Items tagged with ants
Research dating back to the 1960s ultimately gave birth to the Internet, which at a glance doesn't seem to have much in common with ants. Look closely, however, and you'll discover certain parallels between today's vast network of interconnected computers and the underground tunnels of those social insects that belong...
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How would you feel if you couldn't drive faster than 80, or couldn't raise the volume on your car radio above a certain point? OK, maybe you wouldn't care so much, but your teenage son or daughter might. Ford is going to introduce a new system, MyKey, on its upcoming 2010 cars, starting with the Ford Focus. It will enable...
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Forget David Blaine's recent antics of hanging upside down for 60 straight hours in New York City's Central Park. The real challenge of human endurance commenced yesterday morning about a mile south of Blaine's stunt, in the middle of Times Square. There in a makeshift "plexi-glass living room" for the world to see, eight brave souls commenced...
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It was only a month ago that we reported how various police departments are setting up systems for receiving anonymous tips via text messaging to help solve crimes. Now the New York City Police Department's (NYPD) Commissioner, Ray Kelly, is embracing another social media technology to help police solve crimes: asking people upload "video...
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We're overstating the obvious here, but there is a reason why the face of so many vlogs is a pretty, young woman. You don't need an in-depth study of Social Technographics to figure it out either: This is an admittedly oversimplification, but simply put, Straight men want to be with her and women just want to be her. By catering to prurient...
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A new study (.PDF) released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals that not everyone wants broadband. Seriously. According to the study, 55% of adult Americans now have broadband internet connections at home, up from 47% in 2007. Also according to the study, with the increase in broadband adoption, only 10% of Americans...
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Andy Grove was once the Chairman of Intel, and is widely considered one of the best minds in American management. Time's Man of the Year for 1997 isn't spending his retirement from the chipmaker doing nothing; he's championing a push to get plug-in hybrid cars on the road ASAP.During the past year and a half, Grove has created his own crash...
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Lawrence Roberts is just another guy with the title:" Inventor of the Internet" in news articles. According to Wikipedia, he's the father of networking through data packets. And he's turned his attention to everyone's favorite data packet topic: Peer-to-Peer filesharing. He's established a company called Anagran, and says their devices can...
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Back in the day, it looked like Napster was going to bust the digital music business wide open. They were sued back to the stone age over copyright infringement, and more or less dropped from sight. Apple leaped into the breach, offering legal but locked music for their iPods through their own online store. Well, zombie Napster is back...
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Sounds like a science fiction movie doesn't it? But it's not.The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean."At this point, it...
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NVIDIA just launched a new optimized PC Configurator on the company's website designed to educate consumers on the importance of a GPU in overall system performance. The configurator website states that "At least half of the PCs shipped today have an underpowered GPU...You need the right CPU / GPU mix for the best experience. Whether you're
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When we heard about a Vista Home Premium upgrade edition bundled with OneCare stuffed into a box that looked like it belonged to Hello Kitty, we were naturally wondering if we ate some bad seafood. Here's more:“As a special promotion for the Japanese market, an upgrade version of Windows Vista Home Premium is bundled with a year’s subscription...
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'DVD Jon.' of DVD and FairPlay cracking fame, has gone legit.Beginning Tuesday, the first product from his company, DoubleTwist Ventures, will enter open beta. Called DoubleTwist, it's a free desktop client that essentially allows any kind of music, photo, or video file to be shared between a long list of portable media players, and through...
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As with any takeover or bailout, there's always the question of which, if any, members of management will be left standing by the new powers that be. SCO's bailout offer appears to be no different, and there are no real surprises as to who the mysterious buyer wants out of the picture.The deal, in which an unnamed Middle East partner...
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Yahoo is an interesting entity. It has an enormous Internet presence, of course; 500 million visitors a month. But Yahoo seems like an audience without a show from time to time. Its share price has declined precipitously, losing half its value in the last two years; Google is killing them at Internet search; and social networking sites drag...
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Well, not exactly. But IBM is claiming that Taiwan-based Asus is infringing on several of their patents, and wants the United States International Trade Commission to ban the import of Asus Computer products into the US until they get their pound of patent flesh. This could get very interesting, because Asus makes computers under their...
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Apparently the Manhunt 2 controversy isn't over quite yet, and with presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton throwing herself into the fray, it isn't likely to end anytime soon. What is Hillary planning on this time? A review of the ESRB.For those who haven't been following the situation, here's a recap:“Last June, three European countries...
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Well, not exactly. But a technology developed by British boffins to protect soldiers from chemical attack, called "ion-mask," has been released for civilian use to P2i in Oxfordshire, England. It's poised to become the method of choice for protecting electronic devices of all kinds from exposure to water. It doesn't rely on elaborate gaskets...
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File this under: Nifty. A doctor working on a pneumatic vest used to remotely prod patients and allow diagnoses to be made over the internet hit on the idea of using the vest to simulate video game damage being inflicted on the player.A vest designed by doctor Mark Ombrellaro uses air pressure and feedback from computer games to deliver pneumatic...
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Video game behemoth Electronic Arts just got a little bigger. They've acquired two software studios, BioWare and Pandemic, for an industry record breaking $860 million. Although Electronic Arts is the number one video game publisher in the world, their offerings in the first person shooter/ role playing/action genre are a little ...
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The wi-fi coverage plans that several U.S. cities have been entertaining have taken hits of late with the woes of Earthlink. Meanwhile, in the U.K., a partnership between BT Group and FON has opened up a huge number of additional hotspots in that country. Now McDonald's has announced plans to add themselves to the mix.Fast food chain McDonald's...
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Google didn't want Microsoft's ubiquitous PowerPoint presentations to be the only way to put people to sleep in a business meeting, so they've come out with their own version of the slide software they call Presentation. "The new program will be included in Google's free software bundle, called "Docs," which users must be online...
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