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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Wednesday M


Because they think they can do better the the Creator did?

"Li Ka-shing, widely billed as Asia's richest man, announced a $23 million Series B investment in Hampton Creek Foods through his fund Horizon Ventures on Monday, bringing the food technology startup's total take to $30 million after initial investments by people including Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Bill Gates is also an investor and fan. The egg replacement still requires fine-tuning, according to Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick, but the company's mayonnaise replacement is already on shelves at stores including Whole Foods and some of the largest retail brands in the country. (Mayo is usually made with eggs and vinegar.)"

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Super bendable phones are on the horizon. 

"By shaving off an ultrathin layer from the top of a silicon wafer, researchers have transformed rigid electronic devices into flexible ones. The shaving process could be used to fabricate parts for wearable electronics or displays that can roll up. Compared to similar techniques to make bendable silicon electronics, the new method is more cost-effective and produces more flexible devices, its developers say."

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Even though doctors love the white coats and the stethoscope facade that gives them an air of importance and authority, might they be actually stupid in some ways?
  "A new study set to be officially released Wednesday found that networks and Internet-connected devices in places such as hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are under siege and in many cases have been infiltrated without their knowledge. ... In the report, the groups found from September 2012 to October 2013 that 375 healthcare organizations in the U.S. had been compromised, and in many cases are still compromised because they have not yet detected the attacks. ... 'What's concerning to us is the sheer lack of basic blocking and tackling within these organizations,' said Sam Glines, chief executive of Norse. 'Firewalls were on default settings. They used very simple passwords for devices. In some cases, an organization used the same password for everything.'"

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Iran's breach of a computer network belonging to the U.S. Navy was more serious than
originally thought.

 According to a Wall Street Journal report (paywalled, but summarized at The Verge), it took the Navy four months to secure its network after the breach, and the repair cost was approximately $10 million. From the article:

 "The hackers targeted the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the unclassified network used by the Department of the Navy to host websites, store nonsensitive information and handle voice, video and data communications. The network has 800,000 users at 2,500 locations, according to the Navy. ... The intrusion into the Navy's system was the most recent in a series of Iranian cyberoffensives that have taken U.S. military and intelligence officials by surprise. In early 2012, top intelligence officials held the view that Iran wanted to execute a cyberattack but had little capability. Not long after, Iranian hackers began a series of major "denial-of-service" attacks on a growing number of U.S. bank websites, and they launched a virus on a Saudi oil company that immobilized 30,000 computers. ... Defense officials were surprised at the skills of the Iranian hackers. Previously, their tactics had been far cruder, usually involving so-called denial of service attacks that disrupt network operations but usually don't involve a penetration of network security."
 
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Internet speeds are exponentially increasing year after year –
 the Internet we surf today is a heck of a lot faster than it was in 2011. At some point, when boredom has well and truly set in on an idle Tuesday, it’s only natural that you might want to know where your own Internet connection clocks in on the speed spectrum. But if you were to check on one website and then again on another, you might and probably will see some discrepancy.

That was certainly our experience. We used speedtest.net and got the following results:
Screen Shot 2014-02-18 at 11.19.04 AM Five minutes later we opted for speakeasy.net and were presented with these conflicting stats:
Screen Shot 2014-02-18 at 11.57.06 AM
What gives?

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The Grand Collisions That Make Snownadoes & Arctic Sea Smoke
These powerful storms result from a series of mergers governed by Mother Nature. One of them is converging geographical conditions: The storms can develop only when the cold Arctic air reaches far enough south to pass over a warm body of water. Or so they tell us...This lady believes otherwise.




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