1. Your Brain on Cellphones: Effects Present, Consequences Unknown
An issue that periodically makes its way into public discourse -- the impact and possible dangers to brain development and health posed by the ubiquitous use of cellphones -- is being revisited thanks to a newly published scientific study inJAMA. However, rather than offering any definitive answers, the new research, led by Nora D. Volkow of the National Institutes of Health, raises more questions. Volkow and colleagues found that 50 minutes of cellphone use was associated with increased brain glucose metabolism -- a marker of brain activity -- in the region closest to the phone antenna.
2. Google Tapes Up Gmail Sprain
Google says it has restored email access to some Gmail users who lost it over the weekend. "We're still working fast and furious to restore account access," Google spokesperson Jessica Kositz told TechNewsWorld. Google said 0.02 percent of Gmail users were impacted, but Kositz once again declined to state how many users its email service has. She referred TechNewsWorld to a post Monday afternoon on the Gmail blog by Ben Treynor, Google's site reliability czar, stating that things should be back to normal for everyone soon.
3. Powered by Linux
How many out there use Linux? I bet if I asked 100 people, less than 10 percent would say yes. To be fair, people think in terms of computers, laptops, netbooks, and desktops, and that demographic is 90 percent Windows, 90 percent Microsoft-centric. But computers and OSes that power them permeate all aspects of our lives today. While people mostly don't care about computing they don't directly choose and pay for, I think people might be surprised at the numbers and how much they do use Linux. Let's let people know computing doesn't always equate to Microsoft or Apple.
4. Has Ubuntu Linux Lost Its Luster?
With its focus on usability, Canonical's Ubuntu is held up by many as the best Linux distribution of all time, and its Distrowatch rankings tend to reinforce that belief. Not only is the distro currently the most frequently downloaded from that site, but all the many ground-shaking changes it has announced promise to keep it exciting well into the future. For those of us who love Ubuntu, then, it was both distressing and perplexing to read Bruce Byfield's recent blog post entitled, "Ubuntu: Where Did the Love Go?" Growing concerns and criticisms about Ubuntu's relationship with the open source community at large are Byfield's focus.
5. Finding more high-quality sites in search
Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.
Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.
It’s worth noting that this update does not rely on the feedback we’ve received from the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which we launched last week. However, we did compare the Blocklist data we gathered with the sites identified by our algorithm, and we were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits.
So, we’re very excited about this new ranking improvement because we believe it’s a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results. We’ve been tackling these issues for more than a year, and working on this specific change for the past few months. And we’re working on many more updates that we believe will substantially improve the quality of the pages in our results.
To start with, we’re launching this change in the U.S. only; we plan to roll it out elsewhere over time. We’ll keep you posted as we roll this and other changes out, and as always please keep giving us feedback about the quality of our results because it really helps us to improve Google Search.
6. Canister lets you add water (or bodily fluids) to recharge batteries
SiGNa Chemistry Inc. is launching a hydrogen-producing cartridge, the mobile-H2™, that will work with a portable, pocket-sized fuel cell charger to provide instant power for cell phones and other mobile devices. You simply add water to the cartridge, and the device will charge depleted batteries on the go. For further convenience, any water will do (even waste water). Unlike solar battery chargers, you don’t need to worry about getting enough sunlight. According to its press materials, these cartridges provide a steady level of power from beginning to end.
This sounds a bit like magic, but it actually involves some well-known chemistry. SiGNa’s hydrogen cartridge technology is based on the combination of sodium and silicon in the form of sodium silicide (NaSi). Normally, sodium metal reacts violently with water to produce hydrogen gas. SiGNa has found a technique to take full advantage of the reducing power of sodium without the safety concerns.
7. MacBook Pro teardown reveals battery tweaks, Thunderbolt details
The crack team at iFixit has given the newest 15" MacBook Pro a "respectable" repairability score of 7 out of 10 after putting the machine through its obligatory post-launch teardown. The gadget repair team said that Apple made a number of good design choices with this round of updates, though it also questioned Apple's quality control after making a few discoveries.
According to iFixit, the latest MacBook Pro revision allows you to disconnect the battery without having to take it out of the notebook altogether—a helpful move for tinkerers, since all power is supposed to be disconnected before digging into the machine's innards. "The unibody design also allows for easy access to most of the other components, so it won't be terribly hard to replace things on the machine," said iFixit. "The only tricky repair is LCD replacement, which could easily result in shattering the front glass panel."
An issue that periodically makes its way into public discourse -- the impact and possible dangers to brain development and health posed by the ubiquitous use of cellphones -- is being revisited thanks to a newly published scientific study inJAMA. However, rather than offering any definitive answers, the new research, led by Nora D. Volkow of the National Institutes of Health, raises more questions. Volkow and colleagues found that 50 minutes of cellphone use was associated with increased brain glucose metabolism -- a marker of brain activity -- in the region closest to the phone antenna.
2. Google Tapes Up Gmail Sprain
Google says it has restored email access to some Gmail users who lost it over the weekend. "We're still working fast and furious to restore account access," Google spokesperson Jessica Kositz told TechNewsWorld. Google said 0.02 percent of Gmail users were impacted, but Kositz once again declined to state how many users its email service has. She referred TechNewsWorld to a post Monday afternoon on the Gmail blog by Ben Treynor, Google's site reliability czar, stating that things should be back to normal for everyone soon.
3. Powered by Linux
How many out there use Linux? I bet if I asked 100 people, less than 10 percent would say yes. To be fair, people think in terms of computers, laptops, netbooks, and desktops, and that demographic is 90 percent Windows, 90 percent Microsoft-centric. But computers and OSes that power them permeate all aspects of our lives today. While people mostly don't care about computing they don't directly choose and pay for, I think people might be surprised at the numbers and how much they do use Linux. Let's let people know computing doesn't always equate to Microsoft or Apple.
4. Has Ubuntu Linux Lost Its Luster?
With its focus on usability, Canonical's Ubuntu is held up by many as the best Linux distribution of all time, and its Distrowatch rankings tend to reinforce that belief. Not only is the distro currently the most frequently downloaded from that site, but all the many ground-shaking changes it has announced promise to keep it exciting well into the future. For those of us who love Ubuntu, then, it was both distressing and perplexing to read Bruce Byfield's recent blog post entitled, "Ubuntu: Where Did the Love Go?" Growing concerns and criticisms about Ubuntu's relationship with the open source community at large are Byfield's focus.
5. Finding more high-quality sites in search
Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.
Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.
It’s worth noting that this update does not rely on the feedback we’ve received from the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which we launched last week. However, we did compare the Blocklist data we gathered with the sites identified by our algorithm, and we were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits.
So, we’re very excited about this new ranking improvement because we believe it’s a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results. We’ve been tackling these issues for more than a year, and working on this specific change for the past few months. And we’re working on many more updates that we believe will substantially improve the quality of the pages in our results.
To start with, we’re launching this change in the U.S. only; we plan to roll it out elsewhere over time. We’ll keep you posted as we roll this and other changes out, and as always please keep giving us feedback about the quality of our results because it really helps us to improve Google Search.
6. Canister lets you add water (or bodily fluids) to recharge batteries
SiGNa Chemistry Inc. is launching a hydrogen-producing cartridge, the mobile-H2™, that will work with a portable, pocket-sized fuel cell charger to provide instant power for cell phones and other mobile devices. You simply add water to the cartridge, and the device will charge depleted batteries on the go. For further convenience, any water will do (even waste water). Unlike solar battery chargers, you don’t need to worry about getting enough sunlight. According to its press materials, these cartridges provide a steady level of power from beginning to end.
This sounds a bit like magic, but it actually involves some well-known chemistry. SiGNa’s hydrogen cartridge technology is based on the combination of sodium and silicon in the form of sodium silicide (NaSi). Normally, sodium metal reacts violently with water to produce hydrogen gas. SiGNa has found a technique to take full advantage of the reducing power of sodium without the safety concerns.
7. MacBook Pro teardown reveals battery tweaks, Thunderbolt details
The crack team at iFixit has given the newest 15" MacBook Pro a "respectable" repairability score of 7 out of 10 after putting the machine through its obligatory post-launch teardown. The gadget repair team said that Apple made a number of good design choices with this round of updates, though it also questioned Apple's quality control after making a few discoveries.
According to iFixit, the latest MacBook Pro revision allows you to disconnect the battery without having to take it out of the notebook altogether—a helpful move for tinkerers, since all power is supposed to be disconnected before digging into the machine's innards. "The unibody design also allows for easy access to most of the other components, so it won't be terribly hard to replace things on the machine," said iFixit. "The only tricky repair is LCD replacement, which could easily result in shattering the front glass panel."
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