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The internet of animals
The final pieces are in place for an international effort that will take wildlife tracking to new levels. The International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) will be attaching tiny transmitters to animals in unprecedented numbers so that they can be monitored from space. Russian cosmonauts have just (August 15th) installed antennae for the animal tracking system on the roof of the International Space Station. Previously, tracking animals always involved capturing them, attaching tags. setting them free and then capturing them again to retrieve the data. But since the 1980s, scientists have been using satellites to track wildlife movement, with tags able to relay positional data via radio signals and give scientists a more immediate picture of movement and migration patterns. Tracking devices have been getting smaller, more accurate, cheaper and capable of sending more data. Scientists working on the ICARUS project hope to see devices so small that they can fit into solar-powered backpacks that locusts can carry. But for now, they will settle for some of the planet's other small and mobile creatures like fruit bats, baby turtles, parrots and songbirds. Except for especially sensitive data, such as the locations of larger endangered species, like rhinos, most tracking results will be published and made publicly available online via a database called MoveBank.
https://icarusinitiative.org/about-icarus
Windows crash detective
When your PC crashes, freezes or displays one of its dreaded blue-screen messages, finding out what caused the problem is hardly ever easy. The most likely culprit is something recently installed - hardware or software that your machine can't handle properly or just doesn't like very much. But it can also be old components easing out of their sockets and losing connectivity or parts of usually reliable software being corrupted. When unexpected things do go wrong, it helps to have an investigative tool on hand that can find out exactly what the problem is so that you can fix it. WhoCrashed is just such a helpmate, specialising in identifying the bad drivers responsible for most crashes. You can install WhoCrashed for most systems including Windows XP and Vista as well as Windows 7 to 10. Click "Analyse" and the latest version will search your crash dumps, tell you the cause of your woes and offer ways to fix the problem. In most cases it can pinpoint the offending drivers that have been causing glitches in the past. It does post-mortem crashdump analysis and presents all gathered information in a comprehensible way. In case your system has been crashing because of a hardware failure, WhoCrashed will provide you with guidance to trace the root cause of the problem. The home user edition of WhoCrashed is completely free.
http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed
Google gagging for second chance in China
Google is developing a censored search engine for China. According to whistleblower reports, the world's leading search company, which has struggled to make significant headway in China, is crafting a search engine that would satisfy the country's extensive government censorship rules. The price of shares in China's dominant home-grown search engine, Baidu, tumbled as investors reacted to leaked reports of the Google parent company Alphabet's latest attempt to make new inroads in the world's second-largest economy. Confidential internal documents about the plans for a censored search engine, code-named Dragonfly, were obtained by TheIntercept.com, a whistleblower-friendly news site, which reported that Google’s new technology for China has been in development for over a year and has already been demonstrated for Chinese government officials. China has an army of Internet censors who comb through online content and block anything the government doesn’t want its people to see, including not only words and phrases that are deemed subversive but also complete works such as the Aldous Huxley book Brave New World, some Peppa Pig cartoons and all Winnie the Pooh stories. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger memes, based on the rotund Disney cartoon version of the character walking alongside a slim Tigger, were used to satirise Chinese president Xi Jingping after his walk and talk meetings with a slimmer and taller President Obama in 2013. The ban covering any Pooh-related content has reportedly now been extended to this year's release of the new live-action Disney film 'Christopher Robin', which is unlikely to be seen by any Chinese cinemagoers, or many of its netizens, if government censors and search engine algorithms have their way. At least 200 Google employees are said to be working on the new search engine.
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/
Search engine of the month
Technology start-up TickX has launched a new cinema ticket search engine on its AI-powered platform. The Manchester-based company says its site offers "the only place in the country" to find and buy the best-priced tickets for events, attractions and cinema. The new search engine collects results across the UK from every cinema, for every film and at every time of show, and displays them in one place. "Live entertainment is always special, but going out most times simply means catching the latest film at the cinema", said CEO Steve Pearce, who co-founded TickX with partner Sam Coley. The pair launched the events price comparison site with £750,000 raised independently after turning down three offers from the Dragons on Dragons' Den. Pearce added: "Our research showed we are a nation of cinema lovers, so we're delighted to launch our cinema ticket search engine to make it easier than ever to find and buy the best tickets for the movies". Users can flick through film trailers on the TickX app, swiping right to like a film promo or left to reject it. This allows the system to work up recommendations based on such preferences. In addition to cinema tickets, TickX users can find and buy the best-priced tickets for thousands of gigs, comedy, festivals, attractions, theatre, club nights and sports events. The site is available in the UK, Ireland, Spain and The Netherlands, with further expansion across Europe due later this year.
https://www.tickx.co.uk
JOINED-UP WALLPAPERS
WallpaperHub is a new site for wallpapers, created by Michael Gillett, a well-known Windows Insider MVP and general Microsoft enthusiast, Although there are hundreds of online resources offering wallpapers for all kinds of devices, the focus here is on bringing together original wallpapers from various Microsoft devices, conferences and operating systems, plus some unofficial wallpapers with Microsoft connections. All versions of Windows and most devices by Microsoft come with a set of included wallpapers that can be downloaded here and used by anyone. WallpaperHub features wallpaper listings for Microsoft operating systems up to Windows 10, for Microsoft hardware such as the original Xbox and Surface devices, and events, services, or tools such as Azure, The site itself is easy to use. You can browse the popular selection of wallpapers, dive into collections, or open wallpaper tags. You can find Windows 7's Betta fish background as well as Microsoft's Ninja Cat Unicorn theme for Windows 10, or the default Surface Studio wallpaper. A click on a thumbnail shows your download options - the site lists each wallpaper in different sizes - from display resolutions of Microsoft products like the Surface Pro, Surface Book, or Surface Go, to common desktop resolutions such as 1080p, Ultrawide, 4K, and mobile. The site is new and still building its collection. If you need many more choices than a Microsoft associated collection has to offer, you might prefer to seek out one of the Web's many other multi-category wallpaper resources such as the all-free http://www.pc-wallpapers.co.uk instead, https://wallpaperhub.app.
The final pieces are in place for an international effort that will take wildlife tracking to new levels. The International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) will be attaching tiny transmitters to animals in unprecedented numbers so that they can be monitored from space. Russian cosmonauts have just (August 15th) installed antennae for the animal tracking system on the roof of the International Space Station. Previously, tracking animals always involved capturing them, attaching tags. setting them free and then capturing them again to retrieve the data. But since the 1980s, scientists have been using satellites to track wildlife movement, with tags able to relay positional data via radio signals and give scientists a more immediate picture of movement and migration patterns. Tracking devices have been getting smaller, more accurate, cheaper and capable of sending more data. Scientists working on the ICARUS project hope to see devices so small that they can fit into solar-powered backpacks that locusts can carry. But for now, they will settle for some of the planet's other small and mobile creatures like fruit bats, baby turtles, parrots and songbirds. Except for especially sensitive data, such as the locations of larger endangered species, like rhinos, most tracking results will be published and made publicly available online via a database called MoveBank.
https://icarusinitiative.org/about-icarus
Windows crash detective
When your PC crashes, freezes or displays one of its dreaded blue-screen messages, finding out what caused the problem is hardly ever easy. The most likely culprit is something recently installed - hardware or software that your machine can't handle properly or just doesn't like very much. But it can also be old components easing out of their sockets and losing connectivity or parts of usually reliable software being corrupted. When unexpected things do go wrong, it helps to have an investigative tool on hand that can find out exactly what the problem is so that you can fix it. WhoCrashed is just such a helpmate, specialising in identifying the bad drivers responsible for most crashes. You can install WhoCrashed for most systems including Windows XP and Vista as well as Windows 7 to 10. Click "Analyse" and the latest version will search your crash dumps, tell you the cause of your woes and offer ways to fix the problem. In most cases it can pinpoint the offending drivers that have been causing glitches in the past. It does post-mortem crashdump analysis and presents all gathered information in a comprehensible way. In case your system has been crashing because of a hardware failure, WhoCrashed will provide you with guidance to trace the root cause of the problem. The home user edition of WhoCrashed is completely free.
http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed
Google gagging for second chance in China
Google is developing a censored search engine for China. According to whistleblower reports, the world's leading search company, which has struggled to make significant headway in China, is crafting a search engine that would satisfy the country's extensive government censorship rules. The price of shares in China's dominant home-grown search engine, Baidu, tumbled as investors reacted to leaked reports of the Google parent company Alphabet's latest attempt to make new inroads in the world's second-largest economy. Confidential internal documents about the plans for a censored search engine, code-named Dragonfly, were obtained by TheIntercept.com, a whistleblower-friendly news site, which reported that Google’s new technology for China has been in development for over a year and has already been demonstrated for Chinese government officials. China has an army of Internet censors who comb through online content and block anything the government doesn’t want its people to see, including not only words and phrases that are deemed subversive but also complete works such as the Aldous Huxley book Brave New World, some Peppa Pig cartoons and all Winnie the Pooh stories. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger memes, based on the rotund Disney cartoon version of the character walking alongside a slim Tigger, were used to satirise Chinese president Xi Jingping after his walk and talk meetings with a slimmer and taller President Obama in 2013. The ban covering any Pooh-related content has reportedly now been extended to this year's release of the new live-action Disney film 'Christopher Robin', which is unlikely to be seen by any Chinese cinemagoers, or many of its netizens, if government censors and search engine algorithms have their way. At least 200 Google employees are said to be working on the new search engine.
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/
Search engine of the month
Technology start-up TickX has launched a new cinema ticket search engine on its AI-powered platform. The Manchester-based company says its site offers "the only place in the country" to find and buy the best-priced tickets for events, attractions and cinema. The new search engine collects results across the UK from every cinema, for every film and at every time of show, and displays them in one place. "Live entertainment is always special, but going out most times simply means catching the latest film at the cinema", said CEO Steve Pearce, who co-founded TickX with partner Sam Coley. The pair launched the events price comparison site with £750,000 raised independently after turning down three offers from the Dragons on Dragons' Den. Pearce added: "Our research showed we are a nation of cinema lovers, so we're delighted to launch our cinema ticket search engine to make it easier than ever to find and buy the best tickets for the movies". Users can flick through film trailers on the TickX app, swiping right to like a film promo or left to reject it. This allows the system to work up recommendations based on such preferences. In addition to cinema tickets, TickX users can find and buy the best-priced tickets for thousands of gigs, comedy, festivals, attractions, theatre, club nights and sports events. The site is available in the UK, Ireland, Spain and The Netherlands, with further expansion across Europe due later this year.
https://www.tickx.co.uk
JOINED-UP WALLPAPERS
WallpaperHub is a new site for wallpapers, created by Michael Gillett, a well-known Windows Insider MVP and general Microsoft enthusiast, Although there are hundreds of online resources offering wallpapers for all kinds of devices, the focus here is on bringing together original wallpapers from various Microsoft devices, conferences and operating systems, plus some unofficial wallpapers with Microsoft connections. All versions of Windows and most devices by Microsoft come with a set of included wallpapers that can be downloaded here and used by anyone. WallpaperHub features wallpaper listings for Microsoft operating systems up to Windows 10, for Microsoft hardware such as the original Xbox and Surface devices, and events, services, or tools such as Azure, The site itself is easy to use. You can browse the popular selection of wallpapers, dive into collections, or open wallpaper tags. You can find Windows 7's Betta fish background as well as Microsoft's Ninja Cat Unicorn theme for Windows 10, or the default Surface Studio wallpaper. A click on a thumbnail shows your download options - the site lists each wallpaper in different sizes - from display resolutions of Microsoft products like the Surface Pro, Surface Book, or Surface Go, to common desktop resolutions such as 1080p, Ultrawide, 4K, and mobile. The site is new and still building its collection. If you need many more choices than a Microsoft associated collection has to offer, you might prefer to seek out one of the Web's many other multi-category wallpaper resources such as the all-free http://www.pc-wallpapers.co.uk instead, https://wallpaperhub.app.
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