69571493
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alphadogg writes:
SkyMall, the quirky airline catalog, looks as though it may be grounded before long. Parent company Xhibit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection http://www.xhibitcorp.com/inve... and seeks to sell its assets. In an SEC filing, Xhibit explains that it has fallen victim to an "intensely competitive" direct marketing retail industry that now includes the likes of eBay and Amazon.com. Smartphones and tablets are largely to blame for SkyMall's downfall, according to the SEC filing. "Historically, the SkyMall catalog was the sole in-flight option for potential purchasers of products to review while traveling. With the increased use of electronic devices on planes, fewer people browsed the SkyMall in-flight catalog."
69407731
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MollsEisley writes:
Right now, Tizen is still somewhat half-baked, which is why you shouldn’t expect to see a high-end Tizen smartphone hit your local carrier for a while yet, but Samsung’s priorities could change rapidly. If Tizen development speeds up a bit, the OS could become a stand-in for Android on entry-level and mid-range Samsung phones and eventually take over Samsung’s entire smartphone (and tablet) lineup.
69407633
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blottsie writes:
On Tuesday, Obama will unveil a dramatic push to improve broadband Internet service for people around the country through community-built municipal broadband networks. Problem is, state legislatures around the country have passed laws making it considerably more difficult for these public Internet projects to get off the ground. In some states, building municipal broadband is prohibited altogether. This piece dives into the state laws standing between us and more competitive Internet service markets.
69074579
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astroengine writes:
Test flights of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo are on schedule to begin again this year – this time with its own pilots, the chief executive of Richard Branson’s space startup said Friday. The first in a series of planned passenger spaceships was destroyed on Oct. 31, 2014, during a fatal test flight being conducted by manufacturer Scaled Composites. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, determined that co-pilot Michael Alsbury, who died in the crash, released the ship’s moveable tail section early. The vehicle was not traveling fast enough for aerodynamic forces to keep the so-called “feather” pinned in place, as designs called for. As a result, the ship was torn apart, jettisoning pilot Pete Siebold in the process, who managed to parachute to safety.
68987327
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blottsie writes:
It didn't... hurt. Hurt isn't the right way to describe it. It felt like a tightness; it felt like the patch was trying to crawl across my skin. But—if you can believe this—in a good way.
And while Thync was attached to the right side of my head, occasionally I felt "tingles" pulling and hitting my brain on the left side and in the middle.
I was feeling progressively awake and aware. Granted, I had patches stuck to my head sending gentle vibrations to my brain, so that might have been part of my sudden alertness. But still, after 20 minutes of Thync I just felt... better.
68892575
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blottsie writes:
The FCC has heard your complaints, and it's finally going to make it easier to file more complaints.
The Federal Communications Commission on Monday announced the launch of its Consumer Help Center, which according to a press release will feature a 'streamlined, user-friendly complaint filing system,' the '[a]bility for consumers to monitor complaints, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,' and '[f]aster delivery of complaints to service providers, enabling them to respond to consumers sooner.'
68889043
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MollsEisley writes:
Throughout Amsterdam there are “Living Labs,” or communities that act as petri dishes for ideas and initiatives to be tested before scaling them across the city. In IJburg, Amsterdam’s youngest neighborhood, projects like free Wi-Fi and a new Fiber network, personalized television and transportation services, and a coworking space allow residents to experiment and test city projects to improve healthcare, environment, and energy programs in the city.
68888355
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MollsEisley writes:
Like hypochondria, cyberchondria is simply a more elegant way of saying “it’s all in your head”—only in this case the people self-diagnosing are using tenuous data gleaned from the Internet and our ever-connected gadgets to support their hypotheses.
68887963
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jfruh writes:
Despite their widespread use in industry and law enforcement, traditional lie-detector polygraphs give accurate results only about 60% of the time, barely better than the 55% accuracy people can get just by following their gut instincts. Now researchers in the UK and the Netherlands are trying to improve that. They claim a full-body polygraph based on motion-capture suits used for movie special effects can detect lies with 75% accuracy.
68886475
submission
HughPickens.com writes:
The cost of getting to orbit is exorbitant, because the rocket, with its multimillion-dollar engines, ends up as trash in the ocean after one launching, something Elon Musk likens to throwing away a 747 jet after a single transcontinental flight. That's why tomorrow morning at 620 am his company hopes to upend the economics of space travel in a daring plan by attempting to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket intact on a floating platform, 300 feet long and 170 feet wide in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX has attempted similar maneuvers on three earlier Falcon 9 flights, and on the second and third attempts, the rocket slowed to a hover before splashing into the water. “We’ve been able to soft-land the rocket booster in the ocean twice so far,” says Musk. “Unfortunately, it sort of sat there for several seconds, then tipped over and exploded. It’s quite difficult to reuse at that point.”
After the booster falls away and the second stage continues pushing the payload to orbit, its engines will reignite to turn it around and guide it to a spot about 200 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida. Musk puts the chances of success at 50 percent or less but over the dozen or so flights scheduled for this year, “I think it’s quite likely, 80 to 90 percent likely, that one of those flights will be able to land and refly.” SpaceX will offer its own launch webcast on the company's website beginning at 6 a.m. If SpaceX’s gamble succeeds, the company plans to reuse the rocket stage on a later flight. “Reusability is the critical breakthrough needed in rocketry to take things to the next level."
