Two days before iPhone 5 day, AT&T Will get the excellent and uber-powerful Galaxy S II on October 2nd. It'll be available for $200 with a 2-year contract. Sprint customers still need to wait. [Seth Bloom]
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@BreakingNews, the massively popular Twitter feed that is often the first to tip us off about earthquakes, explosions, and other matters of import, looks like it got its butt hacked screwed up.
Minutes ago, the account beamed out a strange tweet: "@BreakingNews Compare all three versions of the Pentagon Papers and see what the US kept from us all those years," accompanied with a link to a George Washington University-hosted analysis of the uncensored Pentagon Papers. The tweet was almost immediately removed, and the above quasi-explanation went up. "It was not sent by our team" sounds like a hack job—but why go through the trouble just to post something serious? It doesn't resonate with the usual LULZGOTCHA ethos, or plain idiocy of most Twitter hacks.
Update: Breaking News has updated their feed with the following:
A previous tweet referring to the Pentagon Papers was sent out due to an internal error. It has been deleted. We apologize for the confusion
Which makes it sound like it was sent by their team, and not an outside miscreant.
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The maniacs at Melbourne Skydive Centre are still falling off things with style. I've only ever gone cliff-diving once, and it was nothing like this. This looks shades of terrifying and exhilarating that I can hardly imagine.
Just... ok, if you're moving that fast and that far, how the hell do you stop? [Vimeo via NOTCOT]
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Samsung just sent out invitations to a product launch on October 11 coinciding with CTIA. It's certainly going to mean a new Android phone from Samsung, probably the Nexus Prime.
The invitations cloyingly show the Android robot peeking out of a box, refers to "Google Episode," and invites to "come see what's new from Android." That pretty much gives away the game. There's only one new thing from Android, and that's its next OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. We're hopeful this will mean the new Nexus Prime phone as well, and I'm even optimistic that maybe there may be yet another tablet.
I guess it's time to wait and see. And hey, enjoy product launch season.
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Adobe is working on new versions of Flash Player and Air that could bring some compelling gaming and video features to the table. So compelling, you may even be tempted to install the oft-bloated apps on your computer.
According to Adobe, both Flash and Air will have full hardware-accelerated 3D graphic capabilities and improved 2D graphics. These improvements will enable console-quality gaming on the desktop and mobile devices. That would be a sweet feature if Adobe can pull it off.
Other improvements include HD video support for Flash-based iOS apps, full HD video with Surround Sound 7.1 support for connected TVs, and the addition of Flash Access and Adobe Pass which allows developers to add rental and subscription options to their apps.
And there's one little convenience feature for Air users. Adobe Air can be bundled with an app so developers can release their application and all necessary Air files in one package. Look for the new and improved Adobe Flash 11 and Air 3 to arrive sometime in October. [Adobe]
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The Internet isn't only on your screen. Or behind your couch. Or in Google's data centers. It's also underwater, where fiber-optic cables stretch across oceans and loop around continents.
Satellites are like dial-up. Nobody uses them. Undersea cables make the Internet global, with the most sophisticated of them capable of transmitting nearly ten terabits of data per second, compressed through just a handful of fiber-optic strands. There are only hundreds of these cables in waters around the world. And they are all preposterously proportioned, as thin as a garden hose and as long as-actually, nothing. No human construction matches them. They are the longest tubes ever made, and, for the first time ever, there's a truly accurate interactive online map of them.
For a decade, Washington DC-based Telegeography has been publishing an undersea cable map. But it's always been on paper, delivered in a cardboard tube, and sold for $250. But starting today (right this second, actually) the company has put its map online, for free, and made it interactive. And rather than scraping data from Wikipedia, Telegeography's Internet cartographers get information the old fashioned way: They ask the cable owners, who happily share the location of their landing stations and the current bandwidth capacity of their systems.
But only to a point. Telegeography has limited how far you can zoom in on the map, keeping the exact locations secret. But is even that much information dangerous? Telegeography's Stephan Beckert doesn't think so. "It's actually more dangerous to not know where the fiber is, because it makes it harder to plan redundancy in networks," he says. For a big network buying wholesale bandwidth across the pond-say a Facebook, Microsoft, or Citibank-the map is an essential tool. For the first time ever, we get to ogle the actual cables that carry the Internet, on the Internet.
Andrew Blum (@ajblum) is the author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, coming soon. Related StoriesView the original article here
Vulture, New York Mag's excellent entertainment arm, has an iPhone app that's all about viral videos, songs, trailers, clips and more. It's like having access to what's hot in entertainment on your iPhone—it'll totally make you feel like you're in the know.
The app isn't a reproduction of Vulture's content but rather gives access to videos or pictures or anything that has the most virility. Viralness? Viralnessility? Something like that. For example, I just watched a hilarious Community blooper reel and saw Breaking Bad audition tapes. It's basically all the neat and hip and cool videos/pictures/posts/tidbits about the entertainment world. There's also a curated Editor's Pick section, the option to save posts to favorite for future viewing and of course, social network sharing options. Free. [iTunes]
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Sure, the axe murderer presented in this door prop is about as lazy as they come, but you have to admit the overall attention to detail is pretty intense.
As the tired, weary axe murder meanders down the darkly lit hallway toward the door, the lights flicker. Soon, eventually, he shambles close enough to swing his axe and, well, holy smokes, the door dents and shakes as if there really were a lethargic, grungy man swinging an axe on the other side. Then he leaves.
As a Boing Boing commenter notes, this design is apparently an, ahem, "update" on an older prop manufacturer's work from 2009. That's the world of design though, huh? Just ask Apple and Samsung. [Etsy via Boing Boing]
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If you were worried that ebooks might kill off the public good of the library loaner, here's reason to worry a little less: Amazon's teamed up with 11,000 public libraries that'll beam books to your Kindle for free.
It's unclear whether the full overlap of your library's collection and Amazon's kindle catalog will be available, or just a smattering of literature. It's also unclear how long you'll be able to "borrow" an ebook for. But whatever's up for grabs, you'll have full access to it across any Kindle device or app, straight from your library's website. That's right—no need to even go into the library and see the faces of the downtrodden librarians whose job will soon consist mainly of ensuring the ebook server is still plugged in.
Check your local library's website for availability. [Amazon]
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How do you slake the thirst of 5.5 million Chicagoans spread throughout the country's third largest city and 118 surrounding suburbs? You treat one billion gallons of water a day at the world's largest water treatment plant.
Opened in 1968, the James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant provides virtually all of Chicago's potable water, though the smaller South Water Purification Plant also helps provide for the south end of the city. The process begins 2.5 miles off shore at massive in-flow points called cribs. Each crib pulls water from 20 feet below the surface down a 168-foot vertical shaft to tubes cut from the bedrock which flow back to the shore. Once it reaches the plant, fish and other large debris are filtered out using a rotating screen and the water is pumped 25 feet up to begin the gravity-powered treatment process.
The water is first chemically treated with chlorine to kill microbes and activated carbon to remove objectionable tastes and odors, then fluoride is added for healthier teeth, and finally aluminum sulfate about an hour into the process to increase the stickiness of microscopic solids which then adhere to each other, creating floc. Large paddles—floculators—assist with the mixing of alum and water. One of the very last chemicals added, polyphosphate, is used to coat the inside of Chicago's pipes, preventing the lead in old plumbing from leaching into the water supply. The water is then pumped into settling tanks where the floc sinks to the bottom. This sedimentation phase eliminates roughly 90 percent of the particulate matter from the water.
The water is then filtered in one of 96 swimming pool-sized tanks filled with a layer of coarse gravel under an upper layer of fine sand—together these layers effectively filter much of the remaining floc and debris from the water. The entire process from crib to filtration takes eight hours. From here, the water is pumped through 4,000 miles of pipe for consumption by the Chicago area's 5.5 million residents.
[Me Magazine - Algor - Water Purification Wiki - Jardine Water Purification Plant Wiki]
Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.
You can keep up with Andrew Tarantola, the author of this post, on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Related StoriesView the original article here
Samsung now pays Microsoft for the privilege of selling Android phones. Of course, it's being called a "partnership." And yes, we've seen this before: Microsoft also strong armed HTC into giving them a cut of the profits for every Android device sold.
Microsoft, sitting on a stack of patents they believe have been infringed upon by Google's Android platform, has bullied yet another handset manufacturer into handing cash over. In fact, between HTC and Samsung, they're going to make more money off Android than they do Windows Phone 7. And Google isn't happy about that, calling this move extortion and issuing the following statement to TechCrunch:
"This is the same tactic we've seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others' achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners."
Of course, Microsoft is also trying to pull the same maneuver on the (now) Google-owned Motorola, but Moto keeps wriggling out of that conflict. If Motorola, who has plenty of patents of their own (not to mention Google's), doesn't budge, what happens next? Will there be a winner takes all patent war? Then again Samsung sells more Android devices than anyone, and they didn't want to mess with Microsoft, so it's anyone's guess what Moto will do. [Microsoft, TechCrunch, AllThingsD]
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Roger Ebert was right. Not about video games not being art, that was pure bullshit. He was right about 3D being a waste of movie-goers' money—and apparently more and more people are agreeing with him.
Slate reports that while 3D films practically printed money in 2009 and early 2010, things started to fall apart with the release of Toy Story 3. The film made $110.3 million at the box office, which is great—except that the per-theatre revenue of the 3D version of the film was 5 percent less than the 2D version. Which kicked off a downward trend that seems to be getting worse.
More often than not, the 3D versions of huge blockbusters are failing to generate the cash the 2D versions are pulling in. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule; the 3D versions of TRON and Resident Evil: Afterlife both annihilated their 2D counterparts at the box office. That that's light cycles—how could you not want to see those in three amazing dimensions?
Avatar Director and 3D evangelist, James Cameron hit it right on the nose when he said that movie goers "don't want to pay extra for something that's not a great experience." Hopefully Hollywood will listen, and realize that slapping a 3D badge on a movie and expecting people to pay a premium to see is a losing proposition. Unless The Lion King 3D makes a gillion dollars this weekend. Then we're screwed. [Slate]
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Asimo, the Honda humanoid, one of the world's most loved robots, was showing off its dance moves this week at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco.
The robot was here to demonstrate some new tricks it's been learning from scientists at the Honda Research Institute in Mountain View, Calif.
Victor Ng-Thow-Hing, Behzad Dariush, and colleagues work with Asimo seeking to develop robotics technologies that can assist people, especially in terms of mobility.
In one demonstration, the scientists showed how Asimo can mimic a person's movements in real time. The researchers use Microsoft's Kinect 3D sensor to track selected points on a person's upper body, and their software uses an inverse kinematics approach to generate control commands to make Asimo move. The software prevents self collisions and excessive joint motions that might damage its system and is integrated with Asimo's whole-body controller in order to maintain balance. The researchers say that the ability of mimicking a person in real time could find applications in robot programming and interactive teleoperation, among other things.
In another demo, the scientists showed how they're using gestures to improve Asimo's communication skills. They're developing a gesture-generating system that takes any input text and analyzes its grammatical structure, timing, and choice of word phrases to automatically generate movements for the robot. To make the behavior more realistic, the scientists used a vision system to capture humans performing various gestures, and then they incorporated these natural movements into their gesture-generating system.
This was my first encounter face to face with Asimo, and upon close inspection I noticed something on Asimo's face that I didn't know it was there. Take a look at the photo below. Can you see it?
Photos: Evan Ackerman; video: Erico Guizzo and Evan Ackerman
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Joe Litwin was waiting for a box to ship his broken Sony Vaio laptop in for repairs. Normal enough, right? One thing: the box never came. Instead, other Sony customers looking for repairs began shipping their broken computers to Litwin's home. What the?
It's an incredibly odd mixup—a man who wanted Sony to fix his computer accidentally became the warehouse where Sony directed their customers to send their broken computers. In total, he received seven broken Sony computers with five more on the way. Someone even called Litwin's phone number, asking if he was a Sony technician. Who knows when this will end!
Can you imagine the monumental mistake? All those computers with all that personal data in a stranger's home? Sony doesn't know the root of the problem but has figured that they had somehow started printing Litwin's home address as return labels for other customers. After failing to receive any help from Sony's customer service on his own, he reached out to the news. Predictably, Sony is now fixing the problem. I think one of these should be in order for Litwin. The other customers don't even realize where their computer is right now. [NBC4i via Consumerist]
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If you want to use Facebook, but don't want Facebook's tendrils extending all over the internet and following your account, you'll want this. Facebook Disconnect completely blocks the social network's ability to track your account around the web.
Like buttons, share buttons, Facebook comment threads, Facebook logins—all these now-ubiquitous adornments will be nuked entirely. So you'll lose some functionality, but if you're a privacy maven, you'll have the peace of mind that Mark Zuckerberg can't know anything about you after you close the Facebook.com tab. [Facebook Disconnect]
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I've seen a few computer generated graphics of the new World Trade Center in New York City, but all of them were quite bland. Not this one. The level of realism in some of these sequences is truly impressive.
Fast forward to minute two to see the most impressive shots, which really give an idea of how gigantic and blindingly shiny this complex is going to be. [Kuriositas]
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It looks like Netflix CEO wasn't totally full of hot air when he claimed that Netflix would be adding a bunch of new streaming content. Discovery Communications has agreed to a two-year deal to bring full episodes of its TV shows to Netflix.
The deal only covers episodes from previous seasons, so you won't be able to stay current by watching on Netflix, but until now there was no way to watch Discovery's shows in their entirety online.
Discovery Communication's networks include Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, ID: Investigation Discovery, and the Science and Military Channels. So popular shows like Dirty Jobs, Man vs. Wild, and Deadliest Catch will all be available. The one exception is Oprah's OWN network, which wasn't included in the deal.
Season-old episodes aren't going to be a cure-all for Netflix streaming, which is in the process of losing its Starz content, but who's going to argue against being able to queue up Bear Grylls drinking some Bear Grylls urine? [Reuters]
Photo Credit: Reuters/Enrique Marcarian
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This Is My Next just got a look at Motorola's latest LTE handset, the Motorola Spyder, and it has the unique pedigree of being the first 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED screen. That combination is a promise of crisp, high-res visuals.
Rounding things out is an unnamed 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of memory, and an 8MP rear-camera. It's already pretty similar to the Droid Bionic, but the new screen should help solve that graininess issue. More details are sure to come. [This Is My Next]
Update: One of TIMN's tipsters has learned the name this new phone will go by: the Droid RAZR. They're reviving the RAZR name? I'm suddenly getting mid-aughts flashbacks.
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Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt—and his company's many detractors—are about to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as to whether its search practices violate antitrust law. And you can watch the whole parade right here.
There will be grandstanding! Lawyer speak! An angry Yelp CEO! And probably a whole lot of old politicians killing time until their next nap. It's all here, helpfully annotated by the Sunlight Foundation, starting at 2pm EST (read: nowish):
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As though anyone needed to make this week's Netflix debacle any more confusing, Blockbuster's about to announce a streaming service to compete with Netflix's newly-single streaming service.
Blockbuster hasn't actually come out and said they're announcing streaming, but the invitations to their 1PM event today describe a "stream come true." Real subtle, guys. Though in fairness, a Blockbuster Streaming service wasn't exactly a well-kept secret: When Dish Network bought Blockbuster for $320 million, they said outright that one of the reasons was the potential to launch streaming.
One thing to keep an eye on is whether Blockbuster institutes a premium (more expensive) tier of service, which may have been one of the hangups with Netflix not being able to re-up with Starz. We're not sure what the library and pricing will look like just yet, so check back after the announcement for how Blockbuster managed to muck things up this time. [BGR, All Things D]
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Hoping to remind everyone that they have a subscription service just like Spotify and Rdio, Microsoft's updated their Zune Pass subscription model. Too bad they destroyed the best thing about it.
Microsoft lowered the price of the Zune Music Pass from $14.99 to $9.99. Which is great! Cheaper is better.The price is more inline with the current offerings on the market from Rdio, Mog, Rhapsody, and Spotify. And, in addition to music, Zune Music Pass holders will have access to unlimited streaming music videos. Plus, you can sync songs to up to 4 different Zune devices. Also great!
Now for the terrible part. ZunePass is losing its most awesome feature, the one thing that differentiated it from every other subscription service: You'll no longer be able to download and own 10 free songs a month—which was effectively like buying 10 songs a month getting a subscription for $5.
The new subscriptions start on October 3, but current pass holders can keep their $14.99 subscriptions and keep on jamming on 10 free downloads a month. [Zune Insider]
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Today the summer ends. The season is changing because Earth is tilted. As it rotates around the Sun, the light reaches regions at a different angle for a longer or shorter time. This is how it looks from space:
This video shows how the line between the night and day—called the terminator—changes its angle from December 21 2011 to September 20, 2011. This doesn't mean the Sun changes its position in relation to Earth. It's Earth that moves. And since our planet is tilted on its vertical axis 23.5 degrees relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane—the plane on which Earth rotates—the Sun's light reaches the Northern and Southern Hemispheres for a different amount of time depending on Earth's position.
When Earth is going through the December's solstice, the axis is tilted away from the Sun. The Northern Hemisphere is exposed to the Sun for shorter time periods than the Southern Hemisphere. The longer nights mean less Sun radiation reaching the Northern Hemisphere, which means colder days during the winter seasons. Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere gets its long days of summer. The contrary happens during the June solstice.
Today we are going through the equinox—exactly, it happened at 9:04am Coordinated Universal Time. The terminator is now perpendicular to the orbital plane because the Earth's axis is inclined neither away nor towards the Sun. This means that both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere are getting roughly the same day and night hours. Here in NYC, this means fall. Down there in places like Buenos Aires, that means the beginning of the spring. On March 20 next year, this will happen again but on reverse.
This time lapse shows exactly how this all looks from space. The images for the video were captured by the EUMETSAT's Meteosat-9 satellite. [NASA's Earth Observatory, NASA Goddard Flickr Stream]
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When I pick up a tablet, I feel like I'm holding the future in my hands. Then I begin to wonder if the technology really did come from the future and was dropped off to us by a future civilization using concepts and technologies beyond our understanding to manipulate time and space. Maybe they used a wormhole to deliver the goods. Maybe they use wormholes for all their shipping needs. Did they just unleash a butterfly effect by altering their past? Oh shit, did they just shorten my life by 10 years? Doubtful. I think there are just some really smart engineers living in the here and now.
And one of the finest tablets money can buy is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It's fast, it's slim, and at $349, the refurbished model is $80 off. EMBRACE THE FUTURE. -AC
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It was a dark, ice-cold February. The merchant ship SS Gairsoppa was seeking refuge in Ireland when a Nazi U-boat sunk her. She was loaded with seven million ounces of silver. That's worth $202.74 million in today's dollars. According to the ship's manifest, she also carried 1700 tons of tea and a fair amount of pig iron. The Gairsoppa was on its way to Galway, Ireland, after leaving Convoy SL 64 because of low fuel. The convoy departed Freetown, Sierra Leone, on January 1941. Almost all of its 30 ships and ten escorts arrived to Liverpool on February 22. Some of them had to turn to other ports. Only the Gairsoppa was sunk.
Being alone at sea meant she was a good target for the Nazi sharks. A long-range German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 airplane found her at 08:00pm on February 16, 1941. About 14 hours later, the Kriegsmarine VIIB-class submarine U-101 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Ernst Mengersen spotted her on the open sea, 300 miles southwest of Galway Bay.
Mengersen, who you can see in the photo above wearing his Knight's Iron Cross, was one of the stars in the team of sea wolves created by Admirals Raeder and Dönitz. He sunk almost 70,000 tons of ships, most of them British cargo ships. He also sunk the HMS Broadwater, a Royal Navy destroyer.
After making contact with the Gairsoppa, Mengersen submerged his 66.5-meter-long U-boat—carrying 14 torpedoes and 26 mines—and prepared to kill the unsuspecting British ship. The commander ordered fire on the Gairsoppa's starboard side, sinking her in just 20 minutes. Most of the crew—88 sailors and officials, plus two gunners—died during the attack. As survivors of the initial barrage abandoned the ship, Mengersen mowed them down with the U-boat's machine gun. The only survivor was R.H. Ayres, the second officer, who reached the English coast 13 days after the attack.
Now, 70 years later, the treasure hunters at Odyssey Marine Exploration have found the Gairsoppa almost intact 4700 meters under water.
According to Odyssey, the seven million ounces of silver is "the largest known precious metal cargo ever recovered from the sea." They will keep 80%, while the British government would grab 20% of the total booty. They will start the recovery in 2012. The SS Gairsoppa had emergency stern steering which included a stern compass on the top of the poop deck. The binnacle housing the stern compass of the SS Gairsoppa shines in the lights of Odyssey's Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) during a visual inspection of the site approximately 4,700 meters deep.
Odyssey's crew is also excited by the finding itself. As Odyssey's Principal Marine Archaeologist Neil Cunningham Dobson puts it:
Being the son of a merchant mariner who worked for the same shipping line as the Gairsoppa's and as a former merchant mariner myself, the visit to the site via ROV was particularly personal. By analyzing the known configuration and research about the Gairsoppa and her final voyage and painstakingly exploring the shipwreck site to record each element and item, our team of experts was able to positively identify the site as the Gairsoppa. Even though records indicate that the lifeboats were launched before the ship sank, sadly most of her crew did not survive the long journey to shore. By finding this shipwreck, and telling the story of its loss, we pay tribute to the brave merchant sailors who lost their lives.
Indeed, it's exciting. Everything is exciting when there's seven million ounces of silver waiting for you. [Odyssey]
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