mpicpp writes that Microsoft, after demoing the technology back in May, is giving some real-world exposure to its Skype-based translation. The Skype preview program will kick-off with two spoken languages, Spanish and English, and 40+ instant messaging languages will be available to Skype customers who have signed-up via the Skype Translator sign-up page and are using Windows 8.1 on the desktop or device. Skype asked two schools to try Skype Translator – Peterson School in Mexico City, and Stafford Elementary School in Tacoma, USA – playing a game of 'Mystery Skype' in which the children ask questions to determine the location of the other school. One classroom of children speaking Spanish and the other speaking English, Skype Translator removed this language barrier and enabled them to communicate.
London (AFP) - Every day beneath the streets of London, sewer technicians are fighting a grim war against giant 'fatbergs' which clog the system and threaten to regurgitate putrid waste back into people's homes.
The problem gets worse at Christmas, when two extra Olympic-sized swimming pools of turkey fat are poured down Londoners' sinks.
Most residents are unaware that their actions help create fatbergs -- the nickname for stinking boulders of cooking fat, congealed with everything from wet wipes to sanitary towels and condoms, which block the sewers a few metres below their dining tables.
The problem of congealed fat clogging up Thames Water's 43,500 miles (69,000 kilometres) of sewers in London and southeast England is getting worse.
But in the heart of central London, a few hundred metres from Downing Street and Trafalgar Square, the fatberg fightback is on.
- Vile, eggy stench -
The sewers -- a confined, pitch-black underworld crawling with flies and worms where staff walk through a deep seam of rotting fat and excrement -- are many people's idea of hell.
But this is where Vince Minney, a supervisor from the Thames Water authority, has made his living for the past 24 years.
Wearing waders and a white protective suit, Minney, 54, climbs into a tiny manhole in the road and descends seven metres on a fixed ladder into the putrid bowels of the city.
"The fat situation is definitely getting worse. It's building up in certain sewers it never did before," he told AFP, standing waist-deep in rancid gunk where the Regent Street and Victoria sewers merge.
The flow of human waste in the sewers is not the problem, he said -- it's the heavy "blanket" of congealed fat stuck on top.
"It's about the nastiest stuff you can get. The diarrhoea stuff is a pleasure compared to this," he added, tapping a spade on the thick fat layer engulfing his thighs.
Minney and his team break up the fatbergs using spades or high-pressure water jets.
Fungi grow on the crust, which looks like solidified vomit. Walking through it leaves a wake like an icebreaker ship.
Each spade chop unleashes the effluent beneath, releasing the revolting stench of hydrogen sulfide which can cling to a worker's body for up to two weeks.
"It's very, very sickly. It just smells awful," added Tim Henderson, 39, a "flusher" or trunk sewer technician of seven years' experience. "Like a cross between a sweaty, cheesy-type smell, mixed with sewage."
Getting splashed with anything in the sewers is no fun, either.
"It's not nice in your face," said Minney. "I've had some good splatterings before. Sometimes the flies go in your mouth. Spit 'em out quick," he chuckled.
- City beneath a city -
A good sense of humour and plenty of dedication is required to work in the sewers, which date back to the 1860s.
Like taxi drivers who take years to learn "The Knowledge", covering the location of every street in central London, getting to know their layout requires devotion.
"It is unique being able to go down certain parts of London that other people don't get to see," said Henderson.
"There's a London underneath London. It's a real feat of engineering. Some of the sewers are really beautiful. The brickwork is just amazing."
The congealed fat, whether sucked out by technicians or broken up and flushed downstream to a treatment works, ends up in landfill.
Thames Water says it sees some 80,000 fatberg blockages per year which cost £1 million ($1.6 million, 1.3 million euros) a month to clear. Some 7,000 of their customers experience sewer flooding in their homes as a result.
"It'd be great if the public and businesses were to help. We could be spending that money on better things," said Minney, urging people to stop pouring cooking oil down their sinks.
"People think it's out of sight, out of mind. But some poor folks are having to deal with it. And it's going to get worse at Christmas," he added.
I've had my iPhone 6 Plus for about a month now. I was a little reluctant to buy it because it was so expensive and my iPhone 5 was still working pretty great. But I'm glad I did it.
The main reason: the screen is so big. I have bad, old man eyes, and having all that extra real estate allows me to do something I always wanted to do with my iPhone 5, but never could. That is, crank the system fonts all the way up to Grandpa Size.
by Matt McCarthy on Regressing, shared by Kyle Wagner to Deadspin
This is the most baffling sports medicine story of the year: Thirteen NHL players and two referees have been diagnosed with mumps—a potentially severe and exceedingly viral infection that classically causes fever, body aches, malaise, and in about half of cases, parotitis (a painful swelling of the salivary glands). It's gotten so bad in the NHL that Sidney Crosby set off a mumps alert last week when he spoke to reporters with a welt on his face. (On Sunday, the Penguins confirmed Crosby does indeed have the disease.) So what's going on?
When Apple offers you a job, it sends along a job offer package that looks like one of its products.
"Well designed, great unboxing experience and super high quality materials," says Jeremy Foo, who got a job at Apple and wrote about the process on Medium.
Foo tried to get a job at Apple for four years.
He says his first attempt was a learning experience. He was contacted by a recruiter through LinkedIn. He did well-enough on the phone interview that he was asked to write some code.
"The code review was brutal," says Foo. "The author of UITableView eviscerated every decision I made in the design of that piece of work. It was pretty obvious that at that moment, everything was a bust. What I also did realise was also how high the bar was and that I had a lot of work to do."
He spent the next few years bouncing around the world, working at startups (including his own).
In June of this year, an Apple recruiter reached out to him again through LinkedIn. Apple is looking for people on the Apple TV team. But, the Apple TV team rejected his resume. The recruiter tried other parts of the company, but he couldn't make the onsite interview. After that, Foo heard nothing from Apple.
In September, someone from the Apple TV team tweeted that he was hiring. Foo decided to take one more run at a job at Apple. This time he had success. He got through the phone interviews, and had an onsite interview set up.
He described the hiring process:
They paid for everything. I flew in on a Thursday to work off the jet lag, got a rental car and drove to my hotel. Spent the rest of Thursday just cramming Data Structures and Algorithms.
The onsite interviews were structured with 2 interviewers in 45 minute session with 5 sessions in total and a short break for lunch. It was perhaps the most intense thing I’ve ever done to get a job, yet throughout the whole time I fed off the challenge that presented itself and had a blast.
I am eternally grateful for the hiring team because they did not ask crazy computer science 101 questions. Sensible topics were discussed and coincidentally, most of the problems were things I’ve already tackled at work. Some were even core philosophical ideas I had about engineering.
He went home, unsure of how he did. But, it worked out. He received a job offer via FedEx, and he'll begin working at Apple in January.
Up to 75 million items on Amazon were affected by the online retailer's 1p price glitch, FeedVisor tells Business Insider. Around 2,000 sellers were said to be hit by the fault on Friday.
On Dec. 12 between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., an online automated-pricing service called RepricerExpress saw hundreds of traders' products drop to just a penny each. A lot of Amazon sellers use such services to manage their retail output. FeedVisor is a competitor of RepricerExpress.
Small businesses are now fighting back as they say Amazon is still dispatching some of the products ordered during the hour. One US-based group of sellers says on Facebook that many of them stand to lose thousands as a result. Some traders appear to be seeking legal aid.
Although Amazon cancelled many of the orders, Amazon trader Dawn Calvert argues that some were processed and, three days on, are being sent regardless of their incorrect prices. She says this should not be the case.
Amazon knew and didn't stop. Even a few people assured me it will stop when I called within and hour, I believe they were just saying, to get me off the phone, saying engineers are working. 50 hours later, I talked to another person from Amazon, and he was able to stop only 2 orders, out of 30 remaining. Meaning Amazon neglected my request on Friday. I believe they could have cancelled many orders right away.
An Amazon spokesman told Business Insider that the online marketplace "responded quickly and were able to cancel the vast majority of orders placed on these affected items immediately and no costs or fees will be incurred by sellers for these cancelled orders." But he also said Amazon is reviewing the small number of orders that were processed and will be reaching out to any affected sellers directly.
Another issue is that sellers have been in the dark about whether RepricerExpress will compensate traders for all the losses incurred. A company spokesman told Business Insider that he could not comment directly. A statement from CEO Brendan Doherty was released on Monday in which he apologized for the disruption and claimed Amazon would not penalize seller accounts. Moreover, RepricerExpress says it has communicated with the retail giant to "minimise orders with incorrect prices being shipped." Calvert says on Facebook that traders have been asked for details of any losses and costs, but nothing more.
While many items had been cancelled by Friday, those that remain will likely be honored as they usually are, according to FeedViser, which also manages an inventory of Amazon sellers.
The organization's Shmuli Goldberg told Business Insider:
Any orders that have already been shipped, which would include the majority of FBA orders placed at this time of year, will be honoured, and the seller would be expected to cover the cost of Amazon's shipping fee, as well as incur the loss of the item sold.
Any order not yet fulfilled, Amazon will allow the seller to cancel, and in the vast majority of cases will ensure the seller's feedback is not penalised for the cancellation. While sellers can take solace in knowing that their feedback score will not drop too dramatically, the seller will still have to go through each and every negative feedback for weeks to come and ensure he lets Amazon know which came about because of this glitch.
There are further complications. Stuart Cameron of online retailer Face & Co said in an email to Business Insider that the biggest problem is actually the "Amazon Seller Matrix." Cameron explains that Amazon scores its sellers.
He says: "The dark side is we also get scored for our cancelled orders and bad feedback. This [glitch] has thrown our account health from 100% excellent to poor in a matter of hours. This is a massive hit for us as it means we will lose orders now for months."
If you thought "Don't Jerk and Drive" was less about sharply turning your steering wheel and more about fulfilling personal urges while on the road, you're not alone (pun!).
South Dakota's attempt to reach out to young men (oh man) who tend to overcorrect by jerking the wheel when they hit icy patches—causing car accidents—had more than a few state residents clutching their pearls. In response, officials pulled the campaign from TV.
"I decided to pull the ad," Trevor Jones, secretary of the Department of Public Safety, said in a statement. "This is an important safety message, and I don't want this innuendo to distract from our goal to save lives on the road." (The YouTube version and microsite are still live, for now.)
The campaign, from Lawrence & Schiller in Sioux Falls, was apparently getting great visibility—outperforming previous public safety campaigns 25 to 1 in terms of driving traffic to the DPS's social media channels, according to the Argus Leader.
The last several years have left California facing a series of water emergencies, as the usual winter rainfall hasn't materialized. The drought has been associated with a ridge of high-pressure air off the Pacific Northwest coast, which prevents storms from the Western Pacific and Alaska from reaching California. That ridge, in turn, has been associated with warm sea surface temperatures in the area.
Beyond the immediate causes, however, it's reasonable to ask whether the drought is a symptom of a warming climate, and thus whether we should expect more of them in the future. Several papers have already looked into the matter, with mixed results. But now, NOAA has weighed in with a report that pins the blame on natural variability. But the report has come under criticism from some scientists, and it may have been finalized before some recent, relevant papers.
There are a number of ways to ask whether a particular event (or, in this case, a series of events) is natural or driven by human influences. Events should not be viewed as conclusive on their own, but collectively, they can build a case. The NOAA report tries a number of these.
Now you have no more excuses for lame passwords or sloppy login management. Password managers LastPass and Dashlane now boast beta features that can automatically change account passwords and store them for users with a single click.
Every time there’s a new vulnerability or attack—like Heartbleed or the Target hack—people run to their various accounts to change their passwords. At least, they should. But changing passwords one by one and then storing them manually can be a drag.
Enter LastPass' Auto-Change Password and Dashlane’s Password Changer. They essentially work the same way: The service calls up a website, logs you in and then automatically changes your password to another secure, unique one. Then it saves the password in your account, so you can access it again later.
LastPass’ feature makes the changes locally on your desktop machine first, then syncs the data to your account online, so you can access it on any of your devices. The company blog post emphasizes that “all of your sensitive information is encrypted on your computer before syncing, and your encryption key is never shared with LastPass.” Subscribers can also set the service to automatically change their passwords on sites when there’s a reported hack.
Dashlane says its Password Changer works on accounts secured with two-factor authentication. (A pop-up window asks for the code or displays your security question.) You can also change all of your existing passwords with a single press of a large green button, and plans are in the works to allow automatic password changes at set intervals.
Both work for more than 75 sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and other popular services and retailers, and in both cases, the features require a desktop computer. The cost varies: It’s free for a single device with Dashlane (though syncing to other devices costs up to $40 annually). Lastpass charges $12 for a yearly subscription, which includes syncing across desktop and mobile devices.
Click here to sign up for Dashlane’s beta feature. LastPass is releasing this feature to all of its users today across Chrome, Safari and Firefox (beginning with version 3.1.70).
Jessica Steinhauser (aka adult film star Asia Carrera) is only the latest of a dozen or so Pastafarians in Utah to be photographed for their Driver Licenses wearing a colander as a hat in religious devotion to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Read the rest
As a psychiatric medication it's generally used to treat extreme cases of bipolar disorder and depression in patients who don't respond to traditional antidepressants.
In pop culture, it's represented as having powerful dulling effects.
Carrie Mathison, Claire Danes's character on "Homeland," doesn't like taking the lithium she's prescribed because she thinks it dulls her perceptive abilities. The Nirvana song "Lithium" compares the medication to religion-as-coping-mechanism, something troubled people rely on to get by. In the movie "Silver Linings Playbook," Bradley Cooper's character says he stopped taking his lithium (and other meds) because they make him feel foggy.
These representations aren't fully accurate — lithium can be a lifesaver — but some patients do complain that the medication dulls mental clarity, and the NIH has a long list of lithium's potential side effects, some rather serious.
Still, all of this ignores one fascinating fact: many people unintentionally ingest a very low dose of lithium every day, and some research suggests those people may be better off because of that.
According to that research, people who regularly naturally consume trace amounts of lithium are less likely to commit suicide and less likely to suffer from dementia.
Lithium is a naturally occurring element (not a concoction made in a lab that can be patented and sold). In some parts of the world, including parts of the US, it's found in the drinking water.
In drinking water it's generally present only in incredibly tiny doses — on the high end that concentration is around .170 milligrams of lithium in a liter of water, which is less than a thousandth of the minimum pharmaceutical dose, according to Anna Fels, a psychiatrist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, in an article she wrote about lithium in drinking water for the New York Times in September.
Still, even in those tiny doses, it seems that there may be some measurable effect.
Fels writes:
Although it seems strange that the microscopic amounts of lithium found in groundwater could have any substantial medical impact, the more scientists look for such effects, the more they seem to discover. Evidence is slowly accumulating that relatively tiny doses of lithium can have beneficial effects. They appear to decrease suicide rates significantly and may even promote brain health and improve mood.
We'll talk about what the research says about lithium in drinking water in a moment, but first let's clarify that none of this is a reason to go add lithium into your diet (or your town's water supply). The doses in most supplements and prescriptions are more than a thousand times as large as the doses that naturally exist out there, and should only be taken upon consultation with a doctor. In the 1940s, lithium supplements became popular, but the high doses that people ingested had toxic effects, some of which killed people.
Don't try this at home.
Fels argues that what we do know about lithium is so promising that it could potentially be considered an "essential trace element nutrient," a natural nutrient like sodium or iodine that is required for proper human development in some way (in 1996, the World Health Organization classified lithium as a potentially toxic element that may have essential properties).
In theory, there's an argument in that case that lithium should be added to drinking water like flouride, though only in those miniscule quantities that may be beneficial.
But still, the idea of giving everyone low doses of what we use as a powerful mood-stabilizing psychotropic drug to make them happier has a terrifying, science fiction-y dystopian future feel to it.
On the other hand, if this natural element found on earth is actually as neuro-protective as some research seems to suggest, adding it to drinking water could be extremely beneficial in staving off depression and dementia, two outsize medical problems of the modern era.
A lot more research is needed, but here's what we know so far.
Fels cites a number of studies in the Times, and a quick search of the medical literature on studies involving humans who ingest lithium in drinking water comes up with more than 75 results. Even when researchers control for external factors like income and access to healthcare, that doesn't mean that lithium is necessarily responsible for fascinating results like lower suicide rates — but those results are still intriguing.
When looking at the connection between lithium in drinking water and suicide rates, there are mostly positive results:
Another BJP report discusses a small study of 45 people at high risk for Alzheimer's. Those given lithium in amounts smaller than pharmaceutical doses but still larger than the amount in drinking water suffered slightly less cognitive decline than a group who received a placebo.
Fels cites a 1990 study of 27 Texas counties that found that the counties with the lowest levels of lithium in the water had higher rates of suicide, homicide, and rape. Researchers have questioned whether this study adequately controlled for socioeconomic factors, but...
Another larger study from 2012 of 226 counties in Texas took specific care to control for socioeconomic factors and found similar results to the 1990 study, at least in terms of suicide rates (they didn't look at rates of homicide, rate, or other crimes).
Other reviews have found a connection between normal (trace) doses of lithium in drinking water and lower dementia rates.
This is powerful evidence, but it doesn't mean that all research supports adding lithium to drinking water. Some researchers who studied 47 subdivisions in the east of England found no correlation between lithium levels and suicide rates.
And the authors of the larger study in Texas note a few other caveats too. Most researchers who evaluate natural lithium levels in tap water can't necessarily account for lithium consumed in food or bottled water, and they aren't sure how lithium prescriptions affect the levels in drinking water. That could cause the amount of lithium that people are consuming in drinking water to vary from the amount that's naturally in a water supply.
Also, even if lithium definitely lowered suicide and dementia rates, that doesn't mean it couldn't have other negative effects simultaneously. The authors of the large Texas study particularly caution that we have no idea how that supplement would affect pregnant women, thyroid function, and fetuses in utero.
Research into those questions has found negative effects from lithium:
Obviously, more research is needed before any changes should be made.
But we should maybe reconsider how we understand this controversial element. "Lithium is, by far, the most proven drug to keep neurons alive," Nassir Ghaemi, a Tufts psychiatrist, told Fels. "If lithium prevents dementia, then we may have overlooked a very simple means of preventing a major public health problem."
We don't yet know if that's true, but there's enough evidence, Fels argues, to seriously investigate that possibility. "Research on a simple element like lithium that has been around as a medication for over half a century and as a drink for millenniums may not seem like a high priority," she writes, "but it should be."
Screen shot from an internal audit report allegedly stolen from Sony and circulating on file-trading networks.
“The recent hacker break-in at Sony Pictures Entertainment appears to have involved the theft of far more than unreleased motion pictures,” writes Brian Krebs. Read the rest
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Elonis v. United States, in a case that could result in more attention paid to language in online postings. After a series of angry posts on Facebook in the form of explicit rap lyrics "about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent," Anthony Elonis "was convicted of making threats of violence and sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison. A federal appeals court rejected his claim that his comments were protected by the First Amendment. The Obama administration says requiring proof that a speaker intended to be threatening would undermine the law's protective purpose. In its brief to the court, the Justice Department argued that no matter what someone believes about his comments, it does not lessen the fear and anxiety they might cause for other people.
Laughter may be contagious, but sometimes it sounds like we all have different strains.
Think of those famous, trademark laughs — Fran Drescher's nasally titter, Eddie Murphy's breathless guffaw, Nick Offerman's unexpected giggle. Now, think of your own. They're all different, as if dialects or accents from across the geography of laughter.
The reasons we laugh extend beyond responses to humor — laughter is a social tool, one we use to interact with each other and also to take advantage of its benefits (like its therapeutic effects and advantages for improving memory) Read more...
An Australian game reviewer got sick and tired of young boys trolling her and threatening to rape her, so she did what any self-respecting adult would do — she told their parents.
The 21-year-old journalist Alanah Pearce normally reviews video games for local radio stations and television in Brisbane, Queensland. She also has a YouTube channel. But recently, she has made a name for herself by smacking down trolls that send her vile rape threats for no apparent reason. Pearce is using a method not tested before, but appears to be having some luck.
"Sometimes young boys on Facebook send me rape threats, so I've started telling their mothers," she tweeted with a photo of the correspondence on Nov. 28 Read more...
OAKLAND, CA—Newly discovered court documents from two federal criminal cases in New York and California that remain otherwise sealed suggest that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is pursuing an unusual legal strategy to compel cellphone makers to assist investigations.
In both cases, the seized phones—one of which is an iPhone 5S—are encrypted and cannot be cracked by federal authorities. Prosecutors have now invoked the All Writs Act, an 18th-century federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ, or order, which compels a person or company to do something.
Some legal experts are concerned that these rarely made public examples of the lengths the government is willing to go in defeating encrypted phones raise new questions as to how far the government can compel a private company to aid a criminal investigation.
Michael Brown's family isn't backing down after a grand jury declined to indict the officer who killed their unarmed, teenage son in August.
In a fiery press conference the day after the grand jury's decision was announced, Brown family attorney Benjamin Crump castigated the entire grand jury process.
"We object as publicly and loudly as we can on behalf of Michael Brown Jr.'s family that this process is broken. The process should be indicted," Crump said Tuesday afternoon.
In particular, Crump slammed the St. Louis County attorney's office for allegedly being too cozy with the police and for peddling soft-ball questions to Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown. The attorney's office released thousands of pages of documents detailing the grand jury proceedings, which Crump said proved the flawed nature of the local legal process.
"We strenuously objected to this prosecutor and this process. But this morning, after we like all of you went through as much of the information ... and saw how completely unfair this process was," Crump said. "Let's be very honest about this process. We have the local prosecutor who has a symbiotic relationship with the local police."
Crump was speaking the day after violent protests roiled Ferguson, a relatively small suburb of St. Louis. Businesses and police cars burned as authorities cracked down with tear gas in an attempt to regain control of the streets.
Rev. Al Sharpton, an ally of the Brown family who spoke at the same press conference as Crump, further questioned the prosecutor for releasing the grand jury decision at 8 p.m. instead of earlier in the day.
"A strange decision in a town that has been tense, in a town that has been forecast to have all kinds of problems, his solution is: Let's announce it at night after dark. Let's make sure that all the kids are home, that all the students are back for Thanksgiving break, and it's dark outside," Sharpton said.
Sharpton then reiterated his call for the federal government to get involved in the Brown case.
"Let the record be clear: You have broken our hearts but you have not broken our backs," he said. "We are going to continue to pursue justice."
A majority of Americans who drink too much booze are not, in fact, classifiable as alcoholics, a government study says.
The study, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), finds that while one in three adults are binge-drinking tipplers, nine in ten of those adults are not full-blown alcohol dependent.
“Contrary to popular opinion, most people who drink too much are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics,” said Robert Brewer, M.D., M.S.P.H., Alcohol Program Lead at CDC. “It also emphasizes the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to reducing excessive drinking that includes evidence-based community strategies, screening and counseling in healthcare settings, and high-quality substance abuse treatment for those who need it.” Read more...
In some ways, it's the inevitable outcome of Google's increased focus on Chrome and Yahoo's increased focus on getting anyone, anywhere to care about it before it runs out of money.
Read the rest
We can't even remember the last time we saw someone under 30 fire up a PowerPoint instead of a Prezi when giving a talk.
Microsoft hopes to put the kibosh on that with Microsoft Sway, its new presentation app.
Sway lets you drag and drop photos, videos, files from your computer, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or cloud storage. It works via a Web browser or an app for your phone and the presentation is stored on the Web.
Microsoft announced Sway in October and on Monday offered an update, giving preview invites to various journalists including us.
We played around a little with Sway and can confirm that it is remarkably easy to use.
It has some nice features like "change my mood" which lets you choose a new layout, background, and fonts. The "remix" button does that for you (a little like the "I feel lucky" button on Google).
We didn't see anything in the demo that made us say, "Wow! No one's ever done that before!"
But first things first. Prezi says it has over 50 million people use it including 80% of the Fortune 500. That's an awful lot of people who have had their heads turned from PowerPoint.
Microsoft needs an easy-to-use alternative to Prezi, and Sway fits that bill.
Here's a partial demo from Microsoft's video. Notice this Microsoft ad shows the guy using Sway on an iPad.
But, perhaps the most impressive thing about Sway is that it's part of an bunch of new apps that under CEO Satya Nadella's new mission: to "reinvent productivity. "
Sway joins ...
Skype Translator, a service launched earlier this month that will translate a Skype conversation between two languages in real time.
Delve, an Office 365 tool that rolled out in September that is supposed to find all the important stuff buried in your documents, calendars, contacts.
And Cortana, Microsoft's answer to Siri, available in the current version of Windows Phone and, sources say, will be available as a desktop app in Windows 10.
When it comes to tablets, Google doesn't even follow its own design guidelines." That's the upshot of Ars Technica writer Andew Cunningham's detailed, illustrated look at how Android handles screens much larger than seven inches, going back to the first large Android tablets a few years ago, but including Android 5.0 (Lollipop) on the Nexus 10 and similar sized devices. Cunningham is unimpressed with the use of space for both practical and aesthetic reasons, and says that problems crop up areas that are purely under Google's control, like control panels and default apps, as well as (more understandably) in third party apps. The Nexus 10 took 10-inch tablets back to the "blown-up phone" version of the UI, where buttons and other UI stuff was all put in the center of the screen. This makes using a 10-inch tablet the same as using a 7-inch tablet or a phone, which is good for consistency, but in retrospect it was a big step backward for widescreen tablets. The old interface put everything at the edges of the screen where your thumbs could easily reach them. The new one often requires the pointer finger of one of your hands or some serious thumb-stretching. ... If anything, Lollipop takes another step backward here. You used to be able to swipe down on the left side of the screen to see your notifications and the right side of the screen to see the Quick Settings, and now those two menus have been unified and placed right in the center of the screen. The Nexus 10 is the most comfortable to use if it's lying flat on a table or stand and Lollipop does nothing to help you out there.
Ravens are incredibly intelligent and are natural scavengers," says National Wildlife Federation naturalist David Mizejewski. "They’d easily rip off chunks of zombie flesh with their heavy beaks until there was nothing left to the undead but bones."
Animals eating the zombies is contingent upon the continued existence of animals.
Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited funds to support election campaigns, but can't coordinate with those campaigns; this especially means that campaigns can't share expensive private poll data with PACs to help fine tune their campaigns -- which is exactly what Republicans did with their cryptic, unlabelled Twitter accounts that acted as dead-drops with messages like "CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52-->49/476-10s" to let affiliated PACs know what the polls had shown.
Read the rest
New York Times columnist and Princeton economist Paul Krugman spoke with our own Henry Blodget about a range of topics. And then Henry asked him about the super rich in America. Here are Krugman's thoughts on 'extreme' wealth and the role of luck.
Produced by Alex Kuzoian. Additional camera by Graham Flanagan and Devan Joseph.
Last week, we mentioned Senator Ted Cruz's nutty tweet comparing net neutrality to "Obamacare." It was widely mocked -- even by many Republicans -- as it showed Cruz's ignorance of the subject at hand. In fact, one report detailed a number of comments on Ted Cruz's Facebook page from Republican/conservative engineers disagreeing with Cruz and pointing out that he's uninformed about net neutrality. Here's a sampling:
There's a lot more like that, but it highlights what we've seen before -- that while Congress likes to pretend that Republicans are against net neutrality while Democrats are for it, the reality is that net neutrality is a non-partisan issue with voters of both parties overwhelmingly supporting net neutrality.
Rather than recognize this fact, Cruz has decided to double down on it with a rambling and misguided opinion piece in the Washington Post that repeats the "Obamacare for the internet" line, and lumps in a variety of other tech issues in a confusing (and often self-contradictory) jumble. He warns against taxing internet access (good), but then joins in the total overreaction to the Commerce Department's decision to officially relinquish its (barely existent) control over ICANN, falsely claiming that this will allow the Russians, Chinese and the Iranians to control the internet. This is not true. In fact, by giving up the Commerce Department's link to ICANN, it helps cut off the path the Russians, Chinese and Iranians are trying to use to do an end run around ICANN, by giving more power to the ITU. In other words, Senator Cruz (once again) seems to not understand this policy issue at all, and is recommending a policy that is more likely to lead to the world he fears.
Then he gets back around to net neutrality, once again showing he doesn't understand it:
In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It would put the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities and higher prices.
Not a single part of that is accurate. Under the proposed plan, the government would not be in charge of determining any of those. Rather, it would make it so that no one (including the internet access providers) could block what types of products and services can be delivered. It takes a special kind of wrongness to look at a plan that is focused on making sure that no one can be blocked and argue that it means the government gets to pick what services can be delivered.
Even more bizarre, Cruz's final point is to celebrate the victory over SOPA and PIPA as a great example of protecting free speech online, ignoring the fact that it's the very same people who made the victory possible who are now fighting for net neutrality.
In 2012, those who care about Internet freedom were shocked as bills such as the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP acts, which would regulate speech on the Internet under the guise of protecting property rights, started gaining popularity in Washington. Thankfully, online activists were quick to mobilize to protect their free-speech rights. But we must remain vigilant. Intellectual property must be defended, but any threat to quell speech on the Internet must be treated seriously and subsequently defeated.
Yes, and it's the very same online activists now trying to "protect free speech rights" by making sure that the internet stays open via net neutrality rules. And, yes, it is a free speech issue, because letting internet access providers block or discriminate against certain companies, individuals, services or types of content (such as encrypted content) will stifle free speech.
So, Cruz claims to support online activists and their push to guarantee free speech online... but at the same time opposes those very same activists and their push to protect free speech online by calling it "Obamacare for the internet"? I don't know who Ted Cruz's tech staffers are, but they might want to educate themselves a bit -- and not from the lobbyists at AT&T and Verizon.
Drivers in Tokyo had to watch out for Koopa Shells and banana peels this weekend
Mario Kart fans drove go-karts based on the Nintendo video game series through the streets of one of Tokyo’s busiest districts on SundayCosplayers decked out in full Mario costumes revved their engines to the delight of bystanders and other drivers
The monthly event is organized by Akiba Cart, a go-kart rental company based in Japan, and allows game enthusiasts to play the popular video game in real life. Read more...
We plugged in two of the the most polarizing brands in tech: Apple and the Google-owned Android to see how their customers differ. The received wisdom is that Apple owners tend to have more spare cash and tend to be from a higher social grade than people with Android phones.
The YouGov tool proves this hypothesis to be correct, but it also throws up some other fascinating differentiators: Who knew that Apple owners were big Beyonce fans while Android users prefer cheeky chappy Olly Murs, for example? Or that Apple fans are split right down the middle when it comes to their politics, while Android users lean far to the left?
We’ve picked out some of the more interesting characteristics that set Apple and Android users apart.
The average Apple user is a 25 to 39-year-old female in social grade ABC1, a job in media and publishing or marketing with more than £1,000 disposable cash. She's likely to live in the most expensive regions of the UL: London, central Scotland or along the south coast. And she's split right down the middle when it comes to political leaning.
Meanwhile, customers of Android are more likely to be younger males who live in the poorest parts of the UK. His political preferences lean far to the left and he's likely to have a job in IT, media and publishing or energy and utilities. But he's probably at the lowest rung of his career ladder — with less than £125 to spend each month.
Tied in first place for an Apple owner's favorite dish are grilled halloumi and nachos.
Meanwhile, Android owners apparently prefer (bizarrely, considering everything we know about their income) roast pigeon.
When it comes to media, Apple owners are big Guardian and Grazia readers. They only watch around 1 to 5 hours of TV every week (they spend more of their time online — 31-35 hours a week), consuming shows like Made In Chelsea and the Great British Bake Off.
Our Android guy, meanwhile, watches a shed-load of TV. He spends more than 50 hours per week watching shows like The Simpsons and ITV drama Cilla. He's online slightly less than our Apple lady (21-25 hours per week) and will be seen reading newspapers like The Scotsman and magazines like The New Scientist.
Apple customers extend their expensive taste to other brands. They do their weekly food shop at Waitrose (an upmarket UK supermarket) and are likely to be seen wearing clothes from Hollister, Miss Selfridge and John Lewis. Aside from Apple products you're likely to see Dyson, Nintendo and Sony products around their households. And they're most likely to drive a BMW.
Android fanboys, meanwhile, have an eye for a bargain. They shop at the Wal-Mart-owned Asda (which prides itself on being a cheaper alternative to the UK's big four supermarkets) and are likely to be seen wearing clothes from discounter TK Maxx and high street stores like Monsoon and Gap. And you're most likely to see an Android owner cruising the streets in a Nissan.
When it comes to entertainment, customers of Apple are pretty mainstream in their tastes.
Favorite movies: Home Alone, Love Actually, Frozen, The Tourist, Gravity.
Favorite TV shows: Friends, Sex And The City, Modern Family, The Inbetweeners, Breaking Bad.
Favorite music artists: Beyonce, Green Day, Arcade Fire, Ne-yo, Foo Fighters.
Favorite celebrities: Gary Barlow, Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand, Graham Norton, Simon Cowell.
Android owners, on the other hand, have some more unusual top entertainment picks.
Favorite movies: Kelly's Heroes, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Coraline, The Italian Job, Brassed Off.
Favorite TV shows: Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure, 8 Simple Rules, Animal 24:7, What The Ancients Did For Us, Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers.
Favorite Music Artists: Olly Murs, James Blunt, Cannonball Adderly, Pet Shop Boys, Rita Ora.
Favorite Celebrities: John Noakes, Phil Harding, Samantha Bond, Buster Keaton, Penelope Wilton.
An Apple owner's most likely pet? A fish.
Android owners prefer dogs.
But the ultimate test: what the two tribes are like personality-wise.
Apple fans describe themselves as "clever, funny and confident," but on occasion they are "control-freaky, headstrong and insecure."
Perhaps you'd rather hang out with Mr Android. He describes himself as "kind, calming and a worrier," but occasionally "withdrawn, needy and nerdy."
When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook about one decade ago, he believed most users would be coming to the site from desktop computers.
That all changed in 2012, as the company realized for the first time that more people were visiting Facebook on mobile phones than PCs.
From then on, Zuckerberg declared Facebook would be a mobile-first company. And he wanted his employees to internalize that.
Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president of global marketing solutions for Facebook, shared a story with Bloomberg Media COO Jacki Kelley that illustrated how crucial the "all in on mobile" concept was to Zuckerberg.
Following an all-hands meeting in which Zuckerberg emphasized mobile being the company's first priority, the Facebook CEO held a meeting with a senior engineer to go over some product mockups.
The engineer showed Zuckerberg these concepts on a desktop computer, and here's how Everson described the situation to Bloomberg:
Mark sent him out of his conference room and said, did I tell you we were going to be mobile first? That story spread like wildfire because nobody wants to get thrown out of the conference room of the CEO, and it really sent the message. And he did that. He retrained all 3,000 engineers in how to code in mobile.
The typical male thinks about sex almost twice as much as the average woman. Now, we have a better idea of what they are thinking about, thanks to a recently published study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
A team of researchers at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres asked a pool of 1,516 men and women, living in the province of Quebec, what they fantasized about sexually. The participants were anywhere from 18 to 77 years old, and the average age was 30 years.
Though the answers are not from a culturally diverse group, they still offer an interesting sample. Of the 717 men studied, 1.5% identified as being homosexual, 9.8% were bisexual, and the rest were heterosexual. (We describe the full study here.)
One of the surprising finds, according to the researchers, was the large percentage of participants who reported homosexual acts in their fantasies. Despite the less than 12% of males who reported being homosexual or bisexual:
26.8% of all male participants fantasized about giving oral sex to a man
20.6% of all male participants fantasized about having sex with another man
The researchers conducted a two-part study. First, participants read and rated 55 statements describing different sexual fantasies. They rating scale was based on how intense the fantasy was for them on scale of one to seven, seven being the most intense, three being the least intense, and one or two meaning the person did not fantasize about that act.
Here are the 10 statements the highest percentage of men in the study said they fantasized about (a rating of three or higher):
The second half of the study asked participants to describe their favorite sexual fantasy if it was not one of the 55 statements they rated. Overall, men described more varied fantasies than women. And the researchers reported that the men's fantasies were more detailed and specific than those of the female respondents.
The research team organized the participants written descriptions into different themes. Here are some of the themes from the male respondents and the percentage who reported these themes:
Fantasies that involve watching people undressing or having sex (15%)
Fantasies about different fetishes that involve feet, clothing or fabrics, and nonsexual objects (14%)
Fantasies that involve sex with an authority figure or celebrity (4.2%)
Fantasies that involve zero gravity (1.4%)
Fantasies specifically about infidelity (0.9%)
Below is the complete survey of questions with the percentage of men who reported fantasizing about each act. The grey boxes are the "common" fantasies that more than 50% of people said they had.
In June of this year, an Apple recruiter reached out to him again through LinkedIn. Apple is looking for people on the Apple TV team. But, the Apple TV team rejected his resume. The recruiter tried other parts of the company, but he couldn't make the onsite interview. After that, Foo heard nothing from Apple.
In drinking water it's generally present only in incredibly tiny doses — on the high end that concentration is around .170 milligrams of lithium in a liter of water, which is less than a thousandth of the minimum pharmaceutical dose, according to Anna Fels, a psychiatrist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, in an article she wrote about lithium in drinking water for the New York Times in September.
On the other hand, if this natural element found on earth is actually as neuro-protective as some research seems to suggest, adding it to drinking water could be extremely beneficial in staving off depression and dementia, two outsize medical problems of the modern era.
Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited funds to support election campaigns, but can't coordinate with those campaigns; this especially means that campaigns can't share expensive private poll data with PACs to help fine tune their campaigns -- which is exactly what Republicans did with their cryptic, unlabelled Twitter accounts that acted as dead-drops with messages like "CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52-->49/476-10s" to let affiliated PACs know what the polls had shown.
Read the rest
There's a lot more like that, but it highlights what we've seen before -- that while Congress likes to pretend that Republicans are against net neutrality while Democrats are for it, the reality is that net neutrality is a non-partisan issue with voters of both parties overwhelmingly supporting net neutrality. 
Meanwhile, Android owners apparently prefer (bizarrely, considering everything we know about their income) roast pigeon.
The second half of the study asked participants to describe their favorite sexual fantasy if it was not one of the 55 statements they rated. Overall, men described more varied fantasies than women. And the researchers reported that the men's fantasies were more detailed and specific than those of the female respondents.