Das Orchester der Titanic spielte bis zuletzt: Die Geige des Kapellmeisters war bis vor Kurzem ein Symbol von unschätzbarem Wert für die Hoffnung angesichts einer Todesgefahr.
Wissenschaftler suchen neugierige Laien, die für sie Daten sammeln. Internet und Smartphone helfen dabei. Die Herausforderung: qualitativ gute Daten zu sichern.
Nadine Gallo war für einen Hilfseinsatz in Tansania. Zuweilen ist die Ärztin dort an Banalem gescheitert.
Eine tiefenpsychologische Therapie wirkt bei Magersucht am längsten nach. Das zeigt eine neue Vergleichsstudie – die grösste, die bislang durchgeführt wurde.
Existiert der Yeti doch? Ein britischer Forscher glaubt, das Rätsel gelöst zu haben. Der Yeti soll ein Nachfahre eines urzeitlichen Eisbären sein.
Funde aus Georgien zeigen, dass die Entwicklung zum heutigen Menschen geradliniger verlief als bisher angenommen: Vor zwei Millionen Jahren gab es nur eine Art der Gattung Homo, die nach Eurasien wanderte.
Wer sich immer schon gefragt hat, weshalb es so schwer ist, die Packung Guetsli wegzulegen, für den haben US-Forscher die Antwort parat.
Der frühere britische Finanzminister Nigel Lawson hält die Messmethoden des Weltklimarats für «nicht adäquat». Dass der Mensch für den Klimawandel verantwortlich ist, bezweifelt er.
Fischer haben zehn Kilometer vor der Pazifikküste von El Salvador mehr als Hundert tote Meeresschildkröten entdeckt. Die Tiere starben möglicherweise an Algenvergiftungen.
Im Februar war über Russland ein Meteorit explodiert – nun wurde ein riesiges Fragment des Himmelskörpers in einem See gefunden. Beim Messversuch ging dann sogar eine Spezialwaage zu Bruch.
An der kalifornischen Küste gelang einer Meeresbiologin ein sensationeller Fund: Beim Schnorcheln entdeckte sie einen fünf Meter langen Riemenfisch.
Manche Menschen können ständig Sahnetorte essen, ohne dick zu werden. Nun wird immer deutlicher, dass neben den Genen auch die Bakteriengemeinschaft in unserem Körper einen grossen Anteil daran hat.
Viele Spitäler führen Operationen zu selten durch. Das erhöht das Risiko für die Patienten, wie die neusten Vergleichszahlen des Bundesamts für Gesundheit zeigen.
Zufallsfund im Militärstollen aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Ein Biologe entdeckte im St. Galler Rheintal eine Schreckenart, die in der Schweiz bisher unbekannt war.
Forscher spielten zwei Szenarien für die Energiepolitik bis 2050 durch: ein «umweltbewusstes», das auf Regulierung und Atomstrom setzt, und ein «marktwirtschaftliches». Die Bilanz ist ernüchternd.
Eine Studie hat berechnet, wie viel Krebserkrankungen in Europa jedes Jahr kosten. Fazit: Im Gesundheitssystem fällt nicht einmal die Hälfte der Summe an.
Christian Klaiber hat als Erster in der Schweiz eine Gallenblase minimal-invasiv entfernt. Er war seiner Zeit immer ein bisschen voraus.
Bei der Befischung des Thunersees gingen Biologen neue Arten von Groppen ins Netz. Die sensationelle Entdeckung dürfte die bisherigen Annahmen über die Geschwindigkeit der Evolution korrigieren.
Für Patientenschützerin Margrit Kessler bergen medizinische Studien viele Tücken. Teilnehmer würden oft nicht genügend und umfassend informiert.
Autofreie Sonntage, mit Holz betriebene Autos und künstlerische Aufarbeitung. Während der beiden Ölkrisen vor 40 Jahren ging man ganz unterschiedlich mit der Situation um.
Third-party products and SnapChat options are eroding the privacy of the photo app beyond ten seconds of fame.
Earlier this month, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Patrick Leahy pressed the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, on whether the figures that are used to support data collection programs, notably the bulk collection of phone records, are accurate. Throughout the summer, the Obama Administration and NSA officials have repeatedly told the public how the controversial Sections 215 and 702 ( that such intercept programs are managed with strict oversight. At the Black Hat/Defcon security conference, General Alexander that 54 terror plots were stopped because of records collected under Sections 215 and 702, and of those 13 of them were in the U.S. Moreover, General Alexander noted that of the 13 plots halted in the U.S., 12 of them were directly linked to the intercept programs. However, when questioned by Senator Leahy, General Alexander confirmed that only "one, perhaps two" terror plots were halted by business records collections.
If you were looking forward to updating your Windows RT tablet to . Microsoft didn't provide any further details, but it appears that people upgrading to Windows RT 8.1 are experiencing boot configuration data errors, which result in blue screens of death appearing on startup. Oops. Fortunately, the issue doesn't appear to be widespread. Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff ran into the problem while attempting to install Windows RT 8.1 on his Surface RT. Here's what it looks like: The Windows 8.1 RT update just cooked my original Surface RT
Up to one million free Jamba Juice smoothies will go to Isis mobile wallet smartphone users later this year, when Isis takes its NFC-ready technology to the national stage.
The idealism and convenience behind virtual currencies such as is at risk of being undermined as abuse by professional criminals grows to unacceptable levels, a report by security firm McAfee argues. The catalog of practical and conceptual problems listen in the firm's Digital Laundry overview is perhaps not particularly original—numerous critics have spotted systems—but serves as a timely reminder of their growing importance to cybercriminals. Only two weeks ago, "We include it [the hitman example] to demonstrate that confidence in the privacy of virtual currencies has enabled the sale of some frightening services," said McAfee's authors.
Microsoft last week said it will start selling gift cards good for purchases on its digital content market, taking a page out of Apple's iTunes playbook. Amazon.com listed digital cards Thursday in denominations of $15, $25, and $50, and said started taking orders Friday for delivery as soon as Monday. The cards have been in the wind for months. In May, virtual currency. And in a last week, Microsoft mentioned gift cards in a long missive about changes to the Windows Store, the app distribution mart for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT.
Sophisticated attackers could soon adopt an innovative technique for bypassing one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing a Windows security breach, researchers say. The protective technique is called the Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). ASLR scrambles the memory positions of key elements of a program, such as the base of the executable and the positions of the stack, heap and libraries. This makes it difficult for an attacker to guess where these elements reside in order to exploit them. Current trends in malware show attackers moving toward an that takes advantage of common programming errors that lead to memory corruption, which is when the contents of a memory location are unintentionally modified. Nearly 10 percent of application crashes on Windows systems are due to memory corruption. If the corruption exists, then the attacker's malware tries to guess where an application's library is in memory, researchers with security vendor FireEye said.
GTA V is a game with an awe-inspiring open world and a troubling narrative.
. It might now wish that it hadn’t—thousands of users have taken to the Web to complain about things they don’t like. With more than 100 million daily users, Mail is important for Yahoo. It’s one of the company’s most prominent services, and CEO Marissa Mayer has said it’s one of the top things she wanted to improve to attract new users. . They’re also a reminder that Mayer, a former Googler, can’t fix Yahoo by simply carrying over things that Google does well.
In the fiercely competitive world of Internet services, Google constantly seeks ways to speed up the delivery of content to its hundreds of millions of users. At the O’Reilly Velocity conference , two Google engineers presented some of their favorite tips and research for expediting delivery of web pages and applications. Such knowledge could be handy for other web developers looking to make their products more responsive. Google developer advocate and for mobile web developers today: JavaScript performance. Web-based JavaScript applications can suffer from performance issues, especially on mobile clients, because JavaScript parsing engines use garbage collection (GC) to manage memory. “You shouldn’t rely on garbage collectors,” McAnlis told the audience of web developers.
The chips in the new consoles likely will be upgraded every two to three years, much like in past consoles, analysts said.
Although production of Intel’s next-generation Broadwell chip won’t begin until the first quarter of 2014, PCs using the chip won’t appear until the second half of 2014, Intel disclosed Friday. in the 14-nm process that the Broadwell chip uses had delayed its expected manufacturing date from the fourth quarter of 2013 until the first quarter of 2014. PCs based on a chip in full production usually ship a quarter or two later. Until now, however, Intel had never clarified the date. Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich didn’t discuss Intel’s launch plans in what he actually said during the earnings call. “We continue to make progress with the industry’s first 14 -nanometer manufacturing process and our second-generation 3D transistors,” Krzanich said. “Broadwell, the first product on 14 nanometers, is up and running as we demonstrated at the Intel Developer Forum last month. While we are comfortable with where we are at with yields, from a timing standpoint, we are about a quarter behind our projections. As a result, we are now planning to begin production in the first quarter of next year.”
Fresh from its acquisition of Sprint, Japan’s SoftBank plans to take control of Brightstar, the dominant distributor of mobile devices in the U.S. and a global player serving more than 200 carriers. SoftBank has reached a definitive agreement to invest $1.26 billion in Brightstar and immediately gain a 57 percent stake in the company. It will have the option later to raise its ownership to 70 percent. The cash transaction, which SoftBank announced on Friday, will be carried out through a U.S. subsidiary. a partnership with singer and actress Jennifer Lopez and a major Verizon Wireless retailer to set up Viva Movil, a chain of Latino-focused Verizon stores across the U.S. The company calls itself the world’s largest mobile device distributor, with annual revenue above $7 billion and operations in more than 50 countries. The SoftBank deal values Brightstar at $2.2 billion, including its outstanding debt.
Samsung is taking preorders on an updated version of its Ativ Book 9 Plus Ultrabook, which features a Core i7 processor and a touchscreen display with a native resolution of 3200 by 1800 pixels. The company expects to ship the new notebook in early November. a fourth-generation Core processor (code-named Haswell). Samsung, on the other hand, hasn’t announced any plans to match the lavish tech-support and customer-service offerings Toshiba gives to Kirabook buyers. , is outfitted with an Intel Core i5-4200U and has half as much memory and storage. But the new model will also command a higher price tag: $1799, versus $1399 for the current machine. The rest of the new laptop’s specifications are very similar to those of the earlier model, including its 0.54-inch thickness and 3.06-pound weight. The new Plus will have an 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi adapter, gigabit wired ethernet (using a dongle), Micro HDMI-out, two USB 3.0 ports, an integrated 720p webcam, and a multiformat memory card reader. Samsung says the new Ultrabook’s fully charged battery will deliver up to 7.5 hours of productivity.
The alpha for Double Fine’s Spacebase DF-9 has arrived on Steam--$25 gets you in the door.
Microsoft announced Friday that Xbox Live Gold members will continue receiving two free games per month indefinitely, as its Games with Gold promotion is now a permanent feature.
With in-home streaming technology, Nvidia wants to give PC gamers the freedom to leave their computing caves. Dubbed . The idea is that users could set up a powerful gaming PC somewhere in the house, and then use Wi-Fi to stream those games to handheld devices and televisions. Nvidia first launched in-home streaming with its Shield Android gaming handheld in July, but the feature was advertised as a beta, with limited game support. On October 28, Nvidia will launch GameStream and presumably drop the beta tag. More than 50 top PC games will be supported at launch, and certain Wi-Fi routers will be labeled “GameStream Ready.” Nvidia says it will also improve navigation and controls, and promises low-latency gaming at 60 frames per second.
Traditional electric-car batteries that are bulky may soon be a thing of the past.
Amazon Web Services has added the option to use its Elastic Transcoder for audio-only conversions.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has begun to send more than 58,000 refund checks to consumers who lost money to Green Millionaire, a company that promised a free book explaining how to power cars and homes at no cost, but then billed customers for an online magazine they never ordered. . The amount recovered represents about 54 percent of consumers’ estimated loss in the case, the agency said. Victims of the operation will receive an average of $33.88 from the FTC, based on individual loss. People receiving checks from the FTC should cash them within 60 days, the FTC said. against the San Francisco-based operation in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in April 2012.
Just in time for the , Microsoft released its own remote desktop client for Android and iOS devices. The free download lets anyone who’s enabled remote desktop functionality on their Windows PC (Pro versions only) connect to their desktop from afar. That’s the theory, anyway. In my hands-on time with the app on a Nexus 7 and a Nexus 4, I concluded that most users needing remote desktop access are better off with simpler third-party options. To use remote desktop, you must configure the settings in your Control Panel to allow remote connections. Microsoft has a straightforward tutorial on . Once that’s done, you can find the Android and iOS apps on . Both apps work on either smartphones or tablets.
Here's a second dose of early Halloween fright, with 13 scary movies streaming on Netflix.
SkyDrive sinks its tentacles , and in many respects, that's a good thing. Newfound features include system-level SkyDrive integration with the Windows File Explorer, a modern-style file picker, app syncing, and the ability to save your files and photos straight to the cloud for any-PC-anywhere computing capabilities. So far, so great, right? But it's not all roses: If you choose to save your files locally, rather than to the cloud, SkyDrive for Windows 8.1 strips out a feature, making it harder to snag files from afar in a pinch. The "Fetch" feature in the SkyDrive desktop program allows you to remotely access any locally stored files on your PC, assuming you set up the feature first. It works great for those "Oh no!" moments—especially if you don't want to clog your SkyDrive with every document and presentation you've ever created. Fetch is gone in Windows 8.1.
Samsung's new $150 set-top device will turn any dumb TV smart, but there's a lot of better options out there.
I'm not exactly sure when or why it happened, but somewhere along the way, my System Tray volume icon disappeared. At one point, it was right there, just waiting to be clicked. Now, the System Tray shows only my network, battery, and Action Center indicators. (Just to clarify, I'm using Windows 8, but referring to Desktop mode. The same issue could apply to Windows 7.) Now, to find volume, I have to first click the little System Tray arrow, which reveals all the "overflow" icons, then search for volume amidst nearly a dozen others. Hassle! Fortunately, this is an easy fix:
Apple is warning customers that solid-state drives in some MacBook Airs are failing and is offering free replacements. The company said that 64GB and 128GB SSDs were failing in MacBook Air laptops sold between June 2012 and June 2013. The drives will be replaced free, the company about the SSD recall. The laptops involved are the previous generation of MacBook Airs, which ran on Intel Ivy Bridge processors. The failure affects users in all countries where MacBook Airs were sold. Users can visit an Apple Store, an authorized reseller or contact the company to replace the SSDs. Users can determine if their drives are affected through at the Mac App Store. Users can click on Updates at the Mac App Store and choose “MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.1,” which will check the drive.
Belgian telecommunications group Belgacom found unauthorized changes made to a router at its BICS subsidiary, which provides wholesale communication services to hundreds of operators worldwide. The changes to the router’s software were discovered during a security review of the company’s systems launched by Belgacom in September following an intrusion into its corporate network. “These thorough screenings have divulged some irregularities on a router at BICS, the daughter company of Belgacom and a provider of international carrier services,” a BICS spokeswoman said Friday via email. An investigation found changes to the router software that most likely resulted from the intrusion reported in September, she said. The spokeswoman declined to say if the affected equipment was routing customer traffic or what the identified changes did.
, which gives you free triple-A games and discounts on Nvidia’s Shield gaming handheld when you buy GeForce-brand graphics cards. of the hardware you buy, however. . , or its older GTX 660 and 660 Ti cousins, receive Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed along with a $50 Shield voucher.