Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO, Will Stay On As Chairman, Tim Cook New CEO

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO, Will Stay On As Chairman, Tim Cook New CEO:


Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple in a letter to Apple's Board of DirectorsIn his letter, Steve requests to stay on as Chairman and appoints Tim Cook to be the new CEO. The requests must be approved by the board, which is all but assured.





Steve has been on his third medical leave of absence since January of this year.

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:





I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.





I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.





As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.





I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.





I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.





Steve

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Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO, Tim Cook takes over

Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO, Tim Cook takes over: Apple co-founder Steve Jobs announced on Wednesday that he is no longer fit to serve as the company's chief executive officer, officially resigning from the position, which has been be filled by Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi

Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi: In May, the feds simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly. The exercise went largely unnoticed at the time. But after Tuesday's quake, there are new reasons to pay attention. Like the 15 nuclear reactors in the seismic zone.

A Sleep Battle of the Sexes - WSJ.com

A Sleep Battle of the Sexes - WSJ.com: Most people regularly sleep with a partner, and some research has shown that people wake up more and have less deep sleep when they sleep with another person. Still, people generally say they are more satisfied with their sleep when they are with a loved one. "There are objective costs to the physical presence of someone else in the bed," says Wendy M. Troxel, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a leading researcher on relationships and sleep. But "the safety and security we derive from our social relationships trumps the cost," she says.

How To Break Your Daily Caffeine Habit And Use Coffee Strategically | Fast Company

How To Break Your Daily Caffeine Habit And Use Coffee Strategically | Fast Company: Caffeine does its magic not by directly stimulating your cells, but by being extremely similar to adenosine, a cell by-product that your body monitors as a kind of gauge for exhaustion. Caffeine's molecules plug up your receptors for adenosine, so your body stops getting signals that it's tired.

Quake rocks Washington area, felt on East Coast

Quake rocks Washington area, felt on East Coast:

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., shook much of Washington, D.C., and was felt as far north as Rhode Island, New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where President Barack Obama is vacationing.

Sprint to Join AT&T and Verizon in Offering iPhone 5 at 'Mid-October' Launch

Sprint to Join AT&T and Verizon in Offering iPhone 5 at 'Mid-October' Launch: The Wall Street Journal reports that Sprint will offer the iPhone 5 when it launches later this year, becoming the third U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone. According to the report, the iPhone 5 will launch simultaneously on Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T in "mid-October".

n+1: Chathexis

n+1: Chathexis: Talking, of course, is nothing new. But conversation, in the 17th century, was a novel ideal of speech: not utilitarian instructions or religious catechism, but an exchange of ideas, a free play of wit. Thus the hostesses of the Enlightenment received visitors in a new kind of furniture. In 1667, the Gobelins tapestry-weaving workshop became Louis XIV’s official furniture supplier. Previously, fabric—like Madame de Rambouillet’s velvet—had been confined to walls and clothing. The Gobelins were the first to apply it to chairs, which for many long, uncomfortable centuries had been small and hard. Now they were wide and soft—more like beds. The fauteuil confessional, for instance, had wraparound wings against which the listener might rest her cheek, as the priest had done behind his screen. Listening and talking became even easier in the 1680s, with the introduction of the sofa. Seating for two! For the first time in history, people could sit comfortably together indoors for long stretches—thereby making it easier for them to speak comfortably together for long stretches. Thus was conversation enshrined—en-couched—as a vehicle of Enlightenment, fundamental to the self-improvement of civilization.

One good thing about work Gchats: they can’t be videochats. The videochat is too eye-catching, too attention-getting—although the attention it gets would be other people’s, not ours. For even when we maximize the video—when our friend’s face swims into view, as large as our own, eclipsing our MacBook’s starry default desktop—it still seems small and insignificant. Videochat—introduced to Gchat in 2008, and before that one of the major selling points of the popular chat client Skype—is a medium that, except for the way it allows you to display cats and babies to distant friends, is every bit as alienating as technophobes predicted. The built-in camera tends to cast everyone in the same gray pallor. Revealed to us in videochat, our friends are all nostril and no heart. Our interlocutor looks lonely, bored. Tired. We feel the same. Every relationship is reduced by videochat to two
properties: 1) the inability to touch and 2) the lack of desire to.

For if, as Necker wrote, “the secret of conversation is continual attention,” the enduring romance and appeal of Gchat can perhaps be explained by the way certain nighttime Gchats so effortlessly hold and reward our attention. Gchat returns philosophy to the bedroom as, late at night, we find ourselves in a state of rapturous focus. Which perhaps is why so many of us feel our best selves in Gchat. Silent, we are unable to talk over our friends, and so we become better and deeper listeners, as well as better speakers—or writers. (To be articulate—but not alone! To be with another person—but not inarticulate! When else does this happen?)

And who do we Gchat with, when it counts? Friends, past boyfriends, future boyfriends, other people’s boyfriends. But rarely our actual boyfriend, who’s next to us in bed, looking for something to watch on Hulu. (Unless he’s out of town, in which case we chat with him, and are reminded why we fell for him in the first place.) Gchat is for friendship, and affairs.

SPIES AND HOLY WARS by Reeva Spector Simon, reviewed by Robert Irwin - TLS

SPIES AND HOLY WARS by Reeva Spector Simon, reviewed by Robert Irwin - TLS: It was a chance journalistic assignment that took Rohmer to Limehouse and Whitechapel and led him to produce The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu (serialized 1912–13), a novel about the Yellow Peril, after which Rohmer found himself reluctantly tied to his fictional creation, in much the same way as Conan Doyle was not allowed by his readership to kill off Sherlock Holmes. Yet Rohmer’s first enthusiasm had been for the Arab world and more specifically for Cairo, where he spent his honeymoon in 1913. Besides setting The Mask of Fu Manchu in the Middle East, he also produced a string of detective stories under the title Tales of Secret Egypt. (Though Simon claims that the mysterious and resourceful Arab detective, Abu Tabah, who features in several of these stories, is a Sufi, I found no direct evidence of this.) Rohmer’s Chinese master villain was memorably evoked in The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu:

"a person, tall, lean and feline, high shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all of the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government – which, however, has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags

United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags: United Airlines today announced that it has gone a step further, committing to a full transition to using iPads as electronic flight bags and rolling out 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots.
Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot.

Apple streams new Red Hot Chili Peppers on iTunes

Apple streams new Red Hot Chili Peppers on iTunes: iTunes users can, for the first time, stream an entire album through the iTunes Store. The stream is a preview of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You, which can only be preordered at the moment with the exception of one single. The complete download will unlock on August 30th....

United Airlines switching to iPads in the cockpit

United Airlines switching to iPads in the cockpit: United Airlines is swapping out paper manuals in its planes with Apple's iPad, which will now serve as a paperless flight manual for pilots.

Apple Releases iTunes 10.4.1 with Assorted Bug Fixes

Apple Releases iTunes 10.4.1 with Assorted Bug Fixes: Apple today released iTunes 10.4.1, bringing a handful of bug fixes to the company's media management and syncing software. The bug fixes target a number of areas, including media keys on third-party keyboards, artwork addition, movie purchasing, responsiveness, and VoiceOver.

And hopefully a fix for the full-screen Coverflow display bug that's been plaguing me.

Apple drops prices on refurbished iPad 1s to as low as $299

Apple drops prices on refurbished iPad 1s to as low as $299: Apple has dropped the prices of refurbished iPad 1s at its online store. A 16GB Wi-Fi model now costs just $299, $30 less than it did in June. Demand appears to be such that the model is already out of stock, although whether this is permanent is unknown. The company may gradually accumulate enough units to justify more refurbished offers....

HP promises webOS still coming to non-mobile, Pre3 is alive

HP promises webOS still coming to non-mobile, Pre3 is alive: HP's recently installed webOS leader Stephen DeWitt on Monday said that the decision to drop webOS mobile devices hadn't affected plans to bring webOS to PCs. In an interview, he insisted that plans were still underway to dual-boot webOS and Windows. He added in the AllThingsD conversation that he saw webOS as a "popular platform" on multiple "connected devices," including printers....

Smartphones on the platform weren't going away quickly, DeWitt went on. Although its future was now shortened, the Pre3 would have a "very selective" release in key areas. It and the Veer would still be on sale and get both support and updates for the future. TouchPads were included in that mix.


Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/08/22/hp.says.webos.still.seeing.pc.plans/#ixzz1VnAIkxOP

Best Buy offers iPhone 3GS for free--for a day

Best Buy offers iPhone 3GS for free--for a day: If you think $49 was too much for the older iPhone, does free get your attention? If so, Best Buy would like to see you today.

Near death, WebOS is more popular than ever

Near death, WebOS is more popular than ever: The mobile operating system that Hewlett-Packard plans to shelve finds a new luster with discount sales and bids to lure application developers.

The 10 Best Things to Do With Your New $99 HP TouchPad | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

The 10 Best Things to Do With Your New $99 HP TouchPad | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: The $99 HP TouchPad is one of the best tech deals of the year—possibly one of the best tech deals ever. Even though the TouchPad's webOS may never see another product, the TouchPad is still a powerful, flexible tablet, and $99 (or $149 for the 32GB) is a killer price.

How Washington lost faith in America's courts

How Washington lost faith in America's courts:

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the unexpected extent of the damage Americans have done to themselves and their institutions is coming into better focus. The event that "changed everything" did turn out to change Washington in ways more startling than most people realize. On terrorism and national security, to take an obvious (if seldom commented upon) example, the confidence of the U.S. government seems to have been severely, perhaps irreparably, shaken when it comes to that basic and essential American institution: the courts.

The poor may have appliances, but that doesn't mean they're living 'the good life' | MailTribune.com

The poor may have appliances, but that doesn't mean they're living 'the good life' | MailTribune.com: When the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century brought a new kind of wealth — and a new kind of poverty — to England, Benjamin Disraeli wrote of "two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy, who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were ... Inhabitants of different planets."

That still sounds right. You don't hear much about the poor these days. Ronald Reagan proved politicians didn't have to worry about them. Americans living in poverty don't call politicians' dance tunes, aren't big donors, don't have lobbyists, and are so disillusioned that many don't even bother to vote.

Reagan reinvented Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" as an attack on the poor. Portraying them as lazy ingrates and recycling cruel, welfare-queen stereotypes, he began the dismantling of the safety net that has continued to this day, not only under Republicans but under Bill Clinton in the '90s. And now the (originally temporary) Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans have apparently had an apotheosis and become sacred.

Parasound's Zphono USB flips vinyl sound into digital

Parasound's Zphono USB flips vinyl sound into digital: Parasound has catered to audiophiles who prefer vinyl by introducing the ZphonoïUSB. The high-end preamplifier enhances the turntable's analog signal before it's fed into a receiver. It likewise incorporates an analog-to-digital converter with a USB port to transfer LP-generated music to a Mac or PC and converting it to digital media....

10 Science Fiction Books That Changed the Course of History

10 Science Fiction Books That Changed the Course of History:

British Airways brings new dimension to customer service using Apple iPads – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

British Airways brings new dimension to customer service using Apple iPads – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: When all the passengers have boarded and just before the doors are shut, cabin crew are currently handed a long scroll of paper, listing up to 337 customers. With the new iPads cabin crew will simply refresh their screen when the doors have closed through wireless 3G networks and they will have a complete list of passengers on board.

Bill Francis, British Airways’ head of inflight customer experience, said in a statement, “The iPad is already allowing us to offer a more personalised onboard service, but the possibilities for future development are endless. We’re receiving great feedback from cabin crew and customers already. It allows the crew to offer the thoughtful service they want to deliver and customers are treated as valued guests.”

HP halts WebOS business, spins off PC unit

HP halts WebOS business, spins off PC unit: Hewlett-Packard says it will discontinue its WebOS operations, including its TouchPad tablet, as the company cuts its outlook for the next two quarters.

Disappointing. I know a lot of people who are big fans of WebOS. What a shame. And what a stunning reversal of direction.

WebOS goes down in quiet death

WebOS goes down in quiet death: HP will discontinue operations for devices running on WebOS. Despite critical praise, the WebOS software just couldn't compete in the crowded market for smartphone operating systems.

HP Kills TouchPad, Puts WebOS in Hibernation

HP Kills TouchPad, Puts WebOS in Hibernation: HP announced it will no longer produce hardware running its webOS mobile operating sysyem, discontinuing operations on future TouchPad tablet and Pre smartphone devices.

Skitch 1.0.7 - Share images, ideas and have fun with friends online; now Free.. (Free)

Skitch 1.0.7 - Share images, ideas and have fun with friends online; now Free.. (Free): Skitch allows you to take screenshots on your Mac, edit them and share them with others. It makes the sharing process seamless by making it a natural workflow to send the image (with edited arrows and other highlights helpful to your client) to them via email or automatic website uploads. It is especially popular with the designer community, as they show their clients rough drafts of their work in a nearly automated process. It makes it simple to work remotely with someone and pass on work revisions and get feedback quickly.

Does Marijuana Make You Stupid?

Does Marijuana Make You Stupid?: The sterotype of a stoner becoming stupid from using marijuana is losing the backing of science. It turns out that negative cognitive effects are minor relative to other drugs and even alcohol, and are not permanent. In fact, marijuana could actually make us better at some cognitive tasks.

In other words, the amount of pot consumed had no measurable impact on cognitive performance. The sole exception was performance on a test of short-term verbal memory, in which “current heavy users” performed slightly worse than former users. The researchers conclude that, contrary to earlier findings, the mind altering properties of marijuana are ephemeral and fleeting:

The adverse impacts of cannabis use on cognitive functions either appear to be related to pre-existing factors or are reversible in this community cohort even after potentially extended periods of use. These findings may be useful in motivating individuals to lower cannabis use, even after an extensive history of heavy intake.

Interestingly, the scientists found that marijuana seems to induce a state of hyper-priming, in which the reach of semantic priming extends to distantly related concepts. As a result, we hear “dog” and think of nouns that, in more sober circumstances, would seem rather disconnected, such as “leash” or “hair.” This state of hyper-priming helps explain why cannabis has been so often used as a creative fuel, as it seems to make the brain better at detecting those remote associations that lead to radically new ideas.

Marijuana, after all, has long been used to quiet anxious nerves — big pharma is currently exploring targeted versions of THC as a next generation anxiolytic — as only a few puffs seem to dramatically increase feelings of relaxation and euphoria. (The technical term for this, of course, is getting stoned.) Furthermore, recent research has suggested that performance on various tests of remote associations and divergent thinking — a hallmark of creativity — are dramatically enhanced by such positive moods.

Heavy marijuana use doesn’t seem to cause any sort of lasting brain damage. All the negative side-effects are relatively temporary. (But those side-effects are real.) Furthermore, the sort of anxiolytic giddiness triggered by THC comes with its own unexpected benefits, which is probably why humans have been self-medicating with cannabis for thousands of years.

TVShows 2.0b10 - Automatically downloads torrents of your favorite shows.. (Free)

TVShows 2.0b10 - Automatically downloads torrents of your favorite shows.. (Free): TVShows is a Mac OS X application that automatically downloads torrents of your favourite shows. You no longer need to manually download torrent files, or find a working RSS feed for each show you wish to subscribe to. TVShows does that for you. Simply select your subscriptions and set your preferences from within the TVShows application and we'll take care of the rest. TVShows uses a lightweight background process which automatically launches at a regular interval (chosen by you) to check for new episodes.

Apple ranked top mobile PC vendor with 21.1% share

Apple ranked top mobile PC vendor with 21.1% share: In the global market for mobile PCs including notebooks and tablets, Apple now ranks first, with a 21.1 percent share of units sold.

IBM says new chip mimics the human brain

IBM says new chip mimics the human brain: Big Blue's new cognitive computing chips are designed to combine "digital neurons" and "on-chip synapses" and could enable applications that tackle some of the thorniest problems in computing.

Id Software's Rage and Rage HD for iOS go free for a week

Id Software's Rage and Rage HD for iOS go free for a week: Id Software has fulfilled a pledge to offer its popular iOS FPS rail shooter games Rage and Rage HD for free for week as a result of the game's fan page getting 100,000 "Likes" on Facebook. Both games were updated two weeks ago for better compatibility with the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4's graphics systems as well as adding an analog thumbstick as a control option and a "melee mode" if the iOS device is shaken forward....

Autodesk Labs Utilities Project Photofly 2.1

Autodesk Labs Utilities Project Photofly 2.1: OVERVIEW

Capturing the reality as-built for various purposes (renovation, rapid energy analysis, add-on design, historic preservation, game development, visual effects, fun, etc.) is now possible using your standard point and shoot digital camera thanks to advanced computer vision technologies made available through Project Photofly.

HIGHLIGHTS

Allows anyone with a digital camera to create near accurate 3D models from photographs using the web.

Utilizes common point and shoot digital cameras.

Harnesses the power of cloud computing to translate photos into detailed 3D models.

3D models can be manipulated by design software (e.g., AutoCAD, Inventor, 123D).

The American Conservative » Here’s Lookin’ at You

The American Conservative » Here’s Lookin’ at You: Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart, Stefan Kanfer, Knopf, 304 pages


He played low-lifes, petty crooks, dodgy detectives, vigilantes, and other denizens of society’s fringe. In 27 films his characters met violent deaths. He might seem an unlikely contender for most honored, most imitated actor of the 20th century. But 50 years after his death, Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) topped the American Film Institute’s ranking of male film legends.

Picture the indelible Bogart visage: lined, craggy, with heavy-lidded eyes, furrowed brow, overlarge teeth that rarely showed in a smile, and a pronounced scar above the lip that produced a slight lisp, which Bogart masked by delivering lines with a muted, almost musical inflection. His frame was wiry, his voice gruff, shoulders often stooped. Compared to present-day A-listers like golden boy Brad Pitt or charming womanizer George Clooney, Bogart might seem downright unappealing.

But he had guts. He didn’t merely act toughness; he embodied it, without a shred of vanity. The play of shadow across that unattractive face conveyed a grim nobility, a compelling depth that led one female co-star to wonder, “How can a man so ugly be so handsome?”

'Training information didn't exist when I started'

'Training information didn't exist when I started':

The 2011 Oregon Legislature established a new Board of Body Art Practitioners. The board will oversee a hodge-podge of 'body arts,' from tattoos and ear piercings to laser hair removal and designs burned into the skin.

It's not magic: How Apple achieves greatness | Computers | Macworld

It's not magic: How Apple achieves greatness | Computers | Macworld: With the possible exception of Mr. Clean, no other non-legerdemain-focused company so consistently depicts its products as supernaturally enhanced.

As fond as Apple may be of promoting its products using terms of enchantment, I think it misses the point—and actually sells the company's efforts a bit short. Instead of “magical,” it's more accurate to describe Apple’s products as brilliantly and patiently engineered, with meticulous attention to detail.

Apple uses “magic” to describe two core elements of the Apple experience: How it feels to use an Apple product, and how using that product makes us feel about ourselves.

Aug. 15, 1877: ‘Hello. Can You Hear Me Now?’ | This Day In Tech | Wired.com

Aug. 15, 1877: ‘Hello. Can You Hear Me Now?’ | This Day In Tech | Wired.com: When he did weigh in on the subject, Bell proposed using “ahoy, ahoy,” the age-old seafarer’s hail. And, in fact, ahoy was the first greeting used, until Edison suggested hello.

At the time, the phone was conceived of as a business machine that would connect two offices with a permanently open line. Some people toyed with the idea of an alarm bell at each end to alert one office that the other office wanted to speak. On Aug. 15, 1877, Edison wrote to a friend who was setting up a phone system in Pittsburgh: “I don’t think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What do you think?”

Contrary to some accounts, Edison did not coin the word. Halloo and variants had been used for ages to urge on hunting hounds and to shout to people at a distance. Edison was tinkering with a prototype phonograph in 1877 and used a shouted halloo! for testing. Early gramophones and telephones alike had pretty low signal-to-noise ratios.

Hello itself turns up in a number of places prior to 1877, including Mark Twain’s travelogue, Roughing It, published four years before Bell called Mr. Watson. Earlier references to the word also exist, one dating back to at least 1826.

"True Blood" recap 4x8: Vampire trust issues

"True Blood" recap 4x8: Vampire trust issues:

Last week I expressed some concerns about Vampire Jessica. Not only because the episode ended on a cliffhanger where she opened the door to greet the sun and there were gunshots, but she just had so many confusing feelings about boys! We've all been there, Jessica. I mean, not literally -- I don't consider all those times that I have feasted on the blood of skeevy men at Fangstasia to be technically cheating on my significant other. No, I mean the shared experience of being in a safe, monogamous relationship with someone and feeling like it's not enough. You start wondering, "Am I the bad guy here? Do my needs and desires make me an awful person…and follow-up question…would I be better off concealing these feelings from my partner and letting them fester, or should I lay it all out on the table and possibly hurt the guy I care most about?" These are all normal, human emotions. But since this is "True Blood," we aren't allowed to really dwell on these issues for too long. So let's crank this up to 11 and start in on the crazy Narnia sex dreams!

How to learn to use gestures in Lion

How to learn to use gestures in Lion: If you've never used Multi-Touch gestures on your Mac, Lion's new emphasis on them may make you feel as though you're being asked to learn a new language. Which, in a way, you are. Here's how to climb the learning curve as smoothly as possible.

Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5B

Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5B: The deal to scoop up Motorola Mobility will give the search giant valuable intellectual property and get it directly into the handset business.

Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books : NPR

Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books : NPR: More than 5,000 of you nominated. More than 60,000 of you voted. And now the results are in. The winners of NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy survey are an intriguing mix of classic and contemporary titles. Over on NPR's pop culture blog, Monkey See, you can find one fan's thoughts on how the list shaped up, get our experts' take, and have the chance to share your own.

New drug could cure nearly any viral infection - MIT News Office

New drug could cure nearly any viral infection - MIT News Office: Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.

The researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them — including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.

The drug works by targeting a type of RNA produced only in cells that have been infected by viruses. “In theory, it should work against all viruses,” says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology.

Bugs & Fixes: Lion compatibility problems continue

Bugs & Fixes: Lion compatibility problems continue: Ted Landau's not yet done with ferreting out Lion conflicts. In this episode he looks at iWow for iTunes issues, video freezes, kernel panics, and HDMI problems with Mac minis. And some good news too.

Travel Adventures From Your iPad - NYTimes.com

Travel Adventures From Your iPad - NYTimes.com: Think of it as an iTunes for travel articles, said Michel Elings, co-founder of TRVL, an Amsterdam-based company. From the app, users can download issues to their device for free, each dedicated to a single destination.

To read a TRVL article on the iPad is to be transported to that destination, with excellent photography and evocative storytelling. Readers can dive in further by exploring the app’s interactive features: embedded videos, integrated locator maps and links to attractions mentioned in the piece. At the end of each issue is a photographer’s journal, offering insight into how the story and its subjects were approached.

'Sexy' iPad Maps: A Designer's Interactive New York Streetscapes - Steven Heller - Life - The Atlantic

'Sexy' iPad Maps: A Designer's Interactive New York Streetscapes - Steven Heller - Life - The Atlantic: "Exploring the dimensions and sex appeal of maps has always been my motto," states Stephan Van Dam, the inventor of the UNFOLDS® pop-up map and most recently, the 4DmApp iPad map app. For over 20 years Van Dam has made accessible city maps with that je ne sais quoi. Well actually, he knows very well what he's doing. He's making functional maps that owing to paper technologies add levels of interactivity to an otherwise flat experience. Currently he is using gaming software to make city maps that totally involve the user in the interface—and that is, well, truly sexy.

The evolution of iOS development: Better tools and a lot more to think about

The evolution of iOS development: Better tools and a lot more to think about: Combine heavy lifting on the server side with the location awareness and always-on connectivity of a mobile device and you have a pretty amazing change in how people interact.

Who stole the Mona Lisa? - FT.com

Who stole the Mona Lisa? - FT.com: The theft of the world’s most famous portrait from the Louvre 100 years ago was not only the art heist of the century. It confirmed that this picture of a smiling woman was far more than a painting

The painting was celebrated in new popular songs (“It couldn’t be stolen, we guard her all the time, except on Mondays”). Mona Lisa postcards sold in unprecedented numbers worldwide. Her face advertised everything from cigarettes (“I only smoke Zigomar”) to corsets. In fact, no painting had ever previously been reproduced on such a scale. As Scotti said, she had suddenly become both “high culture” and “a staple of consumer culture”.

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Friday, But Watch Wednesday Morn | Wired Science | Wired.com

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Friday, But Watch Wednesday Morn | Wired Science | Wired.com: The Perseid meteor shower sprinkles Earth with cometary dust every year from July to August. This year the event peaks the mornings of Aug. 12 and 13 around 2 a.m. local time for northern stargazers and 6:00 a.m. for those in the southern hemisphere.

But there’s a problem: The moon is waxing, and it’s full this weekend.


Theoretically, stargazers can catch between 50 and 80 shooting stars per hour from the darkest and most remote viewing locations. The full moon, however, will rise at dusk and set near dawn through the Perseids’ peak. The bright light will obscure most cometary debris that happen to streak through Earth’s thick atmosphere as meteors.

To get the best view, plan for a very early rise tomorrow, just after the moon sets. For most stargazers, the moon will sink below the horizon around 3 a.m. local time. (Check the exact moonrise and moonset time in your location with a simple calculator.)

Facebook’s New Messaging App Aims to Do Away With SMS | Epicenter | Wired.com

Facebook’s New Messaging App Aims to Do Away With SMS | Epicenter | Wired.com: Dubbed “the modern messaging system” by Mark Zuckerberg, Messages wrangles all private communication that occurs between two Facebook users — whether that’s an instant message via Facebook chat, or a private message using the traditional inbox — into one individual thread. Messages also came with an option to create a Facebook-based e-mail address. So if Facebook had its sights set on doing away with e-mail and instant messaging clients (AIM, ICQ) by introducing Messages, with the Messenger app, Facebook aims to do away with traditional SMS text messaging.

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Friday, But Watch Tonight

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Friday, But Watch Tonight: To catch the best view of the prolific Perseid meteor shower, scrap your plans tonight and get to bed for an early morning tomorrow.

How America turned poverty into a crime - War Room - Salon.com

How America turned poverty into a crime - War Room - Salon.com: The poor aren't just struggling during the recession; they're being actively hounded by urban officials

Satellite Finds Evidence of Antimatter Belt Around Earth

Satellite Finds Evidence of Antimatter Belt Around Earth: Data from the cosmic -ray satellite Pamela has added substantial weight to the theory that the Earth is encircled by a thin band of antimatter.

Happy 20th birthday, World Wide Web!

Happy 20th birthday, World Wide Web!: On August 6, 1991, the World Wide Web made its debut as a publicly available service on the Internet. Now, 20 years later, we're giving it a big thank you for revolutionizing the world as we know it.

How many secret wars are we fighting?

How many secret wars are we fighting?:

Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you're done... for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world's countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.

10 Fantastic and Uncanny JACK KIRBY Marvel Creations

10 Fantastic and Uncanny JACK KIRBY Marvel Creations: We could fill 5 or 10 countdowns with famous and lasting Jack Kirby creations at Marvel Comics alone, but here are 10 of the greatest.

Tiny town tops in medical marijuana

Tiny town tops in medical marijuana: Medical marijuana has taken root in this idyllic town like nowhere else in Oregon.

Manage your money in Lion -- without Quicken

Manage your money in Lion -- without Quicken: Quicken, Inuit’s deprecated but still ubiquitous personal finance management application, no longer works on Macs running Lion. How do you manage your personal finances if Quicken won’t work? Fortunately there are several alternatives to help you keep tabs on your cash flow.

How to convert audio and video files for free

How to convert audio and video files for free: There are scads of media conversion tools advertised on the Web. But you needn't pay for a single one as you have some perfectly great free options.

Review: New MacBook Airs approach perfection

Review: New MacBook Airs approach perfection: With the new MacBook Air models introduced in July 2011, Apple's smallest notebook has arrived dead center in the company's product line. This is the laptop OS X Lion was designed for.