NASA to admit that astronaut's suit leaked prior to near-drowning

[~Time Published February 26, 2014 at 12:21PM]

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NASA today will admit that the near-death of an astronaut during a spacewalk last year could have been avoided, according to a report from ABC News. In a report to be released Wednesday morning, NASA will acknowledge that astronaut Luca Parmitano's suit leaked on two occasions in July. The agency had previously only reported one leak, on July 16th, when Parmitano's suit helmet began filling up with water. Today's report will acknowledge that the suit leaked on July 9th, but news of the mishap never made it up NASA's chain of command.

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'Fish on Wheels' lets a goldfish drive a go-kart

[~Time Published February 10, 2014 at 09:23PM]

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For millennia, fish have been restrained in their ruthless global conquest by a simple inability to survive on dry land. Lacking the capacity to navigate unsubmerged territories, piscine empires were confined to the sea, while human civilization was left in relative peace on the remaining portions of the Earth.

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Circuit vapers: the e-cig is getting an upgrade

[~Time Published January 10, 2014 at 01:02PM]

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The pool deck at the Marquee, a $1,500 bottle-service club at the Cosmopolitan hotel, is lined by cabanas heated by lamps and jacuzzis with walls made of plexiglass. On the first night of CES, the consumer electronics show that overtakes Las Vegas every January, a much more average-looking crowd than usual sat uncomfortably on the all-white furniture, dressed in business casual and puffing on e-cigs with glowing orange tips.

Kevin Frija, the CEO of Vapor Corp, which sponsored the decadent scene, pulled on an e-cigar at the back of the party and encouraged his employees to pass out chocolate- and coffee-flavored e-hookahs. “Vaping is one of those new disruptive technologies that could very well overtake the tobacco business and...

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Cellphone surveillance costs $5 per hour, according to report

[~Time Published January 10, 2014 at 01:01PM]

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If surveillance has become more common in recent decades, it might be because it's so much cheaper. A new report from security researcher Ashkan Soltani and Kevin Bankston looks at the hourly cost of the surveillance techniques used in various Supreme Court cases, and emerged with some interesting figures. The paper was inspired by the common question of how GPS tracking is any different from simply following a suspect in an unmarked car. In the new report, the answer is more than $200 per hour.

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The controversial case of GMO apples that won't turn brown

[~Time Published January 09, 2014 at 01:29AM]

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Sliced apples that never cease looking fresh: that's the promise from a Canadian company behind new apples that have been genetically engineered to retain their alluring color even after being cut open. But the apples, currently being evaluated for approval by the US Department of Agriculture, aren't being lauded across the board. In fact, some producers and industry insiders worry that this particular modification takes GMO fruit one step too far.

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Gigabyte gets hilariously serious about an impressively thin gaming laptop

[~Time Published January 08, 2014 at 03:12PM]

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Razer pioneered the idea of squeezing a gaming laptop into a tiny space, but Gigabyte is about to take it to the next level. The company just announced a new PC gaming hardware brand — Aorus — whose flagship product will put more power into a 0.9-inch thick gaming laptop than we frankly thought was possible.

Perhaps the best part, though, is the company's marketing campaign. Apparently, the computer was inspired by the ancient Egyptians. And then there's this:

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Why don’t economists like Bitcoin?

[Time Published January 01, 2014 at 05:54AM]

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Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a blog post this weekend with a tantalizing title, "Bitcoin Is Evil," that has provoked the expected backlash from proponents of the virtual currency.

The headline over-promises, unfortunately — while you could make an argument that Bitcoin nefariously wastes computer power, enables crime, and encourages anarchy, that’s not what Krugman’s saying. (Science fiction writer Charlie Stross’ "Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire" is more satisfying.) Instead, Krugman attacks Bitcoin’s economic fundamentals for the zillionth time.

Almost any time you see someone from a university praising Bitcoin, that person is from the computer science department. And if...

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Hear the sound of the Earth moving from the deepest hole on the planet

[Time Published January 01, 2014 at 05:47AM]

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For billions of years, the Earth has silently traveled through space, spinning around the sun without making a sound. Even here on the planet, there's been little to hear. But now with the right recording equipment and processing, we can get a sense of what it sounds like for the planet to spin and spin while looping around the sun. Artist Lotte Geeven has ventured into what she says is the deepest open hole in the world — a location on the border of the Czech Republic that drops down over 5.5 miles, according to Designboom — and recorded what she calls "The Sound of the Earth."

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Chrome extension uses colored text to speed up online reading

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[Time Published December 15, 2013 at 01:04AM]

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Lots of apps have offered the promise of reading text faster, but a Chrome extension called Beeline Reader is using an unexpected tool to get there: colored text. Built on top of the Readability code, the extension works by reformatting the text on a page into a single stripped-down column, then color-coding alternating lines of text to ensure readers never get lost. According to a recent study, that's enough to get the average person through a block of text ten percent faster.

While the trick itself is simple, there's a surprising amount of psychological background to it. The developer tells Fast Company that he was inspired by the Stroop Test in psychology, which shows that readers inevitably perceive the color of the text they're...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/6/4809480/chrome-extension-uses-colored-text-to-speed-up-online-reading] | Image URL: http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9085627/beeline_large.jpg]

Washington Post hacked for the second time in three years

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[Time Published December 19, 2013 at 01:31AM]

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Unknown hackers gained access to the Washington Post's servers for multiple days and stole employees' user names and passwords, the newspaper said today. Company officials are still trying to determine how much data was exposed, the paper said, but it appears that the hackers did not access any information about the paper's subscribers. This is the second time the newspaper's servers have been breached in the past three years.

The company learned of the breach today. As a precaution, all employees have been asked to change their usernames and passwords. Post officials believe the attack may be the work of Chinese hackers, who were implicated in the previous Post hacking incident. News of the intrusion came the same day that Target was...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/18/5225464/washington-post-hacked-for-the-second-time-in-three-years] | Image URL: http://cdn1.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9582683/washpost-logo1_large.jpg]

Cloudflare pledges to double SSL usage on the web in 2014

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[Time Published December 17, 2013 at 04:50PM]

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This morning, Cloudflare announced some surprising news: last December, the optimization and DDos protection service raised $50 million in Series C funding from Union Square Ventures, a funding round that's been kept secret until now. Even more surprising is what they plan on doing with the money. The company has announced plans to offer its customers free SSL protections, shifting millions of sites into encrypted traffic protocols. According to CEO Matthew Prince, the goal is to double SSL usage on the internet in 2014, from 2 million to roughly 4 million sites worldwide. Cloudflare currently hosts 1.5 million sites, and company statistics suggest they route roughly five percent of global web requests.

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/17/5217800/cloudflare-pledges-to-double-ssl-usage-on-the-web-in-2014] | Image URL: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9572735/9787059493_01e9543759_b_large.jpg]

Enter, Sandman: how lucid dreaming ‘can help you change yourself’

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[Time Published December 02, 2013 at 01:32AM]

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Maybe the vast majority of your recollected dreams involve public speaking in the nude, or repeatedly failing your college chemistry final. Or maybe you don’t recall having any dreams at all. According to Thomas Peisel, both scenarios are a profound missed opportunity: while you were helplessly flunking exams or snoring into a subconscious abyss, he’s been flying through the sky like Magneto and receiving sage advice from flame-covered monsters. And doing it all with complete cognizance.

Peisel, a long-time lucid dreamer, is the co-author of A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics (Workman, 2013). The book is a collaboration between Piesel, Dylan Tuccillo, and Jared Zeizel, all three of them filmmakers...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/3/4788634/how-lucid-dreaming-can-help-you-change-yourself] | Image URL: http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9051807/pise_large.jpg]

Details over Nokia 8"-Windows RT-tablet die in 2014 zou verschijnen komen online

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[Time Published November 05, 2013 at 10:45AM]

[ < - - Content ] Nokia zou begin volgend jaar een Windows RT-tablet met een scherm rond 8" in de winkels willen leggen. Dat melden twitteraar EVLeaks en techsite The Verge. De tablet moet uitkomen als Nokia zijn eerder gepresenteerde Lumia 1320 uitbrengt. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/92385/details-over-nokia-8-inch-windows-rt-tablet-die-in-2014-zou-verschijnen-komen-online.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

YouTube Live: a disastrous spectacle Google would like you to forget

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[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 11:44PM]

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This Sunday, November 3rd, the world will experience the first annual YouTube Music Awards, hosted by Jason Schwartzman and streamed live from New York City. Featuring huge music acts like Lady Gaga, Eminem, and the Arcade Fire, the event seems poised to take on MTV’s long-standing VMAs, with a few internet-focused (“best fan-made response video!”) awards thrown in the mix. But YouTube’s first foray into a massive, live-streamed event mixing traditional stars with people “from the internet” wasn’t a shining success at all. 2008’s YouTube Live was, by most accounts, a somewhat infamous failure that was quietly swept under the rug.

If you were to have visited YouTube on November 22nd, 2008, you likely would have been...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5052440/youtube-live-a-disastrous-spectacle-google-would-like-you-to-forget] | Image URL: http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9222061/ytlive_lede_large.gif]

GameStick review: the Android console battle is on

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[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 11:44PM]

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A successful Kickstarter-funded device is now shipping to retail stores and backers all over the world. Its upstart manufacturers are taking the growing world of Android gaming to the TV, with a new form factor and a price that undercuts virtually everything else on the market. But can it live up to the hype?

While the hypercompact GameStick won’t be shipping until November 8th, I could have easily copied and pasted that paragraph from a review six months ago, when we were getting our first look at the Ouya. It’s nearly impossible not to compare the two: along with Nvidia’s Project Shield, they’re the reason 2013 was declared “the year of the microconsole."

The Ouya’s launch, however, set the year of the microconsole off to...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5046580/gamestick-review] | Image URL: http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9213099/IMG_4430_large.jpg]

North Korea's new tablet is surprisingly good

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[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 10:32PM]

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North Korea is best known for its crushingly oppressive government and comically inept space program — but new reports suggest that the country may be producing a surprisingly respectable touchscreen tablet. A state-produced device called the Samjiyon has been making the rounds at Asian trade shows all year, attracting the attention of both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal . The hardware isn't as bad as you might think, handling common apps like Angry Birds with noticeable but not uncommon levels of lag. Mostly, it works.

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5054454/north-koreas-new-tablet-is-surprisingly-good] | Image URL: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9226099/DSC_0074_large.jpeg]

Sony launches 8 million flower petals from a volcano to promote its 4K TVs

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[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 10:23PM]

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In a flashy effort to illustrate just how much detail is packed into its 4K TVs, Sony has released a new commercial that features 8 million petals erupting from a volcano in Costa Rica. The waves of red, pink, yellow, and purple engulf a nearby village, and the cinematography here immediately evokes memories of the famous bouncing ball ad Sony produced for its Bravia TV line. It's a gorgeous production, but there's also some significance to the visuals: the 8 million petals represent each individual pixel contained in Sony's 4K sets — four times the detail of 1080p.

We're not sure it's going to sell hardware (especially at current prices), but Sony's latest commercial proves that the company has one of the most creative and ambitious...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5055590/sony-launches-8-million-flower-petals-from-volcano-4k-commercial] | Image URL: http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9227737/Screen_Shot_2013-11-01_at_4.49.08_PM_large.png]

The Verge, Year Two

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[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 08:25PM]

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It happened. We made it to (and through) our sophomore year. And it’s not as if that second year was an apocalypse where men (and women) had to fight other men (and women) to the death for the last remaining scraps of food, either: it’s been a pretty good year here at The Verge.

In fact, it’s been a spectacular year for us. We’ve expanded not just our team, but also the types of things we cover – we now have dedicated sections for topics as varied as culture, world news, and design. We also launched a giant, dedicated science section, headed up by editor Katie Drummond.

In the past year, we’ve expanded our videos to include a multitude of original series including Small Empires with Alexis Ohanian, which provides a...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5053028/the-verge-year-two] | Image URL: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9226437/year_two_002_large.png]

US intelligence agencies have their own private Twitter

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[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 08:25PM]

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Twitter occupies a strange place in national security circles, officially banned within most workplaces but still a go-to source for political gossip and occaisonal cause for a high-profile firing, as with the recent @NatSecWonk account. As a result, Pentagon and other intelligence officials decided to copy the service with a privately run, internal microblogging service called eChirp. Established in 2009, it's a copy of Twitter in nearly every respect, right down to the blue bird.

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5055330/us-intelligence-agencies-have-their-own-private-twitter] | Image URL: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9226481/echirp_large.jpg]

Meet the misfits who are revolutionizing indie horror movies

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[Time Published October 26, 2013 at 02:17PM]

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A new crop of filmmakers based in Los Angeles are shaking up the horror genre with low-budget but cerebral thrillers made without any help from Hollywood LA Weekly reports that films like V/H/S, Cheap Thrills, and You're Next were made on the cheap but are starting to attract mainstream attention. V/H/S played at the Sundance Film Festival, and You're Next has been picked up by Lionsgate for a wide release this summer. And while indie horror movies are filled with zombies, Satanists, and haunted VHS tapes, to name a few terrors, the directors are equally interested in human psychology. "Under the surface of their films are everyday terrors: desperation, power, greed," the Weekly writes. "Who needs monsters when you can make ordinary men...

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/culture/2013/10/26/5030160/meet-the-misfits-who-are-revolutionizing-indie-horror-movies] | Image URL: http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9184109/youre_next_large.jpg]