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Submission + - Arctic Records Its Hottest Temperature Ever (cbsnews.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Alarming heat scorched Siberia on Saturday as the small town of Verkhoyansk (67.5N latitude) reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees above the normal high temperature. If verified, this is likely the hottest temperature ever recorded in Siberia and also the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle, which begins at 66.5 degrees North. The town is 3,000 miles east of Moscow and further north than even Fairbanks, Alaska. On Friday, the city of Caribou, Maine, tied an all-time record at 96 degrees Fahrenheit and was once again well into the 90s on Saturday. To put this into perspective, the city of Miami, Florida, has only reached 100 degrees one time since the city began keeping temperature records in 1896.

Verkhoyansk is typically one of the coldest spots on Earth. This past November, the area reached nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, one of the first spots to drop that low in the winter of 2019-2020. Reaching 100 degrees in or near the Arctic is almost unheard of. Although the reading is questionable, back in 1915 the town of Fort Yukon, Alaska, not quite as far north as Verkhoyansk, is reported to have reached near 100 degrees. And in 2010 a town a few miles south of the Arctic circle in Russia reached 100. As a result of the hot-dry conditions right now, numerous fires rage nearby, and smoke is visible for thousands of miles on satellite images.

Submission + - Former Intel Engineer: Skylake QA drove Apple away (pcgamer.com) 1

UnknowingFool writes: A former Intel engineer has put forth information that the QA process around Skylake was so terrible that it may have finally driven Apple to use their own processors in upcoming Macs. Not to say that Apple would not have eventually made this move, but François Piednoël says Skylake was abnormally bad with Apple finding the largest amount of bugs inside the architecture rivaling Intel itself. That led Apple to reconsider staying on the architecture and hastening their plans to migrate to their own chips.

Comment Re:This beta should be...fun? (Score 1) 182

Today with most people having high speed internet Lag isn't an issue.

Lag isn't an issue due to customers high speed internet? You should browse the World of Warcraft customer forums. Multiple Battlegroups (groups of realms/servers) are suffering from constant lag and it has *nothing* to do with the user's internet speed. Five years after release Blizzard still suffers from lag and "unexpected downtime". After 5 years of weekly/bi weekly maintenance, how much "unexpected" can there really be? Lets hope SC2 doesn't reach the WoW popularity or if it does, lets hope Blizzard has learned a lot more about infrastructure than when WoW launched. Yes, I am a wow nerd, I'm not mad bro.

Comment Re:But Why? (Score 1) 176

After spending 5+ years as a loyal AT&T Cellular customer, we (the wife and I) switched to Sprint. We also used our cellphones as our home phones and when we bought our first house, we found out inside the house is a dead zone. We live in Memphis, so it isn't like we're out in the mountains or anything. I can walk to the end of my driveway and get a full signal with AT&T, but as soon as I go inside, it's a paper weight. After 3 conversations with reps and supervisors over the phone, and visits to local stores, they ended up giving us a break on our last 3 months bill. I'd love an iphone, but not at the expense of not being able to use it at home.
Businesses

Bloatware Removal Threatens PC Industry Profits 341

Anti-Globalism sends along a piece on how a consumer-friendly service is not so good for PC manufacturers. "Before they ship PCs to retailers like Best Buy, computer makers load them up with lots of free software. For $30, Best Buy will get rid of it for you. That simple cleanup service is threatening the precarious economics of the personal computer industry. Software companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to PC makers like Hewlett-Packard to install their photo tools, financial programs, and other products, usually with some tie-in to a paid service or upgrade. With margins growing thinner than most laptops, this critical revenue can make the difference between profit and loss for the computer makers, industry analysts say."

Feed Engadget: Engadget nominated in the 2007 Weblog Awards, voting still open (engadget.com)

Filed under: Announcements

Yeah, we know you've been hearing a lot about the 2007 Weblog Awards in the last couple of days as your source(s) for news across a variety of topics have likely been shamelessly whoring for votes in a bid for a little recognition. Well, as you may have learned, our little site has been honored by being nominated to run against a number of other fine publications for the title of Best Technology Blog. Much love to everyone who's voted for us (and continues to do so) up to once daily per IP address until November 8th. Oh, and let the best blog win. And we mean the best blog.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Feed Engadget: NASA's six-legged ATHLETE bot will roam the moon (engadget.com)

Filed under: Robots

Mars isn't the only heavenly body that NASA is trying to colonize with robots: the US space agency is currently working on a prototype rover named ATHLETE that may be cruising around the moon within the next decade. Short for All Terrain Hex Limbed Extra Terrestrial Explorer, ATHLETE sports six wheeled "legs" attached to a hexagonal frame loaded with cameras and sensors, allowing an Earth-bound operator to get a 360-degree sense of his or her surroundings. While the current iteration is only half as big as the final version will be, this rover will eventually be able to land and carry up to 20 tons of gear -- but without any sort of onboard defense system, it will probably stand little chance against the first Decepticon attack.

[Via MAKE]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Feed Schneier: Identity Theft Study (schneier.com)

Interesting study: "Identity Fraud Trends and Patterns: Building a Data-Based Foundation for Proactive Enforcement," October 2007. It's long, but at least read the executive summary. Or, even shorter, this Associated Press story: Researchers reviewed 517 cases closed by the Secret...

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