576 ppi smartphone panel

As the Xbox 360 aged, rumors swirled around Microsoft’s next-generation console. Would we see an Xbox 720? An Xbox Infinity? A Nextbox?

Read More:
Microsoft Xbox One: everything you need to know

Leap Motion debuted in June 2012 with an impressively polished demo , but after its attention-getting debut, the company’s path to market has been a bit rockier. It’s had to woo partners on both the software and hardware side, while navigating an often unpredictable production process and at least one major delay. They’ve attracted big-name partners like Best Buy, Asus and Corel, but will it be enough to convince users to sign on for a new way of controlling their computers? Continue reading…

Read the article:
Leap Motion’s quest to bring gesture control to the PC

Over the seven months since Microsoft released Windows 8, the sales data haven’t been encouraging, with IDC reporting a 13.9 percent decline in the PC industry last quarter, its largest on record. But it looks like there’s one bright spot: as much as 10 percent of new laptops sold that quarter included touchscreens. The numbers — 46 million laptop shipments, 4.57 million with touchscreens — come from DisplayBank, a division of market research company IHS, but they’re close enough to the 50.5 million laptops quoted by Canalys to warrant a look. If the numbers are accurate, that’s a 51.8 percent increase in laptops with touchscreens over the past quarter

See original article:
One in ten laptops shipped last quarter had a touchscreen, says report

Scientists believe they have finally identified the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine. BBC News reports a research team led by The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, England, used dried leaf cuttings — some of which are nearly 170 years old — to reconstruct the spread of the HERB-1 strain of Phytophthora infestans, a fungal disease that came to Ireland via Mexico in 1845. The disease destroyed potato crops and caused the deaths of a million people. Continue reading…

Read the article:
Irish potato famine mystery solved after 168 years

“What if it wasn’t a green light? After all, green can just be so incredibly boring , old sport. What if it was a teal light?

Continue Reading:
90 Seconds on The Verge: Yahoo, PlayStation 4, and ‘Star Wars Rebels’

After launching an all-new app for iOS last December, Flickr is finally giving its Android offering a similar overhaul. Announced moments ago on stage at Yahoo’s New York City event , the revamped Flickr for Android is available today for both phones and tablets. “The new Flickr for Android maintains your photos’ original quality, so every image you take, edit, share, or view on your phone or tablet looks spectacular,” wrote CEO Marissa Mayer in a Tumblr post announcing the update.

See more here:
Flickr launches redesigned Android app for smartphones and tablets

When Chinese hackers attacked Google in 2009, they may have gained access to years’ worth of government surveillance records, The Washington Post reports . Google reported the hack publicly years ago, saying that the “sophisticated” attack resulted in the theft of Google intellectual property and the partial compromise of some human rights activists’ email accounts. But according to anonymous government officials, hackers also compromised a database holding “thousands” of court orders requesting information about or access to specific Gmail accounts as part of law enforcement activities. Many of these orders came from police departments, which routinely request email data for cases. But some were also issued under the Foreign..

Read More:
Chinese hackers gained access to ‘thousands’ of surveillance orders, says Washington Post

After a relative lull in activity, it looks as though the Chinese hacking group uncovered in a February security report has resumed its attacks on US targets. According to new information that security firm Mandiant submitted to The New York Times , attacks against identical, but unspecified, targets have been gradually increasing over the past two months, now sitting at 60 to 70 percent of their previous strength. Obama administration officials say that the issue will continue to be revisited until it can convince the Chinese leadership that “there is a real cost to this kind of activity.” In recent months, President Obama’s national security advisor Tom Donilon has talked tough about Chinese cyberattacks on US businesses and… Continue reading…

See original article:
Chinese hackers renew cyberattacks on US targets after brief lull

Since the 1960s and PanAm’s ill-fated Moon Flights Club, commercial passenger flights to space have been a tantalizing dream, one that’s expected to finally come to fruition within the next year. For its cover story this week, New York Magazine takes an in-depth look at the industry, including interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, and several others. In it, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides discusses Branson’s plans to bring his entire family, including his 88-year-old mother to space with him, which will likely happen “by the end of the year,” says Branson. Aldrin also discusses his criticism of fellow Apollo generation astronauts eager for the US to return to the moon while staunchly supporting plans to establish a… Continue reading…

View the original here:
Inside the private push for consumer space travel

Barnes & Noble’s E Ink e-readers are getting an update next month that will add a web browser and email client, reports TechCrunch . Citing an unnamed source, it writes that the Nook Simple Touch and Simple Touch with GlowLight will start receiving the updates on June 1st. The Nook Simple Touch shipped with a limited, hidden web browser when it was first released in 2011, but Barnes & Noble removed the function in a software update a few months later. The ability to check news headlines and do some light email work should give the $79 Nook platform some extra value, although slow-refreshing E Ink doesn’t really provide the best browsing experience. The low-priced Nooks aren’t the only ones to be getting extra attention from home…

Read More:
Nook Simple Touch e-readers reportedly adding web browser and email client next week