Monthly Archives: July 2016

Everything We Can Piece Together About Apple's Mysterious Car Project

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It’s 2016, and Apple’s mysterious, oft-buzzed about car project is still tucked away under the “ideas that may or may not happen in this lifetime” section of the company’s filing cabinet. Despite a powerful rumor mill—former Apple board member Mickey Drexler once claimed it was Steve Jobs’ “dream” to make an iCar, and reports have repeatedly materialized
over the years that Apple was in various stages of building its own vehicle—we’re still waiting, and the will-they-or-won’t-they nature of the project has us asking
if we’ll ever see the vehicular version of Sasquatch.

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Source: Gizmodo – Everything We Can Piece Together About Apple’s Mysterious Car Project

Amazon Reaches New High Of 268,900 Employees — Skyrocketing 47% In Just One Year

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Amazon remains one of the biggest attractors of talent worldwide. During its quarterly earnings, the company said it hired 23,700 employees in the second quarter — making the total employee headcount at the company 268,900. GeekWire reports: Amazon’s headcount has grown by a staggering amount over the last few years. Its employment numbers increased close to 10 percent in the last three months and 47 percent over a year ago, when its employee count stood at a paltry-by-comparison 183,100 people. That’s an increase of 85,800 employees in one year — more than the entire city of Bellingham, Wash.Related: The New York Times report on work challenges at Amazon.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Amazon Reaches New High Of 268,900 Employees — Skyrocketing 47% In Just One Year

Patriot Adds Two Dual-Channel DDR4-3733 Memory Kits into Lineup

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Patriot this week unveiled two new DDR4 kits rated to run at DDR4-3733. The dual-channel kits are designed for Intel’s latest platforms and belong to Patriot’s Viper Elite and Viper 4 families. The new DDR4-3733 memory modules will be the fastest in Patriot’s lineup.


Patriot’s new Viper Elite and Viper 4 dual-channel memory kits are rated to run at 3733 MT/s with CL17 19-19-39 timings at 1.35 V. The sets consist of two 8 GB modules, which use modern 8 Gb memory ICs (integrated circuits) from an undisclosed manufacturer. The new modules are designed for Intel’s 100-series platforms and come with XMP 2.0 profiles to make it easier for end-users to run them at their rated specifications with the right timings and voltage.






Specifications of Patriot’s DDR4-3733 Kits
  Module Capacity Kit

Capacity		 Latencies Voltage Height Part Number
Viper Elite 8 GB 16 GB 17-19-19-39 1.35 V 43.0 mm PVE416G373C7KRD
Viper 4 42.6 mm PV416G373C7K

The difference between the Viper Elite and the Viper 4 modules in all in the look. Typically, Patriot positions its Viper Elite products below the Viper 4, and aims them at modders. These modules come with heatsinks of three different colors (red, blue and grey). The Viper 4 family typically focuses on the faster segments and features red extruded aluminum heatsinks. Nonetheless, in this particular case both the Viper Elite DDR4-3733 devices also come only with silver and red heatsinks. Therefore, the difference between two types of DDR4-3733 solutions from Patriot lies only in aesthetics and dimensions.



Patriot’s Viper 4 and Viper Elite 16 GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3733 dual-channel memory kits will be available for purchase online and in stores starting from August 3 for the recommended price of $159.99.


Only a few memory module makers offer DDR4 sticks rated to run above 3400 MT/s speeds because it requires sufficient binning, as well as an appropriate volume of sales to make it worthwhile. It gets rather tricky to cherry pick a sufficient amount of such ICs to build appropriate products. The fact that Patriot rolled out two DDR4-3733 kits indicates that the company is willing to compete for very high-end systems featuring fast memory as well as showing the ability of mass-produced DDR4 chips to run at higher frequencies.



Source: AnandTech – Patriot Adds Two Dual-Channel DDR4-3733 Memory Kits into Lineup

You Won’t Waste Any More Food or Money with These Discounted Produce Containers

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We’re all probably a bit ashamed of the amount of produce we allow to spoil in the fridge, but these Rubbermaid FreshWorks containers use a few neat tricks to extend your food’s lifespan, and avoid unnecessary waste.

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Source: LifeHacker – You Won’t Waste Any More Food or Money with These Discounted Produce Containers

Watch a Katana Bend When It Hits Liquid

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Watch a Katana Bend When It Hits Liquid

In order to harden the edge of steel, swords are often heated until they’re impossibly hot and then quenched in liquid to rapidly cool down. This creates a much stronger grain structure in the steel which obviously leads to a much stronger sword. An interesting thing that happens during this quenching process is how the sword dramatically bends before it snaps back into shape (with a slight upward tilt).

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Source: Gizmodo – Watch a Katana Bend When It Hits Liquid

Extreme Sports: Running On A Treadmill With LEGO Blocks Constantly Being Dropped

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treadmill-lego-run.jpg

Note: Language because running on LEGO blocks.

This is a video of several guys trying to see how long they can run on a treadmill with LEGO bricks constantly being dropped in front of them. They all do fairly decent, and one dude even manages to stay on long enough to get his foot punctured by a piece. Me? I could run on LEGO blocks all day long. You see, when I was a kid growing up in Alabama my friends and I trained ourselves to develop what we called ninja feet. Basically we just ran around all year long with no shoes on until the bottom of our feet were so callused that nothing hurt anymore. And I’ve kept them just like that into adulthood. I can stand barefoot on black asphalt in 110-degree sun until the bottom of my feet start to sizzle and you can smell the skin roasting but it doesn’t hurt. “Sick!” I don’t even have to try to be cool to be cool, I just am.

Keep going for the video, then come over and let’s try the same thing with light bulbs.

Source: Geekologie – Extreme Sports: Running On A Treadmill With LEGO Blocks Constantly Being Dropped

Astronaut Academy, a.k.a. 'Harry Potter in Space,' Gets Optioned for TV and Film

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“It’s Harry Potter in space,” says producer Vivek J. Tiwary and really, that’s all he needs to say. That short sentence is enough to get people interested in Astronaut Academy, a comic series by Dave Roman
that Tiwary just optioned to make into both a TV show and movie.

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Source: io9 – Astronaut Academy, a.k.a. ‘Harry Potter in Space,’ Gets Optioned for TV and Film

Australia Has Moved 1.5 Metres, So It's Updating Its Location For Self-Driving Cars

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An anonymous reader shares a CNET report: Australia is changing from “down under” to “down under and across a bit”. The country is shifting its longitude and latitude to fix a discrepancy with global satellite navigation systems. Government body Geoscience Australia is updating the Geocentric Datum of Australia, the country’s national coordinate system, to bring it in line with international data. The reason Australia is slightly out of whack with global systems is that the country moves about 7 centimetres (2.75 inches) per year due to the shifting of tectonic plates. Since 1994, when the data was last recorded, that’s added up to a misalignment of about a metre and a half. While that might not seem like much, various new technology requires location data to be pinpoint accurate. Self-driving cars, for example, must have infinitesimally precise location data to avoid accidents. Drones used for package delivery and driverless farming vehicles also require spot-on information.ABC has more details.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Australia Has Moved 1.5 Metres, So It’s Updating Its Location For Self-Driving Cars

Sony Sued For Not Protecting Leaked Movie From Pirates

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Sony is being sued for failing to meet contractual obligations which required the company to protect a movie (one of many) from being pirated. This all stems from the infamous Sony hack at the end of 2014.

In 2014, Sony was subjected to a massive cyberattack which resulted in the leak of huge quantities of data. The trove contained several movies, all of which appeared online for anyone to download for free. Now the owner of one of the titles is suing Sony, claiming that company failed in its obligation to protect the movie from Internet pirates.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Sony Sued For Not Protecting Leaked Movie From Pirates

Tom Holland Hints at How Captain America: Civil War Affects Spider-Man Homecoming

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Fans who weren’t in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con last week haven’t seen it yet, but the first footage from
Jon Watts’ Spider-Man Homecoming was excellent: it’s got an upbeat, ‘80s high school vibe with one very surprising moment for Peter Parker, which we asked star Tom Holland about.

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Source: io9 – Tom Holland Hints at How Captain America: Civil War Affects Spider-Man Homecoming

Calculate Your Alcohol Calories For This Weekend, Right Now

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How many calories are in your usual night at the bar? Even though beer will soon get nutrition labels
, and a few other drinks like cider already have them, doing math with calories is probably not part of your fun night out. Instead, here’s a calculator that will give you a good estimate before (or after) the fact.

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Source: LifeHacker – Calculate Your Alcohol Calories For This Weekend, Right Now